April 9, 2025 • 34 mins
Nate Woodbury is a YouTube Producer specializing in helping business owners, coaches, and course creators generate leads, clients, and revenue through YouTube. With a portfolio of over 50 channels, he has helped several YouTube channels generate seven figures monthly from organic leads. Unlike traditional viral-focused strategies, Nate teaches a tactical, step-by-step approach that delivers a consistent flow of high-quality leads and appointments—without relying on paid ads.
As a master of efficiency, Nate is known for developing systems that minimize time and expense while maximizing results. He works with many seven-figure influencers, helping them grow their following and transform their YouTube channels into powerful lead-generation machines. His expertise lies in showing professionals how to leverage their knowledge on YouTube, positioning themselves as the go-to experts in their industry and creating long-term, scalable success.
During the show we discussed:
- Answer questions on YouTube to generate high-quality leads.
- Identify what people are searching for on YouTube to create attractive videos.
- The Leaf Strategy helps business owners grow by aligning content with audience needs.
- Organic growth on YouTube is more sustainable than paid ads.
- Keyword research attracts the right audience by matching search intent.
- Long watch time is more valuable than short-form content on YouTube.
- Keyword tags are irrelevant; focus on content, titles, and descriptions.
- YouTube’s transcription helps boost rankings by improving searchability.
- Patience is key for ranking videos on YouTube.
- Business owners should position themselves as the "hero" by offering value.
- Create engaging videos that convert viewers into clients.
- Start videos with curiosity to increase watch time.
- Talking head videos are best for YouTube engagement.
- Avoid text-heavy PowerPoints; use visuals like flip charts for better results.
- Thumbnails and titles are crucial; show the whites of your eyes in thumbnails.
- Label videos for search engines to attract new followers and engage subscribers.
- Maximize results on YouTube by focusing on efficiency.
- Use tools to streamline content creation and management.
- Measure success on YouTube through engagement, conversions, and retention.
Resources:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to the Business Credit and Financing Show.
Each week, we talk about the growth strategies
that matter most to entrepreneurs.
Listen in as we discuss the secrets to
getting credit and money to start and grow
your business.
And enjoy as we talk with seasoned business
owners, coaches, and industry leaders on a variety
(00:22):
of topics from advertising and marketing to the
nuts and bolts of running a highly successful
business.
And now, to introduce the host of our
show, financial expert and award-winning author, Ty
Crandall.
Hello, and thanks for joining us today.
I'm super excited that you could be here.
I'm on the road today, so don't mind
my background.
A little bit different from the place that
(00:43):
I usually am in, in my downtown office
in Tampa.
And today, we are gonna dive into one
of my favorite, favorite, favorite ways to be
able to get customers.
A lot of people don't know this.
You know, Credit Suite's been around for 10
years, and we really got our start on
YouTube.
Now, a lot has changed in the last
10 years, but I can tell you one
thing that hasn't changed is if you do
YouTube right, then you may not need to
(01:04):
do any other form of marketing.
And to help make that happen with us
today is Nate Woodbury.
Now, Nate is a YouTube producer specializing in
helping business owners, coaches, and course creators generate
leads, clients, and revenue through YouTube.
Now, with a portfolio of over 50 different
channels, he has helped several YouTube channels generate
seven figures monthly from organic leads.
(01:27):
Unlike traditional viral-focused strategies, Nate teaches a
tactical, step-by-step approach that delivers a
consistent flow of high-quality leads and appointments
without relying on paid ads.
Now, as a master of efficiency, Nate is
known for developing systems that minimize time and
expense while maximizing results.
He works with many seven-figure influencers, helping
(01:49):
them grow their following and transform their YouTube
channels into powerful lead-generating machines.
Now, his expertise lies in showing professionals how
to leverage their knowledge on YouTube, positioning themselves
as the go-to experts in their industry,
and creating long-term scalable success.
Nate, I'm so excited you could be here.
Thanks for joining us.
Yeah, you're welcome.
(02:09):
It's an honor to be here.
I'm happy to share whatever you'd like.
Yeah, well, I appreciate it.
I mean, I started on YouTube, a lot's
changed since then.
And so, I don't know, let's start there.
Like, what are some of the newest and
coolest things that you're seeing happening on YouTube
right now?
Well, let me take a step back and
compare website SEO because website SEO and YouTube
(02:29):
SEO are kind of aligned.
In the past, I'll actually say that website
SEO doesn't exist anymore because in the past,
you'd have to create a whole bunch of
spam out on the web and point it
at your website, and that would make your
website rank at the top of Google.
Well, now Google doesn't do that.
Google is more of a content search engine.
And as we know, YouTube is clearly a
(02:49):
content search engine that's owned by Google.
And so, the game has kind of changed
in the way of search.
And if you have expertise, people are actually
searching for that expertise.
They go to Google and YouTube all the
time and they're typing in questions.
And so, if you have the answer to
the questions, all you have to do now
for SEO is make a video that answers
(03:11):
that question.
You put it on YouTube and you'll get
traffic from YouTube and Google that will be
high quality.
It's a relationship building concept and it really
works well for lead generation.
So, that's what I've really figured out and
what I focus on.
So, let me ask you this.
Based on this, how do you find the
best way, or how do you find the
(03:31):
questions to answer?
Like, how do you find the questions that
if you do video topics answering those questions
that YouTube and Google are more inclined to
feature you?
Yeah, very, very good question and important one
because there are a lot of tools out
there, but because of this shift and change
with SEO, a lot of the tools are
still outdated.
If tools are focusing on, hey, here's a
(03:51):
two-word phrase or here's a three-word
phrase, calling that a keyword, and they call
five words long tail, search engines are much
more refined now and so you can find
really specific questions that are eight, nine, or
10 words long now that still have consistent
search volume every month.
So, my favorite tool is it's called the
Hero Keyword Tool and there's a free trial.
(04:12):
This is an affiliate link, but it's...
So, the tool is the Keyword Magic Tool
and the herokeywordtool.com is my affiliate link,
but that's just for a free trial.
What that tool does is it allows you
to put in your topic and it will
find you questions that are eight, nine, or
10 words in length that have consistent search
volume, such as how to get your kids
(04:33):
to listen without yelling or how to invest
in Airbnb real estate with bad credit or
how to, let's see, what was it?
How to carry nutrition during a marathon.
I mean, just really specific questions and so
it's a tool like that that I use
that you can really find hundreds of ways
of getting into the head of your target
(04:54):
audience and know what they're asking.
And so, just by making that really specific
content, you're able to get in front of
them.
And the reason that I keep focusing on
phrases that are longer, one, it's because it's
more specific and you can give them a
more helpful answer, but it's also way less
competitive.
So, if you make a video on answering
(05:14):
a really specific question, you put that on
YouTube and it's likely that the very next
day, it's ranking at the top of YouTube
for that search.
And so, just starting to pull in these
little trickles of traffic, but super, super valuable
traffic.
We have many channels that follow this strategy
that are pretty small, but are generating seven
and eight figure revenue streams just from these
YouTube leads.
(05:34):
So, the idea here is that we're gonna
go to herokeywordtool.com.
We're gonna figure out what people are searching.
I'm in the business credit space.
