How to Setup Your YouTube Channel

Written By: CL KID (Charles Martinez)

Whether your an artist, entrepreneur, gamer, or any other creative, YouTube is an important online tool which should not be ignored. From monetization to social connection, YouTube offers every creator the opportunity to promote their brand. To make sure you're fully taking advantage of everything your channel can offer, here is a list to help you best start your channel:

1. Profile Pic and Banner Image

These are two obvious tools that you can utilize to market your brand. They should work together to include your artist name, personal image and/or logo, and what viewers will expect to see on your channel. Simple is effective. Here is how my personal artist page looks:

As you can see, my banner tells viewers what type of content they should expect from my channel (Recording Artist. Producer). It clearly displays my artist name (CL KID) and I chose to use my artist logo as my profile pic. I also included my social media tag at the bottom of the banner (@realclkid).

There are plenty of sites online that offer customizable banners so you can avoid having to resize your image to properly fit YouTube's parameters.

*DON'T FORGET* - Within my banner are clickable icons which take you to corresponding sites (Official Website, Spotify, Instagram, etc). You can add these to your profile on YouTube under "customize channel". These can help make your channel look organized and more readily available for cross-platform traffic.

2. About Section

About pages on any platform are important for multiple reasons. They allow visitors to dive deeper into your story or background. This can also be a place where you provide further information about your brand which may not be as evident in your uploads. Aside from these aspects, another crucial element of the About section is SEO.

Search Engine Optimization is how Google and other search engines connect your content to the broader web. In order to rank higher on Google searches, you have to provide the right keywords which associate with your brand or product as often as you can across various platforms. Your About page on your channel is a good place to help raise your SEO by filling it with PERTINENT information about your content. DO NOT aimlessly fill the About section with false or misleading info. Be sure to use this area to help connect your message to the online community.

Below is an example of what I have written for my About page on my channel:

3. Playlists

Scenario: A video is played to completion on your channel. YouTube now suggests two videos similar to the one you just finished playing. One from your channel, one from an outside channel. You don't choose a video, so YouTube auto-plays the video from another channel. Setting up your playlists will prevent this from happening!

The goal is watch time, regardless of your content type. In order to keep your viewers on YOUR channel, be sure to include playlists on your channel. I am very simple in my content types. Here is an example of some playlists I've created on my channel below:

As you see, I have separated my content by:

KID's Favs

A deep list of music I love. Some of my songs are included in this playlists, but the focus is other artist's music.

All Music

Official Music Videos

Lyric Videos

Using playlists in this manner will allow you to keep your visitors on your page longer, while organizing similar content in one place. Be sure to make use of this feature.

4. YouTube Shorts

These are YouTube's answer to TikTok. Short clips under a minute which are setup much like that of reels. Traffic on Shorts is less crowded. This increases the chance of your content being seen due to most users not taking advantage of this feature. To create a Short, all you have to do is upload a video which is LESS THAN 60 seconds, AND include #shorts in the description of your video. This will automatically cause YouTube to create a Shorts section on your page, much like this:

5. Channel Tags

Much like Instagram, YouTube uses hashtags and keywords to best categorize your content. Channel tags are a way of doing this. When you customize your channel, YouTube will allow you to enter hundreds of characters in doing so. However, studies have shown that flooding this section can do more harm than good. The best practice on channel tags, is to pick 5 to 8 keywords which both vaguely categorize your content, while truly focus on your channel. For example, my channel uses the following:

I include my industry, genre, location, artist name, brand. While this list may seem incomplete, it allows YouTube to BEST get an idea of your overall content and push it more efficiently throughout its platform. After this is done, you will use your individual video descriptions and tags to funnel out from there.

6. Video Descriptions

As noted before, video descriptions work hand in hand with channel tags to best promote your content. This section is much like the About page, where you should fill it as best, but accurately, as possible. This can be difficult to do at times. I fill mine with all my links to social media, websites, stores and shops, streaming services, etc. This is an easy way to fill all your video descriptions by simply copy and pasting for each video. Beyond that, I add in the song lyrics for that video. If you are not a musician, you could use this remaining space to best summarize the video or provide other important information not covered in the video.

Each video description allows 3 hashtags. Regardless of where you put these, they will appear underneath your video at the top of the video description. Be sure to make these three tags specifically about your video AND/OR use them to compare your video to similar content which exists on another popular channel. My example above is a song called, "Revelation". My three tags are #Revelation #CLKID (my artist name) and #Eminem (the song's style best compares to his music). Use this method when thinking about which tags to use for your video.

When you upload a video, YouTube will allow you to add keywords to the video. Flood this area with all relevant tags that pertain to your video, both broad and specific. This is a good place to take chances with tags, just be sure to make sure they are true to your content!

7. Channels Section

YouTube allows you highlight outside channels on your page, like so:

In my channel, I have added the three channels above. I did so due to the fact that I truly believe that the content on these channels are great for those trying to further educate themselves on music and business. You DO NOT need to follow my example on this, but it can be a good way to network with others in your industry.

These were some KEY steps you should take when setting up your channel and uploads. Beyond this, analytics and marketing tools to best target your demographic exist both within YouTube and from external sources. Stay in touch with future blog posts to learn more about managing your content and growing your audience!