How To Start And Grow Your YouTube Channel From Scratch

If you clicked on this video, you're one of two people. One, you're thinking about starting a YouTube channel, but is it really going to be effective of your time to put into creating videos here on YouTube? Or two, you've been putting videos here on YouTube, but you just aren't seeing any growth. It feels like nobody's watching your videos, your subscriber count isn't going up, and you feel like you've been wasting your time. So if you are One of those two people, you're probably wondering, can you even grow a YouTube channel in 2019? Well, in this video, I'm going to give you the exact process for starting and growing a YouTube channel so you aren't wasting your time doing the wrong things. And I'm going to share with you the biggest secret most youtubers don't want you to know. Hey, welcome back. If you are new here, my name is Trena. And today we're going to be talking about how you can start and grow a YouTube channel in 2019. You even if you're getting started from scratch, so grab a paper and pencil because you're gonna wanna write some of these things down. So what is the first thing that you should do to start and grow a YouTube channel? Well, I hate to break it to you, but you gotta post videos, all right? Don't get hung up on the perfect topic or the perfect keywords or the perfect filling setup. You have to put up videos on YouTube. One reason is because you're going to get better at doing videos once you start doing videos. All right? Your first video is going to suck. Trust me. You can look at my first videos, they totally suck. But I leave them up there to show you there is a starting point for all the people that you are watching on YouTube. They didn't just start where they are right now. And you got to go through your starting point. And the fastest way to get through your starting point is to just start creating videos again. Don't worry about keywords, don't worry about any of the other stuff. Just practice your video skills. Practicing your editing skills is your very, very first step to grow a channel here on YouTube. And I'm going to tell. I would not be here right now and I would not be delivering this content the way I am right now if I did not practice and I did not just get started. Okay? Got it. Now, once you post those videos, you got to tell people, unfortunately if you build it, they will come is not going to happen here on YouTube. So let people know whether it's your friends and family. Whether you already have an email newsletter, whether you already have a following on Instagram, you need to let your people know that you have a video on YouTube or you have a channel over on YouTube. Yes, I know we want to grow organically and reach new people on YouTube, but let's use the audience that we already have, the people that already want to support us and give our videos those first couple of views. That's going to be really important, especially when you're first getting started is getting those friends and your followers who really support you in the beginning. Then your next step is you really want to focus on a niche here on YouTube, especially if you are getting started from scratch. I know we see bigger name YouTubers like Casey Neistat and Peter McKinnon, but the thing is they are further along in their journey and they started very niche. If you look at Peter McKinnon, he started doing photography tutorials, okay? Then he was able to build a following and build relationships with his audience so he could then create the videos he's now creating. So what do you want to focus on? One way to think about it is if you have a business, what are you trying to sell people into? Do you have a coaching business? Do you have courses that you are selling? Think about what you are teaching people that you are selling and then teach them here on YouTube to get them over to your business. I know niching can be very confusing and can tend to hold us back, but you just want to think about what value is your channel going to bring to the viewer. The value that I bring to you is to help you grow here on YouTube, whether that's through time management, confidence advice or YouTube strategies that are working. You know you can come to my channel to learn how to use YouTube in your business. So are people going to come to your channel to learn how to use Instagram or come to your channel to learn how to quilt? Or come to your channel to learn how to cook Paleo recipes? I just want you to think about that pure value you are bringing to your audience and that is your niche. That's your golden egg. You can find niching everywhere. So look at the TV channels. Like on cable tv, there's hgtv, right? For all the home and garden stuff, there's Golf channel, there's Disney Channel for kids. So even niching is happening on television, such as proves how important it is here on YouTube to get started in a niche, to grow your following, grow your tribe before you start reaching out to more topics I know you're multi passionate, but follow me here. You might be able to start working in all your other passionate projects into this niche if you just start thinking about it strategically. All right? I want you to build that following first so that they love what it is that you're sharing. Then you can start sharing more and more and more. Okay, so I want to know from you down in the comments, what's your niche going to be? Let me know what you're thinking your niche might be. And if you need a little help figuring it out, I'd love to hear from you. All right, now that you have a niche in mind, your next step is to become a student of YouTube. So I got this advice from one of my mentors, Tim Schmoyer, over at Video Creators, and he said you have got to watch YouTube videos to understand YouTube. Now. You don't just have to watch people in your own niche. Start watching other people's channels. I like to watch Nikki Phillippi. I like to watch Good Mythical Morning. I like to watch Amy Landino. And when I'm watching these videos, I'm looking at their style of delivering their content. I'm looking at their editing style. I'm looking at all the different nuances into their videos to help me figure out what my style is going to look like and how I'm going to show that on my videos. If you start watching YouTube videos, you really understand how the viewer is experiencing YouTube videos. To help you create your own personalized experience for your viewers, spend maybe a half an hour a day, maybe 15 minutes a day, just watching some YouTube videos. And when you are watching them, feel free to comment on their videos, connect with other people. People may see your channel in the comments and want to check it out. That's what gets more people over to your channel. New subscribers, new viewers. So just start communicating and being activ on YouTube. This next step is a step so many people skip. But it is so important if you want to grow on YouTube in 2019 and if you have to do the very basics of YouTube best practices. So this isn't finding the best keyword or the perfectly searched keyword or the keyword without competition and high search. This isn't it. What I'm talking about best procedures here on YouTube is creating good titles, thumbnails. You can