Updated October 2019

Every day more YouTube channels are being created. Also lots of craft-related channels. That’s great! But you want to be found among them all. So what steps can you take so that your ideal audience finds you?

I have had my Crochet and Knitting withTuula Maaria channel for years but I only started using it actively a few years ago. So far I have published about 130 public videos, mainly tips, tutorials and patterns for knitting and crochet. The channel is growing daily now.  At the moment I have almost 80K subscribers. (January 2020: 87K subscribers)

This post contains affiliate links. It means that if you purchase a product I recommend, I may earn a small commission with no added cost to you.

I have recently got some new equipment for making better videos. Those include a ring light that allows me to shoor videos even when there isn’t much daylight. I also got a better lav microphone for when I shoot videos on my phone. Check out the rest of my gear too.

New viewers and subscribers don’t just appear, you need to work for them. YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. Therefore YouTube SEO (search engine optimization) matters greatly in how easily viewers find your videos.  YouTube doesn’t understand the content of your video, you need to tell it what it contains. It suggests videos on the basis of what your titles, descriptions and tags tell about your content. The title is the most important. Therefore it is worth spending time researching what words people use to search for the content you offer. Tubebuddy is great for that.

So, check that you are implementing all these steps:

Each individual video

1. Choose the video title so it includes keywords about the video content
2. Write a clear description. Only the first 2 or 3 lines show without having to click “Show more”. Therefore, put the most important content first. You have 5000 characters, so don’t need to try to keep it short. You can also write the transcription as part of the description.
3. Create the video thumbnail yourself, don’t take a shot of the video itself. Use your channel, blog or website style.
4. Use end screens. You can use 2-4 end screens. Create at least two end screens. You can have a link to another video of your own choosing. You can let YouTube select which one of your videos is the most aproppriate for the viewer. I have that in most of my videos. You can also have a link to your website if you have approved it. Also links to sites like your Etsy shop can be added.
5. Use cards to link to the content you refer to on the video. You can use cards to link to another video or playlist or a website. To link to your website or blog you need to make it an associated website. Unless you have two videos where the content is linked, don’t add the cards until the latter part of the video. otherwise people may click away too early.
6. Add transcription and/or translations on your video.
7. Share your video on Pinterest. I use Tailwind to automate pinning and share in Tailwind tribes.

Your YouTube channel

1. Fill in all information on the channel About page.
2. Also add your social media, website or blog links.
3. Create a short introductory video to set as a channel trailer for new visitors. Recommended length 30-60 seconds.
4. Download the VidIQ and TubeBuddy plugins for Chrome on your computer. They give you a lot of information both of your own videos as well as any others you watch, for example, statistics and your SEO score. You can get ideas for good tags from videos similar to yours. TubeBuddy keyword tool helps you with finding the best video titles.
5. Create playlists, both with your own content only and with your content mixed with other people’s content.
6. Use sections on your channel page. That allows you to point people to your most popular content, your latest content, selected playlists, other channels etc.
7. Answer or at least like all comments.
8. You can monetize your channel using Google Adsense. But remember, to get any income past a few euros a month you need tens of thousands of views.
9. One of the criteria YouTube suggests your videos is audience retention. Therefore, don’t babble on so that people skip over most of your content!

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Tallenna

Tallenna

Tallenna