How to start a coding YouTube channel (with tips from a bunch of successful creators!)

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Hello.
My name is Bo Kearns and I run the Freak.
Oh, camped Out or GE YouTube channel were currently the biggest active software channel on YouTube.
Our channel focuses on posting long in depth courses, and we post these courses from a variety of contributors.
In this tutorial, I'm gonna share insights into YouTube's algorithm.
I'll share tips for creating your own software YouTube channel, and we're going to hear advice from a variety of successful YouTube creators.
Even if you're new to software, you can benefit a lot from starting a YouTube channel.
In fact, most of the tips and advice I share this video will be applicable to any type of YouTube channel, not just software channels.
I think starting a YouTube channel can benefit developers at any stage of their career.
You don't have to be an expert.
You don't even have to know anything about a topic to teach someone about the topic.
All you have to have is an interest and a desire to learn.
So that's just what I did when I started my first job Script training channel s O.
I created my own YouTube channel.
This is before freak Oh, Camp and I had job script tutorials.
I didn't really even know that much about Java script before I started the channel.
I would learn about the topic so it could make a video about the topic, and the process of making the videos turned me into an expert.
And then when I went to get a job, I was able to point to my videos to show that I knew what I was doing, and it helped me get a job before he started channel.
You need to decide the goal of your channel.
Your goal can have an impact on a lot of things about your channel.
So here's some common goals, which are not mutually exclusive.
Some people want to help others learn.
You may want to build a body of work that will lead to other career opportunities.
You may want to give yourself a reason to learn or maybe promote a paid resource.
Maybe you just want to make money through YouTube, ad revenue, sponsorships and affiliate links.
Also, you may want to promote your brand or company.
Why start a YouTube channel as an ex Google Tech lead?
Let me tell you a little something believe it or not, I used to be just like you, a weak, pathetic human and nobody.
When you take a look, though, you'll see any successful person.
You know.
They seem to have a YouTube presence.
You, too.
It's not just for cats anymore.
It's gone mainstream, and it is one of the most important platforms of our generation of our era.
It is the defining platform of our era.
It has over taken Facebook.
It is the world's second largest search engine, just after Google.
Video is the future, and they will overtake other types of content as people get faster and faster Internet.
And you may be thinking, Well, it's too late for me.
A lot of mainstream has gone into YouTube.
That's true.
But in other fields like education, tech software engineering is only just beginning.
How many high quality software engineer and channels do you know?
Just one mine, and maybe two of you count free code camp.
The great thing about YouTube is that you can define what success looks like redefined that show people what you believe is right.
Don't let the mainstream media define that.
You define that and let your voice be heard?
Sure, when you're young, you can be passive and listen to other people and let them tell you what they think is right and wrong.
But some age you need to stand up and take a firm stand in your beliefs and be unwavering in your message.
Don't let anybody else tell you otherwise.
And if they do, go ahead and just mute or block those people from your channel.
You know, we all have our own reasons for getting into social media.
It could be for the self expression it could be to share information, share knowledge, to learn personally as a person.
It could be for the money.
But you know why I do it for for the love I I don't mean for the love of the game or for the love of clothing.
I mean for true love.
You see, Let me tell you what my plan is, and that may not happen overnight.
It may take a week, a month, a year, 10 years.
But one of these days my ex wife, she's going to come crawling back, hungering after the high quality programming content that I've been pushing out, asking me how to reverse a link list, and she's going to be seen what successful life I've been living out on my YouTube channel.
Success is the best form of revenge.
That's right.
I'm doing YouTube for revenge and she's going to see that.
And when she comes crawling back and I don't care how long that takes, you could take 20 years, 50 years for all I care.
I'm going to make her prove her love for me by reversing link list not just once, but twice.
And the only way she's going to have to learn to do this is by watching all of my content on YouTube, buying all my stuff by my courses.
That is going to show how much she loves me.
And so that is the intricate test that I have laid out on my YouTube channel.
So whatever it is you're looking for money, career, social status, a network, true love revenge.
You'll be able to find it on YouTube when thinking about the videos you wanna make in your channel, and you may think about how there's already a lot of videos on the exact same topic.
But don't worry about that because there are tons of different learners in the world, so there's gotta be a learner out there that can learn best from your teaching style.
Also, when I can't stress this enough, you don't have to already know about a topic to create a video about a topic.
Create a video of the great opportunity to learn.
You're gonna want to try to figure out what type of software channel you want to start.
I category software.
