Start a YouTube channel

Only 9% of small businesses have bothered to launch their own channels, despite the fact that YouTube users watch more than a billion (yes, with a B) hours of videos there every day. The possibility is growing for companies eager to enter as YouTube usage keeps rising.

In this article, we’ll explain how to set up a YouTube channel for your company and how to make engaging videos that will both engage your present audience and draw in new ones. We’ll also go through the best methods for creating a profitable YouTube channel.

It’s not as difficult as it may seem to start a YouTube page. Making YouTube videos does not require expensive video equipment or a lot of experience. Create your channel using these 12 steps today to start expanding your business.

Start a YouTube Channel in 12 Steps

1. Create a YouTube Channel
2. Design your Channel Art
3. Fill out your profile
4. Plan your content
5. Create a channel trailer
6. Upload your first YouTube video
7. Optimise your videos for search
8. Upload new videos consistently
9. Promote your YouTube channel
10. Engage with your community
11. Run YouTube ads
12. Analyse your results

1. Create a YouTube account

You must be signed in to the Google account you intend to use to manage the channel before you can create a Youtube account for your business channel.

Since you may add more than one manager using their own Google logins—no more sharing the password information to your personal email—using a brand account to operate your channel rather than a personal channel can help you scale more simply down the road.

Here’s a quick overview of the steps for setting up a new account for your business’ YouTube channel.

1. Visit YouTube while you’re logged in to the Google account you want to use to manage your account and head to the YouTube Channel Switcher.

2. Here you should see your personal account, any brand accounts you currently manage, and the option to create a new channel.

3. You will be directed to a site where you may create a new brand account when you click “Create a new channel.” Click “Create” after selecting a channel name for your new account. Additionally, you can add a profile picture here, such as the logo for your company.

4. Congratulations! You’re now the proud owner of a YouTube page for your business.

2. Create your channel art

Now that you know how to set up a YouTube account for your company, let’s spend some time making it appear just stunning.

Here are some quick actions you can take to make your channel appear more professional and let your clients know where they can find you online.

Channel icon

Your channel icon will be connected to your business account’s profile picture when you create a channel from scratch. YouTube will tell you to upgrade your account to make changes.

It is advised that your image be an 800 × 800 pixel JPG, BMP, PNG, or non-animated GIF. For the various ways YouTube will utilise your channel icon, you should also make sure it appears effectively at lesser sizes and in both a square and a circle cut.

Channel art

A more visually appealing YouTube profile may be made by adding channel art, which is a terrific way to showcase the individuality of your company. A minimum of 2048 x 1152 pixels and under 4 MB are required for your channel art, while YouTube suggests 2560 x 1440 for the best performance across all devices.

? Tip: Taler is a free tool from Shopify that can help you create a Youtube channel banner.

Each image you load into YouTube will offer you a sample of how it will look across various devices. The crop of your photograph can also be changed.

3. Fill out your profile

You must click the gear icon in the space below your channel art to access all of the customization options for your channel.

The “Channel settings” pop-up will then show up. Find the option that says “Customise the layout of your channel” and turn it on. Press Save. Your options will now be divided into five tabs, including Home, Videos, Playlists, Channels, and About.

Head over to the About tab to edit your store’s details.

Give a succinct description of your business, its goals, and its products under “Description.” To make sure that people can find you when they search YouTube, keep any important keywords for your business in mind and include them in your channel description.

Include your email address as a contact as well. Additionally, as these links can be configured to appear above your channel art and will be very visible to your viewers, you should also include connections to your social network profiles and online store.

Make the most of those 30 characters by using them as 100% Pure has done with its “Shop Now” call to action. The majority of your links will only display the favicon by default (the tiny image that appears at the top of your browser), but the first link in the lineup will also display the link title.

On the top right hand side, you’ll find a section titled “Featured Channels” where you can feature other YouTube channels that are owned by your brand or managed by your employees.

