So, How do you become successful?

[KiddieToysReview]

You won't be RTR overnight unless you have a video go viral.

Yes, but to be more precise... unless you have a series of videos highly targeted to appear in suggested of certain bigger channels, then execute flawlessly to release videos for highly searched keywords and popular trends at the time

 

[KIDSTOPIA]

@KiddieToysReview if you have time, could you briefly check out our channel and see if there is anything you'd change. Id really appreciate it! I feel like im doing the things your are saying but having really slow results.

 

[Loki Doki]

KiddieToysReview made some great points. to follow on from that you can read my guide to SEO - http://yttalk.com/threads/how-to-seo-titles-descriptions-and-tags-full-guide-with-example.223822/

 

[KiddieToysReview]

@KiddieToysReview if you have time, could you briefly check out our channel and see if there is anything you'd change. Id really appreciate it! I feel like im doing the things your are saying but having really slow results.

Howdy, I've had a detailed look...

Good points:
- Love the bubble logo and colors and the vibrancy. The banner, thumbnails, icon, overall channels looks professional and fun and inviting. The thumbnails are very clickable!

- I think you are doing very good. 1k subs and coming up to 1M views in a few months is great, and on par to what we had after a few months from memory.

Points for improvement:
- 8 videos in the last 4 weeks I do not think is enough given the level of competition in the kids arena. My viewership stats indicate optimal uploads are 1 video every 2-3 days during weekdays, with a video Fri, Sat, Sun to capture high weekend traffic. So ideally, 4-5 videos per 7 day week. I think the lowish number of videos may be a factor. I would look to get up to 16 videos in a 4 week period.

-Descriptions are a little short. In your bouncy ball video there is only 1 generic line about your channel, and nothing about the actual video. I always recommend 2-3 solid paragraphs describing the video, using as many of the tags and their variations in natural sentences.

- I didn't see any annotations to subscribe or cards. Cards generate lots of traffic for us, and I cycle them every few days to highlights different videos.

- The end card does not have any clickable areas (I only checked one) - you need to overlay a 'spotlight' with a Link tot he video, and another spotlight with the sub link.



Traffic sources:
- Your Lion Guard video (highest view one) has several comments by what I regular "real-world viewers" and not other channels. So this video broke out and was promoted across YT to general viewers. Check traffic sources and if it was in suggested somewhere. I check its current status, it's not in suggested anywhere apart from your channel, but it probably was before - analytics will tell you. If you can find where it was, try to target that channel by seeing if there are other videos you can make similar to what they make. I have a sneaky suspicion that once the algorithm makes an association between channels, that association remains, and only needs a spark to reignite it.

That's all I can think of for now!

 

[Stearmans Toy Review]

Well took your advice! My most recent video received 70 views overnight! I was so happy, I know that isn't a lot to some lol but for me just starting out a month ago, I'm happy! haha Thanks again for all you advice![DOUBLEPOST=1470916457,1470915827][/DOUBLEPOST]

@KiddieToysReview if you have time, could you briefly check out our channel and see if there is anything you'd change. Id really appreciate it! I feel like im doing the things your are saying but having really slow results.

What software program do you use to make your thumbnails, youtube banner, etc? SOO awesome! Thanks
!

 

[KIDSTOPIA]

@lok

Well took your advice! My most recent video received 70 views overnight! I was so happy, I know that isn't a lot to some lol but for me j

What software program do you use to make your thumbnails, youtube banner, etc? SOO awesome! Thanks
!

Howdy, I've had a detailed look...

Good points:
- Love the bubble logo and colors and the vibrancy. The banner, thumbnails, icon, overall channels looks professional and fun and inviting. The thumbnails are very clickable!

- I think you are doing very good. 1k subs and coming up to 1M views in a few months is great, and on par to what we had after a few months from memory.

Points for improvement:
- 8 videos in the last 4 weeks I do not think is enough given the level of competition in the kids arena. My viewership stats indicate optimal uploads are 1 video every 2-3 days during weekdays, with a video Fri, Sat, Sun to capture high weekend traffic. So ideally, 4-5 videos per 7 day week. I think the lowish number of videos may be a factor. I would look to get up to 16 videos in a 4 week period.

-Descriptions are a little short. In your bouncy ball video there is only 1 generic line about your channel, and nothing about the actual video. I always recommend 2-3 solid paragraphs describing the video, using as many of the tags and their variations in natural sentences.

- I didn't see any annotations to subscribe or cards. Cards generate lots of traffic for us, and I cycle them every few days to highlights different videos.

- The end card does not have any clickable areas (I only checked one) - you need to overlay a 'spotlight' with a Link tot he video, and another spotlight with the sub link.

View attachment 37092

Traffic sources:
- Your Lion Guard video (highest view one) has several comments by what I regular "real-world viewers" and not other channels. So this video broke out and was promoted across YT to general viewers. Check traffic sources and if it was in suggested somewhere. I check its current status, it's not in suggested anywhere apart from your channel, but it probably was before - analytics will tell you. If you can find where it was, try to target that channel by seeing if there are other videos you can make similar to what they make. I have a sneaky suspicion that once the algorithm makes an association between channels, that association remains, and only needs a spark to reignite it.

That's all I can think of for now!

Your are amazing! Didn't except this much detail! I will absolutely fix everything you mentioned!

Another quick question (if you don't mind) how longer were you using AdWords before you stopped?

I remember reading somewhere that were promoting for some time but at this point you arn't. At what point do you stop?

