Author: Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert

UK Based - YouTube Certified Expert Alan Spicer is a YouTube and Social Media consultant with over 2 Decades of knowledge within web design, community building, content creation and YouTube channel building.

5 Ways To Find the Best Tags for Ranking Your YouTube Videos

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 25 September 2020
2 Comments on 5 Ways To Find the Best Tags for Ranking Your YouTube Videos

There are 720,000 hours of video added to YouTube every day. So the chance of your latest offering being watched by a large audience is pretty slim.

Building a following on YouTube can be a challenging task; so you have to use every tool at your disposal to promote your video.

When considering how to promote your video, it’s essential to understand that YouTube is a search engine. The second biggest search engine after Google, in fact. So the meta-data you add to your video when you upload it (title, description, and tags), can play a part in attracting some initial views.

This post looks at one part of the meta-data – Youtube tags. What they are, how to add them, and gives you five ways to find the best tags for ranking your YouTube videos.

Here we go.

What Are YouTube Tags?

In their help section for content creators, YouTube says the following about tags;

“Tags are descriptive keywords you can add to your video to help viewers find your content.”

YouTube is plainly stating that tags are keywords. Should your tags match with the keywords a YouTube user searches for, then you have a chance of appearing in the search results.

However, they then go on to say;

“tags play a minimal role in your video’s discovery.”

Hmm, it sounds like you don’t need to use them then?

Well, if you are a top YouTuber and receive thousands of views in the first few hours after uploading a video, then maybe tags aren’t as important for you. However, if you have a smaller channel, you need to seek every edge, no matter how slight, to drive initial traffic.

The right 4 or 5-word tag added when you upload new content, can kickstart your views.

Once you gain that initial traffic, metrics like watchtime and engagement take over, and YouTube can choose to suggest your video in viewer’s feeds.

Tags Help YouTube Categorise Your Video.

Tags also play a role in helping YouTube decide the precise topic of your video. The English language is a wonderful thing, but it can sometimes be confusing – some words have more than one meaning. So tags can be used to tell YouTube the topic and purpose of your video.

Here’s an example. The video below is about ‘irons’. An iron can be a household item or a golf club. But, the title of the video doesn’t convey to YouTube which kind the video is about.

But, YouTube can use the tags and other video meta-data to help categorise the content. The tags for this video leave no room for doubt that it’s about a household iron.

How Do You Add YouTube Tags?

You add YouTube tags in the video details section of your YouTube Studio. Navigate to your list of videos and click the ‘Details’ icon.

Underneath the ‘Audience’ section, there is a text entry box to enter your tags. Tags can be more than a single word; type in the tags hitting return after each one. Alternatively, you can paste in a list you prepared elsewhere.

How Many Tags Should You Use on YouTube?

This one is a little tricky. On the one hand, YouTube permits entry of up to 500 characters in the video tag section. On the other hand, YouTube warns against adding excessive tags in their help section:

A study conducted by briggsby.com concluded that ideally, you should use less than 300 characters. Which, assuming you are using 3-4 word keyphrases, puts the ideal number of tags at 30-40.

One of the key takeaways of the study recommended that as long as you stay relevant to the video topic, use as many characters as you can manage.

What Should You Use for Your YouTube Tags?

The tags you choose for your video should ideally be 3-word or more keyphrases that describe the overall topic of your video AND the content more precisely.

For example, if you uploaded a video reviewing steam irons, then some of the tags might be;

Best steam iron
Top steam irons
Best steam iron for clothes
Rowenta steam iron
Tefal steam iron for clothes

As you can see, these tags anticipate the kinds of phrases someone might use when looking for reviews of steam irons. It’s also a good idea to use some related brand names in your list of tags if appropriate.

Using some 5-word or more key phrases in your tags is recommended too. Unless your YouTube channel is a powerhouse with thousands of subscribers, you are unlikely to rank in the search results for shorter 2 or 3-word key phrases.

You can, however, appear in the top results for longer keyword search phrases, though these will have lower search volumes and drive smaller traffic.

5 Ways To Put Together a List of YouTube Tags.

So how do you put your list of tags together?

It’s best if you produce a long list of many possible tag key phrases first, then whittle it down to the best 30 or so. Start a new document or spreadsheet and as you collect potential tags, add them to the list.

You may be able to use some of the tags in another video you are planning; keeping tag ideas together in a file is not a bad practice.

As promised, here are five ways to find the best YouTube tags for ranking.

1.Brainstorm

One way to come up with a list of tags for your YouTube video is to brainstorm a list of keywords that someone might use to search for your video.

Imagine you know little to nothing about the details included in your video. What might a person in that situation type into a search engine to find the information?

It may sound like a silly idea, but you can come up with some out of the ordinary key-phrases using this method. Pretending you know nothing about your video topic can draw out some keywords that your competitors may not be using.

It’s worth a moment of your time before you use the same tag suggestion tools that everyone else uses.

2.YouTube Autocomplete

Autocomplete is a feature that predicts search terms when a user begins typing in the search bar.

It is there to save the user time. Google says that autocomplete reduces typing by 25% and collectively saves over 200 years of typing-time every day!

Because autocomplete predicts what users are going to type it also supplies a useful list of multi-word key phrases.

Here is an example using the steam iron keyword. Adding in extra words, or even a single letter, will reveal lots of keywords you can use in your tags.

3.Rapidtags.io YouTube Tag Generator

Rapid Tags is a YouTube tag generator that suggests a list of tags based on a seed keyword. You can copy all the suggestions with one click and add them to your list of possibles.

Rapid Tag does say in their about section that some tags may not be totally suitable for you purposes and you should remove any that don’t describe your video well.

4.vidIQ

vidIQ is a tool designed to help creators build an audience on YouTube. The software has multiple tools for YouTube channels; one being their Google Chrome plugin. The plugin displays additional information about a video directly within the desktop version of YouTube.

Part of the information displayed is the tags used by a video. So, you can view some videos similar to yours and harvest the tags from those videos to add to your list.

5.Ytubetool.com

Ytubetool is a free tool you can use to harvest tags from a video if you don’t want to use vidIQ, or can’t install a Google Chrome plugin.

Simply add the URL of any YouTube video, and the tool will display a list of tags used by the video. With one-click to copy; it’s more potential tags ideas to add to your master file.

Conclusion.

Using tags in your YouTube meta-data is not the most significant factor in ranking a video on YouTube. However, tags can play a small part in attracting initial traffic to your video.

Tags can also help YouTube to categorise your video, especially if the words in your title have more than one meaning.

YouTube themselves admit that tags only play a small part in your video discovery. So perhaps tags are best thought of as the finishing touches to your YouTube SEO. Necessary, but don’t obsess over it.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Tags do tags matter, how to tag youtube videos, keyword research, keyword research for youtube, tags, vidiq, youtube, youtube tags

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13 YouTube Video Ideas Without Showing Your Face

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 22 September 2020
1 Comment on 13 YouTube Video Ideas Without Showing Your Face

Do you cringe when you see a picture of yourself? Is it even worse when you watch a video of yourself moving and talking? Don’t worry; you’re not alone. Psychology Today says that you could be suffering from something called self enhancement bias.

A self enhancement bias means that it’s common to think that we are more attractive than we actually are. We’re used to our reflection we see in the mirror. But when we see ourselves on camera, our face isn’t mirrored – we get to see our actual face as others see it.

It’s the unmirrored image that makes us cringe.

This can be a problem for aspiring YouTubers. There is a bunch of money to be made on the platform. And you want in on the action too.

Well, there is a way for you, if you suffer from self-enhancement bias, to make a bundle of money from YouTube without showing your face on video. There are a whole host of channels with thousands of subscribers where the channel owner never appears on camera.

Here are 13 video ideas for YouTube you can steal, or use for inspiration, and launch your own YouTube channel without ever showing your face.

Meditation and Mindfulness Videos

Some people love to tune out of the world and take a moment with their own thoughts. The practice of mindfulness and meditation has been embraced widely over the last few years as a why to help people sleep, study or relax.

Make videos that people can unwind to, feel comfortable with or can meditate to like on the Meditation Mindfulness channel.

Origami

Crafts are a popular niche on YouTube, with lots of people looking for hints, tips, and tutorials on how to express their creativity.

PPO – Proud Paper Official – is a crafts channel that shows the viewers how to fold origami shapes and planes from paper.

Social Blade (a social media statistics aggregator) says that they have nearly 5 million monthly viewers and earn as much as £12.9k per month from the videos.

Not bad for a channel that is seven years old but only has 77 videos uploaded.

Nail Art

Fingernail art is not a recent invention. The history of nail polish goes back over 5000 years, originating in ancient China. Today, nail art remains popular as ever.

The millions of potential combinations of colours and patterns mean there are always new nail designs you can demonstrate.

A nail art channel is ideal for top-down filming and only needs to show you applying the designs, plus a commentary explaining how to do it.

20 Nails is a channel that shows its viewers how to create all manner of nail art designs, from the simple to extravagant.

With 59 videos uploaded in just under a year, 20 Nails has built an audience of 288k subscribers. Social Blade says that they get 2.33 million views per month and earn as much as £6.1k monthly from the channel.

Drawing

Lots of people like to draw. Stephen Wiltshire, an autistic savant, can draw an entire cityscape from memory, and others struggle to make a stick figure look human.

Drawing is a skill, though, and can be learned with patience and practice. There are lots of people teaching the craft of drawing on YouTube using only the top-down camera shot.

Dan Beardshaw is one of those. Dan uploads short videos every couple of weeks demonstrating hints and tips on how to improve the different elements of drawing.

He has uploaded 167 videos over four years and has grown the channel to 361k subscribers. Social Blade says he has about half a million views per month and earns as much as £1.3k per month from advertising.

Dan also supplements this income with nearly 400 Patreon members and affiliate links to art materials in his video descriptions, so is likely earning a full-time income from the channel.

Cooking

Cooking is an awesome niche for using the top-down filming angle. And while numerous channels focus on top-down cooking videos, there is also never-ending demand.

We all like to eat tasty food, and many want to try new recipes or improve their cooking skills.

You may need to find a unique angle to stand out in the niche. But if you can find a way to make your videos compelling, there is no reason you can’t make a successful cooking channel.

You Suck At Cooking has 117 videos that doesn’t do anything revolutionary with the cooking recipes but inject a large dose of humour instead.

The production quality is good, and the videos are well-scripted, but nothing that you couldn’t produce yourself with a bit of thought and planning.

Social Blade says that the 5 million views per month the channel’s 117 videos receive, earn £13.4k per month in advertising revenue.

The channel also earns money from sales of a cookbook and associated merchandise.

DIY

If you’re handy about the home, then one idea you could choose for top-down filming is DIY videos. YouTube is often the first place people go to when they have a DIY problem and need a quick solution.

It could be a simple as wiring a plug, or more complicated like changing a tap. Whatever the problem, your videos could help people save money by preventing the need to hire in a handyperson.

There is an endless amount of small jobs you can make videos about. Plus you could approach the niche with a different frame of reference. For example, how about DIY videos for people who don’t have a box of tools?

Ultimate Handyman is a DIY channel that has over 800 videos covering all manner of DIY tasks from big to small. While he does have his face in the video thumbnails, most of his content is simply the camera filming his hands.

Social Blade puts Ultimate Handyman on 1.7 million monthly views and earning as much as £4.5k from advertising revenue in the same period.

Unboxing

Everyone likes a good unboxing video. The idea is a simple one; buy a new product, wait for delivery, then film yourself taking it out of the packaging.

You get bonus points (and more views and subscribers) if you can make the process compelling. It helps if you can show some expertise with your commentary. Rather than merely stating what something is, as you pull it out of the box.

The Relaxing End is one of the more successful unboxing channels. Part of their continued success is that they can afford to buy in (or have a big-enough audience to get sent for free) some of the latest high-end products that people dream about owning.

Apart from the high-end products, the channel’s unique attraction is their use of sound. The host appears too shy to speak as well as not showing his face. Instead, he makes the most of every slash of sellotape or squeak of polystyrene, as he unboxes the item.

The un-boxer also wears signature white gloves to add extra frills.

The Social Blade stats on this channel are impressive. With monthly channel views over 30 million, The Relaxing End pulls in as much as £78.8k per month in ad revenue.

TIP: Technology channels are some of the best earners on YouTube. The ad space is more expensive for advertisers to buy because of high competition for the slots.

If you want to get started on your own top-down videos, you need to make sure that you have some sort of rig to keep your phone and camera steady while filming. Check out Javier Mercedes’ video for how to film overhead shots.

Chest Down Video Ideas

A slight twist on the top-down video is having the camera facing you, but not showing your face in the shot. I’m calling these types of videos chest-down ideas. Let’s take a look at a couple of examples.

Cooking Part II

There are a significant number of cooking channels already doing top-down videos. To make your cooking channel stand out from the pack, why not try a different angle?

That’s what Binging with Babish chooses to do for his channel. The camera angle gives the impression you are sat in the kitchen with him, making the effect more homely. Yet you don’t see his face in the cooking videos.

Babish also has a theme for his cooking channel apart from the unusual camera angle; he recreates food found in TV and Movies. If you fancy some Pollos Hermanos from Breaking Bad or some Twin Peaks pancakes, head over to the channel for some mouth-watering videos.

As you can imagine the 7.82 million subscribers of the channel help Babish earn quite a bit ad revenue. Social Blade reckons the channel gets 58.63 million views and makes a tasty £152K, every month.

Household Hacks

A different spin on the DIY channel is short-and-sweet tips to help with day-to-day household chores. ‘Hacks’ has become the byword for ingenious tips that help people accomplish usually tiresome tasks.

Many of us often turn to YouTube, looking for a quick way to solve a problem. Get rid of Ants or spend less on groceries. Hacks help us improve our lives, so it’s not a niche that will disappear anytime soon.

Household Hacker makes short videos to demonstrate various hacks for the home, often making use of the chest-down camera shot.

Household Hacker has also branched out to demonstrating those silly products-you-never-knew-you-needed from the TV shopping channels.

Social Blade puts Household Hacker on 1.2 million views per month, which it says brings in the channel owner as much as £3.3k in advertising revenue. The channel also earns income from affiliate earnings for the TV products he reviews.

POV Video Ideas

So far, we have looked at top-down and chest-down filming without showing your face. But there is another angle you can use in your videos too. The POV – Point of View – camera shot.

This camera angle shows the audience the view from your eyes and guarantees keeping your face out of the frame.

Here are some ideas you can try for POV YouTube video ideas.

Restoration Videos

Do you have your own workshop? Handy with a belt-sander and happy to mix up some caustic chemicals? You could launch a channel to show you restoring old rusty tools and other whatnots to their original state.

It can be therapeutic for viewers to watch someone restore an item; I firmly believe that these types of videos are beneficial to people’s mental health too.

It’s a content type which is very popular on YouTube.

Awesome Restorations has 2.57 million subscribers and is one of the better channels in the restoration niche. Restoring an item can take some time, so if you choose the restoration niche, you might only be uploading a video every couple of weeks.

Awesome Restorations has built up their massive following in just over a year, and with only 38 videos.

Their work has paid off too. Social Blade puts them on 14.5 million monthly views and ad revenue earnings of £37.8k per month.

If you don’t want to go down the tool restoration route, there are plenty of other objects you can restore: vintage handbags, antique books, even early smartphones. Restoration is a hot niche and perfect for POV filming because the object of restoration, not you, is the star.

Stop Motion Animation

Stop motion animation is nearly as old as the invention of film itself—the earliest movie dated back to 1898 and was based on Humpty Dumpty. Stop motion is an animation technique where figures are animated by snapping a single frame, then moving the model ever so slightly and shooting the next frame.

As an animation medium, Stop Motion is still hugely popular today. The most well-known is the Wallace and Gromit series of films, which earned three Oscars in the 1990s and 2000s.

Michael Hickox Films is a stop motion animation YouTube channel that uses Lego for its animated characters.

The animated films are short, wholesome pieces that appeal to a broad audience – and it’s a large audience too.

With 1.47 million subscribers, Michael Hickox films have 3.86 million monthly views and earn as much as £10.1k per month.

POV Sports Channels

Thanks to GoPro cameras and associated body mounts, the popularity of filming outdoor activities is on the rise.

At one time, the only way you could understand what it was like to jump out of a plane or surf a twenty-foot wave, was to do it yourself. Now lots of activities are available for a broader audience to experience by viewing a POV video.

There are endless types of outdoor activities you can launch a YouTube channel about with a GoPro camera, chest rig, and perhaps a friend or two.

Ampisound is a channel that makes Parkour videos. Many of the Parkour runs are shot POV-style, placing the viewer at the heart of the action.

Ampisound only releases videos about every month or so, but the content resonates and has built an audience of 2.32 million subscribers.

What kind of YouTube channel could you launch using a GoPro camera filming from your point-of-view?

Maybe you could grow it as large as Ampisound and get nearly 7 million monthly views and pull in as much as £18k in ad revenue.

Driving Videos

There is nothing like hitting the open road, dropping the convertible roof, and admiring the scenery of the world’s best cities.

But not everyone can drive. And most people don’t live anywhere near the world’s nicest cities.

So, if you are one of the fortunate ones who does, then how about making videos of scenic drives and tours of famous locations?

J Utah is a channel that specialises in only POV videos of picturesque drives. From L.A. to Boston (and a few overseas), J Utah likes nothing more than mounting a 4K camera on the car and driving about.

You really wouldn’t think this idea would work – it’s just driving around for goodness sake! But it works. Perhaps people enjoy the content because it’s a familiar place to them, or maybe they want to live there one day.

Whatever the reason, the channel has built up 366K subscribers and has 5.4 million monthly views. Social Blade put the ad revenue for the channel as much as £14k per month.

Hairdressing

Hairdressing is perfect for a POV video channel, and Health and Beauty is one of the top niches on YouTube.

Now, some of the highest earners are in the makeup category, which by definition is a showing-your-face kind of gig. But there is an alternative for the shy. You can create videos that demonstrate hairstyling using a POV camera shot.

You will need a model to work on who won’t mind appearing on camera. But as you are showing mainly the back and side of the head, they won’t have too much face-time on camera.

There are hundreds of channels I could use as an example for this particular idea, so if you choose this niche, be prepared for stiff competition.

Making a big success of your channel would probably mean that you have found an angle that makes you stand out from all the rest. Perhaps you can be first with new, unusual hairstyles, or dazzle viewers with your humorous delivery.

Nina Starck makes videos about hair braiding. She is so good at braiding that she uses herself as a model, but never shows her face on the videos.

With only 38 videos, Nina has built a subscriber base of 149k people. She gets 650k views per month and earns as much as $1.7k in ad revenue for those viewers.

Conclusion

YouTube is an education and entertainment platform, and you don’t need to be a polished presenter to make some great money on the platform. If you can present content in a compelling, engaging way, it doesn’t matter if you show your face or not.

Most of the ideas mentioned above cover day to day human life; cooking, home hacks, shopping, beauty, sports, and hobbies. And can be filmed in a manner that doesn’t require you to show your face.

The star of the videos is whatever the camera is pointing at – that’s what the viewers will be interested in.

So don’t let your dislike of showing your face on camera prevent a channel you launch from becoming one of the next stars on YouTube.

If you need more ideas for your faceless youtube channel check out my blog where 1 give you 12 more youtube channel ideas you can do without showing your face!

Tags faceless, how to make videos without showing your face, make videos without your face, with no face, youtube with no face

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5 Best Tools for YouTube Channel Keyword Analysis

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 21 September 2020

YouTube might not be the first name that enters your mind when you try and guess who is the world’s second-biggest search engine.

But, when you learn that Youtube is owned by Google – the world’s biggest search engine – you won’t be surprised that keywords play a role in how videos rank on YouTube.

YouTube is so popular that 300 hours of video is uploaded the site every minute; way too much content for humans to watch and categorise. So, instead, YouTube uses the keywords in the video title and associated tags to help understand a video’s topic and rank it accordingly.

Keywords Are Important.

For SEO purposes then, you should choose the keywords you put in your title and tags carefully. Keywords could be the difference between success and failure for your video. It makes even more sense to perform keyword research first, before you plan and shoot your videos.

