5 ways to enhance your channel

5 ways to expand your channel

1. Customize Your Description

YouTube gives you a place on your channel to write something about your brand and the content you share on YouTube. The description is limited to 1,000 characters, so you have little room to get creative here.

A copy of your channel description will not appear on your channel page itself. It is indexed by search engines and can also be displayed in suggested channel categories and search results on YouTube. A good tip is to include some relevant keywords and CTAs in the opening lines of your description.

And take special care of the first 100-150 characters. Depending on where the description appears, the rest of the text can be truncated.

Here is an example of a great YouTube channel description from Vox:

Vox's YouTube description on the About tab

2. Add a link to your channel

We briefly mentioned the channel link earlier in this post. You can display up to five links in your channel's banner. The first link will appear expanded (see screenshot below), and the remaining links will appear as icons.

MeUndies links to your homepage and four social profiles in your YouTube banner

MeUndies links to your homepage and four social profiles in your YouTube banner

I would love to share with you how to add these links in four super-quick steps:

1. Click the "Customize Channels" button on your channel's homepage.

2. Then click the gear icon in the upper-right corner, just below your cover art.

3. You will see a channel setting lightbox. Here you need to toggle the option labeled "Customize your channel layout":

Toggle the channel-option to "Customize the layout of your channel".

Toggle the "Optimize your channel layout" option.

3. Now that you have enabled customization on your channel, return to your channel's homepage and you will now see the option to "Edit Link" under the Settings menu on your cover art.

"Edit Link" will appear when you hover over the edit icon in your YouTube channel Art.

"Edit Link" will appear when you hover over the edit icon in your YouTube channel Art.

4. Click on the "Edit Link" option and then you will be taken to the "About" section of your channel. Here you will have the option to add a link and choose how many are displayed on your cover art:

You can choose up to five links to display on your YouTube channel.

You can choose up to five links to display on your YouTube channel.

3. Add channel trailer

As visitors come to your channel, you want to give them a picture of what kind of content your channel covers and why they want to subscribe and check your videos. A channel trailer is the right way to do this.

A short, two-to-the-point channel trailer can be a great way to get people familiar with your content. The channel trailer should attract attention right from the start and also represent the type of content you create on YouTube.

It is also important to think about the details you have added to this video as it is prominently displayed on the homepage of your channel.

(These trailers only appear to those who have not yet subscribed to your channel.)

Here's where this trailer appears on your channel's homepage. Notice how the video is on the left and how the title and description look on the right? This is a lot of prime real estate!

The channel trailer takes a prominent position on the YouTube channel page.

The channel trailer takes a prominent position on the YouTube channel page.

4. Add your contact details (email address)

If you are using YouTube as a business or creator, it may be great to have your contact details available to anyone interested in your work. YouTube has a section on each channel profile to list your contact details for business inquiries.

This can be found in the "About" section of your channel. To find it, go to your channel's homepage, click "About" from the navigation, and then scroll down to "Details". Here you will see the option to share your email address:

Email address Adding your email address can be a great way for fans and customers to reach you.

Adding your email address can be a great way for fans and customers to reach you.

over to you

Thank you for reading. Enjoyed learning how to create a YouTube channel and I hope you have taken one or two tips from this post. If you create or already have a YouTube channel of your own, I would love to hear from you and learn from your experience in the comments below.

Do you have any suggestions for optimizing your YouTube channel ?!