If you want a successful YouTube channel, these are the essential things that you must know about. And by the way, thank you so much to Taylor Brands for sponsoring this video. More about them later. The first thing you should know about is what to focus on to get the results that

you want here on YouTube. So here is a quick cheat sheet: if you want more clicks, it's your title and your thumbnail. If you want people to keep watching after they've clicked it, it's the first 30 seconds of your video. If you want more watch time, then it's one or

more of these five things: better videos, longer videos, more videos, your outro, and the link that you're using to promote your content. And so I'm going to walk through every strategy that I wish I knew sooner when it comes to achieving each of these goals. First, let's talk

about titles. What I wish I knew was that I didn't have to always reinvent the wheel. A mistake that I would make is I would come up with titles from scratch, and they wouldn't perform because it wasn't what people were searching for, and I didn't necessarily do any research

if that title was going to do well anyways. And so what I would do instead is to use free plugins like VidIQ and scan through which videos are doing well relative to that creator's account. You could see that through the outlier score through VidIQ. Now if you don't want to

use a plugin, what you can also do is pay attention to the number of views a video has and compare it to the number of subscribers that channel has. If there are more views than there are subscribers, it really tells you that there is an abnormal amount of traffic

that is going towards that video and so it's definitely a hot topic that you might want to capitalize on for your channel. Once you've identified high-performing videos on the platform, you then want to take their titles as the foundation for your video. The reason why

you want to do this is clearly those videos are doing something right that that's attracting viewers to want to click. And so you take the title and then you're going to want to do one of three things: you want to make the title either more current by adding the year to it,

and in fact that's actually how I grew my channel really fast as a beginner. I was competing in a really saturated niche which was Instagram. And so to make my videos stand out from the competition, I added the year to it to make it more relevant and as a result, more people

chose my videos over my competitors. The second thing you can consider modifying about the title is to make it more niche. And so if you see a topic that is popular on YouTube but you know is extremely competitive, then you can niche down on that subject to stand out for

instance, I saw a lot of topics about people quitting the 9-to-5, and so to stand out, I niched down to quitting the 9-to-5 for Millennials. I niched down to a specific demographic and I ended up getting a lot of clicks and this video

took off on my channel because it attracted a specific audience. Now, you don't always have to niche down to a specific demographic; you can also niche down to a specific industry. The point is is you want to take broad, highly competitive topics and highly popular

topics on YouTube and then niche it down so that you can stand out from the crowd. The third modification that you can make to a title is to adapt it to your niche. So, for instance, I saw this video from a creator where the video was doing

extremely well for their channel and the title was "My Biggest Advice for Starting and Running Your Art Shop." I'm not in the art niche, but I may take the structure of that title and modify it as "My Biggest Advice for Starting and Running Your YouTube Channel." And so a reason why

you might want to implement this strategy is because you've already identified title structures that are already doing well on the platform that are causing people to click. The second reason is because your title is similar to other high-performing videos, it's going to increase the chances of your

video being recommended with those high-performing videos as well, which is going to lead to more views for you. And just to help you illustrate this further, here's a spreadsheet of something you could do and put together where you have all the titles that you know you notice

are outperforming on YouTube, whether it's within your industry or not. List down the number of subs, list down the number of views, and right next to it think about how you might modify the title for your niche. And I promise you, by just doing this alone versus coming

up with a title from scratch, is going to save you so much time and increase the chances of your video performing. Now what's equally as important, if not more important than a title, is your thumbnail. And what I wish I knew sooner was how to make good thumbnails in general. So the

First rule of thumb is to make sure that you're not using the same title twice. A mistake I used to make is I would have my title and then I would have the exact same copy in the thumbnail. What you have to realize is that you have two

opportunities to hook your viewer. And so instead of wasting that real estate on your thumbnail by saying the exact same thing that's on your title, you want to have something in your thumbnail that's going to complement your title and increase curiosity so you get more

clicks. For example, this thumbnail has a question that I'm asking as well. This thumbnail makes me curious on what the system actually is because visually it looks pretty fascinating. This thumbnail makes me wonder what exactly took 8 years. And this thumbnail shows me a result that I want and that I'm curious

on how to achieve. And so as you can see with these thumbnails, whether it has copy or not, it makes me ask a question, it creates curiosity, which is why I'm going to click on the video. Not to mention, you want to make sure that your thumbnail passes the mobile test. So what

