How to Create a Successful YouTube Channel in 12 Steps

Every day, YouTube viewers watch over a billion (yes, with a B) hours of YouTube videos, yet only 9% of small companies bother to create their channels. As YouTube consumption continues to rise, the possibility for businesses willing to join in grows. Create a YouTube Channel.

In this post, we'll show you how to construct a completely optimized YouTube account for your business, as well as how to develop captivating video content to engage current customers and attract new ones. A simple YouTube marketing plan can assist you in developing your brand's identity, showcasing your items, and connecting with your audience in novel and engaging ways.

How to Create a YouTube channel, Step by Step

It isn't as difficult as it appears to learn how to create a YouTube channel for beginners. Create your channel today with our 12-step strategy and start expanding your business:

1- Create a YouTube account

You must be signed in to the Google account you intend to use to manage the channel before you can create a YouTube channel for your company.

Instead of utilizing a personal channel to manage your channel, adopting a brand account will help you grow more simply down the road since you can add additional users to a brand account using their own Google logins—no more giving password information to your email.

Here's a brief rundown on how to create a new brand account for your company's YouTube channel.

1- Go to YouTube and go to the YouTube Channel Switcher while logged in to the Google account you wish to use to administer your brand account.

2- Your account, any current brand accounts you administer, and the opportunity to start a youtube channel should all be visible.

3- You'll be brought to a screen to establish a new brand account when you click “Create a new channel.” Click “Create” after selecting a channel name for your new brand account.

4- Congratulations! You've created a YouTube channel for your company and are now the proud owner of it.

2- Create your channel art

So, now that you know how to create a YouTube channel for your company, let's spend some time making it look its best.

Here are a few simple things you can do to create a YouTube channel to appear more professional and ensure that your clients know where they can find you online.

Channel icon

When you create a YouTube channel from scratch, your channel symbol will be connected to the profile photo of your brand account. YouTube will urge you to edit your brand account if you want to modify it.

By selecting Edit, you will be sent directly to your brand account's Upload picture screen.

Your image should be a JPG, BMP, PNG, or non-animated GIF with a resolution of 800 by 800 pixels. For the many areas where YouTube may utilize your channel icon, you should also make sure it looks well at reduced sizes and in both a square and a circle cut.

Channel art

Adding channel art is a terrific approach to showcase your brand's individuality and make your YouTube profile more aesthetically appealing. Your channel art should be under 4 MB in size and at least 2048 x 1152 pixels in resolution, while YouTube recommends 2560 x 1440 pixels for the best effects across all platforms.

YouTube will provide you with a preview of each image you upload, so you can see how it will look on different devices. You may also change how your image is cropped.

3- Fill out your profile

To access all of your channel's customization choices, go to the section beneath your channel art and click the gear button.

After that, a pop-up window labeled “Channel settings” will open. Look for the option to “Customize the layout of your channel” and turn it on. Save the file. Home, Videos, Playlists, Channels, and About are the five tabs that will now be available to you.

To make changes to your store's information, go to the About tab.

Give a brief description of your store, goods, and goal under “Description“. Keep in mind any important keywords for your shop and be sure to include them in your channel description so that customers may discover you while searching YouTube.

Include your contact email address as well. Links to your social network profiles and store should also be included since these may be adjusted to show over your channel art and will be very apparent to your viewers.

Most of your links will just display the favicon (the little picture at the top of your browser), but the first link in the lineup will also display the link title, so make the most of those 30 characters, like 100% Pure did with its “Shop Now” call to action.

You'll discover a section labeled “Featured Channels” on the top right-hand side where you may highlight additional YouTube channels owned by your company or maintained by your staff. While this part may not be necessary when beginning a YouTube channel from scratch, it will be invaluable as your YouTube profile grows.

4- Plan your content

It's time to start thinking about your videos now that your channel is up and running.

Video may be an important component of any content marketing plan. It's a terrific method to give high-quality, instructive, and engaging material to your clients that keep them coming back for more.

Plus, because YouTube is the world's second-largest search engine, optimizing your videos for search might help you connect with new clients who are seeking what you have to offer. With that in mind, let's look at how you may utilize video to grow your brand's audience.

Here are some examples of different forms of high-quality content that your company may use.

Educational content

People are increasingly turning to YouTube to acquire new skills. In fact, over the last 13 years, searches for how-to videos have increased by 140 percent, indicating that there is a growing possibility for businesses to reach new audiences by offering educational material around their goods.

Videos that teach new skills are excellent for gaining your audience's trust and moving them along the sales funnel. Retro Supply Co. provided me with a great example lately.

