If you’re having trouble getting views and subscribers on your gaming channel I’m here to help. I’m going to share 10 tips on how to grow your YouTube gaming channel fast in 2016.
Now I ran a poll on Twitter asking whether I should make this post and the result at the time of me recording this was 48% yes and 52% no. Well, I’m not going to listen to Twitter because I have a burning desire to make this post. Every day I’m sent links to Youtube channels and every day I throw up a little bit in my mouth at the terrible unorganised channels I see with no sense of direction. This video is a public service, but it’s also a selfish post. I don’t want to see such crappy YouTube channels ever again. So I want to pass on the knowledge that I have amassed from my time on YouTube to you guys. I know that most people are lazy and won’t take any of this advice or act on anything in this post so I’m cool with sharing my secret sauce so to speak.
I’ve got around 8,550 subscribers at the time of writing this post and I’m getting over 100k views a month. I’m growing pretty steadily and although I’ve still got a relatively small channel, I think I can help a lot of your channels out, especially if you’re just starting out.
So let’s get into it:
1. Focus Your Channel On Making Tutorial Videos And Tip Videos
Firstly, if you have a low amount of subscribers, e.g. less than 20k, then focus your channel on tip videos, tutorials and reviews. You can focus on whatever game you like as long as it’s mildly popular, but we’ll get into that later.
Tutorials, tip videos and reviews are what we call hygiene content. This is content that will draw people into your channel. People actively search for things like “what is the best gun in Call of Duty”, most people are not searching for “CyborgCockroach’s Call of Duty Black Ops 3 Story Walkthrough Part 9”.
Let’s plays and gaming commentaries are great content for existing subscribers, but they are near enough useless at attracting new subscribers unless you’re posting a let’s play of a new game and you’re posting it early. To put it bluntly, if you have 23 subscribers and you’re posting let’s plays and gaming commentaries, nobody will care. There’s a slim chance of you being discovered by new people this way and it’s pretty much a waste of time.
I’ve got tip videos and tutorial videos that have over 100k views, but on normal gaming commentary videos I’m lucky to break a thousand views.
2. Pick A Game That’s Mildly Popular
Right now my channel is focused on EA Sports UFC 2 and I’ve done that for 2 reasons. First of all I love the UFC games. I’ve loved them ever since I played UFC undisputed in like 2009, so focusing on this game is fun for me. I enjoy every video I make about the game as I really enjoy the franchise. Secondly, I got it when it came out (which was about two months ago), so it was mildly popular. Nowhere near as popular as Call of Duty or Minecraft, but those games have a bunch of big YouTubers playing them already so the competition is wild. There’s not nearly as many channels covering UFC 2 and that gives me a good chance to be discovered. And because I’m making helpful tip videos and tutorials at such a rapid pace, I have a good chance to be the go to channel for tips and tutorials on UFC 2. Think about it this way – it’s much better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond.
And make sure it’s a game you like. If you like it, you’ll make much better content and you’ll be excited to do so. If you’re not having fun, you’ll probably end up burning out and quitting. Being on YouTube is hard work when you do it right and if you want to be successful, so it needs to be hard work that you enjoy.
3. Turn Your Subscribers Into Fans
Livestream or do gaming commentary videos to showcase your personality and build a relationship with your subscribers. This is called hub content. You can also do vlogs and that, just make content that showcases you so your subscribers can connect to you.
4. Create Playlists
90% of the time when I click on someone’s YouTube channel that’s sent to me, it looks like complete and utter crap. A big reason for this is they aren’t utilising playlists. If your channel just consists of your uploaded videos from way back when you need to change that asap. It looks unprofessional and it’s hard for anyone to see what your channel is about. All they know is that you’re an amateur or – even worse – you don’t care enough to be organised.
Create playlists for every game you play at the least. You can also segment those games into other playlists based on the series you’re doing.
Also make sure you actually put these playlists on your channel so people can quickly navigate through your channel. You don’t want to make it difficult for people to find something that they like because a lot of people are lazy and will just leave your channel.
5. Create Channel Art
If you don’t have channel art, your channel looks like you just started it. Even if you did just start your channel, you don’t want it to look like that. A new viewer might come to your channel and think “Well, no point subscribing to this guy, he just started on YouTube, how do I know he’s not gonna quit in two weeks?” If you want to be a big YouTuber, present yourself like one, work as hard as one. Make sure your channel art lets viewers know what to expect from your channel. Communicate your value proposition and what kind of content you make in your art so people can quickly know if your channel is for them. Check out my channel art as an example and the channel art of other YouTubers you like.
You can make channel art real easily using an online service like Canva.
6. Be Consistent
Create a video schedule or a livestreaming schedule and stick to it. Make sure you come up with a schedule that you can keep up though; don’t try to post or stream everyday at first. I’d suggest you go for no less than posting some sort of content 3 times a week at least (meaning videos or streaming sessions). Any less and your channel is probably gonna grow at a snail’s pace and I doubt that’s what you want. Pick a schedule that works for you, I post new videos on Tuesday and Thursday and I livestream every day from 7pm to 12am except for Thursdays and Sundays. That schedule works for me, but it might not work for you.
7. Use Tags Effectively
Tags are super important when it comes to getting your video to rank higher on YouTube. When I first started actually using tags, I looked at what big YouTubers were doing and basically copied their strategies. But then I learned that what most of the big YouTubers were using tags super ineffectively but because they were already big and had loads of subscribers it didn’t matter. It does matter for me though. The suggested tags that YouTube feed to you are trash. Don’t put the tag ‘video game’ and ‘PlayStation 4’ on your video. It’s a waste of space. Who do you know that types in action adventure game into the search bar on YouTube when they’re searching for Metal Gear Solid gameplay? Not a lot I bet. And that’s one of the suggested tags that I was given when I was uploading Metal Gear Solid V videos. Instead, what you want to do is focus on long form key phrases that people are actually going to search for. Let’s say you make a video on how to block transitions in EA Sports UFC 2 (that’s actually one of my videos – plug alert). Instead of entering tags like “EA Sports UFC 2” and “how to block transitions”, enter “EA Sports UFC 2 how to block transitions”. You’re much more likely to rank for longer search terms than shorter ones and when someone enters that exact phrase, your video is more likely to come up.
8. Use Descriptions properly
Think about what keyword phrase you want to rank for and include that in the beginning of your description. I also include the title of my video in the description and some promotional links. This is important too, but more important is getting that key phrase in your description so you can rank highly.
9. Use Titles properly
Structure your titles effectively. Use punctuation and find a style that’s right for you. You need to try and come up with titles that will grab your viewer and explain exactly what’s going to be in the video. Put some thought into your titles and try to focus on a search term or key phrase. Include the game name and whatever you’re showing in that particular video e.g. Fallout 4 – How To Change Your Appearance (If Dr Crocker is Dead). This title has the game name in it and it tells you exactly what I’m going to be showing you. It’s very specific.
10. Use Twitter
Twitter is a great resource for you to connect with other YouTubers, connect with your fans and promote your content. Don’t just spam people though. Post interesting things on your timeline and, in addition to that, post your videos.
If you want help with building your Twitter account, gaining followers and staying active in order to get more fans and subscribers, I offer a Twitter marketing service that is paid. Check out my portfolio and contact me if you’re interested.
That should be more than enough information to allow you to start growing your channel much more effectively. If you want any more tip videos or more information on any topics I’ve gone over in this post, leave a comment down below and make a suggestion for another post and I’ll try to get to as many as possible.
Please share this post as much as you can to help anyone else with a gaming channel.
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