Creating videos is only half the battle. You also need a place to post them so your audience can easily access them. As YouTube is the most popular video hosting site, knowing how to create a YouTube channel is essential to start your journey.
Uploading and publishing a video with two clicks is not enough. You also need to understand the inner workings of the YouTube platform to make sure your channel presents your brand in the best light.
In this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know about creating a YouTube channel. . . It doesn’t matter if you are creating a personal YouTube channel or a brand channel. The steps outlined in this tutorial are universal.
Let’s get started!
Check out our video guide to creating a YouTube channel:
How much does it cost to get started? a YouTube channel?
YouTube channels are free and very easy to set up.
Although there are no site hosting fee, additional costs may be associated with your video production efforts. Most creators and businesses set up YouTube channels and start producing videos with a budget of less than $2,500. These could include the price of the camera, lighting, microphone, talent, and editing fees.
Creating videos is only half the battle. 🎬 Learn how to set up your own YouTube channel with the help of this guide 🎞Click to Tweet
Why should you create a YouTube channel?
YouTube channels are almost essential for any business that is looking to increase its video marketing efforts. By setting one up, you have the perfect place to host your videos and share them with eager, relevant audiences.
But why are so many B2B companies turning to video marketing? Well, video marketing has shown impressive results for your business. In 2021, approximately 87% of businesses saw a positive return on video marketing.
This plethora of businesses finding success with video has grown astronomically since 2015. It continues to be an effective form of marketing, and more businesses they are starting to see the impact of video on their bottom line.
How do you create a successful YouTube channel?
Many different factors contribute to the success of your YouTube channel. First, you need to make sure your channel is set up correctly and optimized for your audience.
The saying “If you believe it, they’ll come” doesn’t necessarily apply to YouTube channels. You need to make sure your channel has the necessary components to drive significant results.
The main components of a successful YouTube account include:
- A clear focus for the channel ( i.e., designated for a specific company or organization)
- High-quality videos that engage the audience
- Optimized titles, tags and descriptions
- Profile photos, polished headers and playlists
- Traffic to the channel from other own channels
Last but not least, you’ll need consistency. Just like with content marketing and SEO, you’ll need to know up front that you’ll need to post multiple videos on a regular basis so you can collect valuable data and start seeing more views.
See how our YouTube channel grows kicked off just several months after our November 2020 launch:
How to create a YouTube channel step by step
Now that you know the basics, it’s time to dive in and start creating your own YouTube channel.
These steps will guide you through the process of bringing your channel to life . By following this guide closely, you’ll end up with a professional YouTube channel that showcases your business or organization in the best possible light.
1. Create your account
To get started, visit YouTube.com and sign in to your Google account. This first step is simple and gets you on the right track.
To create an account, you need a working email address linked directly to your YouTube account. This first presents you with a decision: Is this a business YouTube account or a personal account? Your answer will dictate the type of email address you use.
Before creating your account, you should consider the purpose of your YouTube page.Reflect on the following questions:
- What kind of videos do you plan to publish?
- Who do you want your subscribers to be?
- How do you want get introduced?
To create a personal YouTube account, you can use your personal email. To create a company account on YouTube, use your work email or a generic company email like [email protected].
Once you sign in with your email after visiting YouTube.com , you will see that your channel is now live. Click the Customize Channel button to open your channel control panel and start customizing the channel for your business.
Completing this will prepare you for the next steps, which focus on developing your channel and ensuring it is designed and structured to meet the needs of your account.
The channel page is the place you would go to upload videos. , adjust your channel banner, add YouTube tags and review your YouTube analytics.
2. Update Channel Name and Description
With your account created, it’s time to turn your business or personal account into a channel.
The first thing to do is update the name from the channel to something that reflects the theme of the page’s content type.
By taking this step, you’ll ensure that the public can find your channel by searching for the name of your business or organization.
To get started, click Basic Information in the top menu. You can now update your channel name, description, and URL.
As an example, here is the information basic we use on the Kinsta YouTube channel:
Be sure to take advantage of these three options to customize your channel. Adding a title, description, and custom URL is a great way to boost your YouTube SEO.
Use relevant keywords that your audience might be searching for. It will help your page appear faster in the YouTube search engine.
With a relevant title and description, your audience will know more about your page.
