How to start a succesful vlog or youtube channel

A successful vlog will require a bit of planning. Sure you can just go out there with your smartphone and start recording footage about your passion. But it is better to take some time to think about the type of content that you want to share with people and where you will share it.

What is the Purpose of your Vlog?

It is a good idea to define the purpose of your vlog. It is not a good idea to spend 6 months doing this! So think about your vlog as a way for you to communicate with your target audience. What is the overall message that you want to portray here?

Here are some examples:

I will take you to travel destinations that you won’t believe
I will show you how to easily make money online from home
I will show you how to look beautiful every day on a budget
I will bring you all the latest news and fan reaction for [Sports Team]

Do you get the idea?

Good. You want to make your vlog stand out from the rest. Take a look at some of the existing vlogs out there that have a large subscriber base for inspiration. Just don’t spend too long on this!

Decide on your Vlogging Style

When you are starting out with vlogging it is best to do what you are comfortable with. You will need to show your face on camera – there is no getting around this. Viewers will not be impressed that they never see you in the videos. It will help to drive engagement. There are different types of vloggers.

Some will want to include their partner, their children, their friends, their pets etc in their vlogs. A lot of vloggers will shoot footage when they are outside doing something. Others will use their home or office for their vlogging.

Are you going to shoot all of the footage yourself or will someone else help you? If you are going to shoot the footage yourself and want to do this outside while you are walking around then you can use specific tools to do this.

Are you naturally funny? If so then always inject as much humor as you can into your vlog. Think about other ways that you can keep viewers entertained. Making mistakes with vlogging is great because you can show the outtakes of when things went wrong. So think about the style you will use for your vlog.

How can you make your personality really shine through and keep people engaged and wanting more videos from you?

What are other Vloggers doing?

If there is competition for your vlogging niche then go and check out what your competitors are doing. Take some time out to watch their videos and see what they do. Start with the most popular vlogs and work your way down. Here are some things to look out for:

What are the subjects of their videos?
Which of their videos are the most popular and why?
What is the average length of their videos?
What engagement techniques do they use?
Do they have sponsors or recommend affiliate products?
How often do they upload new videos?
What does their channel look like?
What effects do they use in their videos if any? If your time is limited then just study the top vloggers in your niche. Search for these vlogs in YouTube and then choose those with the highest number of subscribers and video views. This will be time very well spent and should give you lots of good ideas. Identify and Know your Audience

What kind of audience are you looking for? Is your vlog going to be for people that want to travel to exciting destinations across the world? Or learn how to make money online? Or learn how to look beautiful using budget makeup? Find out as much about your audience as you can. What do they really want to know? What are the common questions that they have? What blogs or vlogs do they visit now? What age range are they?

What Vlog Brand will you use?

You need a name for your vlog and channel. You could use your own name for this and many people have been successful doing this. Or you can choose a specific name for your vlog which reflects what it’s about. Here are some examples that we came up with (some of these may actually exist so check first):

Beautiful You – a makeup vlog
Exotic Destinations – a travel vlog
[Sports Team] Fanzone – a sports team vlog
Online Income – a make money online vlog
All About Dogs – a dog vlog
So it is time for you to get a little creative. Think ahead when you are brainstorming vlog name ideas. With a successful vlog you can create and sell your own merchandise so a catchy name will certainly help here.

Why you must launch your Vlog on YouTube

Here are some compelling reasons why you should set up your vlog on YouTube:

There are more than 1 billion users on YouTube
Every day YouTube gets 4 billion video views (yes 4 billion!)
You can succeed in any niche on YouTube
Mobile devices account for 1 billion views per day Is that exciting enough for you?

Look people love to watch videos on all kinds of different subjects. They will use YouTube as a search engine to find what they want. It is the second largest search engine in the world after Google. If your channel provides what those searchers are looking for then you will get views.

You can then tell your viewers to go and visit your website (or Facebook page etc) for more cool stuff. Give them a good incentive to join your email list and they will do it. Yes there are other video sites such as Daily Motion and Vimeo. These sites get a pretty good amount of traffic but they are miles away from YouTube. If anyone tells you that YouTube is saturated then just ignore them. It is the only way to go for your vlog!

Create Channel Art and your YouTube Channel

A YouTube channel without channel art does not create a good impression. So spend time designing and creating appropriate channel art for your vlog. If graphic design is not your thing then go to Fiverr.com and find someone that is good at it. Tell them what your channel will be about and give them your ideas for the channel art design. It will only cost you a few bucks to have great looking channel art created. This is well worth it.

You will also need a small image for your channel icon. This is the logo for your vlog. Once you have settled on this you can add it into all of your videos and on your merchandising going forward.

If you don’t already have a YouTube account then you will need to create a free Google account at https://www.google.com/. This is very easy to do and will take you less than 5 minutes.

With your Google account set up head over to YouTube.com and log in with your Google account. Then go to https://www.youtube.com/create_channel and create your vlog channel using your brand name.

After setting up your channel we highly recommend that you create a custom URL for your channel. To do this your YouTube account needs to be more than 30 days old and you will need at least 100 channel subscribers. You will also need a photo of yourself and channel art loaded.

Once you are at this point go to https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2657968?hl=en for precise instructions on how to create your custom channel URL. This is really worth doing.

Plan the Content you will create

OK so your channel is all setup to go and the next step is to upload some videos. Take a look at other successful vlogs for inspiration here. How did they start? Think about adding elements to your videos that you will include all of the time. For some this will be a look at the comments. For others this is a recap.

If people like these recognizable segments they will come back for more and are very likely to subscribe. Plan out the first few weeks of video creation and then schedule these. Committing these to a schedule will help to motivate you. Remember that consistency is the secret to a successful vlog.