So, if I'm trying to do a video
on business credit, super competitive, right?
But if I'm doing a video on how
to build business credit for a brand new
LLC, then that's obviously not as popular of
people trying to compete in that keyword, then
(05:57):
I have a better chance of ranking.
So, if that's the case, let's say that
I go, I use the keyword tool, I
figure out what people are actually searching for.
Any, changes all the time.
Any idea of what the ideal length of
this kind of video should be?
Typically, a long watch time is better.
I mean, we're in an age where people
think that shorter is better because of TikTok
and YouTube shorts.
(06:18):
What's interesting though, is if you look at
YouTube, ever since YouTube separated a video and
a short, videos have trended longer.
So, a channel that most people know about,
MrBeast, if you look at the average length
of his videos now, they're about double the
length than they were three years ago.
And that's pretty consistent across any channel that
I watch.
(06:40):
So, and some of those episodes are like
30 or 40 minutes.
We don't need to go that long on
a YouTube video, but you don't wanna go
too short as well.
You wanna give enough content to really give
a valuable answer to that question.
So, 10 minutes we found is a great
amount of time that you can give great
value and you have enough time that people
(07:00):
feel like they're building a relationship with you.
They get to know you a bit.
So, with that being said, figure out what
the questions are, answer the question in a
video.
How does YouTube know that my video is
the answer to that question?
Am I addressing that in a transcript?
Am I addressing it in the title?
Like, what's the best way to say YouTube?
Hey, I've done this.
(07:20):
This question is being asked and this video
answers that question.
So, the simplest answer is you have to
be patient, which it's hard to do.
In old fashioned SEO, we would create a
piece of content or a website and then
we would do SEO to it.
We would send out emails.
We would do blog commenting.
We'd create a secondary site that would link
(07:41):
back to it.
So, we would do all this SEO and
put in keywords everywhere.
On YouTube, what I've discovered that actually works,
because there's still a lot of people on
YouTube that are teaching those tactics, but things
like the keyword tags, YouTube's even admitted that
field they don't even pay attention to anymore.
And so, if you do the work first
of finding these questions that people are searching
(08:04):
for and you build your video around that
strategy, then you know you've got this SEO
built into it.
You're creating content that people are searching for.
Now, YouTube automatically transcribes your video.
So, if you're answering the question of the
video and talking about that topic, then you're
automatically saying all the right things that really
(08:25):
let YouTube know what your video's about.
So, like some of these phrases that really
long, like eight, nine, or 10 words, they
might only get 20 searches a month and
people will think, well, why would I waste
my time on such a small amount of
traffic?
Well, if you know that those 20 people
are your target avatar, then that's actually pretty
valuable, but this is what it looks like.
(08:46):
Maybe you only get 20 views from search
in that first month, but those 20 people,
they're likely to watch your video all the
way to the end because it's really valuable
to them.
And so, the algorithm figures out, ah, that's
who this video's for, that's the audience for
this video.
And you might get another 20 views in
month two from an additional 20 people from
search.
So, now YouTube has a bigger sample size.
(09:07):
By month three, you're typically gonna get a
higher amount.
I'll just say 50 views, as an example,
from search.
Over time, it gradually increases and you're getting
more and more views from search.
Well, so, well, you have this, now this
marketing machine that's bringing in a trickle of
your target audience every month, you can put
out a second video.
So, now you're bringing in two trickles of
(09:28):
traffic.
Now, you could create a hundred of these
videos.
Now you've got a hundred different trickles of
traffic.
Well, that adds up to a fire hose.
So, I was just looking at stats of
one of the channels that I produce.
It's getting 80,000 views per month from
search traffic just because we've created a bunch
of these trickles.
I love it.
Now, I'm driving traffic to the video.
(09:50):
How do I create an engaging video that
keeps them longer?
Yeah, so the first part is value, right?
And if your video is valuable, then people
will like it.
But there's something that you need to do
at the very beginning of the video to
let people know how valuable your video is.
So, if your video is answering a question,
you're naturally gonna say, hey, in this video,
(10:11):
we're talking about blank.
We're answering this question.
And if you look at the content of
your video, all the different things that you're
gonna be sharing, you need to let people
know what's coming and do it in a
way or say it in a way that
creates curiosity.
So, I can actually demonstrate for you if
you'd like.
I'll use an example that's not my area
of expertise.
I'm not a nutritionist, but a friend of
(10:31):
mine, Doreen, is.
And so, she taught me this remedy of
how to get rid of strep throat without
antibiotics.
So, I'll do it first the wrong way,
but then I'll demonstrate a better way of
how you could start out a video like
this.
Here's the wrong way of doing it.
All right, as we dive into this topic
of how to get rid of strep throat
without antibiotics, you're gonna need three things.
You need some garlic, some raw honey, and
(10:53):
some cayenne pepper.
And if you mix those things together and
take that, it'll get rid of your strep
throat.
So, let's talk about this.
All right, so compare that to my second
attempt, which is gonna be better.
All right, as we dive into this topic
of how to get rid of strep throat
without antibiotics, first, we're gonna be talking about
why not antibiotics and why you might wanna
(11:13):
consider an alternative.
Then, we're gonna be talking about three different
ingredients.
You probably already have these in your kitchen.
So, we're gonna go into the kitchen, we're
gonna make it, and we're gonna talk about
dosage.
And then, we're gonna wrap up this video
talking about a side effect.
When my son was really young, he had
strep throat and he had a high fever,
so we used this remedy and it worked,
(11:34):
but man, he experienced a side effect that
you're gonna wanna know about.
So, let's dive right in.
So, do you see how creating some curiosity
and setting some hooks in the beginning, it
can really make a big difference on people
committing.
It's like, they can see, oh, this is
a 10-minute episode.
Do I wanna spend 10 minutes watching this?
And so, what you do in the beginning
(11:54):
can really set the tone and help them
make that commitment.
So, what do you find works better format
-wise right now?
Like, I started on YouTube with PowerPoints.
I don't see that that's a thing anymore.
It seems to be more talking head.
But you tell me, are there certain formats
that you see performing really well on YouTube
versus other formats?
So, in the how-to space, talking head
is great.
(12:15):
Being conversational versus scripted is definitely ideal.
So, not scripted.
You wanna just have a conversation, even if
you have bad grammar, even if you need
to pause and kind of find the right
word.
That's how we talk naturally.
So, that works better for building a relationship.
I lost my train of thought on the
question.
So, can you remind me?
Well, that's okay.
I'm asking about the type of format that
(12:35):
works well.
Is it talking head?
Is it PowerPoints?
Do I need to have a fancy camera?
Like, what format works best to get people
to most engage?
So, start with the talking head.
And if you're gonna use PowerPoint, you know
what PowerPoints are extremely boring.
And that's when there's just text on the
screen and the person is reading them.
So, just avoid that at all costs.
(12:56):
I use PowerPoint when I'm gonna show a
screenshot of something.
Because I talk about YouTube, I'm often showing
a screenshot of a thumbnail or the analytics.
And then it switches back.
So, having visuals actually can help if there's
something that is a little bit more technical
and it would help to pull out a
flip chart and draw on that.
You can have a variety.
