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"2024 Approved Maximize Video Reach in YouTube's SEO Arena"
Maximize Video Reach in YouTube’s SEO Arena
The 12-step YouTube SEO Guide for Beginners Who Want More Views
Shanoon Cox
Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions
The joy of creating on YouTube is often dampened by the disappointment of underperforming videos. You have published your content and it’s not getting the views you had hoped.
Well, let’s change that!
In this guide, I’m going to walk you through YouTube SEO from the very start to the very end.
Nothing complicated. No paid programs or expensive apps needed. We are going back to basics and get your videos discovered.
Ready?
Let’s Go!
Part 1: Research Your Topic and Competitors
Come up with a video idea . Can’t come up with one? Let me help. I heard you can make a mean scrambled egg, why don’t you show the world how you do it?
Excellent! Let’s go with that idea.
Wait, don’t go making the video yet. First, we have to do some research. We need to know what videos already exist out there.
Step 1: Find Related Videos
Do a quick search on YouTube to see what videos already exist on your topic.
Uh oh… your video will be competing against celebrities like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver.
Okay, don’t panic! There is a fantastic quote, credited to bestselling author, Jon Acuff , that goes:
While researching your competition, you will feel overwhelmed, but remember, you are at the beginning, and Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver are not even at their middle, they are way passed the finish line. You still have a long journey to go, so don’t get discouraged, get inspired!
Watch those videos and understand what they are all about.
Understand that people watch YouTube for 3 key reasons:
- To be entertained
- To learn something new
- To be inspired
A video that can hit all 3 marks is going to be positioned for success. Don’t fret too much about the competition, as long as your content is good, you will see improvement.
So if you think this scrambled egg idea can hit those 3 marks, then I encourage you to go to the next step. If you don’t, let’s regroup and brainstorm some more YouTube video ideas .
Step 2: Find Keywords
Now that we’ve decided that we are sticking with the video idea, we are ready to do some keyword research. Keywords are the words and phrases people type in the YouTube search bar to discover videos.
Come up with as many relevant keywords as you can. Start by entering a keyword into the YouTube search bar. This will tell you what are the most popular searches associated with that keyword:
Once you have an idea of what people are searching for related to your topic, you’ll want to find more relevant keywords. I like to use the free app, Ubersuggest to do that.
This app gives you a whole list of long-tail keywords, which are 3-4-word phrases which is specific to what your video is about.
Some you will use to dig deeper in and other you will deem irrelevant to your videos. A good way of determining the value of a keyword is by the stats the application shows.
How to Read Keyword Suggestions
Once you have a list of keywords, you will see some numbers on the right-hand side. Here is what each one is about:
- Search volume is the number used to identify the popularity of the keyword. The higher the number the more people are searching for it.
- CPC is the value accredited by YouTube, determining how much advertisers are paying to target audiences who search for that keyword and click on the link.
- Competition is the number used to qualify how many other content are using that keyword.
The two categories that matter most to us right now is Search Volume and Competition. We want keywords with high search volume and low competition rate.
In the example above, you can see that the keyword “avocado scrambled eggs” has a Search Volume of 1,000 and a competition rate of 0.0. This is a good keyword to target, if you can incorporate an avocado to your dish… which of course you can!
Step 3: Write Title
I know you might want to deal with the Title, Description, and Tags after you’ve filmed and edited your video. But if you want to apply a YouTube SEO-focused strategy, then these should be addressed before you even pick up a camera as it can greatly dictate the content you end up creating.
A good YouTube title sparks curiosity, evokes emotional reaction, and promises value to your viewers.
Of course you can title your video simply: Making Scrambled Eggs
But does it spark curiosity? Not really… most people can make scrambled eggs.
Does it evoke any emotion? Maybe hunger… but even then, not really…
Finally, does it promise value? Well, assuming that most people can at least crack an egg into a pan, then hardly.
Your scrambled egg is special! Your video is special! We need to evoke that in the title — and as long as you are not writing any clickbait and deliver on what the title suggest, you can do this.
So, how about this: Are My Amazing Scrambled Eggs Better Than Gordon Ramsay’s?
Hmmm… Well, is it? We know that the Gordon Ramsay’s video has almost 30M views. Many people have already tried cooking it, I’m sure. There is only one way to find out, by encouraging others to try it over Gordon’s.
You don’t need to go for a somewhat contentious title like this, but that’s the idea, you want something that gets people curious, make them feel a certain way, and in the end, make them better for having watched your video.
See how a good title can guide the rest of your video?
Step 4: Write Description
You aren’t going to be writing the description for the viewers necessarily, you are going to be writing it for YouTube’s algorithms. The better YouTube understands what your video is about, the better they can show it to people searching for it.
This means you need to include the keywords you were researching at the beginning of your description, as YouTube will be using them to identify the content of your video. 1 or 2 keywords that best represent your video is enough. Don’t stuff the title with too many keywords or you’ll risk sounding like a robot.
But also use the description for practical uses too, if you have additional information such as supportive links, outline of the video’s content, a list of materials, step-by-step guide, or a recipe that you think your human viewers will find useful, you should input that in the description as well.
Step 5: Write Tags
Thank goodness we did the keyword research in Step 2, because coming up with tags is not as easy as it looks.
Pull 15 keywords from the list and keep it somewhere safe.
Note: The keywords you used in the title should be found in your tags, and since they are the most important ones, you should place them first.
Organize your keywords in the tag as such:
Have the specific keywords at the top, followed by more general keywords, and then branded ones:
Specific: How to make scrambled eggs
General: Scrambled eggs
Branded: Gordon Ramsay scrambled eggs
Part 2: Make The Best Darn Video Possible
It doesn’t matter how relevant your keywords are or how epic your title is, if you video sucks (i.e. your viewers click in and leave right away), YouTube will not show it in search.
Even if you haven’t created any videos yet, you can follow these next steps to ensure you are following the best practices to structure your video.
Step 6: Plan and Film the Hook
The first few seconds is where the largest percentage of your earned viewership will drop off. Odds are 20% of your viewers won’t even get past the first 10 seconds .
What you need is a hook, an intro that ensures this video is what they want to watch and let’s them know what they can expect.
Step 7: Film B-Roll
One static camera shot of you talking or cooking or giving a tutorial can cause your viewers to lose attention.
In order to keep your viewers interest, you will need b-roll, or supplemental footage you can cut to give you video more life.
While jump cuts (cuts made on a sequential clip of the same subject or in the same camera position) are fine, having additional footage to cut to will make your video feel more fluid.
So when you are filming your scrambled egg video, make sure you get some footage of you cracking the egg, scrambling it, and serving it on the plate.
Step 8: Encourage Viewers to Engage in Video
Liking, disliking, subscribing, and commenting on your video will all help your performance indirectly.
While YouTube wouldn’t rank your video higher simply because you have more likes subscribers, or comments, engagement from viewers help your video get discovered. If you get a like or comment from a YouTuber with a lot of subscribers, your video may be visible to those who are following that YouTuber for a while.
The best way to get engagement from your audience is to encourage them to like and subscribe or ask them a question or start a dialogue.
For example, in this scrambled egg video you are making, at the end you can ask, “So what do you think, is this better than Gordon Ramsay?”
Who knows, who will respond.
Step 9: Design a Thumbnail
You could have made a brilliant video, but if you have a poor quality thumbnail that is unattractive, then the overall performance of your video will suffer — and good SEO can only do so much after that.
Your viewers will absolutely judge your video by its cover so it’s important to put some thought into it and not solely rely on the three random thumbnail choices that YouTube picks for you.
Take a look at your competition. If they all look the same, do something different. Add text or a human face (preferably yours) to evoke emotion, as viewers are more likely to click into a video if they see an expressive image.
Don’t want to pay money for a photo editing software such as Photoshop?
You can use an online service called Canva or download GIMP , an open-source photo editor much like Photoshop, but far less powerful. These will help you get the job done as you are starting out.
Want to know more thumbnail maker? Check our picks of the best free YouTube thumbnail makers .