I do is I put my thumbnails on Canva and I zoom out as far as possible to give me an idea of what my thumbnail is going to look like on mobile. Typically, the highest performing thumbnails have very high contrast, they're easy to read and look at, and they have less than five

words. Beyond this, what I also do is on Canva I have a mockup of my own channel and any thumbnail that I'm considering uploading I will mock it up on my channel and compare it to my other thumbnails to evaluate how strong this thumbnail is in comparison to all my

other videos now that I've given you some easy strategies to get people to click on your videos, the next thing is to try to get someone to keep watching after they've clicked. And a lot of times it comes down to the first 30 seconds of

your video. Data shows that in less than 30 seconds, if your video is not hooking the viewer, they are going to opt out. And so for the first 30 seconds, what you don't need to be doing is asking people to subscribe. You don't need a channel

trailer. You don't need to introduce yourself, but instead you need a hook that's going to pique someone's curiosity for them to keep watching. And here are some of my favorite hooks that I've used on my channel. Number one, asking a question that you know your viewer is

wondering about. If you want to know which types of Reels get the most amount of views with the least amount of work, then you got to watch this video. Calling out a mistake. If you are a coach, consultant, or course creator and you're

thinking that using the same strategies of last year or this year are going to work in 2023, you are wrong. Calling out an important opportunity. The social media landscape is changing and if you do not have a YouTube channel already, I highly recommend that you create one. Calling

out a misconception. Now, if you think growing your YouTube channel is all about choosing the right keywords, you're wrong. Even YouTube tells you that keywords are not important. And highlighting a result that you know your viewer wants. If you want to learn how to explode your reach with Instagram Reels,

then keep watching this video because I have some strategies you likely haven't heard of before. Now these are just examples; there are so many other hooks out there, so make sure you do your research and watch videos that make you want to keep watching. But these are the

hooks that I've used that I found pretty effective. Beyond what you're saying in the first 30 seconds, you also want the first 30 seconds to be visually compelling. On YouTube videos, they actually autoplay, and so for me in my first 30 seconds, I add captions, I add visuals, I

do everything it takes to make the first 30 seconds the most visually attractive to cause that person to actually click on my video and keep watching. While a strong intro is going to cause someone to keep watching, a strong outro is going to have someone continue watching the

other videos on your channel, which will ultimately increase your watch time. And so with your outro, you want to make sure that you are as specific as possible in what video you want that viewer to watch next. Here's an example. Now if you are someone who still has tons of questions

on how to start and create your videos, I highly recommend that you watch this video next, where I break down even more in depth my start-to-finish process of how I make YouTube videos. So thank you so much for watching this video, but I will see you in this video next. The

moment I started being hyper-specific, I saw a three times increase in clicks for the next video. The next thing I wish more YouTubers knew about and that I wish I knew sooner about was the link that you add to promote your videos instead of using the regular link that

YouTube gives you what you want to do is you want to click on the play all button on your channel, grab that code at the end of the link and paste it to whatever video you want to be promoting. If you share that link with that code when

someone clicks on your video, it's going to automatically show all of your videos instead of your competitors. And after they're done watching that video, it's going to automatically play your next video. This is going to cause you to have more watch time because most times

people maybe genuinely want to watch your next video or they leave their YouTube on in the background and so your videos could be autoplaying and racking up more views. And by the way, if you use your code at the end of any YouTube video, even if it's not yours, if

someone clicks that link, it's going to autoplay your next video as well. Now beyond implementing these essential strategies for YouTube success, I also wish more creators knew about the responsibility and seriousness of creating content. I remember I watched this video about how Cardi B sued a

creator because she was saying things that Cardi B did not like and Cardi B did not feel was true. And because this creator was not set up as an LLC, Cardi B could come for her personal assets such as her house, her car, her jewelry, her handbags. Even for me, a rookie mistake

that I made because I wanted to save time and save money is I took someone else's terms and conditions, put it on my website, and a few weeks later their lawyer contacted me threatening me to take it down or else they would take me to court. Luckily I took it down and

nothing happened after that, but that was absolutely my wake-up call of realizing how serious of a business this is and that I needed to learn how to protect myself as a creator. And what I wish more creators knew about is that many YouTubers who do this for a living

actually set up their personal brands as a business, specifically as an LLC, meaning if someone were to sue them they're suing the business and not necessarily them personally. So they cannot come for their personal assets such as their car, their home, or their personal bank accounts, which leads me to

introduce the sponsor of today's video, Taylor Brands. Taylor Brands is an easy and affordable way to get your LLC. Taylor Brands offers all the legal requirements to set up your LLC such as your EIN, registered agent, annual compliance, and operating agreements. All you have to do is answer a few simple

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access to a Taylor Brands expert to answer any questions you might have. All this to say, I wish I knew about Taylor Brands when I was first starting, to make setting everything up a lot smoother. That's why you want to click the link in my description box to get started with