Thanks! I really appreciate your help again![DOUBLEPOST=1470951277,1470950931][/DOUBLEPOST]

Well took your advice! My most recent video received 70 views overnight! I was so happy, I know that isn't a lot to some lol but for me just starting out a month ago, I'm happy! haha Thanks again for all you advice![DOUBLEPOST=1470916457,1470915827][/DOUBLEPOST]

What software program do you use to make your thumbnails, youtube banner, etc? SOO awesome! Thanks
!

I use a combination of Photoshop and illustrator for all of those mentioned.

If you havnt used those products before, YouTube has really awesome basic tutorials. From those basic tutorials, you then experiment with more advanced effects! Let me know if there is anything you need help with!

Good luck!

 

[KiddieToysReview]

Another quick question (if you don't mind) how longer were you using AdWords before you stopped?
I remember reading somewhere that were promoting for some time but at this point you arn't. At what point do you stop?

I'm not running any Adwords at the moment. I ran it over the last few months, first as little tests, then more to accomplish objectives. I will run it again as I release new playlists that may need some momentum out the gate.

The thing with running an Adwords campaign is not to get the 'view' counter to click over, but it it to expose the new videos and new playlist to highly targeted viewers, in the hope they like your style of the video, and of course sub, or at least keep you in mind and come again in a few days. So I'm happy spending 10% of daily revenue on the Adwords campaign. I think of it as a new cake shop opening, and the staff walk down the local strip offering samples to people. If the people like it, they come and visit the shop (Chef Ramsay does it really well when he wants to get a new menu out there).

 

[Anjim]

Some info about tagging:

There's 2 Chrome plugins you should get: TubeBuddy and VidIQ. Play with both and see which one you like, then use that. I have the paid version of TubeBuddy and the free VidIQ, but both free are fine to start with. They will help immensely with tags. They will show the tags under each video you visit, and any search ranking for those tags. They will also show (once you click on a tag), related tags, top videos using those tags, etc, etc.

A simple thing I did when starting out was visit the top 20 most popular videos for say Thomas and Friends, and get all the tags they use in a spreadsheet. Here's an example from the Excel, together with one of Ryan's Thomas videos tags shown via TubeBuddy. I then use whichever tags are relevant to my videos (and of course add a few of my own variations).

View attachment 37052
There's no point asking big channels if you can use their tags, I think using other channel names is against the YT TOS (maybe others can clarify this more), and big channels will likely not reply. Also, they have no incentive to do this, because it potentially confuses viewers and takes traffic away from them. It's like you opening a hamburger joint and calling it McDonald's - that won't last long!

Long tails are variations. So say you take your kid to the park and do some videos with Thomas, Percy, down the slide, they fall, crash, whatever.

So the main tags would be: Thomas and Friends, Thomas & Friends, Thomas and Friends Accidents will Happen, Accidents will Happen.

Some long tails could be: Thomas and Friends Accidents will Happen at the Playground, Accidents will Happen at the Playground with Thomas Trains.

Basically it's search terms that may not be searched often, but give greater context for your video. If you have it in the title/tags/description, and it's very little used, you'll rank page 1 for it. But if the traffic is too low, you won't get views from it. So you need to find phrases that are searched often enough, but don't have too much competition.

Here's a TubeBuddy listing for "Thomas and Friends Accidents will Happen at the Playground", something I targeted. Notice that it also has several primary keywords inside the long tail, so that's good.

View attachment 37053

A gorilla tripod should be ok, basically anything steady, you don't want the video photography itself to be distracting.

There's some free graphics software you can use, I think there are even web based ones. You'd probably want to do something with layering as eventually you might want to add different backgrounds or toys overlays.

I never use VidIQ

 

[KIDSTOPIA]

I'm not running any Adwords at the moment. I ran it over the last few months, first as little tests, then more to accomplish objectives. I will run it again as I release new playlists that may need some momentum out the gate.

The thing with running an Adwords campaign is not to get the 'view' counter to click over, but it it to expose the new videos and new playlist to highly targeted viewers, in the hope they like your style of the video, and of course sub, or at least keep you in mind and come again in a few days. So I'm happy spending 10% of daily revenue on the Adwords campaign. I think of it as a new cake shop opening, and the staff walk down the local strip offering samples to people. If the people like it, they come and visit the shop (Chef Ramsay does it really well when he wants to get a new menu out there).

Thanks! I really appreciate it! I'm going to experiment a little more with AdWords and have more specific goals![DOUBLEPOST=1471071256,1471028085][/DOUBLEPOST]@KiddieToysReview sorry, I couldn't reply to your message becuase I don't have enough posts i guess. But anyway I've never even thought to think about that! Thats good advise! Thanks!

I haven't had a chance to make all the changes so tonight I'm going to knock all of it out!

Have you ever put together a giveaway on YT? And if you did, do you think it benefitted you at all?

 

[KiddieToysReview]

Thanks! I really appreciate it! I'm going to experiment a little more with AdWords and have more specific goals![DOUBLEPOST=1471071256,1471028085][/DOUBLEPOST]@KiddieToysReview sorry, I couldn't reply to your message becuase I don't have enough posts i guess. But anyway I've never even thought to think about that! Thats good advise! Thanks!

I haven't had a chance to make all the changes so tonight I'm going to knock all of it out!

Have you ever put together a giveaway on YT? And if you did, do you think it benefitted you at all?

No problem!
Take your time with all the changes, I'm still working on the things I suggested! It's like The Never Ending Story I, II, III.... forever.
I have not done a giveaway, but our good friend @FamilyToyReview have, they may be able to give you some pointers.