From Novice to Vlogger: The Top 10 Editing Techniques

YouTube Video Editing Tips for Beginner Editors

Marion Dubois

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

Creating good-quality videos regularly can be difficult, especially when you are a beginner. The most crucial part of making a video is editing. This is the part where you have to look at every intricate detail. This is the part where you remove unwanted footage and place useful shots in their position. Every creator has their editing style by which they put their mark on their videos.

Editing can be a long and tedious process. It takes time, patience, and an immense amount of creativity to create a video good enough to impress the viewers. Here are few tips that will make your editing process easier and cut your editing time in half.

Top 10 Video Editing Tips for YouTube Beginners

The following will not tell you how to edit your YouTube videos, but will surely make editing a little more convenient.

1. Choose a Good Video Editor

One of the first things you have to do is make sure that you have chosen a video editor that is best for you.

Using either too complicated or too basic a video editor can only create problems for you. An advanced video editor may create very high-end, professional videos, but it will take months just to get the hang of the software. Whereas a free basic video editor may not give as many options as you’d need to edit your videos properly.

2. Use Fast Computers

Being a video creator, you’ll have to store numerous huge files on your computer. To improve your current PC, you can invest in an SSD, which is a lot faster than the traditional hard disk.

SSD will not only improve your export, loading, and rendering time but it will allow you to access files and editing software much faster. Another improvement you can make to make your editing process faster is to increase the RAM of your computer (it should be at least 8 GB). Also, make sure to get the recommended video card and processor for your video editor.

3. Invest Your Time in Video Editing Tutorials

You can watch video editing tutorials to learn and perfect the art of video editing. You can easily find free tutorials online, visiting websites like Skillshare and Red Giant tutorials to access free video editing tutorials. Search for tutorials that are specific to the editing software you use. You can also search for tutorials that will help improve your content.

4. Use Keyboard Shortcuts

Learn the keyboard shortcuts for various functions in the software, especially the ones that are usually repeated throughout the process like undo, redo, delete, etc.

You can also invest in an Editing keyboard, they are software specific and already have keyboard shortcut icons in them.

5. Add Good Music

Another important tip to keep your audience all ears is to add good music to your videos. Whether it is background music or a soundtrack in between shots, it has to pair well with your video.

If you are on a budget and don’t want to spend money on music, there are royalty-free options available. But, know that good music only comes at a price.

6. Add Text, Titles, and Graphics

You can choose from a wide variety of text and titles. You’ll also have tools to enhance the graphics of your video. When you have so many options, choosing the right one can be difficult. It is better to keep the font of the text simple.

You can also use video editors to add flashy motion graphics to your videos. You can either create your graphics by hand or you can also choose from a variety of ready-made graphics templates.

7. Don’t Forget to Color Correction

Not color correcting your videos may render them looking dull and lifeless. Color is one of the major elements that play a crucial part in setting the mood of your video. Depending upon the type of content you’re portraying in the video, you can use a color scheme to highlight specific aspects or to evoke certain emotions in the audience.

Color correction is used to make your video appear consistent throughout the scenes. Whereas color grading is used to make videos stand out. Both are essential to differentiate certain scenes from others.

8. Learn Important Terms

Learn the terms commonly used in video editing. It will help you become proficient with the software and the process of editing. Some common terms used in the editing sphere are:

• Cutaways
• Jump Cuts
• Match Cuts/Match-Action Montage
• J and L Cuts
• Cutting on Action

9. Store Your Video Files on an External Drive

Storing your huge video files on an external drive will free up a lot of space on your computer. This will help speed up your device so you don’t have to worry about slow rendering.

10. Make Copies of Your Files

Always make more than two copies of your files. You can use the 321 rule. The rule is to make 3 copies of your files, store them in two different places, where one place should be physically separate from the other.

The Best YouTube Video Editing Software for Beginners

There are many video editing software available in the video editing market, but Wondershare Filmora is the best video editor for beginners and professionals alike. It has a beginner-friendly interface, contains advanced editing tools, and is available at a reasonable price.

Here is a list of few features offered by Wondershare Filmora.

1. AI Portrait

It helps make your videos vibrant and colorful

2. Visual and Audio Effects

Visual and audio effects can be added to improve the image and sound quality of the video

3. Audio Ducking

You can layer one sound on top of the other.

4. Cool Texts

You can add cool texts and titles from the library.

5. Screen Recording

You can record the screen activity of your device.

Final Word

As a beginner, the time and effort required to make a good video can be reduced to half if you follow a few simple tricks that professionals use daily. It’s all about working smart and not hard. You can save time by learning the editing term and keyboard shortcuts. You can save your files in an external drive to save storage and make backup in case of any mishaps. Remember to color grade, add cool texts and good music to make your videos distinct.

Marion Dubois

Marion Dubois is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Marion Dubois

More than Just Likes and Watch Time: The Complexity of YouTube’s View Tally

How Does YouTube Count Views? It’s Not as Simple as You Think

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

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How does YouTube count views? It’s not as simple as the number of clicks your video gets. If someone sits and refreshes your video over and over without letting it play for any significant time, those refreshes won’t be recorded as views. There is a lot more that goes into the calculation.

