How To Start A YouTube Channel This Year

Starting a YouTube channel can be a fun and profitable way to share your talents, interests, or knowledge with the world.

But before you can start racking up views and subscribers, you need to set up your channel and configure its settings.

In this post, we’ll walk you through the steps of starting a YouTube channel.

How To Start A YouTube Channel

First, you’ll need to create a Google account if you don’t already have one. Then, go to youtube.com and click on the “Sign In” button in the top-right corner of the page.

Next, click on the “Create Channel” button.

In the “Create a Channel” dialog box, enter the name of your channel and click on the “Create” button.

Your channel will now be created, and you’ll be taken to the channel’s main page.

On the channel’s main page, you’ll see a few different tabs: “Home”, “Uploads”, “My Channel”, and “Settings”.

The “Home” tab displays a list of your latest uploads, while the “Uploads” tab displays all of your uploaded videos.

The “My Channel” tab displays information about your channel, such as your channel description, subscribers, and video views.

The “Settings” tab allows you to configure various settings for your channel, such as your channel type, language, and privacy settings.

In the “Settings” tab, click on the “Advanced” tab.

In the “Advanced” tab, you’ll see a list of settings that you can configure for your channel.

The first setting that you’ll want to configure is your channel type.

There are three different types of channels:

Personal: A personal channel is a channel that is associated with a single Google account.

Brand: A brand channel is a channel that is associated with a business or organization.

Music: A music channel is a channel that is associated with a music artist or band.

For this tutorial, we’ll be configuring a personal channel.

Configure Your Language Settings.

The language settings allow you to specify the language that your channel will use.

By default, the language setting will be set to your Google account’s language. However, you can change the language setting to any language that you want.

Configure Your Privacy Settings.

The privacy settings allow you to specify who can see your channel and its videos.

There are three different privacy settings:

Public: A public channel and its videos are visible to everyone.
Private: A private channel and its videos are only visible to the channel owner and people who the channel owner has invited to view the channel.
Unlisted: A unlisted channel and its videos are only visible to people who have the channel’s URL.

For this tutorial, we’ll be configuring the privacy setting to be “Public”.

Next, you’ll want to configure your video settings.

The video settings allow you to specify the dimensions and file format of your videos.

By default, the video settings will be set to the recommended settings. However, you can change the video settings to any settings that you want.

Configure Your Notifications Settings.

The notifications settings allow you to specify the type of notifications that you want to receive for your channel.

There are three different types of notifications:

All: All types of notifications are enabled.
Subscribers: Only notifications about new subscribers are enabled.
Uploads: Only notifications about new uploads are enabled.

For this tutorial, we’ll be configuring the notifications setting to be “Subscribers”.

Configure Your Video Settings.

The video settings allow you to specify the dimensions and file format of your videos.

By default, the video settings will be set to the recommended settings. However, you can change the video settings to any settings that you want.

Configure Your Monetization Settings.

The monetization settings allow you to enable or disable monetization for your channel.

By default, the monetization setting will be enabled. However, you can disable the monetization setting if you don’t want to monetize your channel.
Now that you’ve configured all of the settings for your channel, it’s time to start uploading videos.

Upload Your Videos

To upload a video, click on the “Upload” tab and then click on the “Select Files” button.

In the “Select Files” dialog box, select the video that you want to upload and then click on the “Open” button.

The video will now be uploaded, and you’ll see a progress bar.

When the video has been uploaded, you’ll see a thumbnail for the video and some information about the video.

To add a title and description for the video, click on the “Edit” button.

In the “Edit Video” dialog box, enter the title and description for the video and then click on the “Save” button.

Your video will now be added to your channel.

To publish the video, click on the “Publish” button.

Your video will now be published and will be available to view on your channel.

YouTube Keyword Research: Finding The Best Keywords and Tags for Your YouTube Videos

YouTube keyword research reveals vital information to ultimately grow your channel, generate views, get more followers, cash in more bulks, and be happy.

Discovering the right keywords to rank your videos starts with keyword research.

Why KEYWORD RESEARCH?

Just like on YouTube, success in any business starts with a discovery.

Gone are the days when things just worked without any strategy.

There are more people in business today than were yesterday. More channels keep going live on YouTube now and then.

