My BEST YOUTUBE HACKS to Help Grow Your Channel in 2020

YouTube can sometimes be pretty overwhelming. There's a lot of things going on and you're not really sure what you should do to see growth in your channel. So I thought in this video I would share with you some of my best ways to pretty much give your channel a facelift, to potentially drive more viewers and subscribers to your channel. So I'm going to share with you here in this video what you should be adding in your video description box, how to customize your channel homepage. I'm also going to share with you how you can make a custom branded watermark that you see down in the corner here that actually can help you get more subscribers. And then I'm going to share with you some of the top quality growth hacks that not everybody is talking about. Let's dig in. Hey there. Welcome back. My name is Trena. If you're brand new here, and this channel is specifically for business owners, entrepreneurs and content creators who want to grow their business organically through online video. And YouTube is the biggest place you need to be if you're trying to grow organically through online video. So let's get your channel set up and pumping you new leads to your business. One of the first things that you can do to make your channel look professional and also branded so that if they recognize you on Instagram, to Facebook, to your website, to your YouTube, it all ties together. And this is your channel banner. Let me show you how to update that. So what you want to do is go to your channel and the first thing, like I said, is your channel banner. Now, this guy is tricky. You can come up here to this little camera and download the templates that YouTube provides you. So if you go here, how to create channel art, it's going to give you kind of the dimensions and a template that you can use right here. Also, if you go to canva, Canva does have templated channel banners as well. So if we go to channel banner, YouTube channel art, it's going to also help you with that as well. Something to keep in mind, keep all your important information in the middle, because your channel banner has to fit multiple devices. So it needs to fit a laptop, it needs to fit a phone, it needs to fit a tv. So these templates are a great place to start and you can see that they're keeping all of the important information in the middle. Once you do that, then all you have to do is come back to your channel banner and upload it. Once you select it, you can kind of crop it and stuff how you need it and then you'll have your custom banner. The second thing to update is your channel icon. And I really suggest having a photo of yourself, especially if you are the face of the business. You can use your Facebook profile picture, your Instagram profile picture, but do remember that it should be close up because that little circle on your icon is pretty small. There are plenty of places on YouTube that that channel icon shows up. So you just want to make sure that people can really connect with the person of that channel. So let me show you how you can update that. I actually think mine needs to be a little bit closer. I think I should have a closer up on my face. So the way to change that is you can hover over here and hit that camera button. And your profile picture actually comes from your Google account. So you're going to edit it on your Google account and you can upload whatever photo that you want. And then your channel icon is updated. The next thing is your about section and the links you can actually have clickable from your channel banner. So let me show you how to do that and kind of what you should say in that about section to really maximize that piece of real estate on your YouTube channel homepage. So, so the way to get this link up here and all the links to your social media content is in your about section. So you're going to come into your about section right here at this tab, and you're just going to hover your mouse over this pencil and start writing information about you. Now, these first couple sentences will show up in YouTube in different places. So you really want to utilize the first two sentences here and grab people's attention. So, so why should somebody come watch your channel? What are they going to get out of coming to your channel? That's really how you want to write these first couple of sentences, because this is your pitch to get people over to your channel. You'll also want to include when you upload, when people can expect new content from you and the type of content to get from you as well. Then down here in the links, if you add this, hit this little pencil guy again. This is where you can add up to five links. And the first link will be the one that you can write whatever you want. So YouTube instantly picks up that this is Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and everything. And so that's why these icons are already there, because YouTube knows that's what those links are. But you can add a call to action to your link right here and make this super clickable. Now let's Talk about your channel trailer. Now I have a pretty popular video here on my channel that walks you through what to say in your channel trailer. So I'll link to that right up here and down in the description box. But you do not have to have a specific channel trailer to add there. Some other great options would be a video that has your highest audience retention because when people come to your channel, that's the video that is playing automatically. If you have a really good video that's getting people to watch to the end, you're going to have a higher likelihood that that person is going to watch your video to the end like your content and subscribe. Now the other option would be to add a video, your channel trailer section that converts the most subscribers. Now you can find that analytic inside your analytics. But that goes to show you that that video does a really