4 mistakes to avoid as a YouTuber to grow your channel

Putting in hours of effort and investing hundreds of dollars only to see your YouTube video gain no views is frustrating. You might think you should quit posting videos because you aren’t growing. Don’t.

In this blog, we’ll let you know the common mistakes holding you back and how to avoid them to grow consistently on YouTube.

Let’s begin!

1. Publishing random content

Suppose you subscribe to a marketing channel after viewing and liking one of their case study videos. But, after a few days, you see videos of engineering or HR from it? Will you like it? Won’t you unsubscribe? I’ll do that.

Publishing random content is the number sin you should avoid if you want to grow your YouTube. If you don’t upload content according to your viewer’s preferences and pain points, they’ll bounce off and never come back.

Here are some tips for uploading user-centric content:

a) Use keyword research

Note your seed keywords. They are broader terms of your industry.

For example, if you’re related to the digital marketing industry, your seed keywords would be: Search engine optimization, social media marketing, content marketing, email marketing, and more.

Then, put them in tools like KeywordTool to find keywords you can create content on.

Example: I typed in social media marketing, and here are the results.

Do the same on YouTube.

Once you have the related keywords, start creating content.

b) Scan your competitor’s channel

Note down 5-10 big channels related to your niche. Look for what content they publish and their overall content structure for inspiration. Specifically, analyze content that attracted thousands of views and was the best performer.

You can tweak the topics and add your opinions to create a new video.

c) Read the comments

You can find hundreds of content ideas in the YouTube comment section. Many write what they want to watch more of and what changes they want to see in the comments.

So, read the comments of other competing channels and yours to find content ideas.

d) Ask your viewers

You can and should directly ask your viewers what content they want to view. Either ask them to comment or survey them to know their preferences.

2. Design thumbnails that users will want to click

Imagine you searched for “How to create an Instagram ad” on YouTube, and you see thumbnails of a cat. Will you watch the video? I won’t.

Now, what if the thumbnail was something like this: a picture of an account dashboard that shows increasing revenue with the message “step-by-step guide to creating an Instagram ad to generate millions in revenue.”

I bet you’ll click right then. There’s your secret to creating engaging thumbnails.

Optimize your thumbnails to match viewers’ expectations. Think of what the person expects when they search for that particular video. For example, if the viewer is searching “How to grow Twitter followers,” they are probably confused and want to know the tricks to scale to thousands of Twitter followers.

Your thumbnail could be:

a) a Twitter account where you show your following (this establishes credibility)

b) a before and after image of your Twitter growth.

3. Deliver the promise

Always lead with value. If your video title is “How to grow on YouTube,” and all you say throughout the video is fluffy information without any case studies and growth strategies, you’ll break the viewer’s trust. You’ll lose credibility, and people will definitely unsubscribe.

So, ensure you deliver on your promise. For example, if your title is “A step-by-step guide to grow your YouTube,” the content should cover that. Walk your viewers through the detailed growth strategies with examples and case studies. Add visuals and back your statement with data and research.

4. Not promoting your video

If you think viewers will flood in after you upload your video, I have bad news. Uploading your video is just the start. After that, you need to promote it on different platforms to increase your viewership.

How to do that? Repurpose your YouTube video.

It will help you attract more viewers and take advantage of YouTube’s algorithm, which rewards you with more reach the more people see it.

Convert your one video into short YouTube clips (5-10 minutes), YouTube shorts, community posts (summarize the video content), blog, and social media content (Instagram Reel/graphics/carousels, Twitter threads, and LinkedIn posts).

View this example to see how to do it.

Now that you know the common mistakes you should avoid, start creating engaging videos on YouTube. Ensure you follow the best practices mentioned in this post.