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YouTube an online video sharing and social media platform owned by Google is the second most visited website, right after Google itself with more than one billion monthly users who collectively watch more than one billion hours of videos each day. It has a vast database of videos where users are uploading videos at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute.
Video categories on YouTube include music videos, video clips, news, short films, feature films, documentaries, audio recordings, movie trailers, teasers, live streams, vlogs, and more. Most content is generated by individuals, including collaborations between YouTubers and corporate sponsors. YouTube has had an unprecedented social impact, influencing popular culture, internet trends, and creating multimillionaire celebrities. That’s why everyone wants to know – How To Create A YouTube Channel.
What is a Youtube Channel
The channel serves as the home page for the user’s account, and you can have more than one YouTube channel. A personal YouTube channel is available to everyone who joins YouTube as a member. After the user enters and approves the information, the channel shows the account name, a personal description, the public videos the member uploads, and any user information the member enters.
If you’re a YouTube member, you can customize the background and color scheme of your personal channel and control some of the information that appears on it.
What is the Use of Creating a Youtube Channel
You can watch and like videos and subscribe to channels with a Google Account. But without a YouTube channel, you have no public presence on YouTube. Even if you have a Google Account, you need to create a YouTube channel to upload videos, comment, or make playlists.
Some of the other use of creating a Youtube channel is:
- Give the Audience More Content: One really good reason to add video and a YouTube channel is to give the audience more content. When people get a lot of good content that is solving their problems, they stay longer and like to come back and visit more often.
- Extra Source of Traffic: A nice side effect of adding the extra content is that it drives more traffic. People can now find you on YouTube.
- Closer Personal Connection: You can create a much more personal connection with people and let them get to know you and see how you act/react to certain situations.
- Creative Outlet: It gives us a good creative outlet.
Steps to a Create YouTube Channel
As YouTube is owned by Google, having a Google account is a prerequisite to creating a YouTube channel.
If you have a Google account, you can watch, share and comment on YouTube content. However, Google accounts don’t automatically create YouTube channels. Getting a new channel set up is a simple and quick process, though.
Follow these steps to create a YouTube channel:
1. Go to YouTube and Sign In
Head over to YouTube.com and click ‘sign in’ in the top right corner or bottom left of the page.
From there, you’ll be taken to a Google sign-in page.
- If you have a Google account, you’ll be prompted to sign in.
- If you have multiple Google accounts, be sure to select the one you want to be associated with the YouTube channel.
- If you do not have a Google account, click “Create Account” and follow the prompts to register for one.
2. Create a New YouTube Channel
Once you’re set up with and signed into your Google account, it’s time to create a channel. Click your user icon in the upper right-hand corner. This represents both your Google account and your YouTube account (as YouTube is owned by Google). You’ll see a drop-down menu, where you’ll click “Settings.”
From there, you’ll be taken to your account overview. Click “Create a new channel” under “Your channel.”
The first step is to create a Channel Name. It can be whatever name you want and doesn’t have to be the same name that you used to create your Google account. It’s better to have a name that reflects the content the YouTube Channel will have.
After you enter the channel name, you might be asked to verify the account via text message or voice call. If that happens, enter the code you receive from the option you choose.
Once you’ve verified your channel name, you’ll be taken to the dashboard for your channel. Now, it’s time to start customizing it.
3. Customizing a Channel Page
You can find “Customize Channel” at the top right of the page.
From there, you’ll be taken to the channel customization page.
You’ll find three tabs: “Layout,” “Branding,” and “Basic info.” These three tabs will help you optimize your channel for viewers.
Basic Info: Let’s first start by adding Basic Info.
It’s the place where you’ll enter some basic information about your channel, like the language your videos are in, as well as a description that helps people discover your channel when they enter search terms that describe what videos they’re looking for. These keywords can include what your channel is about, the problems it helps solve, etc. You’ll also be able to add links to sites you want to share with your viewers.
Branding: Next, now moving on to “Branding”. The options under this tab are used to update your profile picture, banner image, and video watermark.
Profile Picture: A profile picture is used to identify the creator of a video when browsing video content. You’ll see this image appear beneath YouTube videos on the play page. YouTube recommends using a picture with dimensions of at least 98 x 98 pixels.
Banner Image: A YouTube banner is an image that sits at the very top of your channel and gives viewers a preview of what they can expect from your content. YouTube recommends using an image that’s at least 2048 x 1152 px.
Video Watermark: The video watermark is displayed at the bottom right of every video you post (see below). You’ll want to choose a logo that best represents you sized at 150 x 150 px.