Understanding the content YouTube’s audience is searching for prevents you from wasting time making videos that no one wants to see.

But how do you find the hot keywords users are hunting for on YouTube?

There is no official keyword tool for YouTube like there is for Google Adwords with its Google Keyword Planner. But there are several third-party tools you can use to determine what is popular, and what topics should be left alone.

This post gives you five of the best YouTube keyword tools you can use to analyse the most searched youtube keywords. Some are free, and for some, you have to buy a subscription to access full functionality. Let’s jump into the list.

vidIQ

vidIQ is a free chrome extension which adds additional keyword analysis information directly on the page on the YouTube site. Search for any term, and the plugin displays keyword data on the right of the results, as shown below.

You can also toggle the plugin to display the tags used by the top ranking videos underneath each result.

You can use the data to determine if a keyword has potential for using in a video title and if it’s worthy of a topic to add to your content planner.

vidIQ provides an ‘overall score’ for each keyword, rating them out of 100 and declaring how hard it will be to rank for them.

But you’ll have to take them on their word for this metric, as we don’t know the scoring system they use. It’s best if you use the score as an indication, then make your final keyword choice after further research.

Ideally, you will want to find keywords with high-volume and low-competition. But in reality, most of the high-volume keywords will already have lots of videos competing for the traffic, and should only be attempted by well-established channels.

Newer channels will have to seek out medium to low competition keywords, with correspondingly low search volume.

vidIQ also shows you the top-performing channels for the keyword, so you can dig into their content to see what’s working for them. Also displayed, is a selection of related keywords, which may contain ones that may be more suitable for you to target.

Only three ‘related opportunities’ display with the free version of the plugin; if you take out a subscription, you get to access hundreds more.

Video Tags

Underneath each video, you can toggle the display of the tags used by a video. You can use them for inspiration for other keywords, or steal them outright to use in your video with a one-click copy to clipboard.

Once you select a video from the results, vidIQ provides further information about the video and channel; daily views, country of origin and even displays the channel’s tags. So you can reverse-engineer a whole channel if you wish.

viqIQ provides plenty of helpful keyword suggestions for free, but so much more with a paid subscription. A monthly subscription of $7.50 gets you access to their full keyword research tool.

Google Trends

Google Trends is a free Google tool that shows the popularity of a topic over time. While it doesn’t show keyword volume, it is nevertheless helpful in narrowing down subjects for your video ideas.

Enter in any keyword, and the tool displays a graph showing the popularity of the keyword over the last 12 months. Here is an example using the keyword ‘selfie stick’.

A scale between 0 and 100 is used to rate the search term, so you can see at which times of the year a topic peaks in popularity. Knowing when a subject is most searched for can help you time the release of your content.

You can see in the result above that interest in selfie sticks peaks just before Christmas. So if you were to review the top selfie sticks, it might be a good idea to plan your video for release in late September.

Before you commit to any topic, look at more than 12 months of data. From the drop-down menu, select ‘Past 5 years’.

Oh no! It looks like the selfie stick craze peaked in 2016 – perhaps this is not such a good content idea for a video.

Google Trends also allows you to compare keywords to see which one is more popular. If you have two keywords that you are considering making a video for but can’t decide which one to go with, enter both terms.

The resulting graph shows you which is the most popular, and the peaks can help you time the video release.

You can also change the filter to show data from YouTube.

Google Trends also provides other related topics and keyword ideas for your seed keyword at the foot of the page.

Avoid using Google Trends as the only tool you use for keyword research – there is no indication of the number of people searching for the keyword. So it’s best used to compare topic ideas and time you release of content.

YouTube Autocomplete / Keyword.io

An excellent way to analyse keywords and identify content topics is by using the autocomplete results from YouTube itself. Start typing any words in the YouTube search bar, and a pop-down menu appears containing helpful suggestions.

It’s a typical search engine feature, designed to speed up the browsing process by ‘guessing’ what the viewer is searching for. It’s not a bad way to harvest keyword suggestions for video creators either!

In the example below, you can see the autocomplete keywords displayed in a pop-down menu for the broad term ‘pancakes’. Because YouTube wants to be a useful site, it only shows keywords that are relevant and will answer the searcher’s query.

YouTube is giving you keyword ideas that users are actively searching for.

I’ve underlined some long-tail keywords in the example below, which could easily be the topic of a video.

While a free method of performing keyword analysis for YouTube, it can be a lengthy process to harvest a bunch of ideas. Also, once you have your keyword list, you then need to check them individually using another tool like vidIQ.

Keyword.io is a tool that automates the process of harvesting keyword ideas from autocomplete search boxes. It covers more than just YouTube and Google, and scrapes autocomplete keyword data from other major search engines, as shown below.

Typing the same seed keyword of ‘pancakes’ into keyword.io and selecting the YouTube option returns 939 keyword ideas to analyse further.

The free version of keyword.io only gives you keyword suggestions. To find out more information on the keywords, like average monthly search, you need to take out a subscription to their pro account. Alternatively, you can run them through another keyword tool that you have access to.

Understanding the average monthly search volumes can help you pick popular keywords and topics for your YouTube video content plan. Here is the sort of information the pro account grants access to.

Current pricing is $29 per month for a personal account. You could signup and do a mammoth keyword research session for your channel, so you’d only need to pay for a single month.

Morning Fame

Morning Fame is a Youtubers tool that links directly with your YouTube account. It provides enhanced analytics of your existing videos and suggests keywords it thinks you have a chance to rank for.

As we’re talking about keywords here today, I’ll skip the analytics part of Morning Fame and focus only on the keyword research capabilities.

Like most keyword tools, you can start by entering a seed keyword to work from. But Morning Fame has an alternative possibility as well. You can paste in any video URL from YouTube, and it will suggest keywords based on the topic of that video.

On the next screen Morning Fame presents it’s keyword suggestions in a unique and helpful way. It divides them into two lists based on the competitiveness of the keywords; one list it considers suitable for larger established channels; the other more appropriate for smaller channels.

If you are just getting started with your YouTube channel, then trying to rank for ultra-competitive keywords is likely to end in frustration. It’s unusual for a new channel to rank for popular keywords quickly, because of the way the YouTube ranking algorithm works. Your channel simply won’t have the sufficient authority that YouTube demands.

So a list for small channels, where you can compete for initial views and start to grow your channel, is a great feature.

When you select a keyword from the list, it goes to the next screen and displays a further analysis of the term. You can see in the screen below, that while the keyword scores an ‘A’ for relevance, it rates an ‘E’ for views, which means its a low-traffic keyword – probably best to try another suggestion.

At the time of writing, Morning Fame is still in the early days post-launch. Access to the tool is by invite-only, but if you hunt around on Google, you should be able to find an invite. Look for reviews of Morning Fame on blogs and on YouTube itself.

Ahrefs Keyword Explorer

If you want to really get under the hood of YouTube and perform detailed keyword analysis for your channel, then you need to pay for one of the professional-grade keyword tools like Ahrefs. Used by many content creators, it is frequently rated in the top 5 of all SEO tools.

Ahrefs has a database of 841 million YouTube keywords. So whatever your channel niche, you are likely to find many keywords you can target.

To get started, enter your seed keyword, select ‘YouTube’, and choose target country.

The tool returns the total search volume for the keyword, indicates how often people click a video after using the keyword, and provides suggestions for alternative keywords.

So far, so good. But Ahrefs true capabilities are shown in the variety of additional keywords it provides using the phrase match option. This feature returns all the keywords from their database, which include your seed word.

The phrase-match results page for the seed word ‘pancakes’ has nearly 13,000 results. Along with the search volume for each keyword, you also get the number of resulting clicks after entering that keyword.

This helps you to target keywords which attract a higher percentage of clicks. Click-thru rate is a crucial metric in YouTube analytics, and also plays a part in how YouTube ranks videos. So it makes sense for you to target keywords which have the best chance of getting a click.

You can also use filters to narrow down large lists quickly.

Ahrefs is one of the best keyword tools on the market, but it comes with a hefty price tag. Plans start at $99 per month. However, you can stop your subscription at any time and restart it when you need it. Additionally, there is a one-off trial where you have access to the software for seven days for $7. Use it wisely.

Conclusion.

Well, that wraps up this overview of tools you can use to analyse keywords for your YouTube channel. It’s worth reminding yourself when you plan your videos that YouTube is a search engine, just like Google.

The keywords you choose for your video title and tags can be easy or extremely difficult to rank for, and all the stops in-between.

Give your channel the best chance you can, by performing keyword analysis first with some of the above tools. If you want a helping hand, then contact me to arrange a consultancy call to help find the best keywords for your YouTube channel.

Tags 10 small youtuber growth tips, best tools, google trends, morning fame youtube, morningfame, tubebuddy, youtube tools, youtuber tools

DEEP DIVE ARTICLE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

YouTube Tips for Parents

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 15 September 2020

YouTube has had its fair share of horror stories over the years when it comes to dubious content and impressionable children.

Whether it’s sinister hoaxes like the Momo Challenge, which turned out to be completely fake, or incidents like children eating dishwasher detergent, which was very real, there is seemingly never a shortage of reasons for parents to worry about their children’s online presence.

Add to this the general fear of child grooming that has been around since the early days of the Internet, and even relatively minor issues, by comparison, such age-inappropriate content, and it is easy to see why parents might be reluctant to let their children roam free through the pages of YouTube without supervision.

That being said, you can only watch your children’s activities so much. And, while it may be possible to supervise their every move early on in life, there comes a time where it is not feasible to keep an eye on them all of the time without seriously limiting their freedom.

Of course, we can’t guide in general parenting—that’s not what this blog is about—but we can give you advice specifically as it pertains to your children and YouTube.

YouTube’s Policy on Children

Largely thanks to regulatory intervention, YouTube is quite strict about not allowing children unfettered access to their platform. Even to the point that if you register a children’s account (more on that later), YouTube will not allow that account to access the full YouTube service even if you, the parent, want to enable it.

YouTube’s terms of service state that you have to be over thirteen years of age to have a full YouTube account that can access the regular service, rather than YouTube Kids—a moderated version of YouTube. Furthermore, children under thirteen cannot upload videos to the platform.

That being said, YouTube does not demand proof of identity when you sign up for an account, so there is nothing to stop you or your child from creating a YouTube account and lying in the age field.

Still, for a concerned parent, it can help to know that, if you aren’t lying in the age field, YouTube actually does a lot to protect your children. Whether they do enough to protect your children is a judgement only you can make, but they certainly take a good deal of the burden off of you when it comes to moderating what your child watches.

“Made For Kids” Content

Primarily due to the regulations we hinted at above, YouTube is very proactive when it comes to content that is made for children, regardless of who made the content or whether it is declared as made for kids by the uploader.

The main difference with Made For Kids content is that the selection of advertisements that can be served around this content is considerably more restricted.

This is partly due to the fact that YouTube is required to not store personal data for children, which deters many advertisers because they want to target their ads at specific demographics, which can’t be done if you have no information about the viewer.

Of course, there is also the fact that some advertisements are not suitable for a young audience, which further reduces the pool of advertisements that can be played to children.

It is worth reiterating that these rules apply to any videos that YouTube deems to be made for children. Granted, most of the time, they will know this because the uploader declares that it is made for children, but in some cases, YouTube will decide themselves, regardless of what the uploader says.

Things to Look Out For

It’s not hard to find YouTube tips for parents articles that cover the obvious things; violence, sexual content, and generally inappropriate topics.

These are, we feel, quite obvious, and nothing new. Parents have had to be mindful of their children watching inappropriate content since the 1970s, and it is something we are very culturally aware of today.

So we thought we’d go over some of the less obvious—and more uniquely YouTube—things to be mindful of as a parent.

Envy and Depression

Social media, in general, has brought with it a host of new challenges for society. Perhaps one of the least expected of these challenges is depression as a result of envy caused by continually seeing the glossy lives of online personalities.

This phenomenon may be more associated with platforms like Facebook and Instagram, but the premise is no less applicable to YouTube. Essentially, your children see the seemingly perfect lives of their favourite YouTubers day in, day out, and begin to feel depressed that their life is not as good.

In these cases, it is important to stress to your child that what they see on YouTube, even in seemingly honest and personal vlogs, is not necessarily representative of real life. In much the same way that you should explain to your child that Spider-Man is not a documentary, and they shouldn’t try to swing from the roof, you should explain to them that the videos they see on YouTube are crafted, and only show what the YouTuber wants them to show.

Nobody’s life is perfect.

Unrealistic Expectations

There is a whole niche on YouTube dedicated to children opening packages and demoing toys, which is very popular because children love to see new toys.

Of course, toy commercials have been around for decades, and children seeing a shiny new toy on the television and wanting that toy is nothing new, but it’s a little different on YouTube.

The problem is that these videos typically feature children opening and playing with the toys. To make matters worse, the channels that produce this kind of content are often families and shoot the videos as though their children are getting this unending stream of new toys as part of their everyday life.

Unlike the commercials we mentioned, this can create an expectation in your child that this is how things are. After all, they are not watching an advertisement, but a child just like them, seemingly living their life. It’s only natural for your child to wonder why their life is not full of new toys in exciting hiding places every day.

Again, the trick to avoiding this is to talk to your child and make sure they understand that videos like this are made for entertainment value, and not just filmed during someone’s average day. Many of these channels donate the toys they feature, so be sure to explain that as well.

Current Events

This one is a little subjective in that different parents will have different views on whether it is a cause for concern or not.

YouTube features plenty of current events in the form of news reports, commentary, and other formats. It is safe to say that the world has not been a particularly happy place in recent years, and with the light of social media shining into every crevice of the world lately, there will always be plenty of negativity to make YouTube videos about.

Being a parent is all about striking balances, and this is one of those times. Where the right balance lies between sheltering your child from the world entirely and over-exposing them to it for you is a judgement you will have to make as a parent.

We are merely warning you that there is a lot of current events content on YouTube, and with the state of the world lately, your child could well be exposed to far more negativity than you would like.

“Challenges”

Technically this would fall under those obvious examples we mentioned above—children have been getting injured trying to recreate stunts they have seen on television for as long as there has been television. Still, in light of the uniquely Internet threats that platforms like YouTube have been witness to, it is worth mentioning this one.

Sometimes through malicious intent, sometimes through pure stupidity, Internet “challenges” crop up on a semi-regular basis. These challenges involve people—often children—filming themselves performing some action that can be dangerous to their wellbeing.

These kinds of challenges started harmlessly enough, with things like planking in strange places, doing a particular dance, or eating a spoonful of cinnamon. The Ice Bucket challenge that stormed the Internet is an example of this kind of challenge that actually did some good in the world, raising a lot of money for charity. Unfortunately, as is often the case with dares—which is essentially what Internet challenges are—things tend to escalate. More recent challenges have involved attempting to eat corn on the cob using power tools, and the detergent-eating incident we mentioned above.

The corn on a cob challenge naturally led to several injuries, and the problem with the detergent incident shouldn’t need explaining here.

YouTube Tips for Parents

Being aware of the dangers YouTube can present for your children is only part of the battle—you also need to know how to combat them. Every parent handles things their own way, and, abusive behaviour aside, it is not for us to say who is right in their parenting methods.

That being said, here are some approaches to take with your children to help keep them safe on YouTube, and you can make your own informed decisions as a parent.

And, just to address it, preventing your child from watching YouTube at all is obviously an option, but this is a blog about YouTube, so we’ll be sticking to methods that involve your child still watching YouTube.

Talk to Your Child

One of the most obvious ways to protect your child from many things in life, not just YouTube, is education.

Take curse words as an example. The chances are, you will never be able to prevent your child from hearing curse words, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It is not your children knowing those words that are the problem; it is them saying them.

If you can educate your child to learn not to use inappropriate words, you don’t need to worry about them occasionally hearing one.

YouTube can be approached similarly. Properly educating your child on things like YouTuber’s lives not being as perfect as they look on screen, and not doing dangerous things just because a YouTuber “challenged” you to, will significantly reduce the causes for concern when your child watches YouTube.

Set up a Children’s Account

Google allows you to create accounts for your children that are restricted in several ways to prevent your children from seeing content they shouldn’t be seeing.

One of the main ways it limits YouTube is by preventing access from that account to the full YouTube platform, instead of taking them to the YouTube Kids platform. It is worth noting that the YouTube Kids platform is not available in-browser, so your child will not be able to watch YouTube on a full computer. They will be able to watch it on a phone or tablet, of course.

This account will automatically convert to a full account when your child turns thirteen, so be sure to put the correct date in. It’s also worth reiterating that you cannot choose to allow your child full access to YouTube. The only way a child’s account can access the full platform is if that child turns thirteen.

Create a Family Account

The overly restrictive nature of YouTube children’s accounts may be perfect for younger children, but many parents feel it is too restrictive for older children of around ten years old and up. Still, that doesn’t mean they’re ready to give their children the keys to the Internet.

In these cases, consider creating a single YouTube account that is used by the whole family.

This will allow you to keep tabs on what your child is watching while still allowing them more freedom to access YouTube.

Disable Comments

One of the worst parts of YouTube from a mental health standpoint is the comments.

YouTube automatically disable comments on videos made for children, but you can also choose to disable them on any video you upload. If your child starts uploading content—either contributing to an adult-run channel or running their own channel after they have turned thirteen—consider disabling the comments if YouTube doesn’t do it for you.

Much of the negativity on the platform comes from the comments section, and there is little to be gained from exposing your child that.

Tags 10 youtube tips for beginners, child safety, coppa, how to start a youtube channel, how to start youtube as a parent, youtube for parents, youtube tips for parents

TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

How to Group Videos on YouTube

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 13 September 2020

Grouping videos together is a great way to make it easier for your viewers to find the content they want when looking through your channel.

It is especially useful for channels that have a number of different “series” or types of video. It is always preferable to have a focussed niche to direct your content at, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create even more focussed sub-niches.

An example of this might be a cooking channel that occasionally does videos on how to make great meals at very little cost, while also sometimes doing videos on food from a specific region. Both of those types of video would be fine on a cooking channel, but grouping them off with other videos of the same kind can make it much easier for viewers to get to the content they want.

What is Grouping Videos on YouTube?

Though “grouping” is the aptest and most natural name for what we are discussing, there is no “group” function on the platform.

There are, however, two ways in which you can group videos on YouTube, and those are Playlists and Sections.

Sections

Sections apply to your channel page and allow you to group individual videos or playlists together in one section with a header. There are also some dynamic options here, such as “Most Popular”, and “Uploaded”, which will update themselves automatically.

Sections are useful because a viewer who stumbles across one of your videos, likes what they see, and wants to see more will most likely head to your channel next to find it.

If the video they liked is part of a series of similar videos, having that series in a clearly defined section right there on the channel page will save them a lot of time.

Playlists

Playlists are perhaps the more useful of the two grouping options. For one thing, sections on your channel page can be playlists. In other words, if you are going to group a collection of videos to display on your channel page, it would be a better use of your time to group them into a playlist and create a section for that playlist.

That way, you still get a channel section, but you also have it available in playlist form should you need it. And, any updates to the playlist will automatically be applied to the section, since the section is just showing the contents of that playlist.

The main reason to put videos into playlists, however, is autoplay. When a viewer watches a YouTube video to the end, YouTube endeavours to show them something they will be interested in next. And, if the viewer doesn’t click away or select a video of their own choice, YouTube will auto-play the video they have chosen. If a viewer is watching a playlist, however, the next video in the playlist will be auto-played.

For a step by step guide on how to make a playlist on YouTube (with pictures) then check out my blog for all the super secret tweaks that will get you more views.

Advantages

For new viewers who take the step of going to your channel, or who have watched one of your videos to the very end and may be interested in more, being able to find what it is they are looking for easily can be the difference between them becoming new subscribers, and drifting away never to return.

Capturing someone’s attention is relatively easy compared to retention, so you should do everything in your power to reduce the amount of effort new viewers have to put in to get to the content they want on your channel.

Why Group Videos?

It’s one thing knowing how to group videos on YouTube, but why?

