How to Create a YouTube Channel for Beginners (The Ultimate Guide)

in this video I'm going to show you how to create a brand new YouTube channel if you are a complete beginner from creating an account to all of the key channel settings to get right so it don't hold you back turning you into a YouTube Pro before you even press record this step-by-step guide covers all of the latest updates in 2024 and will tell you the most important things to focus on as you start your YouTube adventure and here is the biggest most important important tip of them all stop thinking about it stop putting it

off let's start right now we'll work on the assumption that you haven't got a YouTube account or that you want to create a new one go to youtube.com and then at the top right hand corner of a screen click on the signin button because YouTube is a Google product you will need to create a Google account in this example we're going to create an account for work or business and will explain why very soon hi I'm Rob by the way welcome to vid you I'll be your guide throughout this video forgive these somewhat eccentric glasses

you'll get used to them I just want to let you know that this video is a safe space if you are brand new to YouTube there are no stupid questions so pop them in the comments below and we'll do our best to answer them all and you'll also find tons of links to resources that are going to help you set up your YouTube channel in the video description so make sure to check them out the next couple of screens will be bog standard form filling stuff you can either choose an existing email account or or

create a Gmail account which is another Google product again in this example we are setting up a brand new email account because we want to treat our YouTube channel as a business separate from our personal accounts there's another important reason coming up why you should do this as for your account password yeah that's something I can't directly help you with just make it a little more secure than this you may also be asked to verify your account with a phone number this might seem annoying right now but it will help secure your account and it

is essential for your YouTube channel as you'll discover later on now you have a YouTube account you can now create a YouTube channel and this is where the creativity customization and fun starts first up is your channel name this can be anything you want next is your channel handle which can be anything you want as long as it's uniquely available on YouTube no two handles can be the same and this isn't a permanent commitment to either both can be changed in the future if you need to you will need to upload a profile picture next

which will be a round shape on YouTube so find something appropriate silly or just damn cool so channel name and channel handle what's the difference well your channel name is just that it appears on the front page of your channel homepage and also under thumbnails for your videos doed around YouTube your channel handle is like your social media name on YouTube it can also be used to find a channel for example youtube.com/ viid IQ and your YouTube handle is displayed not your channel name when you post a comment on a video think of it like

this there can be many channels called Mr Beast but there can only be one at Mr Beast on YouTube as for deciding on a YouTube channel name my advice is to keep it simple make it memorable and easy to spell it also needs to be unique so you don't blend in with all of the other creators who thought this was a good channel name with all of that been said you should now have the Bare Bones essential of your YouTube channel which looks like this yes not much to look at right now but you do

have a new and important update under your profile picture which is the YouTube Studio link so let's head on over there while there is a lot to take in here only one thing matters right now the second most important thing you're going to do today after creating your YouTube channel so go to settings then Channel then feature eligibility you must verify your YouTube channel to unlock Mission critical features those being able to upload videos longer than 15 minutes and adding custom thumbnails to your videos and just like last time you'll need a phone number to

do it verifying your YouTube channel is also the first step to unlocking Advanced features which will allow you to upload more content to the channel and monetize it in the future but let's worry about all of that tomorrow all right next up we need to take a look at all of the essential Channel features that if you get right now you can pretty much set and forget so go back into the settings and this time you want to go to upload defaults and then check out visibility this setting automatically determines what happens to a video

when it's finished uploading to YouTube and it should never I repeat never be set to public you will always want to prepare a video before making it public writing a title a description uploading thumbnails and all of that takes time so set this to either unlisted or ideally private that means only you can see the video on YouTube until you make it public and while you're on this screen you may want to go to the advanced Tab and check out comment moderation if you hate negativity or your content is likely to attract unwanted trolls set

this too strict this next one is important if you make content that's aimed towards children you'll find it under the advanced settings of the channel section you must declare if a content is made for kids as YouTube got in a lot of trouble over this a few years back the result of this massive fine is that YouTube is now very cautious when it comes to content made for kids if you incorrectly State whether or not your content is made for kids you could get in a lot of trouble and your channel could be terminated now

whether or not you make content for kids if you don't answer this question here you'll have to answer it every time you upload a video so it's best to set a default answer here after you've read all of the help articles on the this topic one last thing to mention in the settings for now and that's permissions this allows you to invite people to help support maintain and manage your YouTube channel you can assign people different roles on the channel and the key to these permissions is that they only have access to your YouTube channel

not your entire Google account let's work on this positive assumption shall we your YouTube channel is going to be a success in the future you'll have people helping you run your channel and you'll have lots of people wanting to contact you and that's why we recommend setting up your channel as a business with digital separation from your personal account and now we're going to show you another reason why you need to be security conscious as we explore a little bit more of this YouTube Studio head straight on over to the customization screen and click on

the basic info tab as mentioned earlier you can change your YouTube channel name and handle and this is where you can do that but more importantly right now is your contact info at the bottom of the screen this is an email address but is publicly displayed on YouTube so whatever you do make sure it's not the same email as the one you use to log into your YouTube channel because basically if you do that half of your security is compromised what the hell let's get back to some proper Channel setup now with the channel description

box that's on the same screen when people visit your channel on a desktop browser or through the YouTube mobile app they'll see the first 80 or so character of your description so Make It Count Our advice is to don't waste these important lines talking about yourself instead talk about the value you're going to deliver to the viewer and then flesh out the rest of your description with keywords that will help YouTube to understand a little bit more about your channel back to more visual elements of the channel now in The Branding tab you've already uploaded

a profile picture now for your channel Banner don't over complicate your banner it needs to communicate to the viewer as quickly and as simply as possible if they are in the right place or not use objects that relate to your topic think about a color scheme and design style that will match your thumbnails to build a branding and create a memorable slogan or value proposition that speaks the language of your target audience a basic principle to follow for your channel as a whole and with every single video you make is this you want to get

the viewer to say to themselves as quickly as possible ah this Channel or this video was made for me go on admit it you felt like that haven't you when you've watched certain videos on YouTube from your favorite creators and your channel Banner represents a good opportunity to put this into practice something that you do need to be aware of with Channel Banners are the dead zones where the edges will get sliced off in the YouTube mobile app so keep everything important centered in the middle of a channel Banner when you upload a banner it