YouTube channels into four types.
We have tutorial, informational, live coding and software entertainment.
I'm going to give some examples of all of these interspersed with tips from some of the creator's different types of channels.
Different types of videos appeal to different demographics.
For instance, a software attainment channel is going to appeal to a wider demographic than a software tutorial channel.
So you need to keep your goals in mind so you don't get discouraged if you see other videos getting way.
More views and your videos just depends on what you're trying to accomplish for your channel, so a tutorial channel primarily features software tutorials.
This is the best type of channel.
If you want your channel to help you get a job or if you want to sell pig courses, this style sometimes less focus on your personality than other channels.
So you can see here some top tutorial channels and some good examples of what tutorial channels air like.
So as faras tips, um, I people ask me this all the time, and I really I don't say I don't like the question, but I don't feel like I have a great answer because there's no special formula.
I didn't do promotion, so I don't I don't have much advice on promotion.
What I did was just make videos.
I just I was consistent.
I think that's the best advice I can give is to be consistent, and it's gonna be discouraging.
At first, you're going to get no views, you know, and you're gonna make no money.
And you you're spending your time.
But the more consistent you are if you if you're making good content and you're uploading, you know, every week people are gonna start to come.
So that's that's the best advice I can give.
And don't stop because if you stop making content, your channels just going to go to shit and even at my level at whatever 800,000 subscribers.
If I If I don't make a video for a month or two months, my analytics, they're just gonna It's just gonna be a straight down slope, Andi.
It's very stressful.
You know, doing YouTube especially full time is very stressful because if you if you don't have any ideas that week, you know when you can't make a video, your your analytics go down.
And that's your livelihood, you know, so it can be stressful.
But you do.
You know you want to be consistent.
Another thing is, be yourself.
Don't don't try to copy people.
It's it's okay to watch other people and get ideas from them.
But don't like straight up.
Copy someone because it's already out there.
You want to be unique.
You also don't want to be fake.
I know that there are a lot of fake people on YouTube, and a lot of them are successful, like the family vloggers and stuff that are all giddy and happy and stuff.
And then they're miserable off camera.
You want to be yourself, You know, for me, I I like to talk to you guys like I talked to my friends.
You know, I don't jump on camera like, Hey, guys, we're gonna We're gonna build an application today and Lottie died.
And that's just not my personality.
You guys would think I was friggin high or something.
You know?
Is he getting back on drugs?
If if I acted like that, So I just I think that being yourself is is genuine and people pick up on that.
And I think that ultimately, that's one of the things that that's helped me out the most.
And then the last one I have is to find your niche.
And basically, what I mean is keep your content, you know, all in the same area.
Don't do a development video tutorial one day, and then the next day, do your favorite movies and then the next day do a family vlog because people tend to subscribe the channels for a specific thing.
For me, it's usually tutorials.
Um, I also do videos on, you know, like videos like this self help help you in your professional life, help you be more successful, come up with ideas, stuff like that.
Um, you know, So you want to just kind of stick toe to a certain realm.
Don't go all over the place because people won't know what to think of you or why they're watching you Unless you just have a fantastic personality.
And it doesn't matter what you d'oh.
There are some channels like that, but I've seen a lot of channels fail because they just they're just all over the place.
So, you know, you just want to find, find what you're good at and stick to it.
An informational channel has informational videos about software development.
They usually focus on soft skills and other information that developers to know.
And just you know, sometimes you see multiple styles and one channel you'll see tutorial videos and informational videos on the same channel.
But here are some examples of some good informational channels that kind of give you an idea of what type of videos you'll see on those channels.
Hey, guys, is your boy Joe back at it again?
Couldn't face dot com your boys back and I didn't did it again one more time.
Listen, people loving people hate it.
It is what it is.
What do I do here in you too?
Very simple.
Okay, I just coming here being myself.
I told to you guys just like I'm talking to my friends.
Okay?
I'm just having fun with it.
Okay?
That's the number one thing that I do on you to have fun again.
Second thing is actually help people get jobs by giving them advice and and seven little things that help me.
Okay.
And even things that I've seen in the industry that I feel like nobody told me.
So I should tell others a body so, like that that could be more prepared for job interviews.
You know what type of programming languages that you focus on, how to get into certain jobs, right, how to make your life easier as a junior developer.
And that's what I do here.
And it's a informational slash, you know, tutorial slash, you know, lifestyle, type of channel.
Okay, if you like the type of content and definitely check out coding face right, because that's what we do here.