Layout: This tab is used to do Advanced Layout Options. Clicking on the “Layout” tab you find the following:
Here, you can specify certain details about how you want your content presented on your channel’s page. You’ll find the option to designate a video spotlight and organize your channel page with featured sections. Use this tab to organize your channel trailer, featured video, and channel sections.
Uploading Videos
To upload your first video to YouTube, click the “Create” button in the top-right corner and follow the instructions.
Once you start adding videos, you’ll be optimizing them for search, which in turn helps users discover your video. Here are some of the most important things to optimize on YouTube.
- Title: When someone searches for videos, one of the first things that eyes are drawn to is the title. That’s often what determines whether or not the viewer will click to watch your video, so the title should not only be compelling but also clear and concise.
- Description: This should be limited to 1,000 characters but YouTube only displays the first two or three lines of text, which comes to about 100 characters, so the beginning part of the description should contain the most important information.
- Tags: The tags don’t just let viewers know what your video is about, they inform YouTube, too, which uses tags “to understand the content and context of your video“. And hence, YouTube can associate your video with similar videos, which can broaden your content’s reach. But approach with caution — just as with your title, don’t use misleading tags because they might get you more views — in fact, Google might penalize you for that.
- Category: Choosing a category is another way to group your video with similar content on YouTube.
Ways to Enhance Your Channel
Here are a few of the best tips to grow your YouTube channel.
1. Build Your Videos Around a Single Keyword/Topic
Building your video around a single topic or keyword is the best way to drive traffic and grow your YouTube audience. It’s important to pick your keyword before you craft your video content as it helps you construct the best information around that specific topic.
2. Reuse Existing Top Performing Content
The best way to grow your YouTube channel is to create and distribute great content. But that content doesn’t always have to be built from scratch. Some of your best videos can be created from engaging, valuable, useful, and actionable content you have already.
3. Engage With Your Audience
YouTube rewards channels with great engagement, including overall time spent on a channel, watch time, likes and dislikes, and most importantly, comments. So try to respond to every comment you receive (if possible) and encourage users to engage with audio/visual prompts. Post questions or comments that can drive engagement by asking questions relevant to the content or even just asking what content they like to see on your channel or would like to see more of. Also, make sure to thank people for sharing on Youtube and other channels.
4. Get Branded
If you want visitors to take your YouTube channel seriously and subscribe, you need to look professional. In addition to visual branding, don’t forget to add custom URLs to your channel header – and write what your videos are about.
5. Promote Your YouTube Videos on Other Social Channels
One of the wonderful things about social media is that you can cross-promote content on different channels. Promoting your YouTube videos on your other social channels is the easiest way to grow your audience.
6. Post Great Thumbnails & Leverage YouTube Cards
They may seem like a small thing, but thumbnails can have a big impact. YouTube advertises other videos via thumbnails in its sidebar, so you want yours to stand out among the pack.
7. Ask For Subscriptions
One of the ways you know for sure that viewers are engaged with your channel is when they ‘subscribe’ to see any new videos that are posted. Ask viewers to subscribe to your channel in each video that you upload, and keep engaged with your existing subscribed users.
8. Upload Regularly
To grow your audience, you need to upload the content regularly.
What If My Child Wants Their Own YouTube Channel
YouTube is massively popular with children and young people – to the extent that it’s replaced live broadcast TV entirely for many of them. But unlike regular TV, YouTube also offers young people the chance to be content creators as well as consumers.
Many parents will have questions like “Can my kid have her/his YouTube channel?”, “Is it allowed?”, “Is it a good idea?”, or “How old do they have to be?”, and so on.
Here’s everything parents need to know about setting up a YouTube channel for a child.
YouTube doesn’t allow children under the age of 13 to create their own channels or accounts, and children between ages 13 and 17 are only allowed to open them with parental permission.
If your child is under 13, you should set up the channel yourself – and continue to manage the content they post and everything they do on it from that point on.
All content has to be in line with YouTube’s Community Guidelines. This includes a specific section on Child Safety on YouTube.
Tips To Keep Your Child Safe Online
Here are some of the points you should keep in mind while allowing your child to have a YouTube account or online.
1. Edit for Privacy Purposes
Since putting up videos on YouTube essentially allows anyone to see and hear your child, parents must keep a close eye on what their kids are doing to make sure they aren’t accidentally revealing any personal information. Its recommended that you don’t allow your children to show their faces in their videos.
2. Be Their #1 Viewer
Be sure to watch all of the videos your child posts. This can be tedious, but you have to make sure your kids aren’t accidentally revealing any personal information (where they go to school, where they live, etc.).
3. Put Limits on Recording Time
Like any other screen time activity, it’s best to limit your child’s recording sessions to 30-60 minutes.
4. Make Videos With Them
It can be a fun family activity if you help your kids make a video to publish online.
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