When it comes to making an income online, YouTube can be a powerful tool.
People use YouTube to get ad revenue, market services, and sell physical and digital products.
But before YouTube can do any of that, you’ve got to get subscribers.
In this video I’m going to share the top 10 strategies we’ve used to grow our list
by more than 1000 subscribers in the past year.
Let’s get into it.
Hello creators!
I’m Ben Toalson from Podia where we empower creators like you to make a living doing what
you love.
Near the end of 2019 our channel passed 1000 subscribers and continues growing.
As of this recording we’ve added 1000 new subscribers within the past 365 days with
more than 40% of those joining within the last 90 days alone.
If you look at our daily subscriber rate over the past year, there’s a clear inflection
point where we began implementing some of the strategies I’ll share in this video.
We shared this list of 10 strategies and got some great feedback from YouTube creators
like Charli Marie, Sean McCabe, Nick Nimmin, Roberto Blake, and our very own Matt Ragland,
all of whom have more than 10,000 or even 100,000 subscribers.
I’ll take these in order from effective to very effective.
Because these are all great things to focus on for growth.
Here we go.
Number 10: Use keywords and phrases YouTube is not just a fun place to watch videos,
but it’s a powerful search engine people use every day to find the answers to life’s
many questions like “How to tie a tie” “How often should I wash my hair?”
“When is the best time to work out?”
“How do you sleep sam smith.”
YouTube does a lot of work behind the scenes answering these questions with the most relevant
content they can find, but one of the ways you can help YouTube find your content is
by using keywords and phrases.
This means making sure the title, tags, description, and especially the content of your video all
point to the specific query you’re trying to rank for.
For example, let’s say you’re trying to rank for “Best way to cook bacon”
Your title should include some form of that phrase “Best way to cook perfect bacon”
“Best way to cook bacon without the mess”
Your description should also include your title.
You might start out with something like, “Are you achin’ for some bacon?
I’ll show you the best way to cook perfect bacon in 4 easy steps.”
Your tags should include that phrase, plus other variations “Best way to cook bacon”
“Bacon cooking tutorial” “Bacon tips”
And you should most definitely use that phrase in the content of your video.
Be sure not to spam.
Nobody likes spam, especially not YouTube.
Also don’t eat spam.
Eat bacon instead.
Number 9: Optimize your channel Within the past 90 days more than 25% of our
subscribers came from our channel page.
Your channel page is a huge opportunity to gain new subscribers because it’s often
one of the first places new viewers will go when they’re curious about your videos.
To increase your channel’s ability to convert, focus on these four things:
Artwork - Make sure your channel artwork communicates both visually and with text what kind of videos
you post and who they are for.
For the text, you want to think of it like a tagline or slogan.
Not too much, but enough to be clear and memorable.
Trailer - Make a video with new visitors in mind.
This is an opportunity to communicate more comprehensively what kind of videos you post
and who they are for.
Structure - You can actually add sections that include playlists, most popular uploads,
and more.
This is a great way to showcase some of your best videos and convince visitors to subscribe.
Description and keywords - Most people won’t read your description, but it’s a good opportunity
to help YouTube understand what your channel is all about and who they should recommend
your content to.
Number 8: Engage with comments When someone takes the time to actually watch
your video, that’s a big deal.
But when someone takes the time to leave a thoughtful comment, that’s HUGE!
I want to shift your thinking from just getting 1000 subscribers to getting 1000 of the best
subscribers: subscribers who like, comment, and share, and engage with your videos.
One of the best ways to “grow” amazing subscribers is to interact with each and every
comment.
Your goal is to make it obvious to anyone who looks at your comments section that if
they leave a comment, you will see it and respond.
And go beyond just saying “thanks.”
Try to ask questions and start a dialogue.
This is a great way to come up with new video topics that resonate with people in your audience.
It takes time, but it’s the best way to grow an engaged subscriber base, one person,
one conversation, on fan at a time.
Number 7: Ask for action Some people will be so excited about your
videos that they’ll just subscribe unprompted, but most people need a little nudge.
I now subscribe to a channel that talks about special effects in movies, but it took watching
several of their videos and hearing “You should subscribe” over and over before I
was finally like, "I should subscribe."
Maybe you feel weird about asking someone to subscribe, but if you believe your content
would provide value for the right person, it’s kinda your responsibility to help the
right person take action by making it clear what you want them to do.
Ask people to subscribe in every video.
This doesn’t mean you’re trying to get every person who watches your video to subscribe,
but that you’re making it as clear as possible for the right people that you want them to
subscribe.
Number 6: Improve your audio You’ll notice that this is the only mention
of anything related to the actual quality of your videos.
That’s because in most cases bad audio quality is much more distracting than bad video quality.
And even though the technology we use to capture audio and video has become much better and
more accessible, audio still lags a bit behind video.
If you want an in-depth look at how to improve your audio, you can check out this video,
but here I’ll give you a few quick pointers.
Get an external audio source.
You can find an inexpensive microphone that’s compatible with just about any type of video
camera out there.
Most of the time, an external audio source is going to be a huge improvement on your
audio quality.
Make sure you’re in a good recording environment.
Limit external noises and room echo as much as possible.
Speak clearly and project.
You don’t need to shout, but speak as if you’re giving a presentation.