It provides vintage effects for Photoshop and Illustrator, as well as brushes, typefaces, and other items. Reto Supply's YouTube channel focuses on educating viewers on how to get the most out of Photoshop and Illustrator. Sometimes this is a step-by-step instruction that includes the usage of Retro Supply's brushes, and other times it entails teaching keyboard shortcuts that may benefit anybody, regardless of whether or not they use Retro Supply's goods.

Another amazing example is Snowboard Addiction, a YouTube channel that teaches individuals how to improve their snowboarding abilities and has over 140,000 followers.

Snowboard Addiction's films not only help users improve their snowboarding skills, but the how-to material also promotes the brand to new audiences via YouTube search.

You couldn't ask for a greater illustration of product alignment than this. Snowboard Addiction provides training tools and films to help you improve your snowboarding talents, so owing to its YouTube video content marketing, there's a seamless transition from a curious viewer to a pleased customer.

Brand storytelling

Few things are more effective than an outstanding narrative when it comes to developing interesting video content. Inspiring films that are consistent with your brand's image and principles are good for expressing your brand's image and values to a larger audience.

These aspirational movies should be aimed at creating a lifestyle around your brand and demonstrating to buyers that when they buy your items, they're not just purchasing a product, but an experience.

With a varied arsenal of YouTube content, GoPro has established a brand identity of adventure, discovery, and adrenaline around its line of action cameras.

Its movies highlight how GoPro users can use its equipment to live up to the brand's motto, “Be a hero,” in a variety of ways, from helicopter skydiving to a firefighter saving a cat.

Entertainment

One of the greatest methods to attract viewers' attention and focus it on your items is to build a YouTube strategy around amusing videos that appeal to their hobbies.

With its entertaining, highly targeted content, Vat19, an internet gift shop that specialised in unusual things, has developed an incredible online empire. To market new items to its audience, its YouTube approach relies on creating absurdist comedy routines based on its large assortment of novelty presents. It presently has over two million YouTube followers, indicating that this strategy is paying off.

A five-pound gummy bear is destroyed in a series of comedy experiments in one of Vat19's most famous films. The film has the look and feels of a late-night comedy show rather than a standard video commercial, which makes the CTA at the end to buy the gummy bear all the more attractive.

While Vat19's wit may not be for everyone, its videos are undeniably powerful. It had almost 25 million views on its gummy bear video. Vat19's strategy exemplifies what it takes to get attention (and new consumers) on YouTube by creating engaging and original content.

5- Create a channel trailer for new page visitors

Make an engaging channel trailer when you're starting a new YouTube channel. A channel trailer is similar to a movie trailer in appearance. It's meant to give viewers a sneak peek at what your channel has to offer.

After your channel image and symbol, your channel trailer is most often the second thing a viewer sees. When non-subscribed users visit your YouTube channel, it instantly starts playing. Your channel trailer, when done correctly, may assist convert visitors into subscribers.

You can create a YouTube channel trailer in 7 steps:

1. Upload the video you'd want to use as your channel's intro.
2. Go to the channel you want to manage.
3. Select Customize channel.
4. Go to the “Home” tab.
5. Click the “For new visitors” tab.
6. Click Edit.
7. Select “Change trailer” or “Remove trailer”.

Consider what makes your channel distinctive, your brand personality, and why people should subscribe to your channel while making your trailer video. There is no one to design a YouTube channel trailer for you straight immediately, but attempt to hook your viewers in the first few seconds. Make a nice first impression on viewers and urge them to subscribe to your channel at the end.

6- Upload your first YouTube video

It's time to go live now that you've covered all of the essentials for creating a YouTube channel and spent time developing and editing video material. To upload your video clip, go to your channel and select Upload Video.

You'll land at YouTube Studio after uploading your first video, where you may alter the details of your video, post new videos, manage your channel, and expand your audience.

7- Optimize your videos for search

If you want your videos to get seen, you need to stay on top of your YouTube SEO. 500 hours of video are posted to YouTube every minute, so you'll need to do everything you can to stand out.

Every aspect of your films, from the title to the description to the keywords, can have a significant influence on their prominence in search results. Let's look at how you may boost your YouTube ranks and get in front of people when they need you the most:

Keywords

You should narrow down the keywords you'll be focused on before you start optimizing your videos.

Consider which keywords people could use to find your movie and put them into a keyword planner like Keywords Everywhere, a free Chrome plugin. It integrates with YouTube's search bar and provides three crucial pieces of information for each keyword: monthly search volume, cost per click advertising against that phrase, and competition.

The suggested search results might also serve as a good source of video ideas in the future. Experimenting with keywords and building future content around popular search phrases in your sector is a fantastic idea.

