Transcripts
1. An Advanced YouTube Masterclass - Welcome: Hello and welcome back to
another course taught by me, Dylan, I'm a YouTuber. I've got over 54
thousand subscribers, eight million-plus views. And I've been doing YouTube
now for five years. During these five years, I've learned about what
makes a successful channel, how to grow a channel, and all of the
small little things you can do that make
a big difference. And today I'm going to be teaching you all
of those things. We're gonna be taking
a look at matching up titles, descriptions,
and thumbnails. We're going to break
down how to film your videos and what is a
good setup to do the SYN. And then finally,
most importantly, we're going to take a look at the editor of a YouTube
video so that we can essentially look at ways to
maximize viewer retention. And a great way to do
this is with a hook. Now this course is aimed at those with a YouTube
channel already, people who want to
grow their channel. And if you're just starting out, then I'd recommend taking a look at my other
YouTube course is all about starting out
on YouTube as a beginner. So without further ado, thank you for joining
me on this journey. Please take a look
at the class project and less jump into class one.
2. The YouTube Algorithm Explained: Welcome to class one
video retention. Now, the best metric to look out on YouTube is your
video retention. Now what video retention is, is basically how long once a
user clicks on your video, are they sticking around
watching your video for now, I learned all of this from
a top YouTuber call Mr. Beast. Now Mr. Beast is a
groundbreaking YouTuber. He's taken over the scene
on the last few years. He's one of the fastest-growing
YouTubers out there, so he's clearly very successful. Now, even in my own work, I've taken a lot of what he
said around video retention, put it into my work, and I've seen results
on my channel. Now, this first-class is
going to be a bit talky. That in a second, talky, but in a second
we're going to jump straight into editing videos, creating thumbnails and talking about the setup and filming, but just bear with
me because this is the premise for how to grow on YouTube and how
to be successful. So I thought I'd
talk about it now. So video retention
is a stat that can be found inside your
analytics on YouTube. When I first started out, I didn't pay much
attention to it, but now it's one of the
biggest stashed I look at. So for example, if I had a 10-minute video on
my YouTube channel, it had ten views. Every single viewer watch
ten minutes of that video. My video retention
would be a 100%. That never happens, that
has extremely high. However, if, for example, I had a video that
was ten minutes long, I only had ten viewers again, and they all watched
about thirty-seconds. My video retention is going
to be about five per cent. That's too low. Now
to cut it short, the longer your video
retention, the better. And the reason for this
is that basically, when you make a YouTube video, it goes on to this vast web
of YouTube videos out there on all different topics when people search or video
is going to come up. Or sometimes you
may have seen it. Youtube recommend videos
for you to watch. Now, the way that they
recommend videos for you to watch is by an algorithm. Every person has interests. Every person out
there who watches YouTube videos has patterns. And YouTube kind of look at all the videos
out there they go. What matches up to this viewer? What videos as you want to see. Now a key thing for us is wanting to grow on YouTube is we have to make sure
that our videos are optimized for the algorithm. Because if they are
on the algorithm and they're optimized for that, then YouTube goes, Oh, this video is very good. Less push this video towards
this other potential viewer. Now a great way for the
YouTube algorithm to pick up your video is to
have high viewer attention. Because for example, right, Let's just say that I had a video with a 100 per
cent of your attention, that would never happen,
but less than I did. The YouTube algorithm would
look at my video and see, right, this guy
has made a video. Every single viewer is watching a 100 per
cent of the video. Every single viewer is
interacting with this video, giving it a like, it must
be a great video, right? We can now trust that video is great because everybody is
watching the whole thing. Let's promote it to all these other people
out there on YouTube. Now, the more times you
to promote your video, Let's say for example, you
go on your YouTube homepage, you've got ten videos up next. The more times your video
gets onto that homepage, the higher chance of
having your video watched. Now, every time your video kinda pops up on our
homepage or something, that is an impression. Now, the more YouTube
promote your video, the more impressions you
get because YouTube, but check your video
into our homepage, then viewers would
have an option of clicking on your
video, for example. Now, let's say that ten people on YouTube
at the same time, five of them see your video on their homepage.
