Your Very Own YouTube Channel

(Written by guest contributor Chris Harper)

If you have spent time on YouTube, then you’ve probably seen at least one user’s YouTube channel. And if you’ve seen more than a few, then you may have noticed that the design and attractiveness of those channels varies widely from user to user. Some of them are highly attractive with custom imagery, while others make your eyes hurt to look at them. If you have a YouTube account, what does your channel look like?

Why does it matter? It matters because your YouTube channel is an extension of your brand. Your channel can have just as much impact on your customers’ opinion of you as your homepage. In fact, for some of your customers, their first introduction to you or your product may be through YouTube. Don’t you want them to be impressed with what they see?

YouTube restricts most of its personal branding options to users who have applied for and been accepted into their Partner program. For the basic YouTuber though, your customization options are limited. For the purpose of this article, I will be focusing on those basic accounts.

You will find all of the options for customizing your site in your account settings under “Edit Channel.” There are other ways to get there, but once you’re there you are presented with three links on the left for Channel Info, Channel Design, and Organize Videos. Let’s take a look at each of those.

Channel Info – By default, your channel’s name will be “insert username’s channel” until you enter another title here. You can also enter a description, which can be very helpful if you’re looking to gain subscribers but don’t have many videos. Tell your viewers what you are all about and what kind of videos they can expect on your channel. And you must add tags for your channel if you want someone to find it in a search. Think of all the keywords people who might be interested in your content might search for and add them as tags. There are also options for allowing comments, if you decide you want them.

Channel Design – Unless you really love one of the color presets, ignore the color options at the top of this page. Instead, look down the page under “Advanced Design Customization” and customize your colors to match the rest of your branding. If you need to find colors, a great resource that I use is the Color Schemer at colorschemer.com/online.html. It will help you find complementary colors for your background and the boxes on your page. If you wish to use a background image instead of a solid color, then you should match your box colors with the image. When choosing an image, you can choose to tile the image or just use one instance of it. In general, I’ve noticed that the best background graphics are either tiled images that create a pattern or a single image that fits behind all of the page elements. You are also given the option to select a “Featured Video” that will occupy a main player on your channel. This needs to be your “must-see” video that you want every viewer to watch. There are other options for arranging your page and features to include, but you will need to make those decisions for yourself. Just remember that if you choose to show your favorite videos, everyone can see them. So as with all social media, a good dose of professional discretion is advised.

Organize Videos – Even though viewers can arrange the videos you’ve made by “Most Views” or “Most Discussed,” you can select the videos that show up on your channel by default when a viewer first visits your page. Since you’ve already chosen your “must-see” video for the main player, choose the others you want to show in descending order. This way they will appear from left to right in the order you want them seen, which also happens to be the same direction that we generally view a page.

As you can see, even with the limited amount of leeway that YouTube gives its basic users, there is still a great amount that you can do to customize your page. Anything you can do to make your channel look more attractive and stand out from the rest of the millions of channels on YouTube, the better off you’ll be. For some inspiration, go to the YouTube homepage, click on “Channels,” and check out the top viewed and top subscribed channels of all time.

Action Steps

– Give your channel a descriptive title.

– Use tags to help the search engines.

– Choose great colors and background graphics.

– Organize your videos to showcase your best offerings.

– Become the next YouTube sensation!