Niche Sites - YouTube Channels

1. 94

   Alessio Ganciposted 24 months ago

   Hello there
   
   I have an idea to further promote HP network sites in Google.
   Actually, Google is pushing up visual content, and also videos. What about enabling a Videos section for HubPages? I think it could be worked in this way:
   
   - enabling an option to upload a video for a written article
   - once approved, the video will be posted on a HP niche YouTube channel (e.g. we may have a TurboFuture YouTube channel, a Delishably one, Owlcation, etc.)
   - videos may be an integration, or the exact same content of the article, but in a video format. For example, a TurboFuture article may feature a written IT tutorial, and also a video tutorial
   - videos must adhere to YouTube policies and HP staff may carefully check them, then the speech may be in English, or even in other languages, provided that English subtitles are provided in this case (even only English is fine)
   - maybe with YouTube APIs it's even possible to enable HP users to check data about the videos (stats, etc.) and even manage them from the HP dashboard (each video may feature a user token in the keywords, so that HP can correctly enables admin privileges only on the videos belonging to the users, otherwise a simple string in the database may bind the YouTube URLs to the respective HP accounts). Otherwise, HP staff can handle everything and user may ask for edits just through an email
   
   - through AdSense APIs, YouTube Earnings may be credited to the Ad Network program, detracted of the percentage taken by HP.
   
   I hope you like my idea of creating niches for YouTube. I have a YouTube channel, but honestly I like to deal with several niches, and everyone would agree that a channel should focus on one topic, exactly like a blog. That's why I use my YouTube channel just to post personal shorts but nothing more. I would love to create TurboFuture video tutorials to attach to my articles, or speak about things written in my articles, provide more information (e.g. video tours for my WanderWisdom articles) and have them on a niche channel handled by HP.
   
   I hope you like my idea
   Thanks
   Have a good day

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2. 97

   PaulGoodman67posted 24 months ago

   Some years back, I remember that we were encouraged to do video hubs. HP set up a system and gave us examples for what we might do. That plan seemed to fade.
   
   It's not necessarily a bad idea but I think videomaking involves a different skill set and those motivated to make vids of sufficient quality are likely a small minority here.
   
   HP also used to make its own videos, some of which can still be found on YouTube.
   
   Like I say, the theory of your idea has its merits, I'm just not sure of the practice. That said, there's nothing to stop people using their own initiative and making their own vids to promote their work independently.

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   1. 94

      Alessio Ganciposted 24 months agoin reply to this

      Yes, they idea is surely not easy to implement in a few days, and various things should be studied, but maybe it may give long-term advantages to the network.
      
      I see visual contents are taking more and more space on Google these days, and while in some cases photo snippets make the fortune of an article, in other situations a YouTube video may outrank even a well written article. That's due to how the algorithm decides whether a user would prefer to look at a video for a specific topic, rather than read an article (for some keywords, articles are the top results, but for others YouTube snippets may even take a good amount of Google search results).
      
      Maybe the only task a hubber has to do is to make sure he is filming high-quality videos, with proper light and that these have an added value. Then the HP staff can rework videos, add headings, snip and prepare them for a professional publication, otherwise they can ask for edits: more or less like it happens when submitting something to Network Sites.
      
      The idea is also to restrict the ability to upload videos only for articles on niche sites, so that HP staff doesn't get overwhelmed with tons of low-quality video submissions, and since the YouTube channels should be only for niches.
      
      Yes, personal initiative is welcome, but I'm just thinking at people who have interests in many niches, like me (I write in several niches, and it's not uncommon that one day I write about music, and the other day about IT or literature or Asian dramas, or again, travel articles). These people would need to choose between having a single YT channel for everything (not recommended at all, as it's like creating a content farm on YouTube), and creating different channels for each niche: this couldn't work the same, as an occasional writer may never frequently update these channels, plus, YouTube has very stringent requirements for enabling monetization.
      
      I think that a user interested in many niches can hardly establish a good presence on YouTube, just like they may have a hard time in running independent blogs (that's why I think HP is perfect for these users, like me).
      
      Yes the idea is surely not easy to implement, and I agree that there are surely many things to study about it, anyway I think it may be a real added value for everyone.