This will ensure the microphone is getting a nice, clean recording of your voice.
Number 5: Narrow your focus Imagine you’re trying to start a fitness
business and you’re looking for video content to help you with that process.
You come across two channels.
The first is a channel that shares tips and information about starting any kind of business.
The second is a channel that shares tips and information specifically about starting a
fitness business.
Which one are you more likely to subscribe to?
Most people would choose the second one because they assume the information is more relevant
to the questions they have.
Look for ways to hone in on a more specific group of people.
You could narrow down by industry, like wedding calligraphers, or javascript coders, or you
could narrow down by demographic, dads who work from home, college students who love
speed-walking, cat owners.
The more specific you get, the easier it is for someone to decide your content is for
them.
Number 4: Upload frequently and consistently One of the biggest factors in our channel’s
growth was starting to upload more frequently and consistently.
This is not only attractive to people who visit your channel, but it’s one of the
signals YouTube uses to determine whether or not to recommend your content.
When I say frequently, I mean at least once per week.
Most people live their lives in weekly cycles, so when they find a channel that fits into
that cycle they’re more inclined to subscribe.
It’s even more powerful if you can do multiple times per week or even daily.
When I say consistently, I mean try to publish your videos on the same day and at the same
time, each time you upload.
It’s okay to play around with this a bit at first so you can find a day and time when
people seem most responsive, but being consistent unlocks the power of expectation.
It’s a way to train people to look for your content at a specific time in their week.
Number 3: Be REAL REAL is an acronym for how you deliver content
on video.
Relevant, engaging, authentic, and loquacious.
I’m just kidding about that last one…
I was just trying to make the acronym spell REAL.
I mean, if you’re talking on camera a lot you’re going to have to be somewhat loquacious,
right?
If I take out the L it could still be ear.
Be EAR.
Okay, enough of that.
Be engaging.
Video has a tendency to make people seem less energetic and engaging than they actually
are.
That’s because in person we have the benefit of being physically present which automatically
makes you seem more dynamic.
This doesn’t mean you have do be someone you’re not, but you should find ways to
be purposefully more engaging so you can keep the attention of your viewer.
Be authentic.
People are really good at detecting when someone is putting on a persona that doesn’t really
fit them.
Have you ever watched the Hallmark channel?
While fakeness tends to repel people, authenticity is attractive.
Don’t check your personality, your sense of humor, your style of communication at the
door.
Bring that stuff along.
Be relevant.
Relevant speaks to the type of content you share.
This is similar to the point about narrowing your focus.
If you promise content around a specific topic, make sure you deliver on that promise.
It’s okay to bring in other topics and ideas, as long as they’re related and relevant
to real questions your audience is asking.
Number 2: Design compelling titles and thumbnails You can’t judge a book by it’s cover.
We all do because our time is precious and before we spend it reading a book, we want
some kind of signal that the book will be worth it.
The same goes for videos.
YouTube gives you two major opportunities to convince someone to watch your video.
The title and the thumbnail.
This is why it’s so close to the top of the list.
You can’t get subscribers if someone doesn’t click on one of your videos in the first place.
Give them a reason to click by designing titles and thumbnails that are so compelling that
they just have to click.
What makes them compelling?
A compelling title may contain some or all of these elements:
- The promise of an answer to a specific question.
- Promises of speed or efficiency like “fastest” or “instantly” or “best.”
- Numbers or some other kind of structure like “10 steps” or “checklist.”
- Distinguishing words and phrases like “this actually works” or “proven method.”
A compelling thumbnail will contain some of the same elements of the title, but should
a be more condensed version.
Other features could include the following:
- Big, easy to read text.
- Vibrant background or image.
- A color scheme that differs from other videos that show up for the same query.
- Your face expressing some kind of big emotion.
Just remember this:Your only goal with the title and the thumbnail is to get the click.
But Ben, I don’t want to seem click-baity or anything.
That brings us to number 1.
Make content people are actually looking for The most effective way to make content that
people will not only click on and watch, but choose to subscribe to, is to make content
that real people are already looking for.
If you were stranded in a desert and thirsty, and there was a stream nearby, you wouldn’t
waste your time trying to dig your own hole hoping that it would magically fill with water.
You’d go to the stream.
In the same way, you don't want to just make content that you like, hoping that an audience
will grow around it.
You have to go where there's already an audience and make content for them.
Services like tube buddy and vid iq are really helpful in determining what kind of search
volume you can expect from a specific word or phrase.
Searching your keyword in online forums or even in the comments section of another creator’s
video is another great way to find real questions that you can answer with your content.
One of the simplest things you can do is to go to the YouTube search bar itself and play
around with different keywords and questions.
YouTube will auto-fill or suggest some of the most popular queries it receives on a
given topic or keyword.
You can even look at videos from other creators in your industry to get clues about what works
and what doesn’t.
Bottom line, find out what people want to know about your topic and give it to them.
And that’s everything.
It’s not easy, but if you challenge yourself and do the things on this list, you could
be well on your way to seeing your first 1000 subscribers.
If you’ve already gotten your first 1000 subscribers, how did you get there?
If not, what is something on this list that you plan to implement?
Let me know in the comments.
If you found this video helpful and you want more content like this, subscribe and hit
the notification bell so you’ll be sure not to miss anything.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you next time.