Taylor Brands and get 35% off selected LLC plans. Thank you so much Taylor Brand for sponsoring this video so that I can create videos like this full time. The next thing I wish more new YouTubers knew about was managing their expectations with AdSense. When I first

started, I thought that I could just quit my job and do this full-time, which by the way, I actually did quit my job to do this full-time, and I quickly had to become a coffee barista because I realized that number one, it takes a

while to get monetized on YouTube. As a reminder, you need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time. And also, even if you are monetized, you need a lot of views to even make good money. And so, rather than heavily relying on AdSense

revenue, here are some other alternatives of making money that you can consider. Getting a part-time job, yes I know it's not ideal, but remember it can be temporary and it can also fund your channel so you can grow your channel even faster, which I'll talk about later.

You can offer templates or courses. So, for instance, if you have a video that talks about how you budget your income, perhaps you can sell your budgeting template on top of that or offer a budgeting course. You could also sell your time, which is the easiest thing to

start out with. So, for instance, if your YouTube channel is about health and wellness, you can consider offering a coaching program or consultation calls where people can pay to hop on a Zoom call with you and you coach them one-on-one or just answer their questions in

In addition to this, you can also consider starting a paid community outside of YouTube where people can pay to get exclusive content from you, access to you, and also access to a community of people who share similar interests. All of these are revenue alternatives that don't

necessarily cost you a lot to start and can also earn a lot more than AdSense revenue, especially if you're just starting out. Now, on the topic of making money on YouTube, here's another thing that I wish more new YouTubers knew about, and that is not every YouTuber

gets paid the same. A YouTuber who talks about finance and real estate is generally going to get paid way more than a YouTuber who does kids animations or talks about politics. And this all comes down to the channel's niche and their CPM. And what CPM is is cost per

thousand. It's the dollar amount an advertiser is going to pay you for every thousand views that your video produces. Niches that have advertisers that have higher budgets will typically have a higher CPM, whereas other niches where advertisers don't have a big budget or

it's not a niche that is advertiser friendly will have way less of a CPM. And so I wish that I knew this sooner because when you're on YouTube and you're looking at how much a YouTuber makes, you want to put this into

consideration because even though the money that they're making might be true for them, it might not necessarily be true for you. And so you want to make sure you manage your expectations on that. Now since we're on the subject of niches, how do you exactly pick a niche?

for your channel now of course you could look at this graph right here and pick it based on the CPM and whichever niche is going to pay the highest but personally even if you're picking the niche that has the highest CPM if you're

not passionate about the subject you're likely not going to make that much money anyways because you aren't going to be consistent and so my advice around here is if you already have a product or service that you know you're going to sell and that's why you're going to be

on YouTube to get more visibility on your product and service then you should absolutely start YouTube with a specific niche in mind it sounds like you already know what you're doing but if you are someone who is doing YouTube for the first time you don't have a product or

service you're not really sure exactly what you want to do or how you might want to establish yourself then do not be afraid of exploring in fact when I first started rather than pigeonholing myself into a niche because I seriously wasn't sure what I wanted to

talk about I instead thought about the person I wanted to create videos for and in my case I really wanted to create videos for that person who was in their early 20s and so I started to brainstorm all the things that people in their early 20s typically are interested

in finance postgraduation working in corporate social media mindset and so I did all of those videos and eventually I noticed which topics I liked talking about the most and which videos performed the best for me and in my case it was my videos on social media that I

genuinely liked and that took off on my channel, and so I started doubling down on that topic. And once I started doubling down, that's when my channel truly skyrocketed because I was not only establishing a niche for my channel but

when one video was successful and attracted that specific viewer because I had other videos lined up on a similar topic, that viewer would go to watch my other videos, which then increased my watch time and increased my views in general. Now, when it comes to equipment, if you don't have the budget quite yet

nowadays, an iPhone is perfectly fine. But if you do have the extra money to invest, and by the way, this is where the part-time job comes in handy, and I actually use a lot of my paychecks as a barista to buy equipment for my

channel, here's my recommendation on some top equipment that you should absolutely invest in. First is a good quality SD card. Don't cheap out and buy an SD card that has a very low memory on it because you are going to absolutely regret this if halfway through your filming session

you run out of storage and now you're forced to stop your filming session to delete footage, or be forced to delete footage that you actually need. Second is a dummy battery. A lot of times filming videos can take hours, and so rather than buying a bunch of replacement batteries

or interrupting your filming session to charge your battery, you you want to get something like this that plugs into a wall and allows your camera to run at all times. Now, of course, this is meant for people who do a lot of talking head videos like me. If you are someone who's

