today I'm gonna show you how to start a successful YouTube channel and grow it in record time in fact these are the same exact steps I used to take my channel from zero views and zero subscribers to over five million views in 200, 000 subscribers I'm not alone my friend Jeff Rose also recently hit 250, 000 subscribers using these same strategies I'm brian dean the founder of backlinko and in this video i'm going to show you my step-by-step action plan for growing a youtube channel including lots of real-life case studies and examples stay tuned when I first launched my YouTube channel a couple of years ago I struggled big-time despite publishing lots of great videos my views barely budged it was really frustrating I hate you YouTube flash forward to today and my channel consistently gets hundreds of thousands of views and around 8, 000 people subscribe to my channel every month my secret I tested everything that way I could figure out what advice actually worked and what didn't and I put everything that worked for me into a simple step-by-step process and that's the process I'm about to share with you so let's dive right in with step number one make a pro channel page my first channel page look like this yikes needless to say a channel page like that isn't gonna push anyone to subscribe in fact my ugly channel page was one of the main reasons that I struggle to turn viewers into subscribers today my channel page is super Pro and because my channel page looks professional a good chunk of the people that visit my page hit that subscribe button so how do you create a professional channel page first write a thorough About tab description when someone's on the fence about subscribing to your channel what do they do they click on your About tab to learn more about you and if you're about description looks like this they're gonna say nah I'm good that's why you want to write a detailed about page description that lets people know who your channel is for what types of videos you put out when you upload new videos and anything else that would make someone want to smash the subscribe button for example here's my About section nice and detailed next you want to nice-lookin channel art like my mom always told me you never get a second chance to make a first impression hey mom I just mentioned you on YouTube and your channel art is the first thing that someone sees when they visit your page so it needs to look great now if you don't know how to use Photoshop you can use an easy tool like canva or snappa to make a nice channel art banner last up we have your channel icon did you know that your channel icon shows up and more places in YouTube than anything else it's true your channel icon appears on watch pages searches all its community tabs subscriptions video comments feature channels related channels and more in fact for lots of people your icon will be the first thing they see from your channel before they visit your page for example when you leave a comment on a video your channel icon shows up right next to it so make sure your channel icon looks nice and clear like this or like this then move on to our next step which is to find three keywords it's no secret that SEO is huge you can have the best video ever made best video ever done but if no one on YouTube can find it it's not going to get any views in fact a big reason that my channel finally found success was that I started to rank in YouTube for popular keywords like on-page SEO and Google rankings and these YouTube rankings have directly led to millions of views now I'll show you exactly how to optimize your videos in a minute but before we get into that you need to find some key words specifically key words that lots of people are searching for on YouTube so how do you find them it's actually pretty easy use YouTube's autocomplete you might have noticed that when you search for something on YouTube it suggests keywords for you this feature is called autocomplete the great thing about autocomplete is that it only suggests popular keywords in other words YouTube is literally telling you these are terms that lots of people use to find videos on YouTube for example let's say you wanted to make a video about the keto diet well when you type keto into YouTube you can see that it suggests a handful of key words related to that term and these suggested cue words are perfect to optimize your videos around with that let's move on to step number three optimize and plan your videos real talk most people struggle on YouTube because they don't plan their videos instead they turn on their camera and freestyle but if you take a look at some of the most successful channels on YouTube you'll notice that they all plan their videos ahead of time why is this important well put yourself in the shoes of someone that's watching videos on YouTube and whether you're on YouTube to learn or to be entertained you probably have a very short attention span Plus YouTube is suggesting cute cat videos left and right so if the video you're watching isn't super engaging you're gonna click away and when someone's rambling and tripping over their words you're gonna say next in today's video you're in this video you're in today's video you might in this video you're so unless you're an absolute natural on camera I recommend using an outline or script personally I use the script as you can see it has every single line written out plus notes but you can also use a loose outline that way you have some room to improvise either way works bottom line plan out your videos ahead of time with a detailed outline or a word-for-word script let's move right into step number 4 optimize your videos for SEO like I mentioned earlier SEO is one of the main reasons that my channel has grown so quickly over the last year so now that you've found a popular keyword and filmed a great video using an outline or script it's time to optimize it here's how first include the keyword that you found earlier in your title YouTube puts a ton of weight on terms that appear in your video title so make sure to include your exact word for word keyword here for example here's a video I published a while back my target keyword for that video was link building so I included that keyword in my title simple next use your keyword two to three times in your description there's no need to overthink this stuff just sprinkle in your keyword a few times where it makes sense here's an example from the video I just mentioned see how the keywords look nice and natural that's how you want it to look finally use keyword rich tags when it comes to tags I like to keep things really simple I include my main keyword as the first tag then I use a handful of other tags that describe what my video is all about that's all there is to it and now it's time for step number five get more comments my team and I recently analyzed 1.
