TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide

Is your YouTube Home Page costing you views and subscribers?

July 30, 2020 Liron Segev; Dan Carlson; Travis MCP Season 3 Episode 223
TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide
Is your YouTube Home Page costing you views and subscribers?
Show Notes Transcript

Today's topic is all about your Youtube channel page - are you set up for success or is it actually costing you views and subscribers? Are you using Playlists effectively to keep your audience engaged and watching more of your content?

Your YouTube Home Page is the first impression of what your channel has to offer, what the viewer can expect, and why they should subscribe. It is critical to your success!

I chat with vidIQ’s own Dan Carson and Travis MCP to dive into this highly underrated topic.

In this episode you will learn:

  • The value prop in your channel banner
  • What makes a compelling channel trailer
  • The power of specific YouTube Playlists
  • Why cohesive branding is so important
  • How to get the most out of Community posts
  • Why ignoring your 'About' tab is a big mistake!


For more info, check out https://youtube.com/vidiq

This show is hosted by Liron Segev who is a Tech Blogger, YouTuber, and the Director of customer success at vidIQ. If you have any questions, please feel free to email liron@vidiq.com

Liron Segev:

When was the last time you updated your YouTube home page? Have you kind of neglected it as you focused on your next video? Did you know that your YouTube homepage is actually a wonderful tool to get you more views and more subscribers? Well, today's episode of Tube Talk we're going to dive deep into that topic with lots and lots of tricks that you can do right now. Let's do this.

And welcome to another episode of Tube Talk. My name is Liron Segev. I am a tech blogger, a YouTuber, and the director of customer success here at Vid IQ. Where every day we help creators big and small level up their channel, get more subscribers, more views in less time. So let's talk about your YouTube channel home page. Essentially, that is the first impression that people get when they land up on your channel.

Liron Segev:

Who is this person? What are they all about? What kind of content can I expect from them? And this is why it's so critical that we set you up correctly. So to dive into this topic today, I am joined by the famous Vid IQ crew. I have got Mr. Dan. He is our resident gaming master channel auditor and fellow butcher of names.

Dan:

Hi. Yeah, thanks for all the titles. Appreciate that.

Liron Segev:

Quite disruptive. Right? And then of course, we've also got Mr. Travis, a fellow channel auditor extraordinaire. He's also YouTube coach to the stars, and I'm talking about mega stars on YouTube. Travis, welcome to Tube Talk Live.

Travis:

Hey now everybody. Hope you're doing well. Looking forward to talking about something that's incredibly, incredibly important and well overlooked.

Liron Segev:

So as Travis says, a topic that is completely overlooked, time and time again is all about your YouTube channel page. Are you set up for success or is it actually costing you views, costing you subscribers. People come to your channel. They're not interested. And they leave immediately.

Liron Segev:

You guys do channel audits every Tuesday and every Tuesday you see similar, similar type of stuff. And you always, you seem to be repeating the same thing again and again. Are people not understanding the value of their channel YouTube home page?

Travis:

Yeah, it's critical because I think what a lot of people don't remember about the homepage is the vast majority of people that end up on your homepage, people who do not know who you are, there are two ways to set up the homepage. There's for returning subscribers and for people who are not subscribed. And you should be taking advantage of both. More importantly, though, the ones for the people who are not subscribed, because literally this is their first impression of your channel.

Travis:

This is them trying to figure out if they're interested in watching more of your content. And the reality is, most people have so many subscriptions they're not looking to subscribe to a new channel. They're not out there just looking for a new channel.

Travis:

Think about it yourself. When you go through YouTube, are you out there looking for a new channel to subscribe to? Probably not. You're just looking to be entertained or educated. It's up to you to convince them to do that very thing: watch more of your content, subscribe. There's so many ways of doing it, which we will cover today.

Dan:

Yeah. You had mentioned that we do these channel audits every week and we tend to give a lot of that same advice and that's because it is, it is very overlooked. And I think people have this tendency to give it just like, it's the last thing they worry about. They're more focused on the videos that they're making today, the having a good thumbnail and their titles and everything. And you get to their channel page, and especially for us as people who are asked to audit them, "Hey, can you tell me what I'm doing wrong?"

Dan:

It makes it incredibly difficult to see, get an overview, of who they are or who their content is for when they don't even have a banner. They're using the default banner with the cityscape in the background, or it's a mountain and it's a gaming channel, but they have a naturey kind of background or something they just pick it up from Google. And it's just so critical to fill that out and give people an understanding of who you are. If they're willing to go to your channel page, which is already awesome. It's time to make sure that was worth their while.