Part 3: Publishing With Attention to Optimization
Well done finishing the video! You are almost there… but not there yet.
Come on, keep going!
Step 10: Fill Out Your Videos Assets
The video is done, the thumbnail is designed, and you have all your title, description, and tags ready to go. This step is easy, upload the video, and fill out the assets, and give yourself a pat on the back.
Step 11: Add Transcripts
In addition to making your content accessible for people who don’t want to or can’t listen to the audio in your video, adding subtitles and closed captions will help YouTube understand the spoken content in your video.
While YouTube does have an automatic subtitle generator, it’s not reliable enough to be used for identifying the keywords you use in your video.
You can choose to write out the whole transcript of your video yourself, but if you are press on time, which of course you are, you can simply go and edit the automatic transcript already available in your video. By the way, you can also use some automatic transcription software.
Step 12: Add Video to Playlist
Finally the last thing you need to do for your video is to add it to a playlist. Even though it might be the first video in the playlist, it helps YouTube identify your video if you organize it in a playlist. As you accumulate more content, having videos in playlists makes content easier to find and keeps relevant videos together.
When viewers searches, having your videos in playlists increases the chance of it being discovered.
So if your first video is about scrambled eggs, maybe you next video can be about the awesome butter toasts.
I guess, you are on your way to making a pretty badass breakfast playlist. I personally can’t wait to see it!
If you treat SEO as an afterthought, only after your video is created, you are not using it to its full potential. If you follow these 12 steps during the course of your production, you will find that SEO doesn’t simply help your video perform at the end, but contributes in all the other phases of creating your video as well.
Besides considering YouTube SEO, you should make a good YouTube video as well. Filmora is a powerful video editing software that features lots of templates and effects. Get the free trial version below and have a try today.
Do you have any questions about SEO? Please leave us a comment below.
Shanoon Cox
Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.
Follow @Shanoon Cox
Shanoon Cox
Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions
The joy of creating on YouTube is often dampened by the disappointment of underperforming videos. You have published your content and it’s not getting the views you had hoped.
Well, let’s change that!
In this guide, I’m going to walk you through YouTube SEO from the very start to the very end.
Nothing complicated. No paid programs or expensive apps needed. We are going back to basics and get your videos discovered.
Ready?
Let’s Go!
Part 1: Research Your Topic and Competitors
Come up with a video idea . Can’t come up with one? Let me help. I heard you can make a mean scrambled egg, why don’t you show the world how you do it?
Excellent! Let’s go with that idea.
Wait, don’t go making the video yet. First, we have to do some research. We need to know what videos already exist out there.
Step 1: Find Related Videos
Do a quick search on YouTube to see what videos already exist on your topic.
Uh oh… your video will be competing against celebrities like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver.
Okay, don’t panic! There is a fantastic quote, credited to bestselling author, Jon Acuff , that goes:
While researching your competition, you will feel overwhelmed, but remember, you are at the beginning, and Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver are not even at their middle, they are way passed the finish line. You still have a long journey to go, so don’t get discouraged, get inspired!
Watch those videos and understand what they are all about.
Understand that people watch YouTube for 3 key reasons:
- To be entertained
- To learn something new
- To be inspired
A video that can hit all 3 marks is going to be positioned for success. Don’t fret too much about the competition, as long as your content is good, you will see improvement.
So if you think this scrambled egg idea can hit those 3 marks, then I encourage you to go to the next step. If you don’t, let’s regroup and brainstorm some more YouTube video ideas .
Step 2: Find Keywords
Now that we’ve decided that we are sticking with the video idea, we are ready to do some keyword research. Keywords are the words and phrases people type in the YouTube search bar to discover videos.
Come up with as many relevant keywords as you can. Start by entering a keyword into the YouTube search bar. This will tell you what are the most popular searches associated with that keyword:
Once you have an idea of what people are searching for related to your topic, you’ll want to find more relevant keywords. I like to use the free app, Ubersuggest to do that.
This app gives you a whole list of long-tail keywords, which are 3-4-word phrases which is specific to what your video is about.
Some you will use to dig deeper in and other you will deem irrelevant to your videos. A good way of determining the value of a keyword is by the stats the application shows.
How to Read Keyword Suggestions
Once you have a list of keywords, you will see some numbers on the right-hand side. Here is what each one is about:
- Search volume is the number used to identify the popularity of the keyword. The higher the number the more people are searching for it.
- CPC is the value accredited by YouTube, determining how much advertisers are paying to target audiences who search for that keyword and click on the link.
- Competition is the number used to qualify how many other content are using that keyword.
The two categories that matter most to us right now is Search Volume and Competition. We want keywords with high search volume and low competition rate.
In the example above, you can see that the keyword “avocado scrambled eggs” has a Search Volume of 1,000 and a competition rate of 0.0. This is a good keyword to target, if you can incorporate an avocado to your dish… which of course you can!
Step 3: Write Title
I know you might want to deal with the Title, Description, and Tags after you’ve filmed and edited your video. But if you want to apply a YouTube SEO-focused strategy, then these should be addressed before you even pick up a camera as it can greatly dictate the content you end up creating.
A good YouTube title sparks curiosity, evokes emotional reaction, and promises value to your viewers.
Of course you can title your video simply: Making Scrambled Eggs
But does it spark curiosity? Not really… most people can make scrambled eggs.
Does it evoke any emotion? Maybe hunger… but even then, not really…
Finally, does it promise value? Well, assuming that most people can at least crack an egg into a pan, then hardly.
Your scrambled egg is special! Your video is special! We need to evoke that in the title — and as long as you are not writing any clickbait and deliver on what the title suggest, you can do this.
So, how about this: Are My Amazing Scrambled Eggs Better Than Gordon Ramsay’s?
Hmmm… Well, is it? We know that the Gordon Ramsay’s video has almost 30M views. Many people have already tried cooking it, I’m sure. There is only one way to find out, by encouraging others to try it over Gordon’s.
You don’t need to go for a somewhat contentious title like this, but that’s the idea, you want something that gets people curious, make them feel a certain way, and in the end, make them better for having watched your video.
See how a good title can guide the rest of your video?
Step 4: Write Description
You aren’t going to be writing the description for the viewers necessarily, you are going to be writing it for YouTube’s algorithms. The better YouTube understands what your video is about, the better they can show it to people searching for it.
This means you need to include the keywords you were researching at the beginning of your description, as YouTube will be using them to identify the content of your video. 1 or 2 keywords that best represent your video is enough. Don’t stuff the title with too many keywords or you’ll risk sounding like a robot.
But also use the description for practical uses too, if you have additional information such as supportive links, outline of the video’s content, a list of materials, step-by-step guide, or a recipe that you think your human viewers will find useful, you should input that in the description as well.
Step 5: Write Tags
Thank goodness we did the keyword research in Step 2, because coming up with tags is not as easy as it looks.
Pull 15 keywords from the list and keep it somewhere safe.
Note: The keywords you used in the title should be found in your tags, and since they are the most important ones, you should place them first.
Organize your keywords in the tag as such:
Have the specific keywords at the top, followed by more general keywords, and then branded ones:
Specific: How to make scrambled eggs
General: Scrambled eggs
Branded: Gordon Ramsay scrambled eggs
Part 2: Make The Best Darn Video Possible
It doesn’t matter how relevant your keywords are or how epic your title is, if you video sucks (i.e. your viewers click in and leave right away), YouTube will not show it in search.
Even if you haven’t created any videos yet, you can follow these next steps to ensure you are following the best practices to structure your video.
Step 6: Plan and Film the Hook
The first few seconds is where the largest percentage of your earned viewership will drop off. Odds are 20% of your viewers won’t even get past the first 10 seconds .
What you need is a hook, an intro that ensures this video is what they want to watch and let’s them know what they can expect.
Step 7: Film B-Roll
One static camera shot of you talking or cooking or giving a tutorial can cause your viewers to lose attention.
In order to keep your viewers interest, you will need b-roll, or supplemental footage you can cut to give you video more life.