We try to help people out, and at the same time, you know, we just let people know, Like what we do again, how we have seen growth, you know, we went from a parking lot attendant, you know, working in a warehouse, doing all this other stuff, all the jobs that you could think of, right?
I see people all the time.
Come up, man.
I'm over.
Driver ate.
I'm doing deliveries.
I'm doing this and that and my bro.
At the end of the tunnel, there's a light.
Trust me, I saw it right.
I learned how to code.
I did everything that I need to do.
I put in those hours so you can also get there, too.
Okay, Now, Bata way for anybody that wants to get into this whole system.
This whole world, this ecosystem off YouTube.
My advice is be yourself.
Don't copy from anybody, okay?
Have fun.
All right.
That's number one.
I think that should be the number one thing for everybody, because I'll be honest with you.
YouTube.
It's not easy.
It's a lot of hours.
A lot of work that you have to put in, right?
Don't kill yourself over it, but, you know, have fun with it.
Okay?
Don't take things too serious.
Sometimes we overthink things.
You know, when I first got into you too.
I've been doing this for, like, four years.
before I was even starting to get into you too, right?
But because I was so worried about what are people gonna think about me?
But the way it sounds smart enough or is this a topic that I could be talking about Now?
I don't care.
Now.
I just come in, have fun, okay?
And that's my advice to you guys.
Just come in.
Have fun.
Enjoy yourself.
Don't copy from what other people are doing, right?
If you do that, you're gonna be successful.
It might take you a little bit longer, right?
But it's not about getting the numbers up.
It's not about getting a 1,000,000 subscribers, not about having, you know, a whole bunch of money.
It's not about that.
It's about having fun like one thing that I can tell you guys, my community is We have fun.
We do live streams and we have fun.
We enjoy ourselves.
You have a long day of coding.
You want to come home?
You when I relax, that's what we do.
According face dot com, we give you advice, will help you out.
But at the same time, we make sure that this describes how fun and If you want to get into YouTube, right, that's what you should do.
Whoever it is, if it's five people, 10 people, that's watching you have fun with those 10 people.
Okay, that's just how it is.
At the end of the day, you will become successful.
And just how anything else in life is you put in the time and at the end of reward is there.
All right, so, anyways, guys, shout out to everybody that, you know, supported me here.
Freak.
Oh, camp And I love you guys.
Man, stay to one.
If you want to check out my channel, check it out.
Courting face another type is life coating.
This type of channel mainly focuses on people live coating.
Viewers can see the actual thought process that goes in to create a program.
It can also be helpful to see how live coder solved problems in real time.
Although some people are so good at it, it can almost Seamus policy is a tutorial channel.
Like, for instance, the coding train life coating is great for building a community because you often get to communicate with viewers directly during a stream.
And this is also a style that you commonly see live coating with other types of styles on the same channel if you're interested in live coding.
I learned a few things in life coating for a few years, and, ah, here's some of the advice that I think it would be most helpful On the technical side.
Don't worry about getting a fancy microphone or webcam.
You can use the built in webcam.
Think it started in the built in mic.
That's how I got started.
And I stuck with that for a long time before I got anything else, and no one ever complained about the audio or video quality.
Um, when you actually do start, start live coating, I recommend just live coding.
Whatever you're normally doing, whatever you're comfortable with.
If you're doing a tutorial, we could live code that if if you're working on open source projects life code that it doesn't have to end, it doesn't have to be something you're really good at.
Um, say if you just want to do a side project with something new technology, you can.
You can do that when you are actually doing the live coding.
Do your best to explain what you're doing.
I recommend setting aside a specific time for questions for checking out the live shot and a time for coding.
I split it up with a Pomodoro session, so ah, 25 minutes of coding and in five minutes of chat, if you try to look at the chat while you're coding, you end up not doing either one very well.
Ah, and there's just too many interruptions.
You can't You can't cope very well like that.
Um, I've recommend if you can try to show your face because your facial expressions will convey a lot of your meaning, especially for your viewers who aren't native speakers to whatever language your life coating in.
Ah, I do recommend.
No, that that's not an option for most people.
S o.
You know, that's I live code for a long time without showing my face.
And I was totally fine and know what he said.
I want to see you.
Okay, I just decided to do it because of your being able to convey my meaning more.
Try to keep in mind that people watching might be completely new and have no clue what's going on.
So if they ask a question that might seem like ah, maybe, like, almost like a joke that it's so basic, you know, don't laugh at it.