That is great. You've got what are
called five impressions. So for example, ten
people or on YouTube, five people see your
videos as I suggested, and then two people
click on that video. So two out of five people have clicked on the impression
that YouTube showed them. And that would mean
that your impression click-through rate is 40%. And that would suggest
that, you know, you've got pretty decent
thumbnails and titles. That was a lot of
information to digest. But to summarize for class one, you've got two key concepts. So you've got the impressions
click-through rate, and we have also got
video retention. In short, the higher
quality of your video, the more video
retention you get, the more video
retention you yet, the more likely YouTube are to promote your video
on the homepage. The more YouTube
promote your videos, the more impressions you get, the more impressions you get, the higher chance people are going to click
on your video. And you can see how that's going to help in the
process of getting views. If you're not quite sure
what's going on at the moment, do not panic, don't worry. It's going to all
make sense very soon. But we've got them to metrics, video retention and impressions. We want to encourage video retention by
making the quality of our videos Much better in the edit in the
filming process, doing small tricks like
adding hooks to videos. We're going to talk
about that later. And then we also
want to increase the impressions
click-through rate by making sure that our titles or thumbnails and our
descriptions are all matching up and are all enticing so that people click
on the videos. So you can see here
we've got YouTube, we've got YouTube success. In the middle is going to be video retention and thumbnails, descriptions and impressions,
click-through rates. So hopefully that
makes a lot of sense. Now let's jump into
the remainder of the course in which I'm
gonna be teaching you how to increase your
video retention and your impressions
click-through rate.
3. Using YouTube Analytics for Success: So for class two, I thought we could
take a look at it, a little bit of a case study for my own statistics and analytics when it
comes to retention, click-through rates and so on. So right here you can see
that I've got my video, brutally honest review of
Imperial College London. Now this video has 6,800 views, almost double I normally
get the impressions. Click-through rate is
also up to five per cent, which is clearly a factor
of mice got so many views. And then the average
view duration is also up by a minute to four
minutes and five seconds. Now, it is no coincidence
that the views are up because the average view duration and the impressions
click-through rate or up, those are the two key
factors that drove this video to success relative to my other
videos on the channel. Now, taking a look at where
the traffic came from, we can see that 3,700 views came from YouTube
recommendations. Now, YouTube
recommending my content came because people
were enjoying it. People are watching more of this video than
they normally do. Which means you
should go, I must be a good video
less recommend it. And again, the impressions
click-through rate was also high because the
thumbnail was very good, which also helps them. Below, I can see all of my
data if my view duration, and I can see that around
halfway through the video, there is a massive dip
in a viewer retention. And if I was going forward, thanks to this tool, I would
look at that and go right. Let's go to 78 minutes
in and the video. What has caused this debt
basically in retention? The simple answer is added, added a brand deal, which
is why it dip down. But if it wasn't a
brand deal and I saw a massive spike
like at the start. It's like, why, why
is there such a drop-off in viewers
at the start, I really need to think about how can I stop that
drop-off from happening. But then there's quite
a nice consistent slowed down towards
the end there. So some really great tools
on the YouTube Analytics. You can see how
everything that I was talking about in
last class makes sense. And there's proof
that it does work, and that is how everything
works right here. So hopefully this gives you confidence to carry
on with this course, because trust me, it's a good one and it will add a little value to
your YouTube journey. So let's jump in now
we've had the theory to the fundamentals and the
doing of what I've just said.