If you're talking about teaching children something and
(13:18):
then you go to a B-roll clip
of a mom and a child working together.
Or if you're talking about renovating real estate
and you happen to have some footage on
your camera from a property that you're renovating
or something, showing some B-roll like that
while you're talking and then switching back to
you.
I mean, that can enhance it.
The one thing that I wanna caution though
is a lot of times people think, oh
(13:39):
wow, I saw this one YouTube channel and
their production is so amazing.
I could never do that.
So, I don't think I'm gonna try.
The reality is you could pull out your
phone and film a selfie video.
And as long as the lighting is decent,
like you've got a window in front of
you or something, as long as your camera
is close enough to you that the audio
(14:01):
is good, if you're sharing value, that's a
wonderful place to start.
Just talking, hit video, teach and answer their
questions.
And then all these other enhancements, maybe they
will help your video perform an extra 5
% better or an extra 10% better.
But if you let those things hinder you,
well then you're gonna get 0% of
(14:21):
those results.
How important is the title?
Let me ask you that.
Because it used to be back when I
started YouTube, that title was everything.
I could change the title.
I mean, literally I remember this.
I could change the title and then instantly
rank differently based on that title for whatever
keyword search term I was working on.
How important is title now that they're transcribing?
And by the way, I used to transcribe
(14:42):
the videos and upload the transcription.
I'm that old, right?
Back in the day, we're like, that was
a huge advantage because they weren't doing it.
So titles, how important are titles now?
Yeah, titles are still super important.
And that goes hand in hand with the
thumbnail.
With my strategy, because we're focusing so much
on the search of these questions, we use
the exact wording of the questions most of
the time in our titles.
(15:04):
Now, the disadvantage of doing that is sometimes
the way people ask questions, it's not the
most sensational of a topic.
Like, hey, Realtors never tell you this, or
something like that.
So what I do to balance that is
we'll put the sensational text in the thumbnail
itself.
So we might use that, Realtors never tell
you this.
And then it might be the, I don't
know, but whatever real estate topic that question
(15:27):
people are asking.
The title is pretty key and it's worked
really, really well of helping your video show
up at the top of search for that
question.
And then over time, you can test and
experiment because some of your videos you want
to use as marketing instruments.
Meaning, you want people in search to find
you, people who've never heard of you before.
(15:48):
But as your channel grows and you're getting
more and more subscribers, subscribers are people that
you need to nurture, not market to.
And so you can create a video and
have a title that would be appealing to
them and not appealing to search.
So having a balance of those two types
of videos, in both case, the title is
pretty critical either for the search engine to
(16:09):
really grab on and send you the right
traffic early on.
Because if YouTube sends the wrong traffic to
your video, well, those people aren't going to
like the video, right?
So you got to, right from the beginning,
make sure the right people are finding your
video.
Also, if you're nurturing, then you've got to
make a title that's going to attract them.
And it's like, yeah, they've seen some of
(16:29):
your content.
They like it.
They're not going to watch every video, but
oh, that title, yeah, that'll catch them.
They'll really be interested in that.
So it's a mix of both, because you're
right.
I mean, it kind of has to be
one or the other.
You know, you're either doing a title like,
hey, Realtors won't tell you this.
Well, very catchy and appealing curiosity-wise to
pull something in, but that's not going to
help us rank on YouTube.
So what you're saying is a combination of
(16:51):
both.
You might want to start out with the
one titles that kind of indicate what it
is for the search engine.
But then when you kind of doing other
variants of that, then you might want to
do titles that are a little bit more
geared towards the actual person watching.
Yeah, there's a new feature that YouTube added
in the last year where you can actually
differentiate between videos.
And now a quick break to hear from
(17:12):
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(17:37):
consultation online to talk more at creditsuite.com
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That you want to show your subscribers and
videos that aren't intended for your subscribers.
This is so cool, and I discovered this.
And you have to scroll way down.
So when you're on the edit screen where
you can put in the title and the
description and whatnot, you have to scroll down
and then you have to hit another button
that says see more.
(17:57):
So then you scroll down further, but there's
a checkbox that says something to the effect
of, because I'm not looking at it now,
but if you have that box checked, notify
my subscribers and put this video in my
subscription feed.
So if you uncheck that box, I will
often do that if I'm covering a topic
that I cover a lot, but I'm covering
it in a different way, answering different questions,
(18:20):
that I'm like, you know, my subscribers have
probably heard enough of this topic from me,
so I'm not going to send a notification
to them, but I still want to do
it because I want to show up in
search.
So this is a marketing video.
I didn't know anything about that.
It's interesting how much YouTube has changed over
time.
When you were talking about thumbnails, what are
you finding works really well on thumbnails?
(18:41):
Because what I found is that if I
don't have really good thumbnails, and I didn't
want to be in the thumbnail pictures, but
that wasn't working, right now I got to
be like, I saw that, it's just like
works, right?
And so, and then memes get passed around
with me or through the company.
That's a whole other conversation for another day.
So what are you finding works really well
on thumbnails right now to bring people in?
Yeah, having a picture that's close enough of
(19:04):
you that you can see the whites of
your eyes, that's going to be great.
And you actually don't have to be over
the top with your expression, like to show
crazy excitement, but our brains are really good
at seeing like hundreds of different emotions.
And so just a subtle raise of the
eyebrow can actually say a lot, you know?
So if you match some words, we'll just
(19:25):
use that same example of realtors never tell
you this, you're kind of looking like suspicious
or something, putting emotion into it does create
that curiosity.
So what we tend to want to do,
and especially women, not to pick on women,
but women love to just look beautiful and
amazing on their thumbnail.
They want every thumbnail to look like a
portrait.
(19:45):
And going back years ago, a gentleman that
I was working with, he said, Nate, why
do you always make me look so dorky
in the thumbnail?
Because he would be doing something that was
like, what is he doing?
And there's one thumbnail that I have in
my mind that he was like doing this
weird thing, making a weird face, but it
got a lot of clicks.
And so with women, I found I can't
be that intense because they'll get upset by
(20:07):
it, but there's a middle ground.
Now, there's some cool features that YouTube's created
to help because there is a science to
it, but a lot of it is just
an art or even luck.
Like did I, I think this thumbnail will
work, let's put it on YouTube and see.
And YouTube will tell you what the click
-through rate is, but just this last year,
we've been waiting for it since like 97
or something.
And no, not 2007, 2017, let me, so
(20:30):
not that long.
Since 2017 though, YouTube has been announcing, we're
gonna allow you to split test your thumbnails.
And it just barely came out in 24,
where now you can actually upload two different
thumbnails.
So if you're thinking, I've got this idea,
but I've got the second idea, which one
should I go with?
Upload both of them and YouTube will test
them over the next two weeks.
(20:51):
And it will let you know which one
has a better click-through rate.
So there's features like that, that really help
us out.
Speaking of that, are you using, what additional
techs?
Cause I've used TubeBuddy before in the past,
some other things back in the day.
Other tech, do you use or recommend for
clients that helps you through this process of
creating and ranking?
Admittedly, none of the above.
(21:12):
So TubeBuddy and vidIQ are the popular tools
that are built for YouTube.
And if, and I do need to take
a step back and explain one thing.
