My goal for you is that by the end of this video you have a short, quick, simple checklist so that you can always upload your videos the right way in a small amount of time.

And this is day nine of my YouTube challenge where I have challenged myself to upload a video every day and I'm inviting you to do the same.

You don't have to upload every day, but you can use my videos to help you get your channel up and running or breathe some life back into it.

Step one on our uploading checklist is something most creators don't do, even though it can get them a lot more views because most creators don't know about this.

But the catch is you have to do this before you add your video to your channel because once it is uploaded, you cannot change this.

Let me show you what I mean by using an old video of mine as an example.

You see right over here where it says file name, that right there three steps does not help the algorithm know what my video is about.

It also does not help Google know what this video is about because if you are more strategic with your file name, you are more likely to show up in search not only on YouTube but also on Google.

But I can't change this.

It's too late.

It's already been done.

Now you don't need to necessarily use the exact title of the video for this file name, but you can.

But what you need to do is before you ever upload that video, change the file name to a title that has keywords and it describes what it is that you're actually talking about.

One way to come up with a title is to put in the keywords that your video is about.

So let's say it is empty nest syndrome.

Now you can look at all of the search terms that people are using when they search this topics.

Let's say it's about empty nest syndrome for single moms.

Then I want to look for videos that did well.

Here's one with 2000 views and when we look at it, she only has 302 subscribers.

So that video did really well for her and the title was how to prepare for an empty nest as a single parent.

So prepare for an empty nest and single parent.

Those are all keywords that tells the algorithm exactly what this video is about.

You could actually use that title for the title of your video, but definitely you could use this for the file name of your video.

As you can see on my video from yesterday,

I have changed the file name right here, uploading daily for seven days changed my YouTube.

But the next thing you need to do on your checklist is you also have to change the file name of your thumbnail. Again, you can't do that once it's been uploaded.

So it has to happen before you upload your thumbnail to this video.

As you can see,

I changed the file name in my computer before I uploaded right here and then right here. This is the thumbnail changed that title as well.

Next thing you're going to do when you go to upload your video is you're going to make sure you have that title there and you are using keywords that tells people and the algorithm what this video is about.

Then you're going to write a two to three sentence description.

It does not need to be long.

Usually I take a different version of the title and make that my first sentence and then I simply break down what this video is about using keywords, but not packing it so much that it doesn't sound conversational.

If you are running a business, you do want to offer some of your freebies and some of your paid offers as well as any affiliate links and an easy way to do this so you're not having to retype it every single time is simply go to settings in your account, go to upload defaults and now you can write out that description so that this automatically appears every time you go to upload a video.

Next thing you need to make sure you are doing is using it playlist.

So right here I have checked off my YouTube challenge as the playlist because the algorithm likes this and people like it too.

It's going to get people watching more and more of your videos when you start to utilize playlists. Then you also can set this in your default settings.

I have it so that it automatically tells the algorithm every single time I upload that no, this video is not for kids because if you put it, it is made for kids. It's only going to send it to kids.

Then you want to hit show more and you want to go down here and say, no,

I've not altered any content unless you have used AI and changed people's appearances and things like that.

I always have allow automatic chapters on and key moments because that's going to help me with search. I also have automatic places, concepts, and then down here, this is where you can add your tags that again tells the algorithm what this video is all about.

You should use as many of the 500 characters as you can.

The 400 range is good. I clearly only went with 225 in this one, but you can't go over 500 after that.

I make sure that I allow embedding. Again, this is automatically defaulted to this allow video and audio remixing.

And then this is important. You want the category selected on this video.

This is a how to video. So I have selected how to, if you have an entertainment channel, make sure that it's selected to entertainment or an education.

But if it's a tutorial, you want it to be how to because that's going to tell the algorithm what type of video this is. I have comments on, obviously you want engagement.

If you're monetized, you want to select on and then done.

Then if your video is over eight minutes, then you want to go into review placement and you can add breaks within the video and even determine when they are going to appear.

This allows you to make more money off of that video when you add breaks.

And then if you add it yourself, then you can determine where those breaks will be versus YouTube doing it.

And then you risk it being in an awkward place.

Then hit next.

This is when you are going to review and make sure that nothing offensive is in the video and you select none of the above.

And then you're going to select submit rating, which I had already done.

Then hit next.

I don't do anything here except I do add an end screen and I always add the option of video and the subscribe. You only want one video.

If you give people too many options, they're less likely to click on anything and we want them to watch another one of your videos.

So you have the option to go in and they can select a video.

The algorithm can select a video or your last video before this one, but I like to select the video myself.

That way I know exactly what that video is because at the end of my videos,

I am specifically referencing that video in the box.

So I like to select the video. And again, we do that because we want people to watch more of our videos.

Once that's done, you hit save. Then you hit next.

And right here, this is important.

You don't ever want to hit unlisted because it can actually tell the algorithm that the video is not doing well and it will send it to fewer people.

You also don't want to hit public because we want to make sure we get to see it before it goes out to the public.

So you're either going to hit private or you're going to schedule this video to go out at a specific time. Right now I've got it to private.

That way I can check it, make sure everything is how I want it to be, that it's in the high definition version when it's up there.

And then I will publish it to public.

One last thing that will help you with your views is when you go to post your video, post a call to action in your comments and pin it to the top.

This can be a call to action to a link to another video or to an offer that you have, or it can simply be you asking a question so that they are more likely to comment. All you have to do is once you write out your comment, you hit the three dots on the side, pin and now that comment is at the very top.

Once you get this checklist down, you will be optimizing your videos so that you can get more views and you'll be able to do it quickly.

This is the exact process I'm using to help me not only optimize my videos to get more views, to grow my channel, but also so that I can be consistent by simplifying my process.

And in the next video, when it's available, you will see my process of how I create my thumbnails and how I create my titles to get more clicks on my videos.