3 million YouTube videos to figure out why certain videos ranked higher than others and one finding that surprised a lot of people was that videos with a lot of comments tend to outrank videos that don't get a lot of comments in other words when your video gets a lot of comments YouTube says this video is engaging our viewers and they're going to give it a ranking boost the question is how do you get more comments on your videos here are three simple tips that work great first give people multiple choice questions in your video most youtubers ask their viewers something like this yeah that can work okay instead give people something super specific that they can comment on for example in this video ask people which technique from the video they're going to use first they can literally comment with one to two words and that's one of the reasons that this video has so many comments next use a pinned comment here's where you ask your viewers a question in the comment section and then you pin it so it stays at the top here's an example from my channel finally reply to as many comments as you can the fact is most youtubers never reply to comments which means you instantly stand out when you do and if your channel is brand new there's really no excuse not to reply to every single comment that comes in in fact I reply to pretty much every comment that comes in within the first 48 hours of a new video going live not only does this lead to more people commenting but it also directly leads to more subscribers speaking of subscribers it's time for our next step step number 6 get more subscribers so how do you get your first thousand subscribers and how do you go from a thousand to a hundred thousand and more here are two quick strategies that are working really well right now first focus a hundred percent on quality not quantity here's the deal a lot of so-called YouTube experts tell you that you need to publish lots of videos all the time but it's simply not true the fact is they're over 400 hours of videos published on YouTube every minute so the world doesn't need more mediocre videos it needs more awesome videos for example I grew my channel to over a hundred thousand subscribers with only 20 total videos and it only took seven more videos to get to 200 thousand subscribers and I'm not alone with this quality over quantity approached Jun's kitchen has over 3 million subscribers and he's only uploaded about 25 total videos bottom line no one cares how often you publish just that the videos you do publish are awesome you also want to optimize your end screen for subscribers as you probably know your end screen is the screen that pops up at the end of every video on YouTube and it's one of the easiest ways to get more subscribers why is that think about it someone just finished watching an entire video from your channel which means they're primed to subscribe that's why I recommend using a big subscribe button on your end screen that way people can easily subscribe from inside of your video pretty cool and now it's time for our last step step 7 increased session time now that your channel is starting to get some traction it's time to take things to the next level specifically it's time to start focusing on session time so what is session time and why is it important session time is how long someone spends on YouTube after they start watching one of your videos and I should point something out such as time is a little bit different than audience retention and watch time those two metrics are how long someone spends watching one video session time is different session time measures the amount of time that someone spends on the YouTube platform as a whole and YouTube has stated on the record that session time is super important according to YouTube the longer you can keep people watching on YouTube because of your content the more your content may get surfaced the question is how do you maximize your session time first use the next video in your end screen I already mentioned that you want to add a big old subscribe button on your end screen but you also want to link to one of your other videos here too here's an example from my channel that way you give people something else from your channel to watch right away as a quick pro tip use the next video that someone would want to watch after they finish the video they're watching for example I have a video on my channel that shows people how to get more views what would someone that just finished watching that video want to see next a video on how to turn those views into subscribers so I featured a video on getting more subscribers in my end screen next use a special type of playlist format that I call power playlists as you might already know playlists are one of the easiest ways to boost your channel session time that's because playlists automatically play one video after another which keeps people on YouTube so what our power playlist exactly they're basically the same as regular playlists with a cool name just kidding the difference is this instead of organizing a playlist around topics with power playlist you organize them around outcomes and benefits for example let's say you have a bunch of videos in your channel about healthy desserts most people would name their playlist something like healthy dessert recipes and there's nothing wrong with that title but it's not going to push people to watch every single video on that playlist enter power playlists with power playlist you organize your videos around a specific outcome that your viewers want so instead of organizing or videos around healthy dessert recipes you just collect a batch of like 4 to 5 videos that will help your viewer lose weight without cutting out dessert then name your playlist with a benefit oriented title for example I have a bunch of videos on my channel that show people how to rank in Google so I put those videos into a playlist and called it how to get higher Google rankings simple before we close out this video I've got a quick bonus strategy for you YouTube studio hacking the YouTube studio is one of the best ways to take your channel to the next level to be clear if your channel is brand new the you studio isn't gonna be that useful for you that's why I only recommend using this technique after you get a few hundred subscribers under your belt so if you're new to YouTube I recommend sticking to the other techniques that I showed you in this video with that here's how this strategy works first look at your videos top traffic sources the traffic sources report tells you where your views and watch time are coming from and it's an absolute goldmine here's exactly how to use this information to get more views first you can double down on what's already working for example if you're getting lots of views from SEO spend more time looking for keywords and optimizing your videos you can also use this report to find untapped traffic sources for example maybe a big source of potential views like suggestive video is only bringing in 10% of your views then it's probably time to start creating videos that are designed to rank in this suggested video sidebar next look at the audience retention report for a couple years idios this report shows you where people drop off and when you notice a pattern you can stop doing that thing in future videos for example in some of my older videos I noticed a huge drop-off in the first 30 seconds of my video now it's normal to have a significant drop-off in the first 30 seconds or so of your video but my audience retention was dropping off a cliff and when I looked at my video intros I realized why I was going on and on about why my videos topic was important that's when it hit me anyone that's watching this video already knows that this topic is important that's why they're watching this video so I started to test intros that cut out the fluff and got straight to the point and my watch time and audience retention significantly improved if you liked this video make sure to subscribe to my youtube channel right now just click on the subscribe button below this video and if you want exclusive SEO techniques that I only share with subscribers head over to Becca cuca comm and sign up for the newsletter it's free now I want to turn it over to you which technique for today's video are you gonna try first are you gonna try youtube studio hacking or do you want to use power playlists let me know by leaving a call below right now okay here we go so I feel like I have something in my teeth and I ship playlet this is me I'm gonna when you type Kido in I was the fly always a good rule of thumb right oh are you getting that you know beep-beep.