will show you how the banner will look on different devices and as you can see in this example some graphics will be invisible to those looking at the channel on a mobile phone below the channel Banner is the video Watermark and we're going to keep this really simple and give you this one to use it appears in the bottom right hand corner of the screen and is a call to action to subscribe to your YouTube channel it's quite an old outdated feature at this point and you don't get that many subscribers from it but it's

linked in the description if you want to download it to round off the customization screen we have the layout options but since you haven't uploaded any videos yet there's nothing to um lay out yet so instead I'll mention the next screen in the menu which is the audio library this will give you access to free music and sound effects that you can download and use in your videos without worrying about copyright claims another screen many of you will be Keen to look at is the earn screen this will show you everything you need to know

about monetization including those all important requirements it will track your progress to these milestones and notify you when they are reached also note there is another security feature here that you should turn on and it's two Factor authentification you'll need to have it on to monetize your channel now there is a relatively new freshh for monetization that requires less subscribers less watch time or less short views as you can see on screen now but this lower tier of monetization does not unlock ad revenue for your channel that my Creator friends is a whole video in

itself which we've already made on the channel as for everything else in the YouTube Studio content management analytics and video comments well there isn't much to see yet as it all depends on you taking that big creative leap of faith and making a video all right we're at the business end of YouTube now making videos people actually want to watch so here's four Pro tips to help you get started on the right footing be focused ask yourself these two questions who should be watching my videos and why should they be watching my videos this will

become your target audience and your value proposition and help you stay focused curiosity and emotion is far more important than SEO and video tags don't just cram your videos full of keywords and only appeal to searched based queries tap into the desires goals fears and stories your audience crave titles and thumbnails are way more important than what you think right now everyone sees these two elements of your video they are the packaging so spend time on them and if possible create them before you even even start your video but most importantly of all get creative

stop watching videos about YouTube and start youtubing yourself you need to discover whether or not you like making videos and I can assure you that in 6 months time you look back on your first videos and cringe and that's a good thing because you'll be a far better Creator because you got your hands creatively dirty I'll put it to you like this nothing beats experience there are tons of YouTube settings that can make or break a video so here's 16 of them and how to fix them so you get more views in the YouTube Studio

go to settings and then upload defaults and find visibility the last thing you want to do is set this to public you need to give YouTube time to process a video up to its highest quality as well as do its copyright checks my general recommendation is that you give yourself a minimum of a 2hour window from upload to publishing obviously it's a bit different if your video is very time sensitive upload it in private prepare it and then publish sh as soon as you can all right we're going to move from upload defaults to look

at individual settings for videos a lot of these can be set at the upload default level so they affect all videos but some will need to be treated individually like this brand new setting altered content if you're using AI to generate any part of a video whether it be visuals or audio you definitely need to read this question but you don't necessarily need to answer yes all of the time YouTube support have supplied tons of examples on what you need to do and we've made some dedicated videos on the subject so make sure to check

them out it's all linked below put simply treat the question like this if your AI generated content may mislead a viewer into thinking a famous person or a famous location is real when it isn't the answer is probably yes now the impact of doing this is quite small in most cases all it will do is add this message to the video description in some cases YouTube May deem it necessary to add this label to the actual video as it's playing but YouTube says that this shouldn't impact the discovery of the content or monetization however this

does all hinge on you answering the altered content question correctly if you don't there are penalties demonetization removal of a Content possibly worse the next setting is pretty much a legal requirement you've got to declare whether or not the video is exclusively made for kids now in many cases there will be audience overlap which means that the content isn't solely made for kids such as the Marvel franchise I'm interested in it and I'm clearly not a child on the other hand something like Coco melon nursery rhymes is definitely aimed solely at children and is rightly

labeled as such so the question is this if the video would only be enjoyed by children under the age of 13 then it is made for kids now there are some pretty big implications of making content exclusively for children including all of this stuff no comments cars end screen super chats the list goes on but the penalties for not being truthful with this question are pretty D in most cases YouTube will just override your answer and set the video is made for kids but they could take further action and in extreme cases the ft C

could get involved it's a big fine unlikely but it's not worth the risk right one of the less well-known settings now and that's whether or not to notify your subscribers when a video first goes public it is very rare that you'd want to turn this off as naturally you want your videos to have the widest distribution as possible but there may be rare circumstances such as when you upload a dedicated Channel trailer or when you definitely know that this video is not going to resonate with your court audience that you want to turn a setting

off ultimately what you're trying to avoid here is bad viewing signal is being sent to the YouTube algorithm about your video early on in its life now this is a setting I use all of the time it's found under visibility and it gives you the option to schedule your video to go public at a date and time in the future you're probably not aware of this but we do schedule our videos to go public every Monday and Friday at exactly the same time to create a subconscious watching habit within our audience and this is backed

up by data from vid iq's best time to post tool but also from data found in the analytic section of a YouTube Studio this panel will show you when your viewers are on YouTube so obviously you want to Target the release of your content around the same time now unfortunately for many small channels this data might not be available but I do have one more trick I want to show you you can see from the realtime views in your analytics how your audience comes and goes in this example it is clear that there is a

surge of views every day around about late afternoon so we publish videos as that surge starts to rise in the early afternoon so the tip here is to publish your videos 2 or 3 hours before the peak of your audience on YouTube unless the video is time sensitive publish it as quick as you can now YouTube do state that the publish time of the video does not impact its long-term performance but at the same time you don't want to publish your videos when none of your viewers are on YouTube right just doesn't make any sense

and as a bonus tip try publishing your videos not at the top of the hour say 1:15 or 6:45 that means your notification are not competing with everybody else's another YouTube setting that has more of a legal nature to it is the pay promotion one if you've been paid to talk about a specific product or service in one of your videos then for your own integrity and credibility you want to be open and transparent about it right this is the only impact on your video a small label in the top left hand corner of a

screen that will disappear after a few seconds not much more to add here from a Creator point of view other than in some jurisdictions it is a legal requirement to do this so make sure you're honest but from a viewer's point of view this this is interesting you can almost always tell when there's a pay promotion segment on a video because the most replayed part of a video will have this Spike showing the pay promotion viewers skipped I wonder if the advertisers ever look at this okie dokie we're going to look at the automatic chapter

setting next but only to advise you not to use it now don't get me wrong video chapters can be extremely helpful for longer videos especially educational ones but automatic chapters can sometimes spoil the video and they're not terribly accurate either so here's a crash course in how to manually create chapters in the description write a time stamp like this 0 colon z0 then give it a title next do exactly the same thing with a new timestamp and that will create another chapter and so on and so on now I do this for every video and

