In 2025, this channel got me 10. 5 million views, over 640,000 hours of watch time, 240,000 subscribers, and an obscene amount of money. But 2026 is a year where everything changes for YouTubers.
Whether you have a small channel or a big channel, growth is going to get so much harder, and it's going to require all of us to do things very differently. So, in this video, I'm going to fire off 18 of my best YouTube lessons that you're going to need to take with you if you want to grow your channel in 2026. Let's get straight into it.
Lesson number one, never get involved in subscriber threats. All right, so first of all, you've probably noticed a lot of small creators showing up in the comments of videos asking each other to subscribe to their channels. Maybe you've even done this yourself.
Now, look, I get it. Trying to get some quick and easy subscribers sounds tempting. But the thing is, your channel will never succeed by doing this.
This is because those people who get involved in those subscriber threads don't actually care about you or your channel, and they're never going to watch any of your content either. So, if you have loads of these uninterested subscribers on your channel or if you have loads of people subscribing and then unsubscribing all the time, the algorithm will assume that your content is poor quality and it will never push your videos out. So, if you are going to subscribe to people, you should only ever subscribe to people in your niche or people who you're genuinely interested in.
Getting involved in those subscriber threads is only going to hurt your channel in the long run. So, my advice, stay well away from them. Lesson number two, your introductions need to be a punch in the face.
Now, the first 10 to 20 seconds of your video is everything. And if you don't get it right, your whole video fails. And I see so many small channels out there starting their videos with things like, "Oh, hey guys, welcome back to the channel.
" And they just take like ages to get to the point, like to the point of the actual video. Look, people do not care who you are yet. And they don't care about long and boring introductions either.
They only care about one thing, what's in it for them. So, your intro should always be straight to the point. You need to tell people exactly what they're going to get and give them a reason to stay.
It should literally feel like a punch in the face. Stop them in their tracks and demand their attention. If you don't hook them in early, it doesn't matter how good the rest of your video is because they're never going to see it.
Lesson three, spend most of your time thinking of ideas. As Mr Beast said, "YouTube is an ideas business. Great videos start with great ideas.
So, I would suggest you spend multiple hours every single week focusing solely on just thinking of new video ideas. " Now, it took me a long time to realize that the best creators out there don't just wait for great ideas to come to them. They actively go out and find them.
They're constantly searching for like new trends, looking at their competitors, and testing out different concepts. Now a strong video idea is the foundation of everything on YouTube and my entire creation process is now idea then title thumbnail and then I create the video. The idea always has to come first as this creates the overall package then the title thumbnail then I'll do the video.
Lesson four optimize for humans not algorithms. Now I don't know why but most small YouTubers I know love to obsess over the complexity of the algorithm. like they find it so easy to blame the algorithm if a video flops or if a short goes viral.
Like everything just seems to be the algorithm's fault. But one of the biggest turning points of my YouTube career was when I swap the word algorithm with the word audience because it's not the algorithm that sits behind a phone watching a video. It's people.
It's not the algorithm that hits the like button and leads to happy comment. It's people. So instead of trying to please the algorithm all the time, you should only ever be trying to please people.
Lesson five, missing an upload won't kill your channel. Look, being consistent with your uploads is obviously the best thing for YouTube growth, but missing one video will not destroy your channel. I promise you, if you miss an upload once in a while, it's totally fine.
The world is not going to end. Like there's way too many people out there who think that if you miss a video one week that the algorithm is just going to penalize them or their audience will just unsubscribe and forget about them. But that is simply not true.
The algorithm will never penalize you for missing a posting day. That's a total myth. So if you do miss a day or if you do miss a video, don't worry about it.
You're fine. Just go again the next week. Lesson six.
You need to think of at least 10 different titles per video. Now, as I've already mentioned before, your titles and thumbnails are the most important part of every video you'll ever post. So, when it comes to drafting your title ideas, you should be creating or thinking of at least 10 different versions of the same title per video.
Like, never just think of like one title and stick with it because if you do that, I guarantee that you're missing out on thousands of views as a result. Now, look, I know that writing multiple title variations can be daunting and it's hard work, but it actually allows you to find the most compelling one. Now, I always personally just like get a list and then ask my friends which title is best or you can even get chat GBT to pick the best one out for you and that's all done for free.
