From Startup to Stardom with YouTube SEO Basics

The 12-step YouTube SEO Guide for Beginners Who Want More Views

Shanoon Cox

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

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The joy of creating on YouTube is often dampened by the disappointment of underperforming videos. You have published your content and it’s not getting the views you had hoped.

Well, let’s change that!

In this guide, I’m going to walk you through YouTube SEO from the very start to the very end.

Nothing complicated. No paid programs or expensive apps needed. We are going back to basics and get your videos discovered.

Ready?

Let’s Go!

Part 1: Research Your Topic and Competitors

Come up with a video idea . Can’t come up with one? Let me help. I heard you can make a mean scrambled egg, why don’t you show the world how you do it?

Excellent! Let’s go with that idea.

Wait, don’t go making the video yet. First, we have to do some research. We need to know what videos already exist out there.

Step 1: Find Related Videos

Do a quick search on YouTube to see what videos already exist on your topic.

Uh oh… your video will be competing against celebrities like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver.

Okay, don’t panic! There is a fantastic quote, credited to bestselling author, Jon Acuff , that goes:

While researching your competition, you will feel overwhelmed, but remember, you are at the beginning, and Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver are not even at their middle, they are way passed the finish line. You still have a long journey to go, so don’t get discouraged, get inspired!

Watch those videos and understand what they are all about.

Understand that people watch YouTube for 3 key reasons:

- To be entertained

- To learn something new

- To be inspired

A video that can hit all 3 marks is going to be positioned for success. Don’t fret too much about the competition, as long as your content is good, you will see improvement.

So if you think this scrambled egg idea can hit those 3 marks, then I encourage you to go to the next step. If you don’t, let’s regroup and brainstorm some more YouTube video ideas .

Step 2: Find Keywords

Now that we’ve decided that we are sticking with the video idea, we are ready to do some keyword research. Keywords are the words and phrases people type in the YouTube search bar to discover videos.

Come up with as many relevant keywords as you can. Start by entering a keyword into the YouTube search bar. This will tell you what are the most popular searches associated with that keyword:

Once you have an idea of what people are searching for related to your topic, you’ll want to find more relevant keywords. I like to use the free app, Ubersuggest to do that.

This app gives you a whole list of long-tail keywords, which are 3-4-word phrases which is specific to what your video is about.

Some you will use to dig deeper in and other you will deem irrelevant to your videos. A good way of determining the value of a keyword is by the stats the application shows.

How to Read Keyword Suggestions

Once you have a list of keywords, you will see some numbers on the right-hand side. Here is what each one is about:

- Search volume is the number used to identify the popularity of the keyword. The higher the number the more people are searching for it.

- CPC is the value accredited by YouTube, determining how much advertisers are paying to target audiences who search for that keyword and click on the link.

- Competition is the number used to qualify how many other content are using that keyword.

The two categories that matter most to us right now is Search Volume and Competition. We want keywords with high search volume and low competition rate.

In the example above, you can see that the keyword “avocado scrambled eggs” has a Search Volume of 1,000 and a competition rate of 0.0. This is a good keyword to target, if you can incorporate an avocado to your dish… which of course you can!

Step 3: Write Title

I know you might want to deal with the Title, Description, and Tags after you’ve filmed and edited your video. But if you want to apply a YouTube SEO-focused strategy, then these should be addressed before you even pick up a camera as it can greatly dictate the content you end up creating.

A good YouTube title sparks curiosity, evokes emotional reaction, and promises value to your viewers.

Of course you can title your video simply: Making Scrambled Eggs

But does it spark curiosity? Not really… most people can make scrambled eggs.

Does it evoke any emotion? Maybe hunger… but even then, not really…

Finally, does it promise value? Well, assuming that most people can at least crack an egg into a pan, then hardly.

Your scrambled egg is special! Your video is special! We need to evoke that in the title — and as long as you are not writing any clickbait and deliver on what the title suggest, you can do this.

So, how about this: Are My Amazing Scrambled Eggs Better Than Gordon Ramsay’s?

Hmmm… Well, is it? We know that the Gordon Ramsay’s video has almost 30M views. Many people have already tried cooking it, I’m sure. There is only one way to find out, by encouraging others to try it over Gordon’s.

