Channel Feedback Requested

[JuriKaGaming]

Hello everyone, first of all, thank you for your time.

Below are a few things you might need to know:
- I took a break for about a year, that's the reason for the big gap in uploads. My normal upload schedule is: Tuesday, Saturday, Sunday.
- I'm only doing ps4 content

What I'm hoping to see improved / answered:

-Content: At first I did the usual let's play videos, not even with commentary. Boring, right? Now I'm trying different things and I'm working on my commentary. My first uploads were also 15-20 minutes long. As I don't have the subscriber base that keeps coming back, my aim is now to make shorter uploads.
I would like to know if you would say that things are improving content wise, or if what I'm doing is not really a big difference to when I started and I need to change course all together.

Layout: I think my layout is ok at the moment. I have a clean selection of tabs, different playlist selections and popular uploads displayed. Is it ok tho? I'd like to hear your opinion.

SEO: Please give me your opinion about the titles. I do my research on YouTube and Google to see what would work best, but I have the feeling I'm sometimes still missing the ball. Not sure if you can check this, but what about my tags?

Art: One thing I'm really not sure about is how I used a similar image for my cover image and my avatar. As you'll see it's the same, just different layout. Should I change my avatar to something different or does it not matter that much? Or should I work on new art all together?

Thumbnail Art: One thing I think I'm doing right is my thumbnails. I spend time making, what I think, is an appealing font, I pick out a good image and work it all out in Photoshop. But does it look good tho? Do my thumbnails look appealing? If not, would you be so kind to give some suggestions?


I am really looking forward to hear any criticism, feedback and suggestions. I'm confident that I'll be learning a lot from this.

Thank you very much for all the help!

 

[Jed]

I'll review everything but I'll do it in a different order if you don't mind. Anyway here we go:
Channel Art: I think the banner is alright but it is a big generic, it doesn't really tell me much about you at all. It doesn't really help you to stand out from the crowd, especially in terms of gaming channels. I personally don't really like it as it feels a bit outdated and not very 'modern' feeling so it's not really my style. I don't know whether those are the vibes that you're going for with it though so that's something for you to think about. just remember though that this is my personal opinion and so is not law. I would look to change your avatar because I think having the title on it is doesn't provide any new information and in my opinion isn't very interesting and wouldn't draw me in. Most gamers nowadays have a logo or a picture which is simple but easily allows people to identify their channel and gives them their own brand. If I was you I would work on designing a logo/picture that you can incorporate into both your banner and that you can use as your avatar which will give you your own brand and identity and will help to set you apart from other people. It might even give you a new sense of direction seeing as you are just coming back from a break.

Thumbnails: There are a few things in your thumbnails that I would work on. The first being the base design.There doesn't seem to be any uniformity in the design of your thumbnails and by that I mean that if I was a regular watcher of your videos there isn't anything there when I look at your thumbnails that when I look at them would make me think 'Oh that's your videos' you don't seem to have found your style yet and it seems like you're almost experimenting with different things until you find it which is fine. One thing that i think might help you is to create a template thumbnail that you can easily customise for each individual video to give each video a unique thumbnail that is your style. One thing that I would be careful with is the aspect ratio of the thumbnails that you make make sure that the ones you create are the correct ratio (16:9) so that there is no stretching or squashing of the image. Also with text on thumbnails I think that less is more and if you are going to have text on it make sure it's large enough to be read. In your latest thumbnail the bottom words are too small to read. Also stretching the image makes it harder to read to words so look out for that too.

Videos: I watched your FIFA 18 Demo Review. The start was good. Your intro, like your banner and avatar, I think needs to be changed for the same reasons as before and also if you plan on changing your banner and avatar it should be changed so it fits in with them. The sound quality of your microphone was good; I could easily hear what you were saying.
My first problem was with the cut-scene from the journey and with the other clips with sound, I think for a review you played the clips for too long and maybe started them to early, when people are watching reviews they want to see whether the game would be worth their time they don't wan't a lets play. I know I'm exaggerating a little bit but I think quick concise clips that compliment the points that you are making.I think that clips with sound only be used in dabbles for only a few (maybe 5) seconds per clip and only when need be. I think you could have structured the video a bit better, maybe come up with a few criteria that you would use to judge all games and then break the game down by each one. I know that you did this a little bit but it wasn't very noticeable. You could also give the game a rating at the end but those are just some suggestions. The editing in general was ok, there were a few places where there was some awkward silence, so you'd need to cut a bit earlier or later depending on where in the video the silence is. I would recommend increasing your editing skills and then experimenting with it in your videos. You don't need to do everything in one go but learning how to do a new transition here or a new visual effect there will hone your skills and eventually you'll be left off with a better end result through practice.
In terms of the SEO for this video you were ranked fairly highly when I typed in the full title but I'm not sure that you would fare that well under just 'fifa 18' but I think that's just because so many people make fifa 18 videos. I don't really think you should be worrying about this as much as some of the other things that I have mentioned. I would sort those out first. I would say the same about tags. Your title was fine though same with your tags. Only other tag I would maybe add is the full title which might help bump you up a few more places when it is searched.

But for somebody who's just coming back from a long break you're not doing badly

I hope that this all helps.
.

 

[JuriKaGaming]

Just read your entire reply 3 times to soak in all the brilliant feedback you have given. I value all the tips you have given and I'll be making new art / new intro my number one priority while paying more attention to thumbnail creation and editing on my next upload.

A very big thank you for the massive effort you have done with your reply!

 

[Jed]

Just read your entire reply 3 times to soak in all the brilliant feedback you have given. I value all the tips you have given and I'll be making new art / new intro my number one priority while paying more attention to thumbnail creation and editing on my next upload.

A very big thank you for the massive effort you have done with your reply!

You're very welcome! I'm just glad I could help

One last thing. I've just noticed that on your channel the JuriKa doesn't start with a captial J but it does on all of your artwork. I didn't know whether it was intentional or not so I thought I'd let you know

 

[JuriKaGaming]

Thank you for pointing that out! Don't know how I could have missed that and never noticed it before. Easiest fix ever!