Liron Segev:

People kind of discover your YouTube channel by accident, right? You typically go and you do a search. You see a whole bunch of videos. You maybe see a kind of a title or a thumbnail that got your attention. And then, you click on the channel name. Say, "Hey, I like this. What else has this person got?" And then, they land up on your channel. And that channel, in first impressions, really needs to sell what you do.

Liron Segev:

So the first place to look at, as Dan mentioned, is your channel banner. That is the first eye-catching thing that they see. It starts at the top, first impressions count. And the channel banner is critical. And it has to tell you two things. It's got to tell you the what and the why. What is your channel about? Why should I subscribe?

Liron Segev:

Dan and Travis, you guys have seen lots of different kind of variations of this. Are there any tips on the channel banner that are really something that we should be looking at to make our channel banner even pop even more?

Dan:

I always like to see someone's value proposition in their channel banner. Something that's going to tell me upfront. It's the biggest, most colorful thing you have on your whole YouTube page. Otherwise, you're at the mercy of just what a webpage looks like. Just, it's either in dark mode or light mode and there's some buttons and there's just not a whole lot of artwork there. Your banner is big, it's eye-catching. And it can be, like I said before, underutilized quite a bit.

Dan:

So having something that shows your personality upfront, and then also just a little tag at the bottom, like, what am I going to get if I subscribe to you? What's your whole thing? What are you all about? I feel like that's the most important thing in that channel banner.

Liron Segev:

Travis?

Travis:

Yeah. I mean, definitely trying to figure out what the person's going to get by watching your content, or perhaps even subscribing is really important to get that across. And some people are trying to be a little too cutesy. We've seen a couple of people over-complicate that, but sometimes it's just a super simple three-word phrase. Whatever it is that you're bringing value and that value can be education, entertainment, it could be anything. What type of value you're bringing and why should someone watch more of your content?

Liron Segev:

Actually, that's a great point and a good idea. As you're listening to this, if you're not watching this on the live stream, is to fire up the Vid IQ YouTube channel. So go to youtube.com/VidIQ so we can actually reference some of those materials that we're seeing. And as you can see on the Vid IQ channel, we have Rob Wilson smiling there. A bit creepy, but he's smiling anyway. And he's pointing at Vid IQ. You're following his finger. It says Greater Access, YouTube Education. You know that you're going to get YouTube education on this channel. Big green, kind of focus to say, "Start Now." It's all centered in the middle. So we know it's going to work well on mobile.

Liron Segev:

So somebody who just discovers the channel by accident, because they happened to like one of those videos, instantly can see the value that Vid IQ brings. It's clean. It's to the point. It shows, got emotion. It's got a finger-pointing and now you know, oh, hold on. I like this channel. This is what I was looking for. Let me start scrolling down and scrolling down is the next point.

Liron Segev:

Well, you've got their attention. Now what? What comes next? Is that a channel trailer, perhaps? What do you guys think of your channel trailer?

Travis:

Yeah, personally, I have a real philosophy about this page. Again, you can split this page into returning viewers and people who are not subscribed to the channel. And it is my philosophy that, for returning subscribers having your latest video there is fine because they're already interested in you. They're going to watch a 20-minute video or whatever the case may be.

Travis:

It's also my thought that for people who are coming to your channel for the first time, maybe they watched another video, clicked in your name and they've landed on your homepage. They're not necessarily committed to any of your content. They're trying to figure out if they're even interested in watching more. So to put your latest video there, to me, is a waste. Instead, I think you should do something very intentional, something that's no longer than 45 seconds. Because to be honest, that's about all the more you're going to get out of them.

Travis:

So you might as well take advantage of it. And I believe you should do something very similar, very, very, very simple, very intentional, something like, "Hey guys, welcome to my channel. My name is Travis. I do tech reviews here." And then, maybe some B roll and that sort of thing. So some of your best stuff. And then, at the end of that video tell people, "And I have a playlist just for you. It's right below. I'll see you down there."

Travis:

Really take them on a journey because they don't know where to look anyway. So you might as well take advantage of that little bit of, "Hey guys, welcome to my channel!" And have them look at that trailer and go, okay, what's going on here? He knows that it's my first time here. And take them on that journey and tell them to go somewhere specific. We can talk about playlists later. But to me, that's my philosophy, especially for the portion of people that are not subscribed. And for me, returning subscribers, do whatever you want.

