29 Point Checklist to Increase Your Music Video Views on YouTube
29 essential items to optimising your YouTube channel and increasing your views
“Small changes + consistency + time = significant results”
The Compound Effect, Darren Hardy (2008)
With all the mystery around YouTube’s algorithm, looking to master it can be a daunting thought — especially if you’re a new music artist. The truth is, it’s lot’s of small changes that help bring your channel to where it needs to be.
Having worked on multiple YouTube Offical Artist channels with music labels over the last few years, I’ve created this checklist to help independent musicians achieve the same results as major labels.
Each step you complete will give your music a little bit more chance of being discovered, and hopefully reaching new fans.
Some of these settings are hidden away, so I’ve included a step by step 🔎 to help you quickly make the change.
Let’s get started…
Is Your Official Artist Channel Setup Correctly?
1. Your channel is an Official Artist Channel 🎶
An Official Artist Channel gives you greater control of your music catalogue on YouTube and enables ‘Analytics for Artists’ to give you better insights to how your music is being used.
Setting this up involves a simple email, but be warned, YouTube are notoriously slow at converting channels over so allow Google 4+ months to activate this for you.
🔎 Step by Step Guide to getting an Official Artist Channel
2. Your channel category is set to music
A common mistake is to keep the default catorgory assigned by YouTube for your channel. Make sure that for all future uploads this is set to music.
🔎 YouTube Studio -> Settings -> Upload Defaults -> Advanced Settings
3. You’re posting to your Community Channel
Available when you become an OAC or if you have 10k+ subscribers, use the community page to create regular updates just like you would on any other social platform.
Checkout YouTube’s Community Playbook for helpful tips or go straight the community page and post away!
🔎 Your Channel Page -> Community
4. Your channel has a custom URL
eg. https://www.youtube.com/c/[artistname]
Only available after you’ve reached 100+ subscribers, a custom URL helps your fans know they’re on the right page.
The best use here would be just your name and avoid using “TV” or “Music” if you can. If your artist name isn’t available then I’d recommend using “Official”.
🔎 myaccount.google.com -> Switch to the correct account -> About Me -> Set YouTube Custom URL
Have you branded your channel correctly?
“Your personal brand is a promise to your clients… a promise of quality, consistency, competency, and reliability”
Jason Hartman
Making your channel align with your brand helps create familiarity with your audience. Put simply, you want someone to know 100% that they are on the right page, so make sure you do everything you can to make this happen.
5. Your channel has a video watermark
Sitting in the bottom right of your videos, make sure you make use of this little branding wizardry.
🔎 YouTube Studio -> Settings -> Channel -> Advanced Settings -> Branding
6. Channel Home Page has a Featured Video / Welcome Video
I recommend using a dedicated YouTube greeting video for unsubscibed viewers, around 30 seconds long and encouraging viewers to subscribe. Then for subscribed viewers, use this space to highlight your latest project.
🔎 Your Channel -> Customize Channel
Help: Producing A Channel Trailer
7. Gallery photos added in artist centre section of the channel settings
This also shows up on YouTube music, so worth adding a few extra pics! I recommend a minimum of 5.
🔎 Creator Studio -> Artist Center -> Press Kit
8. Use a custom channel banner image that works on all devices
Make sure you’re using a template to create a banner that looks great on TV’s as well as on desktop and mobile. Ensure it matches with your other social media platforms too.
🔎 Your Channel -> Customize Channel -> Hover over banner -> Edit Channel Art
Have You setup your SEO?
“Good SEO is paying attention to all the details that most bloggers ignore.”
– Ryan Biddulph
Everyday, 450,000 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube with your latest video being one of them.
Good search engine optimisation (SEO) will allow your content to be discovered in the noise, so do the basics at least!
9. Your official website is verified as an “Associated Website”
Let YouTube know what your website is and your really letting Google search results know too!
This verfication will help your listeners find your content, and will also allow you to add cards on your videos that point to your official website.
🔎 YouTube Studio -> Settings -> Channel -> Advanced Settings -> Advanced channel settings
10. Your labels channel is added as a featured channel
Let YouTube know who’s important to your channel.
🔎 Your Channel -> Customize Channel -> Featured Channel Panel
11. Your channel has relevant and correct channel tags
Think “what will people search for to find my content”. Use tools like VidiQ or TubeBuddy to help you and fill up the tags with as many search terms as you can think of.
🔎 YouTube Studio -> Settings -> Channel -> Basic Info
12. Your about page has up to date links (up to 5)
These also show up in your title banner and allow fans to dig deeper across your platforms.
🔎 Your Channel -> Customize Channel -> About -> Links
13. Your about page has an up to date bio
Ensure you reference discography, key moments and artist information from last 2 years.
