Are you passionate about becoming a YouTuber? From the outside, being a YouTuber looks like fun and makes more money from it, but the reality is different.
In this ultimate guide, we will dive in-depth into the world of YouTube and explore the basic steps to become a successful YouTuber, directions to turn, U-turn, and all.
Being a YouTuber is a process that takes time and effort to get directly into the channel creation, like sharpening the saw. Get ready to unleash your creativity, connect with an audience, and earn a living by doing what you love.
What is a YouTuber?
A YouTuber is one, who makes video content that is valuable to the audiences as a side hustle or mainstream of income on YouTube.
Everyone can become a YouTuber by simply creating a YouTube channel; however, only a few can become successful by putting in their efforts, hard work, and facing a lot of struggles.
A few of the top-most celebrated YouTubers are:
- Mr.Beast – 206M Subscribers
- PewDiePie – 111M Subscribers
- Supercar Blondie – 16M Subscribers
Do you want to become one like the above YouTubers? Then, read this checklist guide and learn how to start from Scratch in this article.
How to Become a YouTuber: The Ultimate Guide
If you think that becoming a YouTuber is very easy and doesn’t take your effort, then kindly erase that idea from your mind and keep reading with your empty mind. Otherwise, you’ll be disappointed.
1) Decide Your Niche
It’s crucial to determine the niche of your channel before diving into the channel creation. Generally, niche is nothing but the topic or genre that you’re passionate about.
So, the question is, how do you identify the niche to become a long-run YouTuber?
The answer is your passion or knowledge that you can bring to the table immediately and you talk about at least 2 hours in a full stretch without preparing.
See, many content creators or YouTubers failed to run their channels due to a lack of knowledge and expecting their results too soon. Their first mistake is choosing their niche which is unrelated or non-relevant.
Ultimately, when you make videos related to your niche, you will always retain confidence and in the long run, it helps you attract a dedicated audience that shares your interest.
Once you find your passion, the next thing you need to do is, calculate your niche competition level.
As per the report from Statista, YouTube carries billions of views per day with millions of YouTubers. So, you need to calculate the niche competition.
To find out the competition level of the niche, I’m using the TubeBuddy tool, which helps to find the search volume level of your niche, competitor’s score, performance score, etc.
- Read here to learn more about TubeBuddy Installation.
All you need to do is, type your niche’s core keyword and figure out the result.
For instance, my target niche keyword is, “fish cutting,” you will get the search analysis like volume, related keywords, competition score, and other related reports from this tool.
YouTube niche ideas are the first point of touch you need to work on to become a successful YouTuber.
2) Who’s Target Audience
The next important step is finding and targeting the right audience, which is crucial for the success of your channel and content.
For the best example, when you make country-wise video content, like reviewing the best restaurants in Paris, then your target keyword must have a high-potential volume on particular demographics.
When I went through YouTube, I found a YouTuber called Alex Cattoni; She is a copyrighter and marketer. Her channel video is here:
Also, When I went through her channel completely, I found she stays within her channel niche, which tightly holds her target audience.
And most of her videos are related to marketing, business strategy, copyrighting hacks, etc. So, it clearly defines she is targeting particular audiences, like those who really need to improve their business.
That’s the exact correct strategy and targeting the range of audiences directly on YouTube to become successful.
Test and Optimize:
Once you found your target audiences, kindly analyze and test which age group they are and how active those people are on YouTube and other social media.
Because you can start approaching them directly about where they are staying.
For instance, if your target audience is mostly on X (formerly Twitter), then you can reach out to their profiles and contact them directly to introduce your channel videos and strategies.
Also, ask for their feedback and opinions about your channel for improvement. This is what a good YouTuber does to enhance their channel to the next level.
3) Plan Content Strategy
At this stage, we are good with our channel niche and audience list in our hands.
The next important point we need to focus on is Planning the channel’s content strategy.
