YouTube is more than just the second largest search engine and a similarly ranked social network. Many businesses are turning towards this video platform to create content or advertise. So, you aren’t wrong to think about creating a YouTube channel. But, you’ve got an army of creators to fight against. A staggering 500 hours of content is being uploaded on YouTube per minute. Sorry to break this to you, but realistically, you shouldn’t even try if you aren’t strategic in planning and executing. But if you’ve got the mind of a strategist and the heart of a creator, let’s formulate the recipe to become a successful YouTuber. Don’t wait. Dive in.
Fix the Niche
Why just YouTube? This guide can also include how to be successful on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Tiktok, Vimeo, Snapchat, and five other social networks. Won’t that be good? Everything in one. Yeah, that will be good, but for nothing and no one. Instead, I’m just focussing on how to become a better YouTuber. YouTube, that’s the target. It’s called narrowing down your audience base. Or specializing in something particular. Or fixing the niche. Define this for you and your YouTube channel. What do you want to create? And Why? Building upon your strengths is accessible. But it’ll take significant time and effort if your expertise is super common. Alternatively, your prospects will be better if you improve your not-so-common talent. Make a choice. The more technical reason behind fixing the niche is to build authority. Once you start targeting specific keywords, you have better chances of occupying a higher seat in YouTube search results. Because it’s pointless to sit at the bottom where nobody will come and click. So, build an authoritative channel aiming at a unique skill/trend before spreading yourself in other domains.
Look for Current Trends
Evergreen content is great. It doesn’t need updating and pulls traffic lifelong. But unfortunately, people search and crave much more. If you’re among the first to upload updated content in your domain, you’ll be searched and clicked significantly more. That’s the point of taking the first-mover advantage. But where to look for what is trendy can be tricky for newcomers.
Google Trends
Google benefits from its search engine data and presents you with Google Trends. You can search for the popular YouTube search terms for any period in every location. It keeps you relevant to the market and possibly high in the search results. For instance, I’ve entered iPhone to check out the importance of this term for the United States. I kept the time interval as the past 30 days, checked for YouTube search results, and I got this:
Quora
Quora is a get-answers-to-anything platform. And it’s rising in popularity. Currently, there are 300 million people on board this social network. You will find intellectuals to idiots, all sharing their wisdom on Quora. Quora has Spaces for each domain. Bloggers quite often use it for sourcing new titles. And there is no reason why you can’t do this for your YouTube channel. The process is similar to what we did on Google Trends. In a nutshell, Quora can give you the in-demand topics to make videos. And it’s a cherry on the cake if you’re already a most viewed Quora writer. You can leverage your Quora popularity to fuel YouTube ambitions.
UberSuggest
UberSuggest is a nifty application to find the ranking keywords. Consider this an advanced version of the free Google keyword planner. You can use this tool to create enticing titles. UberSuggest gives you a list of ranking keywords, their search volume, ranking difficulty, etc. But do remember to keep search intent in mind when using keywords given by UberSuggest. For instance, it’s good to make a video on making a pizza in 5 minutes. But, a video on how to write a blog post is more suited as an article rather than a video guide.
Create a Content Plan
Consistency is key. It makes you look professional and serious about your work. Besides, you can’t create updated content if you are inconsistent yourself. And just nodding your head in agreement won’t help either. Make a plan. You can use free spreadsheets and web applications like Google Sheets to keep yourself on track. Or you can use YouTube scheduler utilities like Hootsuite. The latter option is a much more robust choice for any professional YouTuber. It helps manage multiple YouTube accounts from a single dashboard and collaborate if you’ve got a team. Besides, you can schedule YouTube videos to go live in preferred slots. This feature is excellent if you’ve got an audience across multiple timezones.
Video Making/Editing Applications
While a decent set of hardware is a no-brainer for an aspiring YouTuber, the software has its importance. Great video editors can make you look professional even under a non-studio setup. Take note of some of the best tools to record your creativity.
iMovie
Apple people have this default program to start for free. It has a simplistic user interface for first-timers. While it’s not the most powerful video editor in the market, it’s excellent and easy. iMovie’s one-click enhancements can save time and effort, especially for people new to video editing. If you’re further interested, try it out or read this PC mag review of iMovie.