Liron Segev:

Travis, that's great because remember the channel trailer is the stuff that automatically just starts to play. So it's a good way to instantly grab their attention. So they know that they're in the right place. Dan, what are your thoughts on channel trailer?

Dan:

I love channel trailers and it's a shame because I see so many that aren't using it, in my opinion, properly at all. I've seen some though where people, like Travis said, 45 seconds, some of them a minute long, where they actually made a video that is specifically for the channel trailer and it takes you on a journey or it's just that person who pops up and says, "I'm me. And here's what I'm all about." And those are always my favorite trailers because I don't have to dig around and try to figure out by digging through playlists and content that ends up being years and years old. What's going on these days? What are they uploading to their channels? What's this person about?

Dan:

Because as long as you keep that channel trailer up to date, you will probably have the easiest time communicating that to your audience. And I think that's another thing, it's really not a one and done. As you evolve as a creator, you need to constantly update that channel trailer because at some point you may pivot. You may be doing tech reviews and then, you find out that laptops are just the bread and butter of your channel. And you just never go back to doing phones or anything else. You might want to update your channel trailer. You might want to explain from years ago, "Hey, I'm a tech guy. I cover all things tech." Nope. Now you're a laptop guy. You cover all things laptops. So it's important, I think, to keep that up to date.

Liron Segev:

Okay. Can I be a little bit contradictory, or just a different view, I suppose, on channel trailer? I think the point of the channel trailer is essentially to grab somebody's attention so they understand what your channel is about, right? As you guys have said. What I do on my channel trailers, I look at the last month, the last 30 days, and I see the video that brought me the most subscribers and I make that as my channel trailer. And here is why: if the point of the channel trailer is to show value of your channel and you have a video that brought you lots of views, lots of subscribers. In other words, there's value there that I make that my channel trailer.

Liron Segev:

Again, just a different view and a different tip that you can try. So we spoke about the channel. What's our next option guys? Once we've set up a channel trailer, what's next?

Travis:

Playlists.

Dan:

Playlists.

Liron Segev:

Okay. Playlist, let's talk about playlists. Do people have playlists strategies? Do you guys have any tips for them? Because I've seen playlists just become holding backwards for stuff, things and ventures. No thought behind it. How important are playlists and should they be on the homepage?

Travis:

Yeah, I have definitive thoughts about this and I actually have a definitive strategy and I'm going to give a little bit of a reason why. So, the trailer idea, like we talked about, you get someone to go down to hopefully this playlist, which should be, in my opinion, especially on the side for the people who are new, new to this channel, you can call it new to this channel. Never been here before, watch these, something like that. And Lee Ron's going to be happy about this because my actual strategy is very similar to what he said for his trailer.

Travis:

I'm using it in a different way. So Lee Ron's using his most subscribed video as his trailer. I'm using several of those videos in the first playlist. So in other words, I'll go to the channel audit feature here on Vid IQ. I will look at a video that gets me the most subscribers. One that gets me the most retention, one that gives me the best, what is it? Engagement or whatever. I'll put those three into that playlist. So I have a really killer playlist. I know because the data tells me that. I don't have to guess what to put in that playlist. I do want to put my best foot forward.

Travis:

And by naming it new to this channel, someone who is new to the channel is absolutely going to click it, case and point, I did this exact strategy with a channel with over three million subscribers. And in less than a month, it became their number one playlist on their entire channel. That playlist, the new to this channel playlist, over all the other [inaudible 00:13:08] of playlists they have. The number one viewed playlist is new to this channel.

Travis:

So it's absolutely critical that you take advantage of this. If a channel with millions upon millions of subscribers can see the needle move, you can absolutely see the needle move on your page as well.

Liron Segev:

Travis, just to be clear on what you do. So for those who are kind of new at creating playlist. You create a playlist and in the playlist, you name it new to this channel, or first time here or something that conveys the message that somebody who's fresh, who doesn't know you, this should be their starting point. That's the first thing you said?

Travis:

Correct. Yeah.

Liron Segev:

Then you said, go find your couple of top videos, which are bringing you subscribers, views, good retention, because obviously those are killer signals that other people have given you to know that those videos are successful.

Travis:

Yes.

Liron Segev:

All of those together, and that's a good place to start, right?