So you’ll need to do your due diligence, first and always, before creating any more videos.

Fortunately, you can carry out a complete circle of keyword research without leaving the YouTube platform.

Even though if you yearn for more, you got to get out.

What Is KEYWORD RESEARCH

Keyword research helps you grow your organic traffic through SEO by allowing you to aim for keywords and topics that are not too competitive but have a high enough search volume per month.

While conducting your keyword research, your selected keywords need to have enough search volume to drive views and are also relevant to your content.

What is YOUTUBE KEYWORD RESEARCH

Keyword research is the process by which you try to understand the popular topics and phrases people search for on YouTube.

To deliver videos to the right audience; keywords provide YouTube with context and metadata information about your video content. The algorithm then utilizes that.

The simplest way to get a sneak peek of this information is to start typing into the YouTube search box.

As you type in, related but popular keywords will dynamically keep popping up the more you input.

How To Do YouTube Keyword Research Without Leaving YouTube

1. YouTube Autosuggest

Steps:

Head over to the YouTube search bar and start typing in the target phrase.
A list of related keyword suggestions starts appearing dynamically beneath your search.
Make your pick, and you are ready to do a little more cleanup.
Using autocomplete feature for YouTube keyword research could be a fun and easy way to cut to the chase without wasting much time looking for some cutting-edge keyword research tool.

It also comes with shortcomings because you have very little knowledge about these keywords except that people are searching for them.

That takes us to another way of conducting keyword research, still based on the YouTube platform.

2. Extract Keywords From COMPETITOR’S POPULAR VIDEOS

Even with the autocomplete pattern, you need to pick a topic to get suggestions.

But by finding keywords from other channels and popular videos, you don’t need to start from scratch.

Here’s how to do it.

Head over to one of your competitor’s channels. Navigate to the videos tab and sort the videos by ‘most popular.

All the videos on the channel will now get sorted with the most popular videos at the top.

Click on one of the videos and commence your extraction work.

An attentive look at the video title and description brings the video keywords to the bare.

As simple as that.

One of the effective strategies to find easy keywords to rank for is to target trending keywords.

As long as keyword research stands for, there are two types of keywords.

Not the long-tail and main keywords’ type of type :-). Here we mean older ‘established keywords’ and ‘trending keywords.’

These trending keywords are very much brand new.

Even though trending keywords are popular, they’re not that competitive like their older established counterparts.

And because of this, you can become an early bird and ride the wave of these young and upcoming keywords.

How do you find these trending topics that many other people don’t know about yet?

Exploding Topics comes to the rescue!

This free tool has a technology that allows it to scrape the web for topics that more people searched more than usual recently.

Who knows, you could land a perfect keyword for your next video.

YouTube Keyword Research Tools To Get The Most of Your Videos

YouTube research tools and extensions help make keyword research easy.

YouTube keyword tools ensure that your content incorporates the right keywords.

And the right keywords help your videos rank on all possible search engines, in our case: YouTube (and possibly Google).

Some of the keyword research tools you can start using today include:

Extension YouTube Keyword Research Tools

1. TubeBuddy

TubeBuddy is a browser extension YouTube keyword research tool that plans to build tools that help make you a happier and more productive YouTuber.

TubeBuddy’s host of tools guides you right from keyword research to publishing your videos. Then from optimization to the promotion of your videos on YouTube.

2. VidIQ

vidIQ has a Google Chrome extension that YouTubers use to analyze YouTube analytics data.

Users can also get video tutorials and analytics on YouTube channel growth on the vidIQ online education website.

vidIQ has similar features to the TubeBuddy Google Chrome YouTube keyword research extension.

Non-Extension YouTube Keyword Research Tools

3. Keywordtool.io

Keywordtool.io is a long-tail keyword research tool that allows YouTube and Google keyword researching.

This long-tail keyword research tool can provide thousands of keyword suggestions from real-time user queries from many different sources to help you create better-ranking videos.

4. Google Trends

Google has all the data and keywords you need to rank higher on YouTube searches.

Google Trends is Google’s own keyword research tool that analyzes the popularity of top search queries in the Google Search engine across various regions and languages.