I'll tell you why it kind of acts like a final proof read of the video once it's been uploaded to YouTube check that everything's right before I press publish adding video chapters will have an unavoidable impact on audience retention which you can check in the analytics of the video but ultimately chapters are designed to help viewers and if they're happy YouTube is happy all right then deep breath everybody let's talk about YouTube categories because somebody's got to you would think categories might be quite important especially when YouTube says this will help viewers find videos more

easily but where on Earth is this random assortment of categories implemented that helps the discovery of content the search filters don't for these options and a topic chips found dotted around YouTube are far more granular specific and useful now I spent a good no precious 50 minutes of my own time trolling through the YouTube support Pages looking for any mention of YouTube categories and found nothing so this is a pretty bold statement for YouTube to make without really backing it up however a YouTube employee recently did say this when we have absolutely no behavioral data

we're going to probably rely more on the metadata the data that we have in terms of the title and the description so I don't know maybe is useful maybe isn't my best guess is that video categories is a legacy of YouTube's old Discovery features and tools much like video tags yeah we'll get back to them so the advice here is pretty simple set the video category as close to what you think it should be for your video and don't sweat it for the gaming category it does let you search for the specific game you're covering

and it will appear in the description of the video but let's be crystal clear about this the success or failure of a video is not going to be solely determined by its category all right we got two settings now that I've got to confess I don't entirely know what they do automatic places and automatic Concepts and I say this because despite how they're described I haven't seen these out in the wild on YouTube automatic places talks about highlighting key places in a carousel in the description of your video got to confess I myself have never

witnessed this feat Fe on YouTube it could be useful for travel channels but at the same time there's concerns over privacy so to play it safe you might want to turn this setting off there's also a setting that allows you to manually add a specific recording location if you need to but from a search and Discovery perspective it's probably better to add any location as a hashtag in the video description automatic Concepts seems to suggest it will turn your video description into a mini Wikipedia but again I haven't seen it on YouTube so I can't

be sure and it's experimental so it might not last that long anyway I think the point I'm ultimately getting to here is that anything that describes itself as automatic should be scrutinized long and hard before you leave it on because I guarantee you there are creators out there who have looked at their videos and said why is this there I didn't turn it on and you probably did by accident or YouTube had this automatic setting on by default which is really annoying here's a question you probably never thought to ask yourself should I allow my

content to be freely used by any Creator on YouTube well there is a setting that will allow you to do this to boil it down to its simplest explanation the Creative Commons license allows anyone to use any part of your video without asking permission from you first on the face of it it sounds absolutely Bonkers to give your content away for free for anybody to use but the not unreasonable counterargument is that by doing this you're potentially giving your content a much greater opportunity to be seen by a wider audience just not original from your

videos only you can decide whether or not it's worth switching to this setting but there is a softer lighter version of content sharing coming up now it comes in a form of something called shorts remixing this enables only YouTube shorts creators to grab small Snippets of audio or video from your content to use for their shorts beyond the fact that your content can only be used for shorts the key difference here is that the Creative Commons license is kind of universal theoretically somebody could download your entire video off of YouTube and use it for say

Instagram or Tik Tok with shorts remixing everything is contained within the platform creators have to use YouTube tools to remix the content and there are analytics set up in the YouTube Studio to show you the Creator how often your videos are remixed something to bear in mind is that the Creative Commons license setting is turned off by default but the shorts remix setting is turned on by default and this is probably something that you want to set at a upload default level so it affects all videos going forward the comment settings let's keep this nice

and simple every Creator should have at least basic moderation on however if you expect trolls and don't want them on your Channel or your content could be controversial or you just don't want negativity floating around your video comments then set this too strict there's also a relatively new feature here which is to pause comments the benefit of this is that it keeps all existing comments on a video but prevents users from posting new comments and since we are on the topic of comments now now might be a good time to deviate into the channel settings

and then go to community and scroll all the way down to the bottom of the automated filter screen to see V settings what you see here are tons of emojis Bad actors seem to use to spam our comments but obviously you can use this box to write down all of her profanities and crude words you don't want to see in your comments you're also likely going to need to block context specific words relevant to your Niche for us it's stuff like sub for sub audit my channel give me a shout out and of course the

ultimate spam killer URL links nobody wants to see them in comments and handily it doesn't block you from posting links in the comments of your own videos let's get back to YouTube settings now and ask the question of whether or not you should show viewers how many people have liked the video yes yes you should now I'm not sure you call this one a setting it's more of a feature but it is only available to YouTube shorts creators and it's called related video with this feature you can directly link a YouTube short to any of

your other videos when the short is being played the link to that video will appear towards the bottom of the screen now ideally you want that short to be directly linked to the long form video in some way and when we've tested it we've got a clickthrough rate of around about 10% which is not bad they're basically free views all right if we are starting to talk about features let's address the elephant in the room video tags this is what a YouTube employee had to say about them 5 years ago we do look at tags

a little bit but not as much as creators think we do I would strongly encourage everybody to spend you know 99% of their metadata time on the thumbnail and title little you know maybe half a perc on that description now in 2024 I'm tired of trying to convince creators not to stress about tags so instead I'm going to show you how to spend no more than 30 seconds on them the title of this video is growing on YouTube right so if we scroll down to the video tags we can see that with the vid IQ

browser extension installed it's already suggesting relevant tags so I can add a couple of v's and then click refresh tags to get more specific and relevant tags until I've added what half a dozen or so of these and then add the channel name and that's it video tags job done in under 30 seconds and if you want to be even more lazy I mean efficient about video tags just do a search on YouTube and copy the tags from a video and then remove the tags your video won't need but again I want to stress just