Travis:

Yeah. I mean, you can do other things by having an extra curated playlist of specific topics, which is what was my original strategy. And then, I realized that just using the data is all I need to do. I just need to find the videos that people are actually watching and our channel audit feature tells you that. So there's no reason to ignore that. And that playlist is the one that's been really doing very well.

Liron Segev:

I love it. Okay, great tip. I've actually made a note for myself to re-due my start playlist. Okay. Love it. Dan, any thoughts on playlists? How would you use them? Maybe even from a gamer's point of view specifically, because gamers are always in this weird limbo space of how do they get... How do they pop? How do they get that attention? What are your tips for playlists?

Dan:

Well, yeah, so I'll tackle this from the gamer angle. My channel these days is mostly a hobby. I don't have as much time for it as I used to. So I've set it up to where anything, I try to make my playlist and everything on my channel just high value. So when people jump into my channel, they'll see a trailer. It's actually not the one I described because I haven't had time to sit down and make a trailer. My channel is always changing because I'm just experimenting with it all the time. So it's just a video I like and it's short. And I think it's just going to be one of those things that people kind of laugh at and maybe they'll subscribe. Maybe they won't.

Dan:

Underneath that my first playlist you see are just my latest uploads because to me, I feel like that's going to give you, these days, the best indication of what's going on in my channel. But I love that idea of a specific one, right on top, that's like, are you new here? Because it's very direct. It's just pointing to it very specifically. Not just my latest uploads, but the videos that I think represent my channel the best, boom, right here. But I always feel it's important somewhere to put your latest uploads as well on your list of playlists.

Dan:

So I have my uploads and then, what I do is my most current series, if you will, will be following that. So if I'm doing, let's say I'm reviewing a bunch of mods for Minecraft or something. That's going to be a playlist and it's going to be only those. So not just all my Minecraft videos shoved into one massive playlist. No, these are the mod views. So if you're looking for a mod, if you're like, "I'm looking for a new mod." You can go to that playlist and say, "Oh, these are all of those." And scroll through it and find the ones you want to watch. Or if you're just looking to learn about as many as you can, hit play, sit back and just let it roll. So I like to do things like that.

Dan:

I also, in the past, did episodic series that were very story-driven with games. So those would be on there too, on the front page. My favorite one or the one I was currently doing or so forth. So it's always very current. I'm always going to my channel page and updating it.

Liron Segev:

Okay, love it. I like the idea of also having your latest uploads. I think that's quite important. And then something else, your popular uploads, which is nice to have. I usually tuck them down at the bottom because people tend to remember the things at the top. But then, they tend to scroll all the way down to the bottom. So at the bottom I go my most popular uploads and I just stick them in there.

Liron Segev:

So, channel, banner critical. The what and the why of your channel. What is the channel about? Why should I subscribe?

Liron Segev:

Channel trailer, nice, punchy, loud, to the point, grab their attention. It also plays tell them what the channel is about. And as Dan says, don't forget to update it because if your channel has changed, well, then things are going to change. And then you want to make sure your audience is kept up to date.

Liron Segev:

You have an option of using my strategy, which is putting the most popular video. The one with giving you subscribers and views and using that as your channel trailer. Especially if you don't have time to go and shoot a channel trailer right now, maybe use that as a filler.

Liron Segev:

Then, head down to a playlist. Travis said, make your most popular videos, watch time, retention, subscribers, group all those together. Label them as new here, first time to this channel, start here, tell people what your channel is about by showing them great, great value. And then as Dan said, talk about topics, group them into various playlists.

Liron Segev:

So I guess a point that we kind of make, really homing this point in, is that your channel trailer or your channel playlist is actually a critical part of that journey that people are going to know what your channel is about. They're going to watch your videos, consume your content and then go from video to video, to video because guys, the one thing we didn't speak about is the value of the playlist. Getting people to not just watch one video and leave, but watch one video and then let it lead to another. Any tips on those, when it comes to putting videos together in a playlist?

Travis:

Playlists should be themed, should be tightly themed. Hopefully tell a story or at the very least maybe educate you in different levels, I believe. And it can be very tricky depending on your type of content. Let's say you have a baking channel, as we like to talk about here on Vid IQ. If you have your chocolate cake series, that's great. Maybe you have your pancake series. That's great. And then, maybe you have a series where you have multiple videos from other playlists that already exist, but it just, like dessert for breakfast. Maybe you have a little funny kind of playlist where you have pancakes and cupcakes for breakfast and that's a playlist.

