Growing a YouTube channel is just like nurturing a seed. It takes time, continuous effort, patience, and a little extra care!

And of course, it can’t be achieved overnight!

But there are a few things which can speed up this process. And in this article, we will cover the top 7 things that will speed up your growth on YouTube.

1. Research before you start creating videos

Creating video content takes a lot of time and effort. So, you might want to ensure that you are not wasting your energy on a video topic that has very little or even zero search volume.

Why?

Because if no one is searching for that topic then how can you expect to get more views for your video!

So, before you even work on the script or title, do an extensive research for selecting the best topic for your video.

This will help you ensure that your content caters to a larger audience and thereby increases your chances of getting more views.

The easiest way to do that is by leveraging the auto-complete feature of YouTube search

For example, if you have a food channel and you want to make a video on salads. From the search prediction, we can see that salad decoration tops the list. So, instead of talking a lot about salad making in your video, you can rather talk about ways and tips to decorate salad.

Apart from this, you can also use the following tools to do the keyword research for your video.

1. Google keyword planner – Google keyword planner is a part of the Google Ads interface, which allows you to just type in a keyword and find its search volume and related keywords.

2. Google trends – Just like Google keyword planner google trends is another free tool that helps you find out some trending video ideas.

If you are just starting off with your YouTube channel make sure you cover only a specific niche. Because YouTube defines the genre of a channel based on the type of content it has. If you put content from the different niche on your channel, YouTube won’t rank your channel for anything.

2. Create a hook within first 10 secs of your video

According to VideoNithch, approximately 20% of the people who start watching your video will leave within the first 10 seconds.

Also, a view is counted only after a person watches it for 30 seconds.

But there is a catch in the number of views displayed on YouTube!

When you upload a video on YouTube, views are counted as it is till 300 views but after that YouTube verifies the number of views with the help of a secret process (of course!) and then displays only the unique legit views.

And this is the reason why sometimes you see a discrepancy in the number of views shown on your video and in your YouTube analytics section. The same process is applied to the number of likes as well!

Now that you know how YouTube counts the number of views, let’s get into how can you create a hook that will make people stay on the video for longer than 30 seconds!

The best way to do this is by building curiosity at the very beginning of the video. You can do that by having a short intro about your video which tells your audience what they can expect from the video or just by asking some mindblowing questions that will make them stay on your video.

These hacks are very effective and are already used by a lot of YouTubers and SEO experts like Brian Dean and Neil Patel.

3. Rank higher by including keywords in the title and description

The cutthroat competition starts the moment you post your video on YouTube. Usually, the first hurdle that comes in front of YouTubers is ranking the videos at a higher position for a specific search result.

So, how do you make YouTube give preference to your video over others?

Well! The answer to this question is by helping YouTube understand what your video is all about. To do that, you can simply start by including the right keywords in your video’s title and description.

Make sure you spend enough time on this as it will do it’s magic only when you do it the right way!

To truly optimize your video for a particular keyword, we also recommend you to say the main keyword in your video itself. Now that YouTube is automatically generating subtitles for your videos, they are able to track what you are saying in the video and with that YouTube can understand what your video is about.

To make things even easier for YouTube to give preference to your video, try adding your main keyword at the beginning of your Video title. However, to prevent cropping of your main title, limit the number of characters in your video title to 50.

For the description, use the first 124 characters wisely to include some keywords as these characters will be shown along with your heading in the YouTube search result.

4. Win CTR battle with clickable thumbnails

Now that you have created an amazing video and published it, the next challenge would be making viewers choose between your video and thousands of other videos which are listing for the same topic.

The best way to ensure maximum clicks on your videos is by creating an enticing YouTube video thumbnail.

The YouTube thumbnail is the first thing people will see when they come across your video and by having an enticing thumbnail, you can improve the video’s CTR(Click through Rate) to a great extent.

In fact! YouTube itself reports that 90% of the best-performing videos on YouTube have custom thumbnails.

In a world where people take only a few seconds to decide whether to watch your video or not, your video will be judged by its cover!

And this is why thumbnails can be your trump card when it comes to winning the CTR(Click Through Rate) battle.

Creating a clickable thumbnail is a fairly easy task. You can create an enticing thumbnail by using a free YouTube thumbnail maker app like Picmaker.

To know more about which thumbnail type works better on YouTube and how to quickly create a professional looking YouTube thumbnail, check out this blog: “How to make a smashing thumbnail in 5 mins!”

5. Improve average watch time of your YouTube channel with playlists and end screen annotation.

It is no secret that YouTube ranks your videos based on average watch time.

But not many know that YouTube gives preference to videos of channels that have great watch times across their entire channel.

YouTube as a company wants more people to stay on their platform as long as possible. Hence YouTube rewards the best performing channel by pushing its content to the related videos section. This again leads to a phenomenal increase in the views of that particular video.

Now, let’s talk about how you can increase your channel’s average watch time with less effort!

• One way to do that is by creating a playlist of all the related videos on your channel. Playlists are a great way to increase the average watch time as it pushes your viewers to watch more than one video in a single session. Thus making viewers stay longer on your channel.

