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How to Start a YouTube Channel in 2021 [13 Steps]
1K views
Jun 8, 2024
In the video "How to Start a YouTube Channel in 2021 [13 Steps]," the creator provides a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to launching a successful YouTube channel. The video covers everything from choosing a niche and setting up a channel to creating engaging content and optimizing for SEO. Each of the 13 steps is designed to help new creators build a strong foundation, attract viewers, and grow their audience in 2021.
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0:00
How to start a YouTube channel for beginners in 2021
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So yes, there's a ton of opportunity on YouTube right now. The most important thing is to get started creating content and uploading it to your channel
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So what I'm going to do in this video is walk you through 13 steps, not only to get your channel set up
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but also to help you create content so you can get view, subscribers, and grow your channel this year
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So I can't tell you how many people that I've spoken with who say something like, I want to start a YouTube channel
0:25
I want to start a business, have some idea, but it just gets stuck in the idea phase
0:29
and they don't actually start executing. And I don't want that to happen for you with your YouTube channel
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So I think there's a couple issues with regards to YouTube that keep people from creating their channel and creating content
0:41
the first of which is perfectionism. So for a lot of people, they think to themselves
0:45
when I have the perfect camera, when I have the perfect studio, when I speak great on camera, all of these things come together
0:52
then it's time to create my channel. But you know what? That stuff doesn't happen without actually creating content, practicing
0:58
growing your channel and then actually maybe making some money from it and saying
1:02
hey, I'm going to buy a new camera, upgrade my gear. You kind of have to deal with the fact that your first videos aren't going to be perfect
1:08
It's the same way for everybody. And the next thing is comparing yourself to others
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which is also a huge factor keeping people from getting started. So don't compare yourself to Peter McKinnon or Mr. Beast
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Catherine Manning or Vanessa Lau, or whoever it is that you watch on YouTube. One thing that might make you feel a little bit better about your favorite YouTuber
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go to their channel right now, click on their videos tab, and then sort their videos with their oldest videos first and watch one of their first videos
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How much have they improved from their first video until today? Are they more comfortable on camera
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They probably have better gear now. Their editing has gotten better. Everything has gone up as far as the quality of their content and the production value
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But the thing is, you can't be comparing. them five years into their journey to you on the very first day
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And take me for example, so I would have quit a long time ago if I compared myself to my business partner
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So we have two other YouTube channels that she's the face of, she does all the videos for, for the most part
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This one, Aete Explika, has almost a half million subscribers, and the Spanish version of this channel has almost 200,000 subscribers
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But the thing is, she's created 300, 400 videos so far. So clearly, she's farther along in that journey, is more comfortable
2:23
on camera and those channels have grown much more than this one has
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But that doesn't cause me to decide to give up and not create content on YouTube anymore
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You kind of have to start and proceed from wherever you are right now, create content
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and get better with each upload. One quick thing before we get started, if you can't do any of these steps, don't let
2:46
you know, these steps hold you back from creating content for YouTube. So if you don't want to write a script for YouTube videos or don't want to create a banner
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or whatever other step that I go through right now, don't let that hold you back
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Just start creating content. Step number one, make a commitment to creating content on YouTube
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So I don't want you to just create a channel and never put videos on it
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or upload two videos and be done. It's probably going to take dozens, if not hundreds of videos
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before you're successful on YouTube. So if you don't want to make that commitment
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just don't waste your time and get started. But if you do want to be successful on YouTube
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I think it's important that you make the commitment to consistently creating content so that you can get better at creating content at speaking to a
3:28
camera, at editing your videos. Think about it. How can I set aside time every single week to work
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on my YouTube channel? Do I have Monday and Tuesday evenings free? Maybe I can spend all day Saturday
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Find a way to work it into every single week so that you can consistently get better and
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consistently publish here. So one thing I want you to do right now is go down to the comment section
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and write when you're going to upload your next or your first video on YouTube
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and the frequency you plan on uploading. I think making that small commitment, I'm not going to go share this with all of your friends
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but saying, hey, I'm going to publish my first video in a couple weeks, and I plan on uploading one video a week
4:04
Sharing that with the world adds a little bit of commitment for you so that you can get started and keep going, creating content so you can be successful here
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Step number two, choose a niche for your YouTube channel. So it's really, really important to remain focused
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especially when you're just getting started. And so let me explain a little bit about the viewer
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So what happens if you want to get subscribers and have them watch all of your future content
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they have to have some idea what that future content is going to be like. And so what happens a lot of times
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if you have a clear focus for your channel, someone watches one video
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YouTube will then suggest one of your other videos because it's related. So someone watches that video
4:42
their second video on your channel. They may visit your channel page and they're like, hey, I really like their content
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I'm going to subscribe. Because they're looking forward to your future videos
