
Do you want to increase the number of people who watch your YouTube videos? Then, use these YouTube traffic sources to promote them.
Why should you devote your efforts to YouTube growth?
- YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world after Google.
- The YouTube Music app was the world’s most downloaded music app in 2021 (Source).
- According to Statista, in 2021, YouTube registered three billion visits from desktop computers alone.
- January 2022 statistics report that people spend more time on YouTube than any other social media site (Source).
All this equals a tremendous amount of exposure and traffic for you and your business.
By reading this guide, you will discover how to take advantage of all that exposure by promoting to certain YouTube traffic sources.
This post offers you a case study of how I quintupled my YouTube video views in three days. You will see screenshots that provide empirical evidence of the effectiveness of these methods.
These YouTube traffic sources will help you get more exposure to your YouTube videos.
By reading this post, you will discover how to use the following YouTube traffic sources to generate views for your YouTube video:
- Your website
- Discord
Discover how to generate traffic to your YouTube videos in order to increase your video’s view counts.
By reading this post, you also receive a timeline of when to promote to the YouTube traffic sources listed in this guide.
You need views to monetize. You can’t buy views and risk getting banned, so promoting on these YouTube traffic sources is vital in order to boost watch time.
Let’s start discovering YouTube traffic sources that effectively work to boost your YouTube views.
Would you like to monetize YouTube? If so, you need YouTube traffic sources.
How to Make Money on YouTube
YouTube Monetization Strategy 1
If you want to make money on YouTube, you need to join the YouTube Partner Program.
If you want to join the YouTube Partner Program, you need 1000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time.
However, while making YouTube Shorts boosts your organic reach, Shorts views won’t count toward your 4,000 watch time hours.
Therefore, promoting your videos using these YouTube traffic sources is vital for monetization.
YouTube Monetization Strategy 2
You can also link to your business in the description and at the end of the video.
One important note:
YouTube wants to keep you on its platform, so linking to your business may lower your video success but boost your business success.
Have you heard of the Shotgun Effect? I applied this ”try everywhere” strategy to YouTube video promotion.
I promoted my videos on mainstream social media sites, Discord groups, and my blog. I also applied YouTube SEO using the TubeBuddy Extension. This post reports on my research.
This is a case study. This post covers effective YouTube traffic sources. You will see the original research I compiled during the case study.
You can use the YouTube traffic sources I discovered to be effective as your way of getting exposure to your videos.
What is YouTube?
Before we dive in, let’s answer the question, “What is YouTube?”
YouTube is an extremely popular video-sharing website. Users can upload, view, and share videos easily, which has helped it become one of the most popular websites in the world.
Much of YouTube’s traffic comes from videos uploaded by users, which is a great way for smaller YouTubers to build a fan base and gain exposure. However, YouTube also buys a lot of its traffic, which means that the company buys views from people to get more views from people.
This guide shares organic YouTube traffic sources. In other words, the methods shared in this article are free for you to follow.
One of the biggest challenges for many small businesses is getting the word out about their products and services. This can be especially difficult when it comes to reaching new customers. But with the right advertising strategy, you can reach new customers and attract returning visitors to your website with little effort on your part.
That is where using these YouTube traffic sources becomes important.
Note: One of the best ways to get your brand out there is to publish high-quality content on YouTube. Promoting on these YouTube traffic sources does not substitute for making the best videos you can.
In order to compile research for this post, I tried generating traffic to the following video:
How did the video initially perform?

