How to Start a Vlog: The Definitive Guide

This guide can be used by almost anyone looking to create video content to share mainly on YouTube. It is for:

Myth #1 YouTube is not as popular as it used to be

YouTube has one billion users. That’s ⅓ of the internet. Yeah, YouTube is not dying any time soon. Did we also mention that there are more than one billion hours watched each day?

Myth #2 There’s too much competition

While there are one billion YouTube users, which means that’s one billion potential subs for your channel, there are only around 15,000,000 active YouTube channels (estimate). That means that for every 15 active channels, there are a 1,000 users watching. There is still a lot of opportunities to get views and subs. Besides, one user can sub and watch multiple channels, so it’s not like a YouTuber can claim a part of those users. You have potential access to that humongous amount of users.

Myth #3 It’s not worth the work because of the adpocalypse

Shoing ads on the YouTube videos might be the most popular way of making some money on YouTube. However, it’s not the only one. In fact, the most successful YouTubers are making most of their money with other methods, and showing ads is one of the least important for them.

Myth #4 There is no space for growth for small YouTube channels

These are the very basic things you will need to start a vlog:

Knowing what you want to do will help you get the right tone for your potential audience.

For example,

If you’re a business that has mainly 40+ years-old clients with their own businesses, you probably want a more serious and professional tone and look for your channel. After all, it can help them trust in the quality of the services you provide.

On the other hand, if you just want to express yourself and your personality, you can just go as natural and casual as you usually are.

Also, having realistic expectations will save you a lot of time.

Because let me tell you something you shouldn’t expect from YouTube: getting rich quickly.

So if you’re in just for the money, you better not start wasting your time recording because you won’t last.

You will need years before you can make it, and it’s not likely that you will become a millionaire from your channel.

Take MrBeast as an example. He now has more than 5 million subs but he had to grind for more than 5 years before his channel exploded, although he only started doing it seriously around 2-3 years ago.

It’s possible for most people can earn a nice living from this, but it requires an absurd amount of work that most people are not willing to invest.

It’s probable that you will not earn a single penny the first months. But don’t feel discouraged, that’s just how everybody started.

Don’t do it for the money.

I’m sure you have at least one hobby that you love doing, or a subject that you love knowing more about.

It could be anything. There are thousands of different video topics. You can basically try anything you want to.

If you like many things, great! Start writing down everything you like.

You NEED to love what you do if you want to make a lot of videos about it.

After all, you won’t be making money from this anytime soon, so you might at least love doing it. You need hundreds of videos before this can happen.

Think about it: you’d need to record at least a 1000 videos around the same subject without burning out.

What are they missing out?

Would you be able to record a video about the same subject and give something they didn’t give to their audience? That’s the only way of knowing that your vlogs will provide more value than the competition.

YouTube is pretty crowded with creators that aren’t really helpful or entertaining. All vloggers that happen to make it are offering something somewhat unique and with good value.

Still, there is...

How to be unique without reinventing the wheel:

It is as simple as bringing something you didn’t see in other YouTubers that vlog about your subject.

After all, nowadays almost everything has been invented or tried out before. You simply need that slight touch of originality.

You can explore YouTubers and find one that does a style of video that you think you’d enjoy doing too.

You can do the same thing, but you could give it a personal touch, and just that can make it unique.

A good way of finding a way of giving something unique is by being extremely specific with your videos. This is what I call the Target the Geek Method, which I will explain later on.

Building a brand will also help you stand out from the crowd.

But don’t worry, we will get there in just a moment.

First, YouTube is basically a search engine for videos. It just happens to be that the videos are also uploaded to the same platform.

In other words, YouTube is basically Google for video content.

First, you go to the search bar and type in a keyword.

The search engine shows you what it thinks would be the best answer for your query, in order of importance.

The YouTube algorithm is what decides what videos to show and in what order.

Like with any other search engine, there are good practices you can apply to help your videos be favored by the algorithm and rank for more keywords to get more views.

But you will hear about them in just a moment.

Even though nobody really knows exactly how the algorithm works.There are some people dedicated to figure out what works and what doesn’t, but only few of them will tell you truly helpful things.

I know I just told you that you should learn how YouTube works.

HOWEVER, be aware that nobody can be 100% certain that a method works.

You will find hundreds of so-called YouTube experts that will want to teach you how to grow your channel and all the steps you need to take to make it.

The fact that they have thousands of subs doesn’t mean they know what works and what doesn’t.

See, YouTube is a search engine that is constantly changing its algorithm, probably on a daily basis.

