Forget about views,subscribers and likes for now. YouTube is all about understanding attention as much as possible.

I’ll keep this simple. Here’s what you need to know:

Not all viewers are the same. Your goal isn’t just to get views—it’s to attract real followers. Attention is fleeting, and people are easily distracted. If your content doesn’t capture lasting attention, even a subscriber will forget about you within a few days. These are called “ghost subs” in typical youtube lingo.

You want attention that lasts, but not by diluting your actual audience. If your content can’t hold people’s attention over time, it won’t help you build a loyal audience hence they won’t convert at all.

It’s easy to get a lot of attention for a short time by riding on a trend or a recent event, but if you don’t keep it, you’ll end up right back at square one. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen, and many of you probably have too. To save yourself time and frustration, start building your “audience” now.

Bottom line:

→ 10 loyal viewers are far more valuable than 1,000 one-time viewers.

Attention Quality

Before we start talking about videos, it is extremely important to understand the currency of YouTube: attention.

All viewers are NOT equal in terms of attention quality.

On YouTube, you have 4 kinds of viewers, from cold (blue) to hot (red):

Blue: They have never seen your content before

Yellow: They’ve seen your content at least once