4. Pro YT Equipment Setup + Advice: Welcome to class three
equipment and set up. Now in this class we're going to take a look at my equipment. I'm going to show you
all the pro stuff that I have that I think let me
just say this straight away. Having an expensive equipment
and good equipment is not necessary at all to grow on YouTube depending on the
type of videos you make. Your phone is an
absolutely fine method to film videos and for them
to be of high quality. But like you see as you get further along
the YouTube, Danny, you accumulate a lot
of equipment and that equipment doesn't make
too much of a difference. It makes a tiny difference
in terms of less safe. I've got a high-quality camera. I can blur the background a bit. I've got a good microphone. I can make stuff sound nicer, and that helps a tiny bit in making the whole viewing
experience a bit smoother, which can help with viewer
attention, but it's not key. Now, it depends on the style
of video you're making. But right here I've got
mine rode microphone go attached to my
computer over here, and you can see my setup. I've got some nice posters. I've got a colored
LED light down here, which basically any light
behind me when I'm filming, it basically makes
everything pop out. So hopefully this show
right now, as you can see, it's hopefully popping
out because it's got a nice little hint of
purple in the background. It's got a lovely little
few posters up there. We've got a nice green smooth desk light coming
from the computer. Nice clean desk. And this light down
here, a JVM line. You can change the color
on it and LED light. I've got this fake plant. Another colorful poster. I've got a tiger boom stand
along with my video mike pro. And this video might
probe is attached to this 20 quid boom stand and
small stuff like this, right? This stand right here is
small things like having this mic right underneath me instead of all the way
at the camera over there. It makes a huge difference when it comes to video
recording and sound recording. Now this sort of
equipment and set up, it's not going to be the
make or break between a successful YouTube
channel and career or not. But it's definitely
going to help create rapport subscribers. It builds up a background and people know that
this is my setup. People know that
there's quite a cool, nice set up behind me. And it's about personality. It's about making
the view experience, viewing experience very smooth
and that's what it does. Now my camera is illuminates G camera and we can see one
of the big features here. The reason why I'm able to get a blurred background is because this lens is a special
low aperture lens. That is a bit, it's
a bit expensive, but it basically allows
the background to be blurred in all of my videos, which makes it look a lot more professional than down
here you've got my tripod. Now I wanted to add
onto this class, you've just seen me give you all of my equipment
list that I've used over the last few years to build my channel and
grow my channel. When I first started out, I just simply filmed
videos on my iPhone. Then the further I
go into YouTube, and the more I realized
I wanted to do YouTube more is when I slowly started
to upgrade my equipment. Now on the process of
upgrading my equipment, I realized what's useful and I realized what makes
the most difference. And that is taken me
about three to four years to find out what
equipment is best. What sort of stuff do I need
to make the shot look good? All sorts of stuff? Do I need to make the audio sound good? And if you look at my videos
from a few years back, I didn't have a mic, I didn't
have a light behind me. I didn't have a blurred
background and stuff like this. As we said, our ultimate goal is to increase viewer retention. Having nice equipment by itself does not increase
viewer retention. For example, if I was
making a video and the background is very nice and it's very easy on the eye. It's very easy to watch. The audio quality is very
satisfying, It's very calm. Then a smoothly edited video as smoothly recorded video and a nice visually
appealing video is going to help you as stick around on your video for longer. So you can see that all of the equipment
I've given you today, I want you to look at
that and I want you to think if you're
serious about YouTube, is there a way without
obviously breaking your budget? Because some of this stuff
can get very expensive. I think get a similar sort
of setup where I've got some nice posters in the background which
reflects my personality. Because the more your
personality comes across, the better because
your YouTube channel is all about personality. Is there a way I can
freshen up the shop by maybe having a plant down there. Can I get a colored
light behind me? It allows there to
be a separation of distance between me
and the background. That distance behind you and the backdrop with the lights. That basically allows you to get a blurred
background and it allows the camera to realize that that's the
effect you're going for. So that is why I have
a light behind me. Obviously, I have softbox
lights on front of me so that my light,
my face is lit up. Then the audio quality, the tiger boom stand again, is one of the best
purchases that I've made because it was cheap. Basically allow
me see, I'm Mike, I already had even closer to me. And that improved the oracle
audio quality massively. But like I say, they are the
reasons why I've done it. And that's the reason why
in this class I've shown you my equipment
because it's taken me many years to get to
this level of equipment and a lot of trial and error
with different things. But having a nice backdrop that reflects your
personality is key. Having audio quality,
again, it just helps. So here's onscreen right now, my equipment list, if
you are interested in any of this equipment,
to take a look at it. And I hoped you enjoyed
this equipment class, but as I said, it will never hold you back
having normal equipment, you don't need expensive
equipment, but it helps.
5. How to Present Videos Like a Pro!: Welcome to class. For this class, I'm going to be talking to you about
presenting your videos because let's say I'm taking this from the basis that
you've got a video idea. You know, the video idea
itself is a good idea. It could even be a
Day in the Life. Then the live videos have a
lot of potential to pop off. Now, the way that you subsequently film
that day in the life, or it could even be a
sit down and talk video. You could be talking about
London house prices, for example, the way that
you film that video, and the way that you
present yourself and present the
ideas and the video makes such a big
difference when it comes to video and viewer retention. Now the easiest way to
kind of learn how to present videos is to keep practicing and keep
going and going. But I have myself quite
a few tips and tricks. Over the many years
I've been doing YouTube and I've even done a
masters in acting. So I am quite affiliated
with talking to the camera, figuring out how to be
engaging and so on. So let me give you
a few tips now, a few shortcuts to creating a very welcoming environment
and starting off the video in a nice
tone can be to simply start the video with a smile
and then talk to the camera. But trust me, stuff like this. You don't think about
it as a beginner, but it makes a huge difference. So then I'm assuming you've also got a video scripts
because as I said, my beginner classes always plan out your videos roughly so
you know what you're saying. But let's say once you've
got that video script down, you don't want to be talking to the camera the whole time at the same level because There's something exciting going on.