They might be new.
And it might be a legitimate question on if you laugh.
And, uh, you're gonna just ruin that person's experience of coding for that day.
Um, and you set the tone for your stream.
So if you stay positive, uh, then the stream will be generally positive.
If somebody goes negative in the chat, you don't even have to address it.
You can just block them, or you could address it in a way that doesn't escalate the situation.
If you respond with negativity, it will cause more negativity.
If you respond to ah criticism, that's pretty harsh with you.
No, thank you.
And try to figure out with the would you can gain from that, then that's much more beneficial than, you know, responding with something like defensive, right?
Uh, so, uh, hopefully you you do some live streaming and, ah, good luck.
The final type is software entertainment.
This type of channel has the potential for the most views.
Creators use programming to create projects that are interesting to a very wide demographic.
The videos focus more on the outcome of the program and not on the actual code used.
So this type of channel, like I said, there's a reaches a very wide demographic.
You don't actually be interested in coding to really enjoy watching the videos on these channels.
So once you decided your goals and the type of videos you want to create, you're gonna have to do some set up in planning.
Here's something you're gonna have to do.
So this is a screenshot from my personal robot family YouTube channel.
First of all, I wanna point off off to the side.
There's a bunch of accounts under one user name one in my e mail address book contract, email that calm, and we have a bunch of different accounts.
These are brand accounts, so when you create your YouTube channel, it's good to create it as a brand account.
This allows you to keep some separation between your personal Google account and your software YouTube channel.
It's going to still use the same log in as your cool accounts.
We don't have to keep track another user name and password, and then you can also add additional people.
As managers of the account, you're also going to have to determine your channel name.
So in this case, it's robot family.
Um, I personally recommend using your name as your channel name.
So, like, I would use the name Bo Kearns.
Although you will see you'll see an example air to show you that a lot of people have had success using other names.
But if you use your name as a channel name, it can help better associate you with your content.
So you're also gonna have to develop some things like your channel icon and your channel art and then maybe a video watermark to appear at the bottom of each video that you're playing.
So those things you can either designed them yourself or you could consider maybe hiring someone off fiber dot com or something like that.
But I'm just going to have to make sure you have all those things.
You should also determine what kind of intro you want.
Not everyone is gonna have an intro, but you may wanna intro that you have on all of your videos, um, one of a piece of advice.
Keep it under five seconds.
This should be really short, because if you have your intro is too long, people just get bored and kind of click off your video before they even get into your video.
You also may want to consider other consistent things.
You want to add your videos to set them apart, like you may have a sign off line or a prop.
Um, or maybe you wrap in all of your videos something like that to make your video stand apart.
So once you've done the high level planning for your channel, it's time to start thinking about the specific videos you wanted to make.
The first step is brainstorm, so just write down every idea you can possibly think of.
After that, you said to start narrowing down that those ideas to the best ideas, and eventually you'll come up with a good list of videos that would be good to create.
So once you figure out what specific video you want to create, you're gonna have to do some researching.
Because remember, you don't already have to know about the topic beforehand, but sometimes it can be good.
If you already know about the top beforehand, you won't have to do is much researching.
But if you don't know about the topic beforehand, you're gonna have to do quite a bit of researching.
So you could make the video as good as possible for the audience.
And you're most likely gonna have to write a script for the video.
And if you're making a coating tutorial, you're gonna have to write the code for the video beforehand.
Recording and editing.
Here are two of the most important things when it comes to recording.
First of all, use a good microphone.
And second of all, if you're gonna show code on screen, make it as large as possible.
If you have bad audio or tiny code, it's gonna cause people to stop watching immediately before they even see the real content of your video.
It may be hard to believe, but almost 1/3 of people watching coding tutorials on the Freak o Camp channel watch on a mobile phone.
You know, people are watching from all over the world, and so you want to make sure you're content is accessible.
It's possible, and so make sure the code is as large as possible.
So for audio, almost any USB microphone will be better than the built in mic on your computer.
If you can afford it, consider one of these microphones.
We have the Blue Snowball, the Audio Technica 82,005 U.
S.
B.
That's what I'm recording this on right now.
Also the blue Yeti.
So these are all good options, kind of from the more entry level.
Two more advanced level.
But if you can't afford a mike, do some tests with recording audio on a cell phone, so depend on what phone you have and what computer you have.
There's a chance that audio recorded on your cell phone could be better than argue on your computer, so you would have to record the audio separately and then just add it in and editing later.
