YouTube Channel Review | How Ashlyn Grew to 500 Subscribers in 6 Weeks

Hello. In today's video, I'm going to walk you through how I review channels and how I show them what they should be doing in the future and what they can fix to make their channel look better. And so this is actually what I teach in my YouTube bootcamp program that's currently available. The doors are open. And so we're going to jump in. We're going to go through Ashlyn's channel. We're going to look at her analytics, we're going to look at her channel as a whole and figure out what should be her next steps. If you're new to my channel, my name is Trina, and here on this channel, I help creative entrepreneurs like you get started on YouTube. So we are going to jump on over to my screen and walk you through a channel audit. So let's share my screen. We're going to pop over to Ashlyn's share screen. If you guys have any questions as I'm going through this, just please let me know, and I will answer them in the chat section to the side. So this is Ashlyn Carter. She is a copywriter for some pretty big names like Jenna Kutcher and Hillary Rushford. So we recently started working on her channel a little bit more. She is a YouTube bootcamp member, and she just committed to creating consistent video content in the last six weeks. And let me tell you, in those last six weeks, we've grown about 300 subscribers. We'll see that on the inside here in a minute. So what I'm actually going to suggest to Ashlyn the next time we talk is we're going to need to update this channel banner. So, yes, she says new episodes each Friday, which is great. You always want to try to have a posting schedule so your audience knows when you're posting new videos. But she's going to have some kind of value proposition here. It's important to really show your audience what you're all about, because this right here is your first impression. So I know Ashlyn already has a value proposition. I hear it in her videos. So I'm just going to suggest she adds that right here. So when people come here, they instantly can see if this channel is for them or not. I also want to check this as a new visitor, because I want to see what Ash. What video Ashlyn has highlighted here. So Ashlyn does have her channel trailer highlighted right here, which is fantastic. If you have a YouTube channel and you don't have a channel trailer, it's important to do one of these. I have a couple videos on how you can do it and break it down as well. But it's just important. It doesn't need to be any more than 90 seconds. Just letting people know who you are, what you do. And really, you've got to focus on why they should subscribe. What are you going to do for them? Right. And so that doesn't take very long. I currently am updating my channel trailer because it's a bit old. Ashlyn's got her. So fantastic. And then she also has her playlist split up down here. And you can see how she broke it up a bit with the horizontal videos and then these vertical videos. And they all pertain to the different types of content that she's creating here on her channel. So she's also a calligrapher, so she's got a calligraphy playlist. She's a creative entrepreneur, so she's got some tips. But we've got to focus on more keyword style centered playlist. So next time I speak with her, we're going to be talking about more keyword centered playlists. Because what we can actually do is have these entire playlists rank in search if we really strategize how to do that. So that's one thing I will suggest to Ashlyn, also with her thumbnails. I would probably suggest to her to take out this little guy right here, because you can see how tiny it is. You can hardly see that. It says as ashlynwrites.com and so we want to take this out. And one other thing, when you're thinking about thumbnails, the wider they are, the more they tend to blend in with YouTube. And I've actually had this case study done on my channel. And so I did a lot of white backgrounds, and then I started adding a pop of pink in my thumbnails. I tripled the amount of clicks that I got. So I think Ashlyn could try to really pop out this navy because it would look great. See, YouTube's background is, like, white and gray, so you want to stand out. So I think Ashlyn, if she really popped out this navy, it would look fantastic. And I want to minimize some of these words. So you want to keep minimal text here on your thumbnail. You just want to try to make something stand out to get people to click. Right. I think these emojis are great and fun, but they should be a little bit bigger because you can see how small they are to read preveen says Trina. Your consistency is commendable. Thank you. And then careful when you do post images here on this side because there is a timestamp, and so that does get covered up. It is great to have some type of pattern, but you want to make sure you put it on this side of your thumbnail. So, all in all, her homepage is doing well. I mean, there's some things that we can definitely change and update to do better. So what you can do with your channel is take a look at your channel banner. That's the first thing I want you to look at. Okay. And then I want you to think, do you have a channel trailer? Then I want you to see how you have your playlist broken up here. All right? Then I'm also going to jump over to her about section just to see how she has that optimized as well. So what happens is this. This couple sentences right here are shown in YouTube search. So people have over your chann. Those are the things that pop up. And so you really want to have a pitch here that makes people want to click on your channel. So she's doing pretty good here. I'd suggest maybe adding just another line to really nail it into people that they want to come watch your video. And also her upload schedule as well. So now one of the most important things, a lot of people skip and don't show. And Ashlyn was kind enough to let me show you guys on the back end, right. Her analytics. And so you can see how quickly we have grown her channel in the past. Well, here's 28 days. So in 28 days, we've grown her channel 104 subscribers in just 28 days. So if we do the last 90 days, let's take a look at these numbers. Look at the growth in her average view duration. This