You would never know it. You have to really think about
what points in your video. I'll go into the very most exciting stuff
because you find the exciting stuff if you
get excited about it in the video that conveys
really well to the audience. So the more of an up
and down journey you have in your YouTube video when you're sitting
down talking, or even if you're vlogging, the more exciting it is
for the viewers to watch, the more exciting the video is, the more they're going
to watch the video. If you see something
unbelievable and you're telling your
audience members, though, I saw something
unbelievable. What I'm saying is just
because the camera's on, make sure you still have
your personality and you still have variation
in emotions. Then again, this is
even more advanced, but let's say once you're familiar with editing
YouTube videos, you've been filming
them for a long time. You know, small tips and tricks about what you're
gonna do in the edit. It might be a super tight up close up because
you're making a joke. So once you are familiar with editing and you've got a video and you're
presenting the video. Think about moments
that can be jokes. Think about moments that
can be funny or silly. And think about if you've got
a funny moment coming up, how are you going to react
to that funny moments? So for example, in my recent
video I was talking about, I'm not sure what symbol the
chance of that though I was doing when I graduated and
when I was doing that, I kind of knew that in
my head in the edit. I wanted to close up on my face. That point so that the
audience can really see what I was thinking
to make a gag of it. And you know, in the
midst of all that, thinking about the symbol and the mirroring of the symbol. When I went to doth my
captain, Chancellor, if you look closely, I was actually just grabbing thinner. Yeah, I got a bit carried away. I missed. So knowing that I wanted to
do that in post-production, I then have to make that gag funny when I'm
filming the video. So instead of being like
talking to the camera, so I graduated and I'm not
entirely sure what the chance to live
through I was doing instead of doing it like that, knowing that I wanted to
make a gag of it later down the line when I was filming
the video, I was like, I'm not entirely sure what
the charts with thought I was doing and just silly stuff like because I knew that
was gonna be a gag, I made sure to just
think about it like Anna do a funny voice and when
you're presenting the videos, this takes a lot of time, but thinking about the
funny side of things, well, where can I make jokes and lightheartedness of the
video is a key thing to do. But remember, you have to be yourself, you have
to be believable. Never push it too much
while you're too fake. But if you notice on YouTube, everybody on YouTube
who successful often has a larger
than life personality. A massive mistake
they'll all beginners make is that they often
rushed through the video and they don't give
them enough time to get tongue tied and embarrassed
and caught up in. The best thing to do is if
you're making a YouTube video, say a paragraph, say
what you need to say, and then stop, have
a little rest, and then carry on again
because as soon as you cut that rest out and
post, it looks sick. So right. Okay, That's another
class where again, you kind of learn by doing. It, takes time to learn. But now we're gonna move
on to the real meaty stuff which is hooks in videos, video editing,
thumbnails, title, tags.