And if something works today, it might not work as well tomorrow.

You will see hundreds of experts repeating the same thing, but that’s just because they heard the last one say it, or at least it’s something that used to work before.

This happens a lot, and not only on YouTube.

A good example is that a lot of them will tell you to publish 3 videos a week at least, but it’s not necessarily true.

There are many people that have managed to grow their channel recently by recording fewer videos, but with the right approach and higher quality.

An example is iDubbbzTV. He publish one video per month, but each video has an enormous impact and his subs can’t wait for the next one to come out.

Posting less often can increase the importance and impact of a video. One high-quality video can outshine---and more importantly, outperform---10 low-quality ones. But bear in mind that it works better when you already have a good amount of people following you.

Still most successful channels have around 80% of their views coming from 20% of their videos. This just says that more videos doesn’t necessarily mean more views.

That simply tells you that you should aim to make good content; content that people love watching either because it’s helpful or entertaining.

Listen to people that are really committed to knowing how YouTube works.

There are some dedicated people out there that have done a lot of tests by comparing successful channels and finding common things they share.

Most of them make a living by investigating, researching and testing Youtube SEO. And they give this information for free. Brian Dean from Backlinko is a good example.

You have to listen to people like this. They will usually give you evidence on why a method works. You can learn really interesting and useful tips from them.

For example, after analyzing 1.3 million of videos, Backlinko team found out that the average video that appears on the first page of the results is 15 minutes long.

This is the type of information you will want to pay attention to when learning how the business and technical side of video blogging works.

Learning YouTube SEO and applying good practices will help you get more views, subscribers and ultimately, money.

Reading Backlinko’s research can be really helpful to learn SEO and how to get more views.

Since watch time is probably the most important YouTube metric, do what you need to get more.

This means that you need to increase the clicks your video gets when its listed. And you also need to make your audience click on the next video you have.

You want to keep them on the site, and preferably your videos, for the most time that you can.

For this, the following will help:

Writing good headlines is a skill that has been practiced since the beginnings of journalism.

And it’s not so different in the YouTube era.

How to write titles that attract clicks:

I’m sure you're beginning to understand why we see so many titles like these:

This reminds me of something... I’m sure that you’ve heard about clickbait.

This is a problem that is making YouTube annoy a lot of people.

Writing a fake title just to attract click is a common practice between an infamous group of YouTubers.

Personally, it would make me feel better about myself.

You can still practice creating some tension and try to turn on people’s curiosity, but do not lie to them. People don’t like to be deceived.

But you can decide for yourself. What do you want to be known for?

Attractive thumbnails will attract more clicks. It is that simple.

You want people to know what your video is about just by looking at the thumbnail.

PewDiePie --- the biggest YouTuber of all time --- has a video on how to design good thumbnails:

Most people underestimate this part of being a vlogger.

It’s a really good idea to learn the basics of Photoshop if you want to do things yourself from the beginning, which is most likely the case because you don’t usually start with a budget to pay a designer.

I’m sure you’re beginning to understand why we see so many titles like these.

You can create awesome thumbnails with just a little knowledge of this tool.

The objective of your thumbnails is to stand out from the rest. You want to use colors that are more attractive and that contrast with YouTube’s layout.

Green, orange, blue and yellow are pretty uncommon colors and they contrast with the red, black and white that YouTube use on their layout. If you use them in your thumbnails, it will help you stand out.

 Also, you really want to write really short and clear copy on your thumbnail.

You can also try using around 3 layers of objects in your thumbnail.

For example,

Alternatively, you can use Canva.

It's a free online tool that is made for people that don't know designing and don't have enough budget to hire a graphic designer.

They even have templates for YouTube video thumbnails:

You can use these templates to design your own thumbnails with the images and text you want.

Whatever you do, pay a lot of attention to your thumbnails because they can be extremely effective at attracting clicks.

After you know why you want to start a vlog and the things that you love, you can then choose your niche.

If you own a business, you already know what your niche is. But if you’re just an individual, you need to know yourself and the things you like before you can create a niche for your vlogs.

This is absolutely necessary because you will need to record hundreds, or even thousand videos. And if you don’t want to get bored, you will need to love what you do

For example, the famous streamer Ninja only plays one game.

And he has over 12 million YouTube. But it wasn’t always like that.

After years of creating content and competing with various games, he was one of the first to play a new and he became one of its first best players.

When the game gained popularity, so did his channel.

By recording your vlogs around a specific subject, you will also be able to attract subscribers more easily.