4. Plan your content

Now that your channel is ready to go, it’s time to start thinking about your videos.

Your content marketing approach may need to include video in some capacity. It’s a great opportunity to give your consumers excellent, educational, and amusing content that will keep them coming back again and time again.

Additionally, YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world, making it a perfect place to meet new clients who are searching for what you have to offer if you optimize your videos to be found in search. Although video quality is critical, considering your target audience is equally crucial.

Often times you can come up with a dozen or so YouTube channel ideas by having a quick brainstorm with your team.

Here are some of the different types videos you can use to create content.

Educational content

People are using YouTube more and more to learn new topics. In fact, over the past 10 years, searches for how-to videos have increased by 140%, which indicates that businesses now have more opportunities to attract new customers by creating educational content about their products.

Building trust with your audience and moving them farther down the conversion funnel are two benefits of using videos that demonstrate new talents. Recently, Retro Supply Co. provided me with a good illustration.

It offers a variety of vintage Photoshop and Illustrator effects, including brushes, fonts, and other elements. Reto Supply’s YouTube channel focuses on instructing users on how to utilise Photoshop and Illustrator more efficiently. This can take the form of a step-by-step tutorial that uses Retro Supply’s brushes or it can involve teaching keyboard shortcuts that are useful for everyone, regardless of whether they use Retro Supply’s products.

Another excellent example is Snowboard Addiction, a YouTube channel that has amassed over 140,000 subscribers by instructing users on how to improve their snowboarding abilities.

In addition to improving snowboarders’ skill levels, the how-to films draw new viewers to Snowboard Addiction through YouTube search.

There isn’t a finer illustration of alignment with its products anywhere. Thanks to Snowboard Addiction’s video content marketing on YouTube, there is a natural evolution from curious viewer to satisfied customer since it sells training items and films to help you improve your snowboarding talents.

Brand storytelling

Great storytelling is one of the most successful methods for producing engaging video content. Motivating videos that complement your company’s image are good for spreading your brand’s image and ideals to a larger audience.

These aspirational movies ought to be focused on creating a lifestyle around your brand and demonstrating to clients that they aren’t simply purchasing a product; they are also purchasing an experience.

With a broad library of YouTube material, GoPro has emerged as a market leader by creating an identity of exploration, adventure, and adrenaline around their line of action cameras.

Its videos demonstrate the various ways GoPro users can utilise its devices to live up to the brand’s tagline, “Be a hero,” including helicopter skydiving and a firefighter rescue a kitten. The popularity of “Unboxing” videos has increased as well. The purpose of this is to open your packages and go over each item. When your top supporters and clients review your products on their channels, this also produces some fantastic user-generated content.

Entertainment

One of the best methods to grab viewers’ attention and direct them toward your products is to base your YouTube strategy around entertaining films that appeal to the interests of your audience. Comedy videos are particularly effective in increasing both sales and smiles.

With its captivating, highly targeted content, Vat19, an online gift shop that specialized in quirky things, has created an astonishing online empire. In order to introduce new products to its audience, it concentrates on creating absurdist comedic sketches around a wide range of novelty gifts. It currently has more over two million YouTube followers, proving that this strategy is effective.

In one of Vat19’s most well-liked videos, a five-pound gummy bear is obliterated through a series of absurd experiments. The CTA at the conclusion urging viewers to purchase the gummy bear is made all the more tempting because the film looks and feels much more like a late-night comedy show than a conventional video advertisement.

Although not everyone will enjoy Vat19’s comedy, its films unquestionably work. Over 25 million people have viewed its gummy bear film. The strategy used by Vat19 effectively demonstrates what it takes to generate interest (and new customers) on YouTube through entertaining and distinctive sorts of content.

5. Create a channel trailer for new page visitors

Design important to make an engaging channel trailer when starting a new YouTube channel. Similar to a movie trailer is a channel trailer. It’s intended to give viewers a sneak peek at what your channel has to offer.