Lesson seven, YouTube is a transactional relationship. What I mean by this is viewers pay creators with their time and in return they expect value. So for viewers to give you their time and attention, they're always after some sort of value in return.
Now the three main types of value that creators can give through their videos on YouTube are education, entertainment, and information value. Now, you need to understand that viewers have infinite choices of things to watch on YouTube. So if at any point your viewers feel like their time isn't being well spent when they watch your video, they will simply click off your video and then go and seek value elsewhere.
So, you just need to make sure that you every single video you ever post provides the specific value that your viewers are looking for. Lesson eight, you don't own your audience. YouTube does.
This is one of the most uncomfortable truths about being a creator, especially on YouTube. But it's something you need to understand early. Your subscribers are not your audience.
They're actually YouTube's audience. Right now, your entire following exists on a platform you don't control. And if the algorithm changes or if your views die out or your whole channel gets restricted or even if your channel gets hacked, you risk losing everything you built overnight.
Now, most new YouTubers have absolutely no way of reaching their audience outside of YouTube. And that should really concern you because if something ever happened to your channel tomorrow, you would have literally no way to contact all of those people who've been supporting you. Like no emails, no platform, nothing.
That's why building your own website outside of YouTube and an email list early is so powerful. A website gives you something YouTube never will, ownership. It allows you to collect emails, sell your own products, host online courses, land brand deals, and grow a real brand outside of just like uploading videos.
So, even if YouTube disappeared tomorrow, you would still have a way to directly contact your audience. Now, look, I know that building a website sounds complicated to most people, especially if you're just starting out, but that's exactly why today's sponsor, Hostinger, makes it so easy. With Hosting as AI website builder, you can create a fully professional, customizable website in literally under a minute.
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Lesson nine, create more than you consume. This is the single biggest factor that separates the most successful people and the least successful people. If you want to become a successful creator, you have to create an immense amount of content.
Like that's literally the whole point. So if you're there just wasting hours each day just scrolling and consuming other people's content, you are never going to grow. Like every hour you spend watching other people's content is an hour you could have spent creating your own content for other people to watch.
So stop scrolling and start creating. Nobody ever got reached by doom scrolling shorts all day. I promise you.
Lesson 10. Stop obsessing over views, likes, and shares. If you really want to grow your channel in the long run, you need to stop focusing so much on views, likes, and shares at the beginning.
Look, I know this sounds crazy, but trust me, those are not the metrics that move the needle at this stage. There are only three data points you should be tracking if you want to go viral and grow fast in the long run. And I call them the big three.
Number one, your click-through rate. This is how many people clicked on your video after seeing it pop up on their home feed. It shows how much interest your video is generating and is directly tied to your title and thumbnail.
If you improve this metric, you'll naturally improve everything else, including your views as a result. Now, in terms of what a good click-through rate is, 2 to 5% is average, but okay for new channels. 5 to 10% is good and what small channels should be aiming for.
And anything above 10% you're absolutely killing it. And that tells YouTube your content is highly clickable. Then two, we have average view duration.
This is how much of your video people actually watch in one sitting. Look, YouTube is a business. It wants people to stay on the platform for as long as possible so it can show as many ads to people as possible.
So your job is to keep people watching for as long as possible. So if you can get like a 40 to 70% average view duration, that's great. But if you get anything less than like 20% though, YouTube will restrict your video.
And finally, we have number three, AVPV, average views per viewer. This basically tells you how many videos each viewer is watching on your channel. A one AVPV means a viewer is watching just one video and then clicking away.
But anything above one, like a 1. 2 or a two, means people are watching more than one video at a time on your channel. And YouTube and the algorithm love this metric.
They want to see people binge watching your content. So, please just focus on these three metrics and you'll give YouTube and the algorithm exactly what it wants. Forget the materialistic metrics like views and subscribers at the start and focus on these ones.
Lesson 11. Your titles and thumbnails are the most important part of your video. Most pretty much all small YouTubers will make a video first and then think about the title and thumbnail afterwards.
But that is completely wrong. Your title and thumbnail are your packaging, like your concept. And your video should always be designed around that concept, not the other way around.
A strong title is something that sparks curiosity, and a high-quality thumbnail is something that stops people from scrolling. Now, if you don't make them good enough, it doesn't matter how good the rest of your video is, nobody will see it if nobody clicks in the first place. So, always make sure you create your titles and thumbnails before you create your video.
