Have you ever thought about how to start a YouTube channel? It’s easier than you think. You just need to clear a few things in your mind before beginning your channel. First, choose the particular niche according to your interests. Then, creating a Google account and the usage of it to open your YouTube channel is important. Afterwards, determine your channel name, mention a keyword description, and ensure to show your profile picture and the channel’s banner. Next, plan your content in that way which shows some value to viewers. Further, use a smartphone or a good-quality camera to begin the filming.
Now, you can simply edit your targeted videos with the help of free tools, such as CapCut or iMovie. Apart from that, you can upload your video by mentioning a good thumbnail, title, and description. Last but not least, you can effortlessly share your content with your target audience and stay consistent to grow. These are the steps that you need to follow in this upcoming guide.
Why Should You Start a YouTube Channel Today?
Starting a YouTube channel can offer you a number of advantages. These are as follows:
- Audience Engagement and Global Reach: By uploading your YouTube video, you can simply reply to your audience’s comments. As a result, it will help you to enhance audience engagement. Moreover, YouTube is one of the only platforms that has 2.85 billion users. So, you have a chance to boom and get famous through your YouTube channel.
- Monetization Opportunities: Everyone wants to know how to start a YouTube channel to earn money because we know that if our video becomes popular, we’ll get money. In addition, YouTube offers you several monetization opportunities so that you don’t need to worry about the future.
- Building a Community and Expertise: YouTube allows you to interface with people of similar interests and helps you build a community of your own by giving out videos with shared knowledge. Uploading videos in your domain of knowledge can help you establish authority.
- Skill Development: A YouTube channel will help you acquire basic skills such as scripting and editing, and even storytelling.
What is Required to Start a YouTube Channel?
Once you set up your YouTube channel, these are the requirements that will assist you. Read the following section to know.
- Google Account: You need to have a Gmail or Google account to sign up for YouTube.
- Channel Name and Handle: According to Google Help, you need to pick a unique name for your channel, which can be similar to your username.
- Equipment: Camera, Microphone, Tripod, and some editing software are the basic necessities of every YouTuber.
- YouTube Studio: If you have prior knowledge of YouTube Studio, it is very good for you. As a result, it can effortlessly help you to view your analytics, manage your account, and much more.
- Promotional Activities: Every YouTuber must promote their YouTube channel so that they can gain subscribers. Moreover, it leads to the spread of awareness among their audience.
When Is the Best Time to Launch Your YouTube Channel?
We will discuss the ideal time to launch your YouTube channel. Then, we’ll guide you on how to start a YouTube channel and earn money.
General Considerations are as follows:
- Avoid Midday Posts: Numerous surveys say that you should avoid the midday period. However, there are a high chances that your target audience may be busy or can be disturbed.
- Weekday vs. Weekend: It totally depends upon the interest and timings of your target audience. If you’ve noticed that the number of people visiting your YouTube channel on weekdays, go for it. And it same with weekends.
- Early Afternoons and Evenings: To get higher engagement and views, you can upload your YouTube video between 2 PM to 4 PM. At night, you can also upload the same after 8 PM.
- Consistency is key: Make sure that you are regular while uploading shorts or videos on your YouTube channel. As a result, your target audience will notice and lead to building audience engagement.
Important Considerations are as follows:
- Focus on quality content: When you upload something to your YouTube channel, make sure content is original, premium-quality, and engaging for your target audience.
- Use YouTube Analytics: You can simplify your target audience time by looking at YouTube Studio. Under this, you will get to know the perfect time when your loyal users are mostly active.
- Test and analyze: Users can also upload their content on their YouTube channel to understand whether this time is appropriate for uploading or not.
How to Start a YouTube Channel?
If you are sure that success will come your way, the most fundamental part entails creating distinct and captivating videos for audience retention with every upload. Building loyal followers requires entertaining but also informative content. These are the main factors that matter.
1. Plan Your YouTube Channel Strategy
Before creating your first video, establish a solid foundation by defining your goals and the reasons behind your videos.
- Setting Your YouTube Goals: Recollect what you want to obtain together with your YouTube channel. Whatever your goals behind starting a YouTube channel, having them will enhance your content creation strategy.
- Choosing Your Content Niche: A specific niche helps you stand out in the market of YouTube channels. However, the best niches come out with your expertise, passion, and an engaged target audience.
