- When you're not getting views on YouTube,
it can be really frustrating, but more importantly,
really demotivating.
Now nobody is guaranteed anything on YouTube,
but there's a few reasons why your videos
that you're posting may not be getting any views.
Typically, we would tell you
that it's probably your title and thumbnail.
They're just not cutting it.
In most cases, YouTube will do the marketing for you.
If you're posting videos, you should find
that you are getting some impressions.
An impression, by the way, is when somebody simply sees
your title and your thumbnail somewhere on YouTube.
However, the more impressions you receive
that don't result in a click,
the less likely YouTube is to recommend your videos
and give them real estate on the platform.
And that's why we always tell people to invest serious time
in learning how to set up a good title
and create a good thumbnail.
What if you've done that, though?
What if you feel good about the state that your titles
and your thumbnails are in, generally speaking,
and you're just still not getting viewed?
There's an important piece to this puzzle that gets missed
far too often, and that is the topic of your video.
Have you made a video that people actually want to watch?
The easiest way to answer this question
goes back to doing some research.
Today, I'm gonna show you how I would go about
this research, doing one of my favorite things,
which is creating a hypothetical YouTube channel.
Today, I think I'm gonna challenge myself a bit.
I'm going to start a hypothetical vlog channel,
a real day in the life kind of thing.
You see channels like this all the time.
And the biggest mistake they make
is not having a channel focus, which is a fantastic way
to get zero views practically forever.
So knowing what I know, I know that
if I simply turn on the camera and go for a walk in the park
and chat with the audience about my favorite books,
sports teams, or what the weather is currently like,
it's not gonna cut it.
There's a couple of reasons for that.
For example, what would I title a video like that,
going for a walk in the park?
What would the thumbnail have to be,
just a picture of me in a park?
More importantly though, who is that video really for?
Why would anyone care about my personal hobbies
or changes to my local weather patterns?
My title isn't searchable, my thumbnail isn't clickable
and likely my topic doesn't appeal to anybody
because I haven't even done any research on it.
So what I'm gonna do is get really specific
about the type of hypothetical vlogging channel
we're gonna make as if we were actually
taking the steps to create one today.
My hope is that you can apply some of these steps
to your next video or next set of videos on your channel.
Let's put to paper some of the things
we would like to vlog about in the first place.
These should be things that we're just inherently
interested in and can speak to with some authority
on a somewhat regular basis.
Real quick though, let's create a hypothetical YouTuber.
Let's say our hypothetical YouTuber lives on their own.
They've recently graduated college
and they work at an entry level job.
They enjoy being outdoors, they are are financially savvy,
they read a lot of books, listen to a lot of podcasts,
they have a somewhat small circle of friends,
no pets at this time,
they hate winter because it's just too cold.
And of course their interest and their drive is to,
one day, quit their job altogether
and go full-time on YouTube.
You know what, I'd say
that's a pretty well-rounded individual.
Now of course, this step
looks a little bit different for you.
I had to create an entire person.
Fortunately, you likely already are a person.
So now what you need to do is sit down and just make a list
of things that you're really interested in.
So for my hypothetical vlogger, they might consider
vlogging about a number of different things.
Saving money.
This might come naturally to them
because they already live on their own.
They're fresh out of college and they're doing all of this
on an entry-level salary.
I'd say that's pretty impressive.
Things to do in wherever it is they live.
Perhaps this person lives in or nearby to a really big city.
Since they're already a bit more outgoing,
they might be able to easily think of
dozens of video ideas for this.
Books.
BookTube is a whole thing on YouTube,
and if they enjoy reading that much,
maybe their vlog channel kind of pivots in the direction
of more of a BookTube-style channel.
Or hiking, maybe they live next to some fantastic trails
and it could be a really good opportunity
to turn the camera, take people on a hike and talk about
your favorite gear or spots and things like that.
Knowing what little we know about this person,
I'd say that all of those topic ideas are fantastic
and you might be asking yourself,
"Hey, why not do a vlog about all of those things?
It is a vlog channel, after all."
Unfortunately, that kind of puts us
all the way back to square one.
We really need this channel to focus on one thing,
especially at first.
If you're gonna be making videos
about your favorite books and videos about going on hikes,
you're going to be creating two different kinds of videos,
which means you're going to appeal
to two different kinds of audiences.
They'll always be at odds with each other, too.
Remember when I talked about impressions a little while ago?
Imagine the hiking viewers seeing a BookTube video
pop up in their home feed.
Are they gonna click that, probably not.
And now YouTube sees that this video
has a lower click-through rate and therefore
gives it less real estate on the home feed.
And so if your regular viewers don't like this video,
your hiking viewers, then why should any new viewers?
And therefore YouTube is
sharing your video out with less people.
That's basically, in my opinion, at least,
how the YouTube recommendation system works.
Again, at a very basic level, but oh, okay.
You're fine with that.
You actually still want to do both types of videos
and you don't really care if people who watch
the hiking videos don't watch the BookTube videos.
You know that at least some people
like the Book-Tube videos, so it's okay.
There's a small issue with that though,
because if you do too many BookTube videos in a row
for your otherwise hiking-interested viewers,
eventually those hiking-interested viewers
may stop seeing your hiking videos altogether
because they go just way too long
without clicking on any of your content.
When people choose not to click on your channel
for that many videos in a row, YouTube may very well
suggest a different channel for them to watch altogether,
maybe hiking or just some other interest that they have.
So if you do still choose to cover
two different topics on your channel, just remember,
there is a balancing act there, and it's really easy
to get that wrong and just overall get less impressions
on all of your content.
So I see this next step as being incredibly important
because we need to pick one thing to focus on
and that can feel incredibly limiting.
So from that list of all the things we love
that we created earlier, I'm gonna choose the one idea
that I think would give our vlogger
the most potential video ideas for going forward,
and that is saving money.