  But when you are creating a playlist, make sure you name your playlist in such a way that it precisely reflects the video content of your videos. Check out this article by google to know how to create a playlist on YouTube.

  
• The second way is to use end screen annotation in your videos. The end screen annotations will give your users a way to dive deep into your series of related content. The best way to leverage this option is to include a playlist of videos or to include a video which is related to the currently playing video.

If you notice, the annotation in the video and the current playing video are related as they both talk about the camera basics.

Check out this article by Google to know how you can use end screen annotation

6. Make your channel homepage brandilicious

Most people, after being exposed to your video will check out your channel’s homepage. If you want them to subscribe, it needs to look as attractive and professional as possible. Treat your youtube channel as a brand! The impression you create in your viewer’s mind in the first 5 seconds, matters a lot!

But, creating a custom channel art can be tricky because channel art looks different on different devices.

Check out this simple 7 step guide on how to make make a stunning YouTube channel art to get started with creating some professional looking YouTube channel art.

To create some professional looking channel art, you can use a free YouTube channel art maker.

7. Embed your YouTube videos on your blog or website

If your site or blog is getting some good traffic, then embedding your YouTube videos can do wonders for your views.

How?

Because once you embed your YouTube video on your blog or website, any view that you get on your video will reflect on your total view count. So, by embedding your video in your blog or website you are actually creating an extra inflow of more views for your YouTube video.

Check out this article by Google to know how to embed your YouTube video.

We hope our list of 7 quick ways to grow your YouTube channel helps you climb the YouTube ladder easily.

Did we miss any awesome way to grow your channel? What are your top 7 ways to grow on YouTube? Let us know in the comment section.

      You don’t need to drastically change the look of your brand, but a few tweaks of existing designs (includes Logo, colours, Website, Headings, email signatures, and brand icons) could freshen things us a bit.

      Other than the above visual identity of your brand, there is much more to it than just good design.

      Good design is what gets people “through the door” and good branding is what “Keeps them coming”.

      Here are 12 new year branding tips for the startups:

• Plan for offers with gift vouchers and sponsorship with the existing big brands
• Make your New Year’s Eve-themed cover photo, Profile picture, Thumbnails
• Send personal holiday wishes list with inspirational eBooks
• Write your branding thoughts to the paper and envelope
• Write New Year blog post and articles
• Optimize your online profiles with keywords for your industry
• Invest on storytelling videos and editing tools
• Always share your solution for a problem through social media
• Providing branding calendars and collateral’s
• Join business event, public events and encourage feedback
• With simple branding message, remind people about your brand
• Send your new or existing press releases to your contacts

      A great thing to do at this new year start is to give yourself a big old boost of inspiration to spark your creativity.

      Set your goals and plan for the future to create a structure for your year that you can work to. It’s a great way to look back and see what you have achieved, what needs to be improved on.

      Schedules can help too. Writing a list of tasks that you would do an average day working on your brand, and write what parts of the day are busiest, quietest, etc. which allows you to plan upcoming to do’s for branding.

      Remember, everyone in your team is a brand builder. Gather them and have a dedicated session to identify your true focus. Get your core value and make your message in single word, then even better. If not, then try to keep it clear, specific and relevant.

Some of our personal tips:

• Hard work is hard, but necessary
• Don’t sell short
• Know your local creative community
• Try anything/everything, Love what you do
• Always document your work
• Take risks, its ok if that becomes mistake
• Share if you have the answer for a question
• Be you, not them
• Make the things happen by yourself, for yourself
• Work/life balance is key

After All:

      All we have a list of New Year’s Day resolutions as long as possible as the piece of paper that you wrote them on.

      What is your resolution for the ‘brand’ new year? Planned to grow your brand bigger than last year? Or do you have a new social initiative planned?

      To make the things simpler just write “Improve Our Brand” and focus/refocus more on your brand’s focus.

      With your right branding strategy, whatever your resolution, welcome this brand new year and best of luck in 2014!

      You may already familiar with all the advantages of having a good explainer videos, like ranks your website better in Google search, increasing conversion rates, clarifying your product and boosting your sales. So, we are not going to bore you again with these points.

      Now, then what we are going to talk about? A lot of people are shocked when they hear about the cost of an explainer video for the first time. Without knowing the production process, how much resources involved in it, especially video quality and its instant credibility many of us is misunderstanding that the price is too high.

      Well, we understand that the main problem for most startup is the cost of explainer video. So this article will help you to justify how much a proper explainer video cost along with its production process and explains you, How should we invest a right amount?

An Obvious Question: How much Costs?

      Is the first and foremost question when we enquire about the explainer videos.

      It is actually difficult to place a figure on how much an explainer video would cost, as it has different client and each one having different requirements and that could be unique. So it really based on the length of the video and the animation style it involves.

      However, we know people would like to know the price before hearing rest things about an explainer videos. so a typical explainer video will cost about $1000 to $5000 per minute, at the same time you should keep in mind that a sophisticated animation video cost can go as high as $10, 000 per minute.