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3. 92

   Glenn Stokposted 24 months ago

   I like your idea, Alessio. I've been doing what you mentioned. I created video versions of several of my articles for my YouTube channel. I don't think there is a need for HubPages to make a special effort at it since we can do it on our own—as you and I are doing.
   
   A benefit I discovered with doing that is finding where we lose viewers since YouTube gives us that information in its stats. Then we can go ahead and fix the problem in our hubs. I wrote about that, explaining "How to Improve SEO With Stats From Video Versions of Articles."

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   1. 94

      Alessio Ganciposted 24 months agoin reply to this

      Yes, we can publish videos on our own with no particular complications, still when it comes to post in several niches, this can become a problem. For example, I write about IT, music, literature, traveling, legal issues, and sometimes even business. I have articles in 7 niche websites right now, plus about 12 articles on Discover am reworking and submitting every 14 days, hoping to move them to the niche sites in a future.
      
      What prevents me from fully making videos for every single article, is the fact I have one YouTube channel I risk fo turn into a video content farm, if I started to create videos for every niche. Creating 7 different channels would also not be good, since these would not grow with sporadic posting, and would never meet the requirements for enabling YouTube monetization.
      
      I tend to compare YouTube channels to independent blogs: a person who is focused on a single niche could easily manage a blog or a YouTube channel and let it grow: someone who is here because has interests in different niches, may have difficulties in choosing between packing everything on a single YouTube channel, or creating several independent channels with low opportunities to grow.
      
      One of the best things of HP is enabling everyone to write in different niches without worrying about staying in-topic (like someone with an independent blog has to do), still when it comes to videos, being multi-niche can be really challenging. For example I have two videos on my channel I took during a trip to China, but it would be unthinkable to post IT tutorials in the same channel where I show myself surfing the Dongting Lake: maybe I would also risk to be considered a content farm.

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      1. 92

         Glenn Stokposted 24 months agoin reply to this

         You're absolutely correct about the requirement for an individual niche in a YouTube channel. That helps with the channel's SEO. As a solution, I use individual playlists to separate my videos by niche. That helps a little.

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         1. 94

            Alessio Ganciposted 24 months agoin reply to this

            Playlists are surely a good starting point, yet they're not perfect: YouTube still gives importance to the entire channel when it comes to establish a niche, and the same Creators official channel advises to find a niche: https://youtu.be/ob-LwY5fF7A
            
            I think you're actually doing a good job in organizing videos in playlists, and in fact you confirm this helps you. Of course, having niche channels is still better. Moreover, also YT channels, like independent blogs, need constant updates to be considered fresh by Google: HP owned channels would make the people not worry about how often they should upload on their own channels, so that they may focus more on quality over quantity (exactly like HP, in my opinion, is much better than owning an independent blog, unless someone is willing to regularly post on their blog, and focus only on a single niche).
            
            In my opinion, it would be great to have a choice: video capsules for people who want to have everything on their channels (e.g. those who focus on a single niche), and HP-owned channels for those who prefer to have their videos managed by HP like it happens with articles. Video capsules would also be for everyone, while the option for uploading a video on a HP channel would be enabled only for articles on niche sites, so to already limit the feature to the best quality content only.

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            1. 92

               Glenn Stokposted 24 months agoin reply to this

               Despite what I said about using playlists, I agree with you, Alessio. As you said, limiting a YouTube channel to a single niche is the best method.
               
               My channel is not doing as well as I had hoped, and I'm sure it's because I have videos on several unrelated subjects. But I use it for displaying my videos elsewhere (such as in my hubs), so I'm not worried about the channel's success.

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               1. 94

                  Alessio Ganciposted 24 months agoin reply to this

                  I think being successful on YouTube is important not only as an added value, but also to defend articles against competition.
                  
                  An example I can provide, is of an IT tutorial I have written. It is the first in Google search results for many keywords, also related ones, a real success. Once, it was making 400 views a day, now, because of a YouTube video that now is featured before my article, my views decreased. It is only one video, then my article, is now the second ranked, but the video actually takes a large portion of the SERPs, so I guess many people just land on it without even scrolling to see articles.
                  
                  Honestly, I think the video in question is clickbait, and doesn't provide the same level of information of my tutorial, but there's nothing to do: many people enjoy visual content, and so that video is now "suggested" more than my well-detailed tutorial. It's sad, as this is one of the symptoms that people are becoming more and more lazy to read even a 5-minutes article, still, we cannot change it, so if we can't fight the trend, the best thing is to make our articles competitive, by also providing a video and targeting also people who are "lazy".
                  
