5 Youtube Mistakes To Avoid When Starting a Channel

If you're just getting started on YouTube, I really want to help you avoid the biggest mistakes I see so many people making. So in today's video, I'm going to share with you the five biggest mistakes I want you to avoid if you're new to YouTube. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of just the tips. My name is Trena and I'm a YouTube strategist helping you get your creative business on YouTube. Like I said in today's video, we're going to talk about the top five mistakes you want to avoid. I actually kicking off a brand new series here on my YouTube channel for the next five weeks to help you YouTube newbies really understand how to use YouTube and how to help grow YouTube for your business. So make sure you click that subscribe button down below because I've got five weeks of great content you're not going to want to miss. So let's jump into those five mistakes you can avoid. The first mistake I see people doing is not having a channel banner. So having that channel banner is really important because when people find a video of yours and they watch it, they, they're excited, right? They're enticed. They're going to click over to your channel. Your channel banner is how you're going to get them to subscribe. So on that channel banner, you really want to show people what it is your channel is all about. This is going to tell them whether they want to keep watching you, subscribe to you, and keep coming back for more content, right? So make sure your channel banner is set up and make sure you have a key value proposition. What's the reason that they should subscribe to your channel and have that in your channel banner? The second mistake I see people making is not having a plan for their thumbnails. I am very guilty of this too. When I first started out on YouTube, I just took still shots from my video and like pointed and smiled and put some text on my thumbnails. But what you really want to do to make that thumbnail extra good and have people click on it is have a plan for that thumbnail. What story can you tell in that thumbnail? What. What emotion can you tell in that thumbnail? The thumbnail is essential to get people to click on your video because it doesn't matter how amazing your content is, if people aren't enticed by your thumbnail, they're not going to click on it. So start spending a little more time on your thumbnails and think about it in advance. The third mistake I see people doing is not thinking about their title again. One of the things I'm guilty with as well, I thought just throw up keyword titles and people will watch it, people will find it. But what you really want to think about is how are people going to read that. You don't want to necessarily write a title for a robot, but write a title that's going to entice somebody to click. It goes back to your thumbnail as well. Your thumbnail and your title should share a complementary story. So whether they see your title first or your thumbnail first, they both should connect and tell a story that makes that potential viewer want to click on it. Start to think about what's an enticing headline or, or an enticing title that's going to get somebody to click to watch the content you're sharing. Also, don't make it clickbait. So don't lie in your title or your thumbnail just to get people to click. Because you're going to see that in your audience retention graph. If people click on that video and you have a huge retention drop, YouTube's going to notice it and they're going to stop promoting your videos. So make sure it tells a story, but make sure that you deliver on that story in your video. Now we are on to mistake number four. And this is not having a video strategy. So you think you know what people want to see and you just throw that video up. There's no planning that goes into it. You just know that's what people want to see. Well, unfortunately that's not going to work on YouTube. You need to do some research. You need to see what people are responding to on YouTube. So what you can do is start typing in your idea into the YouTube search bar and see what pre populates. Whatever is pre populating are actual search terms that people are looking for in YouTube. So do a little research, have a strategy going into your video before you even film. And the fifth mistake that I see so many people making, and yes, I am guilty of this one as well, sending people off the platform. So many of you are business owners and you really want to get people on your email list so you have a free opt in in every single video. In fact, if you watch my videos here, I always suggested that you have a free opt in. Well, we don't want to do this. YouTube is not going to promote your content to new people if you keep pushing people off the platform. So what you want to do is you want to start thinking in series of videos. And in those first four videos in your series, tell people to go watch another video and then that last video, send them off the platform. So you're not sending them off the platform every single video. But you do have the opportunity at the end of that video series, say every four to five videos, to get a free opt in and get them on the list. And don't worry, this isn't going to affect your email list. If people start to watch you and start to love you, they're obviously going to find out where they can find out more about you. They're going to want to sign up for you. So don't let that stress you out. Like, if I use YouTube, how am I going to grow my list? It will happen, trust me. Just don't send people off the platform every single video. I know. Now I want to hear from you. What are you struggling with on YouTube? What's holding you back from starting on YouTube? Let's talk about it down in the comment section below. Make sure you subscribe to this channel because like I said, there's going to be brand new videos every single Tuesday for the next five weeks to help you get started here on YouTube. Because we're going to want to get started on YouTube before the new year. Right? Thank you guys so much for watching and I will see you next week. Bye.