I hope you have a better idea of taking care of your YouTube channel for becoming a full-time YouTuber or promoting your offline business.
If not, then you don’t need to worry about this chapter; instead, you need to plan your channel strategy from Day 1.
Content Calendar
The first step is creating the Content Calendar. The ultimate reason for calendar creation is to give your consistency level on YouTube.
Generally, consistency is crucial on YouTube, as it helps build trust and keeps your audience coming back for more.
So, planning your calendar for new-upload videos, short creations, editing, and more will keep you on the right track with the same consistency.
Note: Remember that the YouTube algorithm loves to promote your videos to a wide range of audiences when you are only consistent on YouTube. The first step is you have to be YouTubing consistently to become a successful YouTuber.
Content Formats
In a nutshell, define your video content formats. For instance, categorize your video format as,
- Review videos
- Tutorial videos
- Explainer videos
- Doodly Whiteboard animation videos
- How-To videos
- Live-Stream videos
Once you categorize the video formats like these sections, then the audience engagement growth will increase.
Branding and Thumbnails
In recent days, each channel has created its own branding strategy.
For instance, take a look at Brian Dean’s videos,
He always sticks with the same color pattern on their thumbnails and video elements. It looks unique and creates a brand authority on his channel.
Moreover, the branding creates trust among audiences that you’ve been in this field for so long and mastered it.
Also, take a look at iJustine videos,
She makes the color pattern, dress code, mobile cases, and almost all of her gadget accessories in a pink color format.
I’m not sure if it’s her favorite color that comes into flow or she is doing it purposefully, but it looks and creates a unique brand style, and most of them love it.
Create a color pattern that is eye-catching on your channel niche and thumbnails for each video – it might increase your click-through rates.
4) Set Channel Goals
To build a successful communication strategy, setting your channel goals is an essential part.
It can be anything related to YouTube channels, like gaining social media followers, enabling monetization, publishing live-stream videos, selling sponsorship videos, etc.
The reason for setting goals is when you achieve them, then automatically, it builds the confidence level and self-motivation in yourself.
To be honest, the first step to becoming a YouTuber is to believe and trust yourself, and that’s why goals are essential before you begin your YouTubing path.
Here are some of the best recommendations I would like to share:
- SMART goals: Have you heard the word SMART? Nothing but Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART). Always consider your goals come under the mentioned parameters.
- Short-term & Long-term: In college days, we have read Short-Term and Long-Term goals. Those apply to your channels, too. Consider the duration of short-term goals as six months to 1 year and long-term goals to 2 to 4 years.
- Goals Risk Assessment: Can you manage the risk or challenges when you still need to achieve the goals? It is very important to know the answer to this. Generally, many people need to gain knowledge and maintain their risk to become YouTubers. So, measure the potential risks and challenges affecting your life and channel’s success. If it is possible to address them before, try to rectify or reduce them.
Keep on monitoring your goals at regular intervals and ask yourself, are you on the right path, or are any changes required?
5) Required Equipment
All the above things are the common process of creating a brand or channel for any business, and here in this chapter, we will see the necessary equipment needed for your YouTube channel.
See, let me clear that you do not need to have a high-cost DSLR camera, mic, and Studio set-up to start, but still, the necessary equipment is required.
Also, depending on your channel niche, the chosen equipment will change.
For instance, if you’re a food vlogger, then you don’t need to have ring lights (which are suitable for indoor studio creators).
Please look at the Codevolution channel; this tech YouTuber shares his tech knowledge with only screen recording. He doesn’t require any fancy high-tech cameras, fantastic editing, and all.
All he requires is the best screen recorder tool and quality mic. Investing in products that are useless for your work leads to a waste of money and time.
Now, let’s see what equipment a YouTuber needs to become successful, and also, you can choose from the list what you want.
Hardware Gadgets
The following hardware gadgets are a one-time investment, but some are costly. When it comes to buying hardware gadgets, you’ve to consider many technical aspects like their quality, standards, etc.
