How to Upload Videos on YouTube in 2026 (The Right Way) — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00So, there's an upload sequence that YouTube  rewards, and there's also one that kills your
2. 0:03videos before anybody gets a chance to watch them.  I wish I was joking. I'm being dead serious. And
3. 0:08hear me out. This channel has 32 videos. Big deal.  550,000 views, more than 20,000 subscribers. My
4. 0:14main channel has over 40 videos that have more  than 100,000 views. So, this isn't my first rodeo.
5. 0:20I used to believe the same thing you believe  until I realized that YouTube doesn't actually
6. 0:24hate small creators. It hates sloppy uploads.  And if anybody has the right to speak on this,
7. 0:29it's me. Because I spent eight years uploading  the wrong way. Eight years of watching some videos
8. 0:34take off while other ones flatline for no apparent  reason. I blame the algorithm. I blame the niche,
9. 0:40the timing, the thumbnails, the titles. Hell, I  even thought I was shadowbanned for a while. And
10. 0:44you couldn't convince me otherwise. I pointed my  finger at everything except the actual problem.
11. 0:49The problem was me. Because I was poisoning my own  videos before they ever had a chance. not because
12. 0:54of the content, but because of what I was doing  or not doing before I hit publish. So, today I'm
13. 0:59going to kick the door off the hinges and show you  the exact upload sequence that changed everything.
14. 1:04The one I use on all my videos, the one I teach  clients who pay me thousands of dollars to do
15. 1:08so you could stop killing your videos before  anybody ever gets a chance to see them. So,
16. 1:12I'm going to start with a concept that I teach  called metadata poisoning. And I guarantee you've
17. 1:17either done it or you've come dangerously close.  So, here's what that typically looks like. You're
18. 1:21behind on schedule. You want to upload a brand  new video every Tuesday morning at 9:00 a.m. So,
19. 1:26you have the edit done, but your title's  not locked in. Your thumbnail's not done,
20. 1:29and your description, well, I'll figure it out  later. You're so stressed out with the internal
21. 1:34deadline that you need to have the same day,  same time every single week that you go ahead and
22. 1:38convince yourself to hit publish anyway. You tell  yourself, you'll fix it in the next few minutes.
23. 1:42No big deal, right? But here's what just happened.  The moment that your video goes out to the public,
24. 1:46YouTube starts testing it. shows your thumbnail  and title to a small audience to see if anybody
25. 1:52clicks. It reads your description to understand  the context and it looks at the metadata to try
26. 1:56to figure out who to show this to. And it's like  you just told YouTube, "I don't know what it is
27. 2:00either. Just process the transcript while I get to  work and I I'll figure it out." Right? Give me a
28. 2:05few minutes. But I got bad news for you. YouTube  doesn't just give you a few minutes. That first
29. 2:10test starts the second you hit publish with your  garbage title, with your autogenerated thumbnail,
30. 2:16with your empty description box. Your first  impression just got locked in based on incomplete
31. 2:21information and it's completely your fault. And  that's metadata poisoning. And we can't undo it,
32. 2:26unfortunately. Sure, you can absolutely go  and change the title later. You could swap
33. 2:30out the thumbnail. You can write an intentional  description how you should have did it before you
34. 2:34hit publish, but YouTube already tested your video  with that first audience. And that data is already
35. 2:38collected. And at that point, you're not starting  fresh. You don't get a second chance. You're
36. 2:43trying to dig out of a hole that you created. Now,  let me be very clear about something. Uploading
37. 2:47your video early with plenty of time before  you go live with it, in my opinion, is a very,
38. 2:52very good move. I upload all of my videos a day  or two or more uh prior to publishing. That lets
39. 2:58the video process, but it also gives me the peace  of mind to triple check everything before I hit
40. 3:03publish or before I have it scheduled to go out.  The video could sit in private or unlisted mode
41. 3:08for days. It doesn't matter. I don't want you  guys uploading 15 minutes before it needs to
42. 3:12go live with this internal deadline that you  set for yourself, stressed out to the gills,
43. 3:16and then missing something. Now, obviously, the  problem isn't uploading early. The problem is
44. 3:20publishing before you're ready. And the moment  that you hit that switch and you hit public and
45. 3:24hit save and it goes out to the rest of the world,  everything needs to be locked in. And here's what
46. 3:29that actually looks like. Okay, so to start, your  title is done. Not almost there, not almost done.