good job of converting people who aren't subscribers yet into subscribers. So you kind of have three options there. You can create your channel trailer, you can add your highest audience retention video or your video that drives you the most subscribers. But let me show you how to add that video on your homepage. So right now my channel is featuring a channel trailer. And you see I have title what this channel is all about and I give you a little snippet right here on why you should even care. I'm currently using a channel trailer, but like I said earlier, you can use different ones. But the way you are going to change this is you're going to have to come to customize channel and you'll need to switch over to for new visitors because that's generally who the channel trailer is played for. So from there if you don't have something it'll have a little plus that says as add channel trailer. But for me I'm going to hit edit, I'm going to change trailer and then it's going to give you an option to pick from any of your videos that you have. So you can get started with that there. Let's say this particular video has driven me more subscribers than any other video. Maybe I want to change it to that. You can also change what is here for your returning subscribers. You can feature content by clicking on this button. I'm going to go ahead and update mine and use my most recent video, save it and then anybody who is subscribed to my channel and comes to it will see this video. We're going to go ahead and done and that's going to play for returning subscribers. This next one I see so many times going Uncustomized and is really the face of your YouTube channel. So it's adding your channel sections and adding your playlist and really customizing the face of your channel for brand new subscribers. So, so let me show you how to do that. Now this is what a lot of people miss out on. Like I said, is getting your channel really primed to pitch yourself. Right? People want to see what is this channel all about? What is this person talking about? Is this worth coming back to watch? And you can see I have different sections on my channel. So the way to do this is you want to come up to this little cog wheel. Now if you didn't click on that blue button, that customize your channel button, you have to click on that, then it will bring you into this view and you'll hit this cog wheel and you'll want to turn on, customize the layout of your channel. So you want to make sure this is blue. Once that's on, you can come to the bottom of this page. So if we scroll down here to the bottom of the page you can add a section and ideally it's great to add playlists, specific videos you've already put together in a series. So the way you're going to do that is click your content, then you're going to go to section, single playlist and you want to make sure it is on my playlist and then you're going to find your playlist. So any of these I could use. So quick fixes to help you grow your YouTube channel. You see, it's going to preview. I can have it in a horizontal or a vertical list, the way I like to set it up. As you can see, alternating. So I have a horizontal, I have a vertical, horizontal, horizontal, vertical, just to break up the white space to really grab people's attention on the type of content that I'm talking about. One of the biggest missed opportunities to get more subscribers on your channel that I see is not having a branded watermark. But yes, maybe you do have a branded watermark and you're using your logo, but that's not the best option you should be using. And here's why. You see, people can hover over that branded watermark and instantly subscribe to your channel. So by hovering over that watermark. So if you just have your logo, people do not know that they can click on it or they should even hover their mouse over it. So instead you want to have a call to action or a subscribe here or some type of button image so that People are enticed to actually drag their mouse over there and click on it. Now, we all love vanity metrics and they kind of give us that credibility. So when you're getting started here on YouTube, you're going to try to figure out all the ways you can to get more subscribers. And like I said earlier, that branded watermark is a huge missed opportunity. So let me show you how you can make it and upload it to your video. So where you're actually going to be able to upload your watermark is right here in your settings, in your channel. And you're going to go to branding. And this is what I have set up right now. So let me show you how you can make this. Basically, this is going to be a square. So you can come into Canva, you can create your own square size, but it's basically an Instagram post. Because an Instagram post is a square, then you want to get a blank one. And what you can do is you can type in YouTube here on Canva and get some of the graphics that they already have. So if we go to elements, you type in YouTube, you can use one of these and just grab this, make it big center. It's. This is the fun part because you can use your own branding. So my text is this right here. So it's Monta serif. And I'm going to add down here, subscribe here. And of course, we've got to make that just a bit bigger. And then so let's put this as watermark. If you have the Canva Pro, you can get this transparent so that this white background won't be here. But if you don't have Canva Pro, what you can also do is just get an element, grab a square over here and let's say, let's make it black just so it stands out. And this is going to really stand out on your video. So we're going to pop this in here, we are going to position it to the back and we're going to have to make this text a different color. So let's go ahead and make that white, and then you can download that and add it into your branded watermark. Now, you can also just add text. So we would just delete this and you could say something like, click here and