like video categories video tags will not Define the success ESS of your content on YouTube however something that could make a real difference to the success of your videos is AB thumbnail testing or what YouTube likes to call test and compare with this settings SL feature you can upload up to three thumbnails per video to find out which is the most attention grabbing whichever thumbnail has the best numbers after a test period YouTube will use as your main thumbnail going forward we've got one final bonus settings SL feature and it's only appropriate one we can

show at this point in the video end screens if a viewer gets to the end of one of your videos there's a high chance you can push them to watch another one of your videos if you do it correctly and this is how we do it we pick one very intentional video that we're going to do a call to action to and we know this works because end screens have generated half a million views for our Channel over the last year what you need to do is create a natural and logical link between the two

videos and really sell the value of what the viewer can get if they continue to watch for example you've just watched an entire video about all of the settings that can make or break a video but what about your channel there are mission critical things you need to do at the very start of your YouTube journey and this is where you'll find out how to do them in this video I'm going to show you every single feature you can use at the very start of your YouTube Journey even with zero views and zero subscribers there

are a ton of things you can do Beyond just press and record and uploading videos and I bet all of you watching this video that there are some features you've never seen before these features are divided up into three tiers and we'll start with the standard ones these are the things that you can do the moment you create a YouTube account and we'll start with the most important one of them all uploading videos this sounds almost too obvious doesn't it yes you can upload long form videos and shorts straight away but not live streams we'll

get back to them in a second now what you might not know is that you can only upload videos to a maximum length of 50 minutes and there is a limit to how many videos you can upload I have to confess I had no idea this was a thing until I started researching for this video and I couldn't find anything in the support Pages Beyond this wording at this point I did the only rational thing anybody would do and ask YouTube support and they weren't terribly helpful what does this mean the best advice I can

give you is don't upload a silly amount of videos and you shouldn't see this warning and if you do just give it 24 hours but I am genuinely fascinated to know whether or not anyone has hit this limit and how did they do it so let me know in the comments below other bits of housekeeping around uploading videos includes being able to upload 15 videos any one time who does that and the maximum limit for a single video is 256 gigs and 12 hours of length and that's important for live streams if your live streams

are longer than 12 hours then they won't convert into video on demand the other feature you get right out of a YouTube gate is the ability to create playlists and add collaborators to playlists and add new videos to playlists yay I have literally nothing else to add at this point let's move on shall we if you're wondering where all of this information is coming from by the way I've linked all of the support Pages referenced in this video in the description which is just below that delicious like button that's certainly worth clicking since you're there

but just before we look at some more YouTube features let me remind you that vid IQ has a ton of tools and Fe features that you can use before you even create your YouTube channel our browser extension can analyze every single video on YouTube both from a data and content perspective and our web applications include tons of Tools around idea generation keyword research and loads more you can sign up and download vid IQ for free either through the clickable link in the video description or via the pin comment to YouTube features we're about to talk

about very soon and now we can move on to the next tier of YouTube features where things start to get get really interesting but first of all you need to know which tier of features you currently have access to so in the YouTube Studio go to settings then Channel and finally feature eligibility this will show you what your channel is currently enabled for and if you haven't done anything yet you'll just have a standard features we've already spoken about and to unlock the next tier of features you don't have to upload any videos get any

views or any subscribers but you do need to verify your YouTube account with a phone number of all of the things you learn and do in this video this by far and way is the most important one because it gives you access to Mission critical features uploading videos of any length up to 12 hours is one of them but far more important than that is the most important marketing tool you have at your disposal on YouTube creating custom thumbnails it's the first thing a viewer sees when they find your content and it needs to catch

their attention some would argue that packaging the thumbnail and title is just as if not more important than the video itself so you want this feature as soon as possible and it's about to get even more powerful that's because YouTube are rolling out a test and compare feature where you can upload up to three thumbnails per video to test which performs best just like videos custom thumbnails have a daily upload limit and there is a little bit more information about this that you can see on screen now Channel History your country and whether or not

you have copyright strikes all impact the daily limit whatever it is now when it comes to live streaming the rules are a bit weird on a computer the first time you try and do a YouTube live stream it will save it you need to request access and then wait 24 hours however on mobile if you try and go live it will tell you that you need 50 subscribers first even though the support page doesn't say that so go figure there is also the relatively new addition of vertical live streams that have its own set of

rules which are on screen now they differ quite a lot from horizontal live streams so bear all of this in mind the next time you decide to press the go live button on a whim it probably won't come as a surprise to you at this point to to know that there is a limit on live streaming as well but I don't know what that limit is so I ask YouTube support again what podcasts are a relatively new thing to YouTube but certainly a great feature for creators who are into this sort of thing basically what

you do is create a playlist that acts as a podcast series and then upload all of your videos into I guess you would call a podcast playlist creating a dedicated podcast will grant you all of these disc y perks but the thing to bear in mind is that the podcasts are still videos you can't just upload MP3s there needs to be a video component attached to it related videos is a YouTube shorts feature that lets you bake a video link into the short linking it to one of your long form videos I would best describe

this as a peace offering from YouTube to creators after a major feature was removed from YouTube shorts and I'll let you know what that is shortly now just remember you've unlocked all of these features and technically you haven't uploaded any videos yet and there's yet more to discover through advanced features if you're willing to submit some personal details to YouTube there are a few ways to do this you can video verify your channel by looking at your phone's camera and following the prompts or you can submit valid ID like a driver's license or passport both

of these are pretty privacy heavy so what most creators do is establish Channel History this is achieved by just being a Creator basically uploading videos engaging with your community showing YouTube you know not here to cause trouble and I wouldn't describe any of these as imperative features especially if you've just started your Channel with zero views and zero subscribers but they're all nice to Haves and the nicest one of them all to have at least in my opinion are Community posts this basically is a social feed for your channel where you can post status updates

pictures polls and quizzes it's a fantastic way to engage with your community especially when there are gaps in between when you publish videos and these Community posts Take 5 minutes to create as opposed to 5 hours 5 days or five weeks that videos take to make again in the documentation limits are mentioned and that you can use the community tab as a standard YouTube feature but elsewhere in the support Pages it says you need Advanced features enabled I do feel for YouTube it must be an absolute nightmare trying to maintain all of his information and

