With all that said, you should now have a good idea of how to run your channel and keep adding new, exciting content. But at first, you’re going to find that this is a wholly unrewarding process. You’ll upload your first video after spending ages working on it to get it just right and then no one will click on it. If you’re lucky, then your first video might land you 100 views and it probably will take months to get to that point!
More likely, you’ll have 3 views. And one will be your Mum.
Then you have to make another video and another and it will feel like you’re wasting all that time and effort.
The first thing to do then is to recognize that this is not a waste. For starters, you’re building your audience this way but at the same time it’s worth noting that you will be able to re-use your old footage.
There’s no reason that you can’t promote those old videos once you have a much bigger audience, so don’t worry if no one sees them right away! And at the same time, you should start looking at ways that you help people find your videos and begin generating momentum for your channel. There are a few different things you can do here that will help.
Let’s take a look at them…
Choose a Popular Topic
This might sound very obvious but of course making content with a very popular subject matter is going to help you to find more viewers. And better yet, making content that has a big dedicated audience, or that is not overly crowded will help you to stand out and get noticed among the crowd. Let’s say you’re making opinion videos about computer games.
A great way to make sure that you get noticed is to make a video about Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic is a somewhat divisive figure in the video game community but there is a HUGE die hard audience for him out there. If you make a video on Sonic, you can almost rest assured that it will get thousands of views and likes just from people searching for new content on their favorite mascot!
Got a football channel? Then how about making a video about a smaller local team? There won’t be that much content out there on this team, which means that those fans will only have your video to satiate their appetite. Again, this can be a good way to find a large audience and build on it.
Got a fitness channel? Try making a video on Bruce Lee. He’s such an iconic figure that nearly any video on him is bound to get tons of likes and follows!
Make Sure Your Videos Are Viewed All the Way and Liked
YouTube uses numerous different metrics in order to determine if a video is popular and whether it should be promoted. One of these is how long the video is viewed for and how often it gets likes. So if your videos get watched all the way through every time and get thousands of likes, then your channel is going to look very popular and you’re going to see your videos climbing the ranks of YouTube.
This is another very good reason to make your content shorter – because it means that 3 minutes is now 100% of your video instead of 20%! Another tip is to give your viewers a reason to stick around – tell them at the start of your video about something exciting coming up at the end for instance.
Use Keywords
If you were trying to promote a website, then one of the ways you’d do so would be to use keywords. These are terms that people regularly search for when they use Google and by lacing these into your content, you can ensure that Google will make the connection.
You can’t do this in your videos because Google can’t search the content of what you’re saying (yet!). But what you can do is to choose relevant keywords to add to the video when you upload it. These should be things that people are likely to search for, as well as things that will make your video come up in ‘Suggested Videos’ at the right time.
The way to get this right then is to look for popular subject matters but at the same time to make sure that the phrases you pick really are relevant. You’re not trying to ‘trick people’ into watching your videos here! All that will do is get them to turn off very quickly.
If you want to find good search terms, then you can use Google’s Keyword Suggestion Tool. This tells you what people are searching for on Google which might be different from what people are searching on YouTube but will nevertheless often be similar at least.
But you can also just use a little common sense here. When you create your videos, try to think what people might search for when looking for that content. It works very similarly to hash tags in Instagram or Twitter. Likewise, you can also use keywords in your video title and even in your description.
In general, it’s important to make sure you add lots of content to your description and write about what viewers can expect to see in the videos. Not only can this be a great way to offer more additional value for your visitors by letting them sift through the key points but it will also give YouTube more content to use to learn about your videos.
Manage Your Profile
You have a YouTube profile and this is something that can also come up in searches. You want to optimize this for YouTube SEO (Search Engine Optimization) just as you are optimizing your videos themselves with the keywords and descriptions.This means making sure you fill out your About page by adding lots of content into your ‘Description’ section.
In your Home page you can also make your channel more appealing by adding playlists so that people can quickly find different types of content from you (this way, you can separate your content into different categories). You can also create a ‘channel advert’ which will be a video that introduces people to your channel and encourages them to subscribe.
Add a profile image, a banner image and make sure to link to all of your social media accounts as well. All of this will help YouTube to see that you’re on the ball as far as your content creation goes, which in turn will mean your videos get more promotion.
Choose Titles That Make People Want to Click
So let’s say someone is watching a video in the same niche as your channel and then they see your video come up as a suggested video because of the keywords you used. If you have the right thumbnail and the right video title, then it will make your video appealing enough that people just can’t avoid watching it. A brilliant example of this comes from Yo Elliott.
Elliott Hulse is a strength training YouTuber who talks mainly about lifting weights and getting stronger. But despite this, he has managed to become almost a household name and is known well outside fitness circles. Why? Because of his ‘Yo Elliott’ series. One reason for this is his Yo Elliott series, which features him answering the questions that his viewers have.
These really speak to that ‘value proposition’ we’ve discussed earlier and talk about things that anyone can relate to and benefit from. These are things that will get an emotional reaction from people and that they will think can help make their lives better.
Just check out some of these video titles:
“How to Approach Women (Give Mini Orgasms)”
“How to Destroy Self Doubt”
“Masturbation Gives Me Energy to Workout”
“How to Confidently Command Respect”
“When is it Okay to FIGHT?”
What guy doesn’t want to give women mini orgasms and confidently command respect? Whatever you think about this kind of content, there’s no denying that it certainly stands out and it’s easy to see why people click on it!
And even if you think it’s likely garbage, a lot of people will still click on it to see just what kind of garbage it is! It’s interesting to see what he’s going to say.You don’t need to use this exact method but just keep in mind that you can make your titles that much more clickable by offering something that promises real value, that stands out and that people will really want to hear.
Post Your Videos
Finally, there’s no reason you can’t simply post your videos in order to share them! Don’t be afraid to post your videos on Reddit, or on Google+ in the relevant communities. This way, you can find the audience that will enjoy your content the most and get a lot of quick views.