- Camera
- Microphone
- Tripod
- Lighting
- Computer
- Background Settings
- HardDisk
Softwares
Software equipments are primarily monthly or Yearly subscriptions. Based on your requirements and usage, buy it. If it’s useful for your work for only a few days, then go with a monthly plan.
- Adobe Premier Pro – Best video edition tool
- Grammarly – Best Grammar correction, spell-checker tool
- Screen Recorder – One of the leading screen recorder software.
SEO Tools
To optimize your video content, rank them, and get more traffic, Sales, and revenue, you need to rely on SEO tools. Most of them come with Free + Premium packages. You should try the Free one initially, then use the premium version.
- TubeBuddy – Top SEO Tool
- VidIQ – Alternative and Best
- Answer The Public – To find the different ways of content.
Video Enhancement
The below tools are used for adding Graphics elements, editing images, stock footage, music, audio enhancement, etc.,
- Envato Elements – Stock Library
- Canva – Graphic Editing Tool
- Adobe Podcast – Voice Audio Enhancer
AI Tools
AI’s are ruling everywhere.
- Jasper AI – For content and script writing
- Murf.AI – Voice-over AI
- Gravity Write – For content optimization
- Pictory AI -AI video creation tool.
YouTube Tracking
- SocialBlade – Track the analytics
- TubeBuddy – Analytics report for any channels, including competitor channels.
- Ahrefs – Find and get the most accurate search volume of keywords.
Miscellaneous
- Doodly – Whiteboard Animation Software
- Bit.ly – Affiliate Link shortener tool
- Epidemic Sounds – Powerhouse of music library and sound effects.
Let me confirm it again: it’s not mandatory to have all the equipment mentioned above to become a professional YouTuber. All you have to do is, choose the one which suites your channel work.
6) Plan Video Schedule
Nothing complicated; all you need to do is figure out the best time to publish your videos on your YouTube channel.
Based on your niche and target audience, this might vary. For instance, if you’re in India and your target audiences are from the United States, then the video schedule time for you is between 6 PM and 4 AM IST.
Moreover, if you can’t find the best schedule time, then initially go with any of your flow time, and once you build a decent audience, you can able to figure it out from your YouTube Analytics.
7) Create & Optimize Channel
We have done all the best pre-production work to become a decent YouTuber. Now, it’s time to create and optimize the channel.
Create Channel
The first and foremost important step is creating the channel. If you’ve already done and made it, then move on to the next topic.
- Create your own Gmail account. If it’s new and related to business, then it would be good.
- Go to YouTube.com and click the Create a Channel Button.
- Enter your channel name.
- Click the Create Button.
If you need help finding the channel name, then try to use the YouTube Channel Name Generator AI Tools, which helps to get you the unique channel name list.
LOGO & Channel Art
Once you are done creating the channel, you have to brand your channel with the help of the logo and channel banner image.
The question is, how do you create a logo? Do I need to learn logo creation skills?
Well, there are different ways to make it. The first one uses the free graphic element creation tool called Canva. It is a free-designer and basic-level editing tool.
The second way is, that you can keep your image as a channel logo if you’re branding yourself. For example, take a look at the Ali Abdaal channel,
He branded himself and showed his image as a channel logo.
And the final way is outsourcing to create a logo for your channel with Upwork. But it costs something from your pocket based on the creator you choose.
Well, once you created the logo, depending on its design, choose your channel banner art image.
Optimize Channel Settings
Once you finish channel name creation, logo, and banner image, you’ve almost completed 80% of your channel work.
The remaining 20% is optimization and set up the channel work. Let me explain what you need to do.
Update the Channel Description
When new visitor comes to your channel, they might find out the About page of your channel to understand who you are and what your channel is.
The best part of putting a hook and grabbing new visitors to your subscribers is adding the proper channel description.
