How To Make Videos That Get Watched 13 Years Later
How we used YouTube SEO to turn a competitive keyword into a long-term asset that still generates revenue 13 years later. (And we no longer go after this keyword, so you can steal it!)
This is part six of a series of extended posts updating my no-longer-available YouTube Book. For the first installment, click here.
Since I am still writing about the early days of YouTube, I thought this recent graph from the BBC might help put things into some context.
As someone who has been fully immersed in YouTube since 2010, this graph “feels” accurate. It also feels like the growth is only accelerating. The creator ecosystem was tiny. Nobody outside of it had any idea about what we were doing.
What I’m writing about today happened during that tiny yellow block labeled 2013.
We had been creating and publishing Yoga With Adriene videos for about six months. We had practically zero traffic. It was an agonizingly slow start and I was starting to doubt that this was even going to work.
No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get traction for any of our videos.
People weren’t finding the videos and the YouTube algorithm wasn’t doing anything to help.
I felt like we needed to do something drastic. If it failed I’d just chalk it up to being another experiment. Another great learning opportunity.
I went back to my original list of potential keywords and picked the biggest and most competitive one: “yoga for weight loss.” Based on keyword research and studying the videos that ranked for this phrase, I knew there was a lot of interest. It had the highest search volume of anything related to YouTube.
However, it was tricky.
The term “weight loss” can trigger a lot of emotions and backlash especially when used in relation to yoga . While Adriene and I believe yoga is great for overall physical and mental health, weight loss wasn't ever part of her teaching philosophy. But knowing how many people were searching for "yoga for weight loss," we thought it might be a gateway video for people new to yoga. It took careful positioning to pull it off in a way that felt true to Adriene's principles.
Even with the potential downsides, I felt like we had to try it.
I knew that a lot of people were typing “yoga for weight loss” into YouTube every day.
I wanted those people to find us.
I also wanted to beat the videos that were already ranked for it, because I knew our videos were better.
We just needed to “package” our video in a format that people were actually looking for.
Adriene and I talked about it a lot and eventually decided to go for it. We felt the upside would be worth any potential controversy. And we made sure to approach the topic sensitively in the video.
Our “Yoga For Weight Loss” video ended up running over 40 minutes. It was our longest video yet.
At the time, nobody was making long YouTube videos. The thinking was that long videos would hurt your retention and that would hurt your chances with the algorithm
The upside: the video was really good.
I optimized the title and all the meta-data for the video taking into account the factors above. I made a new playlist for “Yoga for Weight Loss” even though I only had two videos that really fit that category.
Tip: I filled the playlist with relevant videos from other channels, focusing on videos that were highly ranked for keywords related to yoga and weight loss. My goal was to build a web of links - even if the videos weren’t ours. As we made more videos in this category, I gradually swapped our videos for the videos from other channels.
I even changed the video title to proudly declare this was a long video: “Yoga For Weight Loss - 40 Minute Fat Burning Workout.” I posted the video on yoga forums, social media, Reddit and basically anywhere I thought somebody might be interested in the content.
Initially, the video did get a few more views than normal. Nothing dramatic. But slowly but surely, views started to climb.
I noticed that another YouTuber added it to one of their playlists of yoga workouts.
Two months later we had moved from way down on the 4th pages of results to #2 in YouTube for the term “yoga for weight loss.” Eventually we hit #1. (This is when YouTube search worked a little differently).
This video was the first tipping point for the channel and is directly responsible for turbo-charging its growth.
I truly believe that if we hadn’t made this video, we wouldn’t still be making videos today.
It was a tipping point.
The video now has over 13 million views, has added almost 80,000 subscribers and generated over $100,000 in revenue. Even more than ten years later, it gets viewed over 1,000 times every day.
This story (along with the one I wrote about last time) illustrate an important truth about tipping points in the creator economy: they rarely happen by accident.
The Chick-Fil-Gay breakthrough came from intentionally positioning content that could capitalize on a cultural moment. Meanwhile, the Yoga With Adriene success emerged from strategically targeting high-value search terms and ignoring conventional wisdom about video length.
Key takeaways:
Viral tipping points often come from connecting your content to larger conversations. You can't predict when that moment will arrive or if it will work. You’ve just gotta keep creating and keep listening both to your audience and what’s going on in the world.
Search-driven tipping points are more predictable but require patience and strategic positioning. Sometimes you need to ignore "best practices" (like keeping videos short) to give your audience what they truly want.
In both cases, success came from having a clear understanding of the audience and being willing to take risks. The Chick-fil-A video risked alienating some viewers but strengthened our relationship with the core audience. The 40-minute yoga video broke platform norms but met a real user need.
Tipping points aren't just about luck. They're about creating the right conditions for success and being ready when opportunity strikes. Whether it comes through a viral moment, SEO growth, or getting traction with the algorithm, the breakthrough happens because of the foundation you've built.
Keep creating!
Chris
PS - This is the last thing I’m going to write about YouTube SEO (for a while). I realize it’s fallen out of favor as a strategy while also evolving over time. But I did recently notice in our analytics that 75% of our views come from videos that are over six years old. Our early videos are still out there connecting with people and generating revenue. It’s always been my goal to create an “evergreen” library of content and using SEO for positioning our content has played a huge role in that.
Thanks Chris for sharing the process. I am so delighted to see your new post, almost thought you gave up Substack 😃.