let's go ahead and make that my fuchsia pink. If you notice, we have been using less of the pink and we have some more colors that we've been using, but let's go ahead and grab this and pull it right up here we're gonna put to subscribe. Alright. Then you'll want to make sure it's big enough that people will be able to see it. We may need to even make this bigger. And then you can download this. Once you have it downloaded, all you're gonna do is come back to your settings. You're going to want to either replace your logo because remember we want to have a call to action here or upload one if you don't have it. I also suggest having it at the entire video because that enhances your likelihood of somebody actually subscribing and then you're going to save it and you have your brand new watermark. Now I would love to hear which option you decided to go with. Did you go with just an image or did you go with text? Let me know down in the comments if you're not quite sure what you should be putting in that description box below this video. In this video, I'm going to break every single thing down that you should be adding in there and I'm going to tell you exactly what to put in there to not only get some more YouTube subscribers, but also drive some more leads to your business. Okay, you got to hear this loud and clear. You can't skip filling out that description box on your YouTube video. This is such a great place for you to promote more video content, get more people to know about you and your business and give YouTube more information about your video so they can recommend it to more of the right people. First, I want to tell you what should be in every single description box of every single video. So this is going to be super easy for you to do because all you need to do is fill it out in your description box. Defaults. Once you put that in there, every single time you upload a video, this is already going to be in there. So let me show you how to do that and what you should be adding into your description box. Defaults. The way to get to your defaults is coming up here. You want to go to your YouTube studio and then you'll want to come over to settings right here. Then you're going to go right here to upload defaults. This is where you can add that description box content that will be on every single video. Now obviously you don't need a default title because every title is going to be different and you don't need a default summary because every summary is going to be different. What I do suggest is adding the subscribe button right here. What you do to make it clickable so that they go directly to subscribe to your channel. So if we take this particular link and we pop it right in here, you see it's going to take them to a screen that asks them if they want to subscribe to your channel. So the way you do that is you're going to take your channel URL and then just add question mark sub underscore confirmation equals one. And that makes that nice clickable link an easy way to get subscribers. So I add this in every single video. I also add my latest video. And the way I got this link was a tubebuddy feature. I don't believe this is available anymore. But you could add your most popular video here or the video that gets you the most subscribers or the most views. However you want to pick kind of the best video to feature here because your goal is to get people to watch more content from you. Then I have a recommended video series that you should check out. And the way I'm adding these emojis is I'm on a Mac and I'm using command control space. And so the emoji keyboard pops up. That's how I'm adding those on down. After the video series, I have my most watched videos included right here. Then I have my opt in and this is my lead magnet. This is how I get people on my list and it sends them right to the landing page. Then I'm pitching my Instagram, which I might add a camera emoji right here so people know, oh yeah, this is Instagram and that stands out. And then my video equipment, which I might add a camera here too so that people can check out, okay, this is the camera she's using, the lighting, and those are all affiliate links. So when people do buy from that link, I get commission from Amazon. Then the next thing that I add is when to expect new videos every single week from me. And also what they will be about. There was music that I was adding in all of my intros, so I credited the artist for that. And then I have this disclaimer specifically for affiliate links, which is critical. If you are going to have affiliate links in your description box, you do need a disclaimer. And then YouTube tips this hashtag. Every time I upload a video, my video Is hashtag with YouTube tips. That's why you will see on my video, if it has a hashtag, that's how you get those. You can add them in the description box. Once you have all of that added, I would also upload as a default in private, you can see there's public unlisted, but I would immediately change this to private. Go ahead and save that. And you have description box defaults. Already done. That can be in every single one of your videos. So you can add that in your description box defaults. Now, for every video you do upload, you want to create an individual summary of that video for the top of the description box. This only needs to be about five to seven sentences long and that first sentence should really highlight or pitch why somebody should watch your video. Because if they see it in search, that first line is going to show up in search. This can grab more people's attention. If they see your thumbnail, they see your title and they continue to look at what the description box says. Remember that first sentence shows up in search in that summary. You also want to make sure you're using those keywords or tags that you've used in that video. You want to make sure you reiterate that in your summary, just using it in conversational text. However you would