A small YouTube creator starts their journey in a vulnerable position. From the moment they post their first video, they have to face two hard truths. The first is that in the beginning, their content may earn minimal views. Another challenge is not knowing when or if their channel will grow and earn revenue.
That’s a lot of uncertainty for one person, but there’s good news. Instead of fumbling through the YouTube journey, you can follow a simple game plan to stand out from other creators. You can bypass all the guesswork, attract 1,000 subscribers, and move one step closer to monetizing your content.
All you have to do, in the beginning, is make videos people are already searching for.
On YouTube, these videos tend to be informative, instructive, or highlight trending topics. There are four types of videos that easily provide such value:
Want to learn how to create each one? Watch our latest YouTube tutorial, then keep reading to discover the best tips for filming this powerful content.
Want to appear on YouTube search pages for two keywords at once? That’s what you’d achieve (potentially) by posting a versus video, which is an in-depth discussion comparing any two things. They could be video games, types of homes, investments strategies, or anything within your YouTube niche.
People search for these videos all the time, especially when they want to make a purchase. If someone can’t decide between two products, they need you, an independent arbiter, to help them decide. That creates a valuable opportunity for you. You can film an objective video weighing the pros and cons of each product or create a subjective video, one where each product is useful, but there’s clearly a better option.
To get started, identify the most important topic on your channel. Whatever that is, type it into the YouTube search bar and add two more letters to the query: V and S.
If you’re a tech creator, for example, you may type in something like this:
Pay attention to how YouTube autocompletes the search term. In the example above, typing “iPhone 12 vs” gives you 10 search terms related to the topic. You could create a video comparing the iPhone 12 to the iPhone 11, iPhone 12 Pro, or Samsung S21. These are all potential video ideas.
To make these videos even more appealing, add emotional context to the title. These short phrases are usually tacked onto the end:
Also, don’t forget to use vidIQ research tools to see how competitive a search term is.
You’ve likely seen list videos on YouTube. These popular pieces of content follow a simple titling convention: adjective + number + topic. That creates highly searchable content, such as “Top 10 Travel Destinations in LA ” or “8 Seafood Recipes to Try During Lent.”
When you make a listicle video, choose one topic to cover and quickly discuss several aspects of the subject. That allows you to cover plenty of searchable keywords and make your content more discoverable. For example, imagine posting a video titled “Top 10 Action Movies of 2021.” If you optimize the video properly, you should have at least 10 keywords – one for each movie.
Do you have a polarizing opinion in your listicle? That’s even better. An upset of any kind electrifies viewers. It motivates them to use the comment section, sharing what they’d view as the proper list or simply offer a dissenting opinion.
Listicle videos are hard to rank for unless a certain topic is being recycled on YouTube. When you download vidIQ, you’ll get access to a search companion that demystifies this entire process.
As an example, we used the term “top 5 stocks for 2021” to see what the search companion reported.
As you can see, the average age of these videos is about one month. If you posted a video with “top 5 stocks for 2021” in the title, you could earn 223,335 views in 30 days, on average.
When you combine an instructional video with a trending topic, you can’t go wrong. That’s what many creators learned when they posted how-to videos about a new social network called Clubhouse.
If you haven’t heard already, this app is for group audio conversations. The chats are invite-only, and that created a mysterious, FOMO-inducing panic among people who wanted to be involved. It became a trending topic, which found its way to every corner of the internet – YouTube included.
Because Clubhouse has limited access, how-to videos started appearing on YouTube. People wanted to know how to get invited, how to use the app, and how to host a group conversation. Videos answering these questions have between 10k and 200k views on YouTube.
We found these videos using the search term “how to use Clubhouse.” On the right side of the search results, the vidIQ keyword score tells us this term is lucrative. The search volume is high and the competition low, which is perfect for new creators who want more views.
You don’t have to be a veteran creator to make popular how-to videos. There are two creators – nayecole and TalkinWithTonio – that have less than 5k subscribers and earned between 10k and 50k views on their Clubhouse videos. They succeeded because they brought knowledge and education to a new trend.
Remember when GameStop stocks went crazy? Many channels reacted to the news that everyday investors were profiting from a short squeeze, which is when the price of a stock rises but hurts investors who betted against it.
It was such a new story at the time, and there were so many questions. What is a short squeeze? Why are GameStop investors making so much money? Should I buy GameStop stocks? On YouTube, reacting to the chaos can accelerate your channel’s growth.
This topic was in circulation for weeks, so corresponding videos were recycled by YouTube’s algorithm for a long time. Content from smaller creators had the chance to appear at the top of search pages, attract more views, and reel in more subscribers. That’s the power of a well-timed reaction video!
You can react to anyone or anything in your videos. You can add your style, knowledge, or point-of-view to a trending event within your niche. Just remember that the key to reaction videos is being one of the first creators to react.
When you start a YouTube channel, viewers won’t subscribe for your personality – not at first. In the beginning, they don’t know who you are. But they do know which type of videos they’re searching for.
If you’re working toward 1,000 YouTube subscribers, give people what they want. Answer their questions, solve their problems, and react to things they care about.
Lydia Sweatt is a writer who loves balancing her article/blog time indoors with a healthy dose of nature. She bikes, hikes, and identifies edible plants along the way.
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