Tag: placeit

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.

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

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

Do You Need A YouTube Intro and Outro?

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 16 July 2020

There are plenty of tips and tricks on growing your YouTube channel, and all too many of them are subjective. That trick works well for this kind of channel, and this tip is better for that kind of channel. Unfortunately, there aren’t many hard certainties when talking about succeeding on YouTube. At least, not once you get beyond things like “don’t steal content”.

When it comes to intros and outros, the answer is a little more reliable—though still not absolute.

So, do you need a YouTube intro and outro? Yes! If you want to grow your channel and your brand on YouTube, you should consider an intro and an outro an essential part of your process. Just make sure it’s not too long and adds value to the video.

As always, we’re not going to leave it there. Let’s take a deeper dive and get into why these things are important, as well as how best to craft them to help your channel grow.

Why Are YouTube Intros and Outros Important?

There are different reasons for the importance of intros than there are for outros, so we’re going to take a look at both individually.

YouTube Video Intros

The primary reason an intro is important is new-viewer retention. If you are attempting to grow your channel, you will naturally be working to bring new viewers in all the time. Getting a viewer to your video is only half of the battle, of course—you want them to watch the video. And, all being well, subscribe to your channel.

Neither of which is likely to happen if you lose their interest in the first twenty seconds.

Your existing subscribers will have a certain amount of forgiveness about your not getting to the point in your video because they know what to expect from you. After all, they have already subscribed. But new viewers can have a tendency to click away very quickly if they get the sense that your video isn’t going to give them what they came for.

With an intro, you can quickly establish who you are and what the video is about, so new viewers will be more willing to keep watching.

YouTube Video Outros – End Cards – End Screens

As much as we hate to admit it, being reminded to click like, check out other videos and do all those other things that help the channel out, works. Viewers simply don’t think about those things a lot of the time, but a gentle reminder from you will help. Need proof?

Next time you go to the cinema, take a look around when the pre-roll ads inevitably ask the audience to turn their phones off. We all know that you’re not supposed to have your phone on—or at least have it on silent—when at the movies, but look at how many people are turning their phones off during that announcement. Reminding people works.

And it’s not like you saying “if you enjoyed this why not hit like and subscribe?” will make someone like and subscribe if they didn’t want to in the first place. Be a little wary of asking people to like and subscribe at the start of the video, however. Some YouTuber’s swear by it, but many viewers find it a little presumptive.

Beyond that, your outro is the perfect place to handle any channel housekeeping, such as thanking Patreons and recommending some of your other videos, but we’ll get more into how to put an outro together later in the post.

Should I Always Use Intros and Outros?

There will always be fringe cases where it is not appropriate to use intros and/or outros. However, these are so few and far between relative to the times when you should use them that we’re comfortable saying yes, you should always use them. In the interests of covering all the bases, however, here are some situations where intros and outros might not fit.

Extremely short videos
Videos where intros and outros would not fit stylistically
“Member-only” videos
Meme videos

As with most things, try to use your judgement. There are times when a “members-only” video warrants an intro, or where meme videos could benefit from an outro.

How Big a Difference Do Intros and Outros Make?

Hard statistics are difficult to come by; however, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence from YouTubers who have conducted their own tests. One such example is Real Men Real Style, who noted that engagement on their videos dropped by as much as 70% when they didn’t add a call to action in their videos.

Another thing to factor in is the kind of video you are making, and the viewing habits of people watching it. For example, an intensive video—such as a tutorial—will likely be a very active viewing experience. That is, it is more likely that the viewer will have sought that video (or one like it) out. For those videos, your likelihood of increased engagement will hinge on the quality of your video. But for a more casual viewing experience, the intro and outro are more crucial.

What do we mean by casual? If your video is more along the lines of entertainment, which can include things like history videos, punditry, and anything where the viewer might be just sitting back and enjoying the content like they would a TV show, then there is more of a chance they came across your video by happenstance.

