​I always thought I would love to become a YouTuber. That’s why I started my own YouTube channel and published my first video on the 1st of January of 2019.
I was able to grow ​that channel from 0 to 1,000 subscribers in 1 month and 12 days thanks to my background and skills as an SEO expert.
However, I also learned a lot about being a YouTuber from that experience. Let’s just say that becoming a YouTuber is not what you think it is
I want to make sure you don’t make the same mistakes I did, so sit back because you’re in for a treat. Now, let’s start.
Table of Contents
​1) Make Sure This is What You Want
Do you really want to be a YouTuber?
It’s easy to see all the good things that famous YouTubers show you, but there is more to it than that.
These online celebrities had to put in days, months and even years of work before making any money from this.
These millionaire YouTubers didn’t start creating videos because of the money, they did it because they enjoyed it.
The reality is that you will not be able to keep up creating content unless you love doing it.
Believe me, I’ve been there.
I was able to grow my channel extremely fast—probably faster than 99% of new YouTubers—and that’s awesome.
But sadly, I’ve realized that I don’t enjoy creating those kinds of videos like I thought I would.
The same thing might happen to you, so you need to ask yourself why do you want to start a YouTube channel?
You are NOT made for YouTube if these apply to you:
- ​You​ want to become worldwide famous with your videos
- ​You only care about making ​money on YouTube
- ​You are not willing to put in hours of work ​while not getting paid for it
​In my case, I thought I would be happy if I could make just enough money to cover my living expenses from making videos playing video games.
​Sadly, having to play the same game for the entire day ​got a bit old for me.
​Having to entertain people the whole time I’m playing while making sure I’m not running into recording problem​s was not what I enjoyed about video games.
I want to press play, sit back and relax… and making videos made it a more stressful environment​.
​I love video games, but it just seems I don’t enjoy creating content about them.
You are made for YouTube if these apply to you:​​​
- ​You enjoy helping others and giving advice for free
- You love recording videos for fun
- ​You get excited by the thought of ​creating a community and ​getting to know new people every day
​You don’t get into YouTube to make money. There are other ways of making money that are way more effective than starting a YouTube channel.
That’s why you should know that you’re looking in the right place. You need to know what you want.
That’s step number one.
If you’re convinced you will love the YouTuber lifestyle, then keep reading.
​2) Choose the Topic of Your Channel
​If you want to make it as a YouTuber in this year, you will need to pick a niche.
A niche is basically a group of people that share the same hobby ​or that are looking to satisfy the same needs.
Some ​niche examples:
- Gaming
- Makeup
- Sports
- ​Music
But the real secret to making it on YouTube is focusing on a really small niche.
The niches above are way too broad and competitive, you want to instead go deeper than that and ​niche down even further.
​​It’s like zooming in and finding those little niches that are inside of each broad niche.
For example:
| ​Main Niche | ​Level 2 Niche | ​Level 3 Niche (Target these) |
|---|---|---|
| ​Gaming | ​Action Games | ​Fortnite |
| ​Makeup | ​Everyday makeup | ​Makeup styles that famous people use |
| ​Sports | ​Football | ​Training for new football players |
| ​Music | ​Guitar playing | ​Heavy metal songs tutorials |
​Hopefully, these examples will give you an idea of what you should be targeting.
The trick here is finding a specific niche that you’d love to talk about and that you can create enough content for.
​This doesn’t mean that you can’t talk about other things. You can also do the following:
- ​Start with a very specific niche
- Record all the videos you can covering every single aspect of it
- Expand to a similar niche
- Repeat
​But Will, I want to record vlogs about my life, how can I find a niche about my own life?
​​That’s why I don’t recommend starting right away with a vlogging channel.
You need to attract people to your videos, and the only way to do it is by ​creating value with your videos.
​​Attract people by making tutorials, inspiring them or teaching them about a subject they need help with.
After they hear a lot from you and you become more familiar, they will want to know more about you.
That’s when you can start recording vlogs about your daily life: when people start caring about it.
People don’t care about your life unless they know who you are first, or if your life is extremely weird to them.
However, there’s a little workaround.
You can still record vlogs in the beginning as long as you’re teaching something with your videos at the same time.
For example, I’ve seen people walking around the city looking for good real estate investments.
This type of vlog delivers a lot of value for those that are starting in that industry.