We’ve already touched on the fact that it doesn’t take much for a new viewer to wander away from your channel, even if they really liked the video that brought them there in the first place.

There are other reasons why grouping content is good for your channel, however.

For example; as much as we’d like for our viewers to want to watch every bit of content we put out, the unfortunate reality is that they don’t. Even in the case of personality-based channels—where the majority of the audience is there to see the YouTuber regardless of what video is actually about—there will still be viewers who see a particular type of video and decide they would rather give it a miss.

You can’t please everybody all of the time.

But you can make your viewers’ experience in consuming your content as frictionless as possible, and grouping videos is one of the best ways to do that. It allows them to easily find the series or video type they are looking for. And if they have come to a series video that is in a playlist, they won’t even need to leave the video page to get to the next one in the series.

You are not limited to custom groupings and playlists, however. You can create sections for things like upcoming live streams, most popular videos, and, of course, your most recently uploaded videos.

Each of these sections comes with a header to make it clear to your viewers what they are getting, and they can click through to see more content from that grouping.

You can also create a section of playlists, which would come in handy if you have a lot of different series and do not want to clutter your channel page with lots of different sections for each one.

How to Create Sections on Your Channel

Creating sections is extremely simple. Simply head over to your channel page (making sure you are logged in) and click on the “Customize Channel” button which should be up near the top right of the page.

You will be taken to what might at first look like your regular channel page, but if you look closely, you should see that the different sections of your channel have a little edit icon (the one that looks like a pen) in the corner when you hover over them.

Clicking on this will allow you to change the details of that particular section.

Next to the edit icon, there should be an arrow—or arrows—that allow you to slide that section up or down your page.

The part we are interested in the most, however, is at the bottom of your channel customisation page.

Down there you should find an “add section” button, which you will need to click if you want to add a new section.

The options you have are;

Popular Uploads
Uploads
Live Now
Upcoming Live Streams
Past Live Streams
Created Playlists
Single Playlists
Saved Playlists
Multiple Playlists
Subscriptions
Custom Groupings

For the most part, these are pretty self-explanatory, though some of them may need expanding on a little, so we’ll go through each of them now.

Popular Uploads

Based on views, this section will show your most successful videos so far. This can be handy for YouTubers who want to showcase their finest work… assuming your most-viewed videos are your finest work, that is.

This section will automatically change based on your live viewing figures.

So, if you land yourself a viral hit that races ahead of your other videos in terms of view count, it will jump to the top the queue in this section.

Uploads

Another way to think of this section would be “Latest Videos”. The uploads section just shows the most recently uploaded videos on your channel.

Like popular uploads, it updates itself automatically whenever you put out a new video. YouTubers tend to have a range of opinions on showing this section on your channel.

Some YouTubers feel you should always show your latest videos straight away, while others feel you should curate the content on your channel page—only showing the best examples of your work. This topic is one of those “no right or wrong” situations.

For example, if you are a current events channel, there would be no sense in not showing your latest videos, since viewers would only be interested in the most recent content. If you were a tutorial channel, however, it would make more sense to group your videos into playlists and show that on the channel page.

Live Now

This section will show any live content that is currently streaming.

As you might have guessed, this section is really only suitable for channels that stream a lot.

That being said, empty sections do not show up on your channel, so there’s no harm in putting the section there as it will only be visible when you have live content to show.

Upcoming Live Streams

If you do not live stream, you may not be aware that you can schedule streams in advance.

This not only gives you a page to link to, as well as setting the date with your subscribers, but it will also show up on your channel.

The upcoming live streams section will show only scheduled live streams, not streams that are live now, and not live streams that have ended. If you have no live streams scheduled, the section will not show up.

Past Live Streams

This section, as the name suggests, shows live streams that have already been broadcast. It will take some time for a stream to be processed by YouTube, and the video won’t appear in places like this section until that has been completed.

Depending on the length of the stream, it can take anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour or two for processing to be complete.

Whether or not you place this section on your channel page will mainly be down to the viewing habits of your viewers. If streams are the primary content of your channel, you should put them front and centre with this section.

If streams are just something you do as a little extra content for your viewers, it may be better to leave this section off the channel page and dedicate more space to the videos that are the primary content of your channel.

Created Playlists

This section will display the playlists that you have created. This is an ideal section to bring together all of your video series’ in one place, as it will dynamically update with new playlists whenever you create them.

It will contain any playlists you create that are public, however. That includes playlists of other people’s videos.

So, if you have a playlist of your favourite YouTube musicians, be sure to make it private if you don’t want it showing up in this section.

Single Playlists

This is a particularly useful section, as it shows the videos from within the selected playlist, and it updates automatically when new videos are added to that playlist.

If you have a few popular series’, you might want to give them each a single playlist section on your channel page so that they can be easily found by your viewers.

Saved Playlists

On YouTube, you have the option to save playlists created by other people, allowing you to easily find that playlist at a later date.

With this section, you can display all of your saved playlists so that others can view them as well.

This can be very useful if you find playlists that form great companion pieces to your own content.

Multiple Playlists

A multiple playlist section will show any playlists you tell it to, whether from your own channel or anywhere else on YouTube.

As long as the playlist is public, you can add it here. This is not a dynamic section, however, and you will have to manually update it with any additional playlists you want adding.

Subscriptions

In order for this section to display anything, your subscriptions must be set to public.

When it is, this section will display the latest channels you have subscribed to.

If you decide to have this section on your channel, we would recommend only subscribing to channels that may be useful to your viewers from that account and setting up a separate account for personal interests.

Custom Groupings

Custom groupings allow you to create a section of channels.

This can be handy for highlighted related channels, shouting out channels you like, and even promotional purposes if you are a more significant channel looking to help out smaller channels.

This section is static and will need updating manually with new entries.

Unlisted Videos

A quick note on unlisted videos.

Typically, if you post something unlisted, you don’t want it to be accessible unless you give someone the link.

If you an unlisted video into a playlist, however, it will show up in for anyone looking at that playlist—just a little something to bear in mind.

Tags group videos, groups, playlists, youtube groups, youtube playlists

DEEP DIVE ARTICLE HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

How to Make Money on YouTube as a Gamer

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 12 September 2020

Of all the niches that video streaming platforms like YouTube have either created or allowed to flourish, few can boast as much unprecedented growth as gaming.

Twitch may be the first name that comes to mind when you think about making gaming video content, but it is only very recently that YouTube began to compete with Twitch in the live streaming arena directly.

Even before that, YouTube acted as an excellent complementary platform for Twitch streamers to put highlight videos out on. Now, of course, YouTube is making moves of their own in the streaming world, which only increases the number of ways you can make money with gaming content on the platform.

The truth is, there are many ways to make money as a gaming YouTuber. Sponsorship, affiliate marketing, live stream super chats, superstickers, YouTube premieres, donations and directly selling services like direct gaming advice or multiplayer games where you join their fireteam in a co-op game – and even a few ways to make money on YouTube with gaming content if you aren’t a gamer.

This post will cover more than just video ideas for gaming content. There are some interesting legal question marks over this niche that deserve mention.

So keep reading as we explore how to make money on YouTube as a gamer.

Affiliate marketing is one of the most powerful tools for any budding YouTuber or Twitch gamer looking to make money online but it an be full of jargon. That is why I wrote a deep dive into affiliate marketing for beginners to help you wade through all the confusing words and get you on the path to making money online fast – without any need to buy silly expensive courses.

Gaming Content and Monetisation

If you intend to make Let’s Play style videos, there is a question of rights ownership that may affect your ability to make money from your content. YouTube has its own policy on software and video game content, which essentially boil down to it being fine to monetise as long as there is commentary and instructional value that is associate with the video.

All of that is a wordy way of saying you can’t just have an hour of video game footage playing while you talk about something unrelated to the game, or don’t talk at all.

You won’t be prevented from making this kind of content, of course, but YouTube may demonetise it, which will put a major roadblock in your efforts to make money as a YouTube gamer.

The other thing to note in the legal realm of YouTube gaming is the policies of the companies behind the games themselves. Though they have since eased up on their draconian approach to gaming content, Nintendo has been an example of this for some time.

This is because they would routinely claim videos of their games through YouTube’s Content ID system, claiming the revenue those videos made.

Since then, Nintendo has adopted a more fan-friendly approach, instead issuing a set of guidelines that state more or less what YouTube’s own policies state—that you have to add commentary or creative input to the content. If you want to just upload straight video of Nintendo games, you have to do it using Nintendo’s own tools.

That being said, it is worth noting that Nintendo chose to soften their stance on this after negative feedback, but there is no legal impetus for them to do so, and nothing to stop them from going back to a more hostile approach in the future.

Of course, there are more than just the Nintendos, Sonys, and Microsofts of the world.

The Internet has fostered a vibrant independent game development scene, and many of the developers and publishers in that scene are more than happy to let YouTubers make content using their games as it brings more exposure to their product.

An excellent example of this can be found at Devolver Digital, a small game development studio who actively encourage people to make content using their games, and even have a page on their site where you can enter your channel name to get written permission.

Choosing Which Games to Make Content Around

Once you’ve made peace with the various legal hurdles surrounding intellectual property, there is the small matter of what kind of content you intend to make.

There are plenty of different types of gaming video you can make, and we’re going to list a lot of them shortly, including examples of each.

As with any attempt to create regular content—especially if you intend to make money from it, one of the best things you can do is play to your strengths. It will not only produce better content, but it will also make your life more comfortable since it is always less work to do something you are good at than it is to do something you struggle with.

As an example, let’s consider a personality-based YouTube gaming channel. This is a channel where the YouTuber themself is what draws the views because the subscribers like to watch that person specifically. With a channel like this, the YouTuber could theoretically play anything they wanted, and the views would still roll in.

But by playing to their strengths, they can make better content and attract more views than just those diehard fans who will tune in for anything.

Two examples we have picked out are PewDiePie and DrDisRespect. Both of these YouTubers are incredibly popular, and could probably make a video of them eating a sandwich and still get millions of views. Despite this, they have clear strengths in the video game niche.

For PewDiePie’s part, he greatly enhanced his popularity by playing horror games. It was his comical reactions to jump scares and tense moments that pushed his channel into the upper echelons of YouTube during his early days of making videos, something that he would not have been able to reproduce with a different genre of game.

This stage of PewDiePie’s YouTube career is an excellent example of playing to your strengths, as PewDiePie started out making video game commentaries, but it wasn’t until he started making horror game videos that his channel really took off.

In the case of DrDisRespect, as his name suggests, his gimmick is being disrespectful. Now, while he could be disrespectful while playing a casual, friendly game like Animal Crossing, it wouldn’t have quite the same impact as it does while playing competitive multiplayer shooters. DrDisRespect, for all his gimmicks, is a very good gamer and has plenty of opportunities to boast during his playthroughs.

There may be a bit of trial and error in finding your strengths, but it is a worthy goal to achieve, especially when you are just starting out.

Who knows, maybe PewDiePie would have just been another successful YouTuber with a few million followers had he not started making horror game videos, rather than the most successful individual YouTuber in the history of the platform.

Different Types of Gaming Content

Before you can play to your strengths, you need to know what kind of content there is a market for. Of course, it’s worth noting that there will always be rewards for those who can think outside of the box and be successful because of it.

What we are about to list are established types of gaming content with proven popularity. We are not saying these are the only options if you want to make gaming content.

Unfortunately, if you want to blaze new trails, you will be on your own on that journey. After all, it wouldn’t be trailblazing if there was a post like this one telling you how to do it!

Straight Playthroughs

These are the kinds of videos that companies like Nintendo won’t allow you to monetise, so you will have to think carefully about what games you intend to make your videos around if you choose this path.

With a platform as big as YouTube, there is an audience for just about everything, including watching games being played. Sometimes it is merely a desire to watch the narrative in some of the more cinematic games, other times it is a gamer wanting to see parts of the game they missed but are not prepared to play the game again. With enormous open-world games like Fallout 4 and Grand Theft Auto V, it is easy to miss a lot of the content available to you. It can even be people who can’t play a particular game for one reason or another but still want to see it.

If you choose this style of gaming video, you will want to make sure you are offering something to the viewer. If you are showing the cinematics, don’t have 3 hours of regular gameplay in between.

Gameplay With Commentary

You may have seen these videos labelled as Let’s Play videos in the past. These videos involve the YouTuber playing through a game while talking about it. Videos like this will often have the YouTuber’s face in the video so the viewers can see their reactions.

This is by far the most popular kind of gaming content on YouTube, and both of the above examples of PewDiePie and DrDisRespect fall into this category.

Speedruns

If you are a particularly talented gamer, there is a whole niche around the ability to complete video games as quickly as possible. There is no limitation in terms of the game, with everything from retro platformers to huge open-world role-playing games being completed in ludicrously short spaces of time.

One example of this kind of channel can be found in GarishGoblin, who may not have that many subscribers, but has been able to amass millions of views with various speedruns in the Halo franchise.

Comedy Videos

Comedy gaming videos can come in several forms. One of the more famous examples is Red Vs Blue, a series on the Rooster Teeth Animation channel that features comedy sketches acted out using the Halo video game franchise.

Another example is SovietWomble, who creates highlight videos from his streams, often with humorous edits and effects to enhance the final product.

These types of videos are considerably more work in terms of editing when compared to something like a commentary video. On the other hand, they require less skill at actual gaming, which makes them an excellent option for people who enjoy gaming but aren’t necessarily that good at it.

Update Videos

Update videos could take the form of a general roundup of gaming news; however, that would be a competitive niche to enter, and one that would contain several media outlets. Success may be more attainable with a model like that employed by the YouTuber, ShadowFrax.

ShadowFrax makes videos detailing the latest updates surrounding the game, Rust, an open-world multiplayer survival game that is continually getting new content and updates from the developers. T

here are hundreds of popular games in active development, and finding one that you like and focusing your content on that could be an excellent way to create gaming content.

How to Make Games

This option is a little less attainable for your average YouTuber, but if you have the ability, making videos on how to make certain popular games may be a good option, as demonstrated by small YouTuber, b3agz, whose videos on how to make Minecraft and 7 Days to Die have amassed hundreds of thousands of views despite only having a few thousand subscribers.

Of course, you don’t necessarily need to create full step-by-step tutorials in the way that b3agz does; you could make videos analysing game mechanics, or talking about the methods behind certain aspects of the game. There has never been a better time to be providing resources for game developers, with game development being more popular now than at any point in its history.

How to Make Money on YouTube as a Gamer Conclusions

Ultimately, the key to making money on YouTube as a gamer—or as anything else, for that matter—is to make good content that people want to watch.

Granted, you must navigate the hurdles we mentioned above regarding intellectual property rights, but once you have done that, the first thing you should be focussing on is your content.

If you make good content, your chances of succeeding on YouTube—and making money as a result of that success—will be significantly improved. And, while we can’t guarantee a good video will make you money, we can say with confidence that a lousy video won’t make you money.

Or, perhaps more accurately, it could make you money, but it will be a short term thing that could damage your earning potential in the long run, as your channel will get a reputation for poor content, both in the eyes of the viewers and of YouTube itself.

Tags affiliate marketing, gamer, gaming, make money, make money as a gamer, make money gaming, make money gaming on youtube, make money on twitch, make money on youtube, money, twitch

HOW TO GET MORE VIEWS ON YOUTUBE HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

What is YouTube Premiere?

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 10 September 2020
1 Comment on What is YouTube Premiere?

In the competitive world of YouTube, getting viewer attention is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome.

Even when you have an established audience, most of your subscribers will still probably have dozens—perhaps hundreds—of other channels that they are subscribed to.

The unfortunate result of this is that, even though they are subscribed to you, your latest videos could get lost in the shuffle depending on what else is being released at a similar time. And with 500 hours of new content being uploaded every minute, there is always something else being released at a similar time.

“Ringing the bell”—clicking on the notifications icon—can help to get your videos into your subscriber’s feeds, but even that might not do the trick if your subscribers have notifications turned on for several other YouTubers.

YouTube Premieres are another tool in your arsenal when it comes to getting attention for your videos, but what is a YouTube Premiere?

A YouTube Premiere is a mini live stream of a newly published youtube video. Unlike normal scheduled videos a Premiere has a countdown before it starts, a live chat feature to interact with the content creator and an opportunity to gain some income as a creator with super chats.

By essentially announcing your video ahead of time and giving it a landing page, there is more time for your upcoming video to find its way into people’s feeds and consciousness. We’re going to take a deep dive into how Premieres work, why you need them, and how best to use them.

How YouTube Premieres Work

Being able to answer the question of what is a YouTube Premiere is only part of the battle; you still need to know how to use it! When you upload a new video, you can hit publish immediately and put it out to the world. If you are planning a little further ahead, you might keep it private for a little while.

Keeping videos private to start with is a useful tool because it means your video will be fully processed when you do make it public, and it means you will have a link for your video ready to go when you do make it public. But as useful as this method is, your viewers will still not be aware of it until it goes live.

If you have a strong social media following, you could always drum up interest for your upcoming video on places like Twitter and Facebook, but the effectiveness of even that is dubious when there is no immediate link to share.

Unfortunately, people tend to be a bit flaky about remembering things like that unless they are diehard fans.

A good way to look at a YouTube Premiere is as a way of uploading your video privately while giving it a landing page that you can link to. The landing page will look like a regular YouTube video page minus the actual video and will let your viewers know how long they have to wait for the video to premiere.

The page will also feature a chat window, allowing your viewers to socialise with each other while they wait for the video to premiere.

Perhaps most importantly, however, there is an option to set a reminder for the premiere time, which circumvents that pesky habit we humans have of mentally making plans and forgetting to follow through with them.

Premieres are especially useful for YouTuber’s whose videos have a limited shelf life. If your content is evergreen—meaning it maintains relevance for a long time after its initial upload date—getting viewers through the door on day one is not as important. If you are making content that is very much current, such as gossip videos, news commentary, or even personal vlogs, you want to get as many eyeballs on the video at release time as possible. Think about from the perspective of a viewer. If a current events video from three days ago pops up in your feed, you are much less likely to click on it—unless that channel was your only source of news—since the content of the video will already be out of date.

Another feature of YouTube Premieres is the fact that the video plays like a live stream when it does go public. Until the video has been premiered, viewers will not be able to skip forward beyond the point where the video has reached so far.

This helps to create more of a sense of an event, rather than just a new video upload, since everyone watching it live knows they are all seeing the content at the same time.

Making the Most of Your YouTube Premieres

Regardless of how much of a potential boost to your channel a YouTube Premiere can bring, there is no sense in using the feature if you don’t intend to make the most of it. But how do you do that?

It can help to think of it as similar to a movie premiere since that is essentially what it is modelled from. There are four basic stages to the process;

The Build-Up

The build-up is the period leading up to the premiere of the video, and begins when you first start promoting it. For most YouTubers, this will be when the premiere is created, and there is a linkable page to direct your viewers to.

During this period, you will be looking to draw attention to your premiere, and hopefully, get plenty of people clicking that “set reminder” button. You should make full use of any social media sway you have during this period, as well as the community tab on YouTube if you have access to it.

It is best to get the link up at least a day or two before the date you intend to premiere the video, as this will give you plenty of time to drum up the interest you need.

The Pre-Show

Though technically part of the build-up, here we are referring to the time immediately before the premiere itself. This could be as much as an hour before, but really the time that things begin to get going will be organic and determined by when your viewers start piling into the chat.

People generally love to be part of things, and somebody who is on the fence about watching your premiere will be more likely to stick around if they check-in and find a bustling chat room full of people interacting with each other.

Your role in this part is to be an active participant. Don’t just leave it to your viewers to chat amongst themselves while they wait for the video; get in there and join in. Talk to them about the video, get them excited for what’s coming. If people are interested enough in your content to be in your Premiere’s chat just before it goes live, the chances are they will be interested in talking to you. Your active participation in this stage will get the chat flowing which, as we mentioned above, is a good thing for retaining more viewers.

The Premiere

As we mentioned, a premiere plays like a live stream in that viewers cannot skip forward. This helps to create more of a sense of an event around the release of the video, and you should capitalise on that by remaining active in the chat while the video is playing.

