- I've got a question for you to kick this one off.
What's your number one YouTube resolution in 2019?
Let us know in the comments below
and in the meantime,
we've got 10 simple practical resolutions
to help grow your channel.
Let's do this.
- [Narrator] VidIQ.
- [Narrator] Vidiq.com.
- Get that channel banner sorted.
This is the advertising billboard for your channel.
It should tell people what you do on your channel and why.
It should visually communicate that message
and represent authority and passion
and it should be consistent with the branding, color
and design of your thumbnails.
Oh and make sure it's mobile friendly too
as the sides do get chopped off.
In the About section, write a channel description
as if you were writing a tweet of 140 characters.
This is what people will be able to read
when they search and find your channel.
You can apply the same strategy to video descriptions too.
Your audience can always read the first couple of lines,
so make them count.
Let's be honest, when people first visit a channel,
they don't care about you,
they wanna know what's in it for them, me, me, me.
Nobody cares about me on vidIQ, do they?
That's a little upsetting that actually.
So, make sure the channel description
is about your channel can do for your audience.
Don't write a self-indulgent biography.
A simple way to check this
is to search how many times you or your appears
in the About section.
Hello everyone, by the way, my name is Rob.
Welcome to vidIQ.
If this is your first time
in these glorious YouTube surroundings,
we are the tooling channel
that aims to help you get more views in less time
by educating you on your YouTube journey.
We have a Chrome extension
that will help you do just that
by researching YouTube, analyzing videos,
auditing your own channel
and taking actionable steps.
It is free to download
and there is a link in the video description.
Be consistent.
Call it your channel style and apply it
to absolutely everything,
whether it's the fonts,
colors, logos, brand images,
use them throughout your channel art,
thumbnails, video intros
and even the lower thirds, just like this one.
Think of your channel as your front room
or your place of business
and you're inviting in a guests or a customer.
Make it as welcoming as possible.
Have a dedicated channel trailer
or use a video that is good at converting viewers
into subscribers as your channel trailer.
Create a playlist that shows off your best content
and use it to introduce your audience
to your channel and also,
put the most recent uploads playlists near the top
so people know your channel is still active
and posting on a, remember, that word, consistent basis.
Got another question for you know.
Of the resolutions that you've seen so far,
which do you need to work on first and fast?
Let us know, of course, in the comments below.
The reason we're asking you this now
is because we're about midway through the video
and we're neatly segwaying into our next topic
which is to engage your audience as much as possible.
One of the mistakes many video creators make
is to ask questions at the end of a video
and by that time you've lost a significant portion
of your audience.
Just take a look at your audience retention
to find that out.
By asking them something at the beginning,
the middle and the end of a video,
maybe having a voting poll as well,
really does help keep your audience engaged
along with the content.
Now then, this thing down here
is your branding watermark
and it's a call to action for viewers
to subscribe to your channel.
In order for it to achieve its objective,
it should say exactly what it does.
Instead of using your channel logo,
have something that invites viewers
to subscribe to your channel.
We use this very simple subscribe button
and once we switch to this,
our click rate on this button increased more
than 500% instantly.
We've included this graphic as a download
in the video description
but for more information on how to create your own
and set it up on YouTube,
watch the video you can see on screen now.
And did you notice what we did there?
We referenced our own related content
to encourage the audience to stick around
in the vidIQ YouTube universe.
Always plug your own content
and directly reference it on screen.
The most stupidly over enthusiastic, the better.
You work is not finished when you press the Publish button.
Respond to every single comment.
If you get too many comments,
dedicate an hour a day to it.
If your audience is taking the time to write to you,
you should respect their time and energy by replaying back.
You could even pin the best comments to your videos
or pin your own comments
to continue the conversation in the comment section.
This is where connections begin
which could evolve into collaborations,
brand deals, friendships and more.
Oh and don't forget to use the YouTube Community tab.
It's available to all channels with over 1,000 subscribers
and you will often find that a well-crafted question
or voting poll gets as much engagement,
if not more than your videos.
For more information on how to use it,
we've got some handy videos right here.
This is a challenge I want you try and tackle
for your next video.
It sounds really easy
but believe you me when you're programmed
to say it every single video,
you just can't help yourself.
Do not say at the end of your video
trigger phrases such as that's it for this one,
hope you enjoyed this video, thanks for watching.
As soon as you say things like that,
the audience knows that the content
has effectively finished and they leave the video in droves.
If you want to check your audience retention,
it likely drops off a cliff as you say something like that.
Instead, promote related content
such as this awesome stuff over here
or just do a hard finish. (clapping)