keep it correct as you grow your channel and hopefully a business out of that channel there are often times you'll want to take viewers off the YouTube platform to sell products and services a clickable external links are one way to do that and this is unlocked with Advanced features and as you can see are a ton of rules around where clickable links can and can't go YouTube shorts is one place links can't go and that's why I mentioned earlier YouTube's peace offering with a related links feature when they pulled back clickable links on YouTube shorts

the pinned comment feature is useful to have too allowing you to pin any comment on the video to the very top of a comments list this could be an awesome comment from someone in the community or a comment from someone you collabed with or one of your own comments when you can be really intentional with a call to action with this feature if any of your videos get a Content ID claim you can dispute it if you have a valid reason the workflow looks like this so if you go up there down there and turn

right Bingo the claim will be lifted content ID appeal is the precursor to Content ID claiming when you can protect your content from others ripping it off you'll get that feature when you monetize your channel more on that in a moment not much to say about this one other than this feature allows you to embed YouTube live streams directly into a website with all of these bits of code and next on the list we have RSS uploads you don't know what that is do you it's all right neither do I what it actually does is

deliver the audio portion of YouTube podcast to people who subscribe to podcast through RSS feeds and all of the details are here on how to set it up and do you know what RSS stands for really simple syndication consider yourself educated so remember going back to the original premise of this video all of these YouTube features are available to all creators when they start their YouTube channel yes you need to jump through a few Hoops to unlock everything but you're going to have to do it at some point anyway and that's because one of the

requirements for monetization is that you unlock Advanced features for your channel typically this is done when people unlock intermediate features and then wait a couple of months to get the Channel History which automatically unlocks Advanced features so you probably won't have to do too much other than verifying your phone number on your account 30 minutes and more than 150 YouTube growth hacks spread across eight timestamp sections so sit down settle in and welcome to the complete beginner guide to YouTube sounds obvious I know but don't use YouTube's Autos selected thumbnails custom thumbnails will always perform

better because it allows you to market the video exactly the way you want it to upload a custom thumbnail you don't need any views or subscribers or even an uploaded video all you need to do is verify your YouTube account through the YouTube Studio settings and if you are making YouTube shorts you can select a frame from the short to be your thumbnail I agree it's not ideal but it's the best we've currently got this one's really important if you're filming in the moment or on location make sure to take a photo of that moment

the last thing you want to be doing is scrubbing through your video trying to find a decent thumbnail It's Too Late by then if on the other hand you're going to be filming in a more controlled environment then try this create your thumbnail before you even press record this will ensure that the thumbnail gets the time it deserves from you because after all it is the first thing everyone sees design your thumbnail to be simple only convey one message don't try and tell the viewer everything about the video in the thumbnail if you confuse you're

going to lose as a general rule of thumb forgive the pun spend more time on your thumbnails than you currently are too many creators design thumb nails and right titles as an afterthought when they are in fact the key to unlocking a door to your video if you're going to use a face in a thumbnail zoom in close so you get a really strong emotion a facial expression on a thumbnail can subconsciously communicate with the viewer and that will spark interest and empathy resulting in a click always try to maintain a consistent thumbnail style it

establishes brand identity makes it easier for return viewers to identify your content when they see it on YouTube If you do want text in your thumbnails use it sparingly cleaner thumbnail designs are more visually appealing and easier to comprehend at a glance we would recommend using four words or less in your thumbnails don't be afraid to test different thumbnails in fact have two or three thumbnails for the same video and test them over a period of time this will help you understand what resonates with your audience and help you guide future thumbnail Creations I know

you likely design your thumbnail on a big screen but they're going to be viewed on a tiny screen so so design your thumbnails with that in mind don't fill it up with too many elements simple Clarity will improve clickability where possible use high quality images in your thumbnails this will make your content appear more engaging and trustworthy and a pro tip you might want to oversharpened they look super crispy make sure your thumbnail aligns and complements the video title misleading thumbnails can disappoint the viewer and that affects your credibility you don't want to see any

clickbait from you creators out there and since we're talking about the thumbnail and the title complimenting each other try not to repeat the title in the thumbnail and vice versa it's just wasted time and effort the best thumbnail stop you from scrolling and the title seals a deal and wins a click use bright eye catching colors in your thumbnails they're going to stand out against all of those other thumbnails on YouTube and win you a click Pro tip use a color scheme that none of your competitors use to really stand out use vid iq's thumbnail

preview tool to compare your design against other videos already published on YouTube this will help you determine if your thumbnail really stands out before you even publish your video if it doesn't you can go back to the drawing board design a new thumbnail and you haven't lost your initial videos velocity when it gets published use contrasting colors for text and background this is going to greatly improve readability especially and remember when those thumbnails shrunk down to size Pro tip don't use red text on thumbnails unless you know which colors they really contrast well with which

is typically white choose images that start a story in a thumbnail this will Peak viewer curiosity and can give a sense of what the video is about without revealing too much you have to maintain a balance between text and images both elements can work together well but often we see too much text on thumbnails remember four should be your limit try using a number in your thumbnail for list based videos this will give a clear indication of the video's format attracting viewers interested in that type of content and a bonus tip use a random number

to create more Intrigue when you find a thumbnail style at Works start applying it to Old the videos this keeps your content fresh and can revive interest in Old the videos just make sure that you doing it on videos that are just as relevant today as the day they were published Mr Beast for example has done this very successfully generating hundreds of millions of views on videos that are years old use arrows or shapes to highlight important parts of the thumbnail this is going to draw attention to key elements increasing Intrigue and clickability if you

use text in your thumbnails make it large and legible this will make it easy to understand the video's Topic at a glance again it all goes back to the size of a thumbnail it's going to be tiny so you need to be able to read that text include objects props and elements are related to the video this will hint to what the content is actually about makes it more appealing to the potential viewer but remember you don't need to include every element just one or two should suffice humans naturally relate to other humans so use

them in the thumbnail it's going to make the video more attractive to viewers and differentiate yourself from the wave of AI content that's coming to YouTube experiment with different font styles of text until you find the right one the right topography can really add to the style and effectiveness of a thumbnail and a game as a pro tip chunkier fonts tend to be easy to read use before and after images for transformational content this instantly communicates the value and the outcome of a video which is going to win you clicks regularly analyze the performance of