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and they want to be notified of your future videos they like those previous videos So that work if you over and over again creating content within a narrow niche versus creating content all over the place where maybe someone finds one of your videos
5:05
but why would they subscribe to see future content if it's not similar to what they were just
5:10
watching? So it's important to decide on a niche where you can be excited to create hundred or
5:15
hundreds of videos on the topic. Step number three, create a list of a dozen video ideas on
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topics that people are searching for within your niche. There's a couple different things I want to unpack and talk about in a little bit more
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detail here. So coming up with video ideas. And so we have a whole video on that
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And there's videos on a lot of the steps that we're going to go through going forward. And I'm going to put those all down below in the description
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But so video ideas could be a review video, a comparison video, a tutorial video, a list of
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tips or mistakes. You know, there's a bunch of different kind of ways to structure your videos
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So I definitely recommend checking out. that and then topics that people are searching for. So that gets into YouTube SEO. So
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SEO stands for search engine optimization if you're not familiar with the phrase. But basically
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what you want to do is create videos on topics that lots and lots of people are searching
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for every single day. What that can help you with is when people are searching for those
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topics and your video show up, that means a video you create today can show up in search
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results today, tomorrow, five weeks, five months, and five years from now. So every single day you're
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getting views from new people finding you in search results. Also, when you create videos about
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search topics, there's other videos on that topic as well. And being that you have a closely
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related video to other videos, that means someone can be watching one video on YouTube and your
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video shows up as a suggested video. So when you come up with a list of topics that tons of people
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are searching for and create videos on them, then day in and day out, your videos will be showing
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up in search results and in suggested video so that you're getting in front of new people
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getting views and subscribers every single day. Step number four, choose a name for your channel
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So this could be your name, so it could be Jeff Thalen
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It could be Jeffrey John for my first name and my middle name
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It could be marketing with Jeff. It could be all sorts of different things
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It could be the FIGCO, which is a name that we just combine the last names
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of Laura, my business partner and I. There's no right answer for the name from your channel
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It could be your name. You can choose a name like DSL video shooter
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which is very clear that you're gonna learn about shooting videos from his channel
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or Manflow Yoga, which is Yoga for Men. But I think the important thing is
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obviously, choosing a name, and when we get to talking about your niche earlier
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so your initial videos may be fairly focused, but over time that niche and types of content you cover
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or make grow. And so for the naming of your channel, I wouldn't choose something that's too too
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focused. Because if you choose something that's very, very focused, then all of a sudden
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three months from now, you want to create content that's over here. Maybe your name doesn't work as well anymore. So I would definitely be careful with that, but you could definitely
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use your name and grow your personal brand or just choose any type of name. And then it's more
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about creating good content and creating meaning to the name versus I know sometimes people just
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get hung up on this and spend months, weeks, or years trying to come up with the perfect name
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getting back to perfectionism. But, you know, with anything in this, don't let it hold you back
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You can change the name of your channel if you want to. This happens all the time. But choosing
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what you think is the best name now and get started creating content. Step number five, create your YouTube channel. So we have a whole tutorial that walks you through
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step by step how to do this. But the most important things are your profile picture to
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create a banner for your channel. We have a whole tutorial specifically about that to add the
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links to your website or social media accounts to write the about section so someone can click on that
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and have a little bit more detail on what your channel's about. Also to create a channel watermark
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and so that's a little thing that shows up in the bottom right hand corner that's a subtle reminder
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to subscribe to your channel while someone's view in one of your videos. Oh and also verify your
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channel so that you can create thumbnails and upload longer videos. So now that we have
9:19
your channel set up, now it's time to start thinking about the content of your videos. And so that gets me to step number six, which is write a script or
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outline for your videos. So before we came up with a dozen video ideas, now it's
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time to choose one and write a script. And so I'm going to give you a couple of
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tips on how to structure your videos because the most important things on YouTube
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are your click-through rate. So if YouTube shows someone your video that they click
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on it. And then the next thing is to watch time. And that's what we're going to talk about now
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is someone made the decision to click and they're watching your video. And you want to do the best
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job that you can in retaining them from the first second to watching all the way to the end Obviously you know it not going to be perfect Having people actually on average watch half of your video is actually really good
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But, you know, you want to understand the best practices. So the very first thing in the video should be something like this