1. Not Everyone Who Clicks Adds to Your View Count
2. How Does YouTube Count Views
3. How Does YouTube’s View Count Algorithm Work?
4. Account Tracking Factors - Some Viewers Don’t Count
5. The Skip & Skim
6. Frozen YouTube View Counts
7. The 301 Mark

Best YouTube Video Editor - Filmora

After you have created your YouTube channel, do you want to edit videos and upload your first video? Here we recommend using Filmora to easily edit YouTube videos.

You can use Filmora to make YouTube videos with built-in royalty-free audio. Filmora also can help you make YouTube intros. It includes more than 500 templates, transitions, effects, and text resources.

1. Not Everyone Who Clicks Adds to Your View Count

YouTube doesn’t provide a clear definition of what counts as a view, but we know that someone clicks on your video, and clicking right away doesn’t count. That’s how we know that watch time is a factor. Some studies conclude that a full 30 seconds need to be viewed to register as one view, but there is no way to know for sure.

2. How Does YouTube Count Views?

YouTube wants to be sure that views are coming from humans and not bots. So, during the first couple of hours after you publish a video, YouTube seems to be stricter about what they count. The views which are counted are the ones that YouTube believes to be legitimate. Sometimes, it ends up skipping legitimate views for the sake of discretion.

Once this window of time passes, it is likely that you will see the view counter start to update a lot more frequently. The counter could still revert to updating slower and more hesitantly, though, if YouTube’s algorithm thinks it’s detecting something fishy.

At times, your view count can even be frozen temporarily until the algorithm can validate the views you are receiving. This is done to ensure a fair and positive experience for everyone who creates content. View counts can be adjusted by the algorithm in either direction.

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3. How Does YouTube’s View Count Algorithm Work?

Termed by many as one of the most boggling algorithms of all time, it is really hard to decode the complete dynamics of the YouTube view count algorithm.

There are some tests you can run yourself to try to unpack it.

If you upload a video and then set it as unlisted it won’t get any public views so you can experiment by doing things like watching for different lengths of time and seeing what gets counted.

You’ll have to use a computer in a different location and make sure the account is not the same as the one you used to upload the video. Now, you need to watch the video for roughly 15 seconds. The key here is to keep it less than 30 seconds. You will see that the view did not add to the count. If you repeat this process on multiple computers at varying locations and with different accounts and you are likely to find the same result.

However, if you watch it for 30 seconds or longer it is likely that the count will go up.

We are adding ‘likely’ here because, despite this 30-second rule which has been decoded, there are other factors that might contribute to whether a view is counted as well as other automated scanning techniques at play.

Try to watch the same video numerous times in a single day. You will find that the count will add up at first, but after some time it will stop. YouTube knows that a lot of times people replay some videos over and over when they really enjoy them, and so they want to factor replays into their algorithm because they suggest quality. However, to avoid spam views, the counter will stop after a certain point.

4. Account Tracking Factors - Some Viewers Don’t Count

Something else that can affect whether a view is counted is the behavior of the account which watches it prior to landing on your video’s watch page. Sometimes, YouTube might feel that there is an increased chance a particular account is actually a bot, and then views from that account might not be added.

One way that YouTube might flag an account as a potential bot is if it is jumping between videos directly without navigating through recommendations, the search engine, or the account’s subscriber feed (how are they getting between these watch page URLs if they aren’t clicking on anything YouTube can record?). To add to it, if the viewer is watching each of the videos for almost 30 seconds exactly (or less) there is an increased probability that it is not a human but a bot (or a human watching the bare minimum as part of a view exchange program).

Any bot-like action will result in an account’s views do not be added to your view count.

5. The Skip & Skim

It’s not uncommon for viewers to watch a video for say five seconds, skip forwards a bit and watch for another ten seconds as they look for a specific part. It is hard to say whether skipping through a video, but watching a scattered 30 seconds, would count as a view or not.

6. Frozen YouTube View Counts

Sometimes YouTube will freeze a view count in order to check that it is accurate. When the count is unfrozen, the count may jump up as views are validated or it can go down if YouTube detects a problem.

You can use YouTube’s analytics reports to monitor an estimate of your potential views, but there is no assurance that this data will completely match your official view count.

7. The 301 Mark

You may have seen a lot of videos that have a stagnant count of 301 views. The algorithm behind YouTube’s view counting system believes that any video which has fetched higher than 300 views has the ability to impact people’s perception of quality on YouTube. They do not want the homepage to be crowded with artificially popular videos.

This is why view counts are often frozen at 301. The employees at YouTube then manually verify whether the views obtained so far are legitimate or fake. Once the employees are sure that the views are legit, the counter is unfrozen and you will see an upward swing.

During the period when the view count is frozen every legitimate view is still counted, just not added immediately. Once the YouTube team is sure that your videos are not getting fake traffic, your view count will be updated to include views that were registered during the frozen phase. However, YouTube says it won’t flag videos at 301 views anymore.

Conclusion

In short, we know YouTube expects a viewer to watch a video for around 30 seconds before it counts a view, that views from suspicious accounts are not counted, and that YouTube can decide to freeze your view count while they review your views. They are protecting the site from becoming saturated with videos that only look popular because of bots. Ultimately, ‘how does YouTube count views’ isn’t a question anyone but YouTube can answer for sure, but we do know it isn’t as simple as ‘a view is someone clicking on your video’.

If you want to engage your audience with cool effects and Filmora is the best choice to make a split-screen and green screen video for YouTubers. Download it now to have a try!

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett