Sunny Lenarduzzi: I see you working hard on your thumbnails, and doing everything possible
to stand out on YouTube, and I'm going to help you. Okay? I totally get that. There
is a sea of content out there on YouTube, and it's really hard to feel like you can
even break it, or stand out, or rise to the top. There are people every single day just
starting on this platform who are killing it. So what is the difference? Well, there's
a couple of factors to really making your videos stand out on YouTube, and your channel
as a whole stand out on YouTube. We're going to focus on a few of those things today that
are going to help you stand out from the crowd, and rise to the top of the ranks.
The first thing is through thumbnails. Before anybody even can click on your video, and
see how amazing you are and your content is, they have to see your thumbnail, and actually
be attracted to click on it. You might have noticed in this video, on my thumbnail, it
was just this really bright background that might've drawn your eye in. I'd actually love
to know in the comments if that was a factor to you clicking on this video. You might notice
that some YouTubers do use a green screen, which was what I'm using right now, to create
that really bright backdrop behind them, which does attract a lot of viewers. But my caveat
to this is, if I was just starting out on my channel, and I was just starting out creating
videos, I would still stick to having text in my thumbnails, which I did for a very long
time.
I've seen a lot of your comments saying, "What happened to the text on your thumbnails? Why
did you just go to pictures?" Truthfully, I do tests on my content across platforms
all the time, and I don't have quite enough data yet to tell you whether text versus photos
works best. But I do know as a new channel, text is the way to go. My old style of thumbnails,
which is no more than four words on your thumbnails, with a close-up image of your face in reaction
to whatever the video is about, is the best way to go.
For example, in this video, if I were to create a thumbnail for it with text, if I was just
starting my channel, and I really wanted this video to stand out, I would have it say, "MAKE
VIDEOS STAND OUT". That'd be the only text, in big bold letters, because keep in mind
your video's teeny tiny when people see it in search results or in "Suggested", so that
text has to be big enough for anybody, your 80-year-old grandma, to be able to read. So
you have to make sure that it's big, bold text. Your thumbnails are vitally important.
The things that you can do to differentiate your thumbnails so you stand out from the
other videos, and you're the one that people want to click on, is bright, colorful backdrops,
big bold text. No more than four words. Your face up close so people can actually see your
eyes and your facial expression, and having some sort of reaction to the video that you're
talking about, the content in your video so that people are even more engaged, and see
your facial expression, and they want to click to find out what the heck is in that video.
Step #2 is brand editing. Making sure that your videos are aligned across the board,
and that people know it's your video without even knowing it's your video. There's a lot
of great examples of creators out there who have a very specific style of editing. They
do their intros in the same way. They do their graphics in the same way. They do their music,
their text, their sound effects, all in the same way. Those are all elements that you
want to consider. The easiest way to start doing this, even if you're editing your videos
yourself at this point, or you're using something like iMovie, just use the same color and font
for your text throughout your videos.
That's going to give you a little bit of a brand to kick things off, and keep that consistency
with your audience. It also helps you stand out because your colors are probably not going
to be the same as a lot of other people out there. Use that to your advantage. Creating
some sort of a style and brand around the editing you do in your videos is going to
help you stand out on YouTube, and make people really familiar with your style of content
so they want to keep coming back, and keep watching.
If you have a favorite editor or style of editing on YouTube, I'd love for you to comment
below with whoever that person is so we can all learn from that channel, and check it
out. The third thing is your description style. You might not think that this matters, but
it really does matter. I'm actually going to do a quick screen cast to show you what
I'm talking about, and setting up your description in a similar way every time, so that people
get used to it, and they know that it's your style on your video. It makes them more apt
to click on your video, and actually watch it.
If you're on my channel, you'll notice my description style pretty quickly. What I do
in my description style is I always reiterate the title at the very beginning. I always
reiterate the title in bold so you know exactly what you're getting. Then I always try to
lead in with some sort of a strong hook, so "How to Make It As A Beginner On YouTube",
"Are You Just Getting Started On YouTube?", and that leads people into the rest of the
information that they'll need.
But this is prime because most people who are searching for this topic are just getting
started on YouTube so I want to hook them in that way. You'll notice that when you look
on the search results, you'll see, "How To Make It As A Beginner on YouTube", matches
exactly what people are looking for so they go, "Okay. That's probably the one that I
want to click on." But I keep the description style the exact same on all my videos because
every little bit of consistency that you can add into your videos is going to help you
outperform other people in your niche.
Step #4 to making your video stand out on YouTube is actually getting off of YouTube,
and leveraging all of your other platforms to share your video in a really unique way
that is unique to your style, your brand, and the vibe that you want to be putting out
there. I'm again going to do a little screen cast of a few examples of how we share our
videos across social platforms so that we're able to grab our audience's attention everywhere,
and push them towards our YouTube video to give us more engagement, and more traffic,
particularly in the first 24 to 48 hours of publishing, which gives us a higher ranking,
and boosts the video in the algorithm. So let's take a look at how we do that.
This is how we share our videos across social to make sure that they cut through the clutter.