6. Creating Video Hooks!! (KEY!): So welcome to a new
class, class five. Now, in my opinion, this class is the most
important one out there. The reason for this is that in this class
we're going to be taking a look at
Hooke's video hooks. Now as we said, video
retention is probably the key factor when the YouTube likes your
videos and things. Should I promote it or not? And obviously, the more
promotion YouTube videos, the higher chance of success. Now right now, we're going
to take a look at some of my successful videos that I've
made recently to include. So we can see right here,
here's all the videos I've made and recently I made to brutally honest
reviews as part of a series for
universities in the UK. Now pretty much the
former I have all of these videos is the
same by less take a look at both of
these hooks so we can see what her keys and I'll
break it down afterwards. Imperial College
Facilities tests. A lot of hard work is happening. This happened at LSE and it's happened again and I
actually can't believe. Let's move on to the
hook for the next video. The same, same style of video, same series, different
university review. Now, you've got the
library up there, which is the C library. I cannot believe the
first person there. So they wouldn't have facilities or take it in
London, top naught. So right there you've got
two very similar hooks. So what exactly is a hook? Now, as you can see, I'm pretty much the start of the video before anything
else has happened. Before I even say hello, I've got a mix and a montage of a few clips that are coming
up later on in the video. Now, all of these clips, they show that in the video there's going to
be made at the library. There's gonna be a means
of being students. They kind of give a small
summary of the whole video. They show you what's coming up in terms of location
and scenery. But for example, I
never finished or give my opinion about what I'm
talking about an eclipse. So in the LSE one was
like, Here's the library. And then I cut it. Before I gave my
opinion, I cut it. Then viewers know that I'm gonna be looking at the
library later and I'm gonna get my opinion that viewers
know that there's gonna be an interview this
dramatic because the person doesn't like LSE, but why doesn't he like LSE? The answer comes later
on in the video. So dN dS, the hook is all about setting up what's
coming later on in the video, dramatic music behind it, so that it creates
a bit of suspense, like what's going
on on my goodness, I've got coming up in the
bottom left-hand corner, which basically shows that, you know, something's coming up, something big's coming up. I also introduce
some new visuals, like I added text on the
screen, some texts highlights. And whenever you
add a new audio, new visuals and you're doing something
else on the screen. It just adds that kind
of bit of engagement, like without the text
on the screen here. For me, this doesn't work
nowhere near as well, but it does work very
well right here. And in both of these hooks, what I do is I show exactly what's coming up in the video is clear that I'm reviewing. The campus is clear
that I'm on the campus is clear that like
at the university, and hook is a fantastic way to draw people into your videos. So the real beauty of a video hook that essentially compliments
your thumbnails, your titles, and your script. It's the real beauty of
a video hook is that essentially it teases the viewer about what's coming
up in the video. And by seeing what
comes up in the video, often the viewers would be like, oh wow, that looks really cool. Oh yeah, that's why I clicked
on this video before. I know it's coming up
later on in the video, fine, I'll stick around for it. Whereas sometimes
if a viewer comes onto your video to learn
about, for example, university or the
library or something, or to learn how to do something. If you don't tease them with the final product and
the completed product, then they might go on this this video is taking ages
to get to the point. I'm not even sure if what I want to see is going
to come up later. Oh, there's a video
about some sharks. Let me just click that. The video hook is, is
a teaser is coming up. I'm in TV programs that
all these programs do it. And it's a great way
to maintain retention because as well a fact within the first 30 seconds of a video, that is when the majority of
you is click off your video. Every analytic will show a massive dip of the
first 30 seconds. That is what we're
trying to target here. And it works. Proof is in the pudding,
Mr. Beast, that it works. I've seen results myself. I definitely recommend doing it. How do you edit it? How do you go about
creating a good hook in Premiere Pro or any other software? The
formula is the same. Well, you know what,
I'm glad you asked, because I'm not going to
cover this in today's class because I have got a
dedicated class all about how to create
dramatic introductions to a YouTube video
in Premiere Pro. And it's this right
here, editing YouTube videos in Premier Pro. How to create, engaging in quality YouTube
videos plus content. This whole course is
dedicated to essentially allowing you to create hooks, video hooks, you can see
right here, what do I do? I get all of the content up, I arrange it, I made sure that I get all the
interesting stuff. And then as you can
see at the end here, are a little bit of color grade. I add some music to
make it dramatic. So I definitely
recommend if you've never created a hook before, go and watch this
class after this one, it will definitely
be worth your time.
7. Editing Engagement Tricks for YouTube Success: So welcome to class six. Now, in this class we
are going to be taking a look at other video
editing tricks that can really help boost
engagement and buying boosting engagement viewers
stick around for longer. And that obviously helps us
with our viewer attention. So obviously, as I was
saying earlier on, one of the main things
you have to get as high a viewer attention and a way
that I do this in my edit. And let's play a
bit. You'll be able to see us if I click Play. Look at that already.