Viewers like to feel part of things, and being able to interact with you during the video will certainly help to make that desire a reality.

After the Premiere

Once the video is live, and the excitement of the premiere is over, it’s time to switch back to regular YouTuber mode. Promote the video the same way you would for a regular non-premiere video, and try to catch any of your subscribers and other interested viewers that the premiere missed. For videos that aren’t evergreen, the first twenty-four hours after upload usually pull in the majority of that video’s views, so you definitely make the most of those twenty-four hours. Of course, if your videos are evergreen, there’s less urgency about this initial period, but it certainly won’t hurt to give your videos an extra push in the beginning.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

YouTube Premieres is an excellent tool for drumming up interest in your upcoming videos, but there can be an element of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” about it if you premiere every video you release.

In short, YouTube Premieres are intended to highlight special videos. For some channels, that may apply to every video that gets released.—for example a channel that releases videos months apart, or a channel with massive production values or big-name guests. If, on the other hand, you are putting out weekly videos—or even more frequently—and you are premiering every one of them, your viewers will very quickly stop seeing your premieres as something special that they should tune into.

How this will work for your channel specifically is something only you can tell, but use your best judgement when deciding which videos to premiere. Once your viewers have mentally assigned a negative sentiment to something, it is very hard to undo it.

Thumbnails Just Got Bigger

Good thumbnails are an essential component in any successful YouTube channel, but another dimension of importance is added by YouTube Premieres. Though there are some situations where your thumbnail may be shown in all its high-resolution glory, viewers typically don’t see your thumbnails as anything other than… well… a thumbnail!

The tiny little image that shows up in search results and recommended tabs is usually the only action your thumbnail sees, and so it can be tempting to only spend time making it look good at that size.

With YouTube Premieres, your thumbnail will occupy the space where the video would ordinarily be until that video goes live so that it will be much more visible than your usual thumbnails.

Now, we would advise that you put lots of effort into your thumbnail regardless of whether you intend to use YouTube Premieres. After all; they do get seen full size occasionally, and YouTube could change the way their platform displays things at any time. You don’t want to open YouTube one day to find they have doubled the size of the thumbnails and suddenly your videos look terrible in the sidebar. But if you have been making your thumbnails without much concern for how they may look on the big screen, now is the time to change that.

When to Use Premieres

We touched on this above, but there are times when YouTube Premieres are perhaps not appropriate, and times when you are missing out by not making use of them.

The primary reason you might want to avoid using YouTube Premieres is if you release a lot of content and you are putting out what amounts to a regular video at your usual interval. This is especially the case for channels that make daily videos since the viewers will quickly get fatigued by the constant barrage of updates; they will have only just finished watching the last one before the next premiere is popping up in their feeds.

If you release videos far less often—say once every two weeks or once a month—then premiering may be more appropriate for your regular uploads. However, an argument could still be made that you should save it for exceptional videos rather than your usual fare.

These special videos, however, are where you absolutely should make use of YouTube Premieres. These videos might include subscriber milestone specials, big announcements, or really anything that constitutes a noteworthy thing for your channel. Videos like this will already carry an air of excitement with your viewers, and using YouTube Premieres on top of that will only serve to build up that interest even more.

How to Setup YouTube Premiere

Setting up a YouTube Premiere is very easy. Once you have your video ready, head over to YouTube and upload it as normal. When you get to select how the video will go out (Public, Private, Unlisted, Scheduled), select “Scheduled”.

Let the video finish uploading so you can set all of the details for your video, being sure to cover things like monetisation, cards, and end screens, you should be able to see a toggle near the visibility options that says “Set as Premiere”. From there, make sure your data is correct, and as soon as you hit save, your video’s page will be live for your viewers to visit.

You may want to set your video to unlisted first, that way you can fill out all the details at your leisure, make sure you’re happy with the thumbnail and titles, and when you’re ready, change it to scheduled.

And you’re done!

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Tags how to do youtube premiere, live stream, live stream videos, what are youtube premieres, youtube premiere

SEO SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE YOUTUBE TUTORIALS

How to Add Captions to YouTube Videos

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 5 September 2020

There are plenty of reasons why you might want to add captions to your YouTube videos beyond mere accessibility. Which is not to say, making your content more accessible to deaf and hard of hearing people is not a good enough reason alone.

We won’t try and tell you that adding captions to a video—especially a long video with a lot of words—is an easy task, but YouTube does make the process as frictionless as possible for you.

In this post we’ll go through the process with you, as well as laying out the reasons why captioning your videos is a good idea, and how you can make your life a little easier in the captioning process.

How to Add Captions to YouTube Videos

Captions can be added to your YouTube videos from within YouTube Studio.

Log in
Head over to the left-hand menu and click on “Subtitles”
Find the video you want to caption and give it a click.
Click “Add Language”
Next, click “Add” and begin scrubbing through your video, adding subtitles at the appropriate points.
Once you are done, simply click “Publish”

The subtitles editor features several shortcut keys to make your life a little bit easier, and you can find a full list of those on YouTube’s subtitles help page.

There are other options available, such as auto-syncing, which lets you add your transcription without any timecode information.

From there, YouTube uses speech recognition and your transcription to put all of the subtitles in the correct place. This is a very useful and time-saving option, but it does rely on speech recognition technology, which means it is only available for subtitles in the same language as the video.

For the same reason, it is not an ideal option for videos with poor audio quality, or where the words being said are not clear. YouTube also states that it is not recommended for videos that are over an hour long.

Another option available is to upload a closed caption file that already has the timecode information sorted. Of course, you will still have to create that closed caption file before you can upload it, but this option at least means you can use other applications to do that if YouTube’s built-in system is not to your liking. You can find details about what kind of closed caption files YouTube accepts through the subtitles help page linked above.

And, finally, YouTube has the option to caption your videos using speech recognition technology automatically. Automatic captioning has the obvious advantage of it requiring considerably less effort on your part; however, there is a tradeoff.

Speech recognition has made immense leaps and bounds in terms of accuracy over recent years, but it is not perfect, and the chances of it transcribing your video with 100% accuracy are minimal.

And, of course, the accuracy of this process will fall if the video’s audio quality is poor, or the spoken words are not particularly clear.

Bonus Method: Captioning Services

If you have a bit of money to spend on your YouTube channel, or if your channel is already at a stage where it is making money and you want to reinvest some of that in your channel.

You might consider a captioning service like Rev – I use them for all of my YouTube videos and can help boost audience retention and build on international audiences.

For a modest sum—typically around $1-2 per minute of video—you can have your videos captioned for you, getting all of the benefits of automatic captioning, while significantly reducing the inaccuracy rate you would expect from Google’s automatic option.

Captioning OTHER People’s Videos on YouTube

In some cases, you can also caption other people’s videos, which can be a great way to give a little back to a creator you like.

This is also an excellent opportunity to flex your bilingual muscles if you speak (or write) more than one language, or if your native language is different from that of the language used in the video.

The YouTuber in question has to allow subtitle contributions, so this is not an option on every video. For those videos where it is an option, simply head over to that video and click the menu button below the video (the three dots). In there you should see an option to “Add Translations”. Clicking that will take you to the same transcriptions editor we talked about above, with the difference that this will show any previously added or auto-generated transcriptions.

Up top you should see a “Switch Language” link which will allow you to select the language you want to add subtitles for, and, once you are ready, you can click edit and get transcribing!

Making Captioning Easier

Unfortunately, there is no way around the fact that captioning is something of a long and laborious process—especially for longer videos—but you can make your life a little easier with a bit of forward-thinking.

For example, many YouTubers plan their videos out in advance. And, if they don’t write an actual script, they at least tend to sketch out the beats of what they are going to say when the camera starts rolling.

If this is you, consider extending this process to a full script, and stick to that script when you record the video. In doing so, you will already have a transcription for your subtitles ready to go when you have uploaded your video. Remember; YouTube’s speech recognition may not be perfect, but it is incredibly close when given the correct words to use.

Writing a proper script may also help you tighten up your content, making the video more concise and digestible, while also reducing the amount of time you have to spend editing slip-ups and tangents out of your footage.

Of course, scripted videos are not for everyone. Some people are far more comfortable turning the camera on with little more than a vague shape of what needs to be said in their mind and letting the creative juices flow. We would not recommend forcing a script upon yourself if you are this kind of YouTuber.

But if you are already scripting—or partially scripting—your videos, you are most of the way there to captioning your content.

Why Should I Caption My YouTube Videos?

There is an ethical element to consider in the sense that, as a civilised society, it could be argued that we have a responsibility to help those who need a little extra help whenever possible.

Captioning your videos makes it possible for people who are deaf and hard of hearing—two groups of people who fall into that category of occasionally needing a little extra help—to consume your content.

However, if the ethical argument doesn’t do it for you, there are also some numbers to consider. For example, around 466 million people worldwide have disabling hearing problems. While it’s true that not all of those people will be on YouTube, it still represents a sizable portion of a potential audience that you could be reading. And this doesn’t count fringe cases, such as people who just find it easier to watch content with subtitles, or people who do not speak your language but can read it.

Another reason is search engine optimisation (SEO).

There is only so much information you can organically pack into your video descriptions, and formatting it in a way that is useful to your viewers doesn’t always lend itself to SEO.

However, the actual content of your video is as pure as it gets in terms of SEO, and research has shown that Google likely indexes YouTube subtitles, with captioned videos seeing a noticeable increase in views over videos without captions.

The final reason we will give you for captioning your videos is environmental factors. No, not the environment, we’re talking about the environment your potential viewer is in at the time they might want to watch your video.

If you’ve noticed all those videos that pop up on Facebook and Twitter that have captions burned in, you might have reached the natural conclusion that this trend implies. That is trend is more people watching videos in situations where they can’t have sound on. This could be on a busy commute when they have forgotten to bring headphones, or in a situation where they are not, strictly speaking, supposed to be checking their phone.

Viral video makers have cottoned on to this trend, and that is why they burn subtitles into those social media clips.

Putting captions on your videos allows people to consume your content in those situations where they can’t listen to it, which, for the right type of video, may represent a significant amount of views.

How Much of a Benefit is Video Captioning?

We teased you with talk of increasing your audience through video captioning, so it’s only natural to want to know what kind of increase we’re talking. After all, captioning can be hard work, as we’ve explained, so you may want to do a cost-benefit analysis on whether the additional work is worth your time.

Studies have shown that adequately captioned videos can see as much as a 13% boost in the first two weeks—with a 7% increase over the lifetime of video—over uncaptioned videos.

While we’re not talking about doubling your audience here, a potential increase of around 10% is nothing to be sneezed at. For a video that gets 100k views, that would mean an extra 10k views.

Of course, pure view count would be a limited way to consider the benefits of captioned videos. Those additional views also represent potential subscribers and long term viewers. Especially when you consider that people who need captions in order to enjoy content on YouTube have far fewer options available to them owed to the fact that so many YouTubers don’t caption their videos. In this respect, captioned videos are something of an underserved market.

Not quite a niche, as the interests of people who need closed captioning are just as diverse as those who don’t, but a market that will welcome additional content regardless.

Foreign Languages

Before putting the time and effort into translating—or paying someone else to translate—your content into other languages, take a moment to consider the usefulness of the video to the people who speak those other languages.

Generally speaking, you can assume that someone living in a particular country will at least have a basic grasp of the native language of that country.

Of course, there will always be exceptions, but you usually assume that content that is specific to a certain country doesn’t necessarily need translating to languages other than the primary language of that country.

As an example, a video about how to apply for a building permit in Texas, America, is unlikely to get many views from people in central Europe. That means it would not be the best use of your resources to have your video translated into German, as all of the countries where German is the primary language are located in central Europe.

This is not to say you should actively avoid translating your content, of course. If you have money or time to burn, it certainly won’t hurt your channel to have it translated into as many languages as possible.

But if you are having to weigh up the pros and cons of translating it to other languages, consider where those languages are spoken, and how likely your content is to be viewed in those regions.

That being said, the reverse can also be true.

As a counter-example, a video about how to obtain a building permit in Los Angeles would greatly benefit from being translated into Spanish, due to the large Mexican population there. In this case, the content is specific to a relatively small geographical region, but that region can be considered bilingual.

As with many things on YouTube, it is all a matter of doing your research and knowing your audience. You don’t need to become an expert in foreign languages to determine best when and when not to have your videos translated; a simple Google search should be enough.

Tags add captions, add subtitles, rev, rev.com, rev.vom, transcription, youtube captions, youtube subtitles

SEO TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

YouTube Channel Banner Ideas

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 30 August 2020
2 Comments on YouTube Channel Banner Ideas

When it comes to your YouTube channel banner, you can take a great deal of guidance directly from any marketing 101 advice available on the Internet.

You want something eye-catching yet not overpowering—something that conveys the purpose of your channel in the purest, most digestible form possible, and gets the message across quickly.

Your YouTube banner tells new visitors to your channel what you are about, and in more ways than you might think. It can give subtle cues to your potential viewers that you might not have intended to give.

The banner on your channel is unlikely to be the first impression someone gets of your channel, but that doesn’t make it unimportant.

We’re going go into detail about some YouTube channel banner ideas, explaining why they work, and who they can work for. But first, let’s talk a little about why banners are so important.

Why are YouTube Banners Important?

A common—and incorrect—way to think of a YouTube banner is like a storefront. If you were running a brick and mortar store, you would want the sign out front to draw in passing shoppers where they would hopefully spend money on your products and services.

That is not what a YouTube banner is. Your channel is not a storefront in that sense, as very few people will come across it organically. You could funnel people to your channel page from other sources, such as your website, but then, if you can do that, you have already grabbed that person’s attention in some way.

In truth, hardly any of the visitors to your channel will arrive there not knowing anything about you. If someone is looking at your channel page, they will almost certainly have seen at least one of your videos already. In fact, the typical behaviour of a YouTube viewer is to subscribe to channels they are interested in from the video itself.

A good deal of your subscribers might never see your channel page at all! And for those who visit your channel that are already subscribed, the banner is less critical, since they are already on board.

For the most part, non-subscribers who visit your channel are people who have seen one or two of your videos and are on the fence about whether to subscribe to your channel or not. These are the people your banner is really for since they are the ones who could potentially hit subscribe—or not—based on what they see when they land on your channel.

Dos and Don’ts

As with many creative endeavours, there isn’t really a hard list of things you must do to succeed.

We could lay out a comprehensive set of rules that would be true for 99% of YouTubers out there, and there would undoubtedly be someone who breaks all of them and is a wild success. Bear that in mind when reading these dos and don’ts.

Professional Quality

One of the first things that will strike new visitors to your channel is how professional your channel banner looks. Does it look like it was made by a graphics designer who takes pride in their work? Or does it look like five minutes spent in Microsoft Paint?

Having a professional banner shows that you care about your channel, which tells potential subscribers that you take things seriously.

Nobody wants to subscribe to a channel in the hope of future content, only for that content never to come, or for the channel to get shut down by YouTube because of unnecessary community guideline strikes. It is a subtle cue, but if your banner suggests you might be a bit frivolous with your channel, they might decide against clicking that subscribe button.

Information

If a non-subscriber visits your channel page while deciding whether or not to subscribe, one of the first things they are going to want to know is information about your channel.

We would recommend an accurate and up to date “about” page for this reason, but before they get to that point, they will see your channel banner.

Having relevant information in your channel banner is a great way to get the essential details across to potential subscribers quickly. For example, do you have a regular upload schedule? Many viewers like to know that they are subscribing to a channel that puts out new content on a regular basis. It can also help to state—in as concise a way possible—what kind of content your channel produces.

One of the main things potential subscribers will be looking for is the assurance that there will be more of the type of content that brought them there in the first place.

Branding

Establishing an identity on YouTube is an essential step towards success, as it puts you or your organisation in people’s minds. This is especially important if you are running more than just a YouTube channel. If you have developed branding, it should be clear for all to see on your channel page, which means in your YouTube banner.

This does not simply mean having any logos or icons in the banner.

Make full use of any colour schemes that are part of your branding. If you have a website that has been styled in red and white, consider making your banner red and white also.

Of course, the logos and icons should be incorporated, but don’t stop at that. These subtle visual cues can be very effective, and help to establish your brand so that it can be recognised in other places, and hopefully associated with some good YouTube content.

Represent Your Niche

One thing that can be overlooked surprisingly often is the inclusion of themes that are relevant to a channel’s niche in the channel banner. This may come in the form of a game controller motif on a channel about gaming, or dumbells in the banner of a fitness channel.

Things like this offer quick visual cues that reassure viewers as to what the channel is about. To that end, you should avoid including anything that might confuse the issue, and this is where things can get a little nuanced.

As an example, say you are running a YouTube channel about programming video games. You could include the game controller motif we mentioned above, but that might confuse some people, leading them to think the channel is about gaming. Think carefully about the themes you include in your banner, even if they seem relevant, and try to avoid incorporating things purely because they “look cool” unless they fit with the content you produce.

YouTube Channel Banner Ideas

We promised you some ideas, so let’s get into those now. Here we will show a few different common styles of channel banner, highlighting the common themes in these styles and giving a few examples along the way.

The Informative Banner

You don’t want your banner to be a wall of text, but carefully dropping relevant information in there is a great way to give new viewers all they need in one quick glance.

The most obvious information to slot in here is the upload schedule, as it is something that viewers generally want to know, and can be conveyed clearly and concisely. One example of this is popular vlogger, David Dobrik.

David’s banner clearly states that he puts out new videos a few times a week, what days he puts those videos out, and even manages to fit his social media in there. All of this without making the banner look cluttered.

Another excellent example of this is gaming YouTuber, Barbara, whose banner not only conveys the upload schedule, the time of day, the type of videos but even incorporates art themes from the game she plays most.

While this may not mean much to many viewers, the viewers who know the game and want to see that type of content will recognise it instantly.

Note that in both of these examples, the YouTuber themselves are the brand, and they have made sure they appear in their banner.

The Straight to the Point Banner

If your channel has a specific aim in mind and a no-frills approach to getting there, you may want to take a similar tact with your channel banner. A good example of this is Mango Street, a YouTube channel that offers photography and video tutorials.

In Mango Street’s banner, you see a nicely shot photograph of the YouTubers themselves, illustrating what it is they do on the channel. You get their logo, and you get the tagline; “Photography + filmmaking tutorials that don’t waste your time”. And, in perfect keeping with that ethos, the banner doesn’t waste your time either.

While it may not set out the upload schedule for you, it does tell you everything you need to know about the content of the channel, as well as fitting in the branding and even an example of their work in the form of that photograph.

The Quirky Banner

Even a banner that seemingly contains no useful information at all tells viewers something about your channel. For example, incredibly popular YouTuber, MrBeast, has a channel banner that is plain white text on a featureless black background, with the text simply reading, “subscribe with notifications or i will take all your cookies”.

Of course, there is a call to action in there, demanding that people subscribe to the channel, but it is clearly a tongue in cheek statement.

This banner says a lot about the tone you can expect from the channel, which is playful, and a little cheeky. Granted, it tells you nothing about the type of content you will get, but it tells you how that content will be delivered.

A banner like this is ideal for a channel where the YouTuber’s personality is a significant factor in their success. With channels like that, people tend to subscribe for the YouTuber more than the content, and would likely watch a video from them regardless of what the video is about.

The Plug Banner

We don’t have an example of this because, by its very nature, these banners change often. The plug banner is a banner that includes information about upcoming events that the YouTuber will be involved in. The most obvious examples of this are musicians or comedians who have live shows coming up.

This kind of banner should include any branding—such as a band logo or a headshot—as well as the dates of the event that you are promoting. Sometimes the channel exists purely as a promotional tool, such as would be the case for an established band who just need somewhere to upload videos. In those cases, it will likely not be a great example of how to put your banner together.

If you are a YouTuber, however, you should include some hint as to what it is you do. If Eminem is promoting a tour, he can just have his face and some dates on the channel banner, and that would be enough. But if you are an up and coming comedian, you should give some indication of that in the banner, so new viewers know what they are getting from your channel.

Don’t Do This!