While jump cuts (cuts made on a sequential clip of the same subject or in the same camera position) are fine, having additional footage to cut to will make your video feel more fluid.
So when you are filming your scrambled egg video, make sure you get some footage of you cracking the egg, scrambling it, and serving it on the plate.
Step 8: Encourage Viewers to Engage in Video
Liking, disliking, subscribing, and commenting on your video will all help your performance indirectly.
While YouTube wouldn’t rank your video higher simply because you have more likes subscribers, or comments, engagement from viewers help your video get discovered. If you get a like or comment from a YouTuber with a lot of subscribers, your video may be visible to those who are following that YouTuber for a while.
The best way to get engagement from your audience is to encourage them to like and subscribe or ask them a question or start a dialogue.
For example, in this scrambled egg video you are making, at the end you can ask, “So what do you think, is this better than Gordon Ramsay?”
Who knows, who will respond.
Step 9: Design a Thumbnail
You could have made a brilliant video, but if you have a poor quality thumbnail that is unattractive, then the overall performance of your video will suffer — and good SEO can only do so much after that.
Your viewers will absolutely judge your video by its cover so it’s important to put some thought into it and not solely rely on the three random thumbnail choices that YouTube picks for you.
Take a look at your competition. If they all look the same, do something different. Add text or a human face (preferably yours) to evoke emotion, as viewers are more likely to click into a video if they see an expressive image.
Don’t want to pay money for a photo editing software such as Photoshop?
You can use an online service called Canva or download GIMP , an open-source photo editor much like Photoshop, but far less powerful. These will help you get the job done as you are starting out.
Want to know more thumbnail maker? Check our picks of the best free YouTube thumbnail makers .
Part 3: Publishing With Attention to Optimization
Well done finishing the video! You are almost there… but not there yet.
Come on, keep going!
Step 10: Fill Out Your Videos Assets
The video is done, the thumbnail is designed, and you have all your title, description, and tags ready to go. This step is easy, upload the video, and fill out the assets, and give yourself a pat on the back.
Step 11: Add Transcripts
In addition to making your content accessible for people who don’t want to or can’t listen to the audio in your video, adding subtitles and closed captions will help YouTube understand the spoken content in your video.
While YouTube does have an automatic subtitle generator, it’s not reliable enough to be used for identifying the keywords you use in your video.
You can choose to write out the whole transcript of your video yourself, but if you are press on time, which of course you are, you can simply go and edit the automatic transcript already available in your video. By the way, you can also use some automatic transcription software.
Step 12: Add Video to Playlist
Finally the last thing you need to do for your video is to add it to a playlist. Even though it might be the first video in the playlist, it helps YouTube identify your video if you organize it in a playlist. As you accumulate more content, having videos in playlists makes content easier to find and keeps relevant videos together.
When viewers searches, having your videos in playlists increases the chance of it being discovered.
So if your first video is about scrambled eggs, maybe you next video can be about the awesome butter toasts.
I guess, you are on your way to making a pretty badass breakfast playlist. I personally can’t wait to see it!
If you treat SEO as an afterthought, only after your video is created, you are not using it to its full potential. If you follow these 12 steps during the course of your production, you will find that SEO doesn’t simply help your video perform at the end, but contributes in all the other phases of creating your video as well.
Besides considering YouTube SEO, you should make a good YouTube video as well. Filmora is a powerful video editing software that features lots of templates and effects. Get the free trial version below and have a try today.
Do you have any questions about SEO? Please leave us a comment below.
Shanoon Cox
Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.
Follow @Shanoon Cox
Shanoon Cox
Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions
The joy of creating on YouTube is often dampened by the disappointment of underperforming videos. You have published your content and it’s not getting the views you had hoped.
Well, let’s change that!
In this guide, I’m going to walk you through YouTube SEO from the very start to the very end.
Nothing complicated. No paid programs or expensive apps needed. We are going back to basics and get your videos discovered.
Ready?
Let’s Go!
Part 1: Research Your Topic and Competitors
Come up with a video idea . Can’t come up with one? Let me help. I heard you can make a mean scrambled egg, why don’t you show the world how you do it?
Excellent! Let’s go with that idea.
Wait, don’t go making the video yet. First, we have to do some research. We need to know what videos already exist out there.
Step 1: Find Related Videos
Do a quick search on YouTube to see what videos already exist on your topic.
Uh oh… your video will be competing against celebrities like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver.
Okay, don’t panic! There is a fantastic quote, credited to bestselling author, Jon Acuff , that goes:
While researching your competition, you will feel overwhelmed, but remember, you are at the beginning, and Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver are not even at their middle, they are way passed the finish line. You still have a long journey to go, so don’t get discouraged, get inspired!
Watch those videos and understand what they are all about.
Understand that people watch YouTube for 3 key reasons:
- To be entertained
- To learn something new
- To be inspired
A video that can hit all 3 marks is going to be positioned for success. Don’t fret too much about the competition, as long as your content is good, you will see improvement.
So if you think this scrambled egg idea can hit those 3 marks, then I encourage you to go to the next step. If you don’t, let’s regroup and brainstorm some more YouTube video ideas .
Step 2: Find Keywords
Now that we’ve decided that we are sticking with the video idea, we are ready to do some keyword research. Keywords are the words and phrases people type in the YouTube search bar to discover videos.
Come up with as many relevant keywords as you can. Start by entering a keyword into the YouTube search bar. This will tell you what are the most popular searches associated with that keyword:
Once you have an idea of what people are searching for related to your topic, you’ll want to find more relevant keywords. I like to use the free app, Ubersuggest to do that.
This app gives you a whole list of long-tail keywords, which are 3-4-word phrases which is specific to what your video is about.
Some you will use to dig deeper in and other you will deem irrelevant to your videos. A good way of determining the value of a keyword is by the stats the application shows.
How to Read Keyword Suggestions
Once you have a list of keywords, you will see some numbers on the right-hand side. Here is what each one is about:
- Search volume is the number used to identify the popularity of the keyword. The higher the number the more people are searching for it.
- CPC is the value accredited by YouTube, determining how much advertisers are paying to target audiences who search for that keyword and click on the link.
- Competition is the number used to qualify how many other content are using that keyword.
The two categories that matter most to us right now is Search Volume and Competition. We want keywords with high search volume and low competition rate.
In the example above, you can see that the keyword “avocado scrambled eggs” has a Search Volume of 1,000 and a competition rate of 0.0. This is a good keyword to target, if you can incorporate an avocado to your dish… which of course you can!
Step 3: Write Title
I know you might want to deal with the Title, Description, and Tags after you’ve filmed and edited your video. But if you want to apply a YouTube SEO-focused strategy, then these should be addressed before you even pick up a camera as it can greatly dictate the content you end up creating.
A good YouTube title sparks curiosity, evokes emotional reaction, and promises value to your viewers.
Of course you can title your video simply: Making Scrambled Eggs
But does it spark curiosity? Not really… most people can make scrambled eggs.
Does it evoke any emotion? Maybe hunger… but even then, not really…
Finally, does it promise value? Well, assuming that most people can at least crack an egg into a pan, then hardly.
Your scrambled egg is special! Your video is special! We need to evoke that in the title — and as long as you are not writing any clickbait and deliver on what the title suggest, you can do this.
So, how about this: Are My Amazing Scrambled Eggs Better Than Gordon Ramsay’s?
Hmmm… Well, is it? We know that the Gordon Ramsay’s video has almost 30M views. Many people have already tried cooking it, I’m sure. There is only one way to find out, by encouraging others to try it over Gordon’s.
You don’t need to go for a somewhat contentious title like this, but that’s the idea, you want something that gets people curious, make them feel a certain way, and in the end, make them better for having watched your video.
See how a good title can guide the rest of your video?
Step 4: Write Description
You aren’t going to be writing the description for the viewers necessarily, you are going to be writing it for YouTube’s algorithms. The better YouTube understands what your video is about, the better they can show it to people searching for it.