There are two main strategies on YouTube.
So strategy A is you wanna build a
channel that's entertaining, that you're generating ad revenue.
(21:33):
So for that type of a channel, where
you don't have a business, but you're turning
YouTube into a business and it's entertaining and
your focus is ad revenue.
For that type of channel, TubeBuddy and vidIQ
can be helpful with creativity and things like
that.
But if your goal is I've got a
business and I'm gonna leverage YouTube as a
tool to generate leads for my business.
(21:53):
And I'm gonna focus on YouTube search, like
Nate Woodbury says, then TubeBuddy and vidIQ are
actually detrimental.
The keyword tools on there are the old
fashioned style of keyword research.
So I used to use TubeBuddy for the
split testing of thumbnails.
That's a great feature.
But now that that's incorporated into YouTube for
the Nate Woodbury strategy, there's no reason to
(22:15):
use those tools.
I actually have them because I demonstrate the
flaws in them.
Just one example, I'll go to YouTube, I'll
type in topic in the search bar.
And one of my clients videos will rank
at the top.
Often they're in position one, two, and three.
And then we look over and the TubeBuddy
plugin or the vidIQ plugin says your SEO
score is 40 out of 100.
(22:37):
And I'm like, hmm, I'm ranking at the
top, but why is it 40?
And you drill down.
And so I created my own scoring tools
in a spreadsheet.
So it's like, am I ranking at the
top?
And how many in this category are ranking
at the top?
So that, yeah, those tools are kind of
misleading, unfortunately.
What are some of the other ones I'm
interested in?
On your spreadsheet, what are some of the
other things that you are tracking that you
(22:57):
feel are most important?
So I use a tree analogy and I'll
just explain that.
So then I can explain what I created
in this spreadsheet.
So my tree analogy, where you have the
trunk that goes out to branches, that goes
out to the leaves, the trunk represents your
core area of expertise and the branches are
the different ways you can break that down
in different categories.
Well, the leaves represent these questions that we're
(23:19):
talking about.
So as you do keyword research and you
start to find all these questions, which I
call leaf titles, okay, these leaves, as you
start to find all these questions, you can
actually group them by branch.
And you'll look at two branches on this
tree and you'll think, okay, now that I
see all the questions on this one branch,
I kind of get a sense of who
these people are, maybe their age or their
(23:41):
experience level or whether they're executives or employees.
And you can really understand like, ooh, I
like some of the questions on this branch,
but there's others on here that that's not
really relevant.
So then you compare that to the branch
next to it and you're like, well, this
one's interesting.
I think I like every single one of
these questions and they're looking for me, they're
(24:02):
looking for my services.
So you can really hone in and focus
on those branches.
So I create a spreadsheet and I organize
all the questions in groups like that, that
I call branches.
And so then it's kind of tedious, but
I take every one of those leaf titles,
every one of those questions and I do
a search on YouTube.
Am I ranking for it?
If it's at the top, I give it
(24:24):
a yes.
If I have to scroll down, then that's,
I put starting.
And if I don't find myself or don't
find my client, I put no.
So then on this whole branch, I add
up my score.
How many yeses are there?
And how many startings are there?
I give yeses a score of one and
I give startings a score of 0.25.
So I might, in the beginning, when I'm
starting out, I might have a score of
(24:45):
two and there's a total of 30 that
I'm trying to rank for.
But then I come back a month later
and my score might've turned to 6.25.
And then a month later, I'm up to
13.
It's been really helpful to score that way
because comparing it to the SEO score that
vidIQ or TubeBuddy might give me, that doesn't
really tell me anything, tracking it this way
(25:07):
in the spreadsheet, I know exactly, okay, this
is a branch that I want to dominate.
Meaning anytime somebody asks a question on this
branch, I wanna be at the top on
YouTube.
And we just see those nos turning into
yeses.
After about three or four months, it's like,
yep, I dominate this branch.
Now let's move on to the next branch.
So if I release a video and follow
(25:27):
the steps we've talked about so far, am
I just, am I out?
I just gotta let it rip and it
takes care of itself?
Or are there other things I should be
doing once that video is released to continue
to help my ranking improve?
So the quickest answer is you can just
let it sit and let it do its
thing.
If you've done your work in the preparation
and the research before filming, you've done 90
(25:49):
% of the work.
Now, if your channel is brand new and
you're just trying to like start to get
that initial bit of momentum, there's a couple
of things that you can do.
And there's a lot of things that you
do not want to do.
So the couple of things that you can
do are you can participate in the comments.
Now, YouTube isn't nearly as social as the
(26:10):
other social media like Facebook or LinkedIn.
And so it's not gonna work as well.
You can't tag things or whatnot.
And most of the time people disable links.
So you don't wanna be really self-promotional.
But if you can find your audience on
other people's videos, find a channel that's similar
to yours and you can engage in the
(26:31):
comments there, then if you find somebody that's
made a comment, they're like, oh man, I
want that person on my channel, then respond
to them and just say, hey, yeah, that
really makes a lot of sense.
You just continue that conversation.
So it's time consuming, but I've actually seen
that to be pretty effective.
And another thing that it's hard to know
how well this works, but it's something that
I try on new channels where you can
(26:52):
create a playlist.
So if you've launched a new episode on
topic A and you find on another channel
or maybe you do that search of where
you want to show up on YouTube, do
a search for that topic, see who's ranking
at the top currently and make sure you
pick a couple of videos there that have
a lot of views on it that are
recent, create a playlist and put their videos
(27:13):
and your video on the same playlist.
Now, what I'm attempting to do there is
just tell the algorithm, look, my video is
ranked with these videos and we're related here.
Sometimes when you look at the analytics and
you look at the source of traffic, it
breaks down suggested, browse, search, external, well, playlist
(27:35):
is a source of traffic.
So you can see, yeah, I'm getting a
little bit of views from playlist.
So that's one indicator, but my hope and
the thing that I can't track, but it's
easy to do is just, I'm hoping that
this will send a signal to the algorithm.
And as I've done those little things, because
I just launched another brand new channel at
the beginning of this year, I produce over
60 different channels now.
So on this brand new channel, we had
(27:56):
like 30 views one day, 50 views the
next day.
And then it dropped down to five views.
And then for several days, we had zero
views.
Even when we launched another video, I'm like,
all right, let me give it a nudge
again.
So I did those two things.
I created some more playlists and I just
easy ones, like a few videos each.
And I went and I engaged in comments
and that kind of jumpstarted again.
(28:17):
But that's not something that I really have
to do ongoing.
It's just something that I found that helps
in the beginning.
Do you use playlists a lot outside of
this purpose?
Like I think, is it playlists that they
call where you're grouping the videos?
It escapes me right now.
Do you use those a lot?
Because you're creating branches of topics.
Do you make YouTube playlists just for that
(28:38):
branch, for example, with a lot of your
content related to that?
There probably is a lot of good strategy
out there.
And admittedly, I haven't really focused on it.
YouTube is really good at kind of curating
if they watch this video, then I think
they should watch this one next and YouTube
will display it to them and test it.
And if it works, it'll continuing to do
(28:58):
that.
And so that happens through both search, browse
and suggested.
Those are kind of the main three sources
of traffic on YouTube.