Do you see it? There is a slow zoom on
happening there, right? Let's go back and play again. Look at this from
the very first clip. There is a slow zoom moving in towards my face and
what this does, and then straight away after
the Zoom kind of finishes, I cut back to the original
unedited and zoomed out clip, which obviously is
like a bit of a wall energy, energy shock. And at the same
time, I also say, I put Imperial College
London on the screen. Now I plop Imperial
College London up at exactly the
same time as I say, bearing those factors in mind. And then I pop up the logo. I had a little bubble pop sound. And then I'll zoom in again. Can you see how much energy
from the edit is coming in the very first thirty-seconds
of this video. Then I've got a light thing. It's actually quite
and then I zoom back out again, just take it. And then I'm, oh my goodness,
that I'm back into a bit of a joke which I planned,
as I said earlier, I plan this joke when I was filming the
video and I thought, okay, right, let me
do a funny voice. Let me do a silly impression. And then in the edit
I can kinda zoom in. So I deliberately look
away from the camera. I allow the Zoom In and post to make it black and white to put some screen **** some writing
on screen. Goodness me. But do you understand how that first minute of the
video for a minute right now, I've got the hook, I've got my intro, and
then I'm straight back in with this is the
setting of the video, but bam, energy cuts,
zooms, text, logos. I'm keeping the video so busy because in
today's day and age, our attention spans can
be quite short often, when you have a short
attention span, you need new stuff
popping up on the screen. You need lots going on. And by having lots going
on and keeps you engaged. So I'm now going to
play this intro. Remember we just looked at, remember it down to the
University Review Series today we aren't going to be
taking a look at and reviewing Imperial
College London. My goodness, it was intense. I don't know what it
is, but whenever I interview people at university, I always imagined it together. Like I like my UT, It's nice. It's true I recommend
coming here. I interview somebody
from Imperial. There was some
swearing involved. So straight away you can see as well how well I'm
doing the joke. I cut the music. If you're making a joke, a good way to show
that as a joke. If you've got background
music underneath your video, if you're making a joke
just so it's clear, cut out the music, make the joke, and then
back into the video. It's a very small,
smooth transition phase that took me years to
learn but works really well. So how do you do
this sort of thing? Now, as I said, this class is for intermediate
and advanced people. Every video editing
software is different. But I thought today in
this class I will show you the techniques of
what you need to do. So obviously, if you've edited a few
videos and Premier Pro, putting text up on
the screen is easy. Another cool thing that
makes it look nice is I've added, I've
changed the font. The font is slightly different. I've added a shadow to the text, which means it's got
a bit of a black around the, behind
it right there. Adding one word at a time makes a slight difference in terms of the energy because it's
like something new, something new, something new. Whereas if you added
everything at first, this at the same time, it wouldn't have
the same effect. So you can see how much
stuff is going on. I've told you exactly
what is going on. You've seen it. If you
don't feel like you have the video editing
skills to do this. Again, do not worry. I've got a one hour, 60
minute long video editing in Adobe Premiere Pro Course on my Skillshare. Please
check that out. I cover everything in that. But obviously in this
class we're taking it for granted that you know how
to edit sort of stuff. And you might be
thinking, Oh my goodness, that's going to take absolutely. Ages. I can't keep up. Yes. You're not wrong. That does take a long time. But the way I like
to view it is that in the first few
minutes of the video, that's when you really have to hook people into the video. See if you can
really put a lot of effort into the
start of the video. This is something
I've learned after many years of editing
and making videos. That they tend to, they stick around
for a bit longer and they give you
the intro is good. They're willing to stick around. For me. I put a lot of effort
into my intros. And then as I move on
throughout the videos, I still put effort into them, but less, for example, move to the last
half of the video. You'll see that realistically, there's no way I'm
going to get an ad now, but there's not as
much popping up on the screen.
There's less zooming. So a real key tip is to focus
all of your editing power, all of your editing energy on the first half of the video. And then the second
half you'll find that the people will probably
want to stay around anyway, or they probably want to leave. An editing won't change that. Whereas editing can really impact the first half
your video nicely.