The website uses graphs to compare the search volume of different queries over time, and you can filter results by:

Language
Regions
Industry
Timeframe, etc

5. Ahrefs Keywords Explorer

If you have used many keywords tools, there’s a level of inconsistency about the data different keyword research tools produce.

But with Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, you can be sure the metrics are up-to-date and correct.

You can get thousands of keyword ideas with accurate search volume numbers, and free keyword ideas for Google, Bing, YouTube, and Amazon.

How To Create The Perfect YouTube Thumbnail [Sizing & Styling]

Do not judge a book by its cover, but we keep doing it every day. Who wants to read a book without a beautiful design?

And who wants to watch a video where the perceived value is not glaring even from the preview?

YouTube thumbnails are there to catch the attention of potential viewers and leave them with no other choice than to head on and give your video that desired view.

There are many other factors to determine where your channel will drive a lot of views or remain stagnated at a few tens or hundred views.

But when it comes down to what compels people to want to watch your videos, in the presence of myriad other videos, aesthetic-looking designs promote more views and click-through rates.

In this post, we will get down to the design concepts and styling insights to allow you to create YouTube thumbnails that get the job done.

Before we get to that, just let us talk about YouTube thumbnail sizing.

What Is A YouTube Thumbnail

A thumbnail is a small image added to represent a preview for a video on YouTube.

Since a thumbnail is one of the first things a user will see before seeing the main content of the video, it matters a lot how they look and feel.

What is the perfect YouTube Thumbnail Size?

YouTube recommends a thumbnail with a minimum of 640 pixels and a 1280 x 720 resolution of 1280×720 for your videos.

As a recommendation, users may want to stick with it even though they can choose much higher or lower resolutions than the recommended 1280 x 720.

Choosing something else may negatively affect video playback quality on YouTube.

Also, the 1280 pixels by 720 pixels follow the standard aspect ratio of 16:9, the most used for YouTube videos.

Additionally, let your thumbnails remain within 2 Megabytes (MB) and upload only any of these image formats: JPG, GIF, or PNG.

If you got that, you already know the perfect size, sizing, and format for your YouTube thumbnails.

Why Do You Need Great YouTube Thumbnail Designs

First off, the heart desires anything the eye admires.

If the thumbnails on your videos can seize attention, there is a higher odds you will get more views.

Great thumbnails help your videos stand out anywhere there are displayed and can have a massive impact on the growth of your audience.

What are the things that make up a great thumbnail?

1. Colors

Your choice of color and how you use the colors can make or break your YouTube thumbnail design.

2. Font

Legible font styles help readability and also ooze out an ambient feel.

3. Images/Photos

An image is worth a thousand words; that could not be more true with a thumbnail design.

Some of the most alluring YouTube thumbnail designs have a combination of text and an image/photo side by side.

4. Design aesthetics

Aesthetics is a core principle in design and defines the pleasing qualities of your design.

In your YouTube thumbnail design, the design aesthetics will include factors such as balance, color, pattern, scale, shape, and visual weight.

5. Overall Quality

You have just the right color, images, and fonts. The aesthetics are also inviting and beautiful.

The output of the export quality of the whole design seals the deal. You will want to finish with a bang too!

YouTube Thumbnail Best Practices

1. Use custom thumbnails

On every video upload to YouTube, you will be able to select out of three screenshot images from specific moments in your video as thumbnails.

It could have been that easy, but it is best to create custom YouTube thumbnails yourself with graphic design software like Canva for each of your videos.

2. Let It Stimulate Interest

With a good measure of aesthetic touch on your thumbnail, it will start to get attention.

Now what happens when people scroll to your video is that they observe and read, then get interested or not.

It’s more rewarding to grab people’s interest just as you do attention.

If I was to give a one-liner to achieving that, it is, ‘capture needs in your design and title.’

Inspire Curiosity with Your YouTube Thumbnail
As long as it is on a topic of interest, I want to look at a video thumbnail and feel: I’ve to watch this!

It usually begins with a fascinating preview of something that seems familiar.

3. Include a Short Description On Your Thumbnail

As a best practice, you want to allow curious users to get the big picture at first sight.

For that reason, you include a short version of your title that is just enough to convey the whole message the full title would.