To describe your niche, you can consider the following tips:
- Determine your interests: You can simply prepare a list what are your professional interests or hobbies. After that, it will make it easy for you to choose the desired niche.
- Consider your expertise: Next, you need to understand the specific skills and expertise you have. Then, what particular skills do you want? Start a YouTube channel for it.
- Research existing content: Further, you can analyze what your competitors are posting a video content. So that you can take an idea, but make sure your content and idea should be totally different.
- Consider longevity: Ensure you can maintain interest in your topic for a longer period of time.
- Test your idea: You can prepare and launch more than one video to analyze what the target audience wants. Apart from that, you’ll get an idea the particular niche should be appropriate for you.
Finding Target Audience:
- In order to boost viewer engagement, you need to gain information regarding your target audience. Don’t forget factors together with pastimes, age, location, and their troubles.
Here, we are mentioning some tips for determining your target audience. After getting this section, we are moving ahead towards the next point of how to start a YouTube channel.
- Define Demographics: Basic demographics to be defined first include gender, age, location, and occupation. Taking the example of the evergreen entrepreneurship channels, they could focus on targeting the millennials who are poised to start their own businesses.
- Identify Interests: You need to define the interests as well as the hobbies that a potential viewer can possess. For instance, a gaming channel may target gamers who are interested in learning new strategies.
- Understand Challenges: After that, you can simply understand the difficulties faced by your target audience.
- Explore Similar Channels: Analyze other channels like yours to understand the audience they attract. As a result, it provides insights into potential viewers for your content.
- Engage with Viewers: When you see that there is a better score of audience engagement on your previous videos, pay attention towards viewer comments and interactions for crucial feedback to improve your content.
Creating Your Unique YouTube Brand
We all know that a brand consists of a clear message, a distinctive voice, and the emotional bond you create with your target audience.
- Establish a visual identity: The most important thing is that when any user visits your channel, they first see your thumbnail and brand logo. If your brand logo and the thumbnail are not attractive, engaging, and unique, you will lose your potential viewers. That’s why it is very crucial to have a visual identity.
- Prepare a unique value proposition (UVP): Understand what stands you out in the market. However, this could be your unique skills or an imaginative perspective on your targeted content.
- Set your tone of voice: Your tone should always convey your brand’s personality. This is the main rule. Moreover, you need to choose that language so that everybody can easily understand what you are trying to say.
- Be authentic: Ensure your uploaded content is unique and original for better audience engagement.
Defining Your Content Type and Format
Your content’s type, style, and format are the essential components of your YouTube channel.
- Type: When selecting a content type, think about how it aligns with your goals and audience.
- Style: The style of your video consists of everything from the editing and music style to the visuals you choose to display.
- Format: It offers an exciting selection of formats for choosing short vertical videos under 60 seconds, longer horizontal videos, or even engaging livestreams. The layout you choose will influence your manufacturing process and the device you will want.
2. Creating a YouTube Channel
After understanding the plan strategy, next you need to comprehend how to create a YouTube channel.
Read the instructions below that will help you to clear all your doubts about the same.
For a Personal Channel
- To begin the procedure, log in to YouTube on your computer.
- After that, move towards your profile picture on the right-hand side at the top. Further, click the Settings icon.
- In the following step, hit the Create a channel option.
- Here, you need to create a channel. Following on-screen instructions
- In the last step, fill in all the details, such as your profile pic and Google Account name. As a result, it will help to create your channel.
Note: If you’ve already created your channel and want some changes, you need to click on the Add or manage your channel(s) option.
For a Business or Other Name
The following section will guide you on how to make a YouTube channel for a business or other name.
- To begin with, log in to your YouTube account on your centered device.
- Proceeding further, you want to move towards your channel listing.
- After that, you need to opt for creating a new channel or utilizing a current Brand Account:Click the Create a new channel option to see that you can easily make a channel.
- To create a YouTube channel for your existing Brand Account, simply select it from the list. If that Brand Account already has an established channel, creating a new one isn’t possible. Once you choose the Brand Account, you will be directed to that channel.
- In the end, you just need to mention all the details to create your new channel. Next, hit the Create button. That’s how you will see that you’ve created a brand account.