If you're gonna show yourself on video like I'm doing now, the cheapest way is just to use a webcam or your your cell phone's camera.
Ah, lot of cell phones actually have pretty good cameras, but if you want to take things to the next level, consider one of these cameras.
But no, these cameras are probably not necessary.
If your channel mainly consists of coding tutorials but we have a few canons.
This Panasonic and these are all good options.
Ah, good camera is especially important if you're creating informational or software entertainment videos.
You also may want to include screen recording in your video.
If you're using a Mac, I recommend using quick time for both screen recording and video recording, and it should be pre installed on your computer already.
If you're using Windows, there's a shortcut key to begin recording your screen just anytime you you just press Windows key.
Ault are.
If you want to show a video of your screen at the same time as video of you talking, you can use O.
B s software.
O.
B S is a great open source software that a lot of life streamers use.
Although I actually used final cut pro to make my face here appear on top of this video.
When you're recording your screen, always make sure the main content takes up as much room on the screen as possible.
Remember, a lot of people are actually watching coating tutorials on mobile phones, so all texts should be a ZB big as possible.
You need a very good reason to show window that is not full screen when recording a tutorial could be helpful.
To use two screens, you can record one of the screens for the video and used other screen for your script and completed code.
So here's something that some people do to make their coding tutorials even more polished.
First, record the whole tutorial with the screen capture where you're talking over the screen camp, sir, and then transcribe the audio.
Then go in and make some edits like maybe make some things more clear at some jokes or something, and then re record the audio and then put that audio the re recorded audio over the initial video.
And then it's gonna look a lot more policy did before.
You should probably be editing your videos to make them flow smoother and to edit out any mistakes you can use editing toe.
Edit out any, um, zor pauses or loud noises, and I could just make things seem just a lot more professional.
This is especially important if you're creating some software, entertainment videos or even informational videos, but pretty much everyone should be doing some editing for very simple editing you can use.
I movie on Mac or movie maker on Windows, but these programs are very limited.
I personally use Final Cut Pro, but that is a little pricey.
Here's a few other free video editors that offer more features than I movie or movie maker.
We have open shot video pad and light works.
After you decide what software to use for editing, watch a few tutorials to learn about the basic functionality of the software.
Another option is the hire someone to edit your videos, even if you already know what ADIT videos.
Hiring an editor can save you a lot of time if you can afford it, so you have to create thumbnails and titles.
You can have the world's best video, but nobody will find out about it if they don't click on the thumbnail to grow your channel.
It is important to create quality content, but it's almost equally important to use thumbnails and titles that will cause people to click on your video thumbnails important for all videos.
But in my experience, thumbnails, arm or important for software and a team of channels, and the titles are actually more important for software tutorial channels.
So here's some tips for designing thumbnails.
Some of these come from the YouTube Creator Academy, which has some pretty good tips.
So first you should brand your thumbnails by using consistent colors, fonts and graphics and stuff like that.
Also, you should use the rule of thirds.
This will help you compose interesting and dynamic images.
So the rule of thirds is where you divide the image up into thirds, and you put all the key things of image on the line that would be 1/3 the way into the image.
The next thing is to design for mobile and desktop thumbnails are going to show up in different sizes across YouTube and sometimes people in bed your video.
So check to make sure your thumbnail looks good in multiple sizes that it could show up on and then finally get ideas from similar channels.
You can look for channels that are similar to what you're trying to do and see kind of what the general idea and styles that they use and that could give you some ideas, although you do want to make sure that your thumbnails air distinct to your channel, So next image editing software you need you're gonna need software to create your thumbnail.
So the top image adding software is photo shop to use that you must sign up for a monthly subscription service.
And so there are some cheaper alternatives.
So the most popular free image editing software is gimp.
I didn't use gimp for years, and eventually I decided I needed something more user friendly.
So I purchased Affinity Photo.
That's this third icon here.
The features and the user experience were much better than gimp, so I was pretty happy to be able to do that.
It also has a one time cost.
Unlike Photoshopped, that has the subscription model, another good option is is pixel mater, which is kind of similar to affinity.
Photo.
They're both one time costs that give you quite a bit of features.
Choosing a title It's best to pick a title that people are searching for their two main ways to find out what people are searching for.
We have YouTube search, auto complete and Google trends, so let me show you how to use Google Search auto complete to figure out what you said.
Title your video.
Let's say you're creating a video about JavaScript frameworks just go over to YouTube.