Wondershare Filmora
This is an advanced alternative for the people in and out of the Apple ecosystem. But I won’t define advanced; better see this:
Filmora is not free but has a free trial. You should definitely try this to level up your production.
VideoStudio
Corel VideoStudio is a state-of-the-art editing program for beginners to average users. VideoStudio is easy, to begin with, and has tools to get you going within minutes.
Notably, VideoStudio is for Windows OS only. It comes with a one-time payment and a 30-day free trial.
Debut Video Capture and Screen Recorder
Debut video capture is primarily a video recording and exporting utility for Windows and Mac. It can be used to record videos for further editing in different software. In addition to recording, this has some default features like adding captions, color adjustments, etc. They also have a free version for non-commercial use.
DaVinci Resolve
DaVinci Resolve is straightaway for advanced to expert users, like Hollywood-style experts. This is an everything-bundled-in-one solution. You’ll find video and audio editing, motion graphics, color correction, and a lot more in this comprehensive utility. You might have seen various scenes in multiple movies that have used its capabilities. Take a look: Admittedly, it has a learning curve and a free version to support that. Try this, and hopefully, you won’t need anything in the future. And yes, it’s available for Mac, Windows, and Linux.
Adobe Premiere
Coming to the costlier alternative to DaVinci Resolve, you have Adobe Premiere. This industry-standard video editing software comes only with subscription plans. And it’s not as complete as the previous option. For instance, you don’t have powerful color corrections and audio editing with Premiere. You are bound to use additional software for it. That said, it still is very powerful. It has a very flexible user interface and a gentle learning curve comparatively. But you must try its 30-day free trial to know why this is a sought-after video editing solution.
Create & Optimize
What do you see when you enter any search term on YouTube? List of Videos? No. It’s Thumbnails. The first handshake is always with the thumbnails. These are the gateways to call in the viewers. If you don’t look good there, you’ll be scrolled on. So, it’s best to design your thumbnails with the utmost care and sincerity. And you can practically start for free with tools like Snappa, Canva, etc. Besides thumbnails, these graphic design applications can be used to professionalize your channel logo, banner image, profile picture, and watermark. You can find these options in the YouTube Studio section.
Promote Your Channel
There are a couple of ways to promote your YouTube channel. These options can be paid and free. Let’s start with a no-brainer–advertising.
Advertising
Advertising involves additional costs. But, it is the fastest way to build an audience if your content is great. Start with a low budget to see the impact. Besides, YouTube advertising policies are very beginner-friendly. You can start for as low as USD 10 per day. And you only pay if someone sees your ad for at least 30 seconds or clicks any element. Check here for a more detailed insight on YouTube advertising costs.
Networking
Your network is your net worth is not just a fancy quote–it’s a reality that fits any business. Nice, talented people, get called up everywhere. Who doesn’t want them? A healthy network is a battle half won. So, connect with the right people. Guest appearances on some established channels can give you a much-needed head start. Your direct competitor most likely won’t promote you. But some related channels with some overlapping streams can be worthy hosts. Alternatively, you can call some experts to your channel for crossovers. This will help you to leverage their audience base with similar interests. Finally, networking is not an overnight thing. Be strategic and have some patience.
Cross-Promoting
Cross-Promoting can work within or outside YouTube. For instance, if you have a pizza recipe channel, you can talk something about pepperoni Pizza (with a link as Cards, more on that later) in your video about how to make a cheese burst pizza. This is called cross-promoting within your channel. The other one is about using your non-YouTube audience base from Facebook or Twitter to popularize your YouTube channel. So ideally, your promoting strategies should be a blend of both.
Build Your Audience
This is the most planning-oriented thing you can do with your channel apart from the creation itself. I’ll skip the most obvious thing–create great content. That’s very basic and absolute. You know it’s essential, and there is no way around it.