Lesson 12. Stop comparing yourself to other YouTubers. It's so easy to focus on those lucky few channels that seem to go viral overnight and see instant success.
But those guys are the exception, not the rule. Now, to put it into perspective, there are over 100 million active channels on YouTube, and 99% of those will never succeed. And the fact that you're here watching this video right now means you're doing far better than most people already.
Look, YouTube is a very long and hard business to succeed in. So, stop wasting time comparing yourself to others and focus your time on your own journey. I promise you, you will get there soon.
Lesson 13, leverage what already works. One of the highest leveraged things you can do to grow your channel is to clip your best performing long form videos into multiple shorts. This means you can create multiple bits of content from just one video.
And it's going to help the algorithm to learn who your content is for much faster and bring in views at a much better scale. And instead of manually creating clips yourself, tools like Nexus Clips lets you upload long form videos and they will automatically pull out the best hooks and the best segments and then make five viral shorts from one single video. So that means your best videos will keep driving growth without any extra work.
Lesson 14, ignore negative comments. Look guys, social media is absolutely full of insufferable trolls. But think of it this way, you will only ever get hate from people who are doing less than you.
Plus, look, more often than not, the loudest critics or the biggest trolls in the room are often the ones who are most unhappy or underachieving in life themselves. So, responding to hate comments and engaging with negativity is a total waste of your time. Avoid it at all costs.
Just keep focusing on yourself and focusing on creating good content. The more successful you get, the more hate you'll get. That's the unfortunate truth.
So, learning to ignore negativity early on is an absolute must. Lesson 15. Don't quit your job too soon.
Look, I get it. Most of you hate your job and you're probably looking for the earliest opportunity to quit work and never see that miserable office again. And that should be your ultimate goal.
But my advice, keep your job until your YouTube income is at least stable. Too many people quit their jobs way too early and they end up struggling. YouTube success does not happen overnight.
And trust me when I say financial stability is key. So I always recommend keeping your job for now so that you can focus on building your channel with less pressure on money. In my honest opinion, you should only quit your job when you're at the stage where YouTube pays you enough money each month that consistently covers all of your bills and more.
Lesson 16, prioritize quality over quantity. Being a new YouTuber, I know that it's tempting to try and upload as much content as possible to try and get the most amount of views and subscribers as possible, but uploading more videos isn't always the best strategy. Instead, you should focus on creating highquality, valuepacked videos that your audience are going to love.
Like, just one single really well-designed video that provides a ton of value is far more effective than uploading several lowquality, like loweffort ones. Quality content will build trust with your viewers and encourage them to come back for more. Lesson 17, make your content searchable.
YouTube isn't just about creating great content. You also need to make sure that every video is actually discoverable. Like you need to make sure that people can actually find your content when they search for it.
So spend a ton of time on your SEO. Optimize your video titles, your descriptions, your tags, your hashtags, and even your captions. Use relevant keywords to help YouTube's algorithm understand what your videos about and who it should show it to.
Now, the more searchable and optimized your videos are, the more likely they're going to get discovered by people who are genuinely interested in your videos. Now, SEO may seem like a small task. To some of you, it may seem like a hard task.
But I trust me when I say it's an absolute gamecher for expanding your reach. Now, if you don't know what SEO is or how to do it properly, watch this video afterwards where I go into all the detail you're going to need. But finally, lesson 18, invest in a YouTube growth course.
Look, I know that buying an online course isn't for everyone, and that's okay. But the reality is learning from people who have already figured out is the biggest cheat code to success on YouTube. And the people who don't invest in themselves are usually the ones who struggle for the longest.
Now, I've spent literally thousands of dollars on different courses. And that's what has allowed me to grow this channel in record time and make more money on YouTube than I ever thought was possible. So now I've released my own YouTube Wealth Academy.
I've been building this course over the last 12 months and I've condensed every single thing I've ever learned about YouTube into this course. Now, I'm taking the YouTube education space to the next level. So, if you're interested in the course, join up using the YouTube Web Academy in the link in the description.
But if you're not ready to invest in yourself yet, which is fine, YouTube thinks that this video here is the perfect one for you to watch next. I'll see you there.