After your channel art and channel symbol, your channel trailer is probably the second thing a viewer sees. When users who are not subscribers visit your YouTube page, it starts playing automatically. Your channel trailer can assist in converting site visitors into subscribers when executed properly.

You can set up your YouTube trailer in seven steps:

1. Upload the video you want to be your channel trailer.
2. Go to the channel you want to manage.
3. Select Customise channel.
4. Go to the “Home” tab.
5. Click the “For new visitors” tab.
6. Click Edit.
7. Select “Change trailer” or “Remove trailer.”

Consider your brand personality, what makes your channel distinct, and why viewers should subscribe as you create your trailer video. There isn’t someone available right away to create a YouTube channel trailer, so try to pique your viewers’ interest within the first few seconds instead. Make a good impression on viewers before concluding by requesting their channel subscription.

6. Upload your first YouTube video

It’s time to go live in just a few clicks now that you’ve completed all the prerequisites for setting up a YouTube channel and spent time filming and editing your videos. To upload your video clip using the YouTube video creator, go to your channel and click Upload Video.

You’ll enter YouTube Studio after uploading your first video, where you may adjust the details of your video, upload new ones, manage your channel, and expand your audience. Here, you may add a thorough description of the video as well as more context for its subject matter.

7. Optimize your videos for search

If you want people to see your videos, maintaining a strong YouTube SEO strategy is essential. 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, so you must make every effort to differentiate your work from the competition. There is no getting around the fact that to stand a chance, you must continuously publish high-quality content.

Your films’ prominence in search results can be greatly influenced by a variety of factors, including the title, description, and keywords. Let’s look at how you can raise your YouTube ranks and appear in front of viewers at critical times.

Keywords

Before you start optimising your videos, you should narrow down which keywords you’ll be focusing on.

Create a list of potential keywords that viewers might use to find your movie, then test those ideas via a free Chrome extension called Keywords Everywhere to see how they rank. Three essential pieces of information are provided for each phrase, including the monthly search volume, the cost per click to advertise against that term, and the competition. It operates immediately within YouTube’s search box. This kind of YouTube analytics is very beneficial for ensuring that your efforts on the platform are finally successful.

The suggested search results are a great place to get ideas for new videos. It’s a good idea to test different keyword combinations and structure upcoming material around popular search terms in your niche.

Engagement

One of the most important things that YouTube takes into consideration when determining the quality of your video is its engagement.

To improve your chances of appearing higher in search results, ask your viewers to comment, subscribe, share, or click the thumbs-up button after they’ve completed watching. Try holding a contest if you want to increase engagement. Giveaways and competitions are a great way to engage your audience and boost viewer participation.

The number of views on your video will also be taken into account by YouTube when deciding your rank. As soon as you launch a new video on YouTube, make sure to share it on all of your company’s social media networks and your email list to boost views.

Format. In addition, the format of your video affects how well you perform in general searches. YouTube can’t view your videos to analyse their content, but it can still make reasonable guesses based on a few other factors.

Filename. The name of the file you’re uploading should contain your desired keywords; YouTube will take note of this.

Length.Make your films as lengthy as you can because longer videos typically have more value. However, remember to maintain the worth of your content because “view time” is another important factor in search rankings. You won’t rank higher merely because your video is longer if it was intended to be two minutes long but you extended it to 10, and viewers start leaving after one.

Title. The title of your video should be concise, descriptive, and feature your target keyword near the start.

Description.The better, the description should be longer. Add as much content as you can, giving a thorough summary of everything you covered in your video and pointing viewers toward any other resources they might find useful. Your target keyword should be included in the first sentence of your description, with other keywords also appearing there.

Relevant Tags.Make an effort to tag your videos with your goal keywords as well as a few additional related ones. You may learn a little bit about the tags your competitors are using on their movies by using tools like Tube Buddy. Utilising the 500 characters available for tags to tag rivals and creators of relevant material might assist influence whether your video appears as a suggested video or not.

