A YouTube channel audit examines factors like your video titles, descriptions, tags, and thumbnails to make sure that the content you’re producing is being seen.
It’s all about optimizing your content. And by analyzing key YouTube metrics such as views, engagement, and subscribers, you’ll can identify what's working – and what isn't.
If you're looking to perform a YouTube audit, this guide covers everything you need to know.
Understanding the importance of a YouTube channel audit
YouTube audits help improve your channel by allowing you to understand the path to a bigger audience. It teaches you what's working well and where improvements need to be made in your strategy.
Why regular audits are crucial for channel growth
It's essential to conduct regular YouTube audits to ensure you keep growing your channel. It helps you spot trends in your content that viewers enjoy and where you achieve the most engagement.
Importantly, audits also show where improvements need to be made. This could be small things like titles of videos, or even that your thumbnails aren’t eye-catching enough.
Analyzing top-performing videos is crucial to refine your content strategies. By understanding what works well for your competitors, you can capture audience attention more effectively.
The more you conduct these audits, the better your YouTube strategy gets. It teaches you more about your audience and what it is they want to see. Ultimately this positively affects channel growth and your understanding of data. Over time, this will reveal patterns in engagement and help you set targets based on this.
Preparing for your YouTube audit
To be successful with a YouTube audit, you need to reserve some time and energy for thoughtful planning. You also need to use the right tools. Make sure you set clear goals and use effective audit resources to improve your channel's performance. Here's how you can prepare.
Define clear objectives and success metrics
Begin by looking at what it is that you wish to achieve with a YouTube channel audit. For example, if you want to boost engagement, you should set specific and measurable goals to guide you in the audit process.
Consider things such as content strategy, audience growth, engagement rates, watch time, and monetization.
Then, look to create metrics that align with your strategy goals. So, if you want to grow your subscriber base, then focus on the rate of current subscriber growth, view count trends, and audience retention.
Be sure to always set objectives that are realistic and based on your current channel performance. It will help you understand your progress a lot better and make data-driven decisions.
Essential tools for an effective audit
To ensure that your YouTube channel audit is thorough, you need to use the right tools. And there are plenty to chose from.
YouTube Analytics is a free, in-built platform tool and generally a good place to start. The YouTube Creator Studio also provides you with basic analysis. Plus, Google Trends is a free resource that can assist you with planning content.
But if you want to step up your auditing, there are third-party analytics platforms like Brandwatch that house all your YouTube data in one place. If you want to delve into more enhanced levels of analysis, consider these options with more advanced features. You can get a deep understanding of your YouTube channel by look at historical data tracking, audience behavior insights, and competitor benchmarking.
Remember, you should always gather actionable insights, not just collect data.
Evaluating your channel's branding and presentation
The visual identity of your YouTube channel and messaging that's presented on your profile plays a key role in attracting and retaining subscribers. You need a consistent brand image to help build trust in your audience and deliver a constant message time and time again.
Here's what you can do to establish this consistency via your audit.
Assess channel art and profile picture consistency
Your channel profile picture is what makes you identifiable – so pay close attention to it. Ensure that it matches the fonts and color scheme of your brand. Failure to do this can come across as unprofessional.
You need an eye-catching banner that clearly demonstrates what kind of channel you are, and ensure it looks high-quality on all devices.
The profile picture needs to be simple but recognizable. Make sure it isn’t blurry and is cropped properly.
Your channel name is important as well – it needs to match your branding. The name should be easy to remember as it will be how your subscribers find and talk about you, especially on social media. If you already have a following on social media, then make sure the channel name reflects your brand on there as well.
Craft a compelling video descriptions and trailers
Your channel description helps you to explain the type of content your audience will see. This is what can hook in more viewers and improve the channel visibility. It should be concise – aim for just one or two short paragraphs, including links to your website and social media.
Additionally, long and descriptive video descriptions that are filled with target keywords can significantly improve a video's visibility and click-through rate. Make sure to spend some time on your descriptions for each video you upload.
You should also create a channel trailer to act as a preview to your content. It only needs to be short (around 30-60 seconds), but make it exciting. Showcase the best bits of your content that you feel adds value to potential subscribers. The trailer should match your current content because if it’s outdated, viewers will feel misled.
Analyzing content performance and audience engagement
YouTube audits help you understand the your channel performance and what types of content your viewers prefer. Analyzing key metrics will provide you with brilliant insights into improving your channel. Here's what you can look out for.
Reviewing key video metrics: Views, watch time, and retention
When looking at insights, views are usually a good place to start. Watch time and retention are equally important for telling you how engaging your content is. You can look at the average view duration to know how long viewers are watching. A 50% retention is generally seen as good for most YouTube videos.
Analyzing other videos that your viewers are watching can help you identify potential competitors and improve your content strategy.
Next up is click-through rate – this helps you know if the thumbnails you’re using are eye-catching enough. You should also pay attention to what videos are keeping viewers coming back to your channel. To improve overall watch time, consider creating relevant playlists. This encourages the YouTube algorithm to suggest more of your content to viewers.
Evaluating interaction: Likes, comments, and shares
Engagement essentially shows how your audience is connecting with your content. You want to aim for above 90% in your click-to-rate ratio – and make sure to read comments to hear direct feedback from your viewers. Don’t be afraid to engage with comments on your videos either, even if it’s just a “like”!
Regular audits and analysis of your YouTube channel can help you track key performance indicators and inform content strategies. Utilizing tools for channel analysis can simplify this process, especially for beginners.