Travis:

Well, the whole point of this is to get people to watch something that's tightly themed, regardless of the videos that are necessarily in it. It's more about the topic idea and then making the parts fit within that idea. And again, a video could be in several playlists for that very reason. It probably should be, to be perfectly honest, because YouTube, at the end of the day, is a numbers game. The more videos you have, the more chance you have for success. The more videos that are in a playlist, the more chance they have for success, all of those things.

Travis:

So I like to try to think of playlists as a way of almost like a story. How do you tell this story? Whether it be educating people, entertaining them. What's the story of the playlist?

Dan:

I basically second everything Travis just said. It really is that simple. It's about keeping people engaged as much as possible because the more they stay on your channel, the more you're rewarded for that. And the more chances they have to subscribe and get to know you and all that fun stuff. So anything you can do, if you start making a series about, I'll use the baking example. A baking series for cakes, and then you do one for cupcakes, but there's a recurring theme where you always do SpongeBob cakes, right? Every time you start a new baking project, it's SpongeBob themed. And so, you have SpongeBob cakes, you have SpongeBob cupcakes, you have SpongeBob cookies. What if you did a whole playlist of just SpongeBob baking?

Dan:

So that represents two different playlists. You have SpongeBob cupcakes and now, that video can be in another playlist. All of your SpongeBob theme baking projects. I know this is hyper-specific, but I hope that it gets people kind of thinking about the ways they could use this. Because just imagine it from the viewer's perspective. If you found that video because you wanted SpongeBob baking ideas, you're not necessarily married to being cupcakes. You might go through that playlist and see all the different things you could do to theme your baking around this character.

Liron Segev:

Okay. I like it. So again, you still need to have a purpose. And the idea is you've already got a library of content, content library. You've got lots of videos, you know what I mean. You've got lots of videos on your channel. Well, how could you reuse them? You've already stocked up. You've already uploaded them. They've already been made live. How could you group things together that makes sense under a specific topic?

Liron Segev:

And remember, always keep the viewer in mind. Dan, any thoughts on how many videos should be in a playlist? Should there be lots of videos or should there be, keep it to a certain number and then create a secondary playlist?

Dan:

I haven't given that a lot of thought. I usually, what ends up happening is, for the gaming perspective, if I'm doing, let's say I'm playing Minecraft. I might have two playlists. I might have a Minecraft playlist for all the Minecraft things. Then, I might have a series playlist for if that video was part of a larger series. And then, if that video also features, in the middle of it, a tutorial, I might have it on a third playlist where it's on tutorial. I don't really think about, at the end, after a week of making these videos a month, a year, I don't really think about how many videos I've just stuffed into a playlist. Maybe it ends up with a hundred videos on it. Is that helpful? Do you expect anyone to sit through that whole thing?

Dan:

I think it's helpful because it groups them together. I think that helps with every... I think that helps with your keywords. I think that helps YouTube understand that this is still part of the same thing. So I don't think it hurts you, but I do think there's a chance that eventually people will stop watching the playlist at a certain point. If you were hoping they'd get through all that content, it might just go on too long and they might kind of fall off and find something else to watch from you or somebody else. But I wouldn't necessarily worry about that in my opinion.

Liron Segev:

Travis?

Travis:

Yeah. I haven't really thought too much about it. You can find out what the view duration of a playlist is. And you can maybe use that to kind of dictate what you should do. But I think something you said just before this is maybe even more interesting, where you talk about what you're going to name the playlist. And this is actually an interesting point because playlists can rank and search.

Travis:

So you actually should be naming your playlist something that's SEO friendly. That is a really kind of hidden gem of something that people don't realize that literally playlists can rank in search. And if you are wording and naming your playlists something that's a search friendly name, then why not rank multiple of your videos at one time rather than just one. So yeah, really interesting kind of point about that.

Liron Segev:

Well, and a ninja tactic on that is don't forget that your playlists also has a description and in your description you should always put lots of those keywords right in there. Again, anytime we can feed the YouTube beast, we're going to. Anytime we can tell YouTube what our videos are about, we're going to. So we can have a nice playlist keyword rich naming, and keyword rich inside the description of the playlist. All of those can only help.