So I put all of my energy into
focusing on this search tactic.
And then I just kind of trust the
algorithm to do the rest.
A lot of the times when I put
my focus on those other areas, it's really
(29:19):
elusive.
And something that I did one time works,
whether it's a playlist or whether it's some
strategy that really worked and a video took
off, but then I'll do that same thing
another time and it doesn't work.
And that can become really, really discouraging.
But when I focused on the search, it's
just tactical, it's predictable, it's gradual, but the
(29:40):
results that come from it, the leads that
you generate from it are like referral quality
leads.
So it becomes very, very worthwhile.
Nate, we've talked a lot about videos, is
what about the overall channel?
Advice towards ranking the overall channel or the
things we should be really focusing on, profile
image, the whole main image of the channel.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to the Business Credit and Financing Show.
Each week, we talk about the growth strategies
that matter most to entrepreneurs.
Listen in as we discuss the secrets to
getting credit and money to start and grow
your business.
And enjoy as we talk with seasoned business
owners, coaches, and industry leaders on a variety
(00:22):
of topics from advertising and marketing to the
nuts and bolts of running a highly successful
business.
And now, to introduce the host of our
show, financial expert and award-winning author, Ty
Crandall.
Hello, and thanks for joining us today.
I'm super excited that you could be here.
I'm on the road today, so don't mind
my background.
A little bit different from the place that
(00:43):
I usually am in, in my downtown office
in Tampa.
And today, we are gonna dive into one
of my favorite, favorite, favorite ways to be
able to get customers.
A lot of people don't know this.
You know, Credit Suite's been around for 10
years, and we really got our start on
YouTube.
Now, a lot has changed in the last
10 years, but I can tell you one
thing that hasn't changed is if you do
YouTube right, then you may not need to
(01:04):
do any other form of marketing.
And to help make that happen with us
today is Nate Woodbury.
Now, Nate is a YouTube producer specializing in
helping business owners, coaches, and course creators generate
leads, clients, and revenue through YouTube.
Now, with a portfolio of over 50 different
channels, he has helped several YouTube channels generate
seven figures monthly from organic leads.
(01:27):
Unlike traditional viral-focused strategies, Nate teaches a
tactical, step-by-step approach that delivers a
consistent flow of high-quality leads and appointments
without relying on paid ads.
Now, as a master of efficiency, Nate is
known for developing systems that minimize time and
expense while maximizing results.
He works with many seven-figure influencers, helping
(01:49):
them grow their following and transform their YouTube
channels into powerful lead-generating machines.
Now, his expertise lies in showing professionals how
to leverage their knowledge on YouTube, positioning themselves
as the go-to experts in their industry,
and creating long-term scalable success.
Nate, I'm so excited you could be here.
Thanks for joining us.
Yeah, you're welcome.
(02:09):
It's an honor to be here.
I'm happy to share whatever you'd like.
Yeah, well, I appreciate it.
I mean, I started on YouTube, a lot's
changed since then.
And so, I don't know, let's start there.
Like, what are some of the newest and
coolest things that you're seeing happening on YouTube
right now?
Well, let me take a step back and
compare website SEO because website SEO and YouTube
(02:29):
SEO are kind of aligned.
In the past, I'll actually say that website
SEO doesn't exist anymore because in the past,
you'd have to create a whole bunch of
spam out on the web and point it
at your website, and that would make your
website rank at the top of Google.
Well, now Google doesn't do that.
Google is more of a content search engine.
And as we know, YouTube is clearly a
(02:49):
content search engine that's owned by Google.
And so, the game has kind of changed
in the way of search.
And if you have expertise, people are actually
searching for that expertise.
They go to Google and YouTube all the
time and they're typing in questions.
And so, if you have the answer to
the questions, all you have to do now
for SEO is make a video that answers
(03:11):
that question.
You put it on YouTube and you'll get
traffic from YouTube and Google that will be
high quality.
It's a relationship building concept and it really
works well for lead generation.
So, that's what I've really figured out and
what I focus on.
So, let me ask you this.
Based on this, how do you find the
best way, or how do you find the
(03:31):
questions to answer?
Like, how do you find the questions that
if you do video topics answering those questions
that YouTube and Google are more inclined to
feature you?
Yeah, very, very good question and important one
because there are a lot of tools out
there, but because of this shift and change
with SEO, a lot of the tools are
still outdated.
If tools are focusing on, hey, here's a
(03:51):
two-word phrase or here's a three-word
phrase, calling that a keyword, and they call
five words long tail, search engines are much
more refined now and so you can find
really specific questions that are eight, nine, or
10 words long now that still have consistent
search volume every month.
So, my favorite tool is it's called the
Hero Keyword Tool and there's a free trial.
(04:12):
This is an affiliate link, but it's...
So, the tool is the Keyword Magic Tool
and the herokeywordtool.com is my affiliate link,
but that's just for a free trial.
What that tool does is it allows you
to put in your topic and it will
find you questions that are eight, nine, or
10 words in length that have consistent search
volume, such as how to get your kids
(04:33):
to listen without yelling or how to invest
in Airbnb real estate with bad credit or
how to, let's see, what was it?
How to carry nutrition during a marathon.
I mean, just really specific questions and so
it's a tool like that that I use
that you can really find hundreds of ways
of getting into the head of your target
(04:54):
audience and know what they're asking.
And so, just by making that really specific
content, you're able to get in front of
them.
And the reason that I keep focusing on
phrases that are longer, one, it's because it's
more specific and you can give them a
more helpful answer, but it's also way less
competitive.
So, if you make a video on answering
(05:14):
a really specific question, you put that on
YouTube and it's likely that the very next
day, it's ranking at the top of YouTube
for that search.
And so, just starting to pull in these
little trickles of traffic, but super, super valuable
traffic.
We have many channels that follow this strategy
that are pretty small, but are generating seven
and eight figure revenue streams just from these
YouTube leads.
(05:34):
So, the idea here is that we're gonna
go to herokeywordtool.com.
We're gonna figure out what people are searching.
I'm in the business credit space.
So, if I'm trying to do a video
on business credit, super competitive, right?
But if I'm doing a video on how
to build business credit for a brand new
LLC, then that's obviously not as popular of
people trying to compete in that keyword, then
(05:57):
I have a better chance of ranking.
So, if that's the case, let's say that
I go, I use the keyword tool, I
figure out what people are actually searching for.
Any, changes all the time.
Any idea of what the ideal length of
this kind of video should be?
Typically, a long watch time is better.
I mean, we're in an age where people
think that shorter is better because of TikTok
and YouTube shorts.
(06:18):
What's interesting though, is if you look at
YouTube, ever since YouTube separated a video and
a short, videos have trended longer.
So, a channel that most people know about,
MrBeast, if you look at the average length
of his videos now, they're about double the
length than they were three years ago.
And that's pretty consistent across any channel that
I watch.
(06:40):
So, and some of those episodes are like
30 or 40 minutes.
We don't need to go that long on
a YouTube video, but you don't wanna go
too short as well.
You wanna give enough content to really give
a valuable answer to that question.
So, 10 minutes we found is a great
amount of time that you can give great
value and you have enough time that people
(07:00):
feel like they're building a relationship with you.