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12 huge mistakes new YouTubers make. So today I want to run you through 12 common mistakes new YouTubers make
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and how to correct them so you can grow your channel in 2021. Here was the thumbnail and the title from that video
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you can see that basically the hook we call it, the first five or ten seconds, is essentially
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repeating the title of the video. You clicked on a video and you weren't quite sure what you were going to see, but they just
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tell you right up front, hey, this is what we're going to talk about today. Then you know that you're in the right place and hopefully continue watching that video
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After the hook in the video, you want to get into the main content. And here you should just have one topic per video
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So we're talking about starting your YouTube channel. I shouldn't spend 10 minutes now talking about editing videos or go play with my dog or go make
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coffee or do something else that is not talking about starting your YouTube channel
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So it's important one topic per video. Also, if there's anything boring in the video, just take it out
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It's good to have longer videos, but don't make videos longer than they need to be
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So one other thing that we like to include in the main content of our videos is some type of bonus
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So some hint that something that's going to happen all the way at the end, which gives someone just one more incentive to continue watching
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your videos and then towards the end of the video you can ask people to subscribe
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or go check out this thing on my website or something else but it's better to do
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that towards the end of your videos also when your video ends include and
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end screen and usually we try to recommend some other video that they can watch
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next so something like this we say hey check out this video and the great thing there is not only did someone watch all the way to the end of that video
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but you recommended something else to watch so they are watching ideally
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another video on your channel and they may watch other ones after that. That's the ideal situation
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Someone watches your video an entirety and then watches other videos. On top of watch time
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YouTube calls it session time, so how long someone spends on YouTube in one session? And so if
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you can help increase session time, YouTube will promote your videos. And so think about when
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your video ends, how do you promote something else on your channel to keep people watching longer
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So now that your script is written, let's move on to step number seven, which is record your video
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So there's a couple things to take into consideration here. The first thing is don't worry about the gear you're using
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Whatever you have right now will work just fine. So this video with 300 and some thousand views was shot with my iPhone's success
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The important thing is to have a steady shot. So prop up your camera or phone on a bunch of books or a tripod or whatever will hold it still while you record
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And from there, think about the audio. So get the microphone as close to you as possible
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The mic I'm using is right here about a foot away from my mouth
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And then for lighting, you want it to be in front of you. So it could be a big window. I have a light right here
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but you don't want a strong light behind you or directly overhead
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So think about how you want to record the video. For me, I only like talking for maybe a minute or two straight
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If it gets much longer than that, I forget to mention some of the main points. I might get distracted
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And so I write the outline kind of based on that. And then I'm going to go record, say, 30 to 90 seconds
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30 to 90 seconds segments. And it may take me five or 10 tries to get one of the points
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points down I want and then move on to the next one and then the next one. And then eventually
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you know, it all comes together and then I pick out, you know, the takes from each section that
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I like, making the final video. You could record just one big video and then edit it all out later
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Or you can create a bunch of little small clips and choose the best clip from each section and
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then, you know, splice that all together into your video. And that moves me on to step number
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which is actually editing your video. So you could edit the video directly on your cell phone
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We usually recommend doing this from a laptop or desktop computer. We usually use iMovie
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Premiere Pro from Adobe or DaVinci Resolve. There's a ton of options here. There's not necessarily
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a right answer. I'll put a couple of tutorials down below in the description, but whatever software
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you're comfortable with, it's a learning process. It generally takes us probably twice as long
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to edit the video as it did to record it. So you're going to spend a couple of hours here
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The important thing is getting it all together to tell your story. Don't worry for your first video if you can't add in all the animations and all the
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transitions and things that maybe you want to do in the future. But it's important to just tell a good story in your first video and have it coherently
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go from one piece of the video to the next and you can improve your editing over time
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So we have a free YouTube masterclass. It's an hour-long training with a ton of tips to help you
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help you grow your YouTube channel. If you're interested in signing up, I'll put a link down below
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in the description. Step number nine, get ready to upload your video. So there's a couple things you
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need to do before uploading your video So you need a thumbnail title the description and tags And we recommend doing that before you start uploading the video The thumbnail is really really important