3. Upload your profile photo and logo
Next, it’s time to focus on branding your Page to accurately represent your company or personal account.
You must upload three brand images important: image, banner image, and video watermark.
You’ll want your YouTube page to be an extension of your brand. Therefore, this step is essential to ensure that all your digital properties convey a unifying message.
Channels with high-quality images such as image, banner, and watermark look more attractive and professional to viewers. passive spectators. They might be drawn to a memorable profile image or banner and stick around to watch some of your videos.
To upload these images, click the Branding tab. located in the navigation bar. at the top of the page.
It would look like the following after uploading your branding assets:
You must upload a clear, high-quality logo that is at least 98 × 98 pixels and less than 4 MB in size for your image. We recommend uploading a PNG image.
How to Create a Logo for Your YouTube Channel
Think about what photo or logo will represent your channel. It will appear in many places, including all the pages that host your video and any comments you add.
To start designing, you can use software like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. If you’re not interested in designing independently, you can request the design through a service like 99designs.
How to Create YouTube Channel Art
Another important element on your YouTube channel YouTube is your banner image.
For your banner image, you should consider how you can expand your brand and build on the photo style you used for your profile photo. You can use a photo or custom graphic with artwork that highlights your brand.
This graphic will appear at the top of your page, located behind your profile photo.The graphic must be at least 2048 × 1152 pixels and less than 6 MB.
How to Create a YouTube Channel Icon
Your icon is an element of your logo that symbolizes your brand .
You should consider what type of icon you want to use for your video watermark. A video watermark will appear in the corner of each of your videos. Ideally, this would be different from your profile photo, but you could also use the same one.
With a watermark, your audience will be able to quickly identify which videos are uniquely yours. The watermark helps create consistency across multiple videos, linking them to your account.
These images are critical to the success of your YouTube account. By branding your channel, you’ll create a broadcast hub that furthers your brand or business.
4. Upload your videos
Now it’s time to upload your first video. It’s the “main event” when it comes to your YouTube page.
After all, your audience will only visit your page if you host compelling video content. Fortunately, the steps for uploading a video are simple and easy to follow.
First, save your video file to an easily accessible location on your computer. This could be your Documents folder, on your Desktop or even in your Downloads. All that matters is that you can access it with a few clicks.
Then, go back to your channel and click the Create button in the corner of your screen.
After pressing the Create button, a screen will appear inviting you to select the file you want to upload:
Click Select Files to locate the video file you just saved on your computer. YouTube will then start uploading it automatically.
The uploading part of the process is simple and only takes a few minutes. However, post-loading steps (including optimization) are critical.
5. Optimize your videos
What’s the point of uploading your video if no one can find it?
There are billions of minutes of videos uploaded to YouTube and you need to make sure your content stands out and is easily accessible.
Optimizing your videos is a critical step to ensure your videos are tagged correctly so they appear when someone types a relevant keyword into YouTube’s massive search engine .
Just like SEO practitioners spend time ranking on Google, you should spend adequate time to ensure you rank highly on YouTube.
Why?
YouTube is the second largest search engine worldwide, after Google (they also own YouTube). So you want to make sure you’re using the right keywords in your title, description, and tagging, or you won’t list early enough for your target audience to find you.
Without Giving This critical step, all your challenging video shooting, production and editing work will be in vain.
To start the optimization process, move on to the next phase of your loading screen.
As you continue the upload process, a Details screen appears, prompting you to fill in the title, description, and thumbnail:
In addition, you can add various video elements, including subtitles, an end screen, and even feature cards like text:
You need to add the keywords you are targeting to your title and description. Here are the two most valuable real estate spots to focus on.
However, you may be wondering: What are the right keywords to use?
Miscellaneous software programs specialize in YouTube SEO that you can use. For example, VidIQ and TubeBuddy are two YouTube-focused tools that can help you determine which keywords to target for your type of content. You can also use typical Ahrefs
These tools can also inform your video content strategy. You might find some useful keywords and tags to target and use them to inspire your next video.
6. Set up your channel layout
Now that you have some videos on your channel, it’s time to customize the look.
You’ll have control over how people move from video to video. other. You should pay attention to this because it is essential to hook your viewers into spending a little more time on your channel.