Also, if you’ve any website links or social account links, add them. It helps to contact you directly for sponsor Ads and other marketing purposes.
Basic Info
Go to your channel Settings page and do the basic settings like:
- Adding currency details
- Channel keywords (very important)
- Channel made for kids or not
- Advertisement Policy
- Verify the YouTube channel
Watermark Subscribe Button
The coolest part is adding the subscribe button to your YouTube videos.
Have you watched the channel logo or subscribe button at the bottom of the YouTube video when you played it?
That’s nothing but the watermark subscribe button of the video.
To add that to your channel, follow the below steps. It’s a one-time process.
- Step 1: Go to your channel settings and click the Branding tab.
- Step 2: Scroll down and find the video watermark option
- Step 3: Upload the logo or subscribe button image or even your own image as subscribe button image.
- Step 4: Set the Display time of when the button will show. It’s always to choose the Entire video for conversion. That’s all.
The primary purpose of adding this subscribe button is to gain subscribers with an easy one-time process. To learn more about how to gain more subscribers on your channel, read the below article.
8) Film YouTube Videos
We did the settings and other activities on your channel, and it’s time to start the camera, Lights, and Action.
Wait, But it’s not that straightforward and easy.
Before switching ON your camera or recorder, start writing the video script that you’re going to convey.
Without the script, you may go around and talk out of content, leading to bad audience engagement.
Write the script and then start filming your YouTube video. Generally, this is how you tune yourself to become a professional YouTuber and enhance your vlogging skills.
In addition to that, if you’re not satisfied with your recording, try to repeat the process until you’re satisfied. Trust me; Initially, it would be challenging, but once you get into the core process, it will be handy, and you will enjoy it.
9) Build and Engage with Audiences
Consider your videos are public and everyone watching them. What will you do next?
The important thing you need to do is interact with them (a.k.a audience engagement). Yes, the audience’s mindsets are different, and they need more valuable content daily from you.
Well, to do that, the best opportunity that YouTube provides is Short videos.
Try to upload YouTube Shorts videos once every two days, and if it’s easy for you, you are welcome to do it each day.
The more short videos you put, the more engagement you can make with the audience.
Also, understand that short videos don’t bring you any lucrative income, but they get you more subscribers.
Social Profiles
Well, Social profiles are helpful only until you make a decent audience count. No one will click the video link from day 1 and start watching your videos.
So, simultaneously create content for your social media profiles either in text or video format and build the audience’s trust level in your brand.
To become a YouTuber, you’ve to open up work with other social platforms, not only YouTube.
10) Monetize YouTube Channel
Content creator’s main stream of income is from Digitial advertisements. But on YouTube, you can make money from different areas and even collaborate with big-shot brands.
Generally, there are multiple ways to make money from YouTube, and there is no limit for all the zones. For example, if someone told you can only able to make $1000/month from YouTube, it’s completely false.
| Make Money | Requirements |
|---|---|
| YouTube Ad Revenue | 1,000 subscribers and (4,000 public watch hours on long form videos in the last 365 days (or) 10 million public Shorts views in the last 90 days) |
| Channel Memberships | 500 subscribers + 3 public uploads in the last 90 days + ( 3,000 public watch hours on long form videos in the last 365 days (OR) 3 million Shorts views in the last 90 days) |
| Affiliate Marketing | No requirements. Even from Day 1 of your videos, can start make money |
| Direct Sponsorship | Depends on Sponsors |
I know the people who make over $50,000/month from YouTube alone. What are the opportunities to earn from YouTube and become a full-time YouTuber?
In a nutshell, Sky is the limit!
When you work hard and maintain the brand level on your channel, everything will be part of your wish.
I want to cover most of the channeling part to become a successful YouTuber. I think I did it.
Feel free to contact me for any doubts in the comment section. Make sure that YouTubeing is not a one-night success. When you put in your sweat, determination, and hard work, then you’re qualified for success.
Ta-da!
