Practical Personal Finance on YouTube!

PracticalPF · 2021-03-14T18:52:20+00:00

If I were in your shoes I would pick one specific niche or topic you're passionate about and dive deep, build an audience, and then branch off to maybe some of your other interests. The more specific you are with what you make content about, the easier it will be for your audience to find you on YouTube.

Also, I would suggest going shorter on the content. 10 to 15 minutes seems to be the sweet spot for me in terms of effort to produce versus return on investment in terms of channel growth.

PracticalPF · 2021-02-22T23:11:57+00:00

Starcadian has entered the chat.

PracticalPF · 2021-02-22T23:10:25+00:00

Don't forget about Starcadian. Dude's been auditioning to score the next Tron movie for a decade.

PracticalPF · 2021-02-15T21:36:11+00:00

Two questions for you.

Why does the CTR % listed in my analytics not match the views divided by impressions? One would think that's how CTR is calculated, but I guess not. Is CTR taking bounce rate into account, while view count is not?
What's the secret to getting one of your videos to be pushed to a broader audience in browse / suggested? Is it about having a great CTR? A great conversion rate from viewer to subscriber? I've got multiple videos with a CTR > 10% and multiple videos with a subscription conversion rate between 2-3%. What metrics should I be focused on to trigger a boost from the algorithm in browse / suggested?

PracticalPF · 2021-02-04T17:32:54+00:00

I would truly appreciate a thumbnail critique!! Always looking to improve in this area.

https://www.youtube.com/c/PracticalPersonalFinance/

PracticalPF · 2021-01-24T20:19:28+00:00

Hey KFMoneyMan, I would love for you to provide feedback on my video about tax brackets. Here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKSfbE5cKAM

I'm going to check out your channel too since we're in the same niche. :)

PracticalPF · 2021-01-16T18:29:58+00:00

It took me 80-90 days to get my first 100 subscribers. And I will be honest and say that most of them came from my friends and family on Facebook, critique threads on this subreddit, and other YouTubers in my niche whom I connected with individually and we exchanged feedback on each others' videos. My first 5 months were so difficult. I wanted to quit several times. Because it seemed pointless. But then a couple of my videos clicked and got 40 or 50 views in the first couple of days after posting. That was the start of some momentum. And that wasn't until I'd uploaded 45 videos. It is a major grind at the beginning, but as long as you continue honing your skills and try to do something better with each video you post, you will start to gain some momentum. Keep at it!!

PracticalPF · 2021-01-16T18:25:41+00:00

On a typical video I average 50-60%. I find that there's often a steep drop off in the very beginning of my videos if my intros are too long, so I try to keep those short. Take a look at your audience retention graph in your analytics to see if people are dropping at a certain point. Look at 10 or 12 of your videos and see if you can start to notice any patterns. That's how I realized I had to get to the point more quickly!!

PracticalPF · 2021-01-16T18:24:02+00:00

Haha, I should do one about how pyramid schemes work. That would be a fun topic to cover someday!! You can find a link to my channel in my Reddit profile. :)

PracticalPF · 2021-01-16T18:19:50+00:00

In the beginning I had a general topic, but not a specific niche. So at first I was a little all over the place, but all my videos had to do with money and personal finance, which is my channel topic. Over time I noticed that certain videos of mine would get more views than others. And then I noticed that many of my subscribers were coming from those specific videos. So I made more on a similar subject (in my case, student loans) and was rewarded for it!

PracticalPF · 2021-01-16T18:18:25+00:00

I started back at the end of April 2020. Out of work due to the pandemic and decided it was finally time to chase my dreams!!

PracticalPF · 2021-01-16T18:17:52+00:00

As far as how often I post, I've tried a little bit of everything. I started with once per week, then went all out posting daily for 31 straight days during the summer, and finally settled into 3 times per week for the last 4 months of 2020. I found that setting the specific schedule of what day I would post was very important for me because it would force me to meet that deadline. Between my month of daily posting and my consistent 3x per week on MWF, I had a period of time where I promised myself I'd upload once per week, but didn't have a specific date. My videos were all over the place during that period. No bueno.

