Create Your Own YouTube Channel In 6 Steps

Would you like to create a YouTube channel for your photography business? It’s a great way to promote your products and services, establish your brand, and build an audience. Once you understand the process, you’ll wonder why you didn’t begin sooner. Videos aren’t that difficult to make, and are an incredible way to engage with a massive audience. That’s the power of YouTube!

Start Your Own YouTube Channel

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Follow these steps to start your own YouTube channel. You’ll be up and running in no time.

1. Identify Your Audience

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Your first step will be to decide who you’ll be making your videos for. This is referred to as your niche or target audience. Whether you’re in the health niche, make money niche or relationship niche, you’ll be making videos for those subsets of the population, and the videos you create will be niche-specific, meaning the content is directly related to your niche.

All the content you create will cater to your particular niche. It would make absolutely no sense to make videos that have to do with dog training if your niche is about making money. Producing videos for a specific audience is the best way to brand your channel, and build your subscriber list.

[Read More: 5 Ways To Promote Your Photography Business]

2. Jot Down Ideas

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You can see why defining your demographic is essential for coming up with great video content ideas. This step helps you narrow the focus of your channel, which will make coming up with content ideas much easier. Since you’ll be posting videos every week, it’s helpful to compose a list of potential ideas for your videos.

I use the notes app on my phone, and jot down ideas whenever something comes to mind. Then all I have to do, when I’m ready to record a video, is refer to my list and start creating content. Keep your eyes and ears open for potential video ideas. Google Alerts is a great way to get familiar with popular topics that are trending. It’s easy, just sign up, and check your interests to receive weekly emails.

3. Create Your Channel

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Fortunately, creating your channel is not a laborious process. Sign in to YouTube using either your desktop or smartphone. You can create a personal account or set up a channel using a business name, which I would highly recommend.

1. Click “Create a new channel”

2. If you’re already managing a brand account, choose that option from the list or create a new channel for your brand.

3. Fill out the details for your new channel, and customize the appearance by choosing a banner for your channel that is relevant to your brand. I use Canva to design my channel art and thumbnails for each of my videos. I suggest using the templates Canva offers because they’re the exact sizes required by YouTube.

4. Verify your account, and click “Done.”

You now have your own YouTube channel. Here’s an example of Canva’s YouTube channel art templates:

4. Optimize Content For SEO

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Because YouTube is a search engine, you’ll want to optimize your channel and your videos for search engine optimization or SEO. This is the best way to make sure people can find you. One of the goals of SEO is to direct people to your channel via the keywords they’re using.

Let’s say your channel is dedicated to gourmet cooking techniques. People searching for tips on gourmet cooking might search on YouTube for “how to become a gourmet cook,” “best gourmet cooking channels,” or “gourmet cooking recipes.” A keyword tool is indispensable to help you find optimal keywords for each of your videos. Neil Patel’s Uber Suggest is a free keyword tool that I use.

For each video, optimize the titles, tags, and description with low-competition keywords. You’ll also want to create thumbnails for your videos that correlate to your brand in terms of colors, fonts, and logos. I have a template I use for my video thumbnails where I’ll I have to do is swap out the title and image for each video that I make, keeping the colors, font, and logo the same.

5. Start Making Videos For YouTube

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Now comes the fun part. It’s time to start producing your awesome videos, and sharing them on YouTube. First ask yourself what kind of videos you want to make? Keep in mind, if you don’t feel comfortable showing your face, you can create video tutorials with just your voice and some simple graphics. You can do this long term or until you decide you would like to show your face.

There’s always the possibility of hiring voice-over artists if you don’t like how your voice sounds on video. Remember however, that just because you don’t like the sound of your voice, doesn’t mean others won’t. All you need is a smartphone and a window to start making videos. If you are the star of your videos, make sure you are well lit. There’s nothing worse than a video with poor lighting. Window light is a great way to light your videos, and is natural looking. Oh, and don’t forget to record with your phone in horizontal mode.

My Favorite Equipment

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You can also use a DSLR to record video and audio, although, I would most definitely use an on-camera mic for the audio. You can have the best-lit video ever, but if your audio is low-quality, your video will bomb. Here’s an exceptional Rode microphone that attaches to the camera’s hot shoe.

 

Read my post” “What Is The Best Digital Camera” if you’d like to record your videos using a camera.

I make tutorials on my computer so I don’t have to worry about lighting, but my audio must be top-notch. That’s why I thought it worthwhile to invest in a Yeti microphone, and I’m so glad I did. The audio is exceptional, and the microphone is easy to use. All you have to do is plug it in to your computer. I went one step further and purchased an adapter so I can use my Yeti with my iPhone.

This is the Blue Yeti USB microphone I bought.  The last piece of equipment you’ll need if you’re making tutorials is software that will record your screen. I use Screenflick. It’s works great for screencasting, is user-friendly, and it’s free. You can download Screenflick here.

6. Post Content Weekly

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Consistency will always be key when it comes to social media marketing, whether it’s YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Before launching your channel, commit to a certain window of time each week to produce and optimize your videos.

YouTube, is not only an enormous social media platform, but a gigantic search engine as well, and the more videos you share, the more views and subscribers you’ll get. Posting consistently will assure a steady stream of traffic to your channel, and hopefully, also to your website. If you can record two videos per week, even better. Many YouTubers share their videos on specific days and times so their viewers can anticipate their content.

Key Points

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At first, it may seem scary to create videos. Once you start, though, you’ll be pleasantly surprised how straight forward the process is. Create your channel by identifying your target audience, then make a list of potential ideas for future videos, create your channel, optimize it for SEO, and start making weekly videos. If you’re overwhelmed by the whole process, begin with baby steps. Eventually you’ll feel comfortable creating and sharing your video content for the world to enjoy!

Would you like to start a YouTube channel? Let me know in the comments:)