welcome creator to the big youtube adventure the problem is you're doing it all wrong which is probably why you're getting frustrated already so let's bin off some of those rookie youtube mistakes you're making and point you in the right direction which is over here one of the biggest challenges small creators face on youtube is getting discovered and to explain what i mean by this i'm gonna use this not so frozen p that's you right there and the only reason you can see it is because i told you where it is so at this stage every
single opportunity you have to get discovered on youtube is crucial and that in very basic terms starts with impressions whenever you see the front cover or thumbnail of a video that counts as an impression and obviously the goal is to convince the viewer to click on your video amongst all of these competing video thumbnails now unfortunately for you as a small creator you have two challenges that you need to overcome first of all you've got a youtube problem it doesn't have that much data on your channel and you have no authority in the algorithm i
like to call this the recommendation system so youtube's going to be pretty stingy when it comes to handing out impressions on your behalf and then you've got an audience problem people don't know who you are and people don't care who you are because they have no familiarity with your content yet so when your thumbnail is put up against a another thumbnail from a creator the viewer is already familiar with then if they enjoy that content they're more likely to choose that because they know what they're getting into ultimately the impression and the click is the
journey every viewer must go through to start watching one of your videos which means it's absolutely crucial to get those two aspects right and that is the first very common youtube rookie mistake not spending long enough on your thumbnail and your title and i don't want you to feel bad about this because everybody does it you put your heart and soul into making the video and by the time you get to uploading it and thinking about a title and a thumbnail you're so exhausted that you just whip something together in five minutes and press public
so going forward when it comes to youtube thumbnails i want you to apply these two strategies however long you spend on making your thumbnails be it five minutes ten minutes an hour i want you to spend twice as long on the next five thumbnails that you make and on top of that however complicated your thumbnail is i want you to make it half as complicated for the next five thumbnails there's also a third strategy that you can apply but i appreciate that for some of you that may be a step too far just now but
if you're willing to try it make the thumbnail and the title before you even start the video because here's a crazy logic that many of us apply to content creation the first thing that everybody sees your title and your thumbnail is the thing you make last doesn't make any sense does it and to ensure i practice what i preach this is the title and thumbnail of this video until i panic and change everything and now after it goes public all right then we've got two fun little games to play with you remember that small not
so frozen p that was representing your channel it's moved to another part of the frame can you find it let us know in the comments below secondly and more importantly we're gonna do a quick thumbnail test two thumbnails are gonna appear on screen and all you need to tell me is which one you would click on and why ready go yeah i didn't give you along there did i but it was still more than enough time to pick a thumbnail right that's because studies show users spend on average 1.8 seconds considering each thumbnail on netflix
and when you factor in that youtube shows more thumbnails and gives the user even more choice they're probably spending even less time on each thumbnail and that's because humans can process images very very quickly but the more complex a thumbnail is in terms of colors elements objects and storytelling the longer it takes to process that image and once you can explain why you would click on this thumbnail rather than this thumbnail you can start making better thumbnails yourself now then titles usually once a thumbnail has done enough to grab someone's attention they will look to
the title for more context the best titles complement the thumbnail rather than repeating them and they create intrigue in order to demonstrate what i mean i'm going to use the most clicked on thumbnail we've published on the vid iq channel in the last couple of months this thumbnail is pretty simple and emotionally evocative but what takes it to the next level of intrigue is the title it defines a target audience new or small channels with an enticing mystery is this youtube gifting 50 free subscribers to everybody or something i can do when i hit 50
subscribers regardless i either have 50 subscribers or i'm close to that target i need to find out what this is all about and of course if you do want to find out what this video is all about then i'm afraid you'll have to go and watch it i ain't telling you but what i will tell you is the click-through rate i'm going through an experiment right now of tracking the fine detail of video performance and i'm recording a click-through rate of my videos in the first 1 3 6 12 and 24 hours of a video's
life cycle now am i telling you that 13.8 click-through rate after the first hour and 7 after 24 hours is a good number no not in a slightest what i am telling you is that these numbers are great for our channel that's another rookie mistake that so many creators made searching for that golden analytical number that doesn't exist and you don't have to go into the same insane detail i have on a vid iq channel just use this panel on the youtube studio dashboard and it will show you if your titles and thumbnails are getting
better now for all of you pee hunting enthusiasts never thought i'd say that in a vidiq video it's moved again can you find it for all of you youtube rookies looking for guidance let's carry on because we need to know what happens next beyond the thumbnail and title and it's pretty obvious actually people will start watching your video and the key word in that sentence is start watching the video because let's be honest hardly anybody finishes watching a video in fact you lose tons of viewers in the first few seconds it's pretty demoralizing if just
three percent of those who click on your video get through to the end right but that's not what you should be worrying about until you fix this the first 30 seconds of your video the dreaded hockey stick decline in viewers the more viewers who leave at the start of a video the greater the disconnect between what was promised in the thumbnail and title and what was delivered at the beginning of the video now there are three main rookie mistake reasons as to why this happens first we have branded intros come on come on come on
they just stop everything dead and overlook fancy anova can be very sharp but let me ask you this how often do you pay attention to a video intro on a channel after you've seen it once it's just another barrier to the value of the content and recently i proved just how damaging a video intro can be even if it's two seconds long so make sure to check out that video if you want secondly after the branded intro we have the channel intro this is where the creator introduces themselves the channel what they generally do on
the channel and why you should subscribe too the problem is the video hasn't justified any reason why the viewers should do that yet so to begin with always start off strongly by delivering some of the promise made in the thumbnail and the title if you wanted to introduce yourself properly you can do that one or two minutes in once the viewer has got value and they've settled into the content a little bit more and finally the beginning of a video just doesn't give enough reasons to the viewer to stick around until the end this can
be done by teasing a climactic moment in the video that's going to be paid off much later or showing the final finished product of something that you will get to if you continue watching the video or having a secondary hook like this tiny shriveled up pee and granted i know that was a pretty weak one but i'm still playing around with these secondary hooks now i don't know if you've noticed this but there has been a theme throughout these rookie mistakes to encourage you to do something and that is to front load your creative efforts
we all have a finite amount of time energy and resources so let me explain it like this start spending 50 or more of your time energy and resources on your thumbnail title and the beginning of your video the first 30 seconds to a minute those are the things that have the biggest impact on the success of a video and once you figure out them you can get onto the other stuff as for other rookie mistakes well there is one monumental subscriber error that almost every single creator commits and if you want to know what that
is start watching right now
