This week, I’ve been taking another look at YouTube…
Not as somewhere to become a “creator” or build a massive channel. And definitely not as somewhere you need to sit in front of a camera every day but as a source of free traffic.
Because YouTube has something most social platforms don’t. People actively go there looking for things.
They want to know how to do something. They also want ideas, recommendations, reviews and solutions for their problems. Which means some of those people are potential buyers.
That makes YouTube rather interesting if you sell digital products, books, courses, services or affiliate offers.
Suppose you had a product teaching people how to create and sell printables.
You could make a video showing how you’d create your first printable product or look at five printable niches worth investigating or maybe test whether you could create a product using nothing but free tools.
None of those videos needs to be a sales pitch. The video gets the right person through the door. Your description, pinned comment or call to action can take them to your product, freebie or email list.
And unlike a social post, a useful YouTube video can carry on being found through search and recommendations months after you made it. That’s the bit I particularly like.
You don’t need to make 20-minute epics either. YouTube Shorts can now run for up to three minutes, which is plenty of time to teach something useful, demonstrate something or tell a short story. You can also use the same basic idea elsewhere.
But I wouldn’t start by making videos. I’d start by finding out what people actually want to watch.
YouTube Studio has a free Trends tab that lets you investigate what people are searching for and spot potential content gaps.
YouTube Trends:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/11962757
Google Trends is useful alongside it, particularly for checking whether interest in a subject is growing or disappearing.
Google Trends:
https://trends.google.com/
Then I’d spend some time studying successful videos around the subject I wanted to target, not to copy them but to look at the promise in the title, the thumbnail, the opening 20 seconds and the questions people are asking in the comments.
There’s a reason I’d pay particular attention to the title and thumbnail. YouTube says 90% of its best-performing videos have custom thumbnails.
Their own free guide to titles and thumbnails is here:
YouTube Thumbnail and Title Tips:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/12340300
You don’t need to buy editing software to test this either. YouTube Create is their free editing app for Shorts and longer videos. You can add captions, voiceovers, music and effects.
YouTube Create:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/13521392
Once you’ve actually published something, the really useful bit begins. YouTube Analytics will tell you how people found the video, whether they clicked, how long they watched and where you lost them.
YouTube Analytics:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9002587
If everyone disappears 30 seconds in, you know you have a problem. If one subject suddenly gets three times as many views as everything else, there’s a clue about what to make next.
YouTube has also introduced Ask Studio, its own AI assistant inside YouTube Studio. You can use it to explore your channel data, understand your audience and come up with ideas based on what is actually happening on your channel.
Ask Studio:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/16291691
Some more great free resources include:
vidIQ
This is one I’d use before making anything. The free version can help you research keywords, see what people are searching for on YouTube and find ideas for videos around your particular niche.
Don’t get obsessed with scores and numbers. Use it to answer a much simpler question: what are people interested in watching?
Canva
You already know I’m a fan of Canva, but it’s particularly useful here. You can make YouTube thumbnails with the free version, and there are plenty of templates to get you started.
Your thumbnail has one job: make somebody curious enough to click. You do not need to be a designer.
https://www.canva.com/create/youtube-thumbnails
CapCut
If editing is the bit putting you off, try the free version of CapCut. You can cut clips, add text and captions, record voiceovers and turn longer videos into short-form content without learning complicated editing software.
It’s also very useful if you want to make videos without appearing on camera.
And one more genuinely useful free resource if you’re making videos:
YouTube Audio Library:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/3376882
It contains music and sound effects you can use in your videos. Just check the licence because some tracks require attribution.
I also found a highly relevant TED Talk this week too. Jenny Hoyos has built an enormous audience with short-form video. Her talk, The Secret to Telling a Great Story in Less Than 60 Seconds, is particularly useful if the thought of keeping somebody interested in a video feels daunting.
She shows how she structures very short stories to make people want to keep watching.
Watch it here:
So here’s what I’d do this week. Forget about “building a YouTube channel”. Take something you already sell. Search YouTube for the problem it solves and spend half an hour looking at what comes up.
Then think of five genuinely useful videos you could make for the people searching for that subject. Choose the easiest one and make it.It doesn’t need fancy equipment. It doesn’t necessarily need your face. And it certainly doesn’t need to be perfect.
You’re testing whether one piece of useful content can put your offer in front of people who didn’t know about you yesterday. That’s definitely worth an experiment.