Some people will only look at the title unless satisfied with the video preview. Others won’t even check before clicking or scrolling past.

4. Avoid Clickbait!

Clickbait is the easiest way to chase people away.

It is better to pass across the value proposition of your video to attract the right audience.

Even though that number may be small, once your videos keep pulling off long-duration views and positive feedback, YouTube could step in to spread the message more.

But once a clickbait thumbnail and title continue to clamp down on your retention rate–

Users will leave and not come back again. And you can be sure YouTube won’t promote what people won’t like to watch.

5. Employ Images In The Thumbnail Design

Finally, you need an image on your YouTube thumbnails.

The image can be a still image from the video content you’re about to upload or any other photo related to the content of the video.

Free Custom Thumbnail Creation Tools to Create a YouTube Thumbnail

1. Canva

Canva is a free online graphic design tool that allows you to create custom thumbnails for your YouTube videos.

You can choose from a variety of templates and designs, or you can create your design from scratch.

To create a thumbnail using Canva, first navigate to the Canva website and sign in or create an account.

Once you are logged in, click on the “Create a Design” button and select the “YouTube Thumbnail” option.

Canva will then prompt you to choose a template. You can choose from a variety of templates, or you can create your design from scratch.

Once you have chosen a template, you can start customizing it by adding your text, images, and other elements.

You can also change the size and shape of the thumbnail.

When you are finished customizing your thumbnail, click on the “Download” button and save it to your computer.

2. PlaceIt

PlaceIt is another free online tool that allows you to create custom thumbnails for your videos.

To use PlaceIt, you simply need to provide a link to the video you want to create a thumbnail for, select a template, and then enter your text and upload your image.

Once you’ve created your thumbnail, you can download it or share it online.

PlaceIt also allows you to create videos, and you can use your thumbnails in your videos as well.

If you’re looking for a free tool to create custom thumbnails for your YouTube videos, PlaceIt is a good option.

It’s easy to use, and you can create thumbnails that look professional and polished.

3. Adobe Spark

Adobe Spark is a free online tool that allows you to create custom graphics and videos.

It’s simple to use, and you can create professional-quality thumbnails with just a few clicks.

To create a custom thumbnail in Adobe Spark, start by visiting the Adobe Spark website.

Then, click on the “Create” button and select “YouTube thumbnail.”

Next, enter the details of your thumbnail. You’ll need to enter the title of your video, the URL of the video, and the dimensions of the thumbnail.

Then, click on the “Create” button.

Adobe Spark will create a custom thumbnail for you.

If you’re not happy with the thumbnail, you can edit it or create a new one. To edit a thumbnail, click on the “Edit” button.

To create a new thumbnail, click on the “Create” button and select “YouTube thumbnail.”

Adobe Spark is a great tool for creating custom thumbnails for your YouTube channel. It’s easy to use, and you can create professional-quality thumbnails in just a few clicks.

4. Fotor

Fotor is a free online photo editor that offers a wide range of features for creating quality thumbnails.

With Fotor, you can easily add text, graphics, and other elements to your thumbnail to help capture the viewer’s attention.

You can also use Fotor to resize and crop your thumbnail image, and to add filters and other effects to give it a more polished look.

To get started with Fotor, simply visit the Fotor website and click on the “Create a Thumbnail” button. This will open the thumbnail editor, where you can start creating your thumbnail.

5. Snappa

Creating a thumbnail for your YouTube channel can be a daunting task.

Not only do you need to make sure that the image is high quality and looks great, but you also need to make sure that it follows YouTube’s specific guidelines.

One way to make creating a thumbnail easier is to use a free online tool like Snappa.

Snappa allows you to create custom thumbnails quickly and easily, without having to worry about the details.

To create a thumbnail in Snappa, start by clicking on the “Create a New Thumbnail” button. You can then choose from a variety of templates, or start from scratch.

Once you have chosen a template, you can start customizing it.

You can add text, images, and shapes, and you can also change the size and color of the text and images.

When you’re finished, you can preview your thumbnail and then save it.

Snappa also allows you to share your thumbnail with others, or even export it as a PDF.

If you’re looking for an easy way to create custom thumbnails for your YouTube channel, Snappa is a great option.

6. Visme

When you’re creating a video for YouTube, the thumbnail is one of the most important elements to consider.