your thumbnails this datadriven approach can help you identify what works and what doesn't on your channel for your audience the key number obviously here is click-through rate but don't compare that to other channels Benchmark your own click-through rate and aim to improve on it but remember if views go massively up that can lower click-through rate that's not a Bad Thing avoid placing important elements in the bottom right hand corner of the thumbnail this is where YouTube's Tim stamp is going to be and it will obscure any elements that you put down there test the visibility

of your thumbnail in grayscale this will help with the accessibility of your content say for example a person with a color vision deficiency it's the same as adding subtitles to your videos you want everybody to enjoy your content as an experiment you can try handdrawn or animated style thumbnails again Unique Designs especially against your competition on YouTube can really help your thumbnail Stand Out amongst your audience another option might be to use Borders or frames on your thumbnails these will add a subtle visual flare and make them stand out against YouTube's UI wherever possible incorporate

popular trending themes and topics in your thumbnails this will capitalize on current viewer interests making them potentially more viral talented thumbnail designers will make use of negative space it makes the overall design cleaner but also Al focuses the viewer's attention to key elements in the thumbnail where possible try to add a sense of urgency or time sensitivity in your thumbnails if potential viewers have that fear of missing out feeling they're going to click on it immediately consider using a captivating quote or statement from your video again this can Peak Interest in the viewer and set

the tone or topic of a Content but remember four words please wherever possible use visual hierarchy in your thumbnail design it guides the viewers eyes to the most important elements of the thumbnail first that is one of the best ways to convey the message of the thumbnail as effectively as possible try testing different background colors on your thumbnails remember YouTube has a light and dark mode how do your thumbnails contrast with those two strong colors keep your titles concise and catchy short intriguing titles are more likely to catch the viewers attention and earn you a

click if you do write longer titles were more likely to be cut off when viewed on YouTube through the homepage for example our general recommendation is to write titles that are 60 characters or less if you can get it under 50 and obviously avoid clickbait instead create curiosity misleading titles lead to viewer disappointment whereas a curious title backed up by good content will make the viewer watch for longer use numbers when you can such as top five or 10 ways to they give clear structure and viewers love listicles the bigger the number the more impressive

the video and pro tip use a random number if you're creating search based content then include your primary keyword in the video title when it comes to search based content YouTube does rely a little bit more on metadata again for search based videos convey the main benefit or value in the title this will immediately communicate to the viewer what they're going to gain from it so they're more likely to watch it whereas for browse based traffic use powerful emotive language words that trigger emotions make the viewer feel something before they've even clicked on the video

that is a powerful marketing tool use brackets or parentheses to highlight additional info in the title this could be to add context create Intrigue or just looks visually different to all of the titles leverage brand names in your titles were applicable this is going to make the content more relatable to the viewer and far more searchable you can also mention a well-known celebrity or figure in your titles famous names draw more interest attention and again are searchable you can pitch the title in the form of a question this will likely form an immediate opinion in

the viewer's mind making them more likely to watch the video to find out whether or not the video agrees with them try using strong call to action words words like learn discover and find out in the video title can motivate the viewer to engage with your content experiment with with humor and word play especially in entertainment and meme style content a clever and funny title can make the video stand out remember you're not going after search based traffic you're going after Intrigue and curiosity try to avoid industry specific jargon while that may Target specific audiences

it can alienate a broader viewership this is why you should use primary popular wellknown keywords in your titles you can get into the real detail the jargon wants a viewer is in the video highlight exclusivity or limited availability remember fear of missing out words such as first look or exclusive review create urgency avoid using all caps and excessive punctuation it can appear shouty spammy and may put off viewers unless of course this titling style matches your target audience you can use all caps as a scalpel however maybe on specific words to really emphasize their point

in the title we've already said this but it does bear repeating don't repeat the words in your thumbnail in your title typically the title and the thumbnail complement each other they don't replicate each other although there are exceptions you can do this sometimes in search based content if you just want to be super simple and super clear with the video's intent you can test it as with brands or celebrities include locations in your title that will bring immediate viewer recognition and more search engine optimization use compelling adjectives that can enhance enance your title words such

as amazing incredible unbelievable will spice things up use versus or vs in comparison videos this instinctively signals head-to-head competition and viewers love opinions mention the year for time sensitive content this helps your viewer to know that your content is up to date but as a pro tip if your content is just as relevant this year as it was last year you can simply change the year number on the title use personal pronouns such as you and your this can make the title feel a little more personal and connected with the viewer allowing them to engage

more with the content and if you're still struggling with titles simply type in a couple of keywords into our title generator and that will create some intriguing clickable titles in a matter of seconds here's the most important thing you need to know replace the word algorithm with audience that's how it works the goal of a YouTube algorithm is to find the Right video at the right time for the Right audience that ultimately satisfies them it is not designed to find viewers for creators videos to boost views once you put audience in front of algorithm I

guarantee you you will start to grow your channel but of course there are outside pressures as well Tik Tok being one of them so leverage YouTube shorts when it's appropriate for your content the algorithm is promoting this part of a platform heavily and it can grow your channel very very quickly if you get it right focus on getting getting viewers to watch more videos on the YouTube platform the algorithm values session watch time so if multiple videos are watched you're going to get rewarded for it clickthrough rate is important the higher it is the better

your thumbnails are the more people watching your content but it's hard to give you a definite number to aim for click-through rate can vary from topic to topic and sometimes when you get loads of views click-through rate actually goes down which isn't a bad thing it just means YouTube sharing your content with a wider audience so the best way to look at this is to B Benchmark your own clickthrough rates what is your clickthrough rate after an hour 12 hours 24 hours if the percentages are higher or lower than those benchmarks over time you'll start

to get an idea of which videos are performing better than others typically the first 24 hours after publishing a video can be crucial in particular if YouTube starts to see positive signals from click-through rate and watch time very early on you can start to see a boost in views in the first few hours of a video's life at the same time some videos need time to breathe especially search based content content can Flatline for days weeks sometimes even months before it starts to get picked up by YouTube's search algorithms so try to understand the intent

