10 Tiny Tips for YouTube Beginners. A Quick Go-To Guide for Starting a YouTube Channel in 2026
These are the essentials I’d share with any fellow new small creator on YouTube, so you can spend less time being overwhelmed by YouTube and more time creating.
I’m officially 150+ videos and nearly two years into my YouTube channel. But I researched YouTube for about a year before even starting, and still do.
So you can spend less time researching and more time creating, here’s the highlights reel of what I learned about starting a YouTube channel:
1. The 3 Ts
Before you’ve even started your script or hit record, all videos should start with what YouTube describes as the 3Ts:
Topic
Title
Thumbnail
Your thumbnail and title are almost as important as your topic - they decide if people will actually click to begin with. This is like the persuasive ad and copy for whatever it is your video is selling. Even if you have the best product, service or idea, no one is going to know about it if your packaging doesn’t convince them to give your video a go.
Ask yourself, what might people actually click on? It needs to unexpectedly compel their curiosity to click or feel like the right video at just the right time.
2. Time your release
Sometimes, the cliche that timing is everything is spot on when it comes to creating content. The best ideas can fall flat if they aren’t aligned to peak performance times for that type of content.
Use Google Trends, the date range and YouTube filters to pinpoint peaks and lulls in your topic idea. Remember the phrase, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear”. Put yourself into the mindset of your audience. What do they need most and when? With this approach, even if you’re creating evergreen content, you're integrating a touch of trends in your YouTube strategy, elevating the timeliness of your content.
3. Think in problems
Remember, YouTube is a search engine. In fact, it’s owned by Google itself and is the second biggest website in the world (second to Google). Whether you want to be educated, entertained or inspired, YouTube is designed to help solve a problem that the viewer has. When you think about problems, you start to think like your audience. What are they typing into their query box? This could be anything from How to Write a Resume to Christmas Decorating Ideas. In both scenarios, the results still help solve a problem.
For the simplest way to understand what others might be searching for, test your ideas in YouTube search.
Open YouTube in a new private window. Start typing your idea. Before you finish typing, see what the search is auto-suggesting in the drop-down box - it leaves a clue for the content your potential audience is craving.
4. Understand the art of thumbnails
Many creators suggest spending as much time on your thumbnail as you do on your editing for a reason. It’s a fine art. YouTube thumbnails are unlike a typical ad, curated brand collateral or other platform thumbnails. It sits somewhere in a sweet spot for all. YouTube thumbnails need to stop the scroll and eventually become recognisable in a highly visually cluttered platform.
Here are just some design considerations for your thumbnail:
Font size for readability at scale
Font hierarchy
Font colour for optimal design contrast
Exclusion zones for timestamps
SEO strategy
Brand consistency
5 . Build your ‘Second Brain’
The best ideas for your YouTube channel won’t come to you when you're sitting down at your perfectly formatted content planning spreadsheet. Your ideas for YouTube might come to you while you’re going about your everyday life - exercising, reading, talking to people, or watching other videos. It will be messy, but you want to be ready to capture it.
Tiago Forte, in his book Building a Second Brain, says that your most important ideas or information won’t come to you when you actually need it. So, create a system that captures your ideas for your Future Self.
I keep all my video ideas in a Notes app on my phone as it's always with me when inspiration strikes.
6. Fight for the first 5 seconds
Steven Bartlett’s book, The Diary of a CEO, talks about fighting for the first five seconds of your audience’s attention — this is your hook. His own YouTube channel is a masterclass in irresistible hooks.
You must earn your audience’s attention. Click-through and retention are among the most important metrics of YouTube. But, for most videos, retention drops almost immediately. In the first five seconds, your viewer’s filter will decide. Will they tune you out as “wallpaper”, as Barlett calls it, or give you their attention?
Even if you’re not big on scripts, this is one thing you’ll want to make sure you nail.
7. The 1% Rule
Don’t aim to be an overnight sensation. Just aim to get a little better with every video. I first heard YouTube sensation Ali Abdaal share this advice and the idea of a 1% rule - simply aiming to get 1% better with every video. This might touch on anything from the way you present to trying a new editing style, or even details as small as adding a prop in your video. Over time, tiny adjustments compound to dramatic improvements.
8. Think in playlists
Retention and repeat viewing are some of the strongest indicators for YouTube for the quality of your content. Connected content helps create a snowball effect.
When generating content for your channel, instead of isolated ideas, create a series. Breakdown one topic into multiple parts. For example, if I notice that a video on rebranding your personal branding does well, then it might indicate that there is more of an appetite to dive deeper into this topic. So instead of just how to rebrand yourself, this might become:
A series encourages people to binge on a topic that is timely or relevant to them. If someone lands on your channel and engages with more than one video, it’s one of the best ways to show YouTube that your content was relevant for them and they enjoyed your channel. The more time someone spends with you, the more likely they are to subscribe. Even if they don’t subscribe straight away, they might be more likely to get served your videos the next time they visit YouTube.
Playlists can help neaten overarching themes even further. For simplicity's sake, they may align with the core pillars of content for your channel.
9. Close with one intentional call to action
YouTubers tend to place a lot of focus on their opening hook and less on their closing. Instead of asking your audience to like, comment, subscribe, hit the notification button and watch the next video, focus on the one thing you want them to do most.
As a new YouTuber, you likely haven’t earned the attention and trust of your audience yet. So, few are likely to stay for long-winded closes. Be intentional about what you want your audience to do next. Experiment with your video’s closing style. I prefer to prioritise telling the viewer what video I suggest watching. That way, when it appears in the end slide, they have a visual and verbal hook for the one thing only. Over time, I’ve started to see the viewer spending more time on my channel as more valuable than immediately proposing they subscribe. However, in the times I do this, I make it clear and to the point, e.g. ‘subscribe for more on personal branding’.
10. Assess your results with Pareto’s Law
Pareto’s Law tells us that 80% of results come from 20% of your efforts. Don’t get caught in analysis paralysis in your YouTube analytics. Pay attention to a few key metrics. To simplify things, I like to pay the most attention to the videos that have the most views as it’s a strong measure of your click-through rate and overall idea. Additionally, subscribers to individual videos also measure the quality of your conversion. Your videos might have gotten a lot of views, but your subscribers to the video (as well as engagement) will tell you how helpful your video was.
The more you upload, the more analytics you’ll have. When you come back to your top-performing content and spend more time analysing this, you uncover the clues your audience has already left you. Do more of what resonated with them most.
Create, test, repeat
Starting a YouTube channel in 2026 doesn’t require a perfectly polished approach, just an intentional one and a willingness to learn in public. YouTube rewards consistency, clarity and courage. When you focus on the fundamentals - strong ideas, sharp packaging, thoughtful structure and honest analysis — you set yourself up for long-term momentum, not quick wins.
