Earning through YouTube has become one of the famous means in the digital world. People have started introducing their own YouTube channels about the things they like and they are literally earning good fortunes out of it. Are you impressed with the YouTubers who have millions of views for their videos with at least thousands of subscribers to their channel? Then, you must have thought of creating your own channel too? Yeah, that’s what most of us think while watching the videos on YouTube, but probably leave this idea because they do not think that they are created for this digital world. “How to start a Youtube channel” is the question that remains in the unconsciousness most of the times.

For some, it is the lack of detail and for the others; it is just the hesitation to take a new initiative. In both these situations, you are going to get benefit from this article. Because I have tried to write it as a YouTube complete guide and include everything that you can relate to the YouTube channel in quite an easy manner. So, you can go through it step by step and see if it really helps you to start a YouTube channel and earn through it.

As this is going to be a long write-up, so let’s divide it in a few sections, so that you would be able to follow it easily. We’ll start by addressing the content of the videos and later will take it to starting the channel in itself and then the ways through which you can convert it to effective monetization means. For each section, I’ll address some of the specific questions that you can have in mind. With such questions, you’ll be able to clear any confusion that you can possibly have.

A. How to find the content for your YouTube Channel?

The first question that you would have to address is regarding the content of your YouTube channel. There can be some of the things that you would have to keep in mind. Let’s review them one by one.

a. Choose the subjects that you like:

You’ll have to find your strengths first in order to find the content that would be suitable for your YouTube channel. Why? Because your strengths are actually your expertise. When you know something, more than others do or if you are good at something more than the other people around you, you definitely know something more than the general population. Most of the times, you have gained some specific insights by your own experiences, in the field you like, which aren’t possible by everyone to know or understand without particular help. So such strengths or expertise can actually play a vital role in the success of your YouTube channel and resolve the problem of how to start a Youtube channel.

1. I have more than one strengths, what should I do?

You must write down your strengths and number them from one to 10. You’ll get to know which strengths or expertise you should utilize at first. However, you must keep a note of the other strengths too. Because they are really going to be helpful when you’ll be diversifying your channel or maybe monetizing it. I’ll discuss that in the later part of this article.

2. What if I don’t find any strengths?

This is technically not possible. There must be some strong point of your personality. You might be able to draw something in a better way or have higher level of knowledge on sports. You might be good at reading or have general tips for every problem. In all such situations, you are actually better than others are. You might need to explore in depth and you’ll find it. You can take help from your friends or family in this regard too as they know you in a better way.

b. Some prominent Niches:

If you still want some ideas about the content or the niche you can select, then I can provide some broad dimensions, but it is advisable that you must go for focused niches. The larger niche you’ll select more difficult would it be to rank your YouTube channel and thus generation of the desired audience towards your channel would be nearly impossible. Just as an example, if you are trying to write on freelancing, you must cover particular aspect of freelancing. I mean, there can be a number of freelancing activities. You might want to write about the platforms available, domains available or provide freelancing opportunity through your channel. Even in these domains, you’ll have to look for sub categories, for example, content writing, graphic designing, logo designing website designing, even SEO itself is a separate sub category. You can even go in detail rather you must, if you are really looking to rank your channel.

Some of the domain options that you can utilize for your YouTube channel include tips on gardening, website development, digital marketing, teaching language, product reviews and the list can continue. But I guess you have got my point and some of the idea about the possible domains too. So, how to start a YouTube channel is not an issue anymore, right?

c. Audience Analysis:

Before you start a YouTube channel, it is important that you must analyze the audience in detail. Because ultimately, your audience is going to help in monetization. Without conducting such an analysis, you won’t be able to know whom are you targeting and what are they looking for. The use of keyword search strategy can be important in this regard too. Because with the use of keyword research, you can find how your audience search the topic that you have selected for video creation. Thus, it can also highlight about the expected content from your channel.

d. Competitor’s Analysis:

Like any business whether in the online world or the offline one, it is important that you must analyze the competitors. By viewing their videos, you can even learn some techniques that can help you in improving your channel. Moreover, you can get an opportunity to learn from their mistakes and make sure not to repeat them in your videos and your channel.

B. How to start a YouTube channel?:

Once you have actually done your homework, now it is time for the creation of YouTube channel. I have explained the step by step guide below.

Firstly, you need to create your Google Account. If you have one, you might use it but if you want to have a separate account for your channel, then creating it would be essential. It is a simple process of signing up to Google. For the rest of the account creation steps, Google Sign Up page would guide you in detail. So, I am skipping that process.

Next comes, the creation of an account on YouTube. You should use the same Google Account that you have just created (or can use the one that you already have).

Once signed into YouTube, you need to click on the profile icon and adjust certain settings. Clicking on “My channel” through this dropdown menu will let you create your own channel. Yes, this process was the simplest. Your channel is created.

Google will assign you a URL but that would be random and too long. So, to adjust this problem, you can get the customized URL from the settings of YouTube.

3. Can I use my own name in the URL?

Sure, you can. You can make your own choice when it comes to custom URL. It can be either your name, your company’s name or another name that you wish to have in your URL. But one of the tips here is keep it short, so that your audience can remember it and get to you by simply typing it rather than searching for specific videos and getting to you.

You can easily customize your YouTube home page as you would do in any other application. You can add your picture, add a cover photo and adjust the dimension of the cover photo etc. to suit the outlook. Additionally, sections like about me and Channel Settings can be modified according to your requirements. There are no technical settings involved, so you can probably do them on your own.