You don’t need to go for a somewhat contentious title like this, but that’s the idea, you want something that gets people curious, make them feel a certain way, and in the end, make them better for having watched your video.

See how a good title can guide the rest of your video?

Step 4: Write Description

You aren’t going to be writing the description for the viewers necessarily, you are going to be writing it for YouTube’s algorithms. The better YouTube understands what your video is about, the better they can show it to people searching for it.

This means you need to include the keywords you were researching at the beginning of your description, as YouTube will be using them to identify the content of your video. 1 or 2 keywords that best represent your video is enough. Don’t stuff the title with too many keywords or you’ll risk sounding like a robot.

But also use the description for practical uses too, if you have additional information such as supportive links, outline of the video’s content, a list of materials, step-by-step guide, or a recipe that you think your human viewers will find useful, you should input that in the description as well.

Step 5: Write Tags

Thank goodness we did the keyword research in Step 2, because coming up with tags is not as easy as it looks.

Pull 15 keywords from the list and keep it somewhere safe.

Note: The keywords you used in the title should be found in your tags, and since they are the most important ones, you should place them first.

Organize your keywords in the tag as such:

Have the specific keywords at the top, followed by more general keywords, and then branded ones:

Specific: How to make scrambled eggs

General: Scrambled eggs

Branded: Gordon Ramsay scrambled eggs

Part 2: Make The Best Darn Video Possible

It doesn’t matter how relevant your keywords are or how epic your title is, if you video sucks (i.e. your viewers click in and leave right away), YouTube will not show it in search.

Even if you haven’t created any videos yet, you can follow these next steps to ensure you are following the best practices to structure your video.

Step 6: Plan and Film the Hook

The first few seconds is where the largest percentage of your earned viewership will drop off. Odds are 20% of your viewers won’t even get past the first 10 seconds .

What you need is a hook, an intro that ensures this video is what they want to watch and let’s them know what they can expect.

Step 7: Film B-Roll

One static camera shot of you talking or cooking or giving a tutorial can cause your viewers to lose attention.

In order to keep your viewers interest, you will need b-roll, or supplemental footage you can cut to give you video more life.

While jump cuts (cuts made on a sequential clip of the same subject or in the same camera position) are fine, having additional footage to cut to will make your video feel more fluid.

So when you are filming your scrambled egg video, make sure you get some footage of you cracking the egg, scrambling it, and serving it on the plate.

Step 8: Encourage Viewers to Engage in Video

Liking, disliking, subscribing, and commenting on your video will all help your performance indirectly.

While YouTube wouldn’t rank your video higher simply because you have more likes subscribers, or comments, engagement from viewers help your video get discovered. If you get a like or comment from a YouTuber with a lot of subscribers, your video may be visible to those who are following that YouTuber for a while.

The best way to get engagement from your audience is to encourage them to like and subscribe or ask them a question or start a dialogue.

For example, in this scrambled egg video you are making, at the end you can ask, “So what do you think, is this better than Gordon Ramsay?”

Who knows, who will respond.

Step 9: Design a Thumbnail

You could have made a brilliant video, but if you have a poor quality thumbnail that is unattractive, then the overall performance of your video will suffer — and good SEO can only do so much after that.

Your viewers will absolutely judge your video by its cover so it’s important to put some thought into it and not solely rely on the three random thumbnail choices that YouTube picks for you.

Take a look at your competition. If they all look the same, do something different. Add text or a human face (preferably yours) to evoke emotion, as viewers are more likely to click into a video if they see an expressive image.

Don’t want to pay money for a photo editing software such as Photoshop?

You can use an online service called Canva or download GIMP , an open-source photo editor much like Photoshop, but far less powerful. These will help you get the job done as you are starting out.

Want to know more thumbnail maker? Check our picks of the best free YouTube thumbnail makers .

Part 3: Publishing With Attention to Optimization

Well done finishing the video! You are almost there… but not there yet.

Come on, keep going!

Step 10: Fill Out Your Videos Assets

The video is done, the thumbnail is designed, and you have all your title, description, and tags ready to go. This step is easy, upload the video, and fill out the assets, and give yourself a pat on the back.