Saving money is incredibly universal and important.
It also helps that this person
is living that life every single day.
In fact, they might be taking for granted
just how good they are at saving money,
because by now this is just second nature.
So we know who we are and we know what our channel focus
roughly is gonna be.
Now it's time to research,
perhaps, say, our next 10 video ideas.
As you'll see, this still will technically be
a vlogging channel by the time we're done,
which is of course the channel
we wanted to start in the first place.
For this research phase, we have to determine whether or not
we're confident that there is in fact,
a demand for this type of content on YouTube.
And that's a bit of a complicated question.
Obviously, people like saving money,
but saving money is a little bit different
depending on who you are and what your goals are.
Are your viewers saving money to go to college?
Are they trying to save to afford vacations and nice cars?
Are they saving for retirement or to buy their first house
or do they need to save because they have a lot of debt?
Now it could be a combination of those things,
but think about the wide range of circumstances
and the age differences in somebody who might be saving
to go on vacation and buy fancy cars
versus somebody who is saving to pay down a bunch of debt.
Those are two entirely different people.
Let's focus up even more, then.
We have a channel about saving money,
but we're done with college.
So saving money for college is out.
We have a job and we live alone,
but to keep costs down our place likely isn't very big.
Instead, the dream is probably to save money
for something like a house or maybe a really nice van.
Hey, maybe one day we could even start a van life channel.
Wait, should I be making (relaxed music)
a van life channel right now?
No, no, no. (record scratches)
You see how easy, you see how easy it is to lose focus?
While you're doing your research,
it might be very easy for you to topic jump
because you see something cool, like a van life channel.
Try to stay focused.
Anyway, I feel really good
about the direction we've chosen for our vlogger.
At this stage, they're probably feeling ready to hit record,
but there's one more thing they need to do first.
They need to familiarize themselves
with the creators in this space.
What types of videos are they making?
And do they look like anything we would wanna make?
So the first thing we wanna do a search for
is saving money.
The top results here are pretty encouraging.
The first result has 1.5 million views,
it's from a couple of years ago,
but the channel has 1.19 million subscribers.
And we can see that, thanks to the fancy vidIQ tools
we have installed into our browser.
By the way, those are free, links down below.
The second result on the list is "25 ways
we saved $50,000, minimalist money saving tips."
The channel size there is a little bit smaller.
There's a couple of things I love about this video
in terms of the topic concept.
One is that they set
a specific amount of money that they saved.
The second part of the title
is also really encouraging, minimalist money saving tips.
Now our vlogger doesn't necessarily
consider themselves a minimalist, but having something like
that in the title is probably really important in this case.
And let's not forget, 25 ways for saving money.
I imagine that one of those, at least one of those,
is something that anybody could apply
in their regular day-to-day lives.
My first video title idea is going to be
10 ways I saved $10,000 for my down payment.
Now, as always, that title might be workshopped
a little bit, but I'm thinking that,
paired with a thumbnail of a house, the full story is told.
I'm saving $10,000 on the down payment for my first house.
Now that's all assuming our vlogger has saved about $10,000
towards their house, but we'll let them worry about that.
Simply going for how to save for a house,
brought us some even more interesting results.
We have some step-by-step guides
with a lot of different views.
Our score is 56 out of 100, which is really not bad.
If I look at this video,
I wonder if I can do a little bit better.
The thumbnail could be a little more eye-catching,
and thanks to some background knowledge,
I think there'll be a better title for this video as well.
How about, should you buy a house with no down payment?
Now I know that's an entirely different video,
but this person is saying
that you can buy a house with a low income.
And I know that there's actually a lot
of first-time homebuyer programs out there
that let you buy a house with no down payment.
I don't know everything about home buying.
There might be states where that's a little bit different,
but this is a topic I want to research more,
so I've put it on my list.
Now earlier I said that our vlogger doesn't have any pets,
but what if one day they decide
they would like to go out and get one?
Their channel is about saving money and finances,
so they can't exactly turn on their camera and be like,
"Hey, today, I'm gonna go buy my first pet,"
when that doesn't really relate
to what their audience is subscribing for.
This is where we get back to the idea
that this is still a vlog channel.
When you find yourself in this situation where you
do something and you really do want to vlog about it,
you really do wanna record it,
but it doesn't fit in with your audience,
you need to find a way to give it
a little more context for them.
Now this won't always work, but I do think there's a case
to be made for trying to save money as a new pet owner.
Doing some different searches myself,
pet expenses brought up some pretty interesting videos.
What's the real cost of owning a pet?
Pet chinchillas, how much do they cost?
Pet insurance, what it costs,
what it covers, and how to find the best.
These are all things that relate to our topic
and could be pretty valuable to anyone out there,
maybe in their audience who are looking
to also get their first cat or dog.
So my next video is going to be adopting a cat on a budget.
That one might be a little bit of a risk,
but hey, maybe it does well in search,
and over time it brings in some new viewers.
The important thing is, it relates to our topic.
Now based on our research, our next three videos
should be super focused and I'm pretty confident
they're gonna get some views.
Like I said before,
I think you should do about 10 or more if you can.
But I started with three
because I'm not actually this person,
so it's not easy for me to think of this stuff.
My three videos are similar
to a lot of videos in this space.
They fit in perfectly with the lifestyle
of our hypothetical vlogger.
They're focused on the same topics.
When people find my videos,
they're likely to come back for more
and hopefully that eventually leads them to subscribe.
And if you feel a similar way about your 10 video ideas,
then give yourself permission to finally hit record.
And if you wanna give those 10 videos the best chance
to succeed, I highly recommend you check out
this video next, where we discuss the best ways
to show up on different areas of YouTube,
such as search and browse, enjoy.