Many content creators on YouTube get stressed when their hard work isn’t commensurate with the results they get. More so when there is a stagnation in channel growth because of poor viewership and subscriber base. Several factors contribute to channels’ abysmal performance, but the main issues are minor avoidable mistakes driving down video metrics and overall performance. Today we want to talk about a few errors we’ve identified involving several channels.
Also check effective strategies for blog promotion and search engine optimization
Table of Contents
What are the most common YouTube mistakes beginners make?
This post focuses on twelve common mistakes that new YouTubers make and specific things to improve them.
Over the months, we’ve talked to a few YouTubers on the Most common mistakes they made and shared a few insights into video marketing and vlogging. Below are the common mistakes not listed and ranked in any particular order of importance.
Mishaps are only natural; to err is human, to correct is divine.
Video titles with no specific keyword due to Poor choice of words.
YouTube video titles play vital roles in identifying the video’s content and helps with video ranking. Avoid irrelevant words in the title for the sake of video rankings. Many YouTubers pay little attention to ranking keywords in their focus niches.
Targeting specific search keywords in video titles helps videos to rank for such keywords. It has all to do with video search engine optimization. The title and the video descriptions help search engines to understand the channel’s content better. What of the video description?.
Video descriptions that are without links to relevant resources.
Again, many under-performing channels don’t give attention to write good search optimized descriptions to boost rankings. For SEO best practices, the first paragraph of the video description should contain your keyword or keyphrase, and this should appear a couple of times through the body of the description.
Update: with the current updated YouTube algorithm a lengthy video description may may not affect video rankings.
Lack of interest arousing introduction and effective conclusions
Video introductions receive little attention as some videos either don’t have interest-arousing introductions or no introduction at all. The first 15 seconds of the video should arouse interest in your audience to pin them to watch along. A brief interest arousing introduction is all you need. Many times, instead of heightening viewer interest, a longer introduction rather drives viewers away from your videos. The best example of effective video introductions is that of the channel called income school. By fifteen to twenty seconds, a viewer should know what the video is about and its overview. Also, show how the video relates to your audience to help them see the value in the presentation. Otherwise, why should they spend time to watch? So the introductory part of any video should be attention-grabbing to hold the interest of your viewers.
Actionable tip: You could start by stating facts and figures, a motivational statement, or asking a viewpoint question. Please take advantage of rhetorical questions that are thought-provoking since they effective in drawing your viewers out. You could also feature a dramatic scene or an attractive image of something related to your presentation.
Many videos end without effective conclusions and only say something like,” that’s all for today, don’t forget to subscribe for more videos, see you next time.” While these are good, an effective conclusion isn’t only a summary or recap of the main points. Strive to include what your audience should do with the information you’ve given them. What should they do after watching the video?
Actionable tip: Include a call to action (CTA).
Poor eye contact
Good eye contact is essential to hold the interest of your viewers. Many have the mannerism of unconsciously looking away from the lens. There is a tendency for beginners to stare at the viewfinder instead of the lens.
Background music, noise, and image that are disruptive
It gets uncomfortable to listen when the volume of the background music is loud enough to overshadow the speech. It’s much worse if the choice of background music is terrible. Avoid distractions in the background as they have the potential to jeopardize your channel growth by driving away subscribers and visitors.
Actionable tip: Go for a piece of good music and set it to a comfortable volume to allow for clear speech. In video editing, don’t rush through; look for background disruptions which could be an irrelevant image or display, poor choice of the video recording environment, unwanted noise, and many more. Additionally, invest in a good but affordable Microphone to deal with background noise.
Poor lighting affecting video quality.
Inadequate lighting would render the video quality poor, and unnecessarily divert viewer attention. Video shoots in a dim environment don’t perform well. You need to always be in a place that affords s sufficient lighting. Also, buy quality but cheap devices such as a high definition camera.
Actionable tip: Always face the light when you shoot a video in a recording studio or outside.