They get to know you a bit.
So, with that being said, figure out what
the questions are, answer the question in a
video.
How does YouTube know that my video is
the answer to that question?
Am I addressing that in a transcript?
Am I addressing it in the title?
Like, what's the best way to say YouTube?
Hey, I've done this.
(07:20):
This question is being asked and this video
answers that question.
So, the simplest answer is you have to
be patient, which it's hard to do.
In old fashioned SEO, we would create a
piece of content or a website and then
we would do SEO to it.
We would send out emails.
We would do blog commenting.
We'd create a secondary site that would link
(07:41):
back to it.
So, we would do all this SEO and
put in keywords everywhere.
On YouTube, what I've discovered that actually works,
because there's still a lot of people on
YouTube that are teaching those tactics, but things
like the keyword tags, YouTube's even admitted that
field they don't even pay attention to anymore.
And so, if you do the work first
of finding these questions that people are searching
(08:04):
for and you build your video around that
strategy, then you know you've got this SEO
built into it.
You're creating content that people are searching for.
Now, YouTube automatically transcribes your video.
So, if you're answering the question of the
video and talking about that topic, then you're
automatically saying all the right things that really
(08:25):
let YouTube know what your video's about.
So, like some of these phrases that really
long, like eight, nine, or 10 words, they
might only get 20 searches a month and
people will think, well, why would I waste
my time on such a small amount of
traffic?
Well, if you know that those 20 people
are your target avatar, then that's actually pretty
valuable, but this is what it looks like.
(08:46):
Maybe you only get 20 views from search
in that first month, but those 20 people,
they're likely to watch your video all the
way to the end because it's really valuable
to them.
And so, the algorithm figures out, ah, that's
who this video's for, that's the audience for
this video.
And you might get another 20 views in
month two from an additional 20 people from
search.
So, now YouTube has a bigger sample size.
(09:07):
By month three, you're typically gonna get a
higher amount.
I'll just say 50 views, as an example,
from search.
Over time, it gradually increases and you're getting
more and more views from search.
Well, so, well, you have this, now this
marketing machine that's bringing in a trickle of
your target audience every month, you can put
out a second video.
So, now you're bringing in two trickles of
(09:28):
traffic.
Now, you could create a hundred of these
videos.
Now you've got a hundred different trickles of
traffic.
Well, that adds up to a fire hose.
So, I was just looking at stats of
one of the channels that I produce.
It's getting 80,000 views per month from
search traffic just because we've created a bunch
of these trickles.
I love it.
Now, I'm driving traffic to the video.
(09:50):
How do I create an engaging video that
keeps them longer?
Yeah, so the first part is value, right?
And if your video is valuable, then people
will like it.
But there's something that you need to do
at the very beginning of the video to
let people know how valuable your video is.
So, if your video is answering a question,
you're naturally gonna say, hey, in this video,
(10:11):
we're talking about blank.
We're answering this question.
And if you look at the content of
your video, all the different things that you're
gonna be sharing, you need to let people
know what's coming and do it in a
way or say it in a way that
creates curiosity.
So, I can actually demonstrate for you if
you'd like.
I'll use an example that's not my area
of expertise.
I'm not a nutritionist, but a friend of
(10:31):
mine, Doreen, is.
And so, she taught me this remedy of
how to get rid of strep throat without
antibiotics.
So, I'll do it first the wrong way,
but then I'll demonstrate a better way of
how you could start out a video like
this.
Here's the wrong way of doing it.
All right, as we dive into this topic
of how to get rid of strep throat
without antibiotics, you're gonna need three things.
You need some garlic, some raw honey, and
(10:53):
some cayenne pepper.
And if you mix those things together and
take that, it'll get rid of your strep
throat.
So, let's talk about this.
All right, so compare that to my second
attempt, which is gonna be better.
All right, as we dive into this topic
of how to get rid of strep throat
without antibiotics, first, we're gonna be talking about
why not antibiotics and why you might wanna
(11:13):
consider an alternative.
Then, we're gonna be talking about three different
ingredients.
You probably already have these in your kitchen.
So, we're gonna go into the kitchen, we're
gonna make it, and we're gonna talk about
dosage.
And then, we're gonna wrap up this video
talking about a side effect.
When my son was really young, he had
strep throat and he had a high fever,
so we used this remedy and it worked,
(11:34):
but man, he experienced a side effect that
you're gonna wanna know about.
So, let's dive right in.
So, do you see how creating some curiosity
and setting some hooks in the beginning, it
can really make a big difference on people
committing.
It's like, they can see, oh, this is
a 10-minute episode.
Do I wanna spend 10 minutes watching this?
And so, what you do in the beginning
(11:54):
can really set the tone and help them
make that commitment.
So, what do you find works better format
-wise right now?
Like, I started on YouTube with PowerPoints.
I don't see that that's a thing anymore.
It seems to be more talking head.
But you tell me, are there certain formats
that you see performing really well on YouTube
versus other formats?
So, in the how-to space, talking head
is great.
(12:15):
Being conversational versus scripted is definitely ideal.
So, not scripted.
You wanna just have a conversation, even if
you have bad grammar, even if you need
to pause and kind of find the right
word.
That's how we talk naturally.
So, that works better for building a relationship.
I lost my train of thought on the
question.
So, can you remind me?
Well, that's okay.
I'm asking about the type of format that
(12:35):
works well.
Is it talking head?
Is it PowerPoints?
Do I need to have a fancy camera?
Like, what format works best to get people
to most engage?
So, start with the talking head.
And if you're gonna use PowerPoint, you know
what PowerPoints are extremely boring.
And that's when there's just text on the
screen and the person is reading them.
So, just avoid that at all costs.
(12:56):
I use PowerPoint when I'm gonna show a
screenshot of something.
Because I talk about YouTube, I'm often showing
a screenshot of a thumbnail or the analytics.
And then it switches back.
So, having visuals actually can help if there's
something that is a little bit more technical
and it would help to pull out a
flip chart and draw on that.
You can have a variety.
If you're talking about teaching children something and
(13:18):
then you go to a B-roll clip
of a mom and a child working together.
Or if you're talking about renovating real estate
and you happen to have some footage on
your camera from a property that you're renovating
or something, showing some B-roll like that
while you're talking and then switching back to
you.
I mean, that can enhance it.
The one thing that I wanna caution though
is a lot of times people think, oh
(13:39):
wow, I saw this one YouTube channel and
their production is so amazing.
I could never do that.
So, I don't think I'm gonna try.
The reality is you could pull out your
phone and film a selfie video.
And as long as the lighting is decent,
like you've got a window in front of
you or something, as long as your camera
is close enough to you that the audio
(14:01):
is good, if you're sharing value, that's a
wonderful place to start.
Just talking, hit video, teach and answer their
questions.
And then all these other enhancements, maybe they
will help your video perform an extra 5
% better or an extra 10% better.
But if you let those things hinder you,
well then you're gonna get 0% of
(14:21):
those results.
How important is the title?
Let me ask you that.
Because it used to be back when I
started YouTube, that title was everything.
I could change the title.
I mean, literally I remember this.
I could change the title and then instantly
rank differently based on that title for whatever
keyword search term I was working on.