This means you need to include the keywords you were researching at the beginning of your description, as YouTube will be using them to identify the content of your video. 1 or 2 keywords that best represent your video is enough. Don’t stuff the title with too many keywords or you’ll risk sounding like a robot.
But also use the description for practical uses too, if you have additional information such as supportive links, outline of the video’s content, a list of materials, step-by-step guide, or a recipe that you think your human viewers will find useful, you should input that in the description as well.
Step 5: Write Tags
Thank goodness we did the keyword research in Step 2, because coming up with tags is not as easy as it looks.
Pull 15 keywords from the list and keep it somewhere safe.
Note: The keywords you used in the title should be found in your tags, and since they are the most important ones, you should place them first.
Organize your keywords in the tag as such:
Have the specific keywords at the top, followed by more general keywords, and then branded ones:
Specific: How to make scrambled eggs
General: Scrambled eggs
Branded: Gordon Ramsay scrambled eggs
Part 2: Make The Best Darn Video Possible
It doesn’t matter how relevant your keywords are or how epic your title is, if you video sucks (i.e. your viewers click in and leave right away), YouTube will not show it in search.
Even if you haven’t created any videos yet, you can follow these next steps to ensure you are following the best practices to structure your video.
Step 6: Plan and Film the Hook
The first few seconds is where the largest percentage of your earned viewership will drop off. Odds are 20% of your viewers won’t even get past the first 10 seconds .
What you need is a hook, an intro that ensures this video is what they want to watch and let’s them know what they can expect.
Step 7: Film B-Roll
One static camera shot of you talking or cooking or giving a tutorial can cause your viewers to lose attention.
In order to keep your viewers interest, you will need b-roll, or supplemental footage you can cut to give you video more life.
While jump cuts (cuts made on a sequential clip of the same subject or in the same camera position) are fine, having additional footage to cut to will make your video feel more fluid.
So when you are filming your scrambled egg video, make sure you get some footage of you cracking the egg, scrambling it, and serving it on the plate.
Step 8: Encourage Viewers to Engage in Video
Liking, disliking, subscribing, and commenting on your video will all help your performance indirectly.
While YouTube wouldn’t rank your video higher simply because you have more likes subscribers, or comments, engagement from viewers help your video get discovered. If you get a like or comment from a YouTuber with a lot of subscribers, your video may be visible to those who are following that YouTuber for a while.
The best way to get engagement from your audience is to encourage them to like and subscribe or ask them a question or start a dialogue.
For example, in this scrambled egg video you are making, at the end you can ask, “So what do you think, is this better than Gordon Ramsay?”
Who knows, who will respond.
Step 9: Design a Thumbnail
You could have made a brilliant video, but if you have a poor quality thumbnail that is unattractive, then the overall performance of your video will suffer — and good SEO can only do so much after that.
Your viewers will absolutely judge your video by its cover so it’s important to put some thought into it and not solely rely on the three random thumbnail choices that YouTube picks for you.
Take a look at your competition. If they all look the same, do something different. Add text or a human face (preferably yours) to evoke emotion, as viewers are more likely to click into a video if they see an expressive image.
Don’t want to pay money for a photo editing software such as Photoshop?
You can use an online service called Canva or download GIMP , an open-source photo editor much like Photoshop, but far less powerful. These will help you get the job done as you are starting out.
Want to know more thumbnail maker? Check our picks of the best free YouTube thumbnail makers .
Part 3: Publishing With Attention to Optimization
Well done finishing the video! You are almost there… but not there yet.
Come on, keep going!
Step 10: Fill Out Your Videos Assets
The video is done, the thumbnail is designed, and you have all your title, description, and tags ready to go. This step is easy, upload the video, and fill out the assets, and give yourself a pat on the back.
Step 11: Add Transcripts
In addition to making your content accessible for people who don’t want to or can’t listen to the audio in your video, adding subtitles and closed captions will help YouTube understand the spoken content in your video.
While YouTube does have an automatic subtitle generator, it’s not reliable enough to be used for identifying the keywords you use in your video.
You can choose to write out the whole transcript of your video yourself, but if you are press on time, which of course you are, you can simply go and edit the automatic transcript already available in your video. By the way, you can also use some automatic transcription software.
Step 12: Add Video to Playlist
Finally the last thing you need to do for your video is to add it to a playlist. Even though it might be the first video in the playlist, it helps YouTube identify your video if you organize it in a playlist. As you accumulate more content, having videos in playlists makes content easier to find and keeps relevant videos together.
When viewers searches, having your videos in playlists increases the chance of it being discovered.
So if your first video is about scrambled eggs, maybe you next video can be about the awesome butter toasts.
I guess, you are on your way to making a pretty badass breakfast playlist. I personally can’t wait to see it!
If you treat SEO as an afterthought, only after your video is created, you are not using it to its full potential. If you follow these 12 steps during the course of your production, you will find that SEO doesn’t simply help your video perform at the end, but contributes in all the other phases of creating your video as well.
Besides considering YouTube SEO, you should make a good YouTube video as well. Filmora is a powerful video editing software that features lots of templates and effects. Get the free trial version below and have a try today.
Do you have any questions about SEO? Please leave us a comment below.
Shanoon Cox
Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.
Follow @Shanoon Cox
Shanoon Cox
Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions
The joy of creating on YouTube is often dampened by the disappointment of underperforming videos. You have published your content and it’s not getting the views you had hoped.
Well, let’s change that!
In this guide, I’m going to walk you through YouTube SEO from the very start to the very end.
Nothing complicated. No paid programs or expensive apps needed. We are going back to basics and get your videos discovered.
Ready?
Let’s Go!
Part 1: Research Your Topic and Competitors
Come up with a video idea . Can’t come up with one? Let me help. I heard you can make a mean scrambled egg, why don’t you show the world how you do it?
Excellent! Let’s go with that idea.
Wait, don’t go making the video yet. First, we have to do some research. We need to know what videos already exist out there.
Step 1: Find Related Videos
Do a quick search on YouTube to see what videos already exist on your topic.
Uh oh… your video will be competing against celebrities like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver.
Okay, don’t panic! There is a fantastic quote, credited to bestselling author, Jon Acuff , that goes:
While researching your competition, you will feel overwhelmed, but remember, you are at the beginning, and Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver are not even at their middle, they are way passed the finish line. You still have a long journey to go, so don’t get discouraged, get inspired!
Watch those videos and understand what they are all about.
Understand that people watch YouTube for 3 key reasons:
- To be entertained
- To learn something new
- To be inspired
A video that can hit all 3 marks is going to be positioned for success. Don’t fret too much about the competition, as long as your content is good, you will see improvement.
So if you think this scrambled egg idea can hit those 3 marks, then I encourage you to go to the next step. If you don’t, let’s regroup and brainstorm some more YouTube video ideas .
Step 2: Find Keywords
Now that we’ve decided that we are sticking with the video idea, we are ready to do some keyword research. Keywords are the words and phrases people type in the YouTube search bar to discover videos.
Come up with as many relevant keywords as you can. Start by entering a keyword into the YouTube search bar. This will tell you what are the most popular searches associated with that keyword:
Once you have an idea of what people are searching for related to your topic, you’ll want to find more relevant keywords. I like to use the free app, Ubersuggest to do that.
This app gives you a whole list of long-tail keywords, which are 3-4-word phrases which is specific to what your video is about.
Some you will use to dig deeper in and other you will deem irrelevant to your videos. A good way of determining the value of a keyword is by the stats the application shows.
How to Read Keyword Suggestions
Once you have a list of keywords, you will see some numbers on the right-hand side. Here is what each one is about:
- Search volume is the number used to identify the popularity of the keyword. The higher the number the more people are searching for it.
- CPC is the value accredited by YouTube, determining how much advertisers are paying to target audiences who search for that keyword and click on the link.
- Competition is the number used to qualify how many other content are using that keyword.
The two categories that matter most to us right now is Search Volume and Competition. We want keywords with high search volume and low competition rate.