47. 3:35Done. And you're happy with it. It's locked in.  Your title is one of YouTube's primary signals as
48. 3:40far as what your video is about. In most cases, it  determines which searches your videos pop up in,
49. 3:45which audiences your video hits first, and how  it gets categorized. If you're still workshopping
50. 3:50the title, when you hit publish, you are already  lost. Now, you really should have the title locked
51. 3:56in way before you ever hit record, but that's  a different topic for a different video. Now,
52. 4:00same goes for thumbnail. You need to have it done  and locked in before you hit publish. Otherwise,
53. 4:05YouTube already showed your video to test  audiences with one of those garbage autogenerated
54. 4:09thumbnails. And unless you're Emma Chamberlain,  that isn't good enough. And what happens when
55. 4:14they do that? People don't click. People log  that test data, and by the time you upload
56. 4:18the real thumbnail, the damage is already done.  Your thumbnail needs to be designed, exported,
57. 4:23and uploaded before you go public. And look, I  know that this might be a hot take, and a lot
58. 4:27of people push back saying, "Adam, the file names  don't matter at all. YouTube's come out and said
59. 4:32that the file names don't matter." And they might  be right. I give you that. But it takes 5 seconds
60. 4:36to rename your thumbnail and your video file with  the title of your video. So instead of leaving it
61. 4:42whatever it is, why wouldn't you do that? Now,  with that being said, the description matters
62. 4:46more than you think. YouTube uses it to understand  context and related topics and what your video is
63. 4:51actually about beyond the title. Don't get me  wrong, I know I'm going to get comments through
64. 4:55the roof. Adam, they processed the transcript.  Yes, but that's just the words you said,
65. 4:59not the intention behind them. the description  box, especially the first 150 characters, matter
66. 5:04the most because that's what shows up in search.  Write the whole thing like you're explaining the
67. 5:09video to somebody who can't watch it. Now, quick  pro tip. If you go into your YouTube studio,
68. 5:13then click settings and finally upload defaults,  you'll see where you're able to write your
69. 5:17standard description box add-ons once, and I'm  talking about the links and the offers and outro
70. 5:22text. And once you hit save, then they autofill  every time that you upload a new video. And you
71. 5:26only have to write the unique parts, which saves  some time. And once those links are all set up and
72. 5:31that that default uh chunk is in there, you don't  have to worry about anything not working because
73. 5:36it's just a oneanddone thing. Now, a feature that  a lot of people overlook is playlists. It's super
74. 5:41important to set these up and have your playlists  selected before you publish, not after, before.
75. 5:46I'm talking about when you upload a video, adding  them to playlists right before you hit publish.
76. 5:51Playlists signal to YouTube which videos belong  together, how they lump them, how they group
77. 5:55them. And if you add it before you go public,  YouTube factors in how it's going to categorize
78. 6:00and recommend your videos to other people based on  what they've watched already. If you add it later,
79. 6:05you've unfortunately missed that initial window.  And again, timing is everything here. All right,
80. 6:09now let's talk about chapters. As I've explained  before on this channel, autogenerated chapters
81. 6:13from YouTube are pure garbage. They add chapter  titles like discussion and continuation,
82. 6:18which are absolutely meaningless. Your  chapter titles get indexed by Google,
83. 6:22guys. I don't think you understand how big of a  deal this is. When someone searches a question,
84. 6:26your chapter matches their question. They land on  that direct uh section of your video. It's free
85. 6:32traffic and auto chapters waste it completely.  It takes 5 minutes to do it by hand the right
86. 6:37way. So, you can either write them manually or use  an AI tool such as ChatGpt or Gemini to help you
87. 6:42optimize for search. It's always a better idea to  do it manually. I never select auto chapters. Now,
88. 6:49I want to talk about setting up your end screens  intentionally. Which videos are you linking? It's
89. 6:54not necessarily the most recent video that you  uploaded here. We need to select a video that
90. 6:58continues this viewer's journey. So, if somebody  watched a video about uploading, where do they
91. 7:03need to go next? That's what I'm thinking about  before I go live with this video that you're
92. 7:06watching right now. And I'll have that linked at  the end of this video. So, stay tuned for that.
93. 7:11This is how you build session time. One video into  another video into another video. That's the real
94. 7:16play here. And by the way, I put everything that  you need into my ultimate YouTube growth guide,
95. 7:19which is a perfect companion for all of my videos  here on this channel. and it's absolutely free. In
96. 7:24the past four months alone, I've had more than  5,000 people download the growth guide. And I
97. 7:28really appreciate all the thank you messages that  I've received and emails and whatnot. It's pretty
98. 7:31surreal. So, if you're ready to take your YouTube  channel to the next level, click that link in the
99. 7:36description box below. Download the guide, use  it, and enjoy. Okay, so you got the sequence now.
100. 7:40Everything's locked in before you go public with  your video. Now, let's talk about the timing and
101. 7:44when you go live with your videos. When you're  first getting started, posting at the same time,
102. 7:48the same day of the week. Doesn't matter nearly as  much as just getting new content out every single
103. 7:53week. I post on Monday sometimes. Other times it's  Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday if the edit
104. 7:58took a little bit longer than expected. Look,  consistency matters, but a video every single
105. 8:02week matters more than having a set day, letting  yourself down, skipping a week. And the more you
106. 8:07get dialed in and build that actual audience,  having a strict schedule can definitely build
107. 8:11loyalty faster. And that should be the goal. But  early on, just keep publishing. Now, with that
108. 8:16being said, there is an ideal window. Tools like  Vid IQ or TubeBuddy, not a sponsor either of them,
109. 8:21or even internally within your YouTube studio,  will show you when your audience is most active.