Engagement

The engagement of your video is one of the most essential factors that YouTube considers when judging its quality.

To improve your chances of appearing higher in search results, encourage your viewers to leave a remark, subscribe, share, or press the thumbs-up button after they've completed watching. Try holding a contest to increase your audience's involvement. Giveaways and contests are a great way to engage your audience and encourage viewer involvement.

The number of views on your video will be taken into account by YouTube when deciding your rank. Make sure you're sharing your new films to your email list and all of your company's social media outlets as soon as you launch them on YouTube to jumpstart your views.

Format

Your video's format has an impact on your overall search ranking. Although YouTube cannot view your videos to evaluate their content, it may make an informed estimate based on a few other factors.

Filename: Make sure that the name of the file you're uploading contains your desired keywords; YouTube will pay attention to this.

Length: Longer videos are valued more on YouTube, so strive to make them as lengthy as possible—but remember to keep the material worthwhile, because “view time” is another important statistic for search rankings. You won't rank higher just because your video is longer. If your movie should be two minutes long but you extend it to ten and viewers quit out after one minute, you won't rank higher.

Title: Your video's title should be short, descriptive, and include your goal keyword at the beginning.

Description: The better the description, the lengthier it is. Include as much material as you can: a full explanation of everything in your video, as well as any related resources your viewers may want. Your keywords should be in your description as well, with a particular emphasis on putting your target keyword into the first phrase.

Tags: Make an effort to use your target keywords, as well as a few additional related phrases, as tags on your videos. Tube Buddy and other similar tools might help you figure out what tags your rivals are using on their videos. Tagging rivals and individuals who produce relevant content using the 500 characters provided for tags might assist decide if your video appears as a suggested video as well.

8- Be consistent

Consider your YouTube channel as a home for a steady video series if you want to use it to develop your brand. Too many YouTube channels struggle to expand because they utilize the social media platform to host all of their video material.

Because it's simpler for users to watch more videos and subscribe to YouTube channels that are consistent in their approach, they consistently grow viewership. When you're scrolling through the feeds of your favorite YouTubers, you'll undoubtedly notice this.

The First We Feast channel, which features celebrities enjoying food, has a regular publishing schedule and divides videos into series like “Cone Heads“, “Hot Ones“, “Tacos Con Todo“, and “The Burger Show“, and others.

Subscriber growth is aided by First We Feast's constancy in content development. If a video becomes viral, additional viewers can subscribe to the channel by finding fresh, new content with the same idea. Since its inception in July 2016, First We Feast has grown to over nine million subscribers and has included celebrities including Drew Barrymore, Dua Lipa, T-Pain, and others.

9- Promote your YouTube channel

There's never been a better moment to get your YouTube channel noticed. YouTube has surpassed Facebook as the second most popular website on the internet, with users watching up to six hours of video every day. It's time to take advantage of people's binge-watching habits.

To help you get the most out of your YouTube channel, cross-promote it across your other social media accounts. You may promote new videos on social media platforms like Instagram (through posts and Instagram Stories), Facebook, and TikTok, or even team up with other YouTubers to expand your reach.

may advertise product tutorials across your Shopify stores to convert website visitors if you opt to build them on your channel. You can add playlists to your Shopify store and promote product demos and other video content from your YouTube channel using a Shopify tool like Yottie. If your material appeals to them, they may subscribe directly to your website.

When it comes to promoting your YouTube channel, you have a lot of options. To increase interaction and market your YouTube channel to new followers and consumers, test different channels where your audience lives and maintain the ones that work.

10- Engage with a community

After you've uploaded a new video to YouTube, your duty as a creator doesn't end there. You want to connect with your viewers to develop dialogues on your videos and gain more YouTube subscribers if you want to Create a YouTube channel successful.

You may react to people's comments (even if they are unpleasant), ask and answer questions, and “heart” people's remarks so that visitors can determine which ones are the most essential to read. To improve viewership—which is crucial if you want to make money on YouTube—you could also survey your audience to determine what material they want to see.

Kelly Noble Mirabella, the entrepreneur and founder of the Baby Got Bot YouTube channel, for example, utilizes the comment capabilities on YouTube to connect with her audience and establish a community around her company.

The more you interact with your viewers, the more likely they are to continue watching your videos and promote your YouTube channel.

11- Consider YouTube ads

With an efficient advertising approach, you can accelerate the growth of your new channel. You may use YouTube advertisements to reach and engage more people in addition to organically marketing your YouTube channel.