keyword the crap out of your video title, but if your title in your video doesn't cause people to click on it, doesn't intrigue them to want to click on it to see what it's about. It doesn't matter whether you rank first or whether you rank a hundredth that video title and that thumbnail has to get people to click on it. So while you're spending hours and hours of time researching the perfect keywords, take that time and put it into crafting catchy thumbnails and catchy titles that make people want to click. Then you have really got to spend more time on creating good content. You want to get people to the end of your video and then click on your end screen and watch another video. If people are watching your videos, then it's good content and YouTube's going to recommend it to more people because YouTube wants people staying on the platform longer. It doesn't matter whether you have the perfect keyword, whether YouTube is going to recommend it or not, because. But YouTube wants to know, if they put your video in front of 10 people, are those 10 people going to click on it because of the title and the thumbnail? And are those 10 people going to watch the entire video and potentially watch your next video? That's the basics of YouTube. Best procedures here that you really want to focus on right now in 2019. If you want to grow a YouTube channel from scratch, it's not about the perfect keywords. It's about creating catchy thumbnails and titles and getting people to watch your content. This is your big secret. The key to YouTube success isn't keywords. It's not ranking in search. It doesn't work like that anymore because when you post a video to YouTube, when you upload it, YouTube already knows what your content is about by what you're saying in that video. So you need to focus on getting people to click on your videos. And YouTube will do the work for you, putting your videos where it needs to go to the right people. But you have to show YouTube that people are going to click on it and people are going to watch it. Now, you still should be adding your tags and your description box content to give all the information that you can. But I don't want you wasting valuable time on this step. I want you to put the extra time into thumbnails and titles and content that is quality content that people are going to watch. And you can determine whether people are watching that or not in your audience retention graph. Once you post the video again, why it's so important to start posting content. And look, this all isn't just going to happen overnight. You have to understand this. Just by finding the perfect keywords does not mean you're instantly going to rank on YouTube and get hundreds of thousands of views. Okay, YouTube is a long game here. YouTube is a community building platform. This is your place where you're going to find your true blue fans and followers that are going to support you. The next thing you need to do to grow on YouTube is you need to be consistent. Not just for YouTube but for your audience. You want them to start incorporating when you're posting a new video into their daily routine or into their weekly routine. You want them to be excited. You want them to think, oh, it's Wednesday, Trina's posting a new video today. I'm gonna grab my breakfast and eat it watching her new video. Alright? By being consistent, you're gonna get those people constantly showing up to watch your videos to give you those views to show YouTube. Hey, people are watching this content. Let's suggest it to some more people. Now, when I say be consistent, you just need to be consistent once a week, maybe every other week. You need to pick a time schedule that works for you, for you to stay consistent and stick to it. You don't have to do daily videos, you don't have to do Monday through Friday videos. Just focus on the quality of your content over the quantity of your content. To be consistent on YouTube, you'll have to also make a plan. All right, I like to plan out my videos. I will shoot five in one day so that I have content to go out. I know that if I'm in a filming zone like I am right now, I can shoot videos back to back to back. Whereas if I'm pulling out my equipment and shifting around my furniture here in this room, I'm less likely to do it every single week. Where if I schedule certain hours of my month to do these videos, I'm going to get it done. So put this on your calendar, put a filming day on your Google calendar. Block that time off to shoot at least four videos so you can stay consistent weekly on YouTube. I also like to stay organized in Trello. So I will put one video like this video, how to start and grow a YouTube channel in 2019. I will put it on Trello. I will put the title there, I will put my script there. I will put any tags that I want to put. I will put my thumbnail photos. I keep everything organized in one card for one video, so it's all right there to access when I need it to. I also create thumbnail templates so it's easy to create those catchy thumbnails a lot quicker. So it's not taking up a lot of time. By having this process in place again, it's going to help you stay consistent and help you see faster growth here on YouTube. And I want you to use your videos in as many places as possible. Don't just throw it up here on YouTube and that be the end of your video. Put the video on igtv, put the video on Facebook, use that video in your newsletter, post it on a blog, put it on Pinterest, Use this video in as many places as possible because it is good content and I want you to get the most out of it. All right, the next thing is to create discoverable videos. These are the how to videos, the tips, the tutorials. These are the videos your audience is searching on how to do something and you're going to help them do it by showing them how to do something. You're going to build your trust with them, all right? That's going to make them be more likely to come back and watch more content from you. Discoverable videos are going to get you in front of more people, all right? So you need to have a strong discoverability strategy of these advice tips, types of videos to be found in search at the very beginning. All right, this is my biggest secret to YouTube success and it's creating bingeable Netflix style content. So I want you to think, if I'm going to create four videos, how are those four videos going interlock together? So if somebody watches video one, what can I create for video two that they're going to also want to watch? So if I create a playlist, they pop into that playlist on video one and they're like, wow, this is awesome. And then you tell them at the end of the video to watch that next video. So they watch that and they watch the next one and the next one. Just like Netflix, when Stranger Things comes out and you binge that entire season, you want them to binge 3, 4, 5 of your videos at a time. The hardest part is to get them to your content. So once they're there, try everything you can do to keep them on your your content. Now, if you want to see how I set up my YouTube workflow process, I've got an entire video on how I do that. Click right here to watch this video and I walk you through how I use trello to get everything organized and I'll see you over on that video.