Perhaps it was a recommended video in their feed, or maybe your video auto-played at the end of a different video. Perhaps they arrived at your video through social media and had no idea what they were watching at the time. In all of these cases, it is far more likely that the viewer will not be aware of you or your channel, or the kind of content you make.

By introducing your video at the start, you ensure that they at least know about your channel once they’re there. And, by placing an outro at the end, you can break the chain of auto-play, and divert your new viewer to more of your content.

Making a Good Intro for your YouTube Video

The first rule of making a good YouTube intro is not outstaying your welcome. There is no universal length of time that applies to every video but finding the sweet spot between getting enough information across in a short enough period so that your viewers don’t get annoyed or bored is key. As a general rule, fifteen seconds is a popular length for an intro.

It’s not just about getting all the information you want to get in there, however. You have to do it in a way that engages your audience. If your video kicks off with you jabbering at high speed trying to squeeze everything in like a pharmaceuticals disclaimer, it won’t go down well. But, if you take too much time, you risk your viewers clicking past the intro to get to the content. Or worse; clicking away from the video altogether.

A good way to structure your introduction is to set out what the video is about first then introduce yourself and your channel, then get into the content. This way, the viewer knows right at the top if the video is what they’re looking for, and are more likely to hang around through the rest of intro to get to the content.

One thing we can give you as a hard rule that should always be applied is this; never take longer than you have to get to the content. Be concise.

If you have branding on your channel—and, to be clear, you should have branding on your channel—make sure it features in your intro. The main point of branding is recognition. If your viewer takes nothing else away from your video, they should at least have seen your branding.

Making a Good Outro for Your YouTube Video

Outros are a different ballgame altogether. If a viewer is watching your outro, it means they have already viewed your whole video and are somewhat invested in you. While you should never waffle in your videos, you don’t need to have quite the same urgency about getting your information across in an outro as you do in an intro.

The outro is an obvious place to wrap things up, thank people, politely suggest that they like and subscribe if they liked the content and the rest. But the most practical use of your outro is to direct your viewers to more content on your channel related to what they have just watched.

This is also where end screens come in. The beauty of end screens is that they can be dynamic. You can link to a specific video or playlist, of course, but you can also have it show your latest video or the most recommended video for whoever the viewer at the time. And you can have multiple video links in your end screen.

The critical component here is that you have a call to action in your outro. That call to action could simply be liking and subscribing, or checking out another video, or even visiting your website. If you have a viewer who has watched all of your video, they are more likely to be interested in what else you have to offer. Not having a call to action, in this case, is a wasted opportunity.

Frequently Asked Questions

There are a lot of commonly asked questions around this topic, so we’ve done our best to answer some of the more frequently asked of those questions. If there’s something we missed, leave a comment below.

How do you make an intros and outros on YouTube?

Depending on your skill level, there are multiple options.

I am not skilled in design but I was about to make professional looking intro, outros and channel banner branding with PlaceIt – I was amazed how many templates they offered for cheap or even free. It’s something simple that can really level up your channel branding.

If you are a little savvier, you might want to create your own from scratch.

How do you make a YouTube intro for your phone?

While the level of control you have over your intro may be reduced when compared to intros made on a computer, there are phone apps that do a very respectable job.

One such app is Intro Maker, though there are other options available.

What should I say in my YouTube intro?

The most effective use of your intro would be to state concisely what the video is about, introduce yourself and your channel, and make sure any channel branding is shown.

How long is a YouTube outro?

When talking about an outro where you are signing off, the length is entirely up to you. Though we would always recommend being clear and to the point.

If talking about the length of time your end screen is shown, 10-15 seconds is the typical amount of time to show it before ending the video.

Conclusions

Having an intro and outro on your YouTube video may not be a necessity—channels can succeed without them—but we strongly feel you will be making life harder for yourself if you decide to not use them. They provide a great way to establish your branding, convey important information, hook your viewer at the start and direct them to more of your content at the end.