You could also use your vlogs to inspire people in specific niches.
Just make sure to make it clear on your video title what you’re going to give or teach to people.
The idea here is not to make a vlog simply about your life because your life is not as interesting to others as you may think.
It sounds harsh, but that’s just the way we are.
You need to give something valuable away and make people WANT to subscribe to you if you want to grow.
​3) Gear Up
​Now you need to start thinking about your equipment.
​The basic things you’ll need are:
- ​Camera
- Microphone
- Lighting
Of all three, probably the ​latter two are the most important.​​​​​​
Most newcomers think that they’ll need to spend thousands on camera to record good quality video.
The truth is that you can start with your phone’s camera.
I recommend doing this because you can test the waters first and see if you enjoy recording videos before committing a lot of money.
If you combine a decent phone camera with good lighting, you can create Full HD video that looks good enough for YouTube.
Just get a tripod for your camera and you can start recording videos. Microphones aren’t expensive either, you can get a pretty cheap one for around $20-60 that is better than your phone’s.
​4) Start Recording and Practicing
So you know ​your niche and have your equipment, now you can ​start looking for subjects for your videos.
The most important thing is to get started:
- Ask yourself: what is my purpose? Teaching or entertaining?
- Don’t try to make *perfect* videos in the beginning
- When you’re starting, you should just focus on practicing talking to a camera
- Learn some Photoshop so you can craft attractive, clickable thumbnails
It’s going to feel weird in the beginning, but you will slowly start becoming better at it.
​Do not get discouraged if you’re really struggling, nobody was born with a good camera presence.
I was terrible ​in the beginning and it really was embarrassing at first, but you get used to it.
And make sure that when you record vlogs, you do it safely and comply with any law in your country.
​Also, you will need to start practicing your editing and thumbnail design skills.
These are two things you will learn one way or the other.
5) Learn YouTube SEO
If you want to grow your channel, you will need to learn what works and what doesn’t work for YouTube.
​What is YouTube SEO?
​​Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is about making your content easier to be discovered by search engines and the people looking for content through them.
​Remember that YouTube is a search engine that ​searches ​videos for people to watch.​​​
The ​YouTube algorithm​ is what decides what videos are worth ​recommending to ​people on their site.
The algorithm can be your best friend or your worst enemy.
You really need to know ​how YouTube decides what content to promote on their website, and make your videos appeal to that.
You need to know:
- How to title your videos to attract more viewers
- How to encourage comments and likes on your videos
- Use the right amount of tags so you don’t confuse the algorithm
- How to use your thumbnails to increase CTR
- ​How to make people ​watch more ​of your videos
- ​A lot more…
To help you with this, use VidIq. It’s a free Chrome extension that will help you have better SEO.
​Learn well what works and what doesn’t, and you will get thousands of new viewers while you sleep.
7) Be Consistent: Publish One Video Per Week
The more often you do it, the faster you’ll improve your “YouTuber skills”, and the more views you’ll get.
The YouTube algorithm does ​​care about how often you publish content.
So you will not only get more practice, but also your channel is going to get promoted to more people by the algorithm.​​​
But the specific number of videos isn’t that important, what really matters, in the end, is that the content is good enough for people to want to watch it and that you enjoy doing it.
Conclusion
You first need to make sure you want to become a YouTuber for the right reasons, or else you will end up wasting a lot of time.
You don’t do this for the money or the fame, you do it because you enjoy it.
If you don’t get this right, you will not get anywhere.
After that, you can start thinking about what you want to talk about in your videos.
Be specific with your subject, and start planning all the videos that you can make around that subject.
Help people achieve things, solve problems or inspire them. This is how you’ll attract new viewers to your videos and turn them into subscribers.
Get ready to start recording with the right equipment; remember that your camera is not the most important gear you need. Microphone and lighting will make the biggest difference.
Do not spend a lot of money on gear from the beginning.
After you start recording and getting better at making good videos, and you know that you’ll love doing this for a long time, start learning more about YouTube SEO and get better equipment.
Applying this knowledge will make YouTube recommend your videos to more people effortlessly.
And the more views you attract, the more fans you’ll have.
Will has been a full-time content creator since 2014. He’s an audio, video, and tech hobbyist dedicated to reviewing products and giving you the best tips he knows to grow your audience.