YouTube Tips The Process of Creating a Video

[Stanley | Team TB]

Because of all the unknown variables that are present when filming a fishing vlog keyword research and identifying trending topics can be difficult... Difficult but not impossible. So I am going to break down my process for creating a video, start to finish and beyond in order to give some insight for anybody having issues with their own creative process.

Step 1: Filming
And right off the bat this is one of the places where I differ from so many channels, and yet I find myself in the same boat as so many other creators as well. I have to film first, so doing keyword research is pointless right? I can't know what I am going to catch or what is going to happen before I film it, right?!

Wrong.

While I can't know for certain what I am going to catch I know the style of fishing that I am going to do, I know where I am going and after having been making videos for a couple of years I know what keywords/phrases I can rank for that will provide traffic regardless. My hometown is a tourist destination and one that gets some search traffic. You can be sure that regardless of catch I can always target those phrases. I know in advance what I can target, now I am just hoping to catch something epic to expand on that.

My main issue with filming before I know what the video is about is that I don't know fully what keywords I am targeting, and this is an issue because YouTube does pay attention to the things you say in the video (particularly the first 30 seconds). I want to say my main keyword phrases in the video. So I typically film the introduction of the video last.

Step 2: Editing
I like to edit my video before I get into metadata stuff. The story of the video may change based on edits. I have had some far more intriguing videos pop up after eliminating material that wasn't pertinent.

Step 3: Metadata
Once the video is uploaded as 'Private' I will begin doing more intensive keyword research. I take a pencil and notepad and write down 20-25 keywords, seeing what other variations and options perform better than others. I also search the best of these terms in YouTube. i want to see how many views other videos are getting and to see if I can compete with that and with their thumbnails.

Once I narrow my search down to the top 10-12 keyword phrases I take my top one or two and I combine them into one efficient and engaging title. Next I do the same with the description... I write it out as I systematically plug in my best keywords. I start with the best keyword phrase and work my way down until I have them all entered somewhere into a captivating and viewer-oriented paragraph or two.

Step 4: Publishing
The 15 minutes before I publish are hectic. I pull up browser tabs for my favorite forums, social media etc. Once it goes live I post an engaging and interesting thread on each, something that captures the viewers attention and incites them to engage with the post that contains a link to the video.

Step 5: Aftermath
This is a critical step. I'll be knee-deep in my next video but I will continue to watch the performance of the previous videos. I don't accept anything less than a 3% CTR (and that depends on traffic/impressions). I watch my keyword ranks in Tubebuddy and I update thumbs/titles etc once every 10-14 days until that video is meeting the standards I expect. I had one video (with a particularly high CPM) that I changed nearly a dozen times. it took months, but today that video is a top 20 performing video on my channel... a nice place to be considering the CPM is double that of my average video.

I omitted some stuff here for the sake of brevity, it is important to upload your vids as unlisted and have others review them for you etc before you publish but I didn't want to make this a terribly long article. If you have anything to add I would love to hear it! Do you see anything wrong with my approach, do you have a better process or does this provide you with any insight (good or bad) into the work that you do?

 

[Damon]

For me the first step is writing, planning the story. I write a full three-act dramatic structure with inciting incident, themes, shot lists, pitch and train. Then I let that sit a couple days until I feel this desperate need to get footage. From there I start getting cutaway footage--what most people call b-roll. Much of that is done around the house, but sometimes I will do a special fishing trip just to get cutaway footage. From there I'll do an interview portion just like in the documentary films. (A second camera will make this much easier.)

Then I'll get to the river and shoot a fishing trip. Again for me I'm making weekly documentary films, so the pre-production and post-production process is far more entailed. Since I shoot in a super flat image, I have to color grade the footage. Color grading also helps communicate the emotion of the film. (I hate Rec.709 colors.) For my "Old Cane Pole" series everything is sepia or a low-contrast warm. The "Juggin'!" series is almost always vintage or low-contrast neutral. Customer update videos and tutorials are always low contrast neutral. Sometimes I'll use bleached bypass if I want the old John Wayne look.

It doesn't stop there. I have to write, record and produce the music for the film as well. I almost always have a patch going on my modular synthesizer. Give all my years in music, composing the music is the easy part.

Keywords are always done by set. I'm always looking for sets of high quality keywords. That's usually what starts the process. As long as I have three to 8 good keywords, I'll use those as a set for the series until my audience starts searching different keywords. For instance jug fishing adventure was hot last year. Now it jug fishing for food. Next season might use a different set of keywords for the series.

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

Yes sir! And i gotta say i have always loved the color grading choices you've made. Completely different feel from everything else i see on the platform. Big fan!