8. YouTube SEO & Marketing! (KEY!): Okay, so now I want to take a look at descriptions, titles, thumbnails, and how they all intermingle in order to
make a successful video. We talked about video retention. We now know how to enter edit, make that video retention
higher when we've learned a lot of tips and tricks around and now we know why
it's important. We then set the ones the
video retention is high. Youtube will more than likely the algorithm starts
promoting your videos. Now, when they
promote your videos, you need a good
thumbnail and you need a good title so that people
click on those videos. So you can see right here, this is essentially what
a lot of people will see if you do the video
retention, right? It won't be on this page, but we'll be like
loads of videos, let's say all by
different people. And then what you're doing is competing for them to
click on your video. Now, the way that
you do this is with your thumbnail and your title because as you can
as you can see, they can only see your
title and thumbnail. Now, if I was to close
my eyes and reopen them, the one that I'm
drawn to most out of all of these
thumbnails right here is this LSC one purely because
of how colorful it is. It's got the logo
is big and red. It's got emojis that signify
what the video is about. So essentially, first up, let's look at matching up the video thumbnail to the title London School of Economics
and the thumbnail LSE graduate emoji book, emoji. And that matches up perfectly to brutally honest review of the
London School of Economics. So we've got the London
School of Economics and the title was key word, hence the big LSE logo. We've got my face
looking like I'm about to say something
looking a bit like, Well, this is my review, which matches again
up to the title. And then the truth
kind of adds a bit of, a bit of drama to
the whole scenario. If a viewer who's
clearly been looking at University content was
recommended this video. If they wanted to look about, they would instantly know
what the video is about. They would read the title and they're probably click
on it and they have done. That's why it's got 10
thousand views video up here, top right hand corner. The ultimate modern
desk setup for 2022. You go 1.5 K views. It didn't perform well. Why didn't this perform well? Now there's a few
different factors. Maybe it's the video
retention, maybe it's two, competitive in terms of everybody who makes
desk setup videos. One thing I noticed right away, and it was the aesthetic I
went for the time, the thumb. Now this doesn't
look impressive. The thumbnail looks
very plain and average. That doesn't work. They cannot be
averaged thumbnails, they have to be
more eye-catching. This was my mistake. I don't get it right
myself every time. Now, the ultimate
Modern Desktop, yes. The two are connected, but because this is
not top quality, thumbnail, the cat is
people, people's attention. It's been one of the
worst performing videos recent weeks. Now if we scroll down again, let's try and find
another example. We looked at this in the past,
my TLS videos done well. Again, why is it done well, because people look at this
thumbnail and they arise, got all these university logos. He looks a bit concerned. There's a tear list on the left. They know instantly what
the video is about and it matches up perfectly
to the title. And I've got me in there. It says in my opinion to list Tillis is on the left-hand side. So again, when
they match up like that and it's clear what's
happening in the video. People genuinely are more
likely to click on your videos. You're more than
likely going to have a higher click-through rate, which explains why he's
got a lot of views. So what I'm saying is, listen, you probably know how to make
thumbnails if you don't, again, I've got a course on
my channel, go look at it. My homebuilding, a whole
ecosystem of training people up into YouTube so that
let's say for example, I know I don't
want to put people through watching how to edit photos and how to edit videos when they
already know that, because this is an
advanced course, but feel free to
pause this course, go look at how to
make thumbnails for YouTube and then
come back to it. But now as we said earlier, titles key, thumbnails, key. But also what is key
is the description. Take a look at the top two
lines of this description before I get onto the COM
Skillshare sponsorship. Today I review Imperial
College London. Imperial is a top UK university. Very hard to get into. But what is imperial
really like? Why have I included that is sentence is so key
because listen, I've got the whole name
of the university, Imperial College London. I've got a top UK university. I've got UK university,
hard to get into. What's it like? Five to six key phrases
and words in there. And I've even got, I'm even addressing Imperial
College London questions that are
in search engines. If, for example, I search
Imperial College, London, Look, we've got Imperial
College London Review, Imperial College London, normally, Imperial
College London, vlog, campus to campus
tour, London tour. If we open up the
description box, again, all of those things
that are our top searches. Once you type in Imperial, what have I gotten this here? I've got our review,
Imperial College London. I give you a Campus Store
review of imperial. Look at Imperial
University Ranking. Speak to some imperial students. And this is all true stuff
that happens in the video. But because all of those factors that are in the search engine, that's what people
searched for most by including those search
terms inside my video. It also helps it rank higher
within the algorithm. Then when people are enticed
to click on my video, thanks to the title
and the thumbnail. They instantly know
thanks to the hook, that all of this stuff
they're looking for is definitely going
to be coming up in this video so they can sit back, relax, and watch my video. Again. Another great tool in
the description box, which is kinda more of a
recent thing, is again, breaking down your video by including timestamps
starting from 00 with short phrases about what that section
of the video is about. By doing this, again, it helps massively the ranking. And again, it's going to be
similar stuff to what you've put in your
description paragraph. I feel like student population
entry requirements, international
student population. It's all related to
the video is all truthful and it's not clickbait
and all of that titling, all of that metadata, it makes a big
difference between ranking in the
algorithm and not. So most definitely from all
your videos from now on. If you're looking to be
more successful on YouTube, include a breakdown with timestamps of what
your videos about. It will then appear up
here, as you can see, also include a description
with a paragraph, all with the key search phrases that come from the main
purpose of your video. So my purpose or my video is all about Imperial
College London. If I typed into
the search engine, I get all of these phrases. I then make sure
to include all of those phrases In this paragraph
here so that people know. And then I really
think about answering the most common
phrases that people search for in the very top
line of the description box. And if you couple all
of that together, you're on track for a
winning YouTube video and a successful
channel long term. Now I know this
has been a lot of information to take
in, a lot of talking, but trust me, do all of these
things I've said today, I've talked about
what you need to do. I've shown you how
to do a few of them, but on my Skillshare channel, I show you how to do
every single component I've talked about in
today's class, separately. Individually, so
they get more time, they get more dedication. But yeah, this has been
an intermediate class. Let's move on to
the class project.
