How to start a YouTube Channel - Beginners Guide

Hi, I am writing this guide to help other YouTubers to understand what kind of problems you could face if you are starting a new YouTube channel in order to get more traction. If you follow this guide step by step. You will get more than 50k views and approx 5k subscribers within the first 365 days of your launch.

First thing is first...

You need to understand what niche you would like to start with...

I am passionate about news. I read it every day. Being an Indian I watch UK news as well as Indian news every day online on-demand. 

There is plenty of difference in both worlds. 

But the one thing UK is lacking right now is... Top 10 news delivered fast on-demand for end consumers.

All news channels just showcase what is going on daily but nobody collates them in a way that enables people to consume them fast every morning during busy hours.

Hence I decided to start a new NEWS channel which broadcasts Latest News UK headlines every morning.

This is how my channel looks like at the moment. I know nothing exciting here. But hey I had to start it somewhere isn't it:

Exactly like that, you need to find out your niche too. Not just a niche you need to figure out if people search for the content you are planning to create. 

For example, if you want to start a cooking channel then you need to know if people are searching for the recipes you are planning to make video off.

OR

If you are planning to create a technical "How to" style channel then you need to figure out if there are plenty of searches related to your niche.

Now the question is how do you do it? Well, there are multiple ways to find your niche and target keywords.

Let's first understand how you find out your niche. 

I would strongly suggest that you must only pursue your youtube channel career with topics you are passionate about. Because after a while you will lose the interest.

And that will affect your consistency.

So figure out what is your passion and then focus on the targetted keywords

Ask Yourself

Ask yourself these four simple questions

Finding your passion could be easier than you think. By answering these questions honestly, you could work out what to do with the rest of your life.

• What subject could I read 500 books about without getting bored?
• What could I do for five years straight without getting paid?
  
• What would I spend my time doing if I had a complete financial abundance to do anything?
  
• What I would do if I know I am not going to fail. This is the most important question because the answer will surprise you and it will be your WOW moment.

Assuming you know your niche and you have decided you want to go ahead. 

I have followed 12 steps as described below to start my channel. I have included all tools and ways I have used to accomplish the task.

1. Start Now
2. You're about us section on YouTube Channel
3. Channel art for your channel is very important
4. Create a RoadMap
5. Figure out your target keywords
6. How to shoot/create/edit your video?
7. Upload your first video on YouTube
8. Optimise for search - Thumbnail, Title, Description, Tags and other important meta data
9. Stay consistent - timing is the key
10. Automate your YouTube publishing with other social networks
11. Engage with your community via comments on your videos
12. Think about investing in YouTube ads or social network ads
13. Analyze your videos stats
14. Optimise videos and Repeat

1# Start Now

First and the most important thing you need to do is to start. You need to jump on YouTube and follow this guide by Google in order to get your channel up and running. 

Follow these instructions as stated below:

1. Sign into YouTube and click on the user icon at the top right of the screen
2. Click on the gear icon to get to your account’s YouTube Settings
3. Click on Create a new channel
4. Then choose “Use a business or other name”
5. Add your Brand name and click create

Tip: if you want to create viral videos then follow the strategy in this video below:

2# You're about us section on YouTube Channel

Similar to any other social network, if you update you're about us section. YouTube will think that you are serious about this channel and putting some real effort in order to get it in front of your audience.

I am not sure which niche you are going to start your YouTube channel. But this is how my youtube channel about us section looks like.

This doesn't have to be a well-written sales copy for your page. Just a bit of information about your youtube channel so that your first time viewer will get what is your channel about and where you are taking it to. 

As mine was a simple news channel I have just written a small synopsis. 

3# Channel art for your channel is very important

You must be wondering I am here to start a youtube channel, then why YouTube is asking me to create a channel art. Well as you are already aware of youtube's power in terms of people engagement and audience. 

YouTube operates on several platforms. 

1. Desktops
2. IPads
3. Mobile
4. Television
5. On-Demand Video Services etc.

In order to make sure your audience has a consistent experience. YouTube has created some guidelines for your channel art. 

If you want a template to start right away. Just download it from here.

Download YouTube Channel Art Template

Once you downloaded it you can easily customise or create a new one with a tool. I usually use CANVA for this purpose.

It helps me create youtube channel art and thumbnails easily and without any designing knowledge. 

Just go to canva.com and start creating it.

As you can see in the above screenshot. I have created this channel art with the help of canvas. 

It's not that great but I thought it would work for time being as I am just starting. 

Remember your channel art look different on different devices. 

That is the reason you have to follow google's design guidelines very carefully. If you don't follow those guidelines then your audience will not have consistent experience will ultimately result in lower conversions.

Tip: register a domain for your channel as soon as you start it. Because people are looking after new YouTube Channels and they register domain/s to resell it to you, for higher prices. So even though when you are just starting up your channel. It will be a good idea to purchase your domain and keep it safe for the future.

4# Create a RoadMap

Remember your youtube channel needs a roadmap. You can't just start with a vision and has no planning in place in order to succeed. 

Your audience wants to know that you are taking it seriously and you are planning to grow together with them.

The best way to do that is to create a roadmap for your channel. 

By road map what I mean is

1. How often you will publish your content on youtube.
2. Once you have the traction you are targeting what are your milestones.
3. Once you reach your next milestone what will come next. 

I have come up with a plan for my channel and uploaded it on my channel website. If you are interested to know what is my roadmap or just want to know what I am planning to achieve in next 5 to 6 years then please feel free and checkout Latest News Network website here. 

5# Figure out your target keywords.

Next, you need to figure out your target keywords. 

In order to do that you go to YouTube and search for your niche related keywords. See screenshot below:

The first thing you could do is go on YouTube and search for the video topic you would like to create. In my case, I had to search for "latest news". As you can see I found that there are 3 phrases which I could target. 