Know Your Audience
I can’t emphasize this enough! You must know most of the channels thrive because they serve a purpose. It’s not just plan-simple entertainment. Even the entertainers must factor in the nitty-gritty about their audience. For instance, you can’t sing in Arabic to target your English subscribers. That’s simply stupid. So, the best is to identify the gaps and supply while keeping the demand in sight.
Watermark, Cards, CTAs, and End Screens
The ultimate purpose of this section is to help you take maximum benefit from your creations. And not letting it be a one-off thing. What do you see in the following image? First, on the top right is a link to his other video. That’s cross-promoting within your channel. He’s talking about that and used the Cards feature at that exact instant. Second, the watermark on the bottom right is to improve the subscriber count. Because people forget to subscribe, and when a viewer hits subscribe, it sends a huge signal to the YouTube search algorithm about the importance of your channel. In a nutshell, subscribers are important. They fuel your viewership which makes your bank. So, more subscribers simply translate to more views. Next comes End screens. In addition to Cards, these are the pillars to pile up subscriber count. End screens are your video’s last 20 seconds (or less). Check this out: The objective is simple. Don’t let the users fly away for anything. The last few seconds are precious. If the viewer is still here, you gave something valuable. Now is the time to build on that impression. The RazorSocial guy does three things with the End Screens. First, a card to boost the subscriber numbers. The second is an external link to the Razor Social website, a digital marketing agency. And third, a related video keeps viewers watching his channel. The external link is a live example of cross-promoting among different platforms. These buttons or the screen links are called Call-To-Action (CTA). Put simply, they call upon the viewers to take a specific action. Check out this video on how to add cards:
Engage
Unless you’re a superstar already, get ready to engage with some real people. Because YouTube has no dearth of great content. So, in addition to creating amazing videos, you must keep your feet on the ground. When you sensibly respond to your fans’ comments, you carve out an image of yourself as a familiar person. This has great appeal because your audience can easily relate to that. Your content will be shared, and people will come back for more. But show some arrogance, and you will fall flat without a second chance. So, the key is–be nice. And once you hit 500 subscribers, you can have the community section. This will help you interact with your new fan base other than through regular videos. Consider the community page of your channel a mini private version of Twitter. Learn more about it here:
Non-Subscribers
I personally watch so much of YouTube but rarely subscribe to even 10% of creators. Why? Simple, I don’t need to. The same will happen to you. People will come, watch, and leave unless you have something special for subscribers, like frequent giveaway events. But remember, views are more important than subscriptions. Ergo, come out of the urge to convert every viewer into a subscriber. Consequently, appreciate non-subscribers as well and don’t oversell subscriptions.
YouTube’s Comment Filters
Some people tend to get emotional and erratic while commenting on YouTube videos. It gets real messy real soon. And all this nonsense has a repelling effect on genuine commenters. They don’t comment or discuss, much to the loss of the channel. So don’t let your channel comment section become a victim. Instead, use YouTube’s comment filter to moderate the comment section. You can choose to approve each comment manually. Or, automatic filtering of offensive words can be used as well. Just that the automatic functions don’t work every time, try to maintain the atmosphere for healthy discussion.
Upload and Evolve
No matter how much you read about YouTube SEO, experience is a teacher second to none. In a nutshell, think like a viewer. Optimize your title, description, tags, and everything around the keywords. Your keyword distribution should be enough to signal YouTube about the video, but at the same time, you don’t want to sound unnatural. Most importantly, see what’s working for you in YouTube analytics and try experimenting with it. Coming to YouTube SEO, it’s not just some few tips that I can give you and make you fly. Nope. So, let’s learn from the best in business, check out Brian Dean’s guide on YouTube SEO. It’s very detailed and based on Brain’s success on YouTube.
Conclusion 📽️
You may be a fantastic creator, but there is much more to success. The secret lies in striking a balance between the man and the machine. If you ask me to summarize everything in a line, it would be Plan-Create-Promote-Analyze-Repeat. I wish you nothing but a rewarding journey to become a better YouTuber. Hasta La Vista. That’s not another tip but goodbye in Spanish.😎 You may also be interested in the Best YouTube Tools to grow your audience.