9. The Class Project: Welcome to the class project. In this class, I would like you to create your own
YouTube video, but I want you to
think about all of the stuff you have learned
in today's course. So first up, when
you film your video, think about all of the
things we've talked about making the
backdrop very nice. Thinking about energizing
certain parts of the video and thinking about
potential cuts in the edit. The more you think about the
edit when you're filming, the easier your life becomes and the more creative your ideas get and the more
creative your ideas are, ultimately, the more unique your gonna be on YouTube and the more you're going to stand out. Secondly, think about how
you're going to edit the video. Think about what parts of the
video when you're filming, you can include in the hook. So you might decide to say a certain line when
filming the video, knowing that when you edit it, you're going to
include that line in the hook at the
start of the video. And that hook is
really what's going to help drive viewer retention up. And then finally, think about the synchronization
between your titles, descriptions, and
thumbnails when you're uploading your
video to YouTube. Like we said, they should all be very similar and related, but they should all target
slightly different groups of people so that somebody is gonna get drawn
in by the title. Some people are gonna get
drawn in by the thumbnail, and some people are gonna get drawn in by the description. But once they're drawn in there, all happy because all
of the elements they've been drawn by over in the video. So once you have
made your video, please send a link down below in the class projects section. I will then give
you some feedback, some honest feedback
about what you did well, what you can do better, and what I think would really
work for your channel, especially if you've got
videos up there already. So please do that and I look forward to seeing
all of your videos. And I also help that
all of the stuff in today's class was very helpful if you're
looking for more detail, I would recommend
that before you make your video for
the class project, have a browse on my channel. Maybe I've skimmed
over a few things here that I think
beginners should know, but maybe you haven't, you
don't know them fully yet. So take a look at my channel and there's some more detailed
courses where I cover a lot of stuff that beginning YouTubers I think
definitely need to know, but I look forward to
seeing your videos. Let's jump onto the next one. But I look forward to
seeing your videos.
10. Well Done & Thank you!: Well done. You've
made it through this entire course and it's not easy learning all this new stuff when you're starting
out on YouTube, because YouTube takes a lot
of work to get it right. It takes years. Some people, of course they get lucky and
they blow up straight away. But others is years and
years of hard work. And I think by
taking this class, it shows you a dedicated, it shows you want to learn more. And I think in the long run, rather than fearing all of
this stuff out yourself, you're much better
off turning to courses like these and
classes like these, where I've been through the same processes
as you basically, I've learned firsthand all of this stuff that I wish
I'd known when I first started out along a
five-year journey and I'm giving it to you right now and it's going to save
you a lot of time. So trust the process. You are doing fantastic, Well done on completing
today's course. If you get stuck at any point, then please do comment down below in the discussion board, I am more than happy
to help you out. I'm more than happy
to give you advice. And again, please
do go and check out my other courses
on the channel. I've got a whole one
dedicated to editing videos in Adobe
Premiere Pro 2022. It's an hour and a half long, but it's a fantastic course. I put a lot of effort into it. And it's really about how I edit my videos and a lot of detail. This the same for thumbnails. I've got a whole dedicated
thumbnail course. I talk exactly about
how I go about logically thinking
of what thumbnails to make and how I edit them. And then the same for writing videos scripts today we only talked about it very briefly, but I've got a whole
dedicated course on writing videos, scripts. And if you digest all
of that information, the entry standard for
my YouTube courses, you then apply all of the video retention skills
we've learned today. You are gonna be on a very, very good path to build a
sustainable long term channel. Nothing is ever
guaranteed on YouTube, but there are certain
things you can do to give yourself the best chance
of being successful. And you've done it
today, so well done. I hope to see you in a
class very soon. Take care.
Dylan Reeves-Fellows ⭐️, YouTuber & Professional Editor
