Everybody extols the benefits of having a YouTube channel, but when an amateur builds a channel from scratch they wind up seeing less than exciting results in most cases. Here’s the typical scenario:

You hope you’re going to slap a few videos up and one will luckily surpass a million views, instantaneously launching your site and brand into overnight stardom. Sadly, after a few uploads you’re depressed to see that your videos are only getting a few hundred to a few thousand views at most. The ad revenue is almost non-existent in the beginning and few if any of your viewers are actually converting into customers. The channel is left abandoned and never improved upon.

Fortunately, all channels don’t fall victim to such unfortunate outcomes. With the tips below in mind you stand a much better chance of being a YouTube success story rather than just another barely noticed channel lost in a sea of failed attempts:

1. Be Great and Unique – A Channel is Only as Good as Its Content

First and foremost, your content needs to be something that you’d actually enjoy watching or find useful yourself. If you watch it and you’re bored by your own video, go back to the drawing board and start over. Aim to be better than any other channel in your niche and be honest with yourself about your production quality. Use your personality strengths to your advantage and seize every opportunity to insert humor appropriately. Conceptualizing the actual content is something you’ll mostly have to figure out on your own, but as long as you’re continually striving to improve you should get there eventually.

2. Use Professional Equipment and Effects

You can’t expect to have an entertaining channel if you’re recording bland videos with a $20 webcam. Although that route sometimes works in rare cases, you’d be better off investing in some premium cameras and maybe even an aerial, slow-mo, 360-degree, or underwater camera, depending on what you’ll be filming.

For example, if you’re filming an outdoor product in use, imagine how much better your video would be if you used something like a GoPro aerial cam vs. a standard smartphone camera – there’s no comparison. Plus, crisp footage lets potential subscribers know you’re serious about offering 5-star content. Learn how to use video editing software like the pros or partner with a professional production company and you’ll be on your way to a strong subscriber base.

3. Post at Least One Interesting Video Every Two Weeks

Even if it takes 7-14 days to produce each video, that’s still a great pace to maintain in the long-term. At that rate, you’ll have uploaded about 25-50+ original videos in the course of a year. If you can crank them out two or three times per week without sacrificing quality that’s even better, but try not to upload too many videos every day or your subscribers might be overwhelmed and lose interest.

4. Create Call-to-Actions that Prompt Viewers to Subscribe

You’ve probably noticed that most popular YouTube channels make it possible for you to click a link in the video to subscribe while also including a link and call-to-action in the description. This is a crucial step that not only makes it easier for people to subscribe intentionally, it also often leads to a percentage of viewers accidentally subscribing, which is still good for your channel’s stats and search authority.

Other Miscellaneous Tips for YouTube Success

Here are a few other things you can do to increases your chances of having a popular channel:

• Use annotations and in-video links – insert subscribe links and links to other videos
• Post on a consistent basis – don’t post a few videos and quit; that never works.
• Spend time designing and customizing your channel’s appearance
• Keep videos less than 10-minutes long
• Be strategic about your video names and descriptions. Use popular keywords and discuss trending topics.
• Link to all of your videos via social media. Build a strong marketing campaign and plenty of inbound links to the channel and all of its videos.

While there are plenty of specifics and micro-challenges that you’ll encounter on your way to achieving all of the above, with these tips in your corner you’ll have the guidance needed to make sure you’re headed in the right direction instead of drifting into mediocrity with the rest of the crowd.