If your YouTube channel is growing slower than expected (or if it isn’t growing at all), it’s time to make some changes and learn about where you are going wrong. Follow this YouTube channel optimization checklist, and you can expect to see more viewers and subscribers.

1) Optimize your YouTube channel details

For your channel to grow, you should make it easy for viewers to discover it. Include keywords in various parts of your channel so viewers can easily find you in the YouTube search results. The main and most obvious way for a viewer to learn about your YouTube channel is through the name, ‘About’ section, and channel links:

Channel name

Ideally, your YouTube channel name will have something to do with your content, as it’s supposed to indicate what you do. If it doesn’t, viewers might blindly skip over your channel in search results.

For example, a gardening channel should have related words, phrases, or terms in the name. For embroidery, include the word ‘embroidery’, ‘stitching’, or another related term in the name. Be creative and add a bit of your personality for a fun and memorable name.

‘About’ section

The ‘About’ section of your homepage is where you can expressly tell potential viewers, advertisers, collaborators, and YouTube crawlers, about your channel. It basically spells out what kind of videos you make, your aim, your value proposition, your background, etc.

The text limit is 1000 characters, so add relevant keywords to help the YouTube crawlers and increase your chances of appearing in the searches. However, DO NOT stuff keywords, as it may come off as inorganic.

If necessary, mention your background, qualification, or story, and tell the viewers what they can expect to gain from watching your videos. It will give you a chance to include more keywords.

External links

There’s a space in the ‘About’ section (under the description) for your email and social media account links. Include links to your socials, websites, and email so advertisers, companies, collaborators, and others can reach out. Companies and advertisers get in touch for sponsorship deals when subscribers cross 10,000 or when a YouTuber goes viral.

Not adding links will rob you of sponsorships, which can be a saving grace if a video ever gets demonetized. That’s why many YouTubers dealing with controversial content try to get regular sponsors so they don’t lose revenue.

Putting up your email also makes it easier to network with audiences and other YouTubers.

2) Use channel profile picture, banner, and trailer for branding

The most prominent way to incorporate branding elements is in the profile picture, channel banner (also known as channel art), and trailer. If you keep the default images, your channel will look incomplete to viewers, and they’ll feel like you don’t care enough, so even they will ignore your channel.

Channel logo/profile picture

Profile pictures appear in search results and alongside videos. So, upload a high-quality image or logo to make your channel more recognizable.

While it’s not mandatory to have a custom channel logo, it’s better to have one for consistent branding. Logos can also be used as a watermark, profile picture, and display picture on social media accounts linked to your channel.

For a quick and simple logo, use Canva or something similar, and if you can afford it, hire a professional to make a custom logo. In any case, remember that the image should represent your channel’s values and content.

Channel art/banner

Channel art is nothing but the banner at the top of your channel homepage. Your channel name, logo, brand colors, and other branding elements should give visitors an idea of what your channel is about. Since this is a large space, you can be as creative as possible.

Channel trailer

On every YouTube channel homepage, there’s a section just below the channel details for one video. Normally, you can pin any video here, but why not make a fun trailer to introduce your channel to new (and old) visitors? Include a hook that will convince the viewer to subscribe to your channel.

Take movie reviewer Jeremy Jahns for example, his channel trailer is a video of him explaining his rating system.

3) Optimizing your video titles, descriptions, and tags

For your videos to be discovered and noticed, they should be named accurately and have a proper description and tags. Like how you optimized your channel homepage’s look to show viewers what to expect, optimize your video titles, descriptions, and tags to give them an insight into your content. You don’t have to spell out everything about the video, but you must use words that accurately represent the content.

Video title

Ideally, the title should have keywords related to the video’s topic(s). Not all videos need to have keywords – like videos to inform viewers about the channel or personal updates and explanations about the future of the channel. However, if the video is part of your regular content, the title should contain keywords, so it’s easily discovered in searches.

Another way to make it easier for your videos to rank is to insert keywords in the video’s file name before uploading. For example, if you’ve made a video on how to make pizza, you could name the file ‘recipe_ how to make a pizza.mp4’. Thus, YouTube crawlers can more easily figure out what your video is about.

Video description

The description is where you provide a gist of the video’s content. It’s also a useful place to add links to your website, socials, email, and sponsors. The description can be one sentence or multiple paragraphs long, but you should keep it long enough to include important keywords and relevant information. This is important because YouTube crawlers also use it to understand your channel.

The ideal description includes:

  • A gist of the topics.
  • Timestamps to make it easier for viewers to know what’s covered and navigate to the topic of their interest.
  • A brief of your channel and/or your services (if applicable)
  • Links to your websites and social media accounts.

To rank your channel higher, search for your keyword on Google or YouTube and check out how top videos are titled and described. It’ll give you an idea of what to put in your video title and description.

Pro tip: Use the Upload Defaults option to save time on filling in the description, category, tags, comments (on or off), license, video language, and CC. Go to YouTube Studio > Settings > Upload Defaults.