Notable Features of YouTube Studio
After getting to know how to create a YouTube channel, you can get an idea of the key features of YouTube Studio.
- Dashboard: Users can effortlessly see their channel’s performance, notifications from their YouTube, and if there are any problems they need to resolve.
- Analytics: In the analytics section, you can see all your necessary and confidential data about your YouTube videos and channels. Furthermore, it includes perspectives, subscriber count, watch time, and predicted sales. In fact, you can use this data to enhance your content strategy.
- Content: Here, you can change the details of your YouTube videos, control monetization, and upload your content to playlists.
- Customization: Customize your channel to reflect your particular identification. Personalize the layout, branding, and key information to engage your audience effectively.
- Earn: This tab becomes essential once you qualify for the YouTube Partner Program. It enables you to oversee your revenue streams from content, including channel memberships, ads, Super Chat, or merchandise.
- Comments: Foster community connections by managing and responding to comments in this section. To enable dialogue on your channel, you may report, hide, approve, or reply to comments.
- Channel Settings: This is where you set the versatility of your channel, manage channel permissions, set upload defaults, and set up community guidelines.
3. Creating a Banner
Everyone knows how banner plays a vital role in a YouTuber’s life. By not including a graphic design section or a banner, you will grab the focus of your viewers and the target audience with no effort.
An easy-to-use graphic design application like Canva can help in creating the best banner. When you log on to their website, you’ll notice a section specifically dedicated to YouTube banners. You just need to click it. A few size restrictions must be considered when creating a banner.
- The minimum banner dimensions are 2048 x 1152 pixels.
- You are only allowed a maximum of 6MB for the file size.
- Your banner will look different when you are using a mobile device versus a desktop computer.
- To minimize the chance of elements being cropped, place any logos and important text in the middle portion of the banner, which measures 1540 x 427, referred to as the ‘safe zone.’
After finalizing your design, go to your channel and hover over the banner area. A camera icon will appear in the top right corner of the banner section. Click the icon to upload your banner.
If there are no videos uploaded yet, click on “Customize Channel” on the upper right of the page, and a preview of the channel’s homepage will be displayed. After that, tap on the Add channel art icon in the banner section, which will allow you to upload your banner.
4. Design a Channel Trailer
Nowadays, when any new user visits your page or channel, they first go to your about page. But what if they feel very confused about what your page is all about? Then, there is a high chance that you will lose your potential viewers.
The YouTube channel trailer simply states that if your video does not clarify who you are or what you will discuss in the upcoming videos, the value is invalid. Make sure you need to mention a call to action in your targeted video to gain better audience engagement.
5. Creating Your Home Recording Studio
All of us have one common desire that our home studio should look well-designed. As a result, it will help us to strengthen our brand and improve the YouTube videos. They are as follows:
- Pick your Space Wisely: Before proceeding further, you must know which space looks good for your house to design it like a home studio. You can choose any spacious room, whether it is quiet or has enough space, or is free from interruptions.
- Lighting: If you have a choice to place the seat near the window, you should do it. However, you’ll get natural lighting from the sun. Otherwise, you need to choose that area in your house where you know that the lighting is very good.
- Acoustics: If you choose an empty room, your voice will echo. This can negatively impact both users and viewers.
- Background: While shooting a video, make sure your background is clear. Otherwise, it will negatively impact, and there is a high chance that your viewers will give you poor audience engagement and bad feedback.
6. Shoot Your First YouTube Video
When you’ve reached the last stage of your query, how to start a YouTube channel, you need to be attentive. However, this section is very important for both professionals and beginners.
This is the only section where your creative mind comes into play. No matter what type of skills you have, if you are innovative and brainstorming ideas, you are just like a pro. Make sure your goal is not targeted only at uploading the video. You need to understand what your target audience is demanding. Read the section below to learn how to write an effective video script.
How to Write an Effective Video Script?
Video scripting is an essential component of starting a YouTube channel. Here, we will discuss some of the best practices.
- Introduction should be engaging: The starting time is crucial for capturing your audience’s attention. Therefore, you should begin with an engaging statement related to your video’s title.
- Structure your content: Do not write content continuously. You can simply break down the content into different sections.
- Keep it conversational: Make sure that when you are preparing the script, the content tone should be conversational. In other words, the target audience should feel like they are also communicating with us.