vlogging, then you'll likely be better off buying replacement batteries instead of spending a lot of money on the camera. I actually prefer you spend more money on the microphone. A lot of times, people are pretty forgiving when it comes to the visual aspect of a

video, but they are not forgiving on the audio. And so, you definitely want to invest in a good quality microphone. And by the way, I'll link my recommendations in the description box below. Now, by having a good SD card, dummy battery, and a solid microphone, even if you have the

oldest, most basic camera, by having these three accessories, it's already going to make your filming process a lot easier. And in fact, I actually think that you should invest in these three accessories first before you even consider upgrading your camera. And when it comes to the

camera itself, what I wish more new YouTubers knew about is that if you have a limited budget, instead of spending all of your money on a good camera, I'd rather you spend more of your money on a good lens. A lot of videos that you see here

on YouTube that have that nice blurry background is because of the lens they are using. And a really common lens that a lot of creators use to get that nice bokeh effect is the Sigma 16mm f/1.4 lens. And so, to save you money, just

simply buy a camera that has basic features like autofocus, buy the camera body only, and then invest in a better lens such as the Sigma 16mm f/1.4. You are going to see a drastic difference in your videos and it's absolutely going to

elevate the production quality of your content now the last thing that I think creators should invest in when it comes to better videos is lighting and I say this as the last thing because for years I only used daylight lighting and it took my channel to over 100,000

subscribers just fine and so if you want to save money I personally don't think lighting is the most essential but if you have that extra extra then of course you can invest in lighting and I'll put my recommendations in the description box below Now by sharing my equipment

recommendations and the order of priority when it comes to investing in this equipment it absolutely will save you some money but I'm also here to save you time which is why I want to talk about systems and why having systems is going to be so important in terms of

your YouTube workflow so let me share with you some of the systems that I have first I have a b-roll system a lot of times in your videos you might want to add additional footage to make the video a lot more engaging and a rookie mistake that I used to make is because I didn't

have a system of organizing my b-roll I would always have to refilm those scenes or spend a lot of time looking for that footage and so now I have organized folders of every single type of b-roll that I typically use in my videos such

as me working me filming I have videos of me crying screenshots of my revenue tutorials that I share Often by having this type of system it really speeds up the editing workflow I also have a system for thumbnails where I have a bunch of poses that we can use for

future thumbnails and periodically I'll add more poses with different outfits so I don't have to be chasing my tail every single week to take pictures for the thumbnail and for my workflow in general I use Notion and I'm able to track each stage that my video is at from idea to

writing to filming to editing and to it being published and when you actually open the card I also have a section where I can put other videos and thumbnails and titles that inspired the particular topic or subject that I want to talk about Beyond this even in my

Creator Studio settings if you click upload defaults you can also pre-upload your description and so every single time that you upload a new video 80% of your description can be already done so as you can see these systems are really simple to implement but also save you a

ton of time now if you want to take saving time to the next level the next thing you want to consider is outsourcing and the first thing that I would recommend outsourcing is video editing the moment that I allowed someone else to edit my videos was when I was

able to be a lot more consistent on the platform create better videos and also have more work-life balance with all that time that I was spending on video editing I was able to get back and focus on other areas of my business and of my life now if you need help on how to find

a video editor my recommendation is to use a platform like Upwork and in fact I found my video editor through Upwork now when it comes to my advice on hiring video editors through Upwork I don't recommend putting all your eggs in one basket and instead I would spend spend

some money on hiring three video editors, give them a one-minute clip to edit, so it's not going to cost you too much. Give them the exact same brief and see which video editor does the best job. Then, you provide feedback and see which video editor has the best communication and so on.

By doing this, you're going to minimize your risk of choosing the wrong editor. You're going to test and see which editor fits your vibe the most. And then once you've chosen a video editor that you want to work with, you now have that reassurance that you actually like them.

Now, beyond just outsourcing to a video editor on platforms like Upwork, did you know that you can also outsource other aspects of your YouTube channel as well, such as script writing and making thumbnails? Now, of course, not everyone has the money to do that, which is why

you also want to lean into using AI technology to speed up your workflow as well. For example, AI can create your thumbnails, outline your scripts, come up with titles, simplify your language so it's easy to understand for your viewer, and even create videos using your own voice. Which is why I want you to hit the

notification bell and the subscribe button because in my next video, I'm going to show you exactly how to create videos like this and show you a crazy opportunity on how many creators are making money on YouTube without even showing their faces. And thank you again

to Taylor Brands for sponsoring this video, allowing me to give away valuable information to creators for free. Make sure you click the link in the description box below to get your business started and get 35% off selected LLC plans with Taylor Brands. As always, guys, I appreciate you and I will

Starting a YouTube Channel in 2024 (15 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started...)

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