Fairly and squarely, I’d love to get some tips from you for those who are.
Because I think YouTube is still a very attractive option to a lot of people, whether they want to become full-time content creators or whether they are just business owners who want a platform to be able to invest in.
It’s a lot of time and money investment to do stuff on YouTube, and as we talked about earlier, it’s got to be for the right reasons.
But I’d love to have some practical tips for video creation, for growing YouTube, and I guess what people can be doing to maybe get a plaque someday.
Yeah.
When I look back at all of my stats and everything, because I am a stats geek, I do track all of that stuff and look at the trends.
Really, what’s most important is the value that you’re going to share.
People think of YouTube as a how-to.
It’s just a video version of Google, and that’s really what most people are using it for.
Unless you’re running one of the three Cs, which is basically education, entertainment, or motivation.
Motivation is going to be really tiring to keep up sustainably motivational video, in my opinion, because you’re expressing one side and not showing the other side, and that is going to burn you out.
Entertainment that’s again is great, but there’s a lot of pressure there to be an entertainer.
Education, we’ve all got something we can share.
I think if you think about what that person is typing into Google, try and answer that question as thoroughly as possible.
The more thoroughly you answer it, the more trust they’ll build with you, and the higher that’ll rank on YouTube.
Because all YouTube cares about is people watching as much of that video as possible, liking it, and making sure that it’s positive.
That four million-view video has got a 99% score on YouTube, which is crazy, especially for that industry and that length of video.
Yeah, it’s crazy.
So that’s one thing: the value.
Delivering on the question that they might be typing into Google.
The second thing is getting them to click it.
That’s where you’re going to have to have some creative energy around a thumbnail and a title.
Believe it or not, that video we did there that got four million views was the only video where I created the thumbnail six months before I even created the video.
That’s what I’ve been told is the big tip.
Create the thumbnail and your title before you create the video because you need to create the video with that in mind.
That’s been, I think, mostly Paul’s number one tip actually.
That’s really interesting that you kind of learned that accidentally and it proves the point, right?
I haven’t heard anyone else say that.
That’s I’ve been asking a lot of people recently about YouTube tips since I’m now going to be new on YouTube.
That’s one of the things people say.
So craft your titles and your thumbnails before you even create the video.
Yeah.
I was sitting in my office one day, and I’ve got a collection of those “For Dummies” books over the years.
I thought that’s really interesting because everyone recognizes that.
Everyone likes buying those books because it’s the starting point.
That’s what I’ve always felt anyway.
I created a really clean thumbnail, cheekily used the logo and crossed it out a little bit and put “Beginners.”
Then I just sat on it for six months.
I thought, what would a beginner love to see?
I read a couple of those beginner books, trying to pull out as many tidbits as possible.
Then we mapped out the video.
Yeah, it paid off.
But it didn’t pay off straight away.
We launched that video in January, and it took until June until it received about 10,000 views, which is pretty good by June.
Then in June something happened.
Without YouTube starting favoring the video, that’s when it was going up like 600 subscribers a day and thousands of views per day.
It went up to 70,000 views in June.
What happened?
I think it was just the sample size of five or six months of people liking it, YouTube understanding that people were getting what they came to the video for, and then ranking it, boosting it, and helping me out a bit.
What did you do to help promote it?
Nothing.
It just sat there.
Since then, since last May, it started at 500 subscribers per day and it has stayed at that since May.
I’ve got 500 subscribers a day, and it hasn’t dipped or gone down.
It’s absolutely crazy.
That’s insane.
I did learn that the way Google works is that Google’s job is for you to go onto Google, find what you’re looking for, and click away from their website.
If you go back to their website, they’ve failed their job.
They want you to type a question and never come back.
That’s when they’ve nailed whatever it is you’re looking for.
The same is true in YouTube.
If someone types that into YouTube, watches my video, and doesn’t type that in again, that means they’ve found what they’re looking for.
That’s how they rank your video, right?
So if you can answer the questions in your video, then you’re halfway there.
I think you basically summarized the point of SEO.
As that’s obviously one of the things that we do, I try to explain that to people.
People are so bothered about the algorithm and all this nonsense.
Just think, what is Google’s job?
Put yourself in Google’s position.
Their job as a search engine is to provide you with the best quality results.
What are they going to rank as the best quality results?
The ones that actually answer the question.
Like you said, if people bounce away and all this sort of stuff, that’s exactly it.
If they come on the site and click off it, then you obviously haven’t answered the question properly.
People forget that YouTube is part of Google, and it’s the same thing.
Like you said earlier, it’s a video version of Google.
They’re going to come in, watch your video, and stay on it.
That means you’ve answered the question.
Now that leads on to a question I feel like a lot of people have been discussing in the video world, and that’s long-form versus short-form content.
Obviously that video is like two and a half hours long, but you just mentioned that if they stay on that video for two and a half hours, you’ve definitely answered that question.
Do you think there’s more longevity in long-form content then?
I know there’s obviously TikTok and all that stuff for shorts, but what do you think?
Yeah, I think retention rate is a big one.
That is the percentage of the video that they watch to get the answer.
But I also think time is valuable, and people will favor your video if they get the result they’re looking for, whether that’s in five minutes or two hours.
I hate to be crude, but prostitution is one of the oldest professions for that exact reason.
Oh my God, that’s true.
Someone said that to me the other day, and I was taken aback by it.
But it’s kind of the same thing.
How quickly can you get a result for the person and get them to favor your video?
I’ve got all sorts of thoughts in my head by now.
With the algorithm thing, I think everyone’s obsessed with the algorithm.
Just replace the word “algorithm” with “audience.”
How can I give the audience more?
How can I help the audience more?
I think the algorithm, your video doing well, and your channel doing well is this much about hacking the algorithm and that much about your content being good.
That’s it really.
Just focus on the content being good, and the algorithm will work.
That’s exactly what we’re talking about again in terms of process versus results.
Same sort of mindset. Same thing again.
If you’re doing it for the right reasons and you’re trying to provide value for the person and actually help people, then you’ll get paid dividends later.
Like you said about your video, something happened in June.
The algorithm decided that you were creating value for all the people visiting it, and they rewarded you.
You don’t have to worry about the time of day that your audience is online because it’s YouTube’s job to show the right people the right videos.
So just do a good video, and YouTube will sort out the rest.
Or TikTok, or any of these platforms.
Their job is to show the right videos to the right people.
Don’t worry about time of day or anything like that.
Just produce a good video.
That’s the number one thing.
I love it.