Reach a wider audience with your YouTube channel
A YouTube channel can help your company reach and connect with a wider audience.
Here’s how to create a YouTube channel.
YouTube is one of the most visited websites on the Internet. Users from all walks of life watch videos to laugh, learn or watch excerpts from their favorite TV shows. YouTube has become so popular that anyone can have a successful YouTube channel, if they put their mind to it. You can showcase your products, teach your favorite recipes or produce funny or entertaining content.
If you’re thinking of creating a YouTube channel for a small business, there’s a lot to consider.
- Do you know how to create and edit video content for YouTube?
- Do you know how to advertise your YouTube channel online, or are you willing to pay for ads?
- You also need to consider the provenance of your video content.
- Will you be filming yourself and your employees, or will you need an animator to produce your videos?
The good news is that there are plenty of resources on how to create a YouTube channel. Thanks to its massive audience, YouTube can be an excellent way to make a name for yourself. You can create a YouTube channel on just about any subject, and you’ll eventually grow your audience if you persevere and follow the right advice.
If you’re thinking of setting up a YouTube channel, you may be feeling overwhelmed by all the information available. Whether it’s guides on how to edit YouTube videos, advertise or monetize your YouTube content, there’s an endless stream of resources available to help you create a YouTube channel.
If you think a professional YouTube channel is right for you, here are a few tips for launching a successful YouTube channel.
Why create videos
The Internet has changed the way people consume content and learn new information. There was a time when advertisements and articles in magazines and newspapers were booming because everyone read these forms of media. Now that the Internet is massively popular and everything is a bit shorter, many people don’t have the attention span to read hundreds of words about your company.
Just click on a YouTube video and it starts playing in your browser or on your phone. When the video is finished, YouTube may show you a list of related videos, or automatically advance you to the next video. This convenience is the cornerstone of YouTube.
As a business owner, YouTube is important because it’s a great way to get the word out about your company. People don’t necessarily read long articles, but they do watch short videos promoting your company. The more people watch your videos and subscribe to your YouTube channel and social media accounts, the larger your list of potential customers.
Combined with social media marketing and other forms of digital marketing, creating a YouTube channel for a small business can help bring your business into the modern world.
Starting a YouTube channel
Now that you know how useful a professional YouTube channel can be, you may be wondering how to get started. Luckily for you, launching a YouTube channel is free and easy. To create a YouTube channel, you need an existing Google account.
Here’s how you can create a YouTube channel for your business:
- Log in to the YouTube website using your Google account (Gmail).
- Click on your profile photo in the top right-hand corner of the screen.
- Click on Create a chain.
- Fill in the details and confirm your choices to create a chain.
Remember, these are just basic instructions. Once you’ve created your YouTube channel, you’ll need to customize it, edit and upload videos, and work hard to build a following on YouTube.
Learn how to develop your brand’s unique voice, design a beautiful website and create attention-grabbing content with a little help from us.
12 tips to optimize the success of your YouTube channel
While YouTube offers many opportunities for small business owners, your YouTube videos are also competing with many other businesses for audience. Optimizing your YouTube channel and creating the best content are important if you want to gain a competitive edge.
Here are 12 tips to help you optimize your YouTube channel and increase your chances of success.
1. Choose a good name
If you want to create a YouTube channel, you need to make sure you choose a good name. There are over 50 million YouTube channels worldwide, so you need to find a name that sets you apart from the competition.
To choose a YouTube channel name, you may need to do a little research. See what kind of keywords people are looking for on YouTube and include one of them in your name. Also check that no similar channels appear in the search results when your channel name is searched.
2. Use the About us page
The About Us page on YouTube allows you to tell a little more about your channel, but that’s not the only reason it’s used. Filling out the About Us page can help your channel be more discoverable in search results. When someone searches for “YouTube” and a term you’ve included in your About page, chances are your page will appear in the search results.
While a well-written About Us page can help make your YouTube channel more discoverable, you don’t have to fill your channel with keywords. Instead, try to integrate keywords in a natural way by talking about your company and your YouTube channel.
3. Add a trailer
When new visitors come to your YouTube channel, you want to give them a taste of what they can find if they explore further. YouTube trailers are a great way to showcase your channel and build your audience.
You can take clips from several videos and combine them into a single trailer, or create a short trailer or welcome video for your channel and publish it.
Your trailer video will play automatically every time a non-subscriber opens your YouTube channel. Bear in mind that you can always deactivate your trailer video or replace it with something else later, so there’s no need to perfect it right away.
4. Use keywords
When it comes to advertising on YouTube and developing your channel, using keywords is one of the best things you can do. Keywords allow Internet users to discover your YouTube channel organically, whether they’re searching for a video on YouTube or doing a Google search.
When you include keywords in the titles and descriptions of your YouTube videos, you make your channel easier to discover on the Web.
Bear in mind that you can’t simply impose a long list of keywords in your descriptions and titles. While keywords help search algorithms know when to display your page, using too many keywords (keyword stuffing) can cause search engines to ignore your YouTube channel.
If you’re not familiar with keyword research and using keywords for SEO, you can always call on an SEO expert to help you optimize your YouTube channel.