They are particularly useful for channels that get a lot of new traffic, as they play a crucial role in converting unique views into long term subscribers, and establishing your brand with that viewer.

Animated content for your intros and outros can be made with little-to-no experience in animation software, thanks to a wide selection of apps and web services. Be sure to make use of your end screen to drive your viewers to more content on your channel, not to mention providing them with a simple, one-click method of subscribing to your channel if they haven’t already.

If you need help with your graphics, branding, subtitles or anything else to level up your YouTube videos, I have a long list tools I used to grow my channel from 0 to 2 Million views in less than 2 years – check out my resources page.

And, remember, use this time wisely. Get the information you need to get across in as short time as you can, but do so clearly and concisely. You don’t want your viewers to feel like your wasting their time before they even get into the meat of your video.

Your intro is the first thing a new viewer will see. Make it count.

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 intro maker, placeit, should i use youtube intros, should i use youtube outros, video branding, video maker, youtube branding, youtube channel branding, youtube intro, youtube intro maker, youtube nranding, youtube outro maker, youtube video maker, youtune outro

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

5 Essential Time Saving Apps for YouTubers and Video Creation

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 13 May 2020
1 Comment on 5 Essential Time Saving Apps for YouTubers and Video Creation

5 Time Saving Apps for Youtubers, tools for youtubers, tips for youtubers, free tols for youtubers

Content creators upload over 300 hours of video every minute to YouTube. That’s a lot of competition. So, to stand out and grow your channel on YouTube, you need to upload professional videos on a frequent basis with these time saving apps for YouTubers.

But, once you’ve planned the content and shot a video, the work isn’t finished yet. You still need to add graphics, caption it, get the title keywords right, and think about promotion.

There’s lots to do.

This article takes a look at five excellent tools to speed up your content creation process.

Some are free, and some need a subscription. And once you start using them, you’ll find you can reduce the time from recording to upload – leaving you more time to plan and shoot more content.

Let’s begin.

remove.bg – YouTube Image Background Remover

YouTube is a visual platform. Viewers mostly choose what video to watch next based on visual clues from the thumbnail.

Having the right thumbnail then is essential, it can be the difference between success and failure for a video. It’s not enough nowadays to use a boring still from your video.

Take a look at the image below. The thumbnail on the left has the best combination of text and visual, and outperforms the rest of his content combined.

You need to be upfront and centre in your YouTube thumbnail. But making thumbnails takes time, especially if you need to cut-out your portrait from a cluttered background.

Did you know you can turn a 20-minute task into a five-second one with remove.bg?

remove.bg is a free online tool that cleverly removes the background from your image. Leaving you a perfect cut-out of your picture for you to add the finishing touches.

It’s straightforward to use. Drag an image onto the remove.bg’s homepage and they handle the rest.

Here’s an example.

As you can see, the image size for the free version isn’t the largest, but you can process it a little to fit the resolution that YouTube requires.

You can get a higher resolution image if you buy credits from remove.bg. For each credit you buy, you get to download 1 high-resolution image. 10 credits cost £8.00, or you can get credits cheaper by taking out a subscription.

rev.com – YouTube Closed Captions and Subtitles Service

Closed Captions and Subtitles – what’s the difference?

Closed Captions. These are a direct transcript of the audio of your video. A viewer can use them if they don’t want to listen to the sound of your video. They are in the same language as the one spoken, and a viewer can turn them off if they don’t need them.

Subtitles. Subtitles assume that the audio of the video is still on. They clarify the speech if the audio is poor or the speaker has a strong accent. They are also used to provide a translation of speech in another language.

Obviously having closed captions or subtitles on your videos help those hard of hearing or who don’t speak your language. But, there are also other benefits that land this site on the time saving apps for youtubers list.

One of the most important factors of ranking for your video is Audience Retention. That is, how much of your video a viewer watches. Clearly, having closed captions and subtitles promotes access to your content and will help with this metric.

Another ranking benefit is that your uploaded transcription file also helps with your metadata.