      Have you ever think about the difference between $1000 explainer video and a $10, 000 one? Then what about the difference between $10, 000 explainer video and $100, 000 TV spot? The truth is, “You Get What you Pay For”. But creating a video is not always cheap.

      The below figured video production process are the possible expense and that will help you to understand the questions,

      How the video production budget split up works? And, Where the cost are going?

      In general, a 60-90 seconds explainer video takes 4-8 weeks to complete.

• Research and Brainstorming (4-7 days)
• Story and scripting (4-7 days)
• Voice production and Recording (1-2 days)
• Storyboarding (7-10 days)
• Animation and Production (10-12 days)
• Sound effects & Music design (3-5 days)
• Delivery and Promotion (2-4 days)

Are you Investing right amount?

      Before investing money on explainer video, it’s essential to understand how much can be the right amount and what happens if we don’t invest a proper amount.

      A professionally made explainer videos are trending big now, because they are most likely in between 60-90 seconds and explaining your product for users to grasp features and its advantages. However, explainer videos only work if they’re done in a better way.

      A poorly designed explainer video with the consideration of reducing the cost can have adverse effects alone and leaves the viewer confused and turned off. Even we can create an explainer video for just $5. Template makes this possible but they may not have a license to sub-license it to you.

      A minimum budgeted video doesn’t mean that you are saving money, because you are most likely going to end up and having to do things twice which can’t only cost you money but also time and resources.

      If you try pushing the production houses to get a lowest cost explainer video, sometimes you might be unhappy with your video you receive finally.

Ready to Invest? If not:

      When producing a video, production houses don’t do just animation, they really care about producing a video for you that will be more effective, and not only explaining your products, they will also explains the pain of your ideal customers and how your product /service will solve that pain.

      So if you are interested to have an explainer video and still you feel not having sufficient money to invest then don’t go for it. Because a poorly designed low budget video may hurt your customers more than not having one at all.

      Whilst many people always place finances and sales as key points in creating a successful start-up, the need to have visible and impressive design principles is often underestimated in the impact they can actually have. With the right use of creative techniques, it can really make a difference between average and exceptional companies. But what are the ultimate methods a firm can use to make themselves stand out from the crowd?

Know your audience design Need

      It’s one of the basic aspects for all areas of the business but it particularly applies when planning new designs for any graphic materials for the firm. Not everyone will have the same tastes or look for the same object so it’s important to tailor any logos or websites to appeal to whoever the product is targeted at. This way, the promotional material will immediately click with the right person and help boost business.

Keep it simple

      Even though a busy page may look impressive, it can sometimes be distracting to look at making it lose some of its overall impact. Therefore, using a simple structure for an advert or webpage allows for everything to be explained in an orderly fashion so that even the most untrained person can understand a product or service and decide whether it’s for them or not.

Have a unique centrepoint

      A key element for any visual tool is to have one feature that stands out from the rest of the content. The human eye only pays attention to a page for 3 seconds meaning that there needs to be something that makes someone want to read more. Not only will a unique feature do that but it will also be a memorable item that someone can use to bring them back to the company when new products or updates are released.

Use graphic aids carefully

      Using pictures is an essential tool to gain someone’s attention in an ad campaign. However, using images that aren’t relevant to the product can send out conflicting messages to the audience. Therefore, stick to using pictures of the product itself or ones associated with the industry so that the public can get an idea of what the product is about.

Avoid too much information

      When designing a webpage or creating a video, it’s always important to include all the key points about the company. However, some designers can be tempted to try and cram in as much information as possible. But with the average human concentration time only lasting 20 seconds, it’s best to stick to just 2 or 3 main points to really hook the customer in.

Experiment with different styles

      For many start-ups, it’s important to stand out from the crowd in any way possible. One of the best ways to do is by trying new design and layouts for logos and adverts. Whilst it may seem unconventional, the unique features will make an advert more memorable than more traditional concepts used by rival firms.

Only use two main colours

      Colour can be a double-edge sword for designers. Whilst it makes a logo or advert attractive to the customer, too much of it can be off-putting to the public. To avoid this, it’s best to use two main colours which not only adds the attraction to the page but it is much more easier on the eye making the entire piece flow and form into one piece.

Use the entire space

      Whilst different products will be different sizes, companies need to use all the possible space on a logo or web page. This helps distribute the content evenly making it easy to follow for the public. On top of that, any empty space on a page looks odd and will make the advert look unprofessional and untidy.

Optimize content for its format

      With the web now playing such an important role in all aspects of daily life, content needs to be adapted for the right format. For example, large pictures used on paper adverts will be slow to load on the web losing the interest of customers. Therefore, designers need to think about what tools they are going to use to make sure that it’s appropriate for its correct format whether it’s for print or the web.

Listen to feedback

      One of the most important design tools is the feedback from test groups. This info allows companies to know what works visually and what doesn’t. It’s then imperative to use the advice to tweak the advert or webpage to suit the audience’s needs and make both the product and company more attractive to the desired audience.

      Other than this 10 Tips there are much more to work on startups, starting from improving your UX to selecting some great fonts for your web, everything in design matters a lot. There is no excuse for design, now every startup is highly valued on design aspects.