In the example above, you can see that the keyword “avocado scrambled eggs” has a Search Volume of 1,000 and a competition rate of 0.0. This is a good keyword to target, if you can incorporate an avocado to your dish… which of course you can!
Step 3: Write Title
I know you might want to deal with the Title, Description, and Tags after you’ve filmed and edited your video. But if you want to apply a YouTube SEO-focused strategy, then these should be addressed before you even pick up a camera as it can greatly dictate the content you end up creating.
A good YouTube title sparks curiosity, evokes emotional reaction, and promises value to your viewers.
Of course you can title your video simply: Making Scrambled Eggs
But does it spark curiosity? Not really… most people can make scrambled eggs.
Does it evoke any emotion? Maybe hunger… but even then, not really…
Finally, does it promise value? Well, assuming that most people can at least crack an egg into a pan, then hardly.
Your scrambled egg is special! Your video is special! We need to evoke that in the title — and as long as you are not writing any clickbait and deliver on what the title suggest, you can do this.
So, how about this: Are My Amazing Scrambled Eggs Better Than Gordon Ramsay’s?
Hmmm… Well, is it? We know that the Gordon Ramsay’s video has almost 30M views. Many people have already tried cooking it, I’m sure. There is only one way to find out, by encouraging others to try it over Gordon’s.
You don’t need to go for a somewhat contentious title like this, but that’s the idea, you want something that gets people curious, make them feel a certain way, and in the end, make them better for having watched your video.
See how a good title can guide the rest of your video?
Step 4: Write Description
You aren’t going to be writing the description for the viewers necessarily, you are going to be writing it for YouTube’s algorithms. The better YouTube understands what your video is about, the better they can show it to people searching for it.
This means you need to include the keywords you were researching at the beginning of your description, as YouTube will be using them to identify the content of your video. 1 or 2 keywords that best represent your video is enough. Don’t stuff the title with too many keywords or you’ll risk sounding like a robot.
But also use the description for practical uses too, if you have additional information such as supportive links, outline of the video’s content, a list of materials, step-by-step guide, or a recipe that you think your human viewers will find useful, you should input that in the description as well.
Step 5: Write Tags
Thank goodness we did the keyword research in Step 2, because coming up with tags is not as easy as it looks.
Pull 15 keywords from the list and keep it somewhere safe.
Note: The keywords you used in the title should be found in your tags, and since they are the most important ones, you should place them first.
Organize your keywords in the tag as such:
Have the specific keywords at the top, followed by more general keywords, and then branded ones:
Specific: How to make scrambled eggs
General: Scrambled eggs
Branded: Gordon Ramsay scrambled eggs
Part 2: Make The Best Darn Video Possible
It doesn’t matter how relevant your keywords are or how epic your title is, if you video sucks (i.e. your viewers click in and leave right away), YouTube will not show it in search.
Even if you haven’t created any videos yet, you can follow these next steps to ensure you are following the best practices to structure your video.
Step 6: Plan and Film the Hook
The first few seconds is where the largest percentage of your earned viewership will drop off. Odds are 20% of your viewers won’t even get past the first 10 seconds .
What you need is a hook, an intro that ensures this video is what they want to watch and let’s them know what they can expect.
Step 7: Film B-Roll
One static camera shot of you talking or cooking or giving a tutorial can cause your viewers to lose attention.
In order to keep your viewers interest, you will need b-roll, or supplemental footage you can cut to give you video more life.
While jump cuts (cuts made on a sequential clip of the same subject or in the same camera position) are fine, having additional footage to cut to will make your video feel more fluid.
So when you are filming your scrambled egg video, make sure you get some footage of you cracking the egg, scrambling it, and serving it on the plate.
Step 8: Encourage Viewers to Engage in Video
Liking, disliking, subscribing, and commenting on your video will all help your performance indirectly.
While YouTube wouldn’t rank your video higher simply because you have more likes subscribers, or comments, engagement from viewers help your video get discovered. If you get a like or comment from a YouTuber with a lot of subscribers, your video may be visible to those who are following that YouTuber for a while.
The best way to get engagement from your audience is to encourage them to like and subscribe or ask them a question or start a dialogue.
For example, in this scrambled egg video you are making, at the end you can ask, “So what do you think, is this better than Gordon Ramsay?”
Who knows, who will respond.
Step 9: Design a Thumbnail
You could have made a brilliant video, but if you have a poor quality thumbnail that is unattractive, then the overall performance of your video will suffer — and good SEO can only do so much after that.
Your viewers will absolutely judge your video by its cover so it’s important to put some thought into it and not solely rely on the three random thumbnail choices that YouTube picks for you.
Take a look at your competition. If they all look the same, do something different. Add text or a human face (preferably yours) to evoke emotion, as viewers are more likely to click into a video if they see an expressive image.
Don’t want to pay money for a photo editing software such as Photoshop?
You can use an online service called Canva or download GIMP , an open-source photo editor much like Photoshop, but far less powerful. These will help you get the job done as you are starting out.
Want to know more thumbnail maker? Check our picks of the best free YouTube thumbnail makers .
Part 3: Publishing With Attention to Optimization
Well done finishing the video! You are almost there… but not there yet.
Come on, keep going!
Step 10: Fill Out Your Videos Assets
The video is done, the thumbnail is designed, and you have all your title, description, and tags ready to go. This step is easy, upload the video, and fill out the assets, and give yourself a pat on the back.
Step 11: Add Transcripts
In addition to making your content accessible for people who don’t want to or can’t listen to the audio in your video, adding subtitles and closed captions will help YouTube understand the spoken content in your video.
While YouTube does have an automatic subtitle generator, it’s not reliable enough to be used for identifying the keywords you use in your video.
You can choose to write out the whole transcript of your video yourself, but if you are press on time, which of course you are, you can simply go and edit the automatic transcript already available in your video. By the way, you can also use some automatic transcription software.
Step 12: Add Video to Playlist
Finally the last thing you need to do for your video is to add it to a playlist. Even though it might be the first video in the playlist, it helps YouTube identify your video if you organize it in a playlist. As you accumulate more content, having videos in playlists makes content easier to find and keeps relevant videos together.
When viewers searches, having your videos in playlists increases the chance of it being discovered.
So if your first video is about scrambled eggs, maybe you next video can be about the awesome butter toasts.
I guess, you are on your way to making a pretty badass breakfast playlist. I personally can’t wait to see it!
If you treat SEO as an afterthought, only after your video is created, you are not using it to its full potential. If you follow these 12 steps during the course of your production, you will find that SEO doesn’t simply help your video perform at the end, but contributes in all the other phases of creating your video as well.
Besides considering YouTube SEO, you should make a good YouTube video as well. Filmora is a powerful video editing software that features lots of templates and effects. Get the free trial version below and have a try today.
Do you have any questions about SEO? Please leave us a comment below.
Shanoon Cox
Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.
Follow @Shanoon Cox
Vloggers’ Fears Decoded: Combat Strategies for Everyone
10 Common Vlogging Fears and How To Beat Them
Richard Bennett
Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions
All forms of creative expression that require you to put yourself out there for the world to see can be scary. But even though other forms of creative expression, like art and writing, may reflect something about the personhood of their creator, very few forms of creative expression seem to shine as much of a spotlight on who you are as a person as vlogging.
When it comes to vlogging, it is your face, voice , thoughts, and feelings that your audience sees and hears close-up. That is why vlogging can seem even more terrifying.
Below is a list of 10 of the most common fears people have with vlogging and ways to overcome them.
1. Fear of Looking Stupid Talking To Your Camera
It can be nerve-racking to talk to your camera in public, especially if your vlog set-up attracts a lot of attention (Casey Neistat’s famous rig consisting of a DSLR camera with a GorillaPod tripod and a Rode shotgun mic attached to it definitely attracts more attention than just your everyday smartphone). Despite a lot of vloggers suggesting that people don’t care as much as you think they care, it still is an activity that stands out, gets noticed, and creates curiosity, which is plenty to feel nervous about.