describe or summarize your video to a friend, incorporating those words into that summary. I'm seeing in the comments that so many of you have started a YouTube channel this year. The quarantine has really given you the time, unfortunately, to get serious on YouTube. So if you have got started or you're struggling to figure out how to get your channel momentum going, I'm going to share some of the top hacks that I only share with my students and clients to help them hit that first 1000 subscriber mark and beyond. So I honestly cannot remember how long it took me to get to 1,000 subscribers. When I started. I started way back on March 16, 2016. But when I went back and looked in my analytics, I saw that I only grew 546 subscribers in that first year. It took me over a year to May 17, 2017 to hit that coveted 1000 subscriber mark. But since then I've learned a whole lot of what works, what doesn't work. And within the last month I alone grew 2,000 subscribers. I've also had the opportunity to work with channels that have half a million subscribers. And some of the channels I've worked with have over a million subscribers. So I really can see the inner workings of those bigger channels and see what they've done and the strategies that they do to grow their channel to that length. And because I am spending my time on those clients channels, I will tell you that I have let my channel slack. I've not really focused in on My strategy here in these half that I'm about to share with you are hacks that I have not done on my channel because just ran out of time. All right, let's dig into the hacks and before I share that first one, here's something that you gotta do first. Start, literally start. You don't need any fancy equipment. You don't need to have like this full in depth strategy before you get started. Just make that first video, post it on YouTube. Those first couple of videos probably aren't going to see a lot of traction, but it's really, really gonna help you learn a lot and get a lot of data back to help you make those next couple even better. So just start. The first hack that I have for you is watch other YouTube channels. Yes, you need to watch YouTube channels to see what are they doing, how are they introducing their videos, how are they keeping people engaged, what does their B roll look like, are they adding text? Look at all different types of YouTube channels as well. If you are educational channel like me, don't just watch educational channels, watch vloggers, watch, watch other types of videos. I know I personally love watching Good Mythical morning with Rhett and Link. It is a nice family friendly channel that my kids and I can all watch in the evening. And I learned so much watching it. How they storyboard everything and how they keep people engaged and the different camera angles that they get. I also watch vloggers like Nikki Philippi and racheloves Life just to see how they are delivering their content and keeping people engaged. So yes, you have got to watch YouTube videos if you want to grow your YouTube channel. You can't just put the blinders on, only focus on your content. You need to look at what other people out there are doing. Well, the next hack is to pick a lane. Now I'm not going to say the word niche here, but what I mean is what lane can you pick without getting too specific? So a lot of people will think they need a niche so they really, really nail down to their niche is for busy moms with three kids who need to relax more. But that is so, so niche and you want to think about that bigger picture. So let's just think it'. Mom. And think about what kind of content are moms looking for. Are they looking for cleaning tips? Are they looking for organizational tips? When you're Getting started on YouTube to get to that first 1000, you need to test a lot of topics for that person. You don't need to get very, very specific here. You need to see what is getting picked up and what are people liking to see from you within your bubble. Does that make sense? So I don't need you to go deep down into a niche. I want you to go into a general area and think about that person that's ideally watching your channel and what are the types of topics that they're looking for on YouTube that you can draw them in on. The third hack is think about a problem that you're solving. Most of the time you're going to get your brand new subscribers because they've searched something on YouTube and they're trying to figure out how to do something, organize their pantry, start a YouTube channel, write a sales page, think about a problem that you can solve for your audience and do videos on that. That's really going to help you snowball those subscribers. Hack number four is you got to spend time planning and editing. You cannot be boring on a platform where the whole goal of this platform is to keep people watching videos. So you'll see that we try different stuff here on my channel. A few weeks ago, I was sitting outside. I'm sitting here in my living room today. I'm really trying to see what you resonate with when it comes to my background and how I deliver my content. So I'm not saying you need a fancy background. Look, I just sit here in this room. It's probably a little bit echoey today. I just want to see how you're connecting. So think about how you can plan it out, how you can keep that viewer engaged. I did do a video recently on how to do fancy editing without the fancy software. So if you're trying to figure out, you know, how can you make your editing better to keep people watching longer? Check out that video. I will link it down in the description box and up here as well. But you need to be studying your audience retention graphs to constantly improve your audience retention so you can keep people watching longer and make YouTube happy. Hack number five is your thumbnails. And this tends to be one of the last things people think about. But you really need to think through your thumbnails