of your video do you aim to get tons of views in a short period of time for not very long or do you want your content to be Evergreen and last for years and years don't neglect your older videos they all have a chance on YouTube the key question you have to ask yourself is is the content that I made then still relevant now now if it is and you have improved your thumbnail skills and your title writing capabilities then it might be worth revamping that video it won't reset the way the YouTube algorithm looks

at a video but it will treat it differently over time here's another key one recognize that the YouTube algorithm is different for every single viewer personalized recommendations such as the homepage browse suggested are all influenced by an individual's watch history and viewing preferences be aware that the algorithm doesn't necessarily favor free frequent uploading while consistency is key the algorithm favors value and quality for its viewers if your content is very unique and impossible to replicate viewers will wait as long as they need to for you to publish your next video however if your videos are

very similar to other creators and you don't post for a while then YouTube's going to find alternatives for those viewers who still want to watch videos keep in mind that watch time also includes the rewatching of videos that's why sometimes you get over 100 % audience retention especially on YouTube shorts so try to create moments that the viewer wants to rewatch or replay the entire video especially when it comes to YouTube shorts try to understand that a viewer's watch History massively impacts recommendations probably more than who the viewer is subscribed to it is likely that

when a viewer watches somebody's content they will be recommended more from that same Creator very very soon and that's why your videos need to consistently speak to a target audience the algorithm doesn't specifically favor any type of video format be it live streams premieres or just regular video on demand stuff there are many examples of live streams turning into Evergreen content long after it was published it all depends on viewer behavior and how your different formats appeal to the current behavior of a viewer but at the same time YouTube shorts can't really be ignored at

the moment this is a fact monetized videos do not impact the YouTube algorithm when we tested this by monetizing 30 of our videos views actually went down all that matters to the algorithm is whether the viewer is satisfied as for subscribers they don't automatically mean more views for your videos as we've said the algorithm looks at viewer Behavior what they've watched in the past for example a person is much more likely to see one of your videos if they watched one of your videos recently say in the last week as opposed to subscribing to the

channel 3 or 4 months ago and they have haven't watched anything since shorter videos can perform just as well as longer videos and in this respect we're not talking about YouTube shorts while watch time is a factor viewer satisfaction is crucial and if you get a viewer into a binge session of short videos the YouTube algorithm is influenced by millions of data points which means that it's impossible to hack but that also means it's constantly evolving and changing over time so don't expect to enjoy the same type of success in two or three years time

if you're doing exactly the same thing remember it's all about the audience and their habits change mentally prepare yourself for viral content being very temporary a spiking views can be a really nice dopamine hit but when you can't sustain that the stress does start to press down on your shoulders consistent Progressive growth is much better for your mental health likes are good comments are good they do play a role but other satisfaction metrics such as click-through rate and watch time are much more more heavily weighted the algorithm doesn't punish or hate smaller channels we have

seen many examples of a Creator's first video blowing up on YouTube it just usually takes a little longer for the YouTube algorithm to identify it and serve it up to the right audiences patience is key Define a YouTube channel Niche based on your passion and expertise your passion will keep you motivated while the expertise delivers the value and quality to your audience make sure to research existing channels in your Niche obviously understanding what works is very important but it also allows you to spot gaps where you can carve out your own unique space within your

Niche align your channel focus with your target audien's interests what may help you with this is writing out a value proposition this ensures that your content is always relevant and appealing to the type of audience you want to attract to your channel absolutely monitor Trends within your Niche but always stay true to your channels Main main focus Trends can boost your visibility while consistent Focus retains a core audience now then two sides of the same coin diversify within your Niche to keep your content fresh covering different aspects and subtopics within your Niche will attract a

wider audience but also remember to maintain consistency within your Niche it builds the Channel's identity and brand so that your viewers know what to expect from video to video that can be really important for return viewers who may become subscribers and then once you do have a niche you can experiment with different video formats these could be tutorials Vlogs entertainment interviews try to establish what your viewing preferences are as you do this you'll start to develop a unique perspective and approach to your Niche this will set you apart from other channels and make both you

and your content Irreplaceable and then when thinking about your channel develop a very compelling front page to attract visitors this will be in the channel Banner channel icon channel name and very importantly the first line of your about section this helps potential viewers and subscribers instinctively and instantly know what your channels about use the first 50 characters of your about section as the title of your YouTube channel this text appears on your channel page and should be the guiding principle behind every single video that you make participate in Niche related communities outside of YouTube for

example Reddit and Discord are a gold mine for this type of stuff it will broaden your audience if you provide providing valuable information within those communities and it provides valuable insight into viewer interests and concerns within the niche learn the language of your Niche through keywords for example if you type in a couple of broad keywords into our keyword research tools you will get a ton of information that's going to help you in the long run you will discover all of the popular phrases that surround that keyword and literally hundreds of questions that you can

start answering in your videos for your Niche and of course provide value within your Niche whether it's entertainment education or inspiration if you deliver value those viewers will come back and just as a final thought if you're more interested in profit than passion within your Niche then you want to take into account cpms for different video topics this can impact everything from sponsorships to Affiliates to selling Digital Services if that's top of mind then don't just choose a niche with a huge audience because cpms and general enal Revenue income is likely to be lower take

gaming for example create high quality engaging content consistently put simply quality and consistency help retain viewers and they turn into subscribers give viewers a clear call to action asking them to subscribe you''ll be surprised just how effective a simple ask can be but ask a viewer to subscribe after you've delivered some value this could be a minute into a video in the middle of a video or towards the end if you engage the viewer first they'll be more likely to engage back with a subscription where possible collaborate with other YouTubers where you think there is

a shared audience their subscribers will likely become interested in your content and likely subscribe to YouTube engage with your viewers outside of their videos by responding to as many comments as possible this interaction makes viewers feel valued and builds a community which is likely going to lead to more subscribers share behindth scenes stories and personal content this will make viewers feel more connected to you as a Creator and again they'll likely subscribe to join you on that Journey analyze your analytics to understand what content attracts subscribers you can see how many subscribers each individual video

is generating for the channel it won't take you long to find out which types of videos convert the most subscribers host live streams to directly interact with your audience again this personal engagement can Foster a sense of community highlight Channel milestones and celebrate with your viewers this creates a positive inclusive atmosphere where we're all in this together having said that don't dedicate entire videos to small milestones for that use the community tab or just briefly mention it as a side note within the video itself as we've mentioned before if you can create content around trending