Still, more views do not mean more subscribers 100% of the time, and vice versa. Some channels have a terrible conversion rate from views to subs or a terrible conversion from subs to views

But YouTube channels that are targeted at a specific interest tend to get good conversions and a steady growth --- If there’s a decent amount of people that like the subject.

Because by niching down you will be able to attract people with the same particular interest and that are passionate enough to learn more about it.

It's more probable that they come back to watch your next video. After all, they love the activity you’re doing.

For example, the channel The Infographic Show is aimed at people that love infographics and learning about new interesting stuff. And that’s all the channel does.

This is what I mean by Targeting the Geek: target people that LOVE something very specific.

Targeting the geeks of your niche will allow you to gather dedicated, highly interested people in what you have to show.

Some examples of niches are:

With how competitive YouTube is nowadays, you should probably go with very narrow niches and grow up from there.

That is why it’s really important to start with something you’re deeply interested in. It’s all about loving to record videos about it all the time.

After a while, you can start creating videos for other “shoulder” niches. Since your subs will have a connection with you already, you will be able to make them interested in new topics. And with that you will gain new subs that love that new subject.

This is probably the most methodical way of growing a vlogging channel.

At least that's how PewDiePie did it.

He created a really good niche in Gameplay videos and made his videos really entertaining with his reactions and commentary.

After a few years, he now basically just do what he wants with his channel. He does a lot of different things from reviewing funny memes, to doing serious book reviews.

And he is still growing and gets millions of views per video, even though he rarely plays videogames anymore.

After you grow up a following, you can start doing a lot of different things and people will still like you and support you.

Since YouTube is as interested as you to grow your channel ---they also earn money from the ads shown in your videos, they will show you analytics and reports about the demographics and performance of your channel.

With this tool, you will be able to know the age, region and even the interests of your viewers. This will help you narrow even more your videos to target that specific audience you’re attracting.

You will also be able to know extremely specific information in each of your videos; for example, the minute in which people started leaving your video --- don’t worry if you see people leaving after the first few seconds, this is completely normal. But this information can be extremely helpful.

How does this information help?

Let’s say you have 5 videos where people start leaving after the first 2 minutes, but then you publish a new video where people started leaving after 2:30 minutes. That’s when you ask yourself: what’s different in this video that made people stay for longer? Maybe it was a funny segment or a quick change of pace.

Once you discover it, you can start replicating it for your following videos so you can start improving your retention time overall.

These are things all the top Youtubers are aware of and try to improve upon.

One thing that has been found to work really well for YouTube is creating a video series covering a particular subject.

For example, let’s say you’re a history vlogger. You can dedicate one entire 10-video series to Egypt history and then group them together in a single playlist.

This won’t only organize your channel, but it will make it easier for people looking to learn more about the same subject.

If they’re really interested in that subject, they might end up watching the entire 10-video series!

And that would be a good thing to increase your rankings with Youtube's algorithm.

You can also combine Targeting the Geek with playlists. Do it like you’re targeting a different type of geek with each playlist.

Just try to keep everything under a general interest.

There’s probably no better way of making people watch more of your videos than this.

You should have a schedule for your YouTube channel activities.

Check this example from Youtuber itsmelissaflores:

You should set how often to publish according to the time you got available to dedicate to your vlogs.

Since you’re starting, you might want to keep videos coming often. You can do it weekly or a couple of times a week, maybe even more.

But do not hesitate to take more time to record a really nice video, especially if you’re a business looking to produce the most professional and useful video possible.

One of the most recommended techniques to being more efficient is working in batches.

And for that, you should:

Choose a schedule that works for you, but make sure to do related tasks during the same session because it will improve your productivity.

What do you think the first traders in history started doing to stand out from the other hundreds of traders when the markets started to become too competitive?

They started creating ways to make people remember and recognize them over the others.

Building a brand is the way to stand out from the rest.

You need something unique that can identify you and that will help people remember you for the future.

And little has changed in the YouTube era.

Be it a logo, a portrait, an intro or using the same music in your videos; you need something that can help people identify you.

And that’s why you should:

If you’re going to create an intro, make it short. People will decide to keep watching your video within the first 15 seconds. That means that you have 15 seconds to keep people interested due to the short attention span we human have nowadays.

During these 15 seconds you have to give them a reason to keep watching your video.

You want to convince them by making your video irresistible to watch during the first 15 seconds.

If you decide to create an intro, like many channels do, you should first give people a reason to keep watching your video first, and only after that you can run your animated intro.