This is the small image that will be displayed next to the title of your video in the search results, and you must make sure it’s eye-catching and enticing enough to convince people to click on it.

Visme is a versatile online tool that lets you create custom visuals for a variety of purposes, including thumbnails for YouTube videos.

It offers a wide range of templates and tools that you can use to create your thumbnail, and you can also upload your images and graphics.

One of the best things about Visme is that it offers a free plan that lets you create unlimited thumbnails.

You can also use the tool to create other types of visuals, such as presentations, infographics, and social media posts.

7. Creatopy

Creatopy is a free online thumbnail creation tool that you can use to create a custom thumbnail for your YouTube video.

First, you need to select the dimensions of your thumbnail. Then, you can add text, graphics, and effects to your thumbnail.

You can also choose a background color or image. When you’re done, you can download your thumbnail and add it to your YouTube video.

8. Pixlr

Pixlr is another free online thumbnail creation tool that you can use to create a custom thumbnail for your YouTube video.

First, you need to select the dimensions of your thumbnail. Then, you can add text, graphics, and effects to your thumbnail. You can also choose a background color or image.

When you’re done, you can download your thumbnail and add it to your YouTube video.

9. Fotojet

Fotojet is a free online photo editor that you can use to create custom thumbnails for your YouTube videos. It’s easy to use, and you can create thumbnails in a variety of different sizes.

To create a thumbnail using Fotojet, first select the “Create” tab and then select “YouTube Thumbnail.”

Next, select the size of thumbnail you want to create.

Then, select the photo you want to use for your thumbnail. You can either select a photo from your computer or Fotojet’s built-in library of stock photos.

Once you’ve selected your photo, you can use the built-in tools to edit it. You can adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation, and sharpness, and you can add text, stickers, and filters.

When you’re finished editing your photo, you can save it to your computer or share it on social media.

10. PicMonkey

One of the best free thumbnail creation tools that you can use online is PicMonkey.

This online photo editor has a wide range of features, including the ability to create custom thumbnails for your YouTube videos.

To create a thumbnail using PicMonkey, start by visiting the website and clicking on the “Create a New Image” button.

Next, choose the “YouTube Thumbnail” option from the list of templates.

This will open a new window where you can enter the details for your thumbnail.

In the top left corner, you’ll see a list of the dimensions for a YouTube thumbnail. Enter the dimensions for your thumbnail in the “Width” and “Height” fields, then click on the “Create” button.

PicMonkey will then create a new thumbnail based on the dimensions you entered. You can then edit the thumbnail to add text, graphics, or other elements.

When you’re finished editing the thumbnail, click on the “Save” button and then select a file name and location to save the thumbnail.

You can then upload the thumbnail to your YouTube video and it will be displayed when people view the video.

11. PixTeller

Are you looking for a free way to create custom thumbnails for your YouTube videos?

PixTeller is a great tool for creating professional-looking thumbnails without any design experience.

To get started, visit the PixTeller website and click on the “Create a New Design” button.

You’ll then be prompted to choose a design type. For thumbnails, we recommend selecting the “YouTube Thumbnail” option.

Next, you’ll be asked to choose a template. For thumbnails, we recommend selecting the “Standard” template.

You’ll then be prompted to enter the title of your video.

Next, you’ll be asked to enter the description of your video.
Next, you’ll be asked to enter the URL of your video.
Next, you’ll be asked to choose a background color.
Next, you’ll be asked to choose a font.
Next, you’ll be asked to choose a text color.
Next, you’ll be asked to choose an image.
When you’re finished, click on the “Create” button.
Your thumbnail will then be created and you can download it by clicking on the “Download” button.

How to Add a Custom YouTube Thumbnail to Your Video

While or after your video uploads, click on the upload thumbnail and select the design from your computer.

For already published videos,

Sign in to YouTube Studio.
From the left menu, select Content.
Select a video by clicking its thumbnail.
Under “Thumbnail”, select Upload thumbnail.
Choose the file you’d like to use as your custom thumbnail.
Select Save.

Great YouTube thumbnail + a perfect video = a match made in heaven!

An extra 20 minutes to design a thumbnail isn’t too much of a spend, considering what it may have taken to film and edit the video itself.