topics that relate back to your Niche that has viral potential trend-based content will attract a wider audience and could bring in loads of subscribers but remember the videos you make after that Viral content need to engage those new subscribers consider viewer requests and suggestions for new content for example you could say that this video was inspired by this comment if viewers feel as if they're being heard and valued by the content creator that's going to build trust and loyalty and you'll probably earn a subscription from it we've briefly mentioned it but use the YouTube Community

tab to engage with your audience pretty much everyone has access to it these days and I recommend posting at least once a day especially when you've not published a video the true power of the community tab is that it reaches new audiences just like videos and there is a subscribe button on every Community post this is more of a views booster but of course remind every subscriber to turn on the notification Bell that should mean according to YouTube that every time you post a video or go live on your channel a notification is sent to

that subscriber although does that happen in reality create content that engages the viewer in the first few seconds of a video this is crucial for retaining viewers increasing average view duration and massively impacting the watch time of your videos to that end do not create video intros instead create video hooks don't start a video introducing yourself your channel and what you do instead reinforce the value you promised in your ti title and your thumbnail create series-based content that establishes consistency on your channel this will encourage the viewer to watch multiple videos in one sitting increasing

your session watch time use analytics to understand when your viewers stop watching this will help you identify the parts of your videos you need to improve in particular focus on the first 30 seconds of your video YouTube even dedicates a panel to this information how many people are still watching your video after 30 seconds engage viewers by asking questions and canvasing opinions this will make your viewers feel more involved and as a pro tip try asking your audience question just after the video hook within the first 30 seconds of a video use subtitles and close

captions put simply this will make your content more accessible to a much wider audience and viewers often watch videos in noisy environments so they really appreciate the closed captions leverage storytelling techniques to engage the viewer an interesting narrative will keep the viewer watching in for longer even in this massive tutorial there is a subtle story being told address viewers comments and questions in your videos this can encourage viewers especially those who feel part of your community to watch for longer to see if their input was included in your video use pattern interrupts such as Quick

Cuts changing the camera angle and fancy Graphics changing what the viewer sees and hears can reset their attention where appropriate use time stamps and chapters in particular with longer videos you want the content to be as accessible as possible I mean let's be honest this video would be a bit of a nightmare if it didn't have time stamps does that reduce watch time well think of it like this do you want the viewer to watch for longer but be really frustrated by the video and probably never watch any of your videos again or be really

Satisfied by the segment that they watched meaning that they're much likely to return to your future videos keep your edit tight trim any unnecessary footage to maintain Pace be ruthless use transitions wisely too many can be distracting but a well-placed transition guides the viewer Through The Narrative of a video when it comes to Quality audio is more important than video the simple truth is bad audio is far more distracting than bad video as you can tell right now incorporate b-roll where appropriate this additional footage can add context cover your cuts and make the content more

engaging but don't use generic b-roll just for b-roll sake use music and sound effects sparingly they can really enhance the video when used appropriately but can be distracting when overused edit with the mobile viewer in mind most viewers will be watching on a small screen so ensure that text and Graphics are visible when you shrink it down to about this size try to establish a visual style throughout your content what we're talking about here is a consistency in graphics animations color schemes and fonts this helps build your brand and make your content more recognizable instinctively

use text overlays for key points this will reinforce important information and Aid viewer comprehension use jump Cuts strategically this is really effective for cutting out pauses and awkward silences keeping the pace of a video flowing unless you're being intentional with your pauses jump Cuts will keep the viewers attention and this video contains literally hundreds of them use L and J Cuts this is where audio from the next clip starts before or after the end of the previous clip again this will add a dynamic feel to your video edits a good editor knows the program that

they use inside and out so learn all of the keyboard shortcuts over the long term this will probably save you days of editing time use slow motion and time-lapse effects they can emphasize important or inspirational moments they're also great for Montage moments and just changing the pace of a video and keeping it fresh and dynamic try to remember rule of thirds Place important elements along these lines or the intersections this is going to help you create a balanced composition in your video frame we've already mentioned this in other tips but of course don't forget to

use stock footage as b-roll and animations and Graphics this will often turn into b-roll footage and remember show more than you tell but remember when you use this footage be mindful of copyright anything you you haven't originally created belongs to someone so make sure you understand if and how you can use it on YouTube understand your audience tailor your script so that it resonates with your viewers interests Language and Cultural references start with that hook those first few lines of your video should grab the viewer's attention from a scripting point of view write a hook

that is 30 words or less that should be about 10 seconds of content keep it conversational write as if you're speaking to a friend that you know well remember that you're not delivering a lecture this is going to make your content more relatable to your audience when writing your script plan for visuals writing a script should help you reduce waffle keep it concise get to the point quickly don't use unnecessary jargon and go off in tangents unless that's what you intentionally want to do with your audience always keep this thought at the front of your

mind respect the viewers time plan calls to action into your script whether it's asking them a question or getting them to subscribe but remember strategically place these calls to action throughout the video not all at the very beginning be authentic write in your own voice that's true to your personality that's going to build relatability trust and credibility with your audience over the long run if you do decide to use a script revise and rehearse a script gives you the opportunity to fine-tune it for clarity and impact and the more you rehearse it the smoother your

delivery is going going to be but remember keep it authentic and in your voice don't be afraid to use a little bit of humor in your videos even for how to and tutorial videos now becomes edutainment a come on very sentence structure and length mixing long and short sentences will make your script more Dynamic and easier to listen to here's an important one anticipate how the viewer is going to react to your content this allows you to tackle the inevitable questions in the video right rather than having to deal with it in the comments after

the video is published this is especially important with opinion-based videos practice good pacing if you're using a script avoid rushing through the script and also going off topic so that you waffle and this is a very new one leverage AI fun fact I used vid iq's very own AI coach to script a lot of this video and it took around about 90 minutes whereas if I was to think up all of these tips and script them myself it would have taken days and that my friends is what we're dedicated to doing here at vid IQ

transforming your passion into YouTube presence if that sounds like you then we have one simple ask subscribe to vid IQ and turn on that notification Bell so that the next time we go live we can give you a free Channel audit thanks for watching I'm knacked I need a rest