🔎 Your Channel -> Customize Channel -> About -> Description
14. Channel is linked to Google Ads account for future retargeting
You might not be using it now, but in the future you’ll be glad you connected your google ads account with your YouTube, allowing you to target ads to anyone who’s watched your content is very powerful.
🔎 YouTube Studio -> Settings -> Advanced Settings -> Google Ads account linking
Is your existing content optimized?
This is probably the most labour intensive part of this whole checklist but it can really make a difference. If you want an indepth look at these optimisations, check out my previous article:
15. Existing videos are titled correctly
Consistancy is key. YouTube recommend the following:
[artist name] | [song name]
However, my personal opinion is that this should be the other way around.
🔎 YouTube Studio -> Videos -> [hover over video] -> Details -> Title
16. Existing videos have lyrics in description
Copy and paste your lyrics into your description of each video to help boost your SEO and allow your fans to sing along!
🔎 YouTube Studio -> Videos -> [hover over video] -> Details -> Description
17. Existing videos have tracking DSP links in description
Use Linkfire / SmartURL / other to push users to a smart link so they can decide which platform to listen to your music.
🔎 YouTube Studio -> Videos -> [hover over video] -> Details -> Description
18. Existing Videos are tagged correctly
Use VidIq or TubeBuddy to discover which tags to add onto your videos. The more tags, the more chance your video has of being discovered organically.
🔎 YouTube Studio -> Videos -> [hover over video] -> Details -> Tags
19. Existing videos have custom thumbnails
Use a thumbnail which clearly shows the face of the artist and the name of the song to help your click through rate.
🔎 YouTube Studio -> Videos -> [hover over video] -> Details
20. Existing videos have end screens
I recommend using a featured video, a playlist and a channel subscribe button here:
🔎 YouTube Studio -> Videos -> [hover over video] -> Details -> End Screens
21. Existing videos have end have cards
Use upto 5 per video, push your audience to other videos, playlists, events, or merch:
🔎 YouTube Studio -> Videos -> [hover over video] -> Details -> Cards
22. Existing videos have end have subtitles
Increase your SEO by letting YouTube know what’s inside the video. Subtitles typiclly bring. 2–4% growth in views:
🔎 YouTube Studio -> Videos -> [hover over video] -> Details -> Subtitles
23. Upload defaults includes re-usable template
Save yourself some time and create better upload templates so you don’t have to keep filling in the same information:
🔎 YouTube Studio -> Settings -> Upload Defaults
Leverage playlists!
User playlists contribute to around 3% initial discoverability, but after your video has gone live, they drive up to 50% of traffic in the future on your music videos.
They’re incredibly important, so use these 3 checkpoints to ensure your playlists are looking good.
24. Channel has Discography Playlists
Make sure each album / EP has it’s own playlist. It’s really simple to do and if you’re really stuck you can check out YouTube’s guide ‘Showcasing your Discography
🔎 Your Channel -> Customize Channel -> Playlists
25. Every music video is assigned to a relevant playlist
Help keep users on your channel by ensuring every video is part of a playlist:
🔎 YouTube Studio -> Videos -> [hover over video] -> Details -> Playlists
26. One of your playlists are featured on your labels YouTube account
Ask your label to feature your latest project on their channel to capture some of their traffic.
🔎 Your Labels Channel -> Customize Channel
Are you monetizing your content correctly?
Content ID is a minefield of Your channel must have 1,000 subscribers and received 4,000 watch hours in the previous 12 months to enable monetization through becoming a YouTube Partner.
Once you’ve done this, you’ll realise there’s a lot detail needed of uploading your music to YouTube.
If you’re independantly putting out music, you’ll want to ensure you have this setup correctly so you can get your royalty payments through correctly!
Here’s what to look out for:
27. Existing music videos have correctly assigned ISRCs
Help your publishers out by ensuring ISRCs are correctly placed on every one of your music videos.
🔎 YouTube Studio -> Videos -> [hover over video] -> Details -> Rights Management
28. Relevant videos have content ID enabled
Each artist is different, but whatever you’ve decieded for how you monetize user generated content, make sure you’ve applied it to all your videos. I recommend most artist tun on Content ID and monetize worldwide (rather than block).
🔎 YouTube Studio -> Videos -> [hover over video] -> Details -> Monetization
29. Non music videos are correctly assigned asset type “Web Video”
Things can get messy from publishing if your vlog or behind the scenes video is labelled as a music video — good labelling will keep them happy
🔎 YouTube Studio -> Videos -> [hover over video] -> Details -> Rights Management
Conclusion
I know, there’s a lot to go through, but trust me when I say that when you get this right, especially early on yourchannels life, you’ll reap the rewards later on!