Video tags

Tags are, very basically, descriptive keywords (like words or phrases) you add to a video.

Like with keywords, only add tags relevant to your video and avoid unrelated tags, as it’s against YouTube’s policies. Additionally, include tags that are misspelled because there are many people who make errors when entering search terms.

4) Include keywords in your video transcript

It’s not enough to add keywords in the video title, description, and tags. You also must include them in the transcript (text version of a video), especially in the first 15-30 seconds of the video. Ensure that important and relevant keywords are sprinkled throughout.

We suggest making your own subtitles and closed captions (CC) so YouTube and Google crawlers can easily understand the contents of your video. It has the added benefit of making it easier for the hearing-impaired and people who speak other languages to understand what you are saying.

5) Use custom thumbnails

When it comes to YouTube video thumbnails, you have two options – make them from scratch or pick a frame that YouTube suggests. While it’s easier to pick a frame from the video as your thumbnail, we always recommend making a custom one. 

But why is it important to have a custom thumbnail? Frankly, the main reason why most YouTubers design custom thumbnails is so viewers will get attracted and click on their video instead of a competitor’s video on the same topic. 

For example, if your video appears at the top of the list for the search term “how to grow onions,” it still needs to compete with #2 and #3 for the viewer’s attention. So, how do you catch their eye? You do it with an interesting title and an attractive thumbnail. And the more clicks your video gets, the more YouTube will be encouraged to promote it.

6) DO NOT clickbait or trick viewers

Neither YouTube nor viewers appreciate clickbaits. True, your video titles should be worded in a way that gets clicks, but that doesn’t mean you should promise something in the title without intending to fulfill it. In simple words, don’t title your video something like “Surprising video of friendship between lion and monkey” and then show separate clips of a lion sleeping and another of a monkey swinging in the tree.

There are times when YouTubers prank audiences with clickbait titles, but that’s okay if they have something the viewers actually want to watch or if they don’t trick the viewers into watching something they don’t want to watch. If you only use clickbait titles for clicks, people will notice and avoid your videos. YouTube doesn’t penalize click baiting, but your channel can get shadow banned.

Not all click baits are bad, however. Just make sure that you’re not tricking the viewers.

7) Use YouTube Analytics to improve your content

YouTube channel analytics is quite possibly the greatest tool a YouTuber has for understanding viewer behavior and content performance. Through it, you get data on viewers and your channel so you can figure out why some videos perform well and some don’t and come up with ideas to optimize and improve your content.

If you don’t know how to use YouTube Analytics, take up a course to master how to gather, analyze, and interpret the data.

8) Hook your viewers in the first 15 seconds

People will quickly move on to another video or close the app itself if they get bored within the first few seconds of a video. It doesn’t matter if your content becomes better after three minutes; if you haven’t interested the viewer in the first 15 seconds, you’ve lost them. So, whatever you do, make sure that the first 15 seconds (including the intro) catch the audience’s attention and make them interested enough to watch till the very end.

Here are a few ways to hook a viewer:

  • Have a unique introduction
  • Let the viewer know what they can expect to learn by the end of the video
  • Show some snippets or highlights from the video to give the audience a glimpse into what is in store for them (works well for vlogs and podcasts)
  • If applicable, let the viewer know there’s an announcement or surprise at the end
  • Try to make the content feel personal with words like “You”, “Us”, “We”, etc.

However, ensure that your hook is genuine and not pointless clickbait.

9) Have a consistent intro and outro

YouTuber Kurtis Conner says “Folks” and claps his hands once at the start of every video. It got engrained in viewers’ minds so much that when he stopped, viewers started pointing it out. Realizing that the viewers loved the intro, he started doing it again. YouTuber Jeremy Jahns closes all his videos by saying, “If you like what you’ve seen here and want to see more, click right here to see more.” He has been very consistent and always closes his video this way.

The point we’re making is that a consistent intro and outro stick in people’s minds, and they associate it with your channel. So, even if another creator copies your style, loyal viewers can easily spot it. You can follow the above examples and have catchphrases as your intro/outro, or you could have an intro/outro song like Chris Stuckmann. Whatever you choose, your goal should be to create a hallmark that is instantly recognizable.

10) Retain your audience for a longer time

YouTubers, over the past few years, have been making longer and longer videos because they realized that it made their channels perform better. It became clear that YouTube prefers it if viewers watch the whole video or at least a major part of it.

If most viewers watch your whole video, it’s a good indication that the quality is good, and YouTube will recommend it to others. Conversely, if many viewers leave your video soon after opening it (high bounce rate), YouTube will conclude that your video isn’t interesting or not meeting viewers’ needs. It will slowly stop recommending that video in their feed.

11) Upload high-quality videos

There’s no need for you to spend obscene amounts of money to make high-quality videos. A quick search on YouTube or Google will lead you to several videos and blogs explaining how you can make good-quality YouTube videos on a tight budget.