Engagement rate measures likes, comments, and shares, which you should analyze alongside views. Generally speaking, around 5-10% is good for most channels. The higher the engagement rate, the more videos get recommended.
Shares are powerful when it comes to growth, so take a look at which YouTube videos are being shared more to understand the reasoning.
These metrics should shape your overall content strategy. Make more content based on what’s working or stop with content that isn’t resonating.
Optimizing video SEO for increased visibility
Video SEO helps your content get found on YouTube (and Google – after all, Google owns YouTube and is more likely to promote those videos on its search engine than from other sites).
By following some key steps, you can boost your videos' chances of showing up in search results and reaching more viewers.
Conduct keyword research for your niche
Start by finding the right keywords for your videos. Use tools like YouTube's search bar suggestions or Google Keyword Planner to see what people are looking for. Think about what terms your target audience might use when searching for content like yours.
Look at your competitors' most popular videos. What keywords are they using? This can give you ideas for your own content. Don't just focus on broad terms – try to find more specific long-tail keywords, too. These often have less competition.
Keep a list of relevant keywords for each video topic you plan to create. This will help guide your content creation and optimization efforts.
Enhance titles, descriptions, and tags with relevant keywords
Keywords should be used in your video metadata to make your content more searchable. You also need an engaging title that stands out. Just don’t make it too long – you don’t want it to get cut off in search results.
Video thumbnails are crucial in influencing viewer click-through rates and play a significant role in successful video marketing strategies.
The video description should include your targeted keywords and the first sentence is crucial. That’s what shows up in search results so use it as a platform to explain what the video is and why someone should watch.
When it comes to tags, review your keywords and make variations of it. Then look at other relevant terms that describe your video’s topic, but don’t overdo it. Stick with between five and eight relevant tags as this helps YouTube in understanding what the content is.
Reviewing channel compliance and monetization strategies
Your YouTube channel audit should comply with platform rules and assess revenue potential. It helps creators to stay in good standing, while still maximizing earnings. Here's what you need to know.
Ensure adherence to YouTube's community guidelines
Content should be reviewed regularly to ensure that it complies with YouTube guidelines. Perform checks to see that your videos don't accidentally contain hate speech, harassment, or explicit content.
Make sure that video titles and descriptions are accurate and not misleading. You can also use YouTube’s channel audit tools to check for further policy violations.
Evaluate monetization opportunities
Your revenue streams are important when it comes to exploring new options. Ad revenue performance should be checked within YouTube Analytics to see what video topics are earning the most.
If you want to further revenue performance, consider joining the YouTube Partner Program, if eligible. You can also consider sponsorship options as well as merchandise and memberships.
Review your Super Chat and Super Stickers if you do live streams, and do a YouTube audit to find potential gaps in monetization. From here you can look at different strategies to further the income.
Implementing improvements and tracking progress
Acquiring and understanding your audit findings is one thing. However, the key is to turn these insights into actionable improvements for your channel. This is where your audit truly pays off.
Implementing improvements regularly helps you stay on top of any changes and measure your progress over time.
Develop an action plan based on audit findings
Firstly, look at the issues found from your audit and rank them based on how they impact your channel. With each one, create a specific task that has a clear outcome.
The steps you should consider are identifying content gaps, improving video titles and descriptions, optimizing thumbnails, increasing upload frequency, and engaging more with viewers.
From there, track your progress and use a spreadsheet to help you analyze it over time. Adjust where necessary.
Establish a schedule for regular audits
Create a routine for analyzing channel performance to help you stay in the loop of any changes and spot new trends early.
A weekly schedule could be to have a quick check on views, likes, and comments. You should take a deeper look into audience retention and the best-performing videos. In the long-term, you can do quarterly reviews of your full channel, including SEO performance, and how your competitors are doing.
YouTube Analytics can help you gather this data and look for patterns in content. This will help you to adjust your strategy where necessary so you can continue to grow your channel.
Frequently asked questions
YouTube audits ensure you continue to improve your content and grow your audience with future videos. Here we will look at some common questions that come up.
How can you identify fake subscribers during a YouTube audit?
Search for any spikes in subscriber count that are different from previous months. Look for accounts with no profile pictures or activity, and use YouTube Analytics to spot unusual patterns in subscriber growth or geography.
What's involved in a free YouTube channel audit?
Free YouTube channel audits give you a basic but good understanding of your YouTube channel, covering basic metrics such as view counts, watch time, and subscriber growth. You can also review your video titles, descriptions, and tags for SEO. Don't forget audience retention graphs and top-performing content types.
How much does a YouTube channel audit typically cost?
This will vary depending on the audit's depth and who performs it. There are some automated audits that may be free but professional ones by experts can range anywhere from $100 to $1000+. Some agencies offer ongoing audit services for monthly fees.
What are the top features to look for in a YouTube channel quality checker?
The best tools will analyze view counts, engagement rates, and subscriber growth. But they should also review your video SEO, including titles and tags. Search for ones that compare your channel to competitors and suggest improvements based on how they perform.
How do you perform a YouTube channel health check?
A YouTube channel health check should be done by reviewing your channel's overall growth in views and subscribers. Then look at the performance of your top YouTube channel videos alongside your audience retention. Assess your upload schedule and content mix to see if you're missing anything. Remember to analyze comments and engagement rates across content, too.
Are there any reliable YouTube channel analyzers that are available for free?
YouTube Studio offers basic but free analytics for your channel. If you want more data then a YouTube channel audit tool like Brandwatch is an ideal solution.
