What if you're starting a new YouTube channel in 2020, how would you hit your first 100
subscribers fast? In this video, I'm going to give you 10 tips if was I starting a YouTube
channel from scratch. Hi, my name is Herman Drost. If you want to grow your audience on
YouTube and generate traffic leads and sales on autopilot, hit the subscribe button and
click the bell notification icon so you get notified whenever I upload new videos.
Number one, narrow your niche. If you choose a very broad niche, it'll be hard to appeal
to everybody. It's best to narrow down your niche so you can appeal to a very select group.
For example, if you pick the broad niche like how to train puppies, it'd be better to niche
down into how train puppies for a specific breed of dog. It would be easier to rank for
a specific keyword phrases and yet attract more traffic to your channel. Number two,
plan a video series. Instead of creating a solo video, think 10 videos ahead.
Choose a topic based on a particular theme then go deeper into the topic. For example,
recently I did a series on YouTube playlist. I talked about how to create and manage playlists.
I talked about how to rank YouTube playlists. I talked about how to save videos to a private
playlist and how to use playlists to get more traffic. When you create a video series, you
encourage viewers to watch more than one video. The whole purpose of creating a video series
is to give more content of what people want to watch. To do this, you have to create a
content calendar so you can plan out your video ideas in advance. Number three, choose
the correct keywords. Keyword research is a foundation for getting your videos ranked
in the search engines. If you choose the correct keywords, you can easily rank your YouTube
videos and attract a lot of traffic. If you're a small channel, choose less competitive
keyword phrases because they're easier to rank for. For example, instead of choosing
a keyword phrase like how to train puppies, I choose a keyword phrase like how to train
puppies not to bite. If you install the Chrome extension Keywords Everywhere, it'll show
you the search volume for the keyword phrases you enter into the YouTube search bar. Shoot
for keyword phrases that get between a hundred or a thousand searches per month.
Another tool that speeds up keyword research is TubeBuddy. It gives you the keyword score,
the search volume and related phrases to rank for. I'll place a link to TubeBuddy and Keywords
Everywhere in the description below this video. While doing your keyword research, check out
your competition on YouTube. If there's hardly any videos ranking for those particular keyword
phrases, you've got a winner. Number four, brand your channel.
This includes your channel banner and your thumbnails. The purpose of branding your channel
is to make it easy for viewers to recognize your brand across the internet. When they
see your thumbnail on search engines, they'll easily recognize that that belongs to your
channel. Another thing to consider is that many people subscribe when they visit your
YouTube channel homepage. If you want to create a beautiful channel banner, add a channel
trailer and put playlists in the sections on your channel homepage.
When people first visit your channel homepage, they can immediately take a deeper dive into
your content. Number five, create short and engaging videos. When you first start a YouTube
channel, you have no audience so you want to attract new subscribers. To do this, you
want to create short and engaging videos. First, you have to create an attractive thumbnail
that stands out in the search engines. Secondly, you got to come up with a great title that
reinforces your thumbnail. A great thumbnail and a great title will cause
viewers to click on your video because viewers have a short attention span, keep your video
short to two to five minutes. You can keep 50% of your audience all the way through your
video, your video will do well on the search engines. Number six, track the performance
of your videos. The three metrics to keep an eye on is audience retention, click-through
rate, and average percentage viewed. The click-through rate is how many people
saw your thumbnail and clicked on your video to watch it. The average click-through rate
is between two and 4% so if you get 4% you're doing really well. Audience retention is how
long people are staying watching your video. Try to aim for audience retention of 50%.
If you get higher than that you're really doing well and YouTube will promote your videos.
Average percentage viewed is the percent of each video the average viewer watched. Try
to get an APV score of 50% or over. Number seven, makes more tweaks. Try to improve one
thing in every new video you upload. As I mentioned previously, you want to improve
your audience retention, click-through rate and average percentage viewed. For example,
if you want to improve your click-through rate, you want to improve the design of your
thumbnails. If you want to improve your audience retention,
you going to improve the engagement throughout your video. Small tweaks can make a big difference
to the growth of your channel. Number eight, have a consistent upload schedule. If you
want to get your first 100 subscribers fast, you've got to upload on a consistent basis.
For example, you might upload once a week at the beginning, then increase it to two
times a week later on. Just try to upload on a consistent schedule
so viewers know when to expect new content for the channel. Keep in mind that practice
makes perfect so your first few videos are not going to be perfect. Also, don't compare
yourself with the competitors who have been doing it for a long time because you only
get depressed. Instead, focus on being the best you can be and create videos that your
audience wants to watch. Number nine, repurpose your video content.
After you finished optimizing and publishing video, your work has just begun. Share your
video on social media sites by repurposing your video content. For example, upload the
same video to IGTV, you can post a graphic or a square video to Instagram. You can upload
a native square video to Facebook. Transcribe your video and add your transcript to a blog
post with your embedded video. If you have an email list, notify your subscribers
about your new video. Make sure you're also engaged with the viewers by replying to them
in the comments. Number 10, double down on what works. When you notice a video topic
attracts a lot of views and subscribers, create more of those types of videos. You can approach
a topic from a different angle. You can do more keyword research to find alternative
keyword phrases to rank for. Here's a bonus tip.
Use the features on YouTube to get people to subscribe to your channel. Add a subscribe
watermark to all the videos on your channel. Click the link in the card to find out how
to create a subscribe watermark. Add a subscribe button in your end screen. Ask viewers to
subscribe in your video and give them a strong reason why they should subscribe. Put a subscribe
link to the top your comments. Add a subscribe link in the description. Add a subscribe link
on your about page. Add a channel trailer because YouTube automatically
adds a red subscribe button at the end of your channel trailer. You can also add a subscribe
link on your website, social media sites and in your email. Let me ask you a question,
what is the one thing that has caused the most rapid growth for your YouTube channel.
Put your answer in the comments below, I'd love to read them and I'm sure it'll help
others too. Do you want to grow a YouTube channel fast
in 2020 and beyond? If that's a yes, watch the next video on how to grow your YouTube
channel fast. Thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next video.