Liron Segev:

And the nice thing about being discovered as a series, as part of a series, is when one video finishes in that playlist, the next video automatically starts to play. So you're keeping people mass and engaged. Very, very, very important in setting up your YouTube homepage for that success.

Liron Segev:

And now that we've done this, another popular comment that we get all the time is this thing called branding. Where do you guys stand on branding on the YouTube channel?

Travis:

I think something that is consistent is best. And this is one of the things, and I'll talk about this for banners too. I'm not a graphical artist type guy. That's not my strength. I want to spend time creating and getting the value out there. So, this is one of the things that I actually will outsource if I really need to. Fortunately for me, people in my community have been able to do that for me, but you can even go to Fiverr and spend a little bit of money and just have someone who's really good at it because I feel like you can always remake the $10 or $15 it's going to cost you to have someone make your banner. But that time that you might take, it might take you hours or even days to get it right. You're never going to get that back.

Travis:

So for me, that whole part, I'm going to give it to someone who's better. But I think something that's important as you look at brands that are out there now and how they're pretty consistent across all of their packaging, and try to become that. That's what we say, that's what we mean when we're talking about branding. When you think of a sports team, they have certain colors, certain fonts. What is your brand? It should be something that's unique to use, something that makes people think of you. And if you're not really good at graphic artistry, then there are people out there you can pay for, not very much, to get you looking super pro.

Liron Segev:

Okay, nice. So keep everything congruent with your channel. Feel, colors, themes, fonts. Dan, what are you seeing?

Dan:

I mean the same across the board, definitely. You want to make sure that it looks like you're in the same place. Newer gaming channels make this mistake a lot where maybe they're still figuring it out. I'm not saying that this is something that's wrong when you're just starting on YouTube, you should probably be focused on the content. I mean, you want something on the banner, but it should be a goal. It should be one of your long form goals as you continue to build out your channel to eventually get that banner branded. And what we see again and again and again in audits are people with banners that are just their favorite game characters, maybe a screenshot of their favorite game, and then, a logo that doesn't really match that. So sometimes just their current avatar in Fortnite or something. And then their banner is just sometimes not even Fortnite if they're playing Fortnite on their channel. Sometimes just their favorite game, Grand Theft Auto, they'll throw anything up there.

Dan:

And this drives us crazy. And what happens is we go to audit their channel, they're probably looking for advice on their titles, their descriptions, things they could be doing better to optimize their channel. And we stop everything and go, "Hey, this, all of this you got going on, fix it." And it's very distracting to a new viewer as well. Again, if someone took the time to come to your channel and actually see what you're all about, they're thinking of subscribing. They're thinking of becoming somebody who's going to be a part of your community for perhaps a long time. And they go there and they see this hodgepodge of things. That might be the best representation of your videos. Maybe your videos are like that too. And now they're like, "Well, I already seen enough hodgepodge channels. I'm kind of looking for someone who's focused on Fortnite and the best tips to make me better at the game. So I'll find somebody who's taking it seriously." And that's really what it comes down to.

Dan:

Branding makes it feel like this person is taking this very seriously and you've locked them in and now, they're going to check out your playlist and everything else.

Liron Segev:

Okay. It's all about your viewer. Again, we keep going back to that. It's, you're going to make it comfortable for your viewer, to feel comfortable on your channel, to feel like they're getting value, to feel like they're engaged and part of your community. And something that we all use quite a lot is the community posts. And I use it on my channel. I use it to ask questions. I use it to create surveys. I use it to engage with my audience and it's not about self promotion. "Hey, here's my latest video." It's more about, "Hey, I'm asking you questions. Should I make this video or that video?" And as you can see on the Vid IQ channel, when you go to youtube.com/VidIQ, go look at our community posts. Things are done there with a purpose, they're down there for engagement, to understand and connect better with the viewer so that we can deliver much better content. So we can deliver content that you guys actually want to see. Travis, how do you use your community posts on your channel?

Travis:

I use it a couple different ways. I'm going to use it this coming up weekend for a contest to help people help me judge a contest, which I think is going to be fun. But you and I actually worked on a project, and I don't know if you want to call it a project, but that is working so well that I actually need to talk to you about some more ideas. Because the video idea that we came up with based off of asking our community, my community, a question, that video is doing very, very, very, very, very well and even still right now.

Liron Segev:

Nice.