I have the dark mode on so and go to the search box and I'm just gonna type in Java script frameworks now.
What you can dio is see what things air being suggested.
So right after a job script frameworks, it says JavaScript frameworks 2019 JavaScript frameworks explained JavaScript.
Frameworks, tutorial.
Now these air all words that people are commonly searching for.
So now, because of this auto complete, we know what people are searching for, what words people are adding with job script frameworks when they search for Java script frameworks.
So in this case, maybe I'll call my video job script frameworks explained Dash 2019.
Okay, One other tip.
I am signed in right now, but generally you want to do this on incognito mode.
If you do it an incognito mode, then the search recommendations won't be based on your search history.
It all Another way to figure out what people are searching for is on Google trends.
Let me show you how you would use this.
Say you make this four hour python course, and you're thinking about what?
What should you title this should you tell it Python course.
Is that what people are searching for?
Well, let's find out.
So I'm going to go to trends dot google dot com.
That's why I'm on now, and I'm gonna search for Python course.
And now I can add another search term I can compare to other search terms.
So I'm gonna compare Python course to Python tutorial and then where it says Web search here, I'm going to switch it to YouTube search.
So now I'm seeing the relative popularity of different search terms on YouTube so we can see here.
That python tutorial is way more popular than Python course.
So maybe I was thinking about calling my Video Python course, but now, after I see this Google trends, I'm gonna use the word tutorial instead.
Of course, because obviously the word tutorial is way more popular than course.
When people are searching and I can add as many compare sins as possible, maybe I'm gonna type in learn python.
Are people searching for the word learned python?
Well, not really, because Python tutorial still way more popular, so this is a great way to figure out what people are searching for so you can title your videos appropriately.
So I want to briefly talk about traffic sources or where views come from a traffic.
Sources.
How a viewer found your video tow watch.
The traffic source breakdown for most channels on YouTube looks more similar to this.
This is my robot Family channel, and this is the freak.
Oh, camped out or channel, you can see most of the views on the Robot Family Channel are coming from suggested videos.
And that's where when people.
So when someone's watching a video in on the side, they'll be recommended videos on the side.
And then when people click those videos there recommended on the side, that's a suggested video.
Now you can see the number two spot is browse features.
This includes many things, but the main thing browse features includes is the home screen.
So when someone goes to youtube dot com and they're signed into their account, YouTube will recommend specific things right on the homepage of YouTube.
And that's browse features.
So most channels on YouTube get most of their views from these things, suggested videos and browse features.
However, you can see over on the freak o camp side, we get most of our views from YouTube Search.
And I think this is pretty common for tutorial channels, because if someone's gonna watch a tutorial, usually they know they wanna watch a tutorial like, for instance, if someone was watching like a funny cat video and then selling on the side, it says, Watch this five hour job script video People generally aren't gonna want to go directly from the funny cat video to the five hour Java script training video.
So that's why YouTube search is, I think, more important for for tutorial channels.
But for a lot of the other channels, the suggested videos, they're going to be more important.
And this is also why I think titles arm or important for tutorial channels because of the search and the thumbnails arm or important for, like software entertainment channels and software informational channels.
YouTube algorithm is what decides if your kid is gonna be promoted in different places like it was going to promote on search or if it's gonna be recommended and the YouTube algorithm is a mysterious thing, it's my belief that even YouTube engineers don't completely understand how it works.
Basically, it's all based on machine learning and artificial intelligence.
The the people that program algorithm, they just tell it the outcomes they want.
And then the algorithm determines how to best achieve those outcomes.
So I'm about to show you I'm about to tell you the things I figured out about how to get your video popular.
But no, there could be exceptions to everything I'm about to tell you.
This is just based on a lot of experience and a lot of research and things.
I've heard the other popular YouTubers have said, Okay, let's start with talking about what the algorithm doesn't care about ass trick.
That just means that all these things that algorithm does care about a little tiny bit, but just not that much compared to what the algorithm does care about which will be talking about next.
So the first thing is upload frequency.
I've heard people say that creators must upload a video every few days with no brakes to really grow a channel.
This seemed like a myth to me.
I've seen many channels with infrequent uploads that get a ton of views on each video, and I believe the YouTube algorithm does not care that much about upload frequency.
Sometimes YouTube engineers will actually run studies to better understand how the algorithm works and on an official YouTube channel aimed at creators, they discussed a study that showed that taking a break from creating videos does not impact the view count when a creator comes back from a break.