As you can see, after the first day of publication, the video only generated eleven views.
Timeline to Promote Using YouTube Traffic Sources
Important Note: Following these methods is time-sensitive. Put your video on the YouTube traffic sources the first 24 hours after publishing.
After publication, promote your video frequently using the YouTube traffic sources in the next section. Continue this aggressive promotion for the first one or two days after publishing your video on YouTube.
Think of this hard-hitting approach as if you are trying to shake the YouTube algorithm into noticing your video.
YouTube Traffic Sources

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Share the post with the following YouTube traffic sources:
- Your blog or website
- Discord

Use your blog as a source of YouTube views
Here are the advantages of embedding your YouTube video in your blog post:
The viewer stays on your blog longer which improves your bounce rate.
You make Google happy by having a variety of media on your site.
Visual learners prefer to learn information by watching videos.
You update your post by adding your video which boosts your SEO since Google likes fresh content.
Your website is a YouTube traffic source that effectively generates traffic from your blog to your YouTube video.
As you see, embedding a YouTube video in your blog post has many advantages including SEO benefits and traffic generation.
I promoted the video in various Facebook groups and on my Facebook wall.
I did not promote to my Facebook Business Page. I find Facebook Business Pages are not as much in use as they once were. However, you certainly could use your Facebook Business Page as a YouTube traffic source if your Facebook Business Page brings you traction.
Facebook also has reciprocal groups you can promote to. For instance, you can join the YouTube Promotion Group.
I used Instagram stories as one of my YouTube traffic sources.
Also, on Instagram, tag your video promotion with the hashtags #SmallYouTuber, #YouTubeCommunity, and #YouTubePromotion. Other YouTubers will find you and reach out for reciprocal support.
You can get more information about the Reddit YouTube traffic sources by watching this video.
Like Facebook, Reddit also has supportive YouTube groups that can help you.
For instance, instead of being called a “spammer” as you would in many Reddit groups, you can promote your videos in these groups:
Twitter did result in generating views on my videos; however, the other YouTube traffic sources outperformed Twitter as a view generator.

Linked in generated almost 19% of the views on this video.
After trying these methods for three days, how did the video perform?

Three days after posting the video, analytics showed 55 views. To date, the post has 104 views.
YouTube will continue to push out the video once it sees there is more interest.
Discord
As I wrapped up this guide, I started generating traction from Discord. Therefore, I wanted to make sure to include Discord in this post about YouTube traffic sources.

As you can see from the screenshot, Discord is currently generating more than 6% of my YouTube traffic.
Discord is an app as well as a website. You can find more information about Discord here: Discord vs Slack.
Tags for YouTube Videos
A post about YouTube traffic sources would not be complete without a discussion about tags for YouTube videos.
Just like you would tag your blog posts with a focus SEO keyword, you need to tag your YouTube video with relevant keywords.
How many tags for YouTube videos do you need?
YouTube allows up to 500 characters for tags.
YouTube Traffic Sources: Frequently Asked Questions
Which traffic source is best in YouTube?
Instagram and Reddit are the two best sites as YouTube traffic sources.
How do I get traffic to my YouTube channel?
You need to promote everywhere. Effective YouTube traffic sources include Instagram and Reddit. Reddit has many subreddits where you can get help with YouTube views.
Wrapping Up: YouTube Traffic Sources
In closing, by reading this guide, you discovered how to make money on YouTube and how to generate views using YouTube traffic sources.
Now you know the best traffic source for YouTube videos.
Use this post as an action plan for generating YouTube videos and increasing money and exposure.
Readers, please share, so that YouTubers discover these YouTube traffic sources and can experience more success on the popular video-sharing platform.
I look forward to your views in the comments section can you suggest more YouTube traffic sources? What are your experiences promoting your YouTube videos on these websites?
Related
If you need more intensive training, take our Advertising on YouTube Course.

Janice Wald is the founder of MostlyBlogging.com and co-founder of the Mostly Blogging Academy. She is an ebook author, blogger, blogging coach, blogging judge, freelance writer, and speaker. She won the Best Internet Marketer Award and the Best Blogger Award at the 2021 Infinity Blog Awards. Wald was also nominated as 2019 Best Internet Marketer by the Infinity Blog Awards and in 2017 as the Most Informative Blogger by the London Bloggers Bash. She’s been featured on Small Business Trends, the Huffington Post, and Lifehack.