And it's quite obvious that people are searching for it.

Then to get a few more keywords I tried another search and this time I typed "News UK". 

And to my surprise, I found multiple more keywords which I could target in order to get more traffic for my news channel.

As you can see there are multiple keywords suggestions for "NEWS UK" keyword:

And finally, I thought because BBC is one of the major NEWS channels in the UK why not try searching for it and find out if there are people searching for it on YouTube too?

And it seems like people are, because not everyone has access to BBC Player or People are too lazy to go away from YouTube and consume the news on BBC iPlayer.

So there is plenty of potential on news related keywords for UK.

But this was just YouTube suggestions. I wanted to make sure that I am not doing a mistake and a second opinion is always a good idea.

So I went to Google and did the same search.

What I found is brilliant because on google also people are searching for news related to UK

Here is a snapshot showing it:

This was plenty of evidence for me to start with a news channel.

Although one of my friend who works in SEO also suggested me that;

If you are creating "How to style" content then Answer the People is also a good website which can give you some good idea about your targetted keywords.

Although it was not much use in my case. But I am sure if you are doing "How to style" video content. Then Answer the public will be a great tool for you.

6# How to shoot/create/edit your video?

Once you have done your groundwork for your YouTube channel as discussed above. You are ready to create your first YouTube video.

The simplest way you could do that is by sitting in front of your camera and start recording.

But in my case, I wanted to make sure my channel looks professional. Hence I had to do some preparations.

1. First I bought a green cloth to record my self in front of it.
2. Then I bought a Tri-Pod and a mobile holder so that I can install my phone on it and start shooting.
3. Then I wrote my script and started rehearsing it.

But then I realise why I should remember a script if I can read it on my camera?

Yes, that's possible there are plenty of apps you can purchase from £1.99 to £10 which could help you read through your mobile device while recording the video.

So I purchased one called PromptSmart. Please don't buy it

Why?

Because it records your video nicely. But when you want to finish it. It takes ages to save.

Yes, the app is so slow saving video that I got irritated and deleted it even after purchasing it.

Although performance is one of my key requirement when it comes to gadgets and apps. You might consider it ok if you like to wait for rendering and saving the video.

Anyways I deleted it and purchased another one from the app store called: TelePromter

Simple and fast enough for me.  By the way, I have iPhone X 

You might want to purchase another app depending upon your phone or camera.

Then I needed a Software to transfer my content from my phone to my computer.

I know you must be thinking this is so easy process. Just connect your phone with your computer and transfer it?

Well, it's easy if you are doing it just for one day. When you plan to do it every single day you need a system in place which could do all these things for you with least effort.

So I purchased another app called SimpleTransfer.

Please don't purchase it if you have an easy system to transfer data from your mobile to your machine. 

I purchased it because I wanted something handy and connected all the time with my wifi. 

Every time I wanted to transfer any file I just connect my phone with my computer over wifi without any wires and boom. I have access to all of my files.

And finally, I needed software to edit my video every day.

So because I was using a Mac computer. I decided to go with Final Cut Pro.

It might feel a bit technical initially. But it has a lot of powerful features.

Again don't purchase it if you don't want to invest too much on your software capabilities. 

It is very expensive for someone just starting up (£299.99)

Another option for you if you are looking for a simple and affordable software then go for Filmora9

Well, at least when I was writing this blogpost. Filmora was on version 9

It's simple and cost you only £69+ VAT (if you are in UK) outside it might cost less.

Let me be clear, I don't know how this software works or how it performs. I just know one thing that this is a good and simple alternative to Final Cut Pro.

Once you have your software all installed and set up on your machine. Its time to learn about it.

I am not going to explain it here but you can go on following youtube videos to learn about it.

Final cut pro:

And if you choose to go with filmora9

Then you can watch this video:

So after learning how to use my editing software. I decided to not to shoot myself in front of gree screen.

It was an informed decision because my commitment was to create news video every day. 

And to shoot me every day and then edit it.

Is not going to be a good utilisation of my time.

Instead, I would like to spend my time in collating the news and writing my script. Because ultimately the content of my video is going to get me more viewership as well as subscribers.

So I decided to go with simple animated video with news captions and voiceover. 

This was a more sustainable plan in my case. But you could do it in your own way. 

You could record yourself every week or month and publish your videos as per your frequency.

But after all learning and preparation this is how my first video came up:

Let me know your views in the comment section below.

7# Upload your first video on YouTube

Now as your first video is ready to upload you need to make sure following things before uploading it to your YouTube Channel.

You have not used any copyright music, video footage or images. If you want some copyright-free images you can download it from:

• Unsplash

• Flickr

• Pixabay

• Wikimedia (best for news channels)

For copyright-free video footage you can use:

https://www.pexels.com/videos/

https://www.videvo.net/

For copyright-free music footage you can use:

YouTube Audio Library

https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/2

https://freemusicarchive.org/

Video format

YouTube supports the following video formats for upload: 3GPP, AVI, FLV, MOV, MPEG4, MPEGPS, WebM and WMV. MPEG4 commonly uses the . mp4 file extension.

Once you have everything above cross-checked and updated. You are ready to click the upload button.

Once your upload is finished. 

YouTube will take a while to process your video. I would recommend using the WEBM format to get your videos processed fast. Because no matter which format of the video you use.

YouTube converts it into WEBM.

So why export your videos in other format and make it difficult for YouTube.

After all, what matters most is the quality and time for publishing your content on YouTube isn't it?

8# Optimise for search - Thumbnail, Title, Description, Tags and other important metadata

Remember: I am writing this guide as I am progressing with my YouTube Channel. So please be patient. If you don't see all steps that's because I haven't reached to that yet.