110. 8:26So, use that data. And side note, it's going to  take a few uploads before you have accurate data
111. 8:31anyway. And it typically won't make or break  a video. But if you could publish when your
112. 8:35audience is online and ready to watch your video,  then why wouldn't you? Now, for some reason,
113. 8:39I get asked this question a lot about scheduling  your post. Should you go live uh manually or
114. 8:44should you schedule it? Scheduling your content  is fine. I do it with probably, I don't know,
115. 8:4740 or 50% of my videos. But here's where most  creators mess up here. They schedule a video,
116. 8:52they forget about it, they're doing something  else, they're at a day job, they're busy outside,
117. 8:56whatever that looks like, and they forget to  respond to any of the comments when it first goes
118. 9:00live. And that first hour really matters, guys.  Especially if you're under 50,000 subscribers.
119. 9:06Yeah. Like not just five or 10,000, like 50,000.  If you're not engaging with your audience, you're
120. 9:10missing a huge opportunity. If you schedule a post  to go live, just set a reminder in your phone,
121. 9:15so you're actually available and like aware that  you need to get on there and interact with people.
122. 9:20Speaking of which, if you guys have any questions,  make sure to leave them in the comments, and I do
123. 9:25my best to respond to every single comment. Now,  like I talked about before, YouTube is measuring
124. 9:29specific things within that first hour, like  click-through rate, right? your thumbnail and
125. 9:33your title gets shown to a small test audience and  YouTube looks at what percentage clicks versus how
126. 9:38many people saw it or impressions on your video.  Now, a high click-through rate, YouTube expands
127. 9:43the test, shows it to a lot more people. If you  have a super low CTR click-through rate, YouTube
128. 9:48holds it back. And I hope you guys can understand  that. This is exactly why having your thumbnail
129. 9:52and your title locked in before you publish is a  non-negotiable. That first test is so important
130. 9:57because your audience sees your first impression  and there's no redoss. Now, the watchtime curve
131. 10:02or retention graph matters more than you think.  And not enough people are talking about this.
132. 10:06YouTube doesn't wait for thousands of videos  to analyze retention. And retention is trust,
133. 10:11right? It watches the first viewers, that first  group of viewers. Where do people drop off? Do
134. 10:16they make it past 30 seconds? Do they make it to a  minute or two? If your first 100 viewers all bail
135. 10:21at the same spot, let's say 27 seconds into your  video, YouTube assumes that everyone will. Now,
136. 10:26I just talked about this a couple minutes ago, but  that engagement velocity, it really matters. I'm
137. 10:31talking about likes, comments, and shares in that  first hour. It signals something that views can't.
138. 10:35It tells YouTube that this video is making people  react. Do something more than just view. And that
139. 10:40interaction, that engagement is so important.  This is why I add a pinned comment to every
140. 10:46single video. And I always have it as a question,  something that invites engagement, right? And let
141. 10:51me show you how this works. Actually, look at  the pinned comment from my most popular video
142. 10:55here on this channel. That comment has almost  300 comments, including some replies to comments,
143. 11:00obviously, but more than 500 people liked it. Do  you think that maybe that helped the video get
144. 11:05shown to more people? That first hour velocity  shapes how aggressively YouTube pushes the
145. 11:11video. It's a huge green flag. That being said,  there's one signal that most creators completely
146. 11:16miss. YouTube tracks what viewers do at the end of  videos. Do they click another one of your videos?
147. 11:21If so, that's a super strong signal, a big green  flag, because it shows that you created demand for
148. 11:26more. Do they leave the platform? Not great. Do  they jump over to watch a competitor's video or
149. 11:32somebody else that's in your space, I should say?  YouTube notices all these little things. Your end
150. 11:37screen isn't a formality or a nice to have. It's a  redirect that keeps people in your ecosystem. And
151. 11:42if you're not keeping people in your ecosystem,  then you're not where you need to be yet. Now,
152. 11:46I hope you guys use this video as a checklist  that you could follow every single time you
153. 11:49upload a new video so you could stop acting like  an amateur when you're telling everybody that
154. 11:53you want to build a successful YouTube channel.  Speaking of building a successful YouTube channel,
155. 11:57watch this video next to take your channel to the  next level. And if you haven't yet, click that
156. 12:01little subscribe button to join the channel family  here. Let me know which of these you're already
157. 12:05doing and which ones you'll never skip over again.  And until next time, I appreciate you watching.