Why Most YouTube Advice Is Wrong for Small Channels (2025 Edition)

Your YouTube channel isn't growing because you're listening to downright lies on how to grow it. And I know these are lies because I've worked with hundreds of YouTube creators this past year grow their channel. Let's get you unstuck on YouTube. Let me be clear. Some of these lies that I'm going to address actually worked on YouTube, say five or more years ago. The problem is these practices are way out of date and the algorithm has changed. And also viewer behavior, behavior and viewer pattern here on YouTube has changed over the last even three years. And you may still be thinking, well, what about SEO Trina? Is that still a thing? I am going to be addressing that, so keep watching. The first lie keeping you stuck from growing on YouTube is the lie that you must pick a niche. Here's the deal. Niching on YouTube is very important here on YouTube, but it's a bit different than what you may think or have heard. You don't want to pick a topic specific niche. You want to pick an audience specific niche. Huh? Alright, let me tell you what this means and what you should do instead. In the past, you would hear people tell you that if you had a video take off or go viral, double down on that topic and just keep creating more videos about that particular topic. Here's the problem with that concept though. First of all, you're going to get boring talking about the same thing over and over again. And when you get bored, you're going to get uninspired, you're going to get unmotivated, and you're going to dread creating YouTube videos. Let me walk through an example around what I mean topic niching. Let's say you have a YouTube channel and you talk about knitting and you help people build a passion for knitting and you do one particular video about knitting micro animals and that video takes off and you're like, okay, I need to double down and create more videos on knitting micro needle animals, stuffed animals. So you could create a bunch of these. You could do knitting a micro giraffe, knitting a micro elephant, knitting a micro turtle, a micro, I don't know, dog. But do you love creating these types of videos or was this just one video you happen to do and now you feel like you're stuck in that niche? The second problem that's going to happen when you just double down on the same niche topic over and over again is your audience is going to get bored as well. You want your audience on YouTube to be excited about every single video that you publish. You want them ready to jump on YouTube when you publish a new video and if they start to see, oh my gosh, it's another micro needle animal video, oh my gosh, how many more of these can she create? They're not going to be so excited anymore to come watch your videos because they are bored. Instead, you want to think about your audience is your niche. So in this case, like I said, you have a YouTube channel that help people build a passion for knitting so you could focus on some beginner content for people who are just getting started in their knitting journey and you kind of teach them the basics to get them going. You could also create more advanced topics as well, because there are going to be people on YouTube that are beyond beginner and are looking for more advanced things or intermediate things. And those beginners that are watching your beginner videos want to grow with you and want to continue watching content. But if you tap out at beginner content or you tap out at intermediate content, why are they going to come back and keep binge watching your videos? Why are they going to be excited for every video that you post? You want to create a balance around this niche audience that allows new people to come find you with that beginner content and want to stay with you and watch every single video that you create. So they are growing with you. Let me walk through one more example. I have a client of mine who has a course around Outschool, which is basically a way for teachers to teach or tutor online and get paid for it. So while yes, we've talked about the strategy and the topics around Outschool and the pieces that they need to do and the authority she needs to show about this particular software, she also needs to be focusing on content that online teachers are struggling with. So we want to think about other than just this Outschool software, what is my niche audience? Teachers who are wanting to transition to teaching online. What are their problems? Maybe organizing all of their lessons, maybe time management, maybe lesson ideas, maybe marketing their courses or their classes. Yes, she should very much have a strong library of content around Outschool, but she needs to continue to create additional videos around different topics that her niche audience is looking for so she can continue to drive them to her. And they want to continue watching her content because they don't want to just hear about Outschool all the time either. Okay, I need you to comment below. Makes sense if you're understanding now the difference between niche topic and niche audience. The second lie that you are told, especially to help you grow your YouTube channel, is to create more Content. So when you create more content, you're actually doing two things. One, you are building a content library that allows people to find you different ways. Like each video is an entry point into your content. And when they do find you, they now have multiple videos to watch from you. So you can keep them binge watching and you can accumulate more views and more watch time and build that trust with that viewer who finds you. And obviously the more content you create, the more opportunities for people to find you. But quantity never beats quality. Let me say that again for those of you in the back. Quantity never beats out quality. Now listen here. There is a fine balance between pumping out crap videos just to pump out videos and keep the quantity of your videos up, and also taking forever to put just one video up because you need it to be perfect before you post it. And quality does not ensue. Our meaning quality of your production of your video. I'm talking about the quality of the content is what you're sharing in your videos. Good stuff that your audience will value because you need to create valuable content that they like to get them to keep coming back to you to prove to them that you will deliver on giving them and creating them great content. So what this comes down to is if you have the time to create content two videos a week without dropping that level of quality of content that you're sharing in the video, I would say for sure, go ahead and publish two videos a week to continue building your content library. If you're running a business, balancing clients, doing the mom duty, things like running to camp or dropping off at school, and all you have time for is one video a week, you will