Top Tips for Starting a Successful YouTube Channel

You’re starting a YouTube channel. Good! It’s a great tool for many reasons and may you have the greatest of luck with it. Here are a few things to think about when creating your channel that may help you get the ball rolling.

Make the keyword your brand. You have a keyword for your channel, like BAKING or AUTOMOTIVE. Keywords are how viewers can find you. Make that your brand. There are thousands of channels out there; you need to be funnier/edgier/ smarter. 

Do Claymation cooking, do greenscreen travelogues, do something no one has seen before or do something everyone does and do it better. You need to stand out from the crowd.

Make the best video you can. YouTube can be a place for Bill and Ted to make a video about falling down and then post it online. There are a lot of those, amateur, childish kinds of videos. Believe it or not, there is a place for that kind of thing. Sometimes it can even work to draw people in. But ‘silly amateur’ doesn’t work for everyone. The best bet is to be professional, and at the same time, be yourself. 

Everyone has an opinion, so why not share yours? What do you love? Movies? Go see a movie, and post a review. Restaurants? Tell your experiences. Beer? Compare the various brands. 

Establish yourself as a reviewer of a specific item, but also narrow that to just one thing. It’s easy, it’s entertaining, and it’s so much better in a video than in text because your facial expressions will tell the tale.

Get the tags right. Tags are another way to direct traffic to your channel. Start with the specifics and go generally. For example, if you’re building a house, start with “Framing,” “Plumbing,” “Brick Laying” and then go to “Building a house,”

“Building,” “Construction.”

Keep an eye on the clock. So how much information can you convey in 15 seconds? You can start, get the music queued up and that’s about it. On the other hand, if you’re going to sit and drone about the mathematics of fractals for an hour, no one will ever see the end of the video. Typically, keep the video between 8 and 12 minutes. That’s about the sweet spot. 

Mix your channel with your social media. Link it to your website, and hook it into your Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and other feeds. Draw people from your site to the channel and then it will work in the other direction as well, as your subscribers will follow your link to your site.

It takes time and effort but growing a large fan base for your YouTube channel is possible and entirely doable. Mostly – have fun. Loving what you do always shows, and people will have fun right along with you.