8. Upload new videos consistently

It’s crucial that you are regularly producing videos if you want your efforts on Youtube to pay off for your business. The secret to success on YouTube is consistency because it’s really uncommon to get success overnight.

Since it’s simpler for users to watch more videos and subscribe, channels with a consistent approach inevitably gain more subscribers. When you scroll through the feeds of your favourite YouTubers, you’ll probably notice this.

The First We Feast YouTube channel, which features famous people enjoying food, keeps a regular posting schedule and divides videos into many series, like “Cone Heads,” “Hot Ones,” “Tacos Con Todo,” “The Burger Show,” and more.

The consistency with which First We Feast produces its content promotes subscription growth. If a video becomes popular, new viewers can subscribe by finding fresh, new content with the same premise elsewhere on the channel. Since its modest debut in July 2016, First We Feast has amassed over nine million members and has included stars like Drew Barrymore, Dua Lipa, T-Pain, and more.

9. Promote your YouTube channel

The timing to advertise your YouTube channel and videos has never been greater. People are now watching up to six hours of video each day on YouTube, which has overtaken Facebook as the second most visited website on the internet. It’s time to capitalize on people’s propensity for binge-watching.

To increase your YouTube ROI, cross-promote your YouTube channel on all of your other social media platforms. To broaden the audience for your videos, you can advertise them on social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram (via posts and Instagram Stories), or even TikTok itself. You can also collaborate with other YouTubers to do this.

To convert website visitors, you can advertise the product lessons you make on your channel across all of your Shopify stores. You may advertise product demos and other videos from your YouTube channel on your Shopify store by adding playlists and using a Shopify tool like Yottie. If your audience enjoys what you write, they can subscribe directly from your website.

You have access to a wide range of promotional strategies for your YouTube channel. To increase engagement and market your YouTube channel to new subscribers and clients, test various channels on the platforms where your audience is most active and stick with the ones that are successful.

10. Engage with community

After you upload a new video to YouTube, your work as a creator doesn’t end. Interacting with your viewers will help you grow your YouTube channel by fostering discussions about your videos and attracting more subscribers.

You can reply to comments (even critical ones), ask and respond to questions, and “heart” comments to let readers know which ones are most crucial to read. To improve viewership—which is essential if you want to make money on YouTube—you could also survey your audience to find out what kind of content they are interested in seeing.

For instance, Kelly Noble Mirabella, a businesswoman and the creator of the Baby Got Bot YouTube channel, uses the commenting tools on YouTube to interact with her followers and foster a sense of community around her brand.

The more you engage with your viewers, the more likely they’ll be to keep watching your content and spreading the word about videos.

11. Consider YouTube ads

With a strong marketing plan, you may hasten the growth of your new channel. You can spend money on YouTube advertisements in addition to organic channel promotion to reach and interest more users.

Before running a YouTube ad campaign, make sure you define the audience you want to reach. Focus on understanding:

• Who you want to reach.Depending on their demographics, language, and hobbies, pick specific audiences. You may, for instance, target new dads between the ages of 28 and 40 who watch DIY videos and subscribe to home improvement channels.
• What topics they search for.With YouTube advertisements, you can target users looking for particular themes and pick the video or channel where your ads will appear.

• Where they live.Think about where your audience is located—country, region, city, or postcode. A custom location can also be specified using a radius or point of interest.

Once you’ve determined who you want to reach, you can set a budget and experiment with various ad types to entice viewers to read more of your material. Keep in mind that while YouTube advertisements are beneficial, they shouldn’t serve as the main engine of growth. To enhance visibility and presence on YouTube, they should complement your organic promotion. 

12. Analyse your results

Once your YouTube channel is up and running, you’ll want to track how it’s doing. Here are some of the metrics available in the YouTube Analytics:

• Watch Time. Estimated amount of time spent watching your content.

• Traffic source. By showcasing the different traffic sources and the overall number of views per source, this illustrates how viewers are finding your movies.

