No matter how exceedingly valuable your video content may be, if your YouTube page doesn’t convey all that at first sight, you’ll be losing opportunities to get more views and subscribers. Making a YouTube channel is hard, even for senior YouTubers.
The chances for greenhorn YouTubers to make some errors are much greater due to their inexperience in creating the basis features (e.g. YouTube cover, banner, thumbnail, etc.), their impatience to get more traffic for the channel, and their lack of technological skills.
Let’s see whether or not you have made or are making one of these basis mistakes YouTube newcomers often do!
Nonspecific YouTube Banner
You must know that this valuable area called a banner isn’t just for simply showing off your brand logo. It can do other important things like introducing your channel. As in, to share useful links, declare what kind of YouTube channel you are, or your upload schedule.
You may not realize it right away but such short information is very helpful for viewers – especially the new ones, to know more, understand the value presented, and catch up with your channel.
Also, if you’re not careful when creating your YouTube cover design, it may cause mislead that results in low views and more down-thumbs for your vlog. To know more how to make a standard YouTube channel art, go to DesignBold. The site offers many pre-made YouTube banner templates with the most appropriate size and resolution readily laid out for you to pick.
Mind the Thumbnail
Inconsistent YouTube Thumbnail Design
What people see via your thumbnail, if it is interesting enough, will attract or discourage them from clicking your vlog. When you put in a thumbnail design that is consistent, it helps bring out your brand and enhance recognition in the recommended videos panel. As long as you keep it consistent, it doesn’t matter what form the consistency in the thumbnail is in (e.g. same layout, person, or color scheme, etc.)
You see, a YouTube thumbnail is that important when it comes to increasing your chances of getting on the search bar and among the suggested results.
Be Honest with the Thumbnail Display
People hate being tricked. You know – the frustration when you click on a video because of a particular scene previewed in the thumbnail, only to watch it to the end without seeing that scene you’ve been looking forward to.
The thumbnail on YouTube vlogs is supposed to give context to viewers. In other words, people lay their trust on the thumbnail when they decide to click on that video. So, you just betrayed your potential followers by providing a false image that has nothing to do with what is in the video. Resorting to click bait users to watching your vlogs with misleading headlines and thumbnails will have negative effects on your brand and reputation. Besides, don’t think this is a clever act because YouTube will stop letting your videos be shown in the search result list if its bounce rates are unnaturally high.
Spamming Other YouTube Channels
Sometimes, newbie YouTubers can be too impatient to get more traffic for their channel that they go to other YouTubers’ vlogs and “strew about” the links to their own channel in the comment boxes. Such an act is extremely graceless. For these spam comments are unhelpful to the posts, annoying to the posts’ owners as well as their fans.
How many times have you seen such comments (“Hey guys! Go check out my awesome vid here now!”), and what did you feel, then? Did you actually go watch that video or did you report that comment, swear to never visit that YouTube channel, or go there and leave “flamings” as paybacks?
Now that you may know how the others think, try not to become a selfish, unreasonable YouTuber to others. There’re better ways to get people’s attention like leaving constructive comments for other channels. If your reviews are insightful and sensible enough, people may want to hear and know more about you, and they may even click on your username to visit your YouTube channel!
Purchasing Fake Views
For greenhorn YouTubers, if spectators are curious about your channel, which is newly created but already has a huge number of views and follows, they may try visiting your YouTube page – only to find there actually isn’t anything noteworthy in your meager content. They’ll most likely walk away and may never come back.
Even when you have a channel for a while now, you still shouldn’t accept the offers about buying views for your vlogs. Just think of the consequences – it’s totally not worth it at all. Buying fake views can certainly inflate your channel perceived popularity, yes. But this is only temporary – if the quality of your contents isn’t in direct proportion to the number of your subs, someday people will find out. What happens then? – They feel cheated, they’ll attribute your success so far to these fake views, and they won’t come again, after clicking the unsubscribe button.
Besides, purchasing subs is illegal. So under no circumstances should you ever cheat! This method is as bad and as unacceptable as displaying a dishonest thumbnail.
Leave Out the Social Media Plugins
If you forget to link the profiles of your YouTube channel to your social media accounts, you’ve lowered the chances to connect with viewers on other social platforms and, by extension, hindered your success in the long term. You can add these buttons on your video descriptions and the “About” page.
At the end of your vlogs, you can also include in each of them the annotation links leading to your social media pages (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.)
It’s understandable that you make mistakes, especially for new YouTubers. The point is, will you avoid facing these mistakes and let them drag your vlog to hell, or will you learn from them to improve your YouTube channel? Hope you find our article helpful. Thank you!