Now when we say high-quality videos, we don’t only mean footage that is 4K or higher. It’s decent enough even if your videos are 1080p HD. So, invest in a good camera setup and editing tool, as it will result in a growth in subscriber numbers.

12) Use different video lengths for different audiences

Longer videos do much better than shorter ones because YouTube likes it when you can retain audiences and keep them on the site/app for a long time. However, simply adding content to stretch the runtime without adding value is not going to do you any favors.

Now the question is, what video length does YOUR audience prefer? You’ll get the answer in YouTube Analytics. Go through the data and see which of your videos perform better—the longer or shorter ones.

Slowly start introducing longer videos to see how viewers respond. Also, you can set the video length depending on the target audience. Like this, there will be something for everyone. 

13) Include call-to-actions in the end screen

An end screen is the final few seconds of a YouTube video where you insert different elements for a viewer to explore. Many YouTubers embed one or two of their other videos as recommendations. Most often, the videos recommended in the end screen are related to the one the viewer just watched or belong to the same category.

Some also embed a link to their channel homepage to remind viewers to subscribe.

See what’s best for your channel’s growth and customize the end screen. You can promote other videos on your channel, prompt the viewer to subscribe, or perform some other call to action.

14) Have a consistent upload schedule

Many YouTubers, after uploading consistently for years, suffer reduced channel growth even if they don’t post for a week or two. It’s because YouTube prefers it if its creators post regularly.

Consistent posting, whether it be three or four times a week, means that regular viewers will come back to check out the latest video. If, for some unforeseen reason, you miss a few uploads, subscribers and regular viewers might forget to visit your channel for a while. If you haven’t posted anything for weeks, they may assume the channel is dead, so fewer people will subscribe.

Naturally, YouTube will stop recommending your videos to new viewers and even your subscribers’ feeds. It will take a lot of effort to make your channel grow again. It’ll almost be like starting a new channel.

So, if you want to maintain your YouTube channel’s growth, have a stock of videos you can post at any time. You can upload these videos when you don’t have a video ready. A channel manager can post videos for you or schedule uploads if you can’t.

15) Encourage engagement on your videos

Not everyone who watches your video will hit the ‘like’ button, comment, or share. Many are just happy to watch and move on. That’s why you’ll see almost all creators on the platform saying phrases like “Don’t forget to like and subscribe” and “Drop a question in the comments.” If you want to encourage viewers to engage with your videos, you can use some of the methods mentioned below:

  • Ask viewers to ‘like’, comment, and share your video
  • Conduct giveaways or contents
  • Announce merch drops, offline shows, or fan meet-ups
  • Create member-only content
  • Live stream Q&A sessions
  • Ask viewers to comment their opinions or questions about the topics covered 
  • Collaboration with popular YouTubers in your niche or with large followings

Engagement tells the YouTube algorithm what the viewers think of your video, so put in the effort to increase positive engagement. Depending on the response, the algorithm will suggest your videos to more people or hide them.

16) Create a community of viewers and engage with them

So many creators have gotten through tough times thanks to their loyal viewers. So, form a community of subscribers and loyal viewers and engage with them regularly to build a strong connection. YouTube even has a few helpful features you can leverage to interact with them:

  • YouTube Premiere: where you and your viewers can watch a new video together in real time
  • ‘Like’ and reply to the comments under your videos
  • Conduct interactive live streams as often as you can, even if it’s for a short time
  • Conduct polls
  • Post updates, memes, etc. in the ‘Community’ section of your channel
  • Hold fan meets or shows
  • Start a Discord server

The objective here is to make your subscribers and viewers feel like they are part of a community where they can come hang out and interact with like-minded people.

17) Arrange your videos into playlists

If your videos fall into several different categories, create playlists of related videos so viewers and subscribers can find all the content they like in one place. They can just open a playlist and press ‘play’ to watch all the videos back-to-back. YouTube playlists also work in your favor because they increase your watch time.

For example, look at the playlists made by BBC News:

18) Share and promote your videos

You are, in essence, a business owner, and you must do everything you can to promote your channel. Since your target audience is online, they most likely have social media accounts. So, your best bet for promotion is to use digital marketing. What do you do?

  • Create a blog or website and post often. Embed your videos in the blogs/posts so more people come across your channel.
  • Share snippets of your videos on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, X (formerly Twitter), etc., or announce that a new video is out.
  • Share your video as a community post on YouTube for others to see. Click on the ‘share’ icon and click on ‘Create Post’. Write a comment or some thoughts in the text box and click on ‘Post’.
  • Share your video links through WhatsApp and in direct messages or group chats.

Finally

If you’re a new creator, don’t be disheartened if your channel is not growing as expected. If you’ve found a particular niche (like pet clothes stitching), you may be able to grow and sustain your channel better than those who are just making videos based on trends. The success of your channel really depends on the viewers.

In any case, use this channel growth checklist to ensure that you are doing everything right by YouTube’s standards.