When looking for the key to success on any platform, it is natural to look at other people who have been successful there and try to emulate what they do. And, on YouTube, it doesn’t get more successful than PewDiePie. Having broken countless YouTube records, and currently being the most-subscribed individual on the platform, PewDiePie is easily the most successful YouTuber in history.

But…

PewDiePie’s immense success allows him something of a free pass when it comes to how he runs his channel. We’re not saying he doesn’t have to work at his content, but he could probably upload twenty minutes of a blank screen with no audio and still get millions of views.

This translates to his channel banner as well. Other than a slight nod to the black and red wavey lines that are associated with PewDiePie, there is nothing in his banner that tells new viewers anything about the channel or type of content you would find on there.

However, this can work for PewDiePie because, at this point, the chances of someone being on YouTube and not knowing who he is are pretty slim. But you shouldn’t do this when you’re just starting out.

If you need ideas for banners or you are like me and just want to start with a template, check out placeit – they have a wide selection of templates on their website for banners, intros, end cards and more

Tags art work, branding, channel banner, youtube banner, youtube branding

HOW TO GET MORE VIEWS ON YOUTUBE LISTS TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

10 Best Tools to Grow Your YouTube Channel

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 30 August 2020

You can paint pictures using only your fingers, but it’s doubtful you’d be any good at it unless you are Iris Scott.

All accomplished artists use tools to help them express their creativity; one tool helps them draw perspective; another helps mix colour.

As a YouTube creator, if you’re only shooting a video quickly, then uploading it after basic editing, in your own way, you are painting with your fingers.

The top YouTubers use a range of tools to help create and promote their work. Some help to make the videos more entertaining, while others allow their videos to rank well.

This article looks at ten products you could add to your YouTube video creation toolbox. Five help the visual/production process, and the other five help you with SEO/ranking.

Let’s jump right in.

Visual / Production Tools For YouTube

These five tools help you to transform your videos from dull talk-to-the-camera sermons into more expert productions.

There are tools for graphics and editing, libraries of sound and b-roll footage, and tools for captioning your content.

Adobe Creative Cloud – YouTube Video Production Tool

Occasionally you want a tool to edit photos, sometimes you need a tool to polish audio, and you always have to edit your content.

Adobe Creative Cloud is a suite of tools that help you to produce professional-quality content. For one monthly price, you get access to over 20 applications that are used by many of the top creators in the business.

You could hunt around for individual alternatives from other providers. Some you’ll be able to find free of charge, others you’ll be able to hack together using free trials, but you should want to use the best. And the best thing about Adobe Creative Cloud is that all the tools in the suite work happily together. So you’ll never have to hunt down file convertors, and you’ll be able to use tools that you hadn’t consider trying before.

For YouTubers, the centrepiece of Adobe Creative Cloud is Premier Pro, the industry-leading video editing software. You’ll need a decent computer to run it on as it’s quite resource intensive.

While there is no free trial for the Creative Cloud collection of tools, you can trial some of the individual ones for 30 days. Adobe Creative Cloud works on both Windows and Mac.

Website: adobe.com
Price: $49.94 per month for access to all tools.

Storyblocks – Youtube B-Roll and Audio Library

Give your videos extra flair with B-roll footage and sound effects. These types of assets are available free of charge on some stock-footage websites, but the choice of clips is small, and many are overused.

Storyblocks is a paid stock-footage website with 1.5 million videos, images, and sounds you can edit into your content.

All media is copyright-free and easy to find using categories and tags.

Want to cut to a person crying to emphasise a point? Storyblocks has a choice of over 1000 videos.

Video is available in a variety of resolutions including 4K, and most clips are under 35 seconds long. The audio clips include sound effects, short tracks, and shorter loops which you can, well, loop to get the length you desire. If you need the sound of a hammer bashing on stone or an ambient backing track, you’ll find it on Storyblocks.

You can buy a lower-priced subscription to access only video or sounds, but these are quite restrictive.

Much better to buy a pass for unlimited access which is $65 per month. Plans are flexible, and you can sign up for only a month if you like.

You can also link your YouTube account to Storyblocks and let their automated software handle copyright infringement claims too.

Website: storyblocks.com
Price: Starting from $9 per month.

Placeit – YouTube Intro/Outro Tool, Channel Banners, Logos and End Screen Templates

Becoming successful on YouTube is very difficult to do without branding yourself. The immense volume of videos means you must build a recognisable image so that users can spot you in the search results and suggestions.

Of course, your branding needs to look good too. Crummy photoshop skills can make your videos stand out – but for all the wrong reasons. So use a service like Placeit to help you design and build a professional brand image.

Placeit has dedicated tool to help you design and produce YouTube intros and outros and has hundreds of templates to pick from. You can also design custom logos and animate them too.

It’s likely as a Youtuber that you will want to cross-promote content on social media as well. Placeit has tools for creating Instagram stories and videos, and templates for Facebook covers.

Placeit is cloud-based, so you use all the tools via your browser. One price of $14.95 per month allows you to access all the functionality, and you can make a small saving paying upfront for an annual subscription.

Website: placeit.net
Price: From Free to $14.95

Rev – YouTube Caption Tool

Not all the people watching your content will view it in the same environment. Some will view your content in comfort sat on the sofa, where they can hear your voice clearly. Others will be on the move, on a bus or in a cafe, where listening can be difficult.

For some viewers, the location doesn’t matter at all: you exclude the hard of hearing when you don’t make your content accessible to all.

Rev is a service for adding captions and subtitles to your videos. Captions are a transcript of the words that you say, allowing the hard of hearing or those in a noisy environment to watch your content. Subtitles translate your content from your spoken language to another, opening your channel to a broader audience.

Rev doesn’t charge a fixed fee for its service; you instead pay based on the length of your video. Prices start at $1.25 per minute, so you always know exactly how much it will cost you upfront.

Website: rev.com
Price: From $1.25 per minute.

Lickd – YouTube Premium Music Library

If you want to use music by real artists in your videos, but worry about copyright issues, then you should try out the music licensing service from Lickd.

Designed expressly for YouTube content creators, Lickd has thousands of real songs to choose from by genuine artists.

You have to license each track individually, and Lickd set the cost dependent on your YouTube audience size. If you have under 50 thousand views on average for your videos, then prices start at $8 per track.

You’re not allowed to remix or change the music in any way, though you can edit for length. And while there aren’t too many well-established artists on the site yet, it’s early days. The more creators that use the service, the more artists Lickd are likely to attract.

Website: lickd.co
Price: From $8 per track.

SEO / Ranking YouTube Tools

You might create the best content around, but if you don’t choose the right keywords, or make the most of your metadata, then your channel may as well be invisible.

The following five tools help give you the best chance of your content being seen.

Google Trends

Google Trends gauges the popularity of any topic over time. It’s a way to discover which subjects are hot or not.

Google Trends can also help you plan the release of content for annual events. For example, if you want to know the best time to upload Halloween-themed content, the chart below shows you that interest starts to climb in mid-September. Maybe a bit earlier than you might have thought?

You can also use Google Trends to compare subjects, which can help you to narrow your focus when brainstorming ideas.

Google Trends is free to use and has lists of daily trends and real-time search trends, so you can see what’s creating a buzz online today. You also can view trend data by country, so you can find out what’s popular in your corner of the globe.

Website: trends.google.com
Price: Free!

VidIQ

VidIQ is a tool that aims to help you grow your channel in two broad ways.

First, vidIQ helps to maximise organic reach by helping you select the best tags, and choose the right keywords for your title and description. VidIQ works as a chrome plugin that displays extra data directly on the YouTube website.

Once your videos have gone live, vidIQ keeps you on track by letting you know which of your videos performs well. The software also audits your content and can highlight issues, like which videos aren’t part of a playlist, for example.

There is a free option for the software, though this is restricted in functionality. To make the best use of the tool, you need to buy a subscription. The ‘Boost’ level is the best option as it allows you access to vidIQ’s keyword engine and permits you to track 20 competitors.

VidIQ is popular with many large and successful channels.

Website: vidiq.com
Price: From free, though you need a subscription to get the most from the tool. Starting at $7.50 per month.

TubeBuddy

TubeBuddy is a competitor of VidIQ and offers similar features, and uses a chrome extension to display keyword and video information on the page of YouTube’s website.

TubeBuddy also offers ideas for tags and other metadata when you upload a video. It advises on best practices to have your video rank as high as possible. It reminds you to add cards, end screens, and other essential parts that add up to make a successful YouTube video.

There is a limited free option to give you an idea of what the software can do, but to get lasting benefits, you need to take out a monthly subscription. Pricing starts at $9 per month for the ‘Pro’ level, though you can save 50% if you have less than 1000 subscribers.

Of course, you will only need to use either TubeBuddy or vidIQ to manage your channel, while they are both excellent, vidIQ has the slight edge.

Website: tubebuddy.com
Price: From $9 ($4.50 if you have less than 1000 subscribers.)

YouTube Autosuggest

Sometimes thinking up new content ideas is hard. But it can be time wasted, too, if you don’t perform keyword research first to see if your ideas are even popular.

Fortunately, there is a free way to check if people have an interest in your idea, and that is on YouTube itself.

You may have noticed when you begin typing in the YouTube search bar a dropdown box appears with a list of options. These show a list of search terms that users are already using on YouTube to find content.

Use the auto-suggest feature to find and validate your content ideas.

When you are compiling ideas from YouTube Autosuggest, also make use of the underscore character ‘_’. It acts as a wildcard when placed between two words. Here is an example.

YouTube is giving you content ideas free of charge! Take this method a step further and combine the autosuggest search terms with the free version of vidIQ. You can see which of the ideas are popular and which you have a chance to rank with.

Website: youtube.com
Price: Free!

Morning Fame

Morning Fame is a website rather than the chrome plugin functionality of vidIQ and TubeBuddy. Morning Fame provides analytics for uploaded videos and a keyword tool to plan future content.

The analytics section gives a good historical overview of your channel’s performance. And offers suggestions on which of your videos perform best for your audience, and recommends which type of videos you should try to replicate.

Morning Fame also benchmarks your channel against to similar ones.

The keyword research tool suggests content ideas, and rates your chance of ranking for them considering your channel size.

Once you pick a target keyword, Morning Fame rates your channel’s chance of ranking for the keyword.

Morning Fame offers two levels of subscription. While both have full access to analytics reporting, if you want more than occasional access to the keyword research tool, you’ll need to choose the Plus plan at $12.90 per month.

Website: morningfa.me
Price: From $4.90 per month.

Conclusion

You’re unlikely to establish a channel on YouTube without using tools. Some tools help to make your videos compelling, and others help find best keywords to rank. There are 500 hours worth of videos uploaded to YouTube every minute, and you need to work hard to make yours stand out.

You need to add intros/outros to brand your videos, use B-roll and sound clips to enhance your content, and then make sure to edit your content well so that it engages viewers.

Finally, if you don’t take advantage of tools to help you plan and promote content, you will fall behind your competitors who will surely be using them.

If you need more help with equipment, software, artwork and other YouTube things then I have a list of EVERYTHING I use on my resources page.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Tags apps, breaking bad movie el camino, broll, morningfame, placeit, rev, storyblocks, tools for youtubers, tubebuddy, vidiq, youtube apps, youtube seo, youtube tools, youtuber tools

DEEP DIVE ARTICLE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE YOUTUBE TUTORIALS

YouTube Cards [What They Are and How To Use Them]

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 29 August 2020

What are YouTube Cards?

YouTube cards – info cards and end screens – are interactive links you can use to promote other videos, playlists, channels, and external sites while your video is playing. It’s a method of keeping a viewer hooked on your content, or if you want, directing them to someone else’s.

It’s like having your own digital traffic cop to direct people where you would like them to go once they have finished watching one of your videos. Because, if you’re holding someone’s attention, isn’t it best to direct them to more of your content when your video ends?

There are four types of cards you can use in your videos.

Video
Playlist
Channel
Link

At one time you had the option of running a poll from a card too, but this type of card is no longer available.

The cards don’t automatically show when you add them to a video. The viewer instead has to click a small grey info bar which appears in the top right-hand corner. You can set when they appear in your YouTube Studio. Here is how the info-bar looks.

When a viewer clicks on the info-bar, the card displays, the viewer can then click on the card to follow the link.

Cards display in both desktop and mobile versions of YouTube and replace the older annotation system, which only displayed on the YouTube desktop site.

The four types of cards all have a similar appearance, so let’s take a look at each type and how you might use them.

The Four Types of Cards and How You Can Use Them.

You can place cards up to five times per video and can add them in at any point you like. Card placement, though, should be done strategically.

Card placement must always be done with a purpose in mind. Think about how the YouTube algorithm operates. YouTube’s main aim is to keep its users watching content and viewing more advertisements – it’s how they make money.

YouTube attempts to keep viewers tuned-in by suggesting high-quality videos for them to watch next. Have you ever found yourself thinking, ‘I’ll should be doing something else, I just watch one more video’? That’s YouTube’s ranking algorithm in action.

YouTube has perfected guessing what content will keep its audience engaged, and is an expert at recommending good videos. Now, YouTube can’t watch all of the videos uploaded on the site to see which are good – there are far too many of them.

YouTube has to work out video quality automatically. One of the main factors YouTube uses to decide video quality is watch time. Watch time is calculated as the average time viewers spend watching a video.

Video Watch time is Important.

YouTube knows that most videos aren’t watched all the way through, but reasons that the longer viewers keep watching, the better the video must be. To succeed on YouTube, you need to keep your audience tuned into your videos for as long as possible.

So, if you were to add cards linking away from your video at the start, then you are potentially harming your video’s chance of getting an excellent watch time average. As a result, your video may be suggested less frequently by YouTube for others to watch.

Aim to add cards into your video later on, preferably in the second half of your video.

Mention the YouTube Cards in Your Video.

A second factor is that card links are not very noticeable, so for maximum effectiveness you should mention them in your video. This requires planning and scripting in advance, so approach card placement with a well thought out strategy.

Let’s take a look at how you might use each card type in your videos.

YouTube Video Card Example.

This card links to a video and displays a thumbnail. As you can see in the example below, I have added the text ‘Video Card’. The customisable text helps you to sell the link a bit more, and I’ll cover how to do this later on in this article.

The video card is commonly used to link to other content you have made. It might be a video which covers a subject in more detail that you are only mentioning briefly, or it could be the next video in a series you are making.

Alternatively, you can also link to another video on YouTube – it doesn’t have to be your content.

YouTube Playlist Card Example.

Similar to the video card but this time a collection of videos. Again, it can be any playlist and not necessarily one you have created.

So if you want to link out to your favourite music or draw attention to your own curated collection of content, the playlist card is the one you should choose.

YouTube Channel Card Example.

Sometimes it’s useful to direct a viewer to your channel page. They can access all of your content quickly, or you may be trying to grow your community tab.

An easy way to link to your channel is occasionally useful.

YouTube Link Card Example.

While the cards discussed so far are open to anyone with a YouTube account, the link card is only available to those who are part of the YouTube Partner Program. The link card permits users to link away from the YouTube site, which being outside of YouTube’s control, is only offered to established channels. It helps YouTube to cut down on link-spam.

The link card is ideal for those that have a website as a central part of their business and want to attract traffic using YouTube. With the link card, it’s easy to raise awareness and pre-sell your service in a video, then direct viewers over to your website to buy.

How To Add Cards to YouTube Videos.

You add cards to your video via YouTube Studio. Go to the main window, and from the menu on the left select ‘Videos’.

Then from the list of your videos, select the one you want to add cards to and click the edit icon.

In the video details screen towards the bottom of the page on the right, select the cards option.

This will open the window with which you assign cards to a video.

If I wanted to add a playlist to this video, the first step is to select the playlist option. In the next window, you can either choose a playlist you have created or search for any other playlist.

In this example, I’ll use one of my playlists. Simply click on the thumbnail, which returns you to the previous window to add further details.

You can set the time for the card to appear using either the timestamp or by moving the blue slider at the foot of the screen.

You can also add a Custom Message and some Teaser Text. The teaser text is the wording which displays in the info-bar in the corner of your video.

The custom message displays in the card that is shown when a viewer clicks the info-bar. Hit the save button when you are happy with the wording and timing.

To add further cards to your video (up to five maximum), open up the card’s window again and select the blue plus symbol to add another.

Simply rinse-and-repeat until you have added the cards you want.

Displaying Cards on the End Screen of YouTube Videos.

If you have ever wondered how Youtubers add thumbnails to their other content at the end of a video, this section covers how to do that. Known as an End Screen, it enables you to show links to other content and also lets you display a clickable subscribe button.

The End Screen differs from the standard cards in that you can only display them during the last 20 seconds of your video. To set your end cards, navigate to your video details page and select the ‘End screen’ menu option on the right-hand side of the screen.

The End Screens window gives some measure of customisation, but YouTube has some basic requirements. You must have at least one video or playlist card in your end screen, and the maximum number of elements you can display is four.

You can control the layout in the end screen editor, as long as the cards are arranged within the white shaded box overlaying your video.

The end screen also gives you an additional card to choose from – the subscribe card. In the picture below, you can see an end card displaying two video cards plus the subscribe card.

The end screen editor also allows you to choose the timings for your end screen elements.

You can display all elements for the full 20 seconds or only the final five seconds if you prefer. You also don’t have to show all of the cards at the same time. Once your elements are selected, you can choose appearance times by sliding the element display bar, as shown below.

End screens are a powerful tool. They give you a virtual billboard to try and keep viewers watching your content before YouTube suggests to them someone else’s content, giving you the chance to deliver a call to action during a video.

Your best chance of retaining viewer attention will come when you combine a pre-scripted suggestion with an end card. Tell a viewer which video you think they should watch next then flash up an end card linking directly to the video.

Tips for Placing Cards.

As mentioned earlier, cards should be used with a purpose in mind rather than randomly scattered throughout your content.

Verbal cues are the obvious way to draw attention to your cards, and pre-scripting these should increase in the number of times they are clicked.

Use your Analytics.

Another strategic use of cards involves using the analytics of your existing content. View the audience retention graph for one of your videos and look for the moment you are losing the most people, as they click away to find another video.

If the average viewer navigates away at this point, flashing a card on the video just before this point can help you direct some of those leaving to alternative content of yours.

Choose Custom Text Wisely.

Don’t be boring when you write the teaser text; you need to use words that give viewers an incentive to click the info bar. Use wording that communicates a benefit, something of value.

Look at the two examples below, which one would you click?

Similarly, use the custom message to reassure the viewer that the content you are promoting is relevant to them too. In the example below, the term ‘related video’ should impress in the viewer’s mind that the video will be beneficial to them.

Conclusion

With the number of content creators on YouTube growing every day, you need to use all the tools at your disposal to retain the viewers watching your content. Interactive cards are an excellent way to build traffic funnels and direct viewers where you want them to go.

You are not restricted to promoting only your content either. You can use cards and end screens to direct viewers to friends channels, or even some of the big Youtubers if you like. As long as the content is on YouTube, you can steer them there.

Make the best use of end screens too; never let your video end without suggesting more of your content to watch.

Once you are a member of the Partner Program, you also get the ability to link to content outside of YouTube.

This can be powerful for those whose primary business is off YouTube, and you can use YouTube as part of your sales funnel to help grow your business.

Affiliate marketing is a powerful tool that makes me a large income online and it can for you too. Need help understanding affiliate marketing then check out my affiliate marketing for beginners deep dive blog.

Tags end screens, how to add cards on youtube, how to add end screens, how to add end screens on youtube, how to add info cards, youtube cards, youtube cards explained, youtube end screens

DEEP DIVE ARTICLE HOW TO GET MORE VIEWS ON YOUTUBE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Youtube Community Tab: What It Is And How To Use It To Grow Your Channel.

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 23 August 2020
1 Comment on Youtube Community Tab: What It Is And How To Use It To Grow Your Channel.

Some people only visit YouTube to figure out how to unblock a sink.

But, many visit it to keep up with the latest from their favourite creators. YouTube, by definition, is a social media platform.

Social media is usually thought of as ‘fast’, yet short-lived. Content that gets posted and quickly forgotten like posting a picture of something you’re eating or instantly reacting to breaking news, for example.

