[RangoWorld]

Build a Successful YouTube Channel

Intro

First things first. This is not a quick money making scheme. It will require real hard work, persistence and time from your end to see the fruits of your labor. This guide will be worthwhile, you will learn and it will help you to build a decent YouTube channel. This guide will focus on Long-term YouTube content. You have to think of your channel as a business. You cannot have a non serious attitude around it. I personally run a small-decent sized channel. It is personal therefore I cannot disclose for privacy reasons.

We will get into the why and how of it all. I will not be showing tutorials on how to make a channel, thumbnail or what does retention and click through rate (CTR) means. You can find all that stuff on google. What I will be sharing is my knowledge. Everything I have learned and the small tips and tricks that people usually don't share. I will also be leaving some valuable tools at the bottom of this post.


Why run a YouTube Channel?

You will build a community with it. People will slowly start to find the content that you and they both enjoy. (Which is important and I will come to it later). The audience that you will build will be unbelievably beneficial to you. A decent chunk of that audience will be loyalists who will follow you wherever you and your content will go.

You have an incredible opportunity to not only monetize the channel but also to sell service, products or anything you deem of value to your audience. It is a real powerful network that you can use to make money.


What Niche to pick

This is an important part. At first you will not necessarily know exactly what your content should be so you can wiggle around a bit. But the niche has to be specified. You cannot post gaming videos one week and post cooking the another. That's not going to work. You can however make comedy skits on various styles and topics if comedy is your niche.

Now here's the important part in picking a niche. You have to pick something that you will somewhat enjoy making and something that you are somewhat competent at. You combine those and your chances of success multiply.

I truly believe in this quote of Steve Jobs;

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking."

I also suggest you to not go into oversaturated niches like Gaming. You will tire yourself and results won't be satisfactory. Do you research. Always.


Video Ideas

Idea is so important. You could triple the views with half the effort if you just had better ideas.

Best way to generate ideas is to brainstorm. Pull up a Docx. and start writing video ideas related to your channel that come to your mind. Write a 100, 200, 500, 1000, 10,000 ideas. Even the stupidest shit. Once you have a huge list. Filter it out. Find the ones that will be the best for you, your audience, is doable and is likely to gain traction. You will at least find a few good ideas in this long list.

It is much easier to get 5 Million views on one video than 100K views on 50 videos. You could upload 1 great video a year and get more views than you can get on 100 mediocre videos. So focus on idea.

Come up with ideas you think would do well then ask yourself if its durable. You have to look from viewer’s perspective and really ask yourself if this video or idea will do well.

One more thing. Do not niche down an idea too much. If the video idea is about a "PCI part of an XYZ Remote Control" you will not get many views. That is because it does not appeal to a broad audience. There is not enough audience in the world for that. Unless "PCI part of an XYZ Remote Control" is a new thing everyone on the internet is talking about.


YouTube Algorithm

At its core YouTube want people to click on video and watch it. By studying the YouTube algorithm you are essentially learning the human psychology. Because you want to know why do people click and watch your videos. Replace the word algorithm with audience. Algorithm reflect what people want.

If you have posted 50-100 videos. Now it is time to focus on Audience tab in Analytics. It will tell you things like what other videos your audience watched this week, or what videos attracted new audience to your channel that came back to watch more.

Make videos people want to watch, consider the breadth of audience you're targeting within the niche you want to produce in, and then aim for 70% retention for that specific content. don't expect max views, but expect max retention within that niche because that's who you're making content for.


Titles and Thumbnails

Your titles and thumbnails set expectations. You want those expectations met when someone click on your video. Tell your audience at the start what your title claims then just show them the content.

Viral videos (most viewed videos) tend to have clear Thumbnail, not have clutter, tend to be pretty simply. Their Titles should be less than 50 characters. Ideally short enough title that is doesn't get cut down in any small viewing device (E.g. Mobile).

Make Thumbnail storyboard before actual thumbnail to see how it looks.


Video Intro

In the first 30 seconds majority of people decide if they wanna see the video or not. Tell your audience at the start what your title claims then just show them the content.

On YouTube Homepage, viewers can preview watch the videos quickly (without opening them) even unmute them. So you want to have better intros to your videos. The intro of the video is setting in the mood and expectation for the audience. You have to meet their standard and then keep it throughout the video so they stay hooked.


Expectations for Beginners

It is important to set expectations set in reality.

Most important thing in this journey is commitment. You will need to commit 1 to 3 years of posting regular YouTube videos. Period.
It is a slow grind and it will pay dividends year/s later.

Your first 50-100 videos will suck. You will get little to no attention. (Exceptions are there of course).

Improve something each time. Some steps: Put more effort into script, learn new editing trick, have better inflection in your voice, learn new thumbnail trick, new title, etc.


Random Tips

- Always adapt and pivot. Don't become stale in your content.

- Most Important statistics for a video to succeed: 1) Click through Rate 2) Average View Duration 3) Surveys

- Don’t break the trust. Have every video of quality so people expect when they see that the video is going to be good.

- Outsource things you don't like. So you can focus on things you can.

- Do your own research. Always.


Some Tools

Google Trends (YouTube) - See and research what topics people are searching and which ones are going viral.

Thumbs Up - Upload your thumbnail and see how it looks on all types of screen sizes and devices.

YouTube's Creator Tips - You can find small bits and useful tips directly from YouTube that will help your channel.

FreePick - Royalty Free designs, videos, templates and images. Just be sure to read their license agreement to know their usage guide.

YouTube's Audio Library - Free Audio Library by YouTube. You can use many of the sound effects and music in your videos without any issues.



Good Luck! 👍

[Spookz]

Very useful to get started thank you

[Hect0r]

Nice guide, actually I never thought of starting a YouTube channel but I think this thread is a great starting point to have one. Thank you for sharing it.

[tpmhdp]

Very nice, this is very useful.

[BRICK]

Nice work, very useful for someone just starting out with youtube

[Tyr]

SS putting out high quality and useful information as always. Thanks.

[josimc]

Been thinking I should give a go at making a youtube channel. Either gaming or fishing. Could possibly get into both and see which I do better at. Thanks for the information

[Muckypucky]

I actually enjoyed reading this post.
Well put-together, great information.

I've had an idea of making youtube short's for a while, but that seems fairly hard to gain money from that if u can't peak the top views.
Other ideas from gaming, or tourist/fact's videos could possibly be good.

Overall, great guide!