Make sure you specify the demographic you want to attract before starting a YouTube ad campaign. Concentrate on comprehension:

Who do you want to reach? Based on demographics, language, and hobbies, target particular audiences. You may, for example, target new parents aged 28 to 40 who watch DIY videos and subscribe to home renovation channels.

What topics do they search for? You may target visitors looking for certain themes or pick which video or channel to run adverts on using YouTube advertising.

Where do they live? Consider the location of your audience—country, region, city, or post code. You can also define a custom location by radius or point of interest.

Once you've determined who you want to reach, you can set a budget and experiment with different ad types to entice visitors to read more of your material. Keep in mind that, while YouTube advertising is beneficial, it should not be your major source of development. To enhance your exposure and presence on YouTube, they should operate in tandem with your organic promotion.

12- Understand your results and optimize your channel

You'll want to keep track of how your YouTube channel is doing after it's up and running. Some of the metrics accessible in YouTube Analytics are as follows:

Watch Time. Time spent seeing your content as a percentage of total time spent on the internet.

Traffic source. This displays the various sources of traffic as well as the overall number of views of each source to demonstrate how people find your movies.

Subscriber rate. On a video-by-video basis, this informs you how many followers you lose or acquire.

Audience retention. This indicates when viewers quit viewing your video at specific periods. This data may be utilized to determine where you lost a viewer's interest and what led them to depart, which can help you improve future films.

Comments. You can watch who comments on which videos in your YouTube Analytics dashboard so you can reply quickly and make your business appear approachable and engaged.

Decide what success looks like for your company, and then convert it into measurements that are relevant to your industry. For instance, if you want to understand how your target audience interacts with your material, check at watch time and see how many people become subscribers.

A good YouTube channel accomplishes your objectives as quickly as possible while adhering to your approach. Keep in mind that you may need to tweak it along the route. Examine your data regularly to determine where you may make long-term changes to the success of your channel.

Tips and tricks for creating a YouTube channel

After going through everything above, you should be well on your way to growing an audience and maximizing the potential of your company on YouTube.

If you're feeling more daring, I've put together a list of YouTube tricks that you may employ to boost your subscriber count and drive traffic to your website.

Add a watermark

A watermark is an excellent way to entice new viewers to return to your channel and subscribe. These customizable pictures will be superimposed on all of your uploads and provide a clear and simple option for viewers to subscribe, making it easy for them to stay up to date on your latest videos (while also increasing your subscriber count!).

Look at your channel page and click on “Video Manager” to apply a watermark to your videos. This should lead you to the Creator Studio, where you can adjust some of your account's more advanced settings.

Once you get to the Creator Studio, click on “Channel” in the sidebar.

There will be a dropdown menu. To add a watermark, go to “Branding” and then “Add a Watermark“. You'll be able to submit a picture that will appear in the corner of all of your videos now.

Enable an automatic subscription prompt

Not only should you direct visitors to your YouTube channel, but you should also encourage them to subscribe while they're there.

You may make it simple for your current subscriber bases, such as your email list or social media following, to subscribe to your channel. Add “?sub confirmation=1” to the end of your channel's URL whenever you advertise it to them with a “Remember to subscribe!” call to action, and a pop-up will display on your channel urging them to subscribe.

Link cards to your website

You may add cards to your videos that connect to external websites if your account is part of the YouTube Partner Program, which presently requires at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of view time in the previous year. If you have a Shopify store and are a YouTube Partner, you can use cards to drive your visitors to your store so they may purchase the things shown in your videos.

Use end screens effectively

You want to keep viewers around after they've watched the conclusion of a video and make sure they don't leave without subscribing to your video. YouTube makes this simple by allowing you to add end screen elements over the last 20 seconds of your movie.

You may keep viewers interested by including more videos, a subscribe button, or a link to another channel. This is significant since YouTube's algorithm promotes both overall view time and time spent on the platform, so you want people to watch more of your videos.

Here's how the end screens of First We Feast are set up to keep you watching.

It has a link to a video playlist and a single video, both of which will send you to another video to view.

Here's how you can do it on your own.

• Select a video you wish to modify in your Creator Studio.
• From the main edit screen, go to the top menu and select “End screens & Annotations,” which will take you to the end screen editing panel.
• You'll be able to customize your screen with four distinct elements.

Because I'm not yet a member of the YouTube Partner Program on this test account, the Link option is disabled. After that, you may include connections to your website in your regular end screens.

Become a successful YouTuber today

If you carefully followed all of these procedures, you should be able to improve your social media marketing efforts and build your YouTube company in no time. Do you have any other questions regarding how to Create a YouTube channel? Let us know what you think in the comments! We'd be delighted to assist you.