7 Must-haves for a Successful YouTube Channel

YouTube is the second largest search engine on the web, right after Google. And by now, you probably know that Google owns YouTube.

So, as social media managers and SEO professionals, YouTube is a platform we cannot afford to ignore.

An optimized channel is the foundation of successful content.

Some of these optimizations are useless. Others tend to be overlooked.

The following are seven musts for a successful YouTube channel.

1. Channel banner

When people go to your YouTube channel, the first thing they see is your channel banner.

A channel banner is a part of the creativity that flows across the top of your channel.

The desired specification for a YouTube channel banner is 2,560 x 1,440 pixels, but keep in mind that the “safe zone” is 1,546 x 423 pixels, so all content must be kept within that middle section.

Create your ideal YouTube channel banner

Ideally, your channel banner will tell people what kind of videos they can expect and when they can expect them.

Or, if YouTube isn’t your primary social platform, you might want to put the other social media handles on your channel banner instead.

However, you don’t want so much channel banner information that people don’t read all of it, so keep it simple!

Here is an example from Roger Wakefield’s hydraulic channel.

2. Introductory video

Creating an intro video, or even just setting one up, may seem odd, but it’s a great way to leave a good first impression.

Upon joining a channel, a set intro video will start playing automatically under the channel banner and is the largest video on the screen.

Better yet, the first part of the video description you set up will also show on your channel’s homepage.

This is a great place to tell people more about you and your channel.

This introductory video from Cass Thompson’s YouTube channel does just that.

3. Optimized playlists

Now, the other things shown on your home page are playlists.

Playlists are defined groups of videos selected and named by the channel owner. They are a great way to group your content and answer all the questions about a specific topic or keyword.

Think of playlists and their titles / descriptions as core content.

You want to give your playlist the title of the generic keyword you want to rank for, then add a description that includes long tail or secondary keywords.

Any videos you add to this playlist should be related to the broader topic you want to rank your videos for.

Optimized YouTube playlist example

Nextiva did a great job creating videos for the Connected Communications keyword.

To date, this playlist contains 20 videos, which answer a specific question about connected communications.

Some videos have thousands of views, while others only have a hundred.

But, looking at the SERP, you will see that these videos really paid off.

4. Defined channel keywords

YouTube is like Google. It relies on user-generated signals to determine who to show videos to and when to show them the videos.

One of the ways you can help YouTube understand your content and who it should be offered to is by defining your channel keywords.

This is a step that is skipped quite often as it is not the easiest setting to find.

How to set up YouTube channel keywords

• Go to YouTube Studio.
• Select Settings.
• From the menu, go to Channel.
• Set your keywords.

You don’t need to add a million keywords here, but instead focus on 5-10 important keywords that describe your channel.

Backlinko conducted a study which found that you don’t want to use more than 50 characters in this section.

5. Custom URL

The magic number is 100.

With 100 subscribers you can get the custom URL scope.

The custom URL is useful for one of the main reasons: it makes linking to your YouTube channel so much easier.

Instead of giving people a random string of letters and numbers, people will just have to type youtube.com/(yourchannel).

Setting your custom URL only becomes available when you reach 100 subscribers, have a 30 day old channel, and have set up a profile and a channel banner photo.

After all these steps are done, you can set your URL by going to YouTube Studio, selecting Personalization > Basic information, and filling in the URL you want to use.

6. Channel description

Your channel description is one of the other signals YouTube relies on to determine what your content is about and to whom it should be offered.

However, it’s also used to tell your audience what they can expect from your channel in both content and results.

This space should be used to list the topics you will cover, using keywords your audience could use to search for your content.

When writing your channel description, it is very important to consider the first 100-150 characters of your description.

These characters are often what you’ll need to rely on to grab the audience’s attention in search results.

7. “Connect with me” template

The last thing to consider is creating a “connect with me” template to include in all your video descriptions.

Now, this model isn’t always used to actually encourage people to do it Connect with you, instead, it should be used to get people to to interact with you.

These interactions could include things like:

• Which video to watch next.
• What content to read on your website.
• Links to the tools you use.
• Online courses you might offer.
• Link to your social channels.
• A link to allow people to subscribe to your channel.
• A brief description of who you are and what you offer.

You can create a template for this part of your video description that you can use on any video you create.

Above is an example of Shopify’s version of a “connect with me” template. You will see a version of this on almost all of their videos.

Start building a successful YouTube channel

Your YouTube channel may not earn you millions of views, but it may be the social platform that brings organic leads to your business.

The listed optimizations shouldn’t take more than a day to complete, so what are you waiting for?

Other resources:

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Image credits

All screenshots taken by the author, November 2020