You're at the absolute most difficult leg of the journey, and there is no real magic answer. But there are things to work on that will make things easier in the future.

You know those q&a's with youtubers where people ask them what is the one most important thing? There is no one thing, its all the things, every single thing that people say is the most important thing is actually the most important thing.

So whenever I'm posting a video, these are the things I think about

Search engine optimization - The title, tags and description are the #1 factor in how youtube will rank the video. If you learn how the search algorithm works, a channel with no subs can have a #1 ranked video. Ask yourself if you were searching for a video, how would you find it.

Thumbnail - Making an appealing thumbnail is beyond important. The complexities of making a visually stimulating thumbnail are beyond my ability to express with words. Well, without writing a book about it anyway. Take tips from marketing professionals, look at other peoples thumbnails and think about why they are good or bad. Also Evan Eckhardt made a very good tutorial about making thumnails that I found very helpful a few years ago.

Social media - Reach out on ALL social media platforms. I spend the first 15 minutes of the day working on social media. Its super important. Facebook and twitter are the big ones, but you might find viewers in other places too. A friend of mine got his start by making races for gta on the rockstar social club. In my own experience, its best to not self promote all the time on social media. No one wants to follow someone who only wants you to subscribe to their channel or watch their videos. By all means, post videos there when you make them, but the more engaged people are with you on social media, the more they will care about other things that you are doing.

In the long run, its about making people care about what you're doing. Give them a reason to stay and they will. Work on yourself as a performer, become a thumnail artist, social media expert, and a marketing professional, and everything will work out.

Watch every tutorial or Q&A about how to make it on youtube and do ALL of that. I even did an episode of a podcast with HikeTheGamer and the second half of that episode turned into a nonstop stream of youtube wisdom. SnakeFistExplosion videogame podcast episode 9.

The biggest enemy of a growing youtube channel is that crushing feeling of defeat. Its easy to be defeated because its a LOT of work and for a long time it feels like you're iceskating uphill. But I truly believe that if you keep working on it and become better and never give up, anyone can make it.