What is the best time to upload YouTube videos? This is a question we get asked a lot! And there’s a good reason why…
Uploading videos to your YouTube channel at the right time for your subscribers can help you get more upfront YouTube views AND maximize your results. It sends all the right indicators to YouTube that your video is something it should be sharing.
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So, in this complete guide we’ll show you how to figure out the best time to post on YouTube for your channel. You’ll learn exactly how to work out your own individual high traffic YouTube time.
Plus, we’ll also share how often you should upload videos to YouTube!
Let’s get started.
Why Does YouTube Upload Time Matter?
The more people that watch your video in the first 24-48 hours, the more information YouTube can collect about your video. YouTube can analyze how the video is performing, how your viewers are engaging and how long they’re watching.
This helps YouTube know:
- Whether to push your video out to more viewers
- What type of viewers it should push the video out to
So your goal should be to get the largest number of subscribers or viewers watching your new video as fast as possible.
To do this, you want to publish your video just before the bulk of your audience comes online. Then it will be ready for them to watch as soon as they jump on YouTube.
Let’s go over to YouTube Analytics to find out when that ideal upload time is.
What Is The Best Time To Upload On Youtube?
Go to YouTube then click your profile picture and select YouTube Studio. In the left menu select Analytics. From here, go to Audience.
There are a few vital things you need to pay attention to:
- When your subscribers are most active on YouTube
- Where your subscribers are located
Scroll down to When your viewers are on YouTube and you’ll see a purple table. Keep in mind that these times are based on your local timezone.
The dark purple indicates that a higher number of your viewers are active at that time. While the light purple indicates less of your viewers are active at that time.
So ideally you want to be uploading a couple of hours before the dark purple period.
If you go over to Top geographies, you can find where the majority of your viewers are located.
This helps you know whether you should be posting at a time that caters to another time zone.
Here at Primal Video, our audience is heavily based in the United States.
Our peak viewing time is around midnight Australian time which is early morning in the USA. So we upload our videos at 8pm on a Sunday night (Australian Eastern Standard Time).
This way the video is ready for our viewers to watch when they wake up on Sunday morning (Pacific Standard Time).
Now you should have all the information you need to figure out the best time to upload on YouTube for your channel.
If you don’t have much data yet – don’t worry. The more your channel grows, the more data you’ll have to go off.
Then you’ll be able to make a more informed decision about upload times. You can tweak and adjust your YouTube upload schedule accordingly.
There are also some great paid tools out there that allow you to get more insight into the different times that will work best for your channel. VidIQ and TubeBuddy are both great YouTube management tools that will help you with this.
So, that’s how you work out the best time of day to post on YouTube. But what about how often?
How Often To Post On YouTube?
This is an area we see a lot of mixed feedback in. Some people say in order to be successful on YouTube you need to upload daily. Others say you need to upload three times a week.
Here at Primal Video, we couldn’t imagine creating that amount of content to post daily or even three times a week!
For us, we upload just one video per week without fail.
We’ve done this consistently for five years now. We also experimented with uploading two videos per week for a period. But the results were linear. Which is why we decided to focus on one highly optimized, targeted video per week.
And so that’s our recommendation to you. Commit to one video per week that you’ve done the research on and created high quality content for.
If you’re doing the research, you will know that your audience is searching for the content you’re creating.
This is going to be far more valuable than pumping out daily videos. Because by creating daily videos or even three videos a week, you run the risk of burning out.
You risk losing that spark and no longer enjoying the process. But you’re also potentially wasting your time. Because if you’re not doing the research and optimization, there’s a good chance you’re wasting your time by creating videos that no one will see.
If you’re serious about growing on YouTube AND doing it smart, check out our guide to 10x Your Traffic On YouTube.
In this guide we’ll teach you the 3 most powerful tools and ranking strategies to help you increase traffic. Plus we cover some awesome YouTube tips as well!
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Recommended Gear & Resources
Check out an up-to-date list of all the gear, software & tools we use and recommend right now at Primal Video on our resources page here!
