How to Start a YouTube Channel as a Teenager in 2023
Apr 28, 2023
Starting a YouTube channel as a teenager is one of the first steps that you can take if you want to earn money online or build a personal brand. There are countless internet personalities and influencers that got their lucky break creating YouTube videos while still in their teenage years.
In this article, you will learn the following:
- Is it actually possible for teenagers to start a YouTube channel?
- Why start a YouTube channel
- How to start a YouTube channel as a teenager
If you want to learn how to start a YouTube channel as a teenager, then continue reading!
Can Teenagers Start a YouTube Channel?
Yes, teenagers can start a YouTube channel. There’s no age restriction or minimum age requirement to create your own YouTube account.
Of course, if you are below the age of 18, you’ll only be able to view content that is “made for kids”. But since you’re really only going to be publishing content on the platform, it shouldn’t be a problem.
Why Start a YouTube Channel
You might be wondering what the benefits are of starting a YouTube channel as a teenager.
YouTube is an Excellent Springboard
Many teenage YouTubers use the platform as a springboard for their careers in music, television and film, business, etc.
There are many internet personalities, actors, and musicians that got their big break on YouTube. These include big names such as Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, and Dylan O’Brien, to name a few.
YouTube offers an excellent opportunity to get your talents and skills discovered.
It Doesn’t Require a Lot of Money to Start
Starting a YouTube channel as a teenager is a low-cost activity that can generate big potential profits.
You don’t need a lot of money to start your own YouTube channel. In fact, you can get started with the things you already have at home such as your phone’s camera for recording content.
Even though it doesn’t cost much, you can eventually generate significant amounts of money through sponsorships and by selling your own merchandise.
To give you an idea of what’s possible, Sophie Michelle is a teenage YouTuber with a net worth of more than $2 million. Likewise, Evan from EvanTubeHD has a net worth of around $16 million.
Sure, these creators are the exception, but that shouldn’t stop you. Even if you’re able to create a YouTube brand that generates a fraction of these figures, you’ll still be glad that you made an effort to start a YouTube channel.
Offers an Excellent Learning Experience
Even if you don’t want to become a famous pop star, actor, or YouTube gamer, starting your own channel as a teenager is an excellent way to learn about several things real-life skills, including
- Digital marketing
- How to sell yourself and your brand
- Analytical thinking
- Research
- Design
- Video editing
These skills can be utilized in your future workplace or you can sell these services to companies as a freelancer.
How to Start a YouTube Channel as a Teenager
Starting a YouTube channel can be broken down into 5 simple steps. These steps are as follows:
- Picking your YouTube niche
- Creating a content plan
- Getting your equipment
- Recording your content
- Optimizing your channel for YouTube SEO
Pick Your YouTube Niche
This is the first, and arguably the most important, step in your YouTube journey.
With so many different YouTube niche ideas to choose from, it’s easy to get confused and bewildered.
Selecting your YouTube niche will require that you sit down and take some time to think of what topics you like talking about and learning more about.
It’s no use you create a YouTube channel targeting the fitness niche if you yourself don’t even like to exercise.
Also, take into consideration the equipment that you need to produce your videos. You don’t want to be spending a lot of money just to buy equipment to get your channel going.
For instance, if you want to start a YouTube gaming channel, but you don’t have a gaming PC, you should probably avoid that niche, even though that niche is booming.
Image source: Google
As a new YouTuber, you should also avoid starting a channel in a very competitive niche.
Choosing a low-competition niche is the easiest and fastest way to grow a sizable Youtube channel.
A quick and dirty way to see if a YouTube niche is too competitive is by analyzing the subscriber count and video views for 20 channels in the niche.
If the channels have got anything between 20,000 and 50,000 subscribers, but the channel’s video views are high, then you’ve got a winner.
Additionally, you can use some of your favorite YouTube channels as a starting point for brainstorming niches for your own channel.
Create a Content Plan
After you’ve selected your YouTube channel niche, it’s time to create a content plan and strategy.
If you think that you’re only going to produce content without doing any type of research, then it’s going to be a long road to success.
It’s no use if you record and publish content that no one is searching for on YouTube. That will only result in wasted time and effort.
Instead, you want to be producing content that is backed up with solid research and data.
This process is known as YouTube keyword research, and it entails finding content opportunities that have medium to high search volume, and low competition.
The best way to find these content opportunities is by using a YouTube keyword research tool such as TubeRanker.
Our tool can help you find high-volume content opportunities in any YouTube niche.
Once you’ve found a few keyword opportunities within your niche, create a simple Excel, Google Sheets, or Docs document with all the keywords you found. By doing this you can build out an entire database with content ideas worth pursuing.
Get Your Equipment
You should only consider buying equipment for your YouTube channel once you’ve decided on your niche and the type of content you’re going to publish.
This is because your niche and the content you’re going to produce have a big impact on the equipment you’ll be using.
To start off, I really think you should try to be as lean as possible when it comes to costs. And as a result, you should try to start your YouTube channel with as little as possible.
Luckily, thanks to the advancements in modern smartphones, you’ll be able to use your phone’s camera to record your content.
I’d say the main items you should consider getting are a microphone as well as some video editing software.
This is because bad audio will definitely result in viewers closing your videos and finding a video with better audio quality.
Video editing software will give you the ability to add visual effects to your YouTube videos.
Record & Publish Your Content
The next step in the process is to actually record the content. This may seem strange at first, especially if you’re not used to being in front of a camera.
However, here are a few pointers that you can use when recording your content
- Always follow a pre-written script or content outline
- Try to film in a well-lit area
- Add your personality to videos
Once your content is recorded, you might want to edit your videos so that they look good and contain some additional elements such as background music and visual graphics.
After you’ve edited your video, it’s time to upload it to YouTube. This step is quite straightforward and is as simple as uploading a video to Facebook or TikTok.
Optimize Your Channel
Lastly, you want to optimize your YouTube channel in order to achieve optimum growth.
What this entails is conducting a YouTube audit to find any elements of your channel that need improvement.
The YouTube audit process can be broken down into 2 main sections, namely a YouTube channel audit as well as a YouTube video audit
The channel audit process entails checking that all of these elements have been populated with information:
- Channel layout, spotlight videos, and featured videos sections
- Profile picture, cover photos, and video watermark
- Basic channel information such as description, links, and channel name
The video auditing process is a bit more complicated and is all about ensuring that your videos have been optimized according to YouTube SEO best practices.
This includes the following:
- Making sure that video titles contain your target keyword
- Adding your target keyword and variations thereof to video descriptions
- Using the most relevant YouTube video tags
- Creating thumbnails that stand out and that represent your channel branding
- Using chapters in your YouTube videos
Conclusion
Starting a YouTube channel as a teenager can really pay off with time. If you’re able to get started at a young age, your channel can get really big as you grow older.
The main point that you should always remember is to keep to a posting schedule and to remain consistent. This is essential, especially when starting out.