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So earlier with a script, we talked about the watch time and getting people to watch as much of your video as possible
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But then the next thing is actually getting them to click on it. And so that is the thumbnail is the primary thing that people are looking at
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in combination with the title. So we have a whole tutorial on how to create great thumbnail
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and then it comes down to the title. So they see the thumbnail, read the title
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and then decide to click on and watch your video or not. And then the description is really important
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because the title and the description are two of the most important things that YouTube reads to figure out what your video is about
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So they can obviously, they have the transcript of your video so they know what's in that
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then the title in the description, and then also the tags, which are less and less important
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All of those things tell YouTube what your video's about. And so that'll help place your videos
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in search results and suggested videos. So now we move on to step number 10, which is upload your video
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So we have a whole tutorial video on that as well, but it's fairly straightforward once you have all the things
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from the previous step. So you hit the button at the top right and corner
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of any page on YouTube or YouTube Studio, and then you fill in the title, the description
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upload the thumbnail, add the tags. You can add the end screen where you recommend other videos
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as well as cards throughout the video. And then what we usually end up doing is scheduling our content
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So we usually publish our videos fairly early in the morning and don't want to sleep in and publish it late or anything else
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So we usually schedule it the night before so that it comes out exactly when we want it to
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before most of our audience is online on YouTube. Once the video has been published
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it's time to move on to step number 11, which is promote your content. The first 24 to 48 hours are really important
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for your video success. The video does really, really well in the first day or two
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YouTube will then go find other people on YouTube, like the people that previously watched it
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to promote your video to. So if YouTube starts to show it in search results
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and a lot of people are clicking on it, it's gonna move up the search rankings over time
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and eventually we'll find people to show to and suggested videos and other
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How you can kind of help push this along is driving external traffic to your YouTube videos
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during that one to two day period. So we usually send emails to our email list
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post on social media, If there's any forums you're part of or other places where you think people may like your video
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we recommend sharing your new content within the first day or two, which helps it perform better in the long term on the platform
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Step number 12, respond to the comments on your channel. So a really important thing is to get to know your audience
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And so as you start to get views on your videos and you start to get comments, get to know your audience
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How did they find your video? What do they like about it? What do they dislike about it? Are there any other videos they'd like to see on your channel
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While your channel is small especially, when you have a really, really big channel, it's going to get tougher to respond to all of your comments
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But when you're just getting started, what we've seen in a bunch of cases is where you start having these conversations
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You'll have a conversation. Someone leaves a comment. You respond to that comment
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They write back. And then all of a sudden you publish another video and that person leaves a comment there
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Publish another video, they comment on that there. You've created this relationship with somebody where they want to see all of your future content and they want to see you succeed on the platform
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Also, when someone new comes to one of those videos and they see all these conversation happening
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on your YouTube videos, it makes them want to comment more, it makes them want to subscribe
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it makes them want to be part of that community. So as you publish new content, don't forget to check the comments, respond to comments
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and get to know your audience. Step 13, review YouTube ytics and come up with ideas on how to make your content better
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So within ytics, you can find the click-through rate, the audience retention metrics
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how people find you from search and suggested videos. There's so much information there that you should be checking out after you upload content
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Also, watch other YouTubers, watch tutorials on how to make stuff better
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watch other YouTubers to come up with ideas on, you know, how they do transitions
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or how they record their videos or how they talk to the camera, all sorts of things
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But if you yze the ytics, learn from other people on YouTube
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you can continually get better with each upload. So as you're going through steps six of creating the script
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all the way through uploading, promoting, and yzing with each of your videos
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you're going to be surprised with how much better your content gets over time
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as you continually create content. So if you review your YouTube ytics
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plus continually learn on YouTube, your videos are going to get better with each upload
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getting you more views, more watch time, more subscribers, and just in general, growing your YouTube channel
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And if you want additional help on how to grow on YouTube, we have a bunch of other videos
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I'll link to the playlist along the side right here. I hope to see you in those in future videos
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Bye-bye
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