YouTube, on the other hand, seems like a ‘slow’ platform. It takes time to plan, shoot, and edit a video, and most content creators only upload new material two or three times a week.

There is another place, however, to enhance the social aspect of your YouTube channel, and I don’t mean adding hearts to the comments under a video. Look a little deeper on any established channel homepage, and you’ll find a tab entitled ‘community’.

What Is the YouTube Community Tab?

YouTube has a disadvantage over other social video platforms like TikTok and IGTV. Video uploaded to these platforms is quick to produce, often unscripted, and raw.

On YouTube, viewers won’t forgive lousy sound and shoddy camera work. Viewers expect a certain standard; video content has to be scripted, well lit, and edited well, which takes time. As a result, most channels only upload only two or three videos per week.

If you need help to make better videos, find a great camera or some eye catching graphics for your banners, youtube intros and videos check out my resources page – its the place where i hide the secret sauce 😉

Getting social on Twitter, Snapchat, or Instagram is like stuffing a quick sandwich in your mouth, whereas YouTube, in comparison, requires you to bake the bread first.

YouTube decided to fix this problem with the launch of the YouTube Community Tab in 2016. It’s a space for channels to interact with viewers by posting text and image updates or seeking their opinions via polls.

YouTube chose familiar functions found on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and made them available to established accounts. Here’s the community tab from MrBeast’s channel.

YouTube says it’s a light way to interact with your audience in-between video uploads. It only takes a moment to update and helps you boost viewer engagement, something you should be interested in as a channel owner.

Engagement plays a large part in how YouTube ranks videos, and if YouTube selects a video to suggest a viewer watch next.

The YouTube community tab then is a place to hook people into your content, start a conversation, and build a community.

There are several types of content you can post in the community tab. Quick text updates, like a twitter post, though with the extended character limits you can use it to mini-blog too.

You can include static images or moving GIFs, giving you options to tease new content, show behind-the-scenes, or embed a video thumbnail.

One function also baked into the community tab is the ability to post polls, so you can ask your subscribers a question and get them to interact on a deeper level with your channel.

You may be thinking, why bother; I can do all of that on Twitter or Instagram? Well, one of the best bits about the community updates is they appear in your subscribers feeds, the same as your videos.

It’s a no-brainer; you can quickly raise your profile through greater exposure to your YouTube subscribers.

If you have a YouTube channel but can’t see the community tab and thinks it’s missing, next, we’ll look at how you unlock the YouTube community tab.

How To Get YouTube Community Tab

The YouTube Community tab has an eligibility requirement; to qualify your channel must have 1000 subscribers. When you hit this threshold a week, or so later the YouTube Community tab should appear for your channel.

If you have over 1000 subscribers, but can’t see it, then this could mean you haven’t activated the custom channel layout.

To do this, navigate to your channel homepage and click ‘Customise Channel’.

When the next screen loads, click on the icon for the settings (small cog).

Then make sure that the toggle switch for ‘Customise the layout of your channel’ is switched on.

Return to your channel page hit refresh, and the Community tab should now appear.

What to Post in The YouTube Community Tab

With plenty of content types to choose from in the Community tab mix it up to make your feed more engaging. You need to give viewers a reason to return to your feed, bland, repetitive content, or shameless self-promotion will work against you eventually.

Let’s take a look at each content type in turn and how you post to your feed. First, you need to open Your Channel page and select the Community tab.

To do this, click on the menu in the top right-hand corner of YouTube then select ‘Your Channel’ menu option.

Next click on the Community Tab.

The Community Tab Editor

At the top of the community tab, you’ll see the editor, use this box to start creating your community updates.

Start typing to enter text, or use the three icons at the foot of the box to link to videos, run a poll, or post an image.

Text Updates

When entering text, the editor formats the first line for you in a larger character size. It works like an automatic headline as there are no tools in the editor you can use to change text appearance.

The only other text feature available is the @ symbol. This lets you tag in other channels or shoutout to friends.

There aren’t short character limits for an update, like Twitter, which in theory means you could use also use text updates to mini-blog. Remember, though; users come to YouTube to watch videos. It’s unlikely that regular lengthy updates would benefit you in the long run.

Look at other channels to see how they use text updates. If you find a style you like, emulate it, don’t copy directly. You don’t want to risk your channel through accusations of plagiarism.

PewDiePie uses the simple text-based updates frequently to thank his viewers or shoutout to other channels.

But, if I’m honest, the solely-text update is a bit dull, there are better ways to drive engagement with your channel. How about asking your subscribers a question instead?

Polls

Running a poll on your Community Tab is an excellent way to build a sense of community on your channel. A survey requires participation and can help the participants feel part of something bigger – everyone likes to belong.

Select the poll button on the editor, which displays the screen below.

Choose between two and five options for your poll. You can use both text and emojis, and the character limit for each option is 65.

It’s also a good idea to add an extra ‘neutral’ option to the poll if you have space. This option is for those who want to see the results and comment in the poll thread, but don’t want to answer the main polling question.

Rather than adding something boring like ‘I don’t know’, mix it up with something more humorous to help engagement.

While you can post engagement polls like the one above, you can also use polls to ask your subscribers about future content too.

Images

An image always helps with engagement, and you can use this option to illustrate text updates.

It’s an ideal way to show a glimpse behind the scenes of your YouTube channel. People like to ‘go behind the lens’, so try sharing some casual pictures of your studio setup or your regular home life.

To add an image, click on the image icon in the community editor and select or drag an image to the screen. It’s best using a picture with a 1:1 aspect ratio or your photo could be automatically clipped.

YouTube allows JPG, PNG, and the new WEBP image formats, but also permits GIFs too. GIFs are by there nature more compelling. Not many people skip past and image once it starts to move, so let’s take a quick look at how you might use GIFs for engagement.

GIFs

GIFs are posted to your community feed the same way as images. Naturally, the format has to be GIF, and the maximum file size you can upload is 16MB.

When posting a GIF, people instinctively think about posting funny memes. But the GIF format is a great way to tease your content too. Use an online service like placeit.net to make promo GIFs and drive engagement with your channel videos.

Vanessa Lau is excellent at this and frequently teases new content.

Link To Video

Remember everything you post in your community feed has the potential to show up in subscriber’s feeds. So use the link to video icon to regularly promote videos both new and old and increase your watch time.

Clicking on the add a video icon launches the following screen.

Select from your existing videos to promote your latest upload, and mix in some of your older content as well. Plus, you can add videos from other YouTubers using the search feature or by direct URL.

Once you have selected a video, you can add text, which when published to your feed looks like the following:

Picking the right text to go with your video link can further intrigue and prompt your followers to watch.

Schedule Your Community Posts

If you are the kind of creator who likes to get ahead of your content schedule, then you can schedule as many future community posts as you wish.

This feature is helpful for those who like to batch similar jobs together, or you could use it to keep your channel active while you are on vacation.

You can also use the scheduling feature to time content for followers in different timezones. If you’re European and your channel has lots of fans on the West coast of the US. You can schedule a post linking to a new video, and time it for the morning just as people are waking up and checking social feeds. Thus maximising the chance of a subscriber seeing the fresh content.

To schedule a post, compose your community update as usual, then to the right of the ‘post’ button, you will see a drop-down arrow. Click on the arrow then select ‘Schedule post’.

You’ll now see three options to the foot of the community editor; date, time, and timezone.

Then it’s just a case of selecting the exact moment you wish your post to go live.

Once you have scheduled a post, you still have the option to edit or delete it before publishing.

Community Plus – Paid Memberships

If you manage to grow your channel to over 30,000 subscribers, you have the option to run an exclusive paid channel membership club. You need to be a member of the YouTube Partner Program to take advantage of this additional option and further increase your YouTube earnings.

You can offer several levels of membership, like in the example below from travel vloggers Simon and Martina.

The first level provides members with exclusive channel chat emojis, and the subsequent levels provide additional exclusive content unavailable to regular subscribers to the channel.

It’s not a step to take lightly, though. Members will want something of value in return, which means providing additional content regularly. So you will need to plan carefully and make sure you can deliver on your promises before you take this step.

Conclusion

YouTube’s Community tab allows you to speedily interact with subscribers and viewers far quicker than the average time it takes to shoot and upload a video.

Whether you are driving additional watch time for old videos or building rapport with your followers, the community tab helps you to engage on a deeper level with them.

Mix up your community posts to take full advantage of content options to keep your feed refreshing and engaging. Post images, polls, and GIFs, and sometimes show different aspects of yourself than the one in your videos.

While it is no substitute for competing platforms, it can help your channel growth, video engagement. It should be an essential part of your content creation – once you meet the eligibility criteria.

Tags Community Tab, engagement, subscribers, YouTube Community Tab

DEEP DIVE ARTICLE HOW TO GET MORE VIEWS ON YOUTUBE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

How Often Should I Upload to YouTube?

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 17 August 2020
3 Comments on How Often Should I Upload to YouTube?

For a question like “how often should I upload to YouTube?”, there are two answers. There is the idealistic, best-case-scenario answer, and there is the practical, real-world answer that applies to you specifically.

For maximum growth potential, uploading to YouTube daily is the best option. However, there is more to success than merely putting videos online. If, for you, getting videos up on a daily basis means a severe compromise in the quality of those videos, or it is not feasible to make the kind of content you make that regularly, then of course, daily is not the right answer.

If there are no obstacles to getting your content up on a daily basis and that content is not rushed or subpar because of that schedule, then you will give yourself the best chance of succeeding by uploading more often and regularly.

But, as always, there is nuance to this topic so let’s get our hands a little dirtier.

Quality is Key

The closest thing you can get to a guarantee of success on YouTube comes with making quality content.

It is not a guarantee, of course, but if you could only nail one aspect of YouTubing, having quality content would be your best bet. Similarly, if you nailed every other aspect of YouTube except for producing quality content, your channel could—and probably would—still fail.

What this means in practical terms is that if your videos are poor quality, lack focus, or do not provide anything useful to the viewer—be it information or entertainment—it won’t matter that you are consistently managing to get a new video up every day because people won’t be interested in watching it. Furthermore, some types of content cannot realistically fit into a daily schedule, especially for individuals running a YouTube channel. DIY project channels are a great example of this.

The projects depicted on these channels can sometimes take days or weeks to complete themselves, so how, then, can you put daily videos out when each video represents multiple days of work?

So, while daily uploads would give you the best chance of success, you should adjust the “ideal” upload amount to suit your personal circumstances and your channel type. If you can’t realistically make videos more regularly than once a week without compromising the quality, don’t even consider anything more frequent than that.

This is not to say that the ideal upload schedule for you should be as often as you can possibly manage.

There is more to running a YouTube channel than the mechanical aspect of making a video.

YouTube Burn Out is a Real Problem

The fact that you can make quality videos daily, or weekly, or whatever interval you choose, does not mean that you should. Many YouTube channels fade out—or never get going in the first place—because the effort of running the channel becomes too much for the YouTuber.

Couple this with the fact that the vast majority of YouTubers never reach a level of success where they can earn enough money from their channel to pay the bills, and you have a recipe for disillusioned content creators wondering if it’s really worth the effort.

Of course, we would always recommend going into a YouTube channel with the mindset of it being a labour of love, rather than a money-making venture. That way, you are not only more likely to succeed because you enjoy it, but it will also be a nice bonus if the money does start rolling in.

But if you are running yourself into the ground trying to get content out on a gruelling schedule, and you are one of the overwhelming majority of YouTubers who don’t make enough money from their channel to quit the day job, you will almost certainly reach a point where it doesn’t feel worth it anymore.

Exceeding Demand has no Benefit

Another aspect to consider here is the viewer’s desire to watch that much of your content.

Something like a current events channel with regular short videos suits a daily upload schedule, but if you are making hour-long in-depth analysis videos, even if you could get one out a day, would your viewers have that kind of appetite for what is essentially a lot of intensive content?

People lead increasingly busy lives, and there are far more options competing for their downtime than at any point in human history. Forget the Netflixes, Amazon Primes, Xboxes, and any number of other sources of entertainment. On YouTube alone, there is more competition for your viewer’s attention than you can fathom, no matter how small your niche is.

If you are putting out videos that are over an hour-long daily, you will almost certainly dilute your viewer’s attention. You may find they only come for one or two videos a week, for example, when you are uploading six or seven.

Will this hurt your channel?

Not in any significant direct way, but it would mean you are putting a lot of extra effort in for very little return. It would be a far more efficient use of your time to put that effort into fewer videos, hopefully improving your content and giving your viewers more breathing room between each video.

There are also arguments to be made on the optics of having highly viewed videos. While it is generally a good idea not to obsess over viewing figures, it is an unavoidable reality that highly viewed videos tend to get a prestige boost in the minds of new viewers.

That is; they see a lot of people have watched a video and they are more likely to deem it worth watching. If you spread your views across multiple videos, rather than focussing your energies on a smaller number, you risk your content coming across as less-viewed, which will have an indirect impact on your growth.

Consistency Trumps Frequency

Now, we’re going to level with you, regardless of what we say the best plan for success is regarding upload schedules, there will always be exceptions. The truth is you can succeed on any schedule if the content is good.

For example, YouTuber, Code Bullet, has a very popular coding channel.

His upload schedule is hilariously inconsistent, often stretching to months between videos. This state of affairs has become a running joke in both the comments section and the videos themselves, and yet his channel has over two million subscribers, and his videos (when they eventually come) consistently pass two million views.

It can certainly be done, but if you’re going to go off-book, posts like this won’t be a great deal of help to you.

If you want to play it a little more conventional, having a consistent upload schedule is often more effective than having a frequent schedule.

Consistency works for you both with the viewers and with YouTube itself. For YouTube’s part, they want people to stick around, and a big chunk of that is finding YouTubers that are going to draw viewers back on a regular basis.

Having a consistent upload schedule tells YouTube that you are reliable and that any subscribers you gain have a reason to keep coming back because you will always put out new content.

And, for the viewers, a consistent upload schedule tells them they’re not investing time in something that might just disappear one day without warning.

In much the same way people are more reluctant to watch a TV show that they know was eventually cancelled abruptly without the opportunity to tie up any loose ends in the plot, viewers will be less likely to subscribe to your channel if it looks like you might have stopped uploading because your last video was four months ago.

Evergreen Content

You should always try to make content based around what you are interested in because that gives you the best chance of being able to stick with it in the long term. It also makes the process easier because it’s much easier to work on something you enjoy.

So, when we talk about evergreen content, it may be useless information to you if your interests don’t mesh with this kind of content, but if you can make evergreen content, you will be in a much better position to succeed in the long term.

But what is evergreen content?

Evergreen content is content that has a long shelf-life. Content that will still be relevant and useful to viewers many months—or even years—down the line.

To give a couple of examples that illustrate what we mean, a video on celebrity gossip will only be relevant for a news cycle—something that is getting increasingly short in recent years. A tutorial on how to perform some clever trick in a popular piece of software, on the other hand, will be relevant for as long as that software is in use and the trick works.

It is not uncommon for YouTubers making evergreen content to give up on their channel, feeling that they are not getting anywhere, only to come back to it years later and find that their subscribers have continued to grow in their absence. This doesn’t happen for channels like the celebrity gossip channel we mentioned above.

Again, your content should largely be determined by what you enjoy making, but if you can make evergreen content, the success of your channel will be somewhat insulated against the possibility of failure due to inconsistencies in your upload schedule.

It also makes it easier to take a break from your channel—as you may sometimes feel the need to do—without it damaging your growth.

Make Sure Your Viewers Know What’s Coming

If you have a regular upload schedule, you wouldn’t have to do much more than making sure people know what that schedule is. But a lot of videos—especially videos that are not evergreen—tend to get the bulk of their views in the first few days after upload. The more views your video is getting in a short space of time; the more YouTube is likely to recommend it during that time because it will see it as something that is trending.

What this means in practical terms is that you should do everything in your power—without being obnoxious or spamming people—to make everyone aware that you have new content coming out, and what your upload schedule is.

Take to social media, update any mailing lists or Discord servers you run, etc. Treat it like a campaign, rather than a single blast of updates, such as waiting for a day after uploading and then posting about it in your community tab.

Spend at least twenty-four hours letting people know, so you have the best chance of catching the most viewers in the shortest amount of time.

It may be less important for evergreen videos, which will often get far more views over its lifetime than it does in the first few days, but it still helps to get that initial boost which could lead to YouTube promoting the video more.

As we mentioned above, there is a psychological component to seeing that a video has lots of views, and may increase the likelihood that someone clicks on your content.

Summing Up: How Often Should I Upload to YouTube?

So what have we learned? The more frequently you can upload videos to YouTube, the better the chance of success you have. But this only applies if you can get videos out at that rate without compromising on quality.

The minimum interval you should have between videos is however long it takes you to make the best content you can make because, ultimately, the quality of the content is more important than the frequency with which you upload it.

Evergreen content, if it fits your channel, can act as a kind of buffer against infrequent upload schedules, attracting viewers to your channel long after they were uploaded.

And, finally, promote your content. You don’t want to be in a situation where people who want to watch your content don’t because they didn’t realise there was a video out. Tweet, post on Facebook, Instagram, and wherever else, you have social media accounts.

Encourage viewers to click the notification icon on your video, whatever it takes. But don’t spam or act in other annoying ways because that will just put people off.

And, just to reiterate; the quality of the video should always come first.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. Learn new skills for FREE with Skillshare

I SUCK reading books to learn, but I LOVE online video courses.

Every month I learn something new. Editing, writing, video skills, how to cook, how to run a business – even how to meditate to calm a busy mind.

I find all of these for FREE with Skillshare – Sign up, pick all the courses you want and cancel anytime you need.

5. Shutterstock helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the Shutterstock website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Tags how often should I upload, upload, upload schedule, upload videos, videos, youtube upload

DEEP DIVE ARTICLE HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

How to Make Money on YouTube Using Other People’s Videos

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 14 August 2020

Making money on YouTube with other people’s content is certainly possible, though, as you might expect, there are ethical considerations depending on how you go about it.

If you just re-upload someone else’s content wholesale, without any kind of modification, and pass it off as your own, there is no question that it is wrong in every sense of the word, including YouTube’s rules and guidelines.

So, not only would you be doing something generally unpleasant, but you would also likely fall afoul of YouTube’s policies, and lose any monetary gain you might have had.

That being said, there are ways to make money using other people’s content on YouTube that are entirely within YouTube’s terms, and you can do it in ways that won’t have the YouTubers whose content you are using wishing ill fortune on you.

So let’s dive into how to make money on YouTube using other people’s videos!

Stealing Content

There isn’t much more to say about this that we didn’t cover in the intro, but just to reiterate; taking another YouTuber’s content and re-uploading without their permission has very little going for it as a money-making tactic.

It will not make you many friends, you will be competing with the original video for views, and it will almost certainly be a short term thing as YouTube will eventually shut you down when they find out you are stealing content.

It’s best to steer clear of this method entirely.

Getting Permission

We’re going to discuss some methods here that, strictly speaking, could be done without permission from the YouTuber whose content you are using, but it’s always worth getting permission if you can, regardless of whether you need it.

If you can somehow get permission for it, even the above method of just taking someone else’s content and re-uploading it would be fine. We can’t think of many situations where the original creator would be okay with that, but it would be perfectly fine if they did.

But, as a general courtesy, it is nice to ask YouTuber’s if you can use their content, even if it’s only a small clip. And, who knows? They may even share your video.

Getting the permissions itself can be tricky, especially if the YouTuber doesn’t check their spam folder too often.

You should be able to find a contact email address for them in their channel’s “About” page (you may have to prove you’re not a bot in order to see it), though the existence of an email address doesn’t mean anyone is looking at the inbox.

You can also try pinging them on social media. What you want to avoid, however, is spamming them with a barrage of messages across different platforms.

Try to leave a little bit of breathing space between attempts to contact them, as waking up to dozens of notifications in different apps all from the same person may be a bit off-putting.

In your messages, be polite, and it can’t hurt to throw in a compliment about their content. After all; you are wanting to use it. Y

ou should also let them know what you are planning to do with the content you are seeking permission to use, and be honest. Nothing can burn bridges like getting permission to use someone’s content for one thing and then using it for something else, especially if the thing you end up using it for is something the original creator would object to.

