Overall Channel Review

[Zandrom]

Hey everyone, I was told I should check out the feedback section of the forums. So I thought it would be a perfect time since I'm working on increasing my overall video quality on my gaming channel.

Unfortunately, I stopped getting any subs, and views once I left the game Trove, so I'm not quite sure if its just that I suck, or actually no one is finding my videos.

That being said I know it takes time, and I've only just started uploading again, so I can't expect much. I'm basically still in the experimental stages of my channel, trying to find out what works and what doesn't. But I really think my quality has gone up since my first videos.

I'm interested in finding out anything that could be improved. From my branding to my thumbnails, maybe video quality or SEO.

Be brutal, I can handle the truth

Should probably mention, I don't try to hide what words I use. So there's a high chance I swear a lot, so if you do by any chance check out a video, you be warned.

 

[MentallyGames]

The problem with switching games is that smaller channels are generally subbed to because of a certain product. As soon as you leave that product, a big portion of your audience leaves you. This has nothing to do with you being good or bad at anything, it's just normal human behavior, so don't worry about it. You are pretty much rebuilding an audience, that's all. Now for the feedback:

- My personal opinion is that your branding should tell what you do. Your branding does not do that. I understand that having a Z as your logo is easy, but it is not going to make me remember your channel. Same with the banner, it does not tell me that you are a gaming channel at all.
- You make a ton of videos that are just one shots. Imo one shots are never going to give you an accurate look at the game's viewer potential. For instance: If I am a fallout fan and I find your fallout video, but I see that you never uploaded a new one, why would I want to sub to you as a fallout fan? Do a series surrounding a game and see if it works in the long run. If it does not, you can always switch it up.
- Your game choices might be poor. Your devotion video was dead on arrival pretty much. A small bit of research shows you that there is not a lot of interest for that game, even on big channels. You can SEO any way you want, but if nobody is looking for the game that you are playing, than there is no point. You also did Minecraft videos. No harm in doing them, but it's hard to rank for that game as it is a massive game on Youtube. If you really want to go for a good growth rate, then try to figure out what games are popular in terms of viewership, but not popular in terms of content creation.
- I feel like you could do more with your thumbnails. With some more love they could really pop more. I think some of your thumbnails would be an issue on phones for instance. Small text, not enough contrast, unclear backgrounds and so on.
- Video quality is good at 1080, as is your mic.

 

[Arc Flash]

It's honestly very difficult being a gaming channel these days, as there are so many. Aside from the good tips MentallyGames mentioned above, something that I've learned with some of my more popular videos, is that it's absolutely critical that you're doing three things:

1. Rank in search results - Simple, but if no one can find your videos, how can they watch them? How do you rank, you ask? Well, proper SEO is obviously key, but as MentallyGames said, if you do a video that 10,000 other people are doing, it's going to be nearly impossible to rank, no matter how accurate/clever your keywords, title, and description are. One great piece of advice I got here from a user named LokiDoki was to do videos about certain aspects of popular games that aren't necessarily being covered by as many people. So on a video of the game Middle Earth: Shadow of War for example, I was able to rank third when you search for "Shadow of War brutal kill compilation" because there aren't a lot of videos about that, so it's naturally getting more views because it's ranking higher. You almost have to find a specific space within a popular game you want to do in order to help you rank in search results. It looks like you were doing that in Trove, so you just have to find the right game again and you should be in business.

2. Promote on social media - Now you don't want to spam, but posting on sites like Reddit, Twitter, and Google+ (which is underrated to get views IMHO), and here at YTTalk, has helped me gain views and legit subs (almost at 100!) on most of my videos. Not a ton of views and subs mind you, but enough to keep me motivated and posting content. Doing this ensures you will get views even if you don't rank in SEO, and it may even help you to rank if it gets popular enough!

3. Posting consistently - It looks like you've been doing this, so I don't see any issues here. Keep it up! I would say you may just need to try and focus on more popular games. Not necessarily anything you don't want to do just for views, but something you're interested in that people still want to see. There are a lot of indie games out there that still get tons of views. Maybe try to find something that's gaining in popularity that you could still rank in search results that not a ton of people have done yet?

One last thing I should mention is that some people have found success through the use of AdWords, if you're willing to pay for advertising to help you get off the ground a little bit. It's a legit service that Google offers, unlike the BS of buying views, which you should NEVER do. Hope some of that helps!