Step 11: Add Transcripts

In addition to making your content accessible for people who don’t want to or can’t listen to the audio in your video, adding subtitles and closed captions will help YouTube understand the spoken content in your video.

While YouTube does have an automatic subtitle generator, it’s not reliable enough to be used for identifying the keywords you use in your video.

You can choose to write out the whole transcript of your video yourself, but if you are press on time, which of course you are, you can simply go and edit the automatic transcript already available in your video. By the way, you can also use some automatic transcription software.

Step 12: Add Video to Playlist

Finally the last thing you need to do for your video is to add it to a playlist. Even though it might be the first video in the playlist, it helps YouTube identify your video if you organize it in a playlist. As you accumulate more content, having videos in playlists makes content easier to find and keeps relevant videos together.

When viewers searches, having your videos in playlists increases the chance of it being discovered.

So if your first video is about scrambled eggs, maybe you next video can be about the awesome butter toasts.

I guess, you are on your way to making a pretty badass breakfast playlist. I personally can’t wait to see it!

If you treat SEO as an afterthought, only after your video is created, you are not using it to its full potential. If you follow these 12 steps during the course of your production, you will find that SEO doesn’t simply help your video perform at the end, but contributes in all the other phases of creating your video as well.

Besides considering YouTube SEO, you should make a good YouTube video as well. Filmora is a powerful video editing software that features lots of templates and effects. Get the free trial version below and have a try today.

Do you have any questions about SEO? Please leave us a comment below.

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox

Feast of Fame: Top 30 Show Titles to Sizzle Viewership

80+ Creative Cooking Channel Names to Attract More Audience

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

YouTube is one of the most effective tools of entertainment which never fails to impress us with the variety of content offerings. When it comes to cooking YouTube does have the largest collection of videos. If you are thinking to start your own YouTube cooking channel then the first thing you have to do is to find catchy cooking channel names. Food channel names only would fetch more and more audience to your channel and make it grow.

So are you tired of thinking of the best names for the cooking channel?

• Part 1: What are the Best Cooking Channels?
• Part 2: How to Pick a Cooking Channel Name?
• Part 3: 80+ Food Channel Name Ideas
• Part 4: Bonus Tip - Make Cooking Videos with Smart Video Editor

Part 1: What are the Best Cooking Channels?

There are many popular cooking channel names available on YouTube serving amazing, entertaining, and very informative home cook-related content with great viewership. Based on their talent alone and such YouTube cooking channel names are gaining popularity on their terms.

Here following are the best YouTube cooking channels list you can look at forever:

1. Binging with Babish

This channel undoubtedly wins the first spot among all hosted by Andrew Rea. He has content originality, fun elements, and high production value for everyone. If you talk about one specific dish or basic cooking tips Andrew shares everything. He is surely growing so fast having 3.7 million subscribers

2. Epic Meal Time

He has more than 7 million subscribers it Is among the most followed YouTube cooking channels. His most popular one is “Fast Food Lasagna,” where he visits some of the popular fast-food chains and orders the popular food items, and mixes them to make one giant Lasagna. Most of the videos are such where he combines food items and creates the huge possible dishes.

3. Brothers Green Eats

This channel belongs to two brothers Josh and Mike Greenfield focusing more on easy-to-cook and easy-to-follow recipes for viewers. Their main idea of content is “good vibes, cheap eats, and delicious times. They are having nearly 1.3 million subscribers till now and along with the fun personalities, cheap yet simple recipes in a very less time, they are gaining a lot of popularity already.

Part 2: How to Pick a Cooking Channel Name?

Naming a YouTube channel is not an easy task if you are not familiar with a few of the principles of naming. Your YouTube channel name is the official name of your presence and it is a big part of how people will understand what your channel is all about. If you are stuck at finding the food channel names ideas find below principals to help you with that:

1. Name should define your topic

People coming across your YouTube channel would like to get familiar with the type of videos you are delivering by reading the channel name only. So make sure that your name contains your niche and make it easy for viewers to understand your offerings.

2. Name should be unique enough

You don’t want to bore viewers with your channel name only. Make sure that your YouTube channel name is popping out from the others YouTube channels. Also while naming makes sure to check is that any similar to what you have a planner or not. If you don’t find any similar channels you are really good to go.

