Ever since its inception in 2005, YouTube has been single-handedly the most widely used search engine for all kinds of videos. People from all around the world upload their videos to add up to the YouTube content. Today it has become the world’s second-largest search engine for video content only after Google.
Statistics show that the number of YouTube channels has doubled in the past three years and reached up to a total of 30 million by the beginning of 2020.
It lets you upload, watch, share, like, comment, favorite and interact with so many different kinds of videos. Every day a huge number of videos are added into its database with millions of viewers consuming them.
YouTube channel is the personal space provided by YouTube to all its members. If a member wants to maintain a personal vlog, promote their business, or just document their videos then a YouTube channel is the way forward for them.
Businesses can also have YouTube channels. They are different from personal channels because they can be managed by multiple users and can have brands associated with it.
You don’t need a channel to view videos on YouTube. But if you want to upload videos and broadcast them to the common audience, then you need to start your own YouTube channel.
One of the main sources of income for YouTubers is an advertisement. If the number of viewers of any YouTube content is large, then advertisers want to place their ads in that video and pay the owner of it. That is why it has become one of the biggest marketing tools of our generation.
There are thousands of videos uploaded daily on YouTube and one’s video may get easily lost among them. While there are numerous reasons for not hitting the search results for a new video or channel, few of those are badly engaging content and not making the right setup in the channel.
Let us dive into the right strategies and steps one should take to start a YouTube channel as a beginner.
Initial step: Purpose
Before you begin, you have to be clear in your head about the purpose for which you are building your YouTube channel. Is it for the educational purpose or is it to promote your business or you just want to make earnings straight from your channel by advertising other brands.
Whether you want to start a YouTube channel for your business or you want to start your YouTube channel as a beginner, there are different approaches to go ahead with building your channel.
It is only when you know what the purpose of your content is, you can start applying strategies to build a successful channel.
Before we step into the next steps, it is advisable to know a bit about what Search Engine Optimization is.
Search Engine Optimization for your channel
Search Engine Optimization is the process of pulling traffic to your website or homepage, in this case, your YouTube channel, based on the most commonly used search queries of web surfing audience on any search engine.
You can not go ahead with any name you might think is apt for your YouTube channel. It is of no use if it doesn’t show up on the search query. Hence, you have to choose the right title carefully so that it appears on the search list when users are looking for a similar search result in a search engine.
To choose the right keywords there are many research tools out there that can give you the exact numbers of YouTube search volumes for any keyword you might select to use in your channel’s title. This research will help you know how users are looking for the content related to yours in YouTube that in turn will also let you make important decisions while creating the content for your channel.
vidIQ is one of the most widely used tools for searching the YouTube keywords. You will have to try all possible combinations of your channel’s name and it will give you a gist of web analysis of those words in the tools. If you have bought a premium version of this tool then all the features with more details would be available to you.
You must know that when users make a search query on Google as well, it acts as another platform from where users are redirected to a YouTube channel or video. So it is advisable to do research on google keyword planner also, which is a traditional tool to find the right keyword for your web content. It will take into account more traffic that could be redirected to your channel from one more platform.
Once you have found the right keywords to promote your YouTube channel, you are all set to move onto the next steps of building a successful YouTube channel of your own.
Search queries for Competitors
Once you have selected the right keyword you are set to research the content that are being generated of your competitors. You will have to make a search query for the same name on YouTube and see what results are showing up. It might be the case that the same results are being generated again and again for those search queries.
Make a deep study of the content your competitors have posted on their channel on this topic. Your job is to make your content even more engaging than theirs to get to the right audience.
Few important points to notice are
- the script they have used for their videos,
- the background score they have used,
- the camera angles and
- all the different intricacies that have made their videos popular on YouTube.
There are many extensions like Tube Buddy that are available online to know the kind of tags that are being used by your competitors on their videos. It will show you the rank of that video for a particular tag which is a very useful insight.
Build your content
If you haven’t already built your video content to upload on YouTube then this is the right point of time when you should start doing so. You should build your video in such a way that it should align well with your topic.
And build a couple of episodes in advance so that you can upload them on your channel at regular intervals to keep your subscribers engaged.
YouTube account
Anyone with a Google or Gmail account can have access to their YouTube account. If you don’t have one then you may directly create a YouTube account by
- clicking on the “sign up” link on a YouTube homepage.
- Filling up all the details
- Receiving a code and verifying it
- Once you have performed all the required actions, your YouTube account would be active.
- As soon as you upload your first video, your YouTube channel will be made.
Channel settings
To begin making settings on your channel, fill up the details of the “about” section on your channel. You can add a descriptive text of around 1000 words mentioning every detail you would like your subscribers to know about this channel. You can give links to your social media accounts from where you can also redirect traffic to promote your YouTube channel.
Your social media links would appear on the banner which you have selected in your channel settings.
Video Manager
Once all your channel settings are in place, you can start uploading videos on your channel.
After uploading all your videos you must decide which video should appear first to attract the audience to your channel. You have to rely on the keyword search having maximum search volume and put that video on top of others.
Create Playlist
Organize all your content according to a theme and create a playlist. It is necessary to stick to one theme so that users don’t get disconnected from your content in the middle of the playlist.
To create a playlist:
1) you will have to click on the “YouTube Studio” button which exists on your YouTube account panel.
2) You will be taken to another screen where on the left-hand side you will find a submenu.
3) Click on the submenu and you will find an option to create a playlist.
4) Once you click on that, you will get an option to create a new playlist. Click on that and rename it and your playlist would be ready.
Optimize your Channel content
To optimize your channel content is necessary if you want your channel to get popular and thus become successful. You have to be aware of the YouTube metrics which this search engine uses in order to get the most hits.
Few metrics are listed below:
- Watch time: It is the sum total of all the minutes your channel is being watched by your viewers.
- Average retention time: It shows the average retention time your audience hold while watching your videos
- People engagement: How many likes, shares, comments, and subscription your videos are able to get from the people watching them.
Knowing all these metrics would help you plan the content you are building to display on your YouTube channel. If you go ahead with this strategy then your optimization would align with YouTube which in turn would be supported by YouTube AI.
And once you get that support then it means your channels/videos would start appearing on suggestions which would massively increase your popularity.
Upload and Share
Now with all the metrics in place, channel settings done, playlists created and all other factors mentioned above taken into consideration, you are finally set to upload and share your content.
With the right strategy, you can upload your content and share it into public and it would not be a surprise if you or your brand get famous through this world’s second-largest search engine.
