How to Create a YouTube Channel for Beginners in 2025 (Step-by-Step)

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 they 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 we explain why very soon hi I'm Rob by the way welcome to vid you I'll be your guide throughout this video for give 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

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 dotted around YouTube your channel handle is like your social media name on YouTube it can also be used to to find a channel for example youtube.com/ viq 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 St 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 aim 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 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 a 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 characters 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 toot go 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 fresh 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 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 if you do want to delve more into creative side of things we do have this complete beginner guide to YouTube which is crammed full of 150 tips otherwise welcome to YouTube now

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