Make your channel work for your business by customizing the layout of your channel page.
You have many options to customize this experience based on the type of visitor.
To get started, click the Design tab in the menu on the top navigation bar on the Customize Channel page.
Clicking In this tab, you will see two options: Featured Video and Featured Sections.
In this section, you can adjust the settings of your channel to show different content based on the viewer’s status as a subscriber.
You have the option to:
- Show a trailer of the channel to those who haven’t subscribed
- Show a featured video for returning subscribers
:
This option is useful because it allows you to present new visitors with a high-level overview video about your channel to try and convince them to subscribe.
A subscriber wouldn’t need to see that, since they know what your channel is about, so they can show these visitors a featured video instead. The video you choose to feature is up to you; it could be one of your most popular videos or just your newest one.
Beyond this feature, you can also set featured sections on your channel’s homepage, like we did:
You can have up to twelve of these sections that group together similar videos. These featured sections make it easy to increase views and watch time for your channel. By selecting closely related videos, there’s a high chance viewers will keep browsing (and watching) there.
Sections can also make it easier for viewers to find videos once they land on your channel. However, this is just grouping them together. To facilitate continuous playback, consider creating a playlist.
7. Create a Playlist
A playlist is a great way to compile similar videos and encourage continued playback from your audience. You can group your playlists by a similar theme and display them on your channel’s home page.
Playlists engage your fans and customers on a deeper level, increasing the time they spend on your channel watching your content. If your viewers spend more time on your page, they’ll develop a deeper understanding of your brand.
To get started, click the Playlists button in the left-hand menu . In the upper right hand corner, you will now see a New Playlist button.
After doing click there, you can name your new playlist and set the playlist visibility level:
Now that the playlist is complete, you’re ready to start adding videos to it.
Clicking the Content on the left side, you will be able to select the playlist you just created and add videos directly to it. It’s that simple!
Many people use playlists to find related content that interests them. By creating engaging playlists, you will make your channel more noticeable and engage viewers with a variety of interesting content.
You can create playlists for topics that interest your viewers (as I mentioned above). . Still, you might also think about creating playlists to group all your podcast episodes, your latest project releases and updates, tutorials on how to use your product, etc.
Playlists can seem tedious, but they give you complete freedom in creating them. Plus, they offer an additional way to showcase your videos.
YouTube FAQ
Now that you’ve created your channel, here are some of the most frequently asked questions on YouTube. questions.
You may be thinking of a few yourself, so this will be a great resource for you.
1.How do I create a second YouTube channel?
You may need to have more than one YouTube channel if you have several different businesses or organizations. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to create a secondary account.
It’s common for YouTube creators or businesses to have multiple YouTube channels. Each YouTube channel should have a singular focus and be dedicated to content with a specific audience.
You can add a new channel to your existing Google account with just a few clicks.
To create a second YouTube channel, click your avatar in the top right corner and select Change Account. If you don’t have a second account created yet, you can click Add Account and follow the steps listed in the previous section to create your first channel.
2. How do I create a private YouTube channel?
Want to create a channel for yourself and a select number of people? A private channel might be the best option.
Private channels limit the number of people who can access your content. These channels are useful if you want to restrict your content or use the channel as a place to store your videos.
All you need to do is select Privacy from the menu. From that screen, you can select the option to make the channel private.
3. How do I create a YouTube channel on my phone?
Creating a YouTube channel on your phone couldn’t be easier! All you need to do is download the YouTube app and sign in.
You can then create the channel using your Google account. It’s that simple and you can do it in just a few minutes.
Setting up the entire channel can be easier to do on a desktop or laptop due to the complexities. However, simply setting up a channel is a breeze on your phone.
Whether you’re creating a personal YouTube channel or a branded channel, this guide has everything you need to get started 🎥🍿Click to Tweet
Summary
YouTube offers tremendous potential for any business to attract or engage audiences that may never have heard of you. With video, you can connect and build relationships with users in a different, perhaps “closer” way.
However, for the most meaningful ROI for your business, consistency and proactivity toward Feedback from your viewers is critical. . Without these, creating a channel would be a waste of resources. Or just a hobby!
Now it’s your turn: have you ever considered starting a YouTube channel for your business? If you already have one: what do you wish you had known before launching it? Let us know in the comments section!
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