Common issues that keep you under 1,000 subscribers

Hana said:
How do I work out my target audience? I'm going to be doing videos on Art, anime and science/techy stuff. I feel like these are varied topics. What will be similar amongst most videos is that they will be tutorial/learning themed.
Click to expand...
Good question. That's a lot for a forum reply, but I've actually written out a system that you can use to help you determine your target audience and value proposition. It's in the first 3 days of my ebook, "30 Days to a Better YouTube Channel." You can download those first 3 days for free from the book's product page at videocreators dot com, if you'd like. Go through that process and that'll help you figure out a lot about your content, your target audience, and value proposition.

Hana said:
How do I use Google keywords if it's asking me to pay? Do I have to pay?
Click to expand...
Keyword research is value for coming up with video ideas, but it's not that helpful anymore in figuring out what keywords to put into your video's metadata (title, tags, description). Google says they only look at those factors after the video is initially published when determining how to rank a video. After that, they look at viewer signals and other data points. Instead, write titles that are optimized to pitch the video's value to an actual person, not to a robot. That'll work much better for you.
 
Hey Tim, I have a quick question that your opinion could help me out a lot on - so far our videos, like the one in my signature, have the name of the show (Portland Gets Weird) in its title. I'm worried that may put us in a corner because, for now, not many people are going to be specifically searching for that phrase. Would it be smarter for us to just go with catchier titles with keywords that'll help it pop up in more searches and be more attractive and interesting for people to click on? For example, if we changed the below video from "Portland Gets Weird: Fifty Shades of Grey" to "Is Fifty Shades of Grey Abusive?" (it's a question in the video, and just an example, I haven't done the keyword research). My only fear is that it may venture into possible clickbait territory? We'd have the titles be relevant to the videos though, but I want to get your opinion on this. Any help you can give would be great, thanks!
 
Last edited:
mercmonster said:
Hey Tim, I have a quick question that your opinion could help me out a lot on - so far our videos, like the one in my signature, have the name of the show (Portland Gets Weird) in its title. I'm worried that's kind of putting us in a corner because, for now, not many people are going to be specifically searching for that phrase. Would it be smarter for us to just go with catchier titles with keywords that'll help it pop up in more searches and be more attractive and interesting for people to click on? For example, if we changed the below video from "Portland Gets Weird: Fifty Shades of Grey" to "Is Fifty Shades of Grey Abusive?" (it's a question in the video, and just an example, I haven't done the keyword research). My only fear is that it may venture into possible clickbait territory? We'd have the titles be relevant to the videos though, but I want to get your opinion on this. Any help you can give would be great, thanks!
Click to expand...
Yes, you're right, starting your videos with the same title isn't very valuable from an SEO perspective nor a click-through perspective. Definitely remove that and go with a title that just teases the video.

Regarding clickbait, asking questions doesn't usually attract as many views as taking a stance on something even if it's controversial. A better title than, "Is Fifty Shades of Grey Abusive?" is, "7 Reasons why Fifty Shades of Grey is Abusive," or, "Fifty Shades of Grey Is Abusive. Here's why." I think you could still come up with some better titles than that, but just to go along with your example, you get the idea. Use questions in your titles if you're actually genuinely exploring a question that you don't have the ability to take a stance on. Like, my video today is, "Wait, Facebook Video Monetization might be Coming?" That's because I honestly don't know if it's coming or not nor is there a way for me to find out or even take a stance one way or another. I added the, "Wait," part to make it feel more like a surprise kind of thing.

Dunno if that helps or not, but there ya go.
 
Tim Schmoyer said:
Yes, you're right, starting your videos with the same title isn't very valuable from an SEO perspective nor a click-through perspective. Definitely remove that and go with a title that just teases the video.

Regarding clickbait, asking questions doesn't usually attract as many views as taking a stance on something even if it's controversial. A better title than, "Is Fifty Shades of Grey Abusive?" is, "7 Reasons why Fifty Shades of Grey is Abusive," or, "Fifty Shades of Grey Is Abusive. Here's why." I think you could still come up with some better titles than that, but just to go along with your example, you get the idea. Use questions in your titles if you're actually genuinely exploring a question that you don't have the ability to take a stance on. Like, my video today is, "Wait, Facebook Video Monetization might be Coming?" That's because I honestly don't know if it's coming or not nor is there a way for me to find out or even take a stance one way or another. I added the, "Wait," part to make it feel more like a surprise kind of thing.

Dunno if that helps or not, but there ya go.
Click to expand...

That's perfect, thanks a ton, Tim, very helpful as always! Really appreciate it. Your note about questions in particular is really clever and helpful, because by doing so you're already engaging with viewers off the bat, so thanks for pointing that out as well! Gonna do the appropriate research and rewrite the titles this week. Thanks again! :D
 
VideoCreatorsTV is a great channel to check out if you need help on how to grow an audience ect, I actually subscribed to him last year and It really opens your eyes and makes you want to face palm at your own ignorance. I read the first 3 days of his Ebook and I have already gone about tinkering and improving my channel, starting with my channel art!
Let me know what you think of my channel :D
 
mercmonster said:
the title of the video would be ridiculously long.
Click to expand...
That doesn't matter much for humans if you introduce e.g. a hyphen as separation and it may add to SEO on the other side. You may want to make some experiments with different title formats to find out which version works out best for you.
 
Tim Schmoyer said:
I'd love to hear what tips and ideas you have for breaking past 1,000 subscribers! Let's all help each other out here.
Click to expand...

Hey Tim! You've got quite a thread going here. Figured I'd leave my .02. I would say to help break through is to engage with the YouTube community. I have found a lot of people in other people's videos's comments. Start engaging on the videos that you like with the people in the comments. They will probably at least check our your channel. Hopefully your channel is developed enough to make those people sticky!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top