Travis:

So I'm super excited about that. So you actually can use it to help find out if a video idea is going to do well. One of the reasons that I kind of felt good about making this video is the question we asked got so much engagement, that it was a nice little test, kind of a dip a toe in the water to go, if I do this subject, will people be interested? And yes, they were. And in the views are really showing that out right now.

Travis:

So yeah, I mean, you can use it to test the waters of an actual video idea, asking questions about something and seeing if people are passionate about it. And it's pretty amazing how well the communities now can work. And also, of course, building your community.

Liron Segev:

Especially when you want to test something, especially when you're not sure if there's a certain direction that you want to go with. Who better to ask than the viewers? The people who are actually supporting your channel. They're going to tell you, and especially if you make it nice and simple, by doing those polls where people can vote A, B or C. Easy, easy, easy, someone can do it on their phone whilst they're eating breakfast or whilst they have it on their commute. Some people touch a button and they've just given you their vote.

Liron Segev:

Dan, how are we using kind of the poll, the community posts as far as memes are concerned, because that's new for us. This gifI, and it is gifI, not jifI. I don't care what anybody says. It is a gif, not a jif, end of story. Dan, how are we using those to kind of really promote our community posts and engage with our community?

Dan:

Yeah, I think what's cool about this is YouTube kind of puts the community tab just in different places, depending on when you're viewing YouTube, how you're viewing YouTube. And so stuff like this, this gif we have on screen right now, Rob pops up and it gets you to stop. You know, like what's going on? What's this all about? And other times you put maybe your thumbnail there and ask a question. And then, these tend to get a ton of likes and a ton of comments like you see on the screen now. 835 likes and 243 comments. And all of this is very valuable because now people can stop and go like, "Oh, I'm going to vote on this poll real quick."

Dan:

Well, this takes people one second to click one of these options, but you might be digging for some data on your next video. And now, you've just got it from your own community. You didn't have to go out on Twitter, Instagram and collect all this data, using all these different services. It's here with your community who's already following you and already interested in this topic.

Dan:

So on Vid IQ, this is being used to great effect and it's just really, it's endless what you can do with this thing.

Liron Segev:

But now, the last tab that I want to talk about is the about page. So many people simply skip that and all they do, if you go to their about page, it will have one line, which they wrote back in 2011 when they set up their channel. And they've never looked back at that. Is that a mistake? What do you guys think?

Travis:

Yeah. I spend a good couple of minutes on audits I do talking about the about page. There's so much value that can be had from there. And YouTube index is the page, which is something a lot of people don't know. It's another opportunity for SEO. Putting some of your keyword phrases in there works. It absolutely, we've tested it. We know that YouTube knows what's on that page. So just leaving it blank or just putting, "Hey, this is where my random videos go" is a wasted opportunity. You want to, A, tell people what type of value you're going to give. B, tell them why they should pay attention to you. And then C, give YouTube another opportunity to figure out what your channel is about by putting some SEO in there.

Travis:

There's some examples that we've shown. And I believe we actually talk about this in one of the Academy courses. So you definitely want to take a look at that. It's a really easy place to gain a little bit more SEO, a little bit more of an advantage. YouTube is all about stacking the deck in your favor. One thing going to win you a million views? No, but all of those little things add up exponentially when you start to do them. And the about page is just a simple thing you literally can do today and can start paying off very quickly.

Liron Segev:

Yep. Absolutely. And Dan, are you seeing the same when you guys do channel audits and when you speak to customers?

Dan:

Oh yeah. It's kind of funny that probably the second or third thing I'll do when I'm visiting a channel. So we'll do preselected channels, right? They'll submit, I want an audit. First, I'll look at their homepage. Then I'll look at their videos real quick and then, to get a real sense of them, I'll look at their about page because usually what happens is I'm looking at this list of videos and I don't quite understand yet who they are and I want to know. So I click about, and nothing is more frustrating when they're like, "Welcome to my channel, please subscribe."

Liron Segev:

Yeah.

Dan:

Why?

Liron Segev:

Absolutely.

Dan:

Why? I hate when people ask you to subscribe, by the way, because I always want to follow up with, why? It just seems to miss the mark. The about section is your opportunity to tell me why I should subscribe. And don't outright ask me. The subscribe button is right here in the corner. It's there. It's nice. It's big. It's red. Don't worry about that. I'll subscribe if I want to, just give me the value up front, tell me what your channel is about.

