5 Easy Steps – How to Get Your First 500 YouTube Subscribers

First I shot a video training that should help you in that tune in below

My first question to you is: why do you want to get more subscribers to your youtube channel? What are you sharing with them? If I came across your YouTube channel what would I be looking for? What menu would you serve me? 

The thing is, I would have come across your channel, maybe because you certainly have better content and just for that reason, I and other people may be more willing to subscribe to you.

So basically, what I’m saying is if you want to attract new subscribers to your channel you must KNOW WHAT it is you are going to talk about on a regular basis. So how do you do this?  Well, that brings me to my next tip for you…

#1. Go wide – Focus on a Popular wider topic or niche.

This may sound a bit confusing, esp. when every guru tells you to narrow your subject matter down, niche in, etc, etc. But, when it comes to your YouTube channel – if you focus on a smaller less popular subject matter/niche, while you may have less competition, and it may be easier for you to rank on YouTube, truth is your audience will also be smaller.

If you want to do well better, you need a subject with high interest, with Larger Youtubers and large amounts of videos. You too then start uploading a video daily or at least weekly on that topic.  You will find that soon your YouTube channel will be easier for people to find and you’ll get more views, and Subscribers.

If you focus on a small niche, you probably won’t have enough people searching for your content and sooner or later you just run out Of content to talk about. On my channel, I focus on Social Media & Online Marketing with Pinterest being a major topic. 

What I’m saying is try to focus on a broader niche when it comes to YouTube.

For example, if you have a channel on how to prepare for an interview, then it’s a good idea to also focus share about Keeping Your Jobs, CV writing, career guidance etc, that way you will have a lot of content to make new videos about. 

#2. Try to use a Popular Search Term for your Video Title

How would you know this? Simply start typing your “Keyword” or topic in YouTube and the highest-ranking words/titles show up first. You simply want to rank your videos on YouTube, and if possible get your videos in the top 10 searches for your topic. For instance, my video on Social Media Management for Dummies shows up in the top 10 Listings as below.

You want to be showing up in such listings, on the right side of a popular video in your niche on YouTube.

What I am saying is;  when people use YouTube, they typically use the search box to find content as shown below.

Quite honestly the 3 first videos that appear on the right side listing, receive the Highest click-throughs from searches. Usually, the top 2 are Ads. To understand how the organic videos rank I use 2 tools.

1. VidIQ
2. Tube Buddy

These tools give you some extra information belonging to the search term which you might want to target in your own video. You can see the highest amounts of views and get an idea of the number of views that you too could tap into for your video.

What this means is that you are able to quickly analyze the competition for a particular search term. Avoid the very competitive search terms, as you wouldn’t get anywhere near the big dogs. meaning you won’t get as many subscribers let alone get to 100-500 subscribers fast. 

Your thumbnail is the first visual anyone sees of your video. Your video Thumbnails also help you attract subscribers.  When it comes to this, there are a couple of things that you can do, to grab people’s attention.

I love bright Primary colours; the reds, yellows, white and black. They are attention-grabbing. I use a Free design tool, to create these thumbnails.

Also, I like to use big fonts because they are easier to read what my video is about. 

So these small images are very important for you to capture people’s attention so always make sure to make a good thumbnail.

#4. Optimize your video.

By this I mean make sure you use your chosen keywords in your Video Name, Title, Description at least 5 times, and as a tag. 

When it comes to the description, I typically like to write a description between 300 to 500 words. Plus my Links, Social Media, Channel tags. The first sentence of your description must contain your main search term. Then variations of that term in the rest of the description.  

That said, you don’t want to keyword stuff. Meaning, you don’t want to spam your search term throughout your description. 

The length of your video and the content inside it will determine how long people stay non to the end. How you introduce it will either put people off or keep them on. What I’m talking about is called “Watch time.” This is the amount of time that someone spends watching your video.

It is a huge ranking factor on YouTube and the higher you rank, the higher your subscriber number grows. Because if people are going to one of your videos often – and they are spending a lot of time watching it then it is believed that you must be providing high-quality content and even entertaining Viewers.

Thus YouTube will spread your video higher to audiences searching for the various tags and keywords you used. 

Seriously, if someone goes to your video and it’s full of fluff and completely crap, then they certainly won’t, spend much time on it. YouTube gives more influence to videos that have higher watch time, and they do this by giving Them better rankings under listing, so you always want to improve that.

#6. Always Tell People What to do Next – Call To Action.

Make sure you do this close to the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of your video. That way you have half a chance at getting the various watch-length viewers. For instance, invite people to subscribe and also give them a reason why they should subscribe to your YouTube channel.

You could invite people to grab a resource in the description, visit your website, and add a link to your screen and description. Never end a video without inviting people to get closer to your brand.

It’s also good to use YouTube-provided tools like End Cards, End Videos, you can also invite people to subscribe as the end card or visit other areas of your digital real estate. 

These are a great way for you to get more subscribers to your channel. And now to my final Tip of this episode…

#7. How Do I Increase my YouTube Subscriber?- Cross-Promote your content.

If you want Also known as content syndication, and I know that this is a funny word, but it’s, nothing special! It’s.

Basically, when you publish your new video. What you want to do is promote that video on other social media platforms. I usually immediately tweet my video, share it on my Linkedin Page and on my Facebook Page. I also Have it pinned via IFTTT. This is really important for you to do for every single new video because you really want to get some initial views to that video. If Youtube is to give you some more organic views. 

As I stated above, it’s really important for you to increase the watch time for your videos, because that’ll give you a better ranking for that video for the search term that you are targeting.

BONUS TIP:

Keep going, a journey of a thousand miles didn’t end on step 10. Keep doing videos at least once a week minimum no matter what happens and you shall cross over the 500 Subscribers mark in no time.

I know lots of people who start their channels super excited about it all. They tell everyone, shoot a couple of videos, get 10 views on them and they wait for the subscribers…  or just quit!

I recommend that you publish at least 1-2 videos per week for a Year minimum to get traction.  

You won’t, see many views. You won’t get many subscribers, but if you continue, you will start to see a difference in your channel views and you will be getting better on your subject plus Improve your content and your confidence week by week.

Your public speaking will improve, especially if you show up excited like an audience already awaits you, coz it does. The more excited you show up about your topic, the more excited people will be about watching your videos. 

And that’s how to get your first 500 youtube subscribers and beyond. I hope you enjoyed it, if you did, please subscribe to my youtube channel, so you can receive my video updates where I talk about Digital and social media marketing, Personal Branding and Pinterest… How to make money online and much more.