My advice is to start with shorter conversations with your camera in public and gradually build your way up to longer ones or save all your longer talks for when you’re in a more private setting. Short conversations may include one simple sentence about where you are going. Then, in another separate recording, in a different setting with different people, you can explain why you’re going there. If you’ve never broken up your speech like this for your vlogs, you might wonder if this will make your vlogs look disjointed. But this is actually a technique (below) that can enhance your vlogs.
As you continue to vlog in public more, you’ll become increasingly comfortable with it.
2. Fear of Being Judged by Others
After uploading your vlog online, the next thing you might worry about is being judged and criticized by anonymous haters on the internet. No matter how perfectly you present yourself, this will happen. But you will be ok.
You just need to be strongly grounded in your intrinsic worth and not take too seriously the judgments of those who don’t even know you. You can adjust your community settings on YouTube so that you have more control over others’ comments. But I suggest you just get used to others’ disapproval because it’s something that comes with putting yourself out there on such a public platform.
3. Fear of Not Being Interesting Enough
A lot of people fear that they aren’t interesting enough to watch. This fear stops many people from vlogging. Some people get around this self-doubt by focusing their content on something other than themselves. But people are so much more interesting than the tools and objects that they test out and review on YouTube. Even if you’re unable to secure the interest of the masses, there are bound to be a handful of people from all around the world who do find you interesting.
4. Fear of Your Lifestyle Not Being Exciting Enough
When you look at the vlogs of many of the top YouTubers, their lives appear so action-packed. It’s hard not to think that all vlogs are meant to be very stimulating. But if you believe that that is the standard for vlogs, you might either be discouraged and drop vlogging altogether or you might try too hard to schedule your life around getting stimulating vlog content. Neither is a good option. Face your fear of your audience getting bored and just go ahead and vlog your lifestyle just as it is.
5. Fear of Losing Your Authenticity
When you have the ability to control what others see, you may be tempted to present yourself and your life in the most likable way to avoid disapproval and rejection. But the further away from your true self that you fabricate your story, the more inauthentic you’ll feel. Embrace disapproval and rejection and understand that, no matter how perfectly you present yourself, you just can’t avoid disapproval and rejection. It’s going to happen no matter what! So you might as well present yourself just as you are.
6. Fear of Your Production Not Being Good Enough
Fearing that your production quality won’t measure up is another common fear that holds people back from vlogging. Just get started and put something together with the equipment and skills you already have. Loosen up a bit on your rigid high standards and experience for yourself that the consequences of doing your best with what you have are not so bad. You will develop your equipment and skills as you get more and more into vlogging.
7. Fear of Failing To Get Big
Getting a lot of subscribers is a common end goal for many who go into vlogging. This goal can seem impossible to reach with how crowded the vlogosphere has become with so many ambitious vloggers who are competing for views and subscribers.
How can you know for sure that you won’t be wasting your time and effort trying? The truth is… you can’t know for sure. But dismissing all of your time and effort as a waste just because you’re not at the end yet will take away from the joy you could have with vlogging. Rather than focusing on getting big, focus on enjoying the process of vlogging.
8. Fear of Being Distracted From the Moment
Whether you’re vlogging or not, living in the present moment can already be a challenge with a smartphone. When something exhilarating happens, many of us feel compelled to pull out our phone to capture it, only to experience that fleeting moment through a small preview screen.
Vlogging appears to take that to another level, especially if you’re using complicated equipment that takes more time to set up and if you’re trying to capture enough footage to produce an entire vlog out of one day. How could all that time devoted to capturing your footage not get in the way of your present moment?
Well, like all hobbies, activities, and passions, vlogging does take time and you’re going to have to accept that it does. You may not know it now, but after giving vlogging a try, you may discover that you really enjoy it. And if you do, you won’t worry about missing out on life just as a painter who happens to be in the middle of his painting during a sunset wouldn’t worry about the sunset he’s missing out on.
If, in the end, you realize you don’t enjoy vlogging, then at least you’re left with a documented piece of a memory that you can relive again and again, which can actually help you appreciate your past moments even more.
9. Fear of Making Others Uncomfortable
Even though you might have learned to enjoy and be comfortable with vlogging, your vlogging might make others uncomfortable. You can still vlog while respecting others’ boundaries by having a conversation first, before you start vlogging, around whether or not they feel comfortable with appearing in your vlog. You can then make sure to exclude those from your vlog who are uncomfortable with appearing in your vlog.
Sometimes, though, as much as you try to exclude certain people from your vlogs, they might still end up in your footage. You might even find out after you’ve captured great footage that people do not want to be in your video. In these cases, you can always censor their faces out in editing.
10. Fear of Permanently Leaving a Bad Mark
Anything you make public over the internet, including vlogging, comes with the risk of making a permanent mark that won’t go away, even if you try to delete your original content later. That can definitely be a scary thing.
Luckily, with vlogging, you still have a lot of control. In both filming and editing, you can choose to share whatever you’re comfortable with sharing with the rest of the world.
In post-production, you can use some video editing software to delete unwanted parts from the video clip, blur the video background , or adjust the video color. Filmora is such a video editing software that has been widely used by many YouTubers; you can download it now and have a try.
Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.
Follow @Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett
Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions
All forms of creative expression that require you to put yourself out there for the world to see can be scary. But even though other forms of creative expression, like art and writing, may reflect something about the personhood of their creator, very few forms of creative expression seem to shine as much of a spotlight on who you are as a person as vlogging.
When it comes to vlogging, it is your face, voice , thoughts, and feelings that your audience sees and hears close-up. That is why vlogging can seem even more terrifying.
Below is a list of 10 of the most common fears people have with vlogging and ways to overcome them.
1. Fear of Looking Stupid Talking To Your Camera
It can be nerve-racking to talk to your camera in public, especially if your vlog set-up attracts a lot of attention (Casey Neistat’s famous rig consisting of a DSLR camera with a GorillaPod tripod and a Rode shotgun mic attached to it definitely attracts more attention than just your everyday smartphone). Despite a lot of vloggers suggesting that people don’t care as much as you think they care, it still is an activity that stands out, gets noticed, and creates curiosity, which is plenty to feel nervous about.
My advice is to start with shorter conversations with your camera in public and gradually build your way up to longer ones or save all your longer talks for when you’re in a more private setting. Short conversations may include one simple sentence about where you are going. Then, in another separate recording, in a different setting with different people, you can explain why you’re going there. If you’ve never broken up your speech like this for your vlogs, you might wonder if this will make your vlogs look disjointed. But this is actually a technique (below) that can enhance your vlogs.
As you continue to vlog in public more, you’ll become increasingly comfortable with it.
2. Fear of Being Judged by Others
After uploading your vlog online, the next thing you might worry about is being judged and criticized by anonymous haters on the internet. No matter how perfectly you present yourself, this will happen. But you will be ok.
You just need to be strongly grounded in your intrinsic worth and not take too seriously the judgments of those who don’t even know you. You can adjust your community settings on YouTube so that you have more control over others’ comments. But I suggest you just get used to others’ disapproval because it’s something that comes with putting yourself out there on such a public platform.
3. Fear of Not Being Interesting Enough
A lot of people fear that they aren’t interesting enough to watch. This fear stops many people from vlogging. Some people get around this self-doubt by focusing their content on something other than themselves. But people are so much more interesting than the tools and objects that they test out and review on YouTube. Even if you’re unable to secure the interest of the masses, there are bound to be a handful of people from all around the world who do find you interesting.
4. Fear of Your Lifestyle Not Being Exciting Enough
When you look at the vlogs of many of the top YouTubers, their lives appear so action-packed. It’s hard not to think that all vlogs are meant to be very stimulating. But if you believe that that is the standard for vlogs, you might either be discouraged and drop vlogging altogether or you might try too hard to schedule your life around getting stimulating vlog content. Neither is a good option. Face your fear of your audience getting bored and just go ahead and vlog your lifestyle just as it is.