                  I'm thinking of realizing a video tutorial as well, making it even better than the video posted actually. I have good knowledge of Premiere, and video editing is easy for me (I find it time-consuming, so I wouldn't make and edit videos everyday, but for example, I could do it for my best articles). But then, I need to organize my channel in playlists as well, as actually I use it just for some shorts and a few traveling videos.
                  
                  That's one of the reasons why it came to my mind the idea of creating HP channels, as I'm afraid what happened to me, may happen to everyone here, and multi-niche people may feel discouraged to make videos (or may be tempted to pack everything on a channel, with strong possibilities they'll be penalized on YT searches). Bloggers are more and more trying to make both posts and videos, and this leads inevitably to face competition.
                  
                  Of course, am really thinking of creating the tutorial for that single article, but in the meantime, I wait to see if HP finds my idea useful: in that case, I think I'll just wait for when it will be realized. Of course, if HP believes the idea is too difficult to implement, or simply they state it's not so much beneficial for the network, I'll proceed re-organizing my channel. Still, this episode made me decide to propose something I hope will be beneficial for everyone writing here.

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4. 100

   Drew Agravanteposted 24 months ago

   I'd tried to do just that. Unfortunately, crafting videos takes out a huge chunk of my time, brainpower, and effort. It's also a totally different beast than writing so I stopped.

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   1. 94

      Alessio Ganciposted 24 months agoin reply to this

      Yeah, it's very time-consuming. I think it also depends on the niche: for example making a video for a WanderWisdom article, like street-walking, beach-walking, etc. requires surely less effort than realizing an IT tutorial. In the first case, a decent video can be obtained even without video editing (providing that the video is high-quality), while an IT tutorial surely requires a good mix of editing, speech syncing, etc. The most important thing is that being multi-niche and hosting an IT tutorial on the same YouTube channel where one would post travel videos, or even Shorts taken while partying with friends, is not exactly a good practice: Google hates content farms, and I strongly believe that the same philosophy also applies to YT channels that are not focused on a single niche. Plus, owning a YouTube channel means keeping it regularly updated, so in my opinion is not different than running an independent blog. I think HP-managed niche channels would instead bring a lot of advantages for multi-niche people, and for those who craft videos only occasionally.

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5. 96

   eugbugposted 24 months ago

   I tried making a slideshow teaser video with photos from an articles, but it only got 70 views, most of which were my own. Now Google doesn't rank it, even though I have loads of relevant keywords.

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6. 99

   Eurofileposted 24 months ago

   You make an interesting point. Whilst away on a hotel review a few years ago, I videoed evidence of building work and noise nearby. The videos gave far more evidence than photos alone. Being fairly new to HubPages at the time, I was disappointed to discover that there was no way to use the video footage when I came to write my article.

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   1. 92

      Glenn Stokposted 24 months agoin reply to this

      Liz, there is a way to do it. You can post your video to YouTube and then include a video capsule in your hub to show that video. I do it that way in several of my hubs.

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      1. 99

         Eurofileposted 24 months agoin reply to this

         Thank you very much for the advice, Glenn. I will look into that. Much appreciated.

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7. 95

   ravirajan01posted 24 months ago

   The video capsule is already there, and any You tube video, including the ones we make, can be uploaded. So along with the writing, will this capsule not suffice as an additional incentive for readers ?
   
   The other option is having a podcast option as in substack along with normal writing .

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   1. 94

      Alessio Ganciposted 24 months agoin reply to this

      Video capsule is good for people who write about a single niche, and have a single YT channel they are keen to grow. If someone is multi-niche oriented, they will have to choose between posting everything on a single YT channel (which will not grow, as YouTube loves to see channels targeted to single niches, exactly like Google hates content farms), or creating several YouTube channels they'll never be able to grow, unless someone makes regular videos for every niche they deal with.
      For example, I write in 7 niche sites in HP right now: it would be unthinkable for me to create 7 different channels, just like it would be unthinkable to pack everything under a single channel.
      
      My opinion is that there should be a way to choose: hubbers may choose between hosting videos on their channels (through video capsule), or uploading them through the HP niche channel. So that everyone can find the best solution for their needs.

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