I really like to make sure that we're sharing things that actually pop on the platforms
we're using. So if we're on Twitter, we know that images and videos really stand out. You
can see here that we pin any of my new videos to the very top as the newest Tweet, and we
use the thumbnail to really grab people's attention, and then put the link in the actual
Tweet. We use that same style every single week for every single video. Then on Instagram,
again, you want to play to the platform so we use these text images, or we use a really
strong thumbnail image of myself. Then I do a long-form caption post because that's what
people want to see on my Instagram profile, and based on the data, what works the best.
You can see here that we had almost 1,700 "Likes" on this photo, and tons and tons of
comments. The call to action here is to go check out the YouTube video. The link is in
my bio so I'm always sending people there. But again, we're playing to the strengths
of the platform, and that's the important part when it comes to sharing out your YouTube
video. You want to make sure you're paying attention to how the platform operates, and
what kind of content stands out the best. Again, on a platform like Facebook, sometimes
I'll go live because I know that live streams garner the most attention, and I'll put a
link to my YouTube video in the comments. So play to the strengths of the platform,
and that's the best way to share out your video to get the most eyeballs and traffic
sent directly to YouTube.
Finally, Step #5 to making your video stand out on YouTube is a secret little ninja trick
that I like to call "Filling the Holes". It may feel like this is super overwhelming,
and there's so many people to compete with, but there's actually a lot of little gaps
that you can fill with your videos that nobody else has seen as an opportunity yet. Oftentimes
new YouTubers, or even seasoned YouTubers, are going after these big huge titles that
have a ton of search volume, and all these people wanting to see them. That's really
hard to compete for. But did you know there's also titles related to those big topics that
have maybe a little less search volume, but they don't have anybody making videos around
them so you're automatically going to rank number one for that topic? I'm going to show
you exactly what I mean. We call them "gateway videos" in this quick screen cast as well.
Okay. This is super interesting for me, and I love looking at things like gateway videos
because these are hidden gold mines and really big opportunities really no matter how big
or small your channel may be. What I mean by this is basically you look up any sort
of topic that's related to your niche. I've chosen niches that I know nothing about, but
I just wanted to demonstrate the point. Say I look up "How to bake a cake", and I have
a baking channel. You know that this term is extremely competitive. Yes, there's a ton
of people searching for it on a monthly basis but it's very, very competitive. Our TubeBuddy
score over here is not good so it'd be really difficult for your video to get found because
it's bad to target because it's extremely competitive. How do you find a gateway video
in here?
Well, basically I'll scroll down, and I look at the amount of subscribers in comparison
to the number of views. This is pretty interesting to me because both of these channels, they
don't necessarily have a massive amount of subscribers but they have a huge amount of
views. What I'm going to do is click on this channel right here. Open up the channel, and
I'm going to go to "Videos". I'm going to sort by "Most Popular", and you'll see that
that video is the most popular video on this channel by a big long shot. The reason being
is this is a gateway video because yes it's, "How to bake a cake", but there's other information
here in the title, "How To Bake A Cake|HOW TO MAKE A CAKE|Spongecake Recipe". So it's
specific to sponge cakes.
This video has gotten a ton of views and velocity regardless of the subscriber base, which tells
you that this is a possible gateway for you to create a video on the same topic in this
industry, and have really good results. Let's also illustrate this point with another channel
and another topic, which is "How To Get Clear Skin". Super, super competitive. Says "FAIR"
over here, but again, anything in the red on the score is probably not going to be the
best for you. "How To Get Clear Skin", you're competing with channels with huge amounts
of subscribers. But very interesting, change the title a little bit, and still ranking,
"Proud To Get Clear Skin" with only 41,000 subscribers, that's still a good amount, but
41,000 subscribers in amongst almost half a million, over half a million, over 200,000
subscribers.
So ranking it amongst competitive channels because she's used a different take on this
search term. So with less subscribers, she's still ranking in the third spot up here. It's
basically taking these big, broad topics, and looking for channels who've been able
to break through in amongst all these huge channels with a bit of a spin on the topic.
So instead of "How To Get Clear Skin", "Affordable Skincare Routine". So this is a gateway video,
and you could perhaps take this, and take your own spin on it, and again also see success
within this search term. Those are gateway videos and how you find them.
Those are the five magic steps to help you stand out on YouTube, and get your videos
clicked. That's what we really want. We want people to see that you're amazing at what
you do. You're value driven. You're educating. You're entertaining. You're inspiring people
with your content. But you've got to get people to click first. These are all the steps to
get people to do that, and to make you stand out on this platform. I promise you, no matter
where you are in your journey, it is possible, and it will happen.
I want to say "thank you" to our Boss Club members, and give one particular member a
special shoutout. I love this name. 50somethingoriginal says, "Congrats Sunny. Your content is always
helpful. I needed to hear about changing it up until I find what resonates with the viewers.
I just recently gained more subscribers, (not a lot compared to others but significant to
me)," that's awesome, "on a style that I tried in the last two videos, so I think I will
focus on that method."
Switching it up, and testing your content is such a big piece of growing. If you want
to get a shoutout in one of my videos, make sure you comment below with the #bossclub
and your best takeaway from this video. I can't wait to see what you think. If you haven't
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