Reused Content

As this post is talking about making money specifically, we need to address YouTube’s stance on reused content.

There is a lot of content on YouTube (and other parts of the web) that are fair game for you to use on your channel from a legal standpoint. Creative Commons content and content in the public domain being the main examples of this.

However, being legally allowed to use content does not mean YouTube will let you monetise it. Their monetisation policies specifically call out “reused content” as something that cannot be monetised.

What this means in practical terms is that even though you are allowed—both legally and under YouTube’s terms—to take a video that is licensed under Creative Commons (as long as you give full attribution) and post it on your channel in full, YouTube will not allow you to monetise it unless you have made sufficient modification to it. How these modifications might look is a significant part of the rest of this post, so keep reading.

What About Fair Use?

Fair use is a convention through which copyrighted material can be used without the express permission of the copyright holder or a licensing agreement to use the content in some circumstances.

The content you produce must be “transformative”, which can include commentary and parody, as well as some other kinds of content.

Fair use is often misunderstood to be some kind of shield to protect you against copyright strikes, but that is not how it works. Fair use is a defence—not a black and white policy—and it is determined on a case-by-case basis. That means that, even if you were entirely within the spirit of fair use, you would still have to go to court and make your case if you faced a copyright owner who is aggressive enough with their legal team to take it that far.

One of the problems with fair use on YouTube is their automated content recognition system, which has no concept of fair use and will flag your videos regardless if it recognises copyrighted material.

As sad a state of affairs as it may seem, it would generally make your life much easier if you steered clear of copyrighted content altogether.

How to Make Money on YouTube Using Other People’s Videos

Now that we’ve told you what you can’t do, let’s get into what you can do.

Here we are going to outline some different ways you can make money on YouTube using other people’s videos, as well as how you would go about it and any other relevant information.

Reaction Videos

Reaction videos are more popular than ever and are not limited to movie trailers. Just about any viral video can be good fodder for a reaction video, though it can help to stick within a particular genre or type of video.

For example, Stevie Knight is a popular reaction YouTuber who reacts to rap songs specifically. For the super famous YouTubers, reaction videos can be about anything because the audience is there to see them, whatever they are doing. But for us mere mortals, it’s probably best to find a niche and stick to it.

One of the critical aspects of reaction videos, as obvious as it sounds, is reacting. If you sit and watch a nine-minute video, pulling the occasional face and barely saying anything, you’re not going to make much of an impression.

And you may fall afoul of YouTube’s reuse policy, as they could deem it not to be sufficiently different from the original video.

Needless to say, this type of video is more suited to YouTubers with a lot of personality.

You are banking on people wanting to see you. They can go and watch the original video easily enough, or check out one of the other reaction YouTubers covering this video, and if you are bland and unentertaining, they may do just that.

Be yourself, as well.

Being a reaction, YouTuber will quickly fall apart if you are putting on a persona. Try not to worry about pleasing everyone; it’s an impossible task.

Just be yourself and be consistent with your videos.

Breakdown Videos

Breakdown videos are very similar to reaction videos but a little more technical in nature.

Where a reaction video is all about the… well… reaction, breakdown videos go into detail about the content itself. In fact, the YouTuber we mentioned above, Stevie Knight, would be a good example for this kind of video as well, as he doesn’t just react to rap music, he breaks down the lyrics.

Breakdown videos are also common for political and social commentary, as well as movie trailers and speeches. The aim of a breakdown is either to respond to things in the video or to give your unique insight to the viewers.

If you decide to go down this path, you make sure you have something to offer.

Unlike reaction videos, where a lively personality and a bit of comedy can be enough, a breakdown video needs to add something to the conversation. If you are breaking down the latest Marvel movie trailer, make sure you are well-versed in Marvel lore, so that you can spot things that regular viewers may miss.

Clip Videos

Clip videos can be on a range of topics, such as “Top 10” videos, or “This Week In…”. An example of this can be found on GameDevHQ’s channel, where they have a weekly series that lists off some of the most interesting projects being developed in the Unity game engine.

This kind of video is very appealing to those more camera-shy YouTubers out there, as it doesn’t require you to be on-camera to make content. It would typically take the form of a series of clips with voice-over narration saying something about each clip.

In these cases, as long as the clips are not too long, you can usually claim fair use with regards to your use of the clip, however, as we stated above, fair use, even when used correctly, is no guarantee that you will be free to use the content.

It would be best to get permission from the content owners first, but if you keep the clips short, you should be okay.

Become a Music Content Aggregator/Promoter

This one is a little less conventional, but you could become a channel for promoting unknown musicians.

The idea here would be that you are putting the music videos out on a channel that has more exposure—benefitting the artist—while you run advertisements on those videos.

Whether or not you cut the artists in on the revenue would be up to you, although it will undoubtedly be easier to get artists on board if you are going to pay them.

The main problem with this kind of channel is that it is challenging to get off of the ground, as you need a significant number of subscribers to draw in more popular artists.

One trick could be to use Creative Commons music in the beginning. You would not be able to monetise these videos due to YouTube’s reuse policy, but you wouldn’t be able to monetise in the beginning anyway due to the requirements for joining YouTube’s Partner Programme.

The goal would be to build the channel’s reputation and following up to the point that you can entice up and coming artists to release music through your channel, and hopefully reach a point where all of the content you publish is original.

You can even use cover songs to get your foot in the door and leverage attention. If you need help in making money from cover songs then check out my deep dive blog where I break down the legal points, the fast traffic tips and some great tweaks you can use to get the maximum impact for minimal impact on your pocket.

Mashup Videos

This one requires quite a bit of ability with audio editing software, but you could make mashups of existing music videos.

These tend to be popular when the original videos are from contrasting genres, making the final result something of a novelty that will interest fans of both genres.

One of the most well-known examples of this kind of video is an interesting mashup between Justin Beiber and Slipknot. The less similar to the original songs, the better, or you may get hit with YouTube’s Content ID.

It should be noted that there are legal obligations when using copyrighted music, even if it is only small samples.

You probably won’t end up in a courtroom if you get caught—it is far more likely you’ll get a copyright strike or your ad revenue diverted to the copyright holder—but the possibility is always there when you break copyright law.

What we’re saying here is, strictly speaking, you should get the proper licensing sorted with any copyright holders before creating mashups video. This blog does not endorse doing anything that breaks the law.

You could always license a song from a music supplier such as LickD where you can make cover-songs or mashups and not have to worry about revenue share or copyright clam for the audio. They have a wide selection of popular tracks and you even get your first track for free when you sign up.

Conclusions

You may have noticed that there is still quite a bit of work involved in these various methods.

Unfortunately, there is no way of making money on YouTube with other people’s videos that is simultaneously allowed by YouTube, legal, and does not require some effort on your part.

However you could always try stock video content (for example I use storyblocks for all my b-roll) to pad out your creations and all you have to do is talk over the clips – you wouldn’t even need to show your face.

If that sounds perfect I have 12 Channel Ideas Without Showing Your Face just for you!

Tags copyright, income, make money on youtube, make money online, money, youtube

DEEP DIVE ARTICLE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

YouTube Codecs Explained

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 12 August 2020
3 Comments on YouTube Codecs Explained

If you’re new to the wide and wonderful world of YouTube—or working with any kind of video for that matter—you might have heard of video codecs.

Or perhaps you’re not so new, and you’ve heard of them, but you don’t really understand what they are or what they do. If you are either of these people, this post is for you.

Video codecs are the software and method that is used to compress video. In the case of YouTube, codecs are employed to reduce the size of the video before it is streamed by millions of people across the globe.

It is an essential part of transmitting video, and there are a variety of different flavours available. But what are they? And why are they so important? Read on to have YouTube codecs explained in full.

What is a Codec?

In short, codecs are compression. They are the software and method used to compress a large video file into a smaller video file using clever algorithms that strive to achieve the most significant reduction in size at the expense of as little loss of detail as possible.

Video is an incredibly large medium in terms of raw data—which we’ll get to shortly—and few people who don’t work with video appreciate just how much information is involved. Of course, anyone who edits video in any capacity will be fully aware, and anyone who has ever attempted to edit 4K video on a computer that, while powerful, was nevertheless not up to the task, will appreciate the struggle that video can present.

If you need help in deciding between 1080p and 4K – maybe you are lost and don’t know the difference – check out my deep dive blog on 4K and it could take YouTube by storm!

Codecs don’t typically help with editing, however, but they make life a lot easier on your Internet connection, and given how far our Internet speeds have come in recent years, the fact that there are still effort to improve compression and shrink video files further should serve to highlight how big video can be.

How do Codecs Work?

In the simplest terms, codecs compress information into a smaller size by replacing it with a different set of data that represents the original information.

To give a very simplified example of this, imagine you have a still frame of 1080p video where the top half of the screen is entirely black. Each pixel on the screen has to be accounted for in the data for that still frame, which means there are 1920×540, or 1,036,800 pixels. That’s a lot of data.

However, we don’t need to store every single pixel in our data. Knowing that the next million pixels are the same, we can just say that and be done. Saving the data equivalent of “Black: 1,036,800 times” is a lot more efficient than actually listing black over a million times.

Of course, there is much more to it than that, but it should serve to give you a basic grounding in how codecs do their job. Compression can be taken to extreme levels, of course. Video can be compressed until it is little more than a pixellated blur of what it once was—albeit is a pixellated blur that takes up considerably less space than it once did. Many ingenious techniques are employed to preserve information, but as a general rule, the more compressed a video is, the more of that original information you lose.

“Why is information lost?” we hear you asking. In the above example of a frame that is half black, no information would be lost. The entirety of that black half of the screen would be stored fully intact in the dramatically reduced space we outlined. Real-world applications of compression are not so simple, however.

There are very rarely large portions of a frame that are the same colour in a frame of video, especially a film or TV show. Furthermore, there may not be any smaller areas that are identical. When you consider the depth of colours available and things like film grain, it is entirely possible to have frames of video where there isn’t a single collection of pixels adjacent to each other that are identical. In those cases, the simple compression method we detailed above would be useless.

This is where the information loss comes in. Codecs employ algorithms to decide what is compressible. If you have two pixels that are ever so slightly different shades of blue, they would technically be different but probably not different enough that the human eye could distinguish between the two.

The compression algorithm may count both of these pixels as the same colour, allowing it to reduce the size of the frame slightly.

And, when the video is decoded, it will still look good to our human eyes, but the information of that slightly differently shaded blue pixel is lost, and cannot be recovered from the encoded video.

This is why high-resolution footage with a lot of film grain is hard to compress, because you either can’t get much of a size reduction from the compression, or you lose a lot of that fine detail.

This should hopefully also go some way to explaining why there are so many codecs available. It is not a simple matter of which codec reduces the video size the most, there are preferences to take into account.

Some codecs are more aggressive, others don’t achieve the same degree of size-reduction. Depending on what you are doing with your video, different codecs may be suitable.

Why do we Need Codecs?

Computers are getting more powerful, and Internet speeds are getting faster, but at the same time, media is growing in fidelity.

There was a time not too long ago when our only means of watching video was the equivalent of a 640×480 screen, in what would retroactively be called 480i. For comparison, 1080p—which is considered the bare minimum these days and is even drifting slowly into obsolesce—is 1920×1080. That’s three times more information than the standard definition video we used to watch.

In keeping with this trend, 4K—which is well on its way to replacing 1080p as the defacto standard—is four times larger again. It should be noted that the “4” in 4K is not down to the fact that it is four times the size of 1080p, but rather the fact that the horizontal resolution is nearly 4,000 pixels across.

But 4K itself already has a replacement on the horizon, with 8K screens creeping onto the market. As you might have guessed, 8K is four times larger again than 4K, though we are far from 8K being commonplace in our homes, so we wouldn’t hold off on purchasing that 4K television just yet.

So what does all this mean? It means that despite computers getting more powerful and Internet speeds getting faster, the size of the media we are trying to play is getting similarly more substantial. Exponentially so, in fact. And this is just taking video files into account; there is also game streaming to consider, which Google is getting into in the form of their Stadia service.

And, while this is a gaming platform, it ultimately boils down to streaming live video to your screen, and will likely be a big part of YouTube if it succeeds.

Should I Upload 4K to YouTube? 1 — Two players playing video games on TV at home

To illustrate this point, here is a list of some resolutions and their typical data rate in megabits per second (Mbps). This is the amount of data that is being transmitted per second, whether that is from a Blu-ray drive to your screen, or from a distant server and over the Internet.

Compression Type	Resolution	Bitrate
YouTube @ 60FPS	1080p	4.5-9 Mbps
Blu-ray	1080p	20-30 Mbps
H.264 50Mbps	1080p	50 Mbps
No Compression	1080p	3,000 Mbps
YouTube @ 60FPS	4K	20-51 Mbps
X264 Codec	4K	100 Mbps
Blu-ray	4K	82-128 Mbps
No Compression	4K	10,000 Mbps

We should mention that all of the above compression methods are to a degree where the video is still kept to a high quality.

Of course, it would be possible to significantly reduce the bitrate further with more compression, but that would compromise the quality of the video to the point where it would affect the viewing experience.

Hopefully, that table will illustrate the importance of codecs. Even looking at the raw, uncompressed 1080p bitrate, it is sixty times more data than the typical bitrate that 4K video streamed over YouTube requires. Bearing in mind that 8Mbps is equivalent to 1 megabyte per second, a raw, uncompressed 4K stream would require data transfer rates of over a gigabyte per second.

This would present serious problems for Internet delivery, optical bandwidth in disc drives, and even if you were pulling the information directly from a high-speed solid-state drive, your computer would still need to be up to the task of processing that much information.

Audio Codecs

We’ve been focused on video codecs so far, but the audio is a critical part of the process as well, and the two do not necessarily go together in the compression process. When you encode video, the file name at the end (often .MP4) is little more than a wrapper. For the most part, you can mix and match your video and audio codecs to suit your needs.

As for the audio codecs themselves, there are nuances to compressing audio that differ from video, of course. For one thing, the smaller size of audio means that audio bitrates are typically measured in kilobits per second (Kbps) rather than megabits per second (Mbps).

But the broad strokes are the same as video codecs. They work to reduce the size of the audio by compressing it, often at the cost of some of the information stored.

The Best Codecs For YouTube

The answer what the best codecs for YouTube are is quite a short one since YouTube themselves openly tell us. YouTube prefer you to upload your videos in MP4 format, encoded with the H.264 video codec and AAC audio codec.

As we mentioned above, the file format and the codec are two different things, and YouTube is open to several different formats, such as MOV, AVI, MP4, WMV, MPEG, WebM, 3GPP, and FLV.

What Happens When I Upload Video to YouTube?

If you are already uploading videos to YouTube, you will be familiar with the “processing” phase of the upload process. During this time, YouTube is converting your video to a number of different resolutions.

When you select a different quality in a video—or when YouTube changes the quality automatically due to bandwidth issues—YouTube is not doing that on the fly. All the available quality options on a video are pre-processed and exist as their own video files on the YouTube servers.

Obviously, the capability to upscale your video to higher resolutions than the one you uploaded does not yet exist to the degree that would be feasible to use in this manner, but YouTube will create lower resolution alternatives. The standard definition is typically the first one to be created, though we would generally advise waiting until at least the high definition option has finished encoding, as that will be the most in-demand version.

YouTube has a preference for the codec you upload your video with because the fewer incoming codecs they have to deal with, the more they can optimise their platform and reduce the time it takes to process new video.

If you need help in getting the best setting to render out your video in 4K I have a blog dedicated to everything you need to know for 4K perfect quality, smallest file size and fastest upload times!

Are Codecs Free?

Not all codecs are free; however, the most popular ones that are used today do not cost money to use. While we are on the subject of free codecs, it is worth pointing out that codecs can be dangerous in the same way that downloading an executable file from an untrustworthy source can be.

Codecs can be used to get malicious software onto your computer, or they could just cause serious problems when attempting to playback media. So take care when downloading them, and make sure you are downloading from a verified source.

Summing Up

So, now you have had YouTube codecs explained, why you need them, and how they work (in simplified terms).

Remember, the world of codecs is not static, and new developments happen all the time, especially with new video formats and resolutions popping up from time to time.

It’s worth checking in with YouTube’s help resources occasionally to make sure there haven’t been any developments you should know about.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. Learn new skills for FREE with Skillshare

I SUCK reading books to learn, but I LOVE online video courses.

Every month I learn something new. Editing, writing, video skills, how to cook, how to run a business – even how to meditate to calm a busy mind.

I find all of these for FREE with Skillshare – Sign up, pick all the courses you want and cancel anytime you need.

5. Shutterstock helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Tags 4k, 4k codec, 4k video, codec, codecs, codecs explained, video, video codec, video codecs, youtube codec, youtube codecs, youtube explained

TIPS & TRICKS

Do Dislikes Matter on YouTube?

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 11 August 2020

There are two ways to look at the topic dislikes and whether they matter. The first way is from your audience’s perspective; the second way is from the perspective of the YouTube algorithm.

Both of these perspectives are important, as they will ultimately determine how successful your videos are, though the impact of dislikes on each is markedly different.

So, do dislikes matter on YouTube? Everyone is in a rush these days, of course, so if you’re looking for a quick answer, it is yes. Dislikes do matter on YouTube, and for a variety of reasons. But they do not have a negative affect on ranking or views.

Is this why people beg for likes? Now that is a completely different blog posts, I deep dive into why people ask for likes here.

If you would like to learn more about what those reasons are, and how they affect your channel, read on.

Dislikes and the YouTube Algorithm

Dislikes do have a negative effect on your channel when it comes to the almighty algorithm, but it is an indirect negative effect.

YouTube places a great deal of significance on interaction and engagement, and dislikes fall under that umbrella. So, counter-intuitive as it may seem, dislikes can actually be seen as a positive thing by the YouTube algorithm if there are no other negative factors in play. But what might those other negative factors look like?

Well, if someone watches your video for twenty seconds, hits dislike, and closes the browser, that’s a bad thing. As far as YouTube is concerned, they didn’t like your content, and they left.

In terms of YouTube goals, that’s about as close to a cardinal sin as it gets.

If, on the other hand, they disliked your video but they watched the whole thing, and then went on to watch more videos on YouTube, well, from YouTube’s point of view, you held their attention, got some engagement out of them, and kept them on the site. That’s all good news as far as YouTube is concerned.

Now, even in that last example, there are adverse effects to your channel. YouTube may not penalise your channel’s exposure for dislikes if you are still getting plenty of watch time and engagement, but they do use those dislikes to gauge personal interest. That means there’s a higher chance that the user who disliked your videos will not get your content recommended to them in future.

Furthermore, YouTube may also decide not to recommend your content to other users with similar interests.

So as you can see, YouTube will not directly punish your channel for getting a lot of dislikes, but the indirect results of those dislikes could hamper your growth nonetheless.

But you may want to look into how to boost your retention and keep them watching for longer.

Dislikes and Your Viewers

Much as there are two ways to view the negative impact of dislikes on your channel, there are two significant ways to consider dislikes in relation to your viewers. The first of which is how they react to dislikes on your videos.

The impact that a high number of dislikes has on a viewers desire to watch a video is a little hard to quantify. From a purely anecdotal perspective, it doesn’t seem to make a great deal of difference.

Many people seem to start watching the content based on the thumbnails and titles and don’t even notice dislikes until it occurs to them to leave a dislike of their own. That being said, it is hard to think of a way in which dislikes would not have a negative effect on a viewers willingness to check your content out. At best, they might be indifferent.

The more important thing here is – what those dislikes are telling you about your content?

Remember, disliking a channel takes effort. Granted, it is not much effort, but more effort than not doing anything. YouTubers regularly ask their viewers to like their videos because it works, and it works because viewers just don’t think to hit like button a lot of the time.

What that tells you about your dislikes is that if someone was negatively affected enough to the effort of hitting dislike on your video. In other words; they meant it.

Of course, not every dislike is created equally—especially on the Internet. You certainly should not obsess over every dislike you get, but if you are consistently getting a high number of dislikes on your videos, it might be a sign that you need to rethink your content.