3. Make it Catchy

Your channel name should be such extra making people remember easily. So if the channel name is unique, more it will be in people’s minds too.

4. Avoid numbers

Adding numbers to your YouTube channel would make it difficult for viewers to remember it. Numbers also don’t go easy for searching for a name too and it gets harder.

If you are still not clear and confused you can take the help of a few of the best name generators available online. You just need to write one word or phrase and get a range of naming ideas in front of you

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Part 3: 80+ Food Channel Name Ideas

If you search there are so many cooking channels already existing on YouTube. Get yourself an amazing YouTube cooking channel name ideas to start as a pro.

Here below are some of the best catchy, cool and attractive food channel names idea you have ever come across:

1. Your Cooks
2. Yellow Carrot
3. Friend Cook!
4. Inner City
5. Food hands
6. Every day Special
7. Your Green Chef
8. Grand Feast
9. Tasty Experience
10. Food lovers
11. Homies Cooking
12. Prime food
13. Secret Chef
14. Home Grill
15. Passion food
16. Fresh dine
17. D’s kitchen
18. Yum tum
19. Chopping noise
20. Hunger Cave
21. Fine dine
22. Food coma
23. off the plate
24. The Fresh Recipe
25. Supper taste
26. Food Miller
27. Foodella
28. Me Cooking
29. Fun Elements
30. Cook Masters
31. Catering chefs
32. Food Corner
33. Fun Restaurant
34. Delish us
35. Cooke we
36. Cooking night
37. The food Table
38. Food place Restaurant
39. The Garden
40. Mad Cooks
41. The Green Kitchen
42. The Whistle Stop Cafe
43. Food Company
44. Confident foody
45. Fresh test
46. Yum Treats
47. The Cutting plate
48. Grate eaters
49. Soup Group
50. The tasty spoon
51. Perfectly yummy
52. Grand Menu
53. Food Plates
54. Fine dine
55. Dinner us
56. Home-based Cook
57. Yummy creations
58. We Cook
59. Food disaster
60. Drama Cook
61. Food Pixel
62. Boom Food
63. The eaters
64. Yum Vision
65. Your Kitchen
66. Food Partners
67. Feast Dreams
68. Food funda
69. Think to eat!
70. Common food
71. King food
72. The grand plate
73. Young eaters
74. Food gang
75. Hunger us
76. Best meals
77. Your food deal
78. Food talk
79. Yum taste
80. Chat food
81. Code cook
82. Food on the way
83. Oh! Food

Part 4: Bonus Tip - Make Cooking Videos with Smart Video Editor

Video editing plays an essential role in the lives of content creators and it may sound very easy but trust me it is not. It requires way lot of effort to make your content look perfect and appealing to your viewers. However good your content is but if you are not able to serve it properly to the audience it won’t work at all.

Starting as a food blogger asks for many things and one of them is a good video editor. Once you create the content you need to polish it in a way to make it look catchy. The end game is only on how you present your videos and that would decide the worth of your efforts. So being a Food blogger you need to have the finest video editor which can set you differently from the existing ones and make you win the race!

Wondershare Filmora is such a powerful video editor to help you with your all editing needs. The range of effects, features, filters is so many to make the outcome look so appealing. It is a very easy-to-use video editor that doesn’t ask for any prior experience of editing. You need to have some basic editing ideas and you are good to go! Here the video editing experience is very smooth and creates videos efficiently.

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Features:

• Motion Tracking
• Audio Ducking
• Green Screen
• Splitting, rotating, cropping, trimming, brightness controls
• Color Matching
• Keyframing
• Zooming and Panning
• Stabilization

Thus Wondershare Filmora could be the most effective video editor option for any food blogger. It serves amazing effects and features to create an appealing outcome. It offers a wide range of powerful video editing tools to create videos efficiently. So there is no doubt in picking Wondershare Filmora at all!

Conclusion

A food blogging career can be really exciting but it has a huge competition too. Introducing a food channel would surely require some prior efforts and naming is one of the key factors. We hope that the above-mentioned names for the cooking channel and food channel name ideas would help you to create a base.

Along with the cooking channel name ideas, Wondershare Filmora is an effective video editor in attracting more and more audiences towards your content and make you grow better!

Richard Bennett

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

Follow @Richard Bennett