• Subscriber rate. This tells you how many followers you lose or gain on a video-by-video basis.

• Audience retention.This displays the precise moments at which viewers stop watching your video. This data can be utilised to determine where you lost a viewer’s interest and what might have prompted them to stop watching, which helps you make better films in the future.

• Comments.You can keep track of who comments on which videos in your YouTube Analytics dashboard, making it simple for you to respond and improving the perception of your brand’s friendliness and engagement.

Establish your definition of success, then translate it into measures that are pertinent to your company. For instance, you can check watch time and see how many people become subscribers to evaluate how your target audience is interacting with your material.

A successful YouTube channel carries out your strategy and accomplishes your objectives as effectively as possible. Keep in mind that you might need to adjust it along the route. Every month, review your analytics to identify areas where you can boost your channel’s performance permanently.

4 Additional tips and tricks for starting a YouTube channel

After covering everything above, you should be on your way to building an audience and maximising your business’ potential on YouTube.

I’ve put together some clever YouTube hacks that you can employ to grow your subscriber base and drive more traffic to your website, though, if you’re feeling a little more daring.

1. Add a watermark

A watermark is the ideal way to entice new viewers to return to and subscribe to your channel. Every one of your uploads will have these editable overlays, which provide a straightforward and simple way for viewers to subscribe, making it simple for them to learn about your most recent videos (and increasing your subscriber count while you’re doing it!).

On your channel page, select “Video Manager” to add a watermark to your videos. This ought to lead you to the Creator Studio, where you can access some more detailed account options.

Once you get to the Creator Studio, click on “Channel” in the sidebar.

There will be a dropdown. After selecting “Branding,” click “Add a Watermark.” Now you may upload a picture and have it appear in the corner of each of your videos.

2. Enable an automatic subscription prompt for your YouTube videos

It’s important to not only be driving people to your YouTube page but to also be encouraging them to subscribe while they’re there.

You may make it simple for your existing subscriber base, such as your email list or your social media followers, to subscribe to your channel. Whenever you urge them to subscribe to your channel by saying “Remember to subscribe! “Additional call to action” Add “sub confirmation=1” to the end of your channel’s URL, and a pop-up asking viewers to subscribe will show on your channel immediately.

3. Link cards to your website

You can add cards to your videos that connect to external websites as long as your account is a member of the YouTube Partner Program, which at the moment requires having at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time in the previous year. You may use cards to refer your viewers to your store to purchase the things shown in your own videos if you have a Shopify store and are a member of the YouTube Partner Program.

Learn how you can further monetize your YouTube efforts with the Shopify Guide to Making Money on YouTube. 

4. Use end screens effectively

You want to keep viewers who have finished watching a video all the way through to the conclusion and encourage them to subscribe to your channel. With end screen components you may layer over the final 20 seconds of your film on YouTube, this is quite simple to do.

To keep viewers interested, you might provide additional videos, a subscribe button, or a link to another channel. This is critical since YouTube’s algorithm rewards both your overall watch time and the length of time viewers stay on the site. Ideally, you want viewers to watch more of your videos.

Here’s how First We Feast sets up its end screens to keep you watching.

Both the standalone video and the playlist it links to will lead you directly to another video to view.

Here’s how to set it up yourself. 

• Go to your Creator Studio and select a video you want to edit. 
• From the main edit screen, click “End screens & Annotations” along the top menu, which will take you to the end screen editing screen. 
• You’ll be able to add four different elements to your screen.

Because I’m not yet a member of the YouTube Partner Program on this test account, you can see that the Link option is disabled. When you are, you can include connections to your website in your regular end screens.

Become a successful YouTuber today

The fun doesn’t end there if you’ve carefully followed all of these instructions, as you should be well on your way to being the next big YouTube success.

Always learn from other successful YouTubers, test different types of content and listen to your feedback from your customers and fans.

Now it’s time to start uploading videos!