is a little off because she did some lives and so the previous quarter. So that's a bit off. But look, the views. She's up almost 50% in views. How crazy is that? In just 90 days. Okay. She's also up likes and comments. And in the last 90 days, a hundred, I'm sorry, 280 subscribers. And she's only posting once a week. Just once a week. But we are really strategizing on those videos that I taught her in YouTube boot camp. And when she comes to me and asks me in YouTube boot camp. And so that's over 110% increase from the exact same 90 from the 90 months prior to this. 90 months. Okay, so you see, from September to December, she has grown over 110% in subscribers. That's pretty Awesome. I also want to just take a look at how she did for. Let's just do last month, February particularly. Cause we've been focusing on this. Her watch time minutes were up over 20%. And so watch time and view time can get a little bit tricky. And what is really more important out of these two numbers is this watch time. So views mean the amount of people that go to your video, and watch time means the amount of minutes people watch videos. And Ashlynn is doing amazing. This 3 minutes and 41 seconds is a significantly high number, especially for a smaller channel. Like, anything above two minutes is a great average view duration. And Ashlyn is at 3 minutes and 41 seconds. So that's amazing. And then the one last thing I do when I do these hot seats is look at videos. And so I'm going to go to audience retention. And this is how you're really going to increase that watch time minute number. And that's how you're really going to grow your channel as well. So I'm going to pull up a video that she's done recently. I'm actually going to pull up one of her videos that she did for showing how she used honeybook. And Honeybook actually reached out to her about this video. So when you go to audience retention, you can see where people drop off and where they, like fast. So somebody. So people fast forward here and came back here. But Ashlyn did a pretty good job. So what I'm noticing here with this dip is we need to focus on maybe changing up her intro or maybe figuring out what people aren't resonating with. And then if we jump here to this dip, we can play the video below and we can see what is she doing that's potentially. I want to show you a little bit of what that looks like inside the interface as well. So with this graph, you can really start to see why people drop off and what can you do to make it better. She's still doing pretty great. She has 31% and at the end of the video, and 43% of the videos actually watch. And so this is something you really want to keep track of because you want to make this line as flat as possible. The less you can have these dips, the more YouTube is going to promote your videos and actually suggest them more. And then I'm going to go ahead and show you guys. One more thing that I always look at as well is traffic sources. So with Ashlyn, since she is just getting started and she's only posting about, let's Do Lifetime here. So this is just traffic from last month. So I want to do Lifetime for this particular reach to see what people are searching to find her content. Okay, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to go down here to YouTube search to look at the keywords people are using now. Look, this is fantastic. So Ashlyn's been thinking about doing some Honey Book tutorials. I think that is fantastic, because what this is showing me is when people search Honeybook on YouTube, they're watching Ashlyn's video. And so the more videos she can create around honeybook, the more traffic she's going to get to her videos, the more people are going to watch video after video, and she's going to accumulate that watch time. There's another one for Honeybook workflow. Also, Trello would be some more video ideas for her as well, because Trello client information. But look how honeybook keeps popping up. So the next videos Ashlyn should do, I'm going to suggest to her to do an entire series on Honeybook, because this is how frequently it's popping up. Client booking flow. Honeybook, Honeybook for creators. Honeybook. Where to start using Honeybook. So if I go to this particular keyword, look, there's Ashlyn number four. Boom. I'm sure if I go back to Honey Book. Let's see if Ashlyn's ranking. Let's see. All right, Not. Not this page. So let's go to Honeybook workflow. Let's see. So what's happening is I can almost bet that she is getting traffic from Joy Michelle Photography client. And I wanted to show you how we can see. So I'm going to go to the top level. We're going to go to suggested videos, and these are the videos that are driving traffic to her channel. So let's see if Joy's is up here. All right. It may not be. I was just guessing. So these are some of the videos that are bringing her traffic. So these are great people to reach out to and possibly collaborate with. So let's see. We've got Honeybook. Actually, Honeybook, we've got. There's someone up here. Honeybook. Again, simple tivity. I totally butchered that. Wedding Planner and Organization is another channel to reach out to Halle Gray. These are all Joy Bowing. These are all videos she's getting traffic from. So do you guys have any questions for me, like how to get started with your channel audit again? If you sign up for YouTube Bootcamp today, you're going to get $200 off and the doors are closing tomorrow. So YouTube Bootcamp will not be available to purchase again for a couple months as I work on people's channels and help them grow their channel. And if you are Interested in joining YouTube Bootcamp, you can go to YouTube-bootcamp.com there's three different ways you can sign up for and you'll see that there is a promo code just for today. So if you don't have any other questions, I'm going to jump off of here. And I hope you enjoyed seeing what a hot seat is going to look like in YouTuber camp and how this is really going to help you grow your channel and get those subscribers. Because really, once Ashlyn and I worked on a strategy together, that's how she was able to grow 280 subscribers in just under two months. So I hope you enjoyed this. Thank you for watching. And don't forget to subscribe for more channel reviews like this. Bye.