What Are YouTube Browse Features?

YouTube is the second-largest search engine and the biggest video platform in the world. It’s highly equipped with many features, most of which can and should become a part of your marketing strategy. In this blog post, we’ll answer the question ‘What are browse features on YouTube?’, how to gain traffic from browse features, and how to check how much traffic you’re getting.

What Are Browse Features On YouTube?

The browse features on YouTube are: Homepage, Watch Later, Subscriptions, and Subscriptions Feed.

These features are one of the most common traffic sources for your YouTube channel. The list is made of various features, including Homepage, Watch Later, Subscription Feed, Watch History, and presents all the views that your videos get through all the above-mentioned features.

Building successful channels doesn’t come without insight. And since these features should make a lot of your traffic, you must learn how to track them via the YouTube video Analytics panel and use the information to create a successful video marketing strategy.

Homepage

The homepage is usually the main source of traffic for most content creators, meaning that it can be a great channel growth opportunity for you as well. Therefore, it’s essential to optimize it properly, with great titles, eye-catching banners, descriptions, a fantastic trailer, etc.

Watch Later

You’ll find the Watch Later feature on the left menu right when you enter your channel. It takes over the second spot for bringing in traffic. With Watch Later, you can add videos to a playlist that you can’t watch at the moment but want to watch sometime in the future. Then, you can get back to this content whenever you want to.

Watch History

As the name suggests, this feature shows videos that you previously watched. It makes it easier for YouTube users to find videos to re-watch, send them to friends, or share them on other social media channels. In addition, YouTube tracks the type of video content you’ve watched, so it will suggest future videos based on your previous viewing history and search terms.

Subscriptions Feed

The Subscription Feed is made of channels you’re subscribed to. When you access this feature, you’ll see a list of videos these channels have recently uploaded and a list of the channels.

The Trending/Explore feature deserves an honorable mention because it shows channels and videos with high average view durations, average percentage viewed, and click-through rates. You can watch these videos to see what the competitors do differently, use the new findings to improve your content, and get more views.

As you can probably guess, these features aren’t the only traffic source for your channel. You’ll also get traffic from external sources, playlists, suggested videos, YouTube search, YouTube ads (excluding non-skippable ads), and more.

How To Increase Views From Browse Features On YouTube?

Did you know that authoritative channels get a lot of their views through these features? With the help of YouTube analytics, you can track your stats and get insight on how to increase the views via these features. Here are some valuable tips to help you boost your numbers:

Pay Attention To Your Subscribers

Your subscribers are the ones who visit your homepage a lot. Yes, subscribers will often watch the video suggestions they get from your channel, but it’s important that you take them to the homepage. Most people watch many videos from channels if they find them innovative, entertaining, and engaging, so your goal is to create relevant content they’ll want to see and go to your homepage during the search. Another great idea is to communicate with them via the video comments section.

Increase Homepage Views

Since this is the representative page for your channel, you have to ensure that it’s eye-catching and alluring. Start with an attractive channel banner, and upload at least three or four videos. You can have a single successful video that will bring you plenty of views, but it will look empty when people visit your homepage. Next, create YouTube playlists of similar videos. Finally, add links in video descriptions to other videos. You should also explore relevant keywords, then add target keywords and tags to the titles.

Captivating Video Titles

An excellent video title is one of the first steps towards uploading a popular video. YouTube is a search engine; therefore, you need to find the right keywords to include in the title and video description. In most cases, you can rank high with low-competition keywords. Finally, don’t forget to add an exciting video thumbnail, and you’re ready to go!

Grab The Attention Of Viewers

If you manage to score above-average audience retention, YouTube will start recommending your content to more people. Unfortunately, most of the time, people have short-span attention and skip videos shortly after the beginning. This is why you need a fantastic video intro that will hook the viewers and an even stronger main part to make them stay until the end. If half of the viewers watch the entire video, you’ll manage to increase your audience retention metric, and YouTube will promote you for free.

Increase The Viewing Session Times

If you manage to make the viewing sessions longer, YouTube will show your videos to more users, which is a great way to increase views and get more subscribers. You can achieve this goal by adding cards with links to your content or link to other videos with end screens.

How To See Your YouTube Browse Features Traffic: Step-By-Step Guide

Now that you know all about these features and what you can do to improve your future videos, you also need to learn where to find the statistics. With just a few actionable steps, you can get your channel analytics, analytics insights on individual videos and learn more about your browse feature traffic. Here’s what you should do:

1. Start by opening YouTube on your preferred web browser. You can access the same analytics tool via mobile phones (iOS and Android), you just have to open the YouTube app.  
2. Click on your profile photo or initial in the top right corner, and access the YouTube Studio. To get a view of your analytics on mobile, you should also tap on the profile photo, then YouTube Studio.
3. Choose Analytics from the left navigation menu. When you see the YouTube analytics panel, there will be four different categories to choose from.
4. Click on the Reach menu, and find the traffic source types section. It will be right above the external traffic sources panel.
5. Click on See More, and you’ll get a detailed look into the metrics for each source, including device type, viewing habits, average viewer, average minutes, watch hours, number of video views during a select time period, etc. The information will help you track your channel performance, increase your audience engagement, and craft a smart content strategy.

The other three sections in the Analytics menu are Overview, Audience, and Engagement metrics. When looking at these statistics and analytics, you can get a lot of information on actual viewers, information on your potential viewer, create a target audience, types of videos to focus on, average watch time, and much more. When you enter the Reach panel, you can also explore another source of views, such as external, playlists, suggested videos, and YouTube search.

Conclusion

Through its browse features, YouTube lets users gain traffic, especially via Homepage and Watch Later. If you learn how to optimize and utilize these features, you can score extra views and attract subscribers. Once you go through the step-by-step instructions we listed, you’ll know where to find the analytics for these features, learn how to improve them, and maximize the traffic you’ll get from them. Don’t forget to practice a consistent schedule and post high-quality content!