because that's literally what stops the scroll on YouTube. So whether people are searching on YouTube, whether they just log in and on the browse page, that image is what's going to grab people's attention. That's how you're going to get people to watch your video. And if that thumbnail isn't thought out, and if that thumbnail doesn't grab people's attention, you can forget getting people to watch it and subscribe to your channel. That also rolls into the next hack, which is thinking through your title. Look, you can't just have some SEO stuffed keyword if you want people to click on it. How is that going to stand out if there's like a list of videos on how to organize your pantry, right? While that may be SEO optimized, think about your audience and what are they really struggling with? Maybe it's something like get your pantry organized with $0 or something that's really going to grab their attention, right? Are you going to show them how to organize their pantry without buying any kind of supplies? Right? What's going to set your video out differently from everybody else's and put that in the title again. Your thumbnail is going to stop the scroll, but your title is going to get people to click on that video. Hack number seven is Ask for engagement. Ask for people to comment. Ask for people to like. So tell me, are these hacks helping you right now? Which hack have you really enjoyed hearing down in the comments? But you need to ask people for it and don't ask for too many. Don't sit here and say like subscribe, comment, share. Don't do all 50 of these things because people are going to end up doing nothing. Pick one call to action and ask people. Next, you need to make your channel look professional. People aren't going to subscribe to a channel that they don't think is publishing regular content. So if they go to your channel and it's not set up and it doesn't look professional, they're not going to subscribe. But if they go there, you have that pretty channel banner and you have your videos all organized and featured on your home page. They're going to be more likely to subscribe. So make sure you watch the video on your screen right now after this. Or down in the description box about how to customize your YouTube channel homepage, because that's going to help you get to 1,000 subscribers as well. Next hack, fill out your description box. You know that thing right down here. Again, I've done a lot of videos the past couple of weeks on how to make your channel better, and I go into full detail on exactly what you need to be saying in your description box and what that template is. Description box default should look like. So again, I will be linking all of these videos down in the description box for you to watch next. But you have to fill this out. You have to put videos down in that description box as well to get people to Watch more content to get them more likely to subscribe to your channel. Next hack, promote that video like crazy. Talk about it on your Instagram, go live on Facebook and tell people you just launched a brand new channel and help you hit your First 100 or your First 1000 by subscribing to it. Tell your friends and family, share it to your email list. You can't just put it there and expect it to magically get subscribers. You need to get the help of people that you already have in your zone, right? You need to tell the people who are ready and willing to support you to go subscribe to get the ball rolling. So don't just launch a YouTube channel and forget it. The next hack is thinking through your setup. We talked a little bit about this earlier with audience retention, but you really want to think about how is your audience going to connect with you now. Yes, you may be limited to what your background is going to be, but what's going to be really important for you more than just your background is how well your lighting is, which I'm doing, I think a kind of bad job here today with my lighting and your audio, which again, I'm doing kind of a bad job. But these are the things that are going to really keep people watching and want to come back for more. Because if they can't see you or if they can't hear you or there's this weird echoing, they're not going to to subscribe either. Really all you need to do is just set your camera in front of a window and that would be the best place for you to film. This next hack is my favorite and it's literally Shake it Out and this is one I struggled with for so long and why it probably took my YouTube channel a little bit longer to grow. I had a really hard time opening up and sharing more of my personality. I come from a more buttoned up, master's degree in business type background, so were very like blazers and slacked and be more me here on camera. It took me a while to get it out. But people are going to connect with you and subscribe to your YouTube channel when they feel you are being you. If you're too worried about being professional and perfect, they're not going to connect with a robot. They can, you know, read an article or listen to anybody out there. But what they're going to connect with and what they're going to subscribe to as a personality that they feel connected with and if you aren't sharing it and if you aren't showing it in your videos. That's what's going to hold you back from getting subscribers. I actually have all these hacks broken down into a 15 page roadmap that's going to show you everything that you can do on your channel right now to get more views and more leads to your business. So make sure you go to that link down in the description box. It'll be on your screen right now. I've pulled all those videos that I just talked about, your channel banner, your description box, and your channel homepage all into a playlist for you that's on the screen right now. So you can go watch that and make sure you set up your channel right now to drive more subscribers. So click on that playlist and I'll see you over there.