A cute intro won't give viewers a reason to keep watching. But if you show them something interesting you're going to feature in your video later on, they might stick around to see it.

Your smartphone is a good starting vlogging camera. Most of them can record 1080p60 video and the latest models can even do 4k.

Just remember to use your smartphone horizontally when recording so it matches YouTube’s aspect ratio.

If you don’t, your video will look like this:

After a while, and if you feel like you want to keep vlogging for a long time, you can invest in a good vlogging camera.

There are a lots of options you could go for. You will need to know first what type of content you want to record before deciding between a camcorder, DSLR, compact, mirrorless, webcam or action camera.

If you decide to invest, you can visit our guide to choosing the right camera for YouTube here.

But I highly advise you to make sure you like vlogging before investing. They are not cheap!

Even though I recommend you to start with what you got already, the exception is for audio.

This is extremely important for a vlogging channel. It’s without any doubt more important than  image quality.

If you take your camera out, and you plan to use the audio recorded by the camera, you might end up with a completely useless video.

On the other hand, if you start with your smartphone you can use it to connect a better microphone without needing an external recorder.

You can start out with a $15 lapel microphone if your budget is really tight.

Microphones can be pretty cheap and provide a lot more audio quality than what the recording camera can offer.

Here’s a list of microphones you can choose for vlogging.

After that you could also consider if you’ll need a tripod, monopod or selfie stick and lighting.

If you plan to record lots of videos from home, you will probably need lighting.

It’s extremely important to have good lighting if you want to record high-quality video. A cheap 20-bucks bulb can help improve your quality a lot more than getting a 200$ camera.

Cameras need good lighting to be able to record high-quality video. And that’s true for all of them, no matter how expensive they are.

It is the most important piece of equipment for photography, and second most important for vlogging --- the first one being the microphone.

You can get a good lighting kit for around $50.

Or you could also do like most YouTubers and get a Ring Light: they are cheap, easy to carry, simple to use and provide great lighting for your face.

If you’re recording with your smartphone, you probably need a selfie stick to get the camera away from your face and give you more stability --- it is also safer since you won’t drop the phone so easily.

If you’re using a compact camera or a DSLR, you can use a mini-tripod to hold them --- as long as your camera can use a tripod.

If not, you will need a selfie stick for compact cameras.

And if you’re recording from home, you will need a tall tripod to let the camera rest while you record.

Tripods and selfie stick are pretty cheap, you can find something useful for around 20$.

You can see a full list of essential equipment, including tripods for vlogging, here.

As a vlogger, you will most likely spend more time editing a video than recording it. But it will depend on the kind of content you record.

Some vloggers are done with their editing in 20 minutes, but that’s just because they only need to cut some scenes and put everything together.

But things start to get more complicated when you want to increase the quality by adding text, animated scenes and cool effects.

You can easily spend several hours editing just one video this way.

You really have to ask yourself: do I have the time available to do all this editing work?

You could instead hire an editor, but they are not cheap so you will need good budget for it.

You will probably do better with simple editing, at least for as long as you have no budget.

If you want to do some simple editing, you have available some free editing software that will work just fine.

Free Editors for Simple Vlogs

For simple editing you can use the two apps that are available for Windows and macOS users. They will allow you to do the most basic of editing: cutting and pasting different clips to put together a video blog.

Premium Editors for Vlogging

These apps are two of the most populars used by professional editors around the globe. They're also the two most popular between YouTubers and video bloggers because of their reliability and simplicity:

You don’t need any special requirement to open your channel. Just go to YouTube and log in with your Google account.

It’s extremely probable that you already have a channel because the process is pretty automatic.

If you’ve ever posted a comment, you already have one. Just click on your account in the upper right corner and select “My Channel” and that should confirm that your channel is ready.

If not, try posting a comment on a random video and you will be prompted to create one.

That’s it! You can already start being a YouTuber.

Make sure to access YouTube’s Creator Academy for all the basic information on how YouTube works and useful courses from your boss itself!

At this point, you’ve been preparing for so much time that you might feel like you’re not ready yet.

If you don’t start recording now, all the work you’ve done will be for nothing.

Don’t be afraid of recording your first video. Take your time if you need it.

But don’t make a big deal out of it. There are thousands making this for a living and many more as a hobby they love.

This is just the first of hundreds or even thousands of videos you’re going to record.

You better start right now.

Don’t look at your subs and views count.

Paying attention to your views or sub count, and caring too much about it will only hold you back.

