Since it first launched, YouTube has been a great platform for people all over the world to share their passions, talents, ideas, and thoughts with the world. From cooking to gaming and even politics, YouTube has been a major game-changer for the way we view entertainment. It’s no secret why so many people would want to become YouTubers–not only is it rewarding, it’s also a source of money for many people. Still, starting a YouTube channel is something that many people find daunting, but to start a YouTube channel is not impossible.
There’s a lot of work involved in starting a YouTube channel, and there’s a lot of time, effort, and patience required. If you really want to start a YouTube channel, here are some basic steps you need to ensure you do in order to start your own successful YouTube channel.
1. Choose Your Niche
You’ve likely heard this a million times, but you need to choose a niche for your YouTube channel. On YouTube, people really value a content creator that is consistent with the theme of their channel. It’s also important for the algorithm so it knows who to recommend you to.
YouTube is not an easy gig, and being constantly on-top of making endless numbers of videos means that you should probably be passionate about the subject. If you don’t like video games, don’t start a gaming YouTube channel just because you think it’ll be successful. You actually need to enjoy your niche.
When you pick a niche for your YouTube channel, it can be pretty similar to picking a blog niche. We’ve already written an ultimate guide on how to pick a niche for a blog, so go check out that article to start getting inspiration. Just be aware that some aspects like niche expansion might not be the best idea for YouTube and is more of a blog tip.
2. Create Your Channel
This set is going to be broken down into a few sub-steps, as there are a couple of things you need to do in order to create your YouTube channel itself:
Create a Google Account
Since YouTube is owned by Google, you’ll need to create an account with Google. Chances are, you already have one. If not, just create a Gmail account. It’s super easy and takes absolutely no time to do.
Set up Your YouTube Channel
Sign into YouTube with your Gmail account and create your channel. You’ll need to create a channel name and description. You’ll also need to upload a profile picture and a banner.
This is a pretty important step, because your name should represent you and your interests. It doesn’t have to be your actual name. You could put something like ‘DZSH Gaming,’ which is one of our newest brands. Just make sure it can reflect you and your work.
The profile picture and banner are also pretty defining parts of your brand. You should make sure that they are reflective of your channel’s content and are at least a bit cohesive. Check out what we did for DZSH Gaming:
As you can see, our banner and our logo and even our thumbnails match up and are cohesive. The thumbnails are a discussion for another time though!
3. Start Creating Content
Okay, before you get right into posting a video, you need to have some sort of a game-plan. You can’t just start posting random videos and hope that it’ll work out. You need to think and strategize.
Growing on YouTube is all about consistency and quality. You shouldn’t overwhelm yourself by posting every single day, but you shouldn’t be scarce to the point where you’re only posting like once a week. This also depends on your videos and what you need to do to edit them.
The more advanced your videos are to edit, the less you can post–which makes sense. Try making a few videos and time yourself to see how long it takes to make a video. Then, you can adjust the frequency of your postings depending on your work-life schedule.
Your content needs to be engaging and it has to have some level of high quality to it. That doesn’t mean that you need to create a National Geographic-level documentary, but it should be something that you can watch.
You can use editing software like Adobe to make your videos really good. You can also find an editor to make your videos if you think that editing just isn’t your thing.
Just remember, consistency is key! Be consistent in what content you post and when you post it!
4. Optimize For SEO
SEO, oh how much you annoy people. Either way, SEO is important on YouTube too. You have to optimize your videos for the search engine so that people can actually find it. If you’re just posting obscure videos with vague titles and no description, please don’t go on Reddit and ask why your videos aren’t getting views.
Add relevant keywords to your title and your description and utilize tags that are relevant to your content. For example, if you’re making a video about how to make a certain type of chocolate chip cookie, don’t title it like this: “This is an amazing thing!” That indicates absolutely nothing to me. I don’t care if your thumbnail has cookies in it, you could be referring to the camera you used to take a picture of the cookies.
Instead, try this title: “How to Make Ultra-Decadent Chocolate Chip Cookies in Ten Minutes” or something around that. See? You just indicated to the potential viewer what your video is about and you told them that your cookies are ultra-decadent and easy/quick to make. Tons of potential to get clicks from a title alone!
5. Promote Your Videos and Channel
Just because you’re creating content does not mean that it’s over. You can leverage so many other social media platforms to grow your YouTube channel even more. You can start a TikTok page to share clips from YouTube. You can post pictures on Instagram. Tweet stuff on Twitter. The possibilities are endless.
If you’re not sharing your content on social media, then you’re missing out on a massive potential viewership base.
6. Be Consistent
I emphasized this earlier, but I’m going to say it again. Consistency is the key to success. If you post once in a blue moon, you will not grow. If you post sporadically and take months off of YouTube, you will not grow. If you post randomly, you will not grow. You might grow, but it’ll take twice the amount of time than it needs to.
Be consistent, have a schedule, and stick to it. Let your audience know what to expect by posting videos on a consistent basis. It is helpful for a small channel especially.
Just because YouTube seems hard does not mean that it is. You just need to be sure that you have the key elements down to creating a proper YouTube channel and you need to come up with some content. But once you’ve created your first video, you’re already on your way to becoming a content creator!
Thanks for reading DZSH. Never miss an update when you sign up for our newsletter today!