So while upload frequency is not always correlated with how many views you get, it could impact whether a viewer will subscribe to your channel.
If you haven't uploaded for a while, a user will be less likely to subscribe.
Next is video tags.
YouTube representatives have officially said that YouTube tags count as almost nothing when it comes to recommendations.
Everything has some amount of impact, but this is one of the lowest impact items, so you don't have to spend too much time on the video tags, although you might as well but still put him in there because it has a very tiny impact.
The algorithm looks for patterns, so want to determines that videos from your channel are often watched by a certain type of user.
It will just keep recommending your videos to that type of viewer, no matter what the tags and the and the description say so.
It's possible that before the algorithm identifies a pattern free to channel, it will use tags as an identify.
WR next.
How well a previous video performed.
In my experience, the performance of the previous video has very little impact on a subsequent videos performance.
This is true both on my channel and then other chance I've observed.
However, I think it could impact how quickly a video gets popular.
So if a user just watched a video from your channel, the algorithm may be more likely to recommend a new video from your channel right after was posted.
But if not many users are going to click tow, watch it and they don't watch for for very long.
The algorithm will quickly stop recommending that new video.
On the other hand, if not many people watch your previous video, your video may not get recommended a lot at first, but if lots of people are clicking on it and they're watching it for a very long time, you too will start recommending it a lot.
I've seen countless examples of extremely popular videos coming right after an unpopular video descriptions.
These do matter to the algorithm a little bit, just very little compared to click through rate and average view duration, which is what I'm gonna talk about later of what the algorithm algorithm does care about.
According to YouTube, the first few lines of a description can be important, especially for searches, so you should fill the first sentence with as many relevant search terms as possible.
When search terms are lower down in the description they count less to the algorithm.
A rookie mistake is to put links or ads as the first line in the description.
While some big name YouTube channels do this, that's because the algorithm has already figured out patterns for where to recommend their videos.
For smaller channels, you should always put a keyword rich.
Descriptive sentence is the first line, but remember, even the best description can't make up for low click through rates and low average view durations.
Next thing is subscriber count.
The algorithm is more likely to recommend your video to subscribers, so this does have something impact.
But I often see very popular videos on channels with low subscribers accounts and very unpopular videos on child with high subscribers.
If people don't watch your videos for a long time.
Doesn't matter how many subscribers you have, because the algorithm is just gonna quickly stopped recommending your video to subscribers also, so drivers have to click the bell icon in order to be notified of every video.
They don't click the bell icon, then they may not really be notified of any video on your channel.
However, there are benefits to having more subscribers when users search.
Your videos will appear higher in the search results if they're subscribed.
Your channel.
Also, the algorithm is heavily impacted by patterns.
If user clicks on every video from your channel that appears in the feed, then the algorithm will keep putting more videos from you in their feed.
Average percentage of video viewed.
This one can have an impact for shorter videos.
If your videos just one minute long, it makes a difference what percentages of the video is viewed.
But if you're posting hour long tutorials, the percentage viewed is much less important on the freak O camped out or channel.
We have ah, 4.5 hour long Python video with over seven million views.
Its average view percentage is 4.3% but it's every view.
Duration is 11 minutes 20 seconds.
Average view duration Matters way Maur than average percentage viewed.
Okay, this is the important stuff.
What the algorithm does care about.
It cares about Click the rate and average view duration.
Basically, just those two things.
If your videos have, ah, hi click through rate and high average viewed oration, nothing else matters.
Your video will be popular.
Click through rate measures How often viewers watched the video.
After seeing the thumbnail on YouTube, you need to have a thumbnail on title that people will want to click on Average view.
Duration is how long people are watching your video.
On average, your video needs to hold viewer's interest for as long as possible.
I heard a popular YouTuber say that your video is almost always gonna be a popular If you haven't least seven minutes an average watch time of at least seven minutes.
Now that's pretty hard to achieve.
So it's like a lot of people aren't gonna get to the seven minute mark, but the clothes we can get, the better.
Hey there, my name's RTC or Kenny or real tough candy and I am the founder of the real tough candy YouTube channel.
This channel is a software focused educational channel with little bit of entertainment thrown in with a very big emphasis on Web development.
Because everything is going to the Web.
There's just so much going on in that sphere that you could talk about it for a very long time.
My goal with the channel is to simply make people better developers, whether they're aspiring developers, they've been in the business for a few years, or there tried and true, battle hardened senior Debs who have seen it all.
My goal is to be part of their journey and make them better.