A Boring show
More often than not, people turn away from boring videos, and at midway some quit watching. That’s why animated delivery always wins, even with poor content. It is one thing to have a good introduction and another to hold your audience’s attention throughout your delivery. If you get bored on the way, your audience, too, will be bored. On the other hand, an animated delivery works well in retaining audience attention. Enthusiasm must be applied in moderation since too much can tire out your audience. No one wants to see something boring as we all desire exciting videos. Why do funny videos goes viral even with poor content? Because they are exciting to watch!
Actionable tip: Invigorate, motivate and retain the attention of viewers with your enthusiasm. If you are enthusiastic throughout your video, most of your audience will tire out, so you have to use enthusiasm in moderation. To do that, use modulation to vary your pitch, volume, and pace of your speech.
Avoid Spammy Commenting in Promoting your Channel.
Some Beginner YouTubers randomly post to promote their channel in various comment sections of other channels. They may do this without even contributing to the discussion in any meaningful way. The best practice is supporting the conversation and identifying with people, and possibly providing a solution to their problems. When you watch videos from other channels and leave valuable comments, people will naturally discover the stuffs on your channel too. Instead of asking for subscriptions or a visit to your channel, your helpful comments should do the trick. If you do it right, the great information you share in the comment sections on various channels with bring you subscriptions for your channel growth. The potential subscribers would’ve witnessed the value you provide and would want to support your channel. What goes around comes around!
Actionable tips
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Promote engagement with the content of other channels by giving good comments.
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Let others know your value through commenting and information sharing.
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Seize the unique opportunity to grow your channel through commenting.
Not reporting spammy commenting your YouTube channel?
What about spammy or otherwise fake accounts that show up and sometimes give unrelated comments? Such a misleading practice is not to be overlooked. It is necessary to deal with suspicious, robotic commenting on your Channel. Make sure to report them as spam as they potentially can have detrimental impact on your channel. At least, you might compromise “user experience” if left unchecked. No one want to read fake comments from bots. The best practice is to take action against them and Neil Patel, as always sets a good example.
See below, how Neil Patel took immediate action to report such activities in an instance.
Very Shortly, He actually flagged and reported it to YouTube.
Being inconsistent in content creation
Inconsistency drives down the progress of channels. We observed that each video upload brings in subscribers, and an inconsistent channel stagnates in subscriber growth. Consistency helps your channel’s rankings in SEO, and that’s what YouTube likes. They like a reliable Channel that produces consistent content to promote.
Lack of focus.
Avoid the temptation to believe this common misconception that the more you have at the beginning, the better. You may want to start earning from your first channel before creating another to boost your success rate.
Relying upon Only One Social Video Platform
Most video creators are on YouTube, which is a good thing, but the smartest thing to do is to explore other good video-sharing websites to add to your list of platforms. Why? Since anything can happen to YouTube and other video-sharing websites making it risky to carry all you eggs in YouTube’s basket. Let’s not forget the recent policy updates that negatively impacted kids’ channels and how it’s driving their revenues low. It’s essential to diversify your business; if you view your channel as a business venture with long-term prospects, you will host your channel on other platforms too. It’s risky to use only YouTube for your business.
Actionable tip: For the sake of diversification, try other video hosting services. According to Vidiq.com, “this is like putting your eggs in one social media basket”.
Impatience and hasty monetization of a channel.
If you are a beginner YouTuber, you want to avoid becoming overly worried about the channel’s analytics since this attitude, in turn, would adds to your discouragement.
Every successful YouTuber we talked to had to be patient while being consistent in content creation and developing their subscriber base. See it as a long-term business model to nurture over time. YouTube or Vlogging is much like blogging is more of a marathon than a sprint. We encourage you to stay motivated as your channel grows, and avoid a hasty monetization of your channel.
Most beginners are in a hurry to monetize as early as possible instead of investing in growing their subscriber base. You may want to keep at least providing ads-free videos for your subscribers for a while. Allow sufficient time to establish a following of loyal subscribers and then monetize it. Your subscribers would love you and be happy if you do. Of course, they will still be your subscribe if you monetize early, but when you delay the monetization a bit, you quickly get more subscribers because of the ads-free videos.
We are coming up with a free report for more actionable YouTube channel tips for more views and subscribers and earning more from monetization.
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