As for what constitutes a concerning number of dislikes, only you can accurately judge that. It is not a simple matter of more dislikes equals worse content for some channels, as there are channels that deal in controversial content, such as political commentary. For channels like this, dislikes should be judged proportionally, rather than as pure numbers.

If your like to dislike ratio is roughly half and half on average, you should take it as a warning sign.

And, just for a moment, even though it is not the target audience of this blog, it’s worth addressing people who are purely YouTube viewers, rather than creators.

It is important to remember that dislikes can happen for a wide range of reasons. It may be that the video quality was poor, or that the title was clickbaity. It could be a purely ideological thing as we mentioned above, or merely a divisive issue—or a divisive YouTuber. Dislikes are not a worthless metric to judge a video’s worth by any means, but let them be your only metric.

Dislikes and Monetisation

A question that will undoubtedly come up around this topic is what impact dislikes have on the earning power of your YouTube channel. Much like the impact on your exposure in the YouTube recommendation algorithm, dislikes do have a negative impact on your earnings, but only in an indirect sense.

Indeed, it is the very same mechanism that can lower your exposure that would also lower your earnings. In short, if fewer people are seeing your video due to fewer recommendations from YouTube, your earnings will obviously suffer.

Another link between dislikes and monetisation comes from the fact that controversial content—which is more likely to attract dislikes—may also turn advertisers off of your content. In this case, both the dislikes and the lack of advertising revenue are a symptom of the same thing, rather than one being caused by the other.

Common Causes of Dislikes

Understanding when dislikes are an indicator that your channel needs attention is only part of the battle. You also need to be able to work out what your channel needs in order to be set back on the right path. To that end, let’s look at some of the more common causes of an increased number of dislikes.

And, just to be clear, we are talking about objective problems here. The things we mentioned earlier, such as divisive issues, cannot be “fixed”. But if you run that kind of channel, you will know all about that.

Fix Poor Video or Audio Quality

If you’ve ever tried to watch a video where the visual quality is poor or perhaps the audio quality is not great in a video where listening to the audio is essential to the content, you will understand the frustration that it can cause.

Of course, improving the quality of your videos can be easier said than done. Recording equipment costs money, and not everyone can afford the latest and greatest cameras and microphones. But if the quality of your videos is causing your channel problems, it should at least be made a priority.

And you should certainly look into any methods of improving your video quality that do not involve spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on new gear.

The good news is that if you are getting dislikes on your video because of the quality, you are doing something right. It means people have found their way to your video in the first place, meaning you must have done a good job at titling your video and creating a thumbnail for it, and you must be providing content that people want to see. Compared to figuring that side of YouTube out, improving the quality of your videos is a relatively easy task.

Avoid Clickbait

One of the most sure-fire ways to generate a lot of dislikes is to use clickbait titles and thumbnails. Understand, when we say “clickbait” we mean the traditional sense of the word—as much as any Internet slang can be traditional—where the title and thumbnail are designed to bring viewers while not necessarily being representative of the content in the video.

There has been a shift in the use of the word recently to refer to any title that is tailored towards catching a viewers interest, regardless of whether it is an accurate representation of the video. In our opinion, a title that accurately portrays what the video is about and makes people want to watch it is a resounding success.

The problem comes when those titles and thumbnails bring viewers in but do not deliver on the promise that got them there. Short cuts rarely work when it comes to YouTube growth, and this is no different. You may see high numbers to begin with, but the annoyance and frustration at your video’s lack of delivery on its promises will generate dislikes. And, whether through a bad reputation or YouTube’s lack of recommendations—or both—any success you gain will start to dwindle.

Stick to the Script

The script, in this case, does not have to be a literal script—we’re not saying that the only path to YouTube success is through carefully scripting your videos and never improvising. What we mean here is that your videos should have a clear purpose, be coherent in the delivery of that point, and not waste the viewers time.

Again, there is a lot of wiggle room in this point. It would be a boring platform indeed if every video put across only the critical aspects of the topic and nothing else. But there is a balance to be struck between a bit of colour and personality, and rambling and waffling on.

Make your videos distinct. Give your viewers a reason to watch your content over someone else’s who covers similar things. But anything that isn’t serving that purpose or delivering the stated content of the video; consider cutting it from your gameplan.

Always Improve

Okay, it’s not exactly the most actionable advice, but a failure to grow as a YouTube channel can also cause you to start picking up dislikes. Even the most diehard of fans will eventually start to tire of your content if it feels stale and overdone.

Being engaged with your community is an excellent way to gauge what might work for your channel, saving you some of the trial and error of making videos and seeing what works.

Of course, we don’t recommend pivoting your whole channel overnight, but introducing new elements and trying new things is rarely a bad idea.

And in those cases, the dislikes can help you determine what works and what doesn’t.

Conclusions

Dislikes can undoubtedly point to problems with your content, though a dislike in and of itself is not necessarily a cause for concern. It is unlikely that the dislikes themselves will hurt your channel, however.

Instead, the damage to your channel will come from the cause of those dislikes, which makes it no less important to address a disproportionate amount of negative feedback on your channel, even if that feedback isn’t actively harming it.

Dislikes can be a great indicator that there are things that need fixing about your content, so it pays to keep a close eye on them. Remember to judge your channel on its own merit, though.

If you are making unobjectionable content—such as software tutorials—you can probably take dislikes as a pure metric on how good your content is. But if you are making something a little less wholesome, such as political commentary or videos about controversial topics, you should probably expect a certain amount of dislikes as a matter of course.

Try to gauge what is normal for your channel, and judge any changes based on that starting point.

And, remember, you can’t please everyone. Don’t ignore dislikes entirely, but don’t let them dictate your channel either. As always, you should strive to find a healthy balance.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. Learn new skills for FREE with Skillshare

I SUCK reading books to learn, but I LOVE online video courses.

Every month I learn something new. Editing, writing, video skills, how to cook, how to run a business – even how to meditate to calm a busy mind.

I find all of these for FREE with Skillshare – Sign up, pick all the courses you want and cancel anytime you need.

5. Shutterstock helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Tags dislikes, do dislikes hurt videos, do dislikes matter?, do thumbs down matter, marketing, seo, social media, thumbs down, views, youtube, youtube dislikes

SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Am I Too Old to Start a YouTube Channel?

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 7 August 2020

Absolutely not.

Okay, that’s not really the end of the post; we’ll dive into this topic as we do with all things YouTube, but if you’re looking for the quick answer to “am I too old to start a YouTube channel?”; – No. You are not too old to start a YouTube channel. Whatever your age. As the saying goes, “It’s never too late to start something new”.

It is, however, perfectly natural to worry about being too old to jump into something that, from the outside, looks very much like a young person’s game.

There several reasons why you might think it’s not for you, and we’re going to lay the biggest ones out for all to see, and then tell you exactly why they shouldn’t stop you from starting up your own channel.

Let’s Talk Numbers

It can help to get over your fear of being “too old” for YouTube if you know some of the numbers around age on the platform. For example, even though YouTube is thought of as a very young person’s platform, you might be surprised to learn that the average age of a YouTuber is closer to thirty. Twenty-seven, to be exact.

Of course, that’s still pretty young, but remember; that’s the average age. That includes extremely popular YouTuber’s that are as young as 16. And, though not strictly in keeping with YouTube’s terms of service, there are YouTuber’s like EthanGamer, who started his channel at seven years of age and had hit a million subscribers by the age of ten!

We realise that highlighting these incredibly young YouTubers may seem counter-intuitive to the point of this post, but remember, we’re discussing the average here. YouTuber’s like Ethan—who even now is only fourteen years old, bring that average age down considerably. For the average to be up around twenty-seven years old, there has to older YouTubers to balance it out.

YouTubers like ThePianoGuys—one of whom is over fifty years old—and Adam Savage—fifty-three years old—prove that you don’t need to be a baby to get going on YouTube. And those are just popular examples. ThePianoGuys rank inside the top 100 YouTube channels (discounting organisations like VEVO), and Adam Savage has over five million subscribers.

There are YouTubers like Gamer Grandma who has a much more modest—yet still very impressive—410k subscribers for her gaming channel. She is ninety years old. And there are many more YouTubers like her who, while not as successful in terms of subscribers counts, are nevertheless enjoying plenty of popularity in a wide range of niches, such as Peter Oakley, an eighty-six-year-old autobiographical vlogger.

It’s also worth noting that YouTube’s reputation as a platform for younger people stems from the earlier days when it really was a platform for younger people. But YouTube has been around for a while now, and those more youthful people have grown up. For example, YouTube veteran, Philip DeFranco, started YouTubing at the tender age of twenty-one years old.

These days he is thirty-four years old and still going strong. To illustrate this, we’ve picked out a few YouTubers from the top fifty channels by subscriber count. Obviously, we’ve left out the large organisations and YouTube channels for big celebrities. Nobody should be looking at T-Series, Eminem, or Ed Sheeran for examples of how to succeed on YouTube.

Who?	Age	Subscriber Count (2020)
PewDiePie	31	106 Million
Knondzilla	31	58 Million
HoySoyGerman	30	41 Million
Filipe Neto	32	39 Million
Fernanfloo	27	36 Million
Luisito Comunica	29	33 Million

So, let’s get to those reasons why you might feel too old to start a YouTube channel, and why you shouldn’t let them stop you.

Personality Clash

As we get older, we tend to become more conservative. Not in a political sense—well, actually, in a political sense as well—but in the sense that we become more introverted as time goes on.

It’s perfectly natural, and it happens to most of us, but on a platform full of bright-eyed, cheerful souls all gleefully welcoming viewers to their videos with bubbly optimism, it is easy to feel intimidated by the prospect of joining that world yourself.

Fortunately, there are many ways to put your videos together, and there is absolutely space for more introverted YouTubers. Many successful channels feature quiet, reserved personalities, people who don’t show themselves on camera, even videos where the YouTuber in question never features at all!

The main ingredient to a successful YouTube channel is providing content that people want to see, and the way you deliver that content is the seasoning. Your particular seasoning maybe to some people’s taste and not to others, but it is the main ingredients that will be the primary determiner of success. So, focus on those main ingredients, and don’t worry about whether you come across as cheerful enough.

And, besides, putting on a personality that just isn’t you is a surefire way to burnout and lost the desire to make videos altogether.

Viewer Demographics

Even if YouTubers themselves are trending older, the people watching YouTube are still young, right?

One of the key aspects of building an audience is being able to appeal to that audience, and there has always been a natural culture-gap between younger and older people.

Not an insurmountable one, of course, and as we mentioned above, the main content of your videos is a more significant factor than the way you deliver it, but it is there nonetheless.

It is certainly not impossible to appeal to people outside of your age bracket, but you might be surprised to learn that 35+ and 55+ are two of the fastest-growing demographics when it comes to people watching YouTube.

Again, it is not impossible to appeal to other age groups than your own, but if you are firmly locked into your own age demographic, there are plenty of viewers for you attract.

Topics

Another reason older people might be dissuaded from creating a YouTube channel is the lack of ideas for engaging content.

Some of the most popular videos on YouTube involve young, handsome people dropping heavy things onto trampolines from a great height, or makeup tutorials, gaming videos, or any number of other things that are decidedly younger in scope.

It can be very easy to look at these videos and think that you have nothing to offer.

However if you need some guidance I have pulled together a list of “older” youtubers within the silver surfer bracket that command huge audiences and prove that age is merely a number and not a road block.

The first point of order here is that you should not let arbitrary limitations hold you back. We’re not saying start-up a parkour channel at the grand old age of eighty-five, but anything you are physically capable of doing should not be considered off the table. Grandma Gamer, who we mentioned earlier, is a prime example of that.

That being said, even if you don’t want to tackle something that might be considered a little young for you, there is no shortage of topics and ideas and niches on YouTube. We mentioned earlier about the growing number of older watchers, and those older YouTube viewers have interests that are similarly skewed.

Don’t get bogged down trying to appeal to a younger audience if what that audience wants isn’t something you are interested in. YouTube viewers span a broad spectrum of interests, from gaming channels to life hacks, from keyboard modding videos to reviews of historical military rations.

Finding Your Place

We have talked about not getting held back by misconceptions of age on YouTube, and what kind of content you could make, but how do you go about finding your voice and choosing your niche on YouTube?

The first thing to address is why you want to make content in the first place. If you have no clear motive, you will struggle to maintain any kind of momentum in your YouTube career. It would, of course, be immensely helpful if that motive aligned with your own interests.

Not only are you far more likely to stick at it if you are genuinely interested in your content, but you are also more likely to make more engaging content in the first place.

Now, there may be other factors in play as to why you are starting a YouTube channel. Perhaps it is a companion channel to something else, such as a blog, a podcast, or a business. Unfortunately, not every venture is a labour of love.

And even if you are making content around a subject you are passionate about; it might sometimes feel like hard work, but there is no sense in making life harder for yourself than it has to be.

There are also people who just enjoy the act of making YouTube content itself, and perhaps you are one of them. People like this often end up vlogging because talking about yourself is a subject we can all be experts in. However, combine a simple desire to make YouTube content with the introverts we mentioned above, and you have a recipe for internal conflict.

If it is the process of making content that appeals to you, but the thought of sitting in front of a camera and talking about yourself a few times a week is unappealing, consider making your videos about something you like, even if you are not an expert in that thing.

YouTube viewers can be very forgiving as long as you are honest with them. And, if you are open about your lack of expertise, you may even find viewers helping you out from time to time.

It can help to do your research before getting started. If you have a particular type of content in mind, find successful channels that are making that kind of content and see what they are doing. Of course, you shouldn’t be looking to copy anyone, but if you see common themes across different channels in your desired niche, there may be a reason for it. That being said, don’t blindly copy themes just because you’ve seen them crop up a lot.

Always try to understand why people are doing what they are doing before using that method yourself.

And, since age is the focal point of this post, it may help to study channels by other YouTubers your age, and see what they are doing. Do they have a young audience? And if so, how are they engaging that audience? Or, if their audience is more on par with their own age, how are they approaching things differently to the younger content creators?

YouTube may still be young, but has been around for a long time in Internet terms, and there it is full of examples of success from all walks of life.

Also, while we would never advocate you starting a channel on something you don’t like, if you do like something that might be considered a typically younger interest, there is plenty of clout to be had in the novelty factor of older people doing younger things, as people like former Vine star and current YouTuber, Jason Nash, have shown.

Jason has essentially made a successful career out of being “too old”, and now has a very popular channel, as shown by the three million subscribers he currently has. In this case, Jason’s age has not only not held him back, but it has also played an active part in his success.

Embrace Your Age

Growing older is a natural part of life, and one we all have to come to terms with eventually.

However—continued advances in medical science, not to mention a much better awareness of health concerns in the workplace and at home—have led to us not only living longer lives on average but living fuller lives in our later years.

People are increasingly taking up—and excelling at—new professions in their forties and fifties. Pensioners are discovering new hobbies in their retirement. And we’ve already talked about the eighty years and up YouTubers who are enjoying great success on the platform.

The paradigm of working your whole life so that you could enjoy a few nice holidays in your retirement are long past, and lots of people are finding fulfillment in their golden years.

If you suspect YouTube could be part of that fulfillment for you, don’t let any stigma about your age get in the way.

Tags oap, oap youtuber, oaptuber, old, older youtuber, silver surfer, too old, too old for youtube, too young for youtube, too young for youtuber, youtube, youtuber

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YouTube Channel Keywords Tips: What They Are and How To Set Them.

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 6 August 2020

Getting more views on YouTube is the ultimate aim for all YouTubers.

More views equal more money from the YouTube partner program. So you should seek out ways to get an edge over your competition and get more views for your content.

One way to get more views for your channel is to get the YouTube algorithm to recommend your videos. YouTube attempts to keep viewers on its platform by suggesting another video on the same topic to keep the user watching.

If YouTube can work out the content topic of your channel, then your videos have a better chance of recommendation to a viewer.

One way to assist YouTube in understanding your channel content topic is by adding keywords (tags) to your YouTube channel.

This article explains what YouTube channel keywords are, how you can choose the best ones for your channel, how you add them in YouTube Studio.

YouTube Keywords – Video vs Channel.

You probably already know that when you upload a video to your YouTube channel, it’s good practice to add some tags or keywords. YouTube uses these keywords to help it understand the topic of the video content.

So when you enter a title and add in the tags for your video, choose keyword phrases that someone might use when searching for your video topic.

For example, I made a video all about adding tags to YouTube videos. I made sure to use the keywords ‘YouTube video tags for search’ and ‘how I tag my YouTube videos’. These are potential keyphrases people might type in the YouTube search bar.

As for the tags, I took those keyword phrases and mixed them up to use as a start point for my video. Here they are:

As you can see, video tags get very specific about the content of the video. And I make my videos with a singular focus on purpose, so that they provide educational information on a narrow, niche, subject.

It helps viewers to find my videos and get the exact information they need.

So, What Are YouTube Channel Keywords?

For YouTube channel keywords (tags), you need to be painting with a much broader brush. If you make videos about cooking pasta dishes, then your video tags may contain words like ‘penne’, ‘farfalle’, and ‘linguini’, depending on the recipe you are cooking.

But your channel keywords need to communicate the overall topic of cooking pasta dishes. So you should use broader keywords like ‘cooking pasta’, ‘Italian food’, and ‘Italian cuisine’.

This also highlights the importance to you of focusing your YouTube channel on one general topic. There is no point on uploading a video on cooking pasta one day and one on growing tomatoes the next day. Those are two separate topics.

Uploading content for a number of topics to your channel will confuse YouTube. It works against how the algorithm operates when it suggests videos to viewers to watch next.

If you want to create videos on a different topic, create another channel. You can easily set up a second channel under the same Google account.

How to Choose YouTube Channel Keywords

OK, so now you understand that your channel keywords should be broad–how do you find YouTube channel keywords?

If you have access to a keyword tool, then you can perform a search to come up with ideas for keywords to use. But, you don’t need to over analyse selecting your keywords. You’re telling YouTube what your channel is about, not trying to rank a page in the search engines.

Browse similar channels to yours and pick up broad keywords, create a list, then add in others that you can think of.

Next circle the ones that best describe the overall topic of your videos.

Seriously, don’t overthink this.

How Many YouTube Channel Keywords Should You Use?

Don’t go overboard on the number of keyword tags you use for your channel either. Choose 5-7 keywords that are most appropriate for describing the overall topic of your channel.

It has been suggested that the more keywords you choose the more this dilutes the effectiveness of each individual one. In the example below, the channel owner has used too many diverse keywords to describe their channel.

Is the channel about music, massage, yoga, or even fresh air!? Keep your keywords on message, so they communicate the central topic of your channel.

So now you know what to put in YouTube channel keywords, next we’ll look at how to add them to your channel.

How to Add YouTube Channel Keywords

Make sure you have logged into YouTube with your Google account and select the icon in the top right-hand corner of the screen.

From the drop-down menu, select ‘YouTube Studio’.

When the YouTube Studio screen loads, select ‘Settings’ at the bottom of the menu on the left.

In the window that pops-up select ‘Channel’.

In the next screen, you will find the box to add your keywords. Add your 5 – 7 chosen keyphrases by typing them in and hitting enter after each one.

Once you have entered them all, hit save, and you’re all set.

If you want to check on, or change, your YouTube channel’s keywords, simply navigate back to the above screen to repeat the process.

YouTube Channel Keywords Tips Conclusion

Entering some YouTube Channel tags, or keywords is best practice. The tags help YouTube understand your channel topic, which should make it easier for them to suggest your videos to viewers.

Most of the videos watched on YouTube are as a result of the YouTube suggestions. So if you want more views, and more Partner Program earnings, set your channel tags today.

Here is a handy summary of what you have just learned.

Keep your channel tags/keywords broad and on topic.

Only use 5-7 keyphrases so as not to confuse YouTube or dilute effectiveness.

You can use a YouTube keyword generator, but it is not necessary.

Tags channel keywords, channel tags, keywords, meta tags, seo, tags, youtube channel keywords, youtube keywords, youtube seo