Debs.
I have videos spanning from awesome get hungry bows to my experiences with freelancing to getting started with freelancing and also the author of a few books and video courses.
I've been producing videos as real tough candy for about 2.5 years.
If you're thinking about starting a software channel on YouTube number one, I would say go for it.
But I think my most important advice and the thing I'd I'd emphasize the most is to do videos that you care about do topics that you care about.
Otherwise it just becomes another drudgery filled task.
Just, oh, time to another video.
Oh, this person's uploading five days a week.
I best I guess I better catch up.
You're gonna burn out, and then I've done that.
I've made that mistake of trying to keep up with the algorithm or trying to keep up with other people in this niche.
You just have to do it your way.
And I've been going on camera more and more.
I really don't like being on camera, but people like that they want to see you, even if you are in perfect, which most of us are.
Um, I know it can be very daunting.
I'm always going to have a little bit of an aversion to being on camera.
But it's what people like to see, and they like to see that you're human.
I don't think you need to have a passion for it, but you should have an interest in it that's really gonna show in the videos that you make.
I would love to see more creators on this platform doing software Web development stuff, whether it's tutorials, insights just personal journeys, those air really powerful to our personal journeys, especially for self taught so important.
And I think important.
For the record, I hope to see your channel soon, and I'll see in the next video.
Well, you don't have to be uploading all the time.
It is good to have a consistent schedule.
This helps people know that you're probably gonna upload again pretty soon.
So it's worth subscribing to the channel.
Now, if you aren't gonna published very frequently, I would say it's probably better to have more substantial content.
Like if you're going to create a 3 to 4 hour like python tutorial, it's probably okay, toe upload, maybe every month or two.
But if you're gonna upload shorter content like shorter informational content, you may want to upload more frequently, like once a week or twice a week, or maybe like two times a month or something like that.
So consistency also kind of helps you thio, too, to kind of motive.
Get motivated.
I know if you have a consistent schedule, you try to stick to it all the time will help.
You might be motivated to continue with that schedule to help with consistency.
You should create goals for yourself.
An effective goal is measurable, timed and controllable.
Measurable means that the goal should have a quantified component that lets you know whether you've reached or not timed.
Just the goal should have a specific and realistic deadline.
Controllable means that use it is to be an action you can perform rather than an outcome you want.
For example, your goal may be to put out one video measurable per week timed.
No, that put out a video is an action you can perform but reach 1000 subscribers is not action but outcome used to create goals that are ambitious but still doable.
This will depend quite a bit on your stage of life.
If you're single person with no job, you'll be able to create much more content than a merry person with three kids and a full time job.
When thinking about making money, you must know what your goals are Now.
Some people just want to provide freak free learning.
Resource is, and they're not really concerned about making money.
But most people are able to invest time into creating resource is unless they're compensated a bit.
Here are a few common ways that your software channel can make you money.
We'll go over all of these one of the time.
For most people, the primary way a software YouTube channel will help you make money.
It's through helping you get a new job or a raise.
I already mentioned that starting a YouTube channel was really helpful for me when I went to get my first software developer job, and I've heard similar stories from a lot of different creators.
So let's hear firsthand from Jesse Weigel about how life streaming helped him in his career.
Life coating was so hopeful whenever I was looking for a job and going on interviews, which was was unexpected to me.
Um, but seeing that I did the live coating on my resume and being able to watch my shows, uh, I think got me Maur interviews than anything else that I did.
Esso and employers.
I already knew what they were getting a win when they called me in for the interview.
Normally, it's like, uh uh, you know, it's kind of a mystery what the person is really gonna be like.
You can't tell that much from a resume or a portfolio.
Um, but being able to see my thought process while encoding made me a more attractive candidate because it it took some of that that question out of it.
I was like, What are we getting into it?
So it's a big commitment when you hire somebody so being able to show, you know, my my skills and my personality, my thought process, you know, online through live coating I was just It was a big bonus on and to potential employers.
Also, when I went on the interviews that I got asked about my life coaching experience more than anything else, everybody wanted to know about it.
Uh, I guess it's something that it seems like a lot of other developers are curious about.
Or they wonder, like how How could you do that?
Um, just the idea of, um, being able to make mistakes in front of all those people were being able to talk, you know so much while you're coding on.
That's another aspect that that was very helpful when I actually did get an interview and I had to do a coating exercise.
How one of the big things that people are looking for is that they don't They don't want to know if you can just do the coding exercise.