Most people believe that uploading a video to YouTube is as easy as going to the site and clicking upload. However, if you want to grow your channel and bring in new viewers, this is not the case.
Clicking upload is just the beginning, and for that reason, I am going to walk you through exactly how to upload your video and set it on track for success.

1. The Title
This is the first thing that people will see when they find your video in a search engine or in their subscription box. When choosing a title, you need to focus on a two specific things.
1) You need to make sure that the title of the video that you post is relevant to whatever is going on in the video. For example, don’t post a video about starting a Minecraft server and have the actually topic of the video be about whether or not you are going to get Titan Fall. That is a misleading title, and not only is it against the YouTube terms of service, it will only make viewers mad and hurt your channel.

2) Your video’s title must have keywords that you want to rank for within it. For example, let’s say that you made a video on “How To Start A Minecraft Server,” and you want to make your video rank in search engines for “How To Start A Minecraft Server.” It would only make since that your title would include that phase. That being said, including other keywords in your title can also be very beneficial. An example title for this video could be “How To Start A MInecraft Server For Free.” With this title, you are not just including your root phrase, but you are including an additional keyword phrase of “Start A Minecraft Server For Free.”

2. The Thumbnail
While the title may the first thing that people see, the video’s thumbnail will be the second. For this reason, the thumbnail must be appealing. Making a good looking thumbnail can be very difficult, and every YouTuber has a different thumbnail style. For example, Patrick and myself have completely different thumbnail styles. Patrick has a more slim and simplistic thumbnail while I have a more in your face and colorful. The thumbnail style that you choose is truly up to you, but make sure it looks good and is up to the industry standard. Look at other YouTuber’s thumbnail styles and see what is working for them and try to replicate it in Photoshop or Gimp whichever photo editing software you choose to use.

3. The Description
A video’s description is important because of it’s SEO ability. SEO, for those of you that do not know, stands for search engine optimization. The description is important in this regard as it needs to have a brief two or three line, well, description about the video that you have uploaded. This description needs to let those who want to watch your video know exactly what your video is going to be about, and it needs to go more in-depth than the title does. An example, keeping with our “How To Start A Minecraft Server For Free” video is this: In this video, I am going to be teaching you how to start your very own Minecraft server for 100% free.” That is a simple, brief description of what the video is going to be about, and it let’s your viewers know exactly what they are getting into when they click your video. Additionally, it contains keywords that we are trying to rank for. This is where the SEO comes in. That brief description includes keyword phrases such as, “Start A Minecraft Server”, “Start Your Very Own Free Minecraft Server”, and “Start a 100% Free Minecraft Server”. These are all keywords we are trying to rank for, and including them in our brief description of the video will only help. The tags that you put on your video will also be placed at the bottom of your description.

4. The Tags
Speaking of tags, that is what we are moving on to now. Tags are very important to your video ranking in search engines. If you don’t tag a video you may as well have not uploaded it. Tagging is very subjective and everyone does it differently. I recommend starting broad and working your way out. I have put an example of how I would tag the “How To Start A Minecraft For Free Video” we have been using in this tutorial.

Example Tags:
how to start a minecraft server, how to start a free minecraft server, how to start your very own minecraft server, how to start a minecraft server for you and your friends, a quick and easy tutorial on how to start a minecraft server, the best way to start a minecraft server for free, start your very own free minecraft server, tutorial on how to start a free minecraft server, how to start a minecraft server for 100% free, minecraft tutorial, minecraft server tutorial, minecraft tutorial on how to start a server

If you look at the tags above, you will notice that I start with the narrow keywords that I am trying to rank for and then start to work my way to more broader keywords. I do this because this is the method that has worked best for me. That being said, everyone tags videos differently, and I encourage you to experiment and play around with different tagging methods. Now, all you have to do to be done with tags is copy and paste them into your description and you are good to go!

5. Making Your Video Public
Now that you have done all of the work above, you are ready to public your video. That being said, done consider the uploading process done yet. You need to still need to decide when exactly the best time to upload your video is. Try posting videos at different times of the day and see what time your current subscriber current subscriber base likes best. I can not give you any more gudiance on this except to try different times and see what works best because every audience is different, and you have to find the time that works better for your audience. That being said, you are good to publish your video, and it is set and ready to go to get traffic long after that first rush from your subscriber.