5. Fear of Losing Your Authenticity
When you have the ability to control what others see, you may be tempted to present yourself and your life in the most likable way to avoid disapproval and rejection. But the further away from your true self that you fabricate your story, the more inauthentic you’ll feel. Embrace disapproval and rejection and understand that, no matter how perfectly you present yourself, you just can’t avoid disapproval and rejection. It’s going to happen no matter what! So you might as well present yourself just as you are.
6. Fear of Your Production Not Being Good Enough
Fearing that your production quality won’t measure up is another common fear that holds people back from vlogging. Just get started and put something together with the equipment and skills you already have. Loosen up a bit on your rigid high standards and experience for yourself that the consequences of doing your best with what you have are not so bad. You will develop your equipment and skills as you get more and more into vlogging.
7. Fear of Failing To Get Big
Getting a lot of subscribers is a common end goal for many who go into vlogging. This goal can seem impossible to reach with how crowded the vlogosphere has become with so many ambitious vloggers who are competing for views and subscribers.
How can you know for sure that you won’t be wasting your time and effort trying? The truth is… you can’t know for sure. But dismissing all of your time and effort as a waste just because you’re not at the end yet will take away from the joy you could have with vlogging. Rather than focusing on getting big, focus on enjoying the process of vlogging.
8. Fear of Being Distracted From the Moment
Whether you’re vlogging or not, living in the present moment can already be a challenge with a smartphone. When something exhilarating happens, many of us feel compelled to pull out our phone to capture it, only to experience that fleeting moment through a small preview screen.
Vlogging appears to take that to another level, especially if you’re using complicated equipment that takes more time to set up and if you’re trying to capture enough footage to produce an entire vlog out of one day. How could all that time devoted to capturing your footage not get in the way of your present moment?
Well, like all hobbies, activities, and passions, vlogging does take time and you’re going to have to accept that it does. You may not know it now, but after giving vlogging a try, you may discover that you really enjoy it. And if you do, you won’t worry about missing out on life just as a painter who happens to be in the middle of his painting during a sunset wouldn’t worry about the sunset he’s missing out on.
If, in the end, you realize you don’t enjoy vlogging, then at least you’re left with a documented piece of a memory that you can relive again and again, which can actually help you appreciate your past moments even more.
9. Fear of Making Others Uncomfortable
Even though you might have learned to enjoy and be comfortable with vlogging, your vlogging might make others uncomfortable. You can still vlog while respecting others’ boundaries by having a conversation first, before you start vlogging, around whether or not they feel comfortable with appearing in your vlog. You can then make sure to exclude those from your vlog who are uncomfortable with appearing in your vlog.
Sometimes, though, as much as you try to exclude certain people from your vlogs, they might still end up in your footage. You might even find out after you’ve captured great footage that people do not want to be in your video. In these cases, you can always censor their faces out in editing.
10. Fear of Permanently Leaving a Bad Mark
Anything you make public over the internet, including vlogging, comes with the risk of making a permanent mark that won’t go away, even if you try to delete your original content later. That can definitely be a scary thing.
Luckily, with vlogging, you still have a lot of control. In both filming and editing, you can choose to share whatever you’re comfortable with sharing with the rest of the world.
In post-production, you can use some video editing software to delete unwanted parts from the video clip, blur the video background , or adjust the video color. Filmora is such a video editing software that has been widely used by many YouTubers; you can download it now and have a try.
Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.
Follow @Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett
Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions
All forms of creative expression that require you to put yourself out there for the world to see can be scary. But even though other forms of creative expression, like art and writing, may reflect something about the personhood of their creator, very few forms of creative expression seem to shine as much of a spotlight on who you are as a person as vlogging.
When it comes to vlogging, it is your face, voice , thoughts, and feelings that your audience sees and hears close-up. That is why vlogging can seem even more terrifying.
Below is a list of 10 of the most common fears people have with vlogging and ways to overcome them.
1. Fear of Looking Stupid Talking To Your Camera
It can be nerve-racking to talk to your camera in public, especially if your vlog set-up attracts a lot of attention (Casey Neistat’s famous rig consisting of a DSLR camera with a GorillaPod tripod and a Rode shotgun mic attached to it definitely attracts more attention than just your everyday smartphone). Despite a lot of vloggers suggesting that people don’t care as much as you think they care, it still is an activity that stands out, gets noticed, and creates curiosity, which is plenty to feel nervous about.
My advice is to start with shorter conversations with your camera in public and gradually build your way up to longer ones or save all your longer talks for when you’re in a more private setting. Short conversations may include one simple sentence about where you are going. Then, in another separate recording, in a different setting with different people, you can explain why you’re going there. If you’ve never broken up your speech like this for your vlogs, you might wonder if this will make your vlogs look disjointed. But this is actually a technique (below) that can enhance your vlogs.
As you continue to vlog in public more, you’ll become increasingly comfortable with it.
2. Fear of Being Judged by Others
After uploading your vlog online, the next thing you might worry about is being judged and criticized by anonymous haters on the internet. No matter how perfectly you present yourself, this will happen. But you will be ok.
You just need to be strongly grounded in your intrinsic worth and not take too seriously the judgments of those who don’t even know you. You can adjust your community settings on YouTube so that you have more control over others’ comments. But I suggest you just get used to others’ disapproval because it’s something that comes with putting yourself out there on such a public platform.
3. Fear of Not Being Interesting Enough
A lot of people fear that they aren’t interesting enough to watch. This fear stops many people from vlogging. Some people get around this self-doubt by focusing their content on something other than themselves. But people are so much more interesting than the tools and objects that they test out and review on YouTube. Even if you’re unable to secure the interest of the masses, there are bound to be a handful of people from all around the world who do find you interesting.
4. Fear of Your Lifestyle Not Being Exciting Enough
When you look at the vlogs of many of the top YouTubers, their lives appear so action-packed. It’s hard not to think that all vlogs are meant to be very stimulating. But if you believe that that is the standard for vlogs, you might either be discouraged and drop vlogging altogether or you might try too hard to schedule your life around getting stimulating vlog content. Neither is a good option. Face your fear of your audience getting bored and just go ahead and vlog your lifestyle just as it is.
5. Fear of Losing Your Authenticity
When you have the ability to control what others see, you may be tempted to present yourself and your life in the most likable way to avoid disapproval and rejection. But the further away from your true self that you fabricate your story, the more inauthentic you’ll feel. Embrace disapproval and rejection and understand that, no matter how perfectly you present yourself, you just can’t avoid disapproval and rejection. It’s going to happen no matter what! So you might as well present yourself just as you are.
6. Fear of Your Production Not Being Good Enough
Fearing that your production quality won’t measure up is another common fear that holds people back from vlogging. Just get started and put something together with the equipment and skills you already have. Loosen up a bit on your rigid high standards and experience for yourself that the consequences of doing your best with what you have are not so bad. You will develop your equipment and skills as you get more and more into vlogging.
7. Fear of Failing To Get Big
Getting a lot of subscribers is a common end goal for many who go into vlogging. This goal can seem impossible to reach with how crowded the vlogosphere has become with so many ambitious vloggers who are competing for views and subscribers.
How can you know for sure that you won’t be wasting your time and effort trying? The truth is… you can’t know for sure. But dismissing all of your time and effort as a waste just because you’re not at the end yet will take away from the joy you could have with vlogging. Rather than focusing on getting big, focus on enjoying the process of vlogging.
8. Fear of Being Distracted From the Moment
Whether you’re vlogging or not, living in the present moment can already be a challenge with a smartphone. When something exhilarating happens, many of us feel compelled to pull out our phone to capture it, only to experience that fleeting moment through a small preview screen.
Vlogging appears to take that to another level, especially if you’re using complicated equipment that takes more time to set up and if you’re trying to capture enough footage to produce an entire vlog out of one day. How could all that time devoted to capturing your footage not get in the way of your present moment?