5. Say your keywords in the videos
Putting keywords in video titles and descriptions is a great way to get people to watch your channel, but it’s not the only place to include your keywords. In addition to scanning video descriptions and titles for keywords, some search robots also scan your video and its transcripts for keywords.
This means that when you use text keywords on your YouTube channel, you should try to include that keyword in your video.
Using keywords in your videos can also help you stay on topic and create consistent content. It’s easy to get sidetracked when you’re making YouTube videos, but it’s a lot harder when you need to integrate keywords.
Once again, it’s important to ensure that you use these keywords in a natural way, without detracting from the content.
6. Create playlists
Sometimes people know what they’re looking for on YouTube, but sometimes they just want to watch random videos. A playlist is a good way of giving Internet users a list of videos they can watch without having to search for each one.
With a playlist, Internet users can click on a video in the list to start playback.
When a video is finished, YouTube automatically loads the next video from the playlist, which is convenient and allows users to discover new channels.
If you want to expand your YouTube channel, you can try creating playlists of related videos. Your playlist can include videos from your channel as well as videos from other channels. The most important thing is to get people to watch your videos and subscribe to your channel.
Learn how to develop your unique brand voice, design a beautiful website and create attention-grabbing content with a little help from us.
7. Make longer videos
Understanding algorithms is crucial when it comes to optimizing your YouTube channel. Not only do you need to use SEO to attract more visitors to your channel, but you also need to optimize your videos for what YouTube wants. As a general rule, YouTube prefers longer videos to shorter ones.
So making longer videos can be an easy way to give your channel a boost.
You may find it hard to make your videos longer at first, but eventually you’ll get the hang of it. If you had planned to make a series of videos to explain a topic, consider combining this series into one longer video. You can also make longer videos that include extracts from some of your other videos, depending on the type of content you’re making.
8. Perfect the first 15 seconds
The last thing you want is for people to stop watching your video after the first few seconds, which is why it’s so important to get the first 15 seconds right. Your goal should be to grab viewers’ attention in the first 15 seconds and entice them to watch the rest of your video.
You can do this by talking about the question you’re going to answer, or by giving them a quick overview of an interesting part of the video.
As long as the first 15 seconds of your video are attention-grabbing, you shouldn’t have too many problems retaining viewers.
9. Use custom thumbnails
You’ve probably noticed that most popular YouTube videos have large, bright thumbnails (the image you see before clicking on a video). What’s strange, however, is that many of these videos don’t actually contain the image that’s used as the thumbnail.
Indeed, many YouTube channels take advantage of personalized thumbnails to increase their audience.
Custom thumbnails are images created specifically for use as thumbnails. If you watch a video game YouTube channel, you’ve already seen these personalized thumbnails in action. You can always call on a graphic designer to create custom thumbnails if you don’t have an in-house graphic designer.
10. Write convincing titles and descriptions
When you add a video to a marketing campaign, you also need to add titles and descriptions for these videos. Believe it or not, the titles and descriptions you use for your videos are almost as important as the videos themselves.
When writing your title, keep it short and descriptive, with a few key words.
Your description can be a little more detailed, but you should also try to include keywords and talk about the video’s content.
Each video must have a unique title and description to facilitate its discovery. The more time you spend writing quality descriptions and titles, the easier it will be for Internet users to find your channel.
11. Use video cards
Most people think of video as a simple piece of pre-recorded media that people can’t interact with. In fact, YouTube makes it easy for viewers to interact with the videos they watch, thanks to video cards. Video cards allow content creators to share clickable links related to the video content.
For example, you could create a link to a product you’re talking about.
Video cards are a great way to make your videos more interactive and help viewers take action after watching a video. Whether you want someone to buy a product, visit your website or sign up to your social media channels, you can do it with video cards.
12. Add subtitles and captions
Finally, make sure your videos include subtitles and captions. Some people find it hard to understand what people are saying in videos, and some people have language barriers that prevent them from understanding what you’re saying.
By including subtitles and captions, you can ensure that everyone watching your videos can get a written translation that will make them easier to understand.
Subtitles and captions are also crawled by search engine spiders. Including subtitles and captions in your YouTube videos can therefore make you appear in more search engine results.
Get your name out there
If you’re thinking of creating a YouTube channel for your small business, promoting your channel is essential.
Here are some of the steps you can take to promote your YouTube channel as a small business owner:
- Social media: When you publish a video, share it on your social media accounts too. When someone clicks on your video, you get a view and a potential subscriber to your channel.
- YouTube ads: By advertising your channel on other YouTube videos, you can build up a wider audience.
- Keyword research: Use a keyword research tool to find out which keywords rank highest in your sector, and which ones people don’t use much. Including keywords is a simple way to improve your visibility.
- Include metadata: Another way to make your channel more visible is to include easily searchable metadata in each video.
- Encourage sharing: You can also develop your channel by organizing a contest, offering an entry every time someone shares your video or channel. Encouraging people to share your content is a great way to get your name out there.
- Build your brand with video.
With the rise of video in e-mail marketing and digital marketing in general, it’s no surprise that YouTube is now a powerful tool for businesses. By creating a YouTube channel and following these tips, you can grow your audience, boost sales and increase customer engagement.