Liron Segev:

And so many people simply just don't bother with it. But remember, when somebody discovers a channel, they're going to look at your banner and maybe you caught their attention. But what if you didn't? What if you didn't give your value proposition in the channel banner? And you didn't do it effectively in your channel trailer? And they still can't work out what's going on with the playlists? Are you all over the place?

Liron Segev:

Well, the about section is where you have an opportunity to really engage with the potential viewer and say, "Look, this is what I do on this channel. This is the kind of stuff you're going to find." As Travis says, use lots of keywords, lots of things that people are going to be searching for, all of that stuff is going to help. But at the end of the day, someone needs to leave your about page knowing exactly what you're about. You've got a good chunk of characters there where you can really get into it and tell them what your video is about, what your channel is about, and why they should be there.

Liron Segev:

As Dan said, don't beg for that subscription. Hate that as well. I completely agree, but if you are finding value, okay, now I get it. Now, we'll go back and look at a couple of videos and then, hit that subscribe button. Travis, any final thoughts on setting up your channel home page for success?

Travis:

It's so critical and so many people miss this, that conversion can happen on the homepage. It literally can happen after someone watches a video, clicks your name, to find out more about you, and then sees that, A, your channel is set up nice. B, they're going to get the content they originally watched and C, have a reason to subscribe or watch more content. I can go into in depth as to why strategically this makes sense. And even algorithmically, how you can trigger the algorithm by having someone go through your homepage. But the point is this, spend the time. This is one of the things that will move the needle. 1000%, it will move the needle. I guarantee it. If you do it correctly.

Travis:

I've done this with multiple audits, with multiple coaching clients. It has made a huge difference. If you sleep on this advice, I don't know what to tell you. I don't know what to tell you because everyone wants to know what do I do? What do I do? What I do? This is one of the things that you do to grow. Literally, this is one of the things that you could pay someone to tell you, and we're giving it to you for free right now.

Liron Segev:

And you can do it right now. There isn't any heavy lifting because most of that work is already lives on your channel, it's just about grouping it together and make it easily accessible for your viewer. So there's no real reason why not. Dan, final thoughts on setting up your home channel for success.

Dan:

I think it's just important to keep it up to date. Your channel's going to evolve and whether you do it through your trailer, or you do it through your playlists, all those suggestions are valid. There's not necessarily a wrong way to do it. Well, the most wrong way is to not do it at all. So keep it up to date and don't forget about it. Go back, change that, to people who've already subscribed to you, change that video once in a while for your returning subscribers. They are returning subscribers. They will eventually see the video and if they want to watch it, they will watch it. So change it up every once in a while, make it your latest video, make it one you're just really proud of. Make it a throwback video, have some fun with it. There's a lot you can do.

Dan:

The community tab. If you have it, use it. Have fun with that. Make polls, I made a nonsense poll one day. I said all of the above or all of the below. And those were the two options. And it got some confusing, but people voted on it. It was just nothing. It was just something I had fun with one day. Be silly if you want to be silly or use it to great effect and determine what kinds of videos that you want to make next, but use your channel page. Don't forget about it.

Liron Segev:

Love it, love it, love it. These are practical tips anybody can do right now. So again, channel banner, make sure the what and the why of your channel.

Liron Segev:

Channel trailer, make sure you tell people visually, audibly, what value you bring to them. It's not about you. It's not about what you had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. What you did. It's about the viewer. What value? What are they going to find on your channel? Use that effectively.

Liron Segev:

Use your playlists. Develop a playlist strategy, use keywords in your description and the description of, and the titling of your playlists. And then, don't forget to put those playlists on your home page. So people know where to start. Know where to get to, and all of that is going to help you.

Liron Segev:

Community tab, community posts in order to engage with your community, get surveys, get feedback, engage with your community.

Liron Segev:

And then the about page, which is where you tell people lots and lots of stuff about you. Lots of stuff about them. What are they going to get? Because remember, believe it or not, your YouTube channel is not actually about you. It's about the value that you give to your audience. That is why they connect with you. That's why they love your content. They love you for what you do. And that's why they smash that subscribe button.

Liron Segev:

Guys, it's been lots of fun. Thank you for hanging out with us. Hopefully lots of tips that you can do right now on your YouTube channel. We look forward to see you grow, and don't forget to share this episode with at least one other creator who's currently struggling. Maybe hasn't got their home page in order. This is going to help them.

Liron Segev:

Thank you for hanging out. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button in your favorite podcast application, and we'll catch you on the next episode of Tube Talk. Bye for now.