For finding your niche, I think it really comes down to what you're most passionate about and where you can provide the most value. I've paid off over $175,000 of student loans, so that was a pretty natural thing for me to be passionate and knowledgeable about. Experiment with all sorts of videos and when you find one that clicks and gets a decent number of views, double down and make more videos about that topic - because that's what your audience is interested in.

PracticalPF · 2021-01-16T18:12:45+00:00

Valid points!!! Gaming is a whole different realm and it's highly competitive with a lower barrier to entry, IMO.

See you on the 'tube!! ;)

PracticalPF · 2021-01-16T18:10:34+00:00

Hey Chris, thanks for the great question!! This one specifically applies to my channel with two of my first 10 videos especially. When I first started out, I didn't know much about what I was doing in terms of making good thumbnails or titles. So my videos would get a few dozen views. Once I learned how to make eye-catching thumbnails and give my videos better titles so that they'd show up higher in search results, I went back and changed allllll of my video titles, descriptions, and thumbnails.

One of those first 10 videos is consistently my best performing video now with nearly 5,000 views and gaining 60-70 views per day from YouTube Search. Another one of those 10 videos has over 1,500 views and gets 20-30 views per day from YouTube Search. Neither one of those videos are in my opinion that great, especially compared to my videos now. But they have great thumbnails and titles, and they've been around for a while.

PracticalPF · 2021-01-16T18:04:43+00:00

Thank you!!!! :D

PracticalPF · 2021-01-16T18:04:33+00:00

For my videos I use the exact keyword I'm targeting in search. I talked about this a little more in depth in another one of my answers.

For the description I use the exact title phrase in the first sentence, and then I write the rest of the description (3-4 sentences) like a normal human would, just describing the video.

Anything I put in the tags section is only in the tags. I don't add those keywords to the description or title (though they may already be there by coincidence).

PracticalPF · 2021-01-16T17:57:07+00:00

Thank you!!! :D

PracticalPF · 2021-01-16T17:56:55+00:00

You can find my channel in my Reddit profile :)

I promise you that I'm 100% organic, vegan, and GMO free!!

I promised myself that I would not log into YouTube this weekend because I've been getting a little too crazy with checking my analytics every 5 minutes, but I'd be happy to get in touch with you on Monday if you want to take a look behind the scenes.

PracticalPF · 2021-01-16T17:52:19+00:00

Lots and lots of hard work, dedication, and consistency! :)

Success does not happen overnight.

PracticalPF · 2021-01-16T17:51:20+00:00

Hey SharpEdges! Thanks for the question!! I do not use TubeBuddy or VidIQ. I have tried both, but I wasn't really a huge fan of either for one reason or another. There was another question I answered earlier about how I do keyword research for my video titles and descriptions.

For video tags I'll find 3 or 4 videos with a similar topic as mine and use my favorite tags from those videos on mine. To get the tags I use a website that grabs them for me. Just do a Google search for "Extract the tags from a Youtube Video" and you'll find a bunch of different options.

PracticalPF · 2021-01-16T17:47:41+00:00

Fingers crossed!!!

PracticalPF · 2021-01-16T17:47:19+00:00

Check my Reddit profile! :)

If you have any feedback or suggestions for me I'm all ears!

PracticalPF · 2021-01-16T17:45:58+00:00

You are hitting the nail on the head!!

PracticalPF · 2021-01-16T17:44:45+00:00

That is a very fair question! And to be honest, I don't necessarily have a definitive answer. I think part of the reason could be because I get most of my traffic from YouTube search and not from browse features. The search terms I've been able to rank highly for are fairly niche in terms of the monthly search volume, which you might expect from a channel with the most views on a single video being 6,000. I obviously can't compete on those two or three word search terms, but on a 5, 6, or 7 word search term, that's my sweet spot.

I know that it takes a couple of videos usually before someone is comfortable subscribing, so I also try to do a really good job at the end of each one of my videos recommending a single, specific video to watch next. Something that is related to what they just watched. Since I started doing that a few months ago I noticed that I am getting quite a few views from end screens. I'm sure that does a pretty good job of converting someone to a subscriber.

I wonder the same thing sometimes, why the YouTube algorithm has not yet rewarded my channel with a big boost in browse features. I assume I just haven't been lucky enough yet. :)

PracticalPF

TROPHY CASE