Running a culinary YouTube channel: +96,000 subscribers in 4.5 months

We follow this content strategy in our work with clients:

• Help  – content for key queries, one query = one video.
• Hub  – the main content for which people subscribe to the channel – it can be serial content or regular columns.
• Hero  – content created in collaboration with opinion leaders to expand the channel’s audience. If it is not possible to shoot such content, you can conduct live broadcasts, and this can also be viral content for viewers, as they have the opportunity to interact directly with the channel’s author.
• Hype Content – situational viral content that can be created in the format of Youtube Shorts or recorded specifically for an event, a certain trend or season.
• Action videos are promotional videos that we use to convert channel viewers into customers of your business.

Further work is carried out on the following points:

• Content. It is important to correctly determine which content is best suited for the regular and new audience on the channel.  Quite often, you can observe a picture when content that is absolutely interesting for a new audience is not interesting for a regular one. However, one of the key metrics of channel development is attracting a new audience and turning it into a regular one. Thus, a new strategy that works for both audiences is being developed.
• Analysis. We additionally conduct a niche analysis to identify key competitors and content formats that get the maximum reach and response from the audience.
• Hot topics.  Once a week, we prepare hot topics that are worth filming in the near future. This content plan can be based on trends (which competitors are doing), popular topics in search, and video “locomotives” (those videos that have been or are being watched by viewers on the channel).
• Serialization. When working with large channels, it is crucial to create serial content that can build on such “locomotive” videos.  These are the videos that get the most views on the channel and bring in subscribers. Therefore, if you have a topic that gained more space than usual when you started your channel and created a “locomotive” video, it makes sense to make a few more videos on the topic that has been recommended.

After the audit, we identified a number of problems:

• The main page of the channel
  There is no channel trailer for new viewers. We recommend that you create and install a channel trailer for new viewers, as it increases the conversion rate to subscription. To improve the appearance, we recommend adding the Playlists, Most Popular Videos, and other sections.

• Channel header
  The need to improve the channel header – based on the channel header, a person often makes a decision to subscribe to a channel or not. The channel header should make it clear what the channel is about, its topic, frequency of content release, who the main character is, and the call to subscribe.

• Rather low CTR of video covers
  The text on the cover was hard to read. It’s important to remember that most of the audience watches Youtube on mobile devices, which means fewer impressions and views.
  It is recommended to make more minimalistic covers, less text, but more, fewer different images so as not to overload the overall picture, a photo of the problem with a large frame, not overloaded, conveying the essence – this will increase perception, CTR and click-through rate.

• The wrong approach to working with video metadata.
  When working with large YouTube channels, the first thing you should do is create a clickbait title and headline, and the key queries themselves are embedded in the extended channel description and tags. And also:

1. When working with large channels, it is important to make a clickbait title of the first type – this will increase perception and CTR.
2. The video lacked subtitles with embedded keywords.
3. It was necessary to increase the description for the video, as the description of the keywords from the video title was being embedded and diluted.
4. There were also no time codes in the video description – they must be added, as they are ranked in YouTube and Google search and create convenience for viewers.
5. There was no linking to other videos on the channel, and other small things that need to be finalized.

• The client did not use live broadcasts
  This increases the engagement on the channel, and they move well in YouTube recommendations and search. As a result, you will get more impressions, views, and subscribers.

• The client did not use YouTube Shorts
  YouTube Shorts is perfectly promoted by YouTube organically – it brings views, a new audience and subscribers.

• Playlists
  It was necessary to change the names of the playlists with the occurrence of key queries. For each playlist, you need to make a description of 2000 characters with the occurrence of key queries relevant to this playlist.

• Community
  The client did not have a Community tab, and today Community is one of the best options for interacting with the audience. It is also recommended to publish announcements of new videos with Gifs, conduct polls, share news and additional content to engage or interact with the audience.

• Stories
  Stories are not maintained on Youtube. You can use them when a new video is released and create interesting content with tips and tricks. Promote organically and bring subscribers.

And many other small recommendations that influenced the result.

Working on a project to promote a culinary YouTube channel

After creating a content plan, the client started shooting videos, and we started optimizing and managing the channel on a turnkey basis. What was included in our work:

• Selection of titles and topics to bring videos to the Top 10 of Youtube, Google and other search engine results and promotion through similar videos
• Selection of competitive keywords and hashtags
• Creating subtitles for the video
• Designing an attractive video cover
• Correct presentation of the video
• Creating SEO video descriptions from 500 characters, tags, hashtags
• Writing the first 3 comments
• Add videos to the playlist according to the topic and set a cover
• Add traffic-generating links to each video
• Adding stops, minus words to remove swearing and negativity under the video
• Posting in the community for new videos, live stream announcements, and polls
• Writing stories for new videos and thematic channels
• Maintaining Youtube #Shorts
• Planning and assistance with live broadcasts
• Running through social bookmarking services
• Launching and maintaining Google Ads paid advertising
  • collection of search queries
  • creation of advertisements
  • setting optimal rates
  • control, correction, and optimization of advertisements
• Work on improving channel monetization (Sponsorship, donations, super chats, applause, etc.)
• Analysis of trends for hype content and new content formats for the channel
• Review of content for the channel and recommendations for its improvement
• Optimization of old videos on the channel
• Selection of channels for collaboration and audience exchange
• Designing a blogger portfolio
• Placement on blogger exchanges and agencies to sell advertising on the channel
• Promotion of the channel trailer
• Purchase of advertising from bloggers
• Purchase of link mass to increase the weight of the video and higher ranking in order to get into the TOP 10 of Youtube
• Channel analytics in Youtube Analytics and recommendations for work based on data
• Reporting and conclusion for a month of work
• Recommendations for improving the result (Channel development strategy, search for new formats, consultation)

New content plan

• 8 Content videos content
• 4 Live broadcasts
• 10 YouTube shorts