Well, like all hobbies, activities, and passions, vlogging does take time and you’re going to have to accept that it does. You may not know it now, but after giving vlogging a try, you may discover that you really enjoy it. And if you do, you won’t worry about missing out on life just as a painter who happens to be in the middle of his painting during a sunset wouldn’t worry about the sunset he’s missing out on.
If, in the end, you realize you don’t enjoy vlogging, then at least you’re left with a documented piece of a memory that you can relive again and again, which can actually help you appreciate your past moments even more.
9. Fear of Making Others Uncomfortable
Even though you might have learned to enjoy and be comfortable with vlogging, your vlogging might make others uncomfortable. You can still vlog while respecting others’ boundaries by having a conversation first, before you start vlogging, around whether or not they feel comfortable with appearing in your vlog. You can then make sure to exclude those from your vlog who are uncomfortable with appearing in your vlog.
Sometimes, though, as much as you try to exclude certain people from your vlogs, they might still end up in your footage. You might even find out after you’ve captured great footage that people do not want to be in your video. In these cases, you can always censor their faces out in editing.
10. Fear of Permanently Leaving a Bad Mark
Anything you make public over the internet, including vlogging, comes with the risk of making a permanent mark that won’t go away, even if you try to delete your original content later. That can definitely be a scary thing.
Luckily, with vlogging, you still have a lot of control. In both filming and editing, you can choose to share whatever you’re comfortable with sharing with the rest of the world.
In post-production, you can use some video editing software to delete unwanted parts from the video clip, blur the video background , or adjust the video color. Filmora is such a video editing software that has been widely used by many YouTubers; you can download it now and have a try.
Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.
Follow @Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett
Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions
All forms of creative expression that require you to put yourself out there for the world to see can be scary. But even though other forms of creative expression, like art and writing, may reflect something about the personhood of their creator, very few forms of creative expression seem to shine as much of a spotlight on who you are as a person as vlogging.
When it comes to vlogging, it is your face, voice , thoughts, and feelings that your audience sees and hears close-up. That is why vlogging can seem even more terrifying.
Below is a list of 10 of the most common fears people have with vlogging and ways to overcome them.
1. Fear of Looking Stupid Talking To Your Camera
It can be nerve-racking to talk to your camera in public, especially if your vlog set-up attracts a lot of attention (Casey Neistat’s famous rig consisting of a DSLR camera with a GorillaPod tripod and a Rode shotgun mic attached to it definitely attracts more attention than just your everyday smartphone). Despite a lot of vloggers suggesting that people don’t care as much as you think they care, it still is an activity that stands out, gets noticed, and creates curiosity, which is plenty to feel nervous about.
My advice is to start with shorter conversations with your camera in public and gradually build your way up to longer ones or save all your longer talks for when you’re in a more private setting. Short conversations may include one simple sentence about where you are going. Then, in another separate recording, in a different setting with different people, you can explain why you’re going there. If you’ve never broken up your speech like this for your vlogs, you might wonder if this will make your vlogs look disjointed. But this is actually a technique (below) that can enhance your vlogs.
As you continue to vlog in public more, you’ll become increasingly comfortable with it.
2. Fear of Being Judged by Others
After uploading your vlog online, the next thing you might worry about is being judged and criticized by anonymous haters on the internet. No matter how perfectly you present yourself, this will happen. But you will be ok.
You just need to be strongly grounded in your intrinsic worth and not take too seriously the judgments of those who don’t even know you. You can adjust your community settings on YouTube so that you have more control over others’ comments. But I suggest you just get used to others’ disapproval because it’s something that comes with putting yourself out there on such a public platform.
3. Fear of Not Being Interesting Enough
A lot of people fear that they aren’t interesting enough to watch. This fear stops many people from vlogging. Some people get around this self-doubt by focusing their content on something other than themselves. But people are so much more interesting than the tools and objects that they test out and review on YouTube. Even if you’re unable to secure the interest of the masses, there are bound to be a handful of people from all around the world who do find you interesting.
4. Fear of Your Lifestyle Not Being Exciting Enough
When you look at the vlogs of many of the top YouTubers, their lives appear so action-packed. It’s hard not to think that all vlogs are meant to be very stimulating. But if you believe that that is the standard for vlogs, you might either be discouraged and drop vlogging altogether or you might try too hard to schedule your life around getting stimulating vlog content. Neither is a good option. Face your fear of your audience getting bored and just go ahead and vlog your lifestyle just as it is.
5. Fear of Losing Your Authenticity
When you have the ability to control what others see, you may be tempted to present yourself and your life in the most likable way to avoid disapproval and rejection. But the further away from your true self that you fabricate your story, the more inauthentic you’ll feel. Embrace disapproval and rejection and understand that, no matter how perfectly you present yourself, you just can’t avoid disapproval and rejection. It’s going to happen no matter what! So you might as well present yourself just as you are.
6. Fear of Your Production Not Being Good Enough
Fearing that your production quality won’t measure up is another common fear that holds people back from vlogging. Just get started and put something together with the equipment and skills you already have. Loosen up a bit on your rigid high standards and experience for yourself that the consequences of doing your best with what you have are not so bad. You will develop your equipment and skills as you get more and more into vlogging.
7. Fear of Failing To Get Big
Getting a lot of subscribers is a common end goal for many who go into vlogging. This goal can seem impossible to reach with how crowded the vlogosphere has become with so many ambitious vloggers who are competing for views and subscribers.
How can you know for sure that you won’t be wasting your time and effort trying? The truth is… you can’t know for sure. But dismissing all of your time and effort as a waste just because you’re not at the end yet will take away from the joy you could have with vlogging. Rather than focusing on getting big, focus on enjoying the process of vlogging.
8. Fear of Being Distracted From the Moment
Whether you’re vlogging or not, living in the present moment can already be a challenge with a smartphone. When something exhilarating happens, many of us feel compelled to pull out our phone to capture it, only to experience that fleeting moment through a small preview screen.
Vlogging appears to take that to another level, especially if you’re using complicated equipment that takes more time to set up and if you’re trying to capture enough footage to produce an entire vlog out of one day. How could all that time devoted to capturing your footage not get in the way of your present moment?
Well, like all hobbies, activities, and passions, vlogging does take time and you’re going to have to accept that it does. You may not know it now, but after giving vlogging a try, you may discover that you really enjoy it. And if you do, you won’t worry about missing out on life just as a painter who happens to be in the middle of his painting during a sunset wouldn’t worry about the sunset he’s missing out on.
If, in the end, you realize you don’t enjoy vlogging, then at least you’re left with a documented piece of a memory that you can relive again and again, which can actually help you appreciate your past moments even more.
9. Fear of Making Others Uncomfortable
Even though you might have learned to enjoy and be comfortable with vlogging, your vlogging might make others uncomfortable. You can still vlog while respecting others’ boundaries by having a conversation first, before you start vlogging, around whether or not they feel comfortable with appearing in your vlog. You can then make sure to exclude those from your vlog who are uncomfortable with appearing in your vlog.
Sometimes, though, as much as you try to exclude certain people from your vlogs, they might still end up in your footage. You might even find out after you’ve captured great footage that people do not want to be in your video. In these cases, you can always censor their faces out in editing.
10. Fear of Permanently Leaving a Bad Mark
Anything you make public over the internet, including vlogging, comes with the risk of making a permanent mark that won’t go away, even if you try to delete your original content later. That can definitely be a scary thing.
Luckily, with vlogging, you still have a lot of control. In both filming and editing, you can choose to share whatever you’re comfortable with sharing with the rest of the world.
In post-production, you can use some video editing software to delete unwanted parts from the video clip, blur the video background , or adjust the video color. Filmora is such a video editing software that has been widely used by many YouTubers; you can download it now and have a try.
Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.
Follow @Richard Bennett
- Title: "2024 Approved Maximize Video Reach in YouTube's SEO Arena"
- Author: Joseph
- Created at : 2024-05-31 13:51:32
- Updated at : 2024-06-01 13:51:32
- Link: https://youtube-stream.techidaily.com/2024-approved-maximize-video-reach-in-youtubes-seo-arena/
- License: This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