How important is title now that they're transcribing?
And by the way, I used to transcribe
(14:42):
the videos and upload the transcription.
I'm that old, right?
Back in the day, we're like, that was
a huge advantage because they weren't doing it.
So titles, how important are titles now?
Yeah, titles are still super important.
And that goes hand in hand with the
thumbnail.
With my strategy, because we're focusing so much
on the search of these questions, we use
the exact wording of the questions most of
the time in our titles.
(15:04):
Now, the disadvantage of doing that is sometimes
the way people ask questions, it's not the
most sensational of a topic.
Like, hey, Realtors never tell you this, or
something like that.
So what I do to balance that is
we'll put the sensational text in the thumbnail
itself.
So we might use that, Realtors never tell
you this.
And then it might be the, I don't
know, but whatever real estate topic that question
(15:27):
people are asking.
The title is pretty key and it's worked
really, really well of helping your video show
up at the top of search for that
question.
And then over time, you can test and
experiment because some of your videos you want
to use as marketing instruments.
Meaning, you want people in search to find
you, people who've never heard of you before.
(15:48):
But as your channel grows and you're getting
more and more subscribers, subscribers are people that
you need to nurture, not market to.
And so you can create a video and
have a title that would be appealing to
them and not appealing to search.
So having a balance of those two types
of videos, in both case, the title is
pretty critical either for the search engine to
(16:09):
really grab on and send you the right
traffic early on.
Because if YouTube sends the wrong traffic to
your video, well, those people aren't going to
like the video, right?
So you got to, right from the beginning,
make sure the right people are finding your
video.
Also, if you're nurturing, then you've got to
make a title that's going to attract them.
And it's like, yeah, they've seen some of
(16:29):
your content.
They like it.
They're not going to watch every video, but
oh, that title, yeah, that'll catch them.
They'll really be interested in that.
So it's a mix of both, because you're
right.
I mean, it kind of has to be
one or the other.
You know, you're either doing a title like,
hey, Realtors won't tell you this.
Well, very catchy and appealing curiosity-wise to
pull something in, but that's not going to
help us rank on YouTube.
So what you're saying is a combination of
(16:51):
both.
You might want to start out with the
one titles that kind of indicate what it
is for the search engine.
But then when you kind of doing other
variants of that, then you might want to
do titles that are a little bit more
geared towards the actual person watching.
Yeah, there's a new feature that YouTube added
in the last year where you can actually
differentiate between videos.
And now a quick break to hear from
(17:12):
our sponsor.
Hey, it's Ty Crandall with CreditSuite.
Many of our subscribers want to build business
credit that's linked to their EIN without a
personal guarantee or credit check.
Now, if you're looking to get no-doc,
high-limit business credit cards that report to
the business reporting agencies without a personal guarantee
or credit check, give us a call at
877-600-2487.
That's 877-600-2487, or schedule your free
(17:37):
consultation online to talk more at creditsuite.com
forward slash consult.
That you want to show your subscribers and
videos that aren't intended for your subscribers.
This is so cool, and I discovered this.
And you have to scroll way down.
So when you're on the edit screen where
you can put in the title and the
description and whatnot, you have to scroll down
and then you have to hit another button
that says see more.
(17:57):
So then you scroll down further, but there's
a checkbox that says something to the effect
of, because I'm not looking at it now,
but if you have that box checked, notify
my subscribers and put this video in my
subscription feed.
So if you uncheck that box, I will
often do that if I'm covering a topic
that I cover a lot, but I'm covering
it in a different way, answering different questions,
(18:20):
that I'm like, you know, my subscribers have
probably heard enough of this topic from me,
so I'm not going to send a notification
to them, but I still want to do
it because I want to show up in
search.
So this is a marketing video.
I didn't know anything about that.
It's interesting how much YouTube has changed over
time.
When you were talking about thumbnails, what are
you finding works really well on thumbnails?
(18:41):
Because what I found is that if I
don't have really good thumbnails, and I didn't
want to be in the thumbnail pictures, but
that wasn't working, right now I got to
be like, I saw that, it's just like
works, right?
And so, and then memes get passed around
with me or through the company.
That's a whole other conversation for another day.
So what are you finding works really well
on thumbnails right now to bring people in?
Yeah, having a picture that's close enough of
(19:04):
you that you can see the whites of
your eyes, that's going to be great.
And you actually don't have to be over
the top with your expression, like to show
crazy excitement, but our brains are really good
at seeing like hundreds of different emotions.
And so just a subtle raise of the
eyebrow can actually say a lot, you know?
So if you match some words, we'll just
(19:25):
use that same example of realtors never tell
you this, you're kind of looking like suspicious
or something, putting emotion into it does create
that curiosity.
So what we tend to want to do,
and especially women, not to pick on women,
but women love to just look beautiful and
amazing on their thumbnail.
They want every thumbnail to look like a
portrait.
(19:45):
And going back years ago, a gentleman that
I was working with, he said, Nate, why
do you always make me look so dorky
in the thumbnail?
Because he would be doing something that was
like, what is he doing?
And there's one thumbnail that I have in
my mind that he was like doing this
weird thing, making a weird face, but it
got a lot of clicks.
And so with women, I found I can't
be that intense because they'll get upset by
(20:07):
it, but there's a middle ground.
Now, there's some cool features that YouTube's created
to help because there is a science to
it, but a lot of it is just
an art or even luck.
Like did I, I think this thumbnail will
work, let's put it on YouTube and see.
And YouTube will tell you what the click
-through rate is, but just this last year,
we've been waiting for it since like 97
or something.
And no, not 2007, 2017, let me, so
(20:30):
not that long.
Since 2017 though, YouTube has been announcing, we're
gonna allow you to split test your thumbnails.
And it just barely came out in 24,
where now you can actually upload two different
thumbnails.
So if you're thinking, I've got this idea,
but I've got the second idea, which one
should I go with?
Upload both of them and YouTube will test
them over the next two weeks.
(20:51):
And it will let you know which one
has a better click-through rate.
So there's features like that, that really help
us out.
Speaking of that, are you using, what additional
techs?
Cause I've used TubeBuddy before in the past,
some other things back in the day.
Other tech, do you use or recommend for
clients that helps you through this process of
creating and ranking?
Admittedly, none of the above.
(21:12):
So TubeBuddy and vidIQ are the popular tools
that are built for YouTube.
And if, and I do need to take
a step back and explain one thing.
There are two main strategies on YouTube.
So strategy A is you wanna build a
channel that's entertaining, that you're generating ad revenue.
(21:33):
So for that type of a channel, where
you don't have a business, but you're turning
YouTube into a business and it's entertaining and
your focus is ad revenue.
For that type of channel, TubeBuddy and vidIQ
can be helpful with creativity and things like
that.
But if your goal is I've got a
business and I'm gonna leverage YouTube as a
tool to generate leads for my business.
(21:53):
And I'm gonna focus on YouTube search, like
Nate Woodbury says, then TubeBuddy and vidIQ are
actually detrimental.
The keyword tools on there are the old
fashioned style of keyword research.
So I used to use TubeBuddy for the
split testing of thumbnails.
That's a great feature.