- Include calls to action (CTAs): Ensure you place CTAs in locations that users will remember.
Guidance for Shooting High-Quality Video
Read and get some guidance while recording premium-quality videos. However, it will be worthwhile for you.
- Make sure your microphone, camera, and lighting are set up appropriately.
- Test each audio and its script while recording the video.
- Sometimes, users are nervous because they are shooting videos for the first time, and that’s okay. They just need to stay calm and then record.
- You must follow your script while recording your video, and remember that the tone should be conversational.
- Do not be in a rush, just record the videos till you are natural. In simple terms, break down the video content and then shoot another segment.
Video Editing Strategies for Beginners
- Review and refine: Without reviewing the video, do not proceed further. It may require some refinement.
- Consider color grading: You can also opt for color grading (adjusting visual tone and colors).
- Set the tone with music: Make sure that if you are preparing the video for an informational basis, the music should be low.
- Add text and graphics: To get better audience engagement, it is highly recommended to add images and text.
- Tell a story with your edit: Arrange all the video clips in a proper way so that the flow of the story doesn’t break.
How Long Does It Take to Start a YouTube Channel?
After getting your solution on how to start a YouTube channel to make money, you may be looking for how much time it takes to launch.
- Initial Growth: Every YouTuber, whether you are a beginner or a professional, needs to focus on developing regularly engaging content. Afterwards, they aim to learn how to optimize their videos for search and promote their YouTube channel on social media.
- YouTube Monetization: If you want to earn money from your YouTube channel, you can join the YPP (YouTube Partner Program). After joining, you can effortlessly run the ads and start monetization. However, it will take your time in about 3-6 months.
- 10,000 Subscribers: Be mentally prepared. If you want to gain 10,000 subscribers, you need to work harder. As a result, this is one of the milestones, and it will help you increase the payout from your ads. In fact, you may need to wait, and sometimes it can take six months to a year or even longer.
- Viral Content: If your YouTube video goes viral, there are a high chances, you’ll gain a large audience.
- 100,000+ Subscribers: This is one of the standalone goals that requires enough patience and hard work. However, we heard that the phrase; Rome is not built in a day, it applies in this scenario. Moreover, it will take you 5-8 years to reach this milestone.
6 Common Mistakes When Starting a YouTube Channel
While getting the solution on how to start a YouTube channel, we usually forget a few things that we should not. These are as follows:
- Neglecting SEO Optimization: Sometimes, we forget to add the meta description, title, tags, and keywords. However, it can impact us and our target audience.
- Not Clarifying a Clear Niche: Having a particular niche plays a very important role in starting a YouTube channel. Without the exact niche, your target audience will be in confusion.
- Expecting Immediate Success: Setting up and running your YouTube channel are totally different things. As we heard an idiom, Rome is not built in a day, it says true because it requires your time and effort.
- Failing to Entertain with Viewers: Without getting the proper understanding of your target audience, you can not be able to entertain your viewers. However, it will lead you to stay back in the market.
- Irregular Posting Schedule: You have not decided when you have to post or not, you are just posting videos whenever you are free. It’s totally wrong. You must understand when your target audience is free and looking for your video.
- Ignoring Engaging Thumbnails: You are not adding any thumbnails in your videos. However, the thumbnail plays a crucial role in getting more engagement.
The End Verdict!
By answering your question on how to start a YouTube channel, we have finished this comprehensive guide. It’s not like we have to extract gold from a mine. It has a simple procedure to do it. You just need to understand your target audience, what they want, what their interests are, when they are available, and much more. In other words, you just need to stay active so that in the future, you just don’t miss any opportunity.
Frequently Asked Questions
Read and learn additional questions regarding how to start a YouTube channel. Now, you’ll be much clearer.
Q 1. How much will it cost to start a YouTube channel?
Ans. By starting a YouTube channel, there is no cost investment. In other words, you just need to do an absolutely free login.
Q 2. How can you pick a particular YouTube niche?
Ans. To choose the YouTube niche, you can decide the niche on the basis of your knowledge and skills. Or, you need to understand your target audience. After getting to know, you can easily decide.
Q 3. Should you need to focus on YouTube Shorts or long-form content?
Ans. You do not need to focus on one thing. However, you can simply try a mixture of both, long-form as well as short-form.