still grow your YouTube channel if you keep the focus of each video every week. Value. Now I've bounced back and forth between one video a week to two videos a week. I would like to get to two videos a week in just full transparency. I have two full time employees who help me with my business and I also have a video editor. And it is still very difficult for me to get two videos out a week. And at the time of recording this, I'm not even posting on any other social platform. So just to kind of share how much time I put into my YouTube videos really comes first before I do anything else. And that takes up a lot of my time so that I'm only getting one video out a week. I'm curious to hear from you kind of what is your goal of publishing videos each week? Is your goal just one video a week or do you really want to Start creating your content library and getting a lot of content out for your ideal viewers and do two videos a week like let me know in the comments kind of what your sweet spot goal is. Now I mentioned a little bit about production quality which is a great segue into lie number three that you are told and is that you need to have a high production value for each video to see any kind of results on YouTube. Now can you create poorly lit videos and crackly audio and just not a very good viewing experience for your audience? No. But you don't need like a sound studio, you don't need a high fancy DSLR camera, you don't need all this lighting and these sound panels in your filming area to still create high quality videos. Your audience does need to be visually engaged. So that may mean adding some B roll or some screenshots of what you're talking about so they can see what you're saying as well. And you need to really study how your viewers are watching your videos. And I've talked about this countless times on my channel about how important your audience retention graphs are. In fact, I studied a bunch of my audience retention graphs from the past videos, from the past 90 days before I scripted this video so I could take what I learned in my past videos and where people were watching and leaving so I could improve that for this video. But you don't need to overthink the production value like needing a fancy camera and lens, needing a specific filming location. Like if you don't have an office to sit at, do you have a kitchen table? That's all you need. You also don't need fancy editing tricks or hacks either to keep people watching your videos. Again, I'm going to tell you it is about the value you are delivering in your videos and you also want to think about the stories you are sharing to connect with your viewer because that's what's going to make a viewer keep watching if they feel like they can relate to you, if they can feel oh I have felt that or I have done that or oh she gets me and that's going to do a lot more for you when it comes to growing your YouTube channel than going out and buying a fancy camera. I do want to talk editing real quick and I want you to know that there are trends right now in YouTube where that over edited kind of ADHD style editing is kind of fading out and people are just wanting to connect. They're wanting to hear you speak, they're wanting to get value from you, they're wanting to feel connection. And this is why we're seeing video podcasts really start to grow here on YouTube. And so I did a few videos the last couple of months where I edited them on my own super simple edits. I didn't even add anything fancy to them, just cuts. And my audience retention graph was pretty good. Pretty comparable to when I have my video editor edit this. And we were doing those more high edit style videos few months ago. So don't overthink editing either. It's about the stories, the value and the connection you're making. All right, now it's time for the SEO talk. So lie number four that's keeping your channel stuck is that you must rank YouTube videos in search. Is SEO still a thing on YouTube? Absolutely. But I need to explain a few things. Right now. I use SEO to help me plan my videos, but how I use SEO research is how I come up with the topic of my videos. And the topics that I'm finding that have good SEO potential must align with what I want to talk about and what my audience my audience is looking for. For example, when I do my research, I see there is an opportunity around the keyword best camera for YouTube. One. Is my audience interested in that? Absolutely. Two, is this something that I can talk about or feel confident talking about? Heck no. I hate tech. I like to keep my tech as simple as possible and I have not tested multiple cameras. So do I know what the best camera is for YouTube? No. Do I know what camera I use that I like, that I've been using for two years that makes my process easy? Yes. Another example is there is a great opportunity to create content around faceless digital marketing. Is this going to attract the audience I want? No, because I'm trying to attract the business owner or the content creator who wants to show up as their brand, who wants to be visible. So while the SEO opportunity is great, it's not going to fit my content strategy, even though the SEO shows me it's a great opportunity. The second thing I want to talk about, YouTube SEO, which is kind of a gray area, is making all your videos to show up in search. Because your entire YouTube content strategy should not be focused just on YouTube search. So YouTube search is obviously when you type in something and your video shows up for that search result. You also need to have a strategy for videos that will show up on the homepage that are enticing, that are curiosity driven, that your audience will want to click on as well. So you want to have this fine balance between creating search based content that will continue to basically be the turtle in the race. It will continue to drive you views slowly for a long time. But you also want to have videos that are focused on showing up on the browse feature, which is going to give you kind of that takeoff and then balance out. So there's those two different strategies you really need to have when it comes to your YouTube content. If you're just focused on search based traffic and you're just answering all the questions that your audience has, they're going to come, get the answer and then leave. And if we're not creating those other videos that help build relationships, that share more about you, that tell more of your story, you're not going to build a community on YouTube. You're not going to build that connection, which is not going to help you get more leads in your business, more clients, more core sales. I actually break down three specific things that you should start doing right now. If you aren't getting the views you would like on your videos in this video right here. Watch it now to start building your audience strategy so you can finally see the views you've been dreaming about on your videos.