But now that that's incorporated into YouTube for
the Nate Woodbury strategy, there's no reason to
(22:15):
use those tools.
I actually have them because I demonstrate the
flaws in them.
Just one example, I'll go to YouTube, I'll
type in topic in the search bar.
And one of my clients videos will rank
at the top.
Often they're in position one, two, and three.
And then we look over and the TubeBuddy
plugin or the vidIQ plugin says your SEO
score is 40 out of 100.
(22:37):
And I'm like, hmm, I'm ranking at the
top, but why is it 40?
And you drill down.
And so I created my own scoring tools
in a spreadsheet.
So it's like, am I ranking at the
top?
And how many in this category are ranking
at the top?
So that, yeah, those tools are kind of
misleading, unfortunately.
What are some of the other ones I'm
interested in?
On your spreadsheet, what are some of the
other things that you are tracking that you
(22:57):
feel are most important?
So I use a tree analogy and I'll
just explain that.
So then I can explain what I created
in this spreadsheet.
So my tree analogy, where you have the
trunk that goes out to branches, that goes
out to the leaves, the trunk represents your
core area of expertise and the branches are
the different ways you can break that down
in different categories.
Well, the leaves represent these questions that we're
(23:19):
talking about.
So as you do keyword research and you
start to find all these questions, which I
call leaf titles, okay, these leaves, as you
start to find all these questions, you can
actually group them by branch.
And you'll look at two branches on this
tree and you'll think, okay, now that I
see all the questions on this one branch,
I kind of get a sense of who
these people are, maybe their age or their
(23:41):
experience level or whether they're executives or employees.
And you can really understand like, ooh, I
like some of the questions on this branch,
but there's others on here that that's not
really relevant.
So then you compare that to the branch
next to it and you're like, well, this
one's interesting.
I think I like every single one of
these questions and they're looking for me, they're
(24:02):
looking for my services.
So you can really hone in and focus
on those branches.
So I create a spreadsheet and I organize
all the questions in groups like that, that
I call branches.
And so then it's kind of tedious, but
I take every one of those leaf titles,
every one of those questions and I do
a search on YouTube.
Am I ranking for it?
If it's at the top, I give it
(24:24):
a yes.
If I have to scroll down, then that's,
I put starting.
And if I don't find myself or don't
find my client, I put no.
So then on this whole branch, I add
up my score.
How many yeses are there?
And how many startings are there?
I give yeses a score of one and
I give startings a score of 0.25.
So I might, in the beginning, when I'm
starting out, I might have a score of
(24:45):
two and there's a total of 30 that
I'm trying to rank for.
But then I come back a month later
and my score might've turned to 6.25.
And then a month later, I'm up to
13.
It's been really helpful to score that way
because comparing it to the SEO score that
vidIQ or TubeBuddy might give me, that doesn't
really tell me anything, tracking it this way
(25:07):
in the spreadsheet, I know exactly, okay, this
is a branch that I want to dominate.
Meaning anytime somebody asks a question on this
branch, I wanna be at the top on
YouTube.
And we just see those nos turning into
yeses.
After about three or four months, it's like,
yep, I dominate this branch.
Now let's move on to the next branch.
So if I release a video and follow
(25:27):
the steps we've talked about so far, am
I just, am I out?
I just gotta let it rip and it
takes care of itself?
Or are there other things I should be
doing once that video is released to continue
to help my ranking improve?
So the quickest answer is you can just
let it sit and let it do its
thing.
If you've done your work in the preparation
and the research before filming, you've done 90
(25:49):
% of the work.
Now, if your channel is brand new and
you're just trying to like start to get
that initial bit of momentum, there's a couple
of things that you can do.
And there's a lot of things that you
do not want to do.
So the couple of things that you can
do are you can participate in the comments.
Now, YouTube isn't nearly as social as the
(26:10):
other social media like Facebook or LinkedIn.
And so it's not gonna work as well.
You can't tag things or whatnot.
And most of the time people disable links.
So you don't wanna be really self-promotional.
But if you can find your audience on
other people's videos, find a channel that's similar
to yours and you can engage in the
(26:31):
comments there, then if you find somebody that's
made a comment, they're like, oh man, I
want that person on my channel, then respond
to them and just say, hey, yeah, that
really makes a lot of sense.
You just continue that conversation.
So it's time consuming, but I've actually seen
that to be pretty effective.
And another thing that it's hard to know
how well this works, but it's something that
I try on new channels where you can
(26:52):
create a playlist.
So if you've launched a new episode on
topic A and you find on another channel
or maybe you do that search of where
you want to show up on YouTube, do
a search for that topic, see who's ranking
at the top currently and make sure you
pick a couple of videos there that have
a lot of views on it that are
recent, create a playlist and put their videos
(27:13):
and your video on the same playlist.
Now, what I'm attempting to do there is
just tell the algorithm, look, my video is
ranked with these videos and we're related here.
Sometimes when you look at the analytics and
you look at the source of traffic, it
breaks down suggested, browse, search, external, well, playlist
(27:35):
is a source of traffic.
So you can see, yeah, I'm getting a
little bit of views from playlist.
So that's one indicator, but my hope and
the thing that I can't track, but it's
easy to do is just, I'm hoping that
this will send a signal to the algorithm.
And as I've done those little things, because
I just launched another brand new channel at
the beginning of this year, I produce over
60 different channels now.
So on this brand new channel, we had
(27:56):
like 30 views one day, 50 views the
next day.
And then it dropped down to five views.
And then for several days, we had zero
views.
Even when we launched another video, I'm like,
all right, let me give it a nudge
again.
So I did those two things.
I created some more playlists and I just
easy ones, like a few videos each.
And I went and I engaged in comments
and that kind of jumpstarted again.
(28:17):
But that's not something that I really have
to do ongoing.
It's just something that I found that helps
in the beginning.
Do you use playlists a lot outside of
this purpose?
Like I think, is it playlists that they
call where you're grouping the videos?
It escapes me right now.
Do you use those a lot?
Because you're creating branches of topics.
Do you make YouTube playlists just for that
(28:38):
branch, for example, with a lot of your
content related to that?
There probably is a lot of good strategy
out there.
And admittedly, I haven't really focused on it.
YouTube is really good at kind of curating
if they watch this video, then I think
they should watch this one next and YouTube
will display it to them and test it.
And if it works, it'll continuing to do
(28:58):
that.
And so that happens through both search, browse
and suggested.
Those are kind of the main three sources
of traffic on YouTube.
So I put all of my energy into
focusing on this search tactic.
And then I just kind of trust the
algorithm to do the rest.
A lot of the times when I put
my focus on those other areas, it's really
(29:19):
elusive.
And something that I did one time works,
whether it's a playlist or whether it's some
strategy that really worked and a video took
off, but then I'll do that same thing
another time and it doesn't work.
And that can become really, really discouraging.
But when I focused on the search, it's
just tactical, it's predictable, it's gradual, but the
(29:40):
results that come from it, the leads that
you generate from it are like referral quality
leads.
So it becomes very, very worthwhile.
Nate, we've talked a lot about videos, is
what about the overall channel?
Advice towards ranking the overall channel or the
things we should be really focusing on, profile
image, the whole main image of the channel.
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