How to Skip the Slip-Ups: The 8 Must-Avoid Mistakes for New YouTube Stars

8 Mistakes People Should Avoid as a New YouTuber

Richard Bennett

Nov 01, 2022• Proven solutions

In the ten years that I’ve been a YouTuber, I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I learned from those mistakes and have helped many new YouTubers start their own channels. Here is a list of eight common mistakes that new YouTubers should avoid, along with tips to do things in a better way.

1. Failing to have a long-term vision

One common mistake that a lot of new YouTubers make is failing to have a long-term vision. Without a long-term vision, you’re more likely to poorly brand your YouTube channel, drop your YouTube channel activity in busier times, and, midway through, change the type of content you create and upload. None of these are good for your channel!

If you can think of the kind of content you’ll love to consistently create and share in the long-run, you’ll not only be able to narrow down your brand and effectively communicate to your audience who you are and what your channel is all about, but you’ll also have a better idea on what to put out next.

2. Choosing an ineffective custom URL

Another mistake I made with my first YouTube channel was choosing an ineffective custom URL. Because my last name is Kim, I wanted to make my custom URL “YouTube.com/kimagination.” But it wasn’t available. So, I took “kimaginati0n” with a zero where the “o” should be. I thought it was a good idea back then but it was a terrible idea.

Choose a custom URL with words that can’t be confused with other similar-sounding words. For consistency across all your different social media accounts, try to choose a custom URL that matches the usernames of all your other social media channels. If the username you want isn’t available, then keep on trying to come up with a good name that is available. When you’ve secured the same username across all your different social media channels, you can then very simply promote yourself and all your social media channels by displaying just the social media icons followed by your one username.

3. Coming up with titles that won’t get searched

Many new YouTubers make the mistake of titling their videos in an ineffective way. Rather than coming up with titles that more people might search, they either come up with titles that summarize what the video is about as a whole or title their videos the way big YouTubers do.

Big YouTubers can take advantage of non-searched, curiosity evoking titles like “You won’t believe what just happened…” because they already have a huge following. Their channels aren’t depending on getting discovered through search. But yours is. So come up with titles that people are actually searching.

As an example, let’s suppose you vlogged your time backpacking around Europe last summer. Don’t title your YouTube video “My Summer Backpacking Trip.” Instead, title it “Going Up The Eiffel Tower | Beautiful View of Paris!” This way, all the people who are curious about visiting Paris, the Eiffel Tower, and seeing what the view is like from the top of the Eiffel Tower might find your video.

4. Failing to have a thumbnail strategy

New YouTubers tend to think about their thumbnail images after they’ve finished editing their videos together. This is way too late in the process for something that is so incredibly important in getting views.

Even before filming, you should think about how you’re going to title your video to get the most views. After that, you should then try to picture, in your head, a thumbnail image that matches your title and creates curiosity and excitement. When you go into filming, you can then make sure to include some footage of you recreating that image.

5. Making weak intros

After you’ve managed to get someone to click on your video through your effective title and thumbnail image strategy, the next challenge is to keep that person watching your video without closing it too early. A typical viewer on YouTube decides within the first ten to fifteen seconds of landing on a video whether or not he or she will stay or leave. This short window of time is so important to set the tone of the rest of your video and build excitement and curiosity in your viewer with an effective, high-energy intro.

New YouTubers often make the mistake of having weak intros. Starting at the beginning of a story makes sense, right? The beginning, however, is not always the most exciting. Consequently, new YouTubers lose their audience’s attention too early on.

To read more on how some of the most successful YouTubers effectively do their intros, check out my blogpost on “How To Edit YouTube Videos Like a YouTuber .”

6. Forgetting to engage with subscribers

An important thing to do as a new YouTuber is engaging with your subscribers. Some new YouTubers, though, are so focused and busy with the production side of things that they forget to do the community side of things, including responding to comments. By not responding to comments as a new YouTuber, you hurt your potential to get more comments consistently from your subscribers. If your video’s comments section is very active, YouTube ranks your video higher in the videos it recommends to viewers.

Connecting with your audience shouldn’t just be limited to YouTube either. Use your other social media channels to connect with your audience as well.

YouTube isn’t the only social media platform that people are spending their time on. People are spending their time on all kinds of different social media platforms, like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The more content in all of these platforms that you create to promote your video, the more potential your video has to be seen by their users.

New YouTubers sometimes forget to promote their videos and channel using other social media platforms. Consequently, they miss out on the opportunity to get views from multiple sources of social media.

8. Spamming comments

Commenting on other YouTube videos is another way to get your channel discovered from people reading over comments. If your profile picture and comment appears interesting enough, out of curiosity, people just might click your username to have a look at your channel.

But rather than leaving interesting comments that are related to the video, rather than adding to the conversation, some new YouTubers desperate to get more subscribers make the mistake of spamming videos with “check out my YouTube channel!” comments.

Spam comments annoy YouTubers. It would be much more beneficial to your channel to build good relationships with other YouTubers to possibly collaborate on a video together in the future.

Richard Bennett

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

Follow @Richard Bennett

Maximize Traffic - Essential YouTube SEO Equipment

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For the past several years, video has been the best-performing content across social media channels. In particular, YouTube has become the second most-visited website in the world. New and experienced business owners should consider utilizing YouTube as part of their search engine optimization strategy.

Whether you are an independent business owner or a boutique marketing agency, YouTube SEO tools can undoubtedly be helpful to grow your business.

How Will YouTube SEO Tools Help Boost Your Videos?