Ranking Your YouTube Videos: How The YouTube Algorithm Works

The YouTube algorithm has only one job to do, and it does it very perfectly.

That job is to keep as many people on the YouTube app/website as long as possible.

That is the core of YouTube’s algorithms work. And it goes about achieving this with great attention to detail.

Just like every other artificial intelligence engine, with all the data available to it, you can be sure the algorithm keeps improving on its capabilities.

You have probably watched one or more videos on YouTube today and will probably go back for more. Why?

Those intelligent YouTube algorithms sort through millions to billions of videos on YouTube and get jussssst the right video for you.

Isn’t that interesting?

And they are looking out for your needs all over YouTube:

Pick the perfect set of videos for your YouTube homepage.
Rank the best relevant results for your searches.
Suggest and recommend videos that may be suitable for your seeing.

How does YouTube determine the videos to display on your homepage?

1. Personalized Recommendations

YouTube shell out a lot of money to creators to keep people creating on their platform.

Because the more content on the platform, the more there are videos to display ads on and more money to make.

Most importantly, the more people keep creating, the more videos serve just about the taste of any YouTube user, thereby keeping people more engaged.

The first page you see once you log in is a great place to get you watching ASAP, and the YouTube algorithms see to that.

So one way the algorithms decide what you see on your homepage when next you log in is based on previous activities: the videos you enjoyed previously, liked, channels you subscribed to, etc.

2. Most Viewed Videos

The performance of videos also plays a role in deciding what gets put onto a user’s homepage.

If a video seems to perform very well among other people of similar interests, such videos could make it onto your welcome YouTube homepage.

No wonder viral videos are seen by practically everyone on YouTube because it’s no longer limited to a small chunk of the audience.

How does YouTube determine the search results that’ll show up in your search results?

For determining the videos that get displayed in your search results, YouTube shows off that it is a full-fledged search engine, actually the world’s second-largest after Google.

Youtube’s search algorithm (that does the work under the hood) relies on the keywords you utilize in your video’s title, description, and metadata to rank or not rank your videos in a user’s search.

Hint:
YouTube continues to measure the performance of a ranked video after the algorithm has ranked it at the top of search results.

Click-through rate, positivity, and negativity of comments watch time, likes, and dislikes to decide if your videos will climb up the SERPs and be shown to more people or drop it off entirely.

How does YouTube determine the videos to suggest to you to watch next?

1. User Personal Preferences

Personal preference is at the core of what the YouTube recommendation engine uses to work.

To suggest another video to watch, YouTube tries to predict what a user would like to see next based on what they usually watch.

The personal preference and interest of users get gathered by YouTube, the more they watch more videos on the platform.

YouTube tends to suggest topically related videos in the same niche.

For instance, if a user was watching bizarre happenings, it’s very likely the next video suggestion will be on a weird occurrence.

Since the system is intelligent enough to understand synonyms, these titles may not be the same word for word.

It simply reads meaning and suggests other videos based on the topics of the just-finished video.

3. Videos With Similar or Same Keywords

A lot of videos have a similar keyword they are optimized around.

If I’m watching an SEO-related video by Neil Patel, I’ll likely get suggested Brian Dean’s videos on Backlinks or keyword research.

Turns out the YouTube algorithms are well trained at seeing the keywords of a video.

As we outlined in a post about YouTube keyword research, videos that have similar or same keywords perform similarly.

That is not considering subscribers count and channel size.

How To Make The YouTube Algorithms Work For You

Surprisingly, the algorithms work with what information you feed it.

So to make the algorithms work for you, it takes as simple as feeding it with more accurate, relevant, and valuable metadata to work.

How do you do that?

Do your keyword research to find the right keywords
Place your keywords in the right places
Make quality videos
Promote your videos
Create great thumbnails
Title your videos correctly
Post a type of particular type of video consistently

Bang On

YouTube does a simple job at its core.

And that job is providing a way for people to store videos online without cost.

These videos are then viewed by people all around the world, for free too!

The business happens when advertisers pay to be seen by these viewers, hence algorithms handle the job of determining which videos are most suitable for what viewers.

Because the more people want to watch on YouTube, the more advertisers want to pay.