The free AI transcription tool on YouTube is not very good. And if you don’t have the time to transcribe your own videos, instead use the service provided by rev.com.

The service works on a per-minute basis and will provide the output in the .srt format YouTube prefers.

Get $10 worth of free transcription here.

kapwing.com – YouTube to Social Media Content Creation

If you’ve been a YouTuber for long enough, you know that for best results you need to promote your video after you have uploaded it.

Gary Vee is a master at teasing his content. On Instagram and Facebook, you’ll find video snippets with closed captions for easy consumption over mobile.

It’s really easy to one of these yourself, head over to kapwing.com.

Hit the ‘start editing’ button and select start with a blank canvas. Then, input your YouTube video URL, and it will import it for you.

Next, using the easy controls, you can clip the section of the video you want to use, add subtitles, and then change it into the best size for where you will upload it.

A great benefit is that all the processing happens at the server-side, so your laptop won’t feel like a baking tray just out of the oven when you use it.

Kapwing is free to use and even lets you produce media without a watermark by registering for a account. You need a subscription to keep all your work private, get faster processing speeds, and long term storage of your media.

A monthly subscription is $20, or you can make a saving if you buy an annual subscription for $200.

placeit.net – YouTube Intro, Outro, and Logo Maker

One way to stand out from mediocre content and show expertise is to add professional looking intro/outro animations to your videos.

An animated intro/outro that is quick and clear tells your viewer who you are, what you do, and helps with your branding strategy.

To quickly make very professional intro/outro animations, I use placeit.net.

There are plenty of templates to choose from; some are image-based and some are text-based, so you should find one to fit your requirements.

Once you have picked a template, you can customise it to fit your needs. It’s easy to change colours and resize logos, so you get an intro/outro that fits your channel’s branding.

For other elements of your channel, like logo’s and banners, placeit.net works well for these too.

You won’t need to hire a graphic designer to create fantastic looking graphics. Here is a sample of the kind of logos you can use as a starting point.

I picked the cupcake above, then changed the text and the central image to end up with the logo below for my new seafood venture. (OK, it’s just an example – I’ve never even eaten lobster!)

As you can see, it’s easy to change the colours and text to create a professional-looking logo you can upload to your channel page.

priceit.net – costs $14.95 per month for unlimited videos, logos, and designs, or if you take out an annual subscription $99.95.

A solid gold entry into the time saving apps for youtubers list with so many tasks that you can use placeit.net for, so it is a worthwhile subscription. But if you’re on a budget, you can get all the graphics you need with a single months payment – just cancel your subscription when you have what you need.

photopea – Free Browser-Based Photo Editing Tool

As a visual content producer, you need a photo editing suite. It can be a great time saving app for Youtubers. But, there’s no need to pay for Adobe Photoshop or PaintShop Pro. photopea.com is a browser-based image manipulation tool that is free to use. It works with all the popular image formats, and even handles .psd files.

There are lots of reasons a YouTuber might need photo manipulation software – here are two of them:

1 – Outlining Your Thumbnails. You have possibly noticed some YouTubers using a white outline surrounding their picture on their thumbnails, it’s a good technique to make a thumbnail pop out on the page.

Here is an example made using the image we removed the background on earlier. Drag the image onto the project workspace, then add a stroke effect in layer styles.

Now it’s ready for your logo, title, and branding.

2 – Making Start and End Screens. If you don’t want to pay for placeit.net to make an animated intro/outro, then you can use photopea instead. Use it to create a professional-looking branding image then edit into your video.

There are lots of templates to choose from. Pick one and edit away.

They even have standard templates for promotional images you can post to Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Start using these Time saving apps for youtubers today to speed up your production process and make your YouTube videos look amazing. There is a learning-curve with a few of them. But, in most cases, you will be up and running with them quickly and producing professional-looking video in a shorter amount of time.

If you have any questions, please add them in the comments, and I’ll answer them as soon as I can.

And remember to check out my resources page for more useful tools discounts and links!

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