8 Handpicked YouTube SEO Tools For You

Bonus Tips: Factors to Consider for YouTube SEO

How Will YouTube SEO Tools Help Boost Your Videos?

The popularity of YT SEO tools is growing every day. They can help boost your videos in the following ways:

Help You Gain More Traffic

These tools can help you find the right keywords that your target audience is searching for on YouTube. Using these terms in your content will help you to boost the view count of your video.

Help You Analyze Your Channel

You can use the data provided by YouTube SEO tools to grow your channel. Because some tools allow you to view traffic sources and audience demographics, you can refine your content strategy and create videos that will boost the number of subscribers to your channel.

Show How Your Audiences is Responding to Your Content

These tools allow you to find out what your audience likes. Once you know what people want, you can create content on topics that will keep them engaged. That means it also helps you avoid the type of content that people don’t like.

8 Handpicked YouTube SEO Tools For You

YouTube SEO tools can streamline your path and ensure you have a growing and engaged following on YouTube. We have put together a list of the best YT SEO tools that you should try.

1. Google Trends

When it comes to producing well-performing YouTube content, it is all about timing. Utilizing Google Trends is a great way to figure out when to create and deploy content. Narrowing your search by category, time, and geographical region can also create a successful end product.

2. TubeBuddy

SEO experts and novices alike understand the importance of meta description. Metadata helps the search engine more quickly read and categorize the content. Unfortunately, YouTube can make writing metadata challenges. However, TubeBuddy can help you make the most of your videos. You can use this tool to write and publish descriptions, titles, annotations, cards, tags, and more.

3. Google Ads

If you know you’re creating a YouTube video with SEO best practices in mind, you’ll want to optimize both the video and the metadata for a specific keyword. Google Ads is the definitive tool for generating these terms. Plug in a topic to get a raw keyword spreadsheet full of possible terms to select.

4. Awario

YouTube engagement remains the most vital metric when it comes to video production. Awario is a social monitoring tool that can help you analyze how your channel is growing. You can also use the software to collect mentions and set up alerts.

5. YouTube Analytics

You can use YouTube’s analytics tool to get crucial details about your channel; you’ll know where it’s succeeding and where it is not. The tool allows you to find out more about your audience and what content they like. In turn, this will improve your views and keep your audience engaged.

What’s more? This tool allows you to view the watch time on your YouTube videos and the growth of your following.

6. YT SEO Tool Station

YT SEO Tool Station is the resource center for everything related to YouTube. You can find information on the most popular video tools that will help you grow your YouTube channel. These include tools for video descriptions, titles, tags, and keywords.

If you are looking for channel tools, YT SEO Tool Station also got you covered. Here, you’ll find details about tools for channel analytics, finding, counting live subscribers, and much more.

7. Rank Tracker

This freemium keyword research tool allows you to pick keywords from YouTube’s suggestions and check the search volume, expected visits, competition, and much more. Rank Tracker is ideal for finding keywords that can put your YouTube videos in the running for the coveted featured snippet position that will make you appear at the top of search results.

8. Tubics

As one of the popular YT SEO tools, Tubics provides analysis and recommendations to help your videos get more views and rank higher on search engines. This cloud-based tool offers analytics on video performance, channel analysis, keyword monitoring, tag generation, and more.

With this tool, you can find out how your videos and channel are performing. You also know how your audience is responding to the content.

Bonus Tips: Factors to Consider for YouTube SEO

Use descriptive Title Tags (Description)

Be sure to use descriptive title tags; this helps YouTube determine what your video is about, and it increases the likelihood of it appearing in search results for related searches.

Place Keywords in Your Video Tags, Description, and Titles

It is imperative to include keywords in your video titles, descriptions, and tags. Essentially, this allows YouTube to know what the content of your videos is about so it can recommend them to an audience interested in similar topics or related searches.

Once you have created great content, you need to share the videos with family and friends to enjoy them! By sharing these videos on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you can help to increase their visibility.

Optimize Your Channel

After setting up an account on YouTube, you must optimize the rest of your profile; this includes adding a custom avatar picture, bio description, relevant links to other social media sites like Instagram or Twitter, and links to relevant external sites.

Use Filmora to Make High-quality YouTube Videos

One of the most effective ways to keep people glued to your channel is by giving them high-quality videos. Filmora can help you edit YouTube videos before publishing them on your YouTube channel. The basic editing abilities like rotate, merge, split, trim, or crop are made easy with its simple user interface.

This software has created the ability to present a higher level of editing quality with features that can change or add an immersed effect to your video content. A Text and Titles library allows you to create illustrations for your content without having to find options.

There is also a music library giving you the ability to focus on the emotion or theme you’re attempting to create instead of spending time searching for royalty-free songs and different types of text to create the finished product you want.

You can give your videos an added effect with the inventory of handcrafted filters and overlays. To enhance these effects, you can also add transitions and motion elements.

Filmora is a one-stop shop with additional features like video stabilization and screen recording. Many other programs would require the use of separate software to make those types of adjustments. 3D Lut gives you access to different presets inspired by popular movies helping you reach your desired result.

YT SEO tools can help you optimize your videos to increase views and grow your following. Because people like to watch high-quality videos, you should use Filmora to make impressive videos to keep people coming to your channel.

Try It Free Try It Free

Whether you are an independent business owner or a boutique marketing agency, YouTube SEO tools can undoubtedly be helpful to grow your business.

How Will YouTube SEO Tools Help Boost Your Videos?

8 Handpicked YouTube SEO Tools For You

Bonus Tips: Factors to Consider for YouTube SEO