So you are ready to give YouTube a real go as you know there are a lot of benefits to online video, plus it presents an opportunity to be found in search results. 

But, how do you know what videos to create? After all, videos can take a big commitment of time and effort to create and you want to make sure you are doing videos that will work to grow your business.

Here, I’ll share some tips based on personal experience from the past 2+ years of creating videos on multiple channels, and things that I learned from YouTube strategists.

1 – Don’t Focus On Keywords

I know it sounds strange, but YouTube hasn’t been using keywords as a primary way to present videos to users since around 2012. Instead it focuses on user signals – how user interact with the video or others like it over time.

It’s algorithms learn how each user browses youtube, what videos they watch, what channels they subscribe to, and so on. This then mean that they can serve up the right video, at the right time, to the right user.

2 – Study Top Videos 

Look for commonalities among the videos that show up first for your topic. Pay attention to their titles, thumbnails and the video intro. Does they grab your attention without feeling lik clickbait? Do they set up the first few seconds of the video in a way to keep viewers interested. See how you could improve on these and create a better video

3 – Introduce More Stories  

It’s pretty easy for anyone to create generic video content that just states the facts bout a topic, but it is much more powerful when other emotional elements get added it to connect with the viewer. Things like a back story, talking about real experiences, problems or struggles and how you personally dealt with them can have a much stronger impact and harder for others to recreate. Think about how to connect with people. 

3 –  Study Comments

looking at the questions and general comments in on competitor videos can help highlight where there are gaps to be covered. If you see a pattern of the same thing being commented over and over, this may be your opportunity to address these in your own video.

Even the most popular videos have shortcomings. Your video could then end up being positioned as the next suggestion video by YouTube, after someone watches the popular video.

4 – Study Google Trends 

search your topic on trends.google.com to see interest in that topic over time. This can help you determine whether a topic is worth the effort based on how evergreen or seasonal it is.

If people are searching around this topic all year round, you stand a better chance of getting more growth on your channel.