In fact, you can turn off your subs count on your Profile page and going to the Creator Studio. After that, go to Channel > Advanced and click the option.

I recommend you do it so you are not stressed about it and so people don’t see you have a low sub count.l.

You have to assume and accept that you will have a low view and sub account for a while. But the trick here is to work like there are thousands watching your videos.

Start becoming the vlogger you want to be right from the start.

And you can provide value by entertaining, helping or inspiring them.

In other words, you need to be able to make some sort of impact in them.

If you do it right, you will make them come back and you won’t even have to tell them to sub to you.

Now, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tell people to sub to you.

Reminding people there’s a sub button down there will get you more subs.

But they are not going to press that button unless they loved your video.

If you’re not worth it, it really doesn’t matter how many times you tell them to subscribe.

Be the first to talk about something so you don’t compete with a huge amount of videos that are talking about the same subject.

This way, when people start searching about this, you will be one of the first videos to show up.

There’s actually a really easy way of finding out daily what are the trending subject.

Just use Google Trends.

It’s free and has all the information you need. You can even find subjects by category.

You will once in a while find new topics that are related to your vlogs and you can talk about them.

Don’t forget to include the topic in your video’s title, so people that are looking for this can find your video easily.

As you keep recording and uploading videos, you can start building a community with the new subs you start getting.

Many vloggers like giving their subscribers a name in order to create a community.

This is extremely common on Twitch, but some YouTube channels do it too.

The most memorable example is the BroArmy from PewDiePie, which ended up being the largest community on YouTube.

All of his subscribers were part of the BroArmy and he would refer to them as “The Bros”. He would also salute them with a “BroFist” in all of its videos.

With this he built a friendly community where everyone shared a couple of things in common: they loved PewDiePie’s videos and gaming.

That’s one of the reasons why PewDiePie has kept most of his subscribers even after so many years.

Building a community will help you have a deeper connection with your regular viewers.

Humans need groups where they belong. Make them feel part of something meaningful. This will make them feel happy.

And there’s no better way to make them come back to your new videos than making them happy.

You can do a few things to increase the connection between you and your subs:

Who knows, you might even end up making new friends that will support you all the way to success.

Try starting with one or two social media accounts because it becomes harder to focus on so many at the same time.

And also, not all social media platforms are good for a YouTube channel.

2. Tweet when you upload a new YouTube video

And as I’ve told you before, don’t fall into the new YouTuber mentality.

Maybe the first days you can start using hashtags like #NewYouTuber, which are pretty popular between youtubers, as a way to grow your first few followers and maybe subscribers.

HOWEVER, read that sentence again: “...pretty popular between youtubers”.

This means that the average viewer is not looking at that hashtag. He’s not looking for the next new YouTuber.

Use hashtags related to the theme or subject of your vlogs.

3. Follow back people that follow you to grow your follower and engage with people

This will help you get those first 100 followers that will help your account not look so empty.

But after this, you should really look into providing value and content to your followers so you start attracting people that is truly interested in what you say.

Interact, retweet, and like everything that is related and meaningful to what you do and what you vlog about.

Many people will follow you because you keep them informed and talk about interesting stuff they care about.

4 Start monetizing

You need to reach the minimum requirements to become a YouTube Partner and start monetizing your videos with Adsense ---this is the name of the service that will show ads on your videos.

The minimum requirements are:

1,000 subscribers total and 4,000 hours of watch time in the last 12 months.

From that moment on you will be able to display ads on the videos you want (and that are suitable for monetization).

It’s impossible to tell you how much you will earn per view because it depends highly on your audience demographics.

But you should know that you won’t be earning much money in the beginning, so don’t get discouraged. Since the money isn’t much, start saving it to improve your channel.

You can save money to get better software for editing, a designer for your thumbnails, and new equipment like camera, lighting, microphone or anything you need to improve your content’s quality.

This is just the beginning. As you grow your channel even more, you can start thinking about new monetization methods.

You can earn money with affiliate links, sponsored videos, opening a patreon account or even selling your own merchandising.

Still, in the beginning you will only make some money with Adsense and with affiliate links that you can insert in your videos description.

This is EXCITING.

You are now ready to start. I recommend you save this guide to your bookmarks so you can come back to it each time you need to remind yourself of something.

Now, I recommend you stop reading so much about vlogging and having a YouTube channel and start as soon as you can.

The sooner you start, the quicker you will be growing your channel.

So go ahead and hit record!

If you liked this free guide, make sure to share it so we can help more people start their video blog channel.

 Good luck!