After all, this process done, you’ll have to verify your account just to check the ownership of your Google Account and the YouTube page. Clicking “verify” will do it for you.

C. Make Videos:

When you have already decided your niche, you’ll have to explore new ideas for making videos regularly. Not to mention that the sound quality and picture quality should be at least normal, so that the audience would stick to your video. Additionally, you can setup the first video to be about you, your dreams related to the YouTube channel and the content that you would cover in your videos ahead. Make sure to keep the “you” attitude in your content so that the audience would know that how could your content be valuable for them.

D. Upload Videos:

Uploading the videos on YouTube is as simple as the other steps here. You need to click the camera icon and you’ll see two option there. One will indicate you to upload video whereas the other one would show “go live” statement. As we have been discussing the recording of videos, so we’ll continue with the uploading part. Going live is not difficult either but for that you must have strong communication skills and the ability to interact with the audience because you’ll be seen by a number of people live at the moment. So, it is your choice, if you need to record your videos or choose to go live. Both of them are possible.

E. Video Promotion:

a. Social Media Forums and Advertisement:

As a new You Tuber, you can’t expect your first video to go viral on the first day of uploading. This is more than unrealistic. You’ll have to build up a good reputation of your YouTube channel before your stuff can go viral. So, for that, the promotion of your videos and the channel itself is very important.

Some of the options that you can utilize here are using social media pages or linking your YouTube to your website, if you already have any. Additionally, paid advertisement on social media forums can also be used as the way for getting initial subscriptions and traffic to your channel. You’ll even need an email list through which you can expect to get the desired audience. This is one of the difficult steps and you might want to hire some professional help here. However, it is your choice. You might want to learn the promotional techniques to get the most benefit.

b. Role of SEO:

SEO cannot actually be ignored in anything that you want to do online. SEO can actually help you in boosting the views of your videos and the overall channel to a greater degree. The title of the channel, title of the video, video description, video keywords, and channel keywords, all of them have to be optimized in the best possible way. So, that you can generate the right kind of results that can actually lead to the success of your channel.

One of the important aspects in how to start a YouTube channel is the requirement of a complete command over SEO. Why? Because you’ll need to incorporate that once for your channel rather regular improvement in it is required when you’ll upload the new videos regularly.

c. Including Thumbnails, Adding website or other contact details:

You must aim to increase your viewership by a specific video too. In case, one of your later videos have any reference to any of your previous videos, you must create a thumbnail for it that would encourage the random viewers of your video to view the previous videos as well, thus increasing the chances of improving the viewership results. Even the engagement levels would increase.

Moreover, you can provide the details of your website as well. So, the website can be used in both ways. You can redirect the audience to your website and even from your website to the YouTube channel too.

F. Youtube Monetization:

As we discussed earlier that you are aiming to make money from YouTube channel. So, this section is going to be the most important one when it comes to YouTube complete guide. As a number of monetization options are available through your YouTube channel; you’ll have to make your own choice when it comes to these options. I am going to discuss all of these methods, so you can have the complete knowledge about the ways to make money from YouTube and reap the maximum benefits from your question how to start a Youtube channel.

a. YouTube Partnership Program:

There are some prerequisites that you need to follow when considering the monetization of your YouTube channel.  You must have at least 1000 subscribers for your channel and the videos must have a watch time of 4000 hours in a year. Only, then you can expect to get advertisements and earn money through it. Even the process is not very simple. After you have fulfilled the prerequisites, you’ll have to submit your channel for manual evaluation. And if the administration would really feel that, your channel follows all the terms and condition of YouTube and can have enough audience to benefit YouTube. So, the process that started from how to start a YouTube channel, is not a piece of cake. It requires some effort.

4. When will I be paid?

If you have faced all the scrutiny and managed to get advertisements for your videos, even then the payment will be made for the ads that are actually watched by the viewers.  The ads that we actually skip aren’t paying anything to the owner of the video. So, that will apply to you too when you’ll be a YouTuber. I thought it was important to share because the question of how to start a Youtube channel demands such information.

b. YouTube Premium:

In this mode of earning money from YouTube, you need to set a specific fee for providing access to your videos to audience. The money you get as subscription of your channel can be set depending upon your content. But for that your content must be exceptionally outstanding, otherwise no one will go for premium content when they have access to the simple one. And your quest about how to start a Youtube channel would go in vain. So, the nature of content gets extremely important in this category of earning through YouTube.

c. Affiliate marketing:

You can even promote the products or services of certain companies in your videos. The companies can contact you if they’ll find a high audience for your channel and the relevance of their products with your videos. On promotion of their products or services, you can be paid, resulting in your earning from YouTube. Various risks & terms and conditions are involved in it, so you must be careful while choosing this method.

d. Sell your own products:

If you are running a company or have any products of yours’. You can definitely sell them through YouTube. The promotion of products and the description of their benefits can be told to the audience through your videos and they can be compelled to buy your product. So, how to start a YouTube channel query can be important for your physical business too.

How to succeed?

With all this information, (I can understand it can be difficult to digest), you actually have the access to all the important techniques and ways through which you can start a YouTube channel and make money from YouTube. You need to choose the domain and the content wisely to get maximum benefits. If you believe that you can use some shortcuts for the success, then you are wrong, you’ll have to spend your effort to earn some money. There is no free lunch in this world. So, I believe with this guide you would have got your answer to how to start a YouTube channel.