The gaming community is huge
It consists of every age group, and every style of game
So gaming as a niche is really broad
Gaming channels are popular on YouTube because there is something for everyone. If you want to get better at a game, get through a difficult level, help with a puzzle, connect with other like-minded gamers… there is a channel for you
If you are looking for a channel to watch, what do you do?
Do you scroll through the entire gaming section of YouTube hoping that you’ll find what you are looking for?
No!
You might type in the game you are looking for or a specific question about a game
The process is similar when creating a YouTube channel
Don’t just make “gaming” your niche because that is way too broad
But if you create a channel about Apex, or about getting better as a new Apex player…
That is a niche that will show up in a search and attract the right audience
You don’t want Minecraft players to be the ones who find your Apex videos
You need to get specific
That is how gaming channels get popular on YouTube
How popular are gaming channels on YouTube?
Gaming is one of the biggest sections on YouTube
The broad topic “gaming” has 93M followers all by itself
And most gamers will follow specific channels, not the broad gaming category
That is a huge number!!!
If you look at the videos that come up when you search on YouTube, you can see how many views, likes, and subscribers a channel has
If they are ranking for a broad topic, they are probably a pretty large channel
Gaming is huge on every platform, but YouTube is famous for being the place to go for gaming content
What makes a successful channel vs an unsuccessful channel?
The definition of success changes for people, but I think most people start a YouTube channel with the hope of making money
It would be amazing to make a living posting videos about things you love!
For me, a successful channel is:
- Old enough to see clear data (over a year)
- Posting at least once or twice a week
- Getting regular subscribers
- High engagement
- High average of views
- Still fun after doing it for a while
Like I said, success might mean something different to you
But I don’t want to have to post 5 times a week to get 800 views a week
Success is having more videos doing well than ones that don’t, and knowing how to change the ones that don’t so they start to do better
And success is doing it for a year or two and loving it just as much as you did in the beginning
An unsuccessful channel is one that feels like an uphill battle
You feel lost no matter what you do and more videos flop than take off
There is little or no engagement in your videos
You post more and more to try to get momentum, but the views don’t match the effort that you put in
If you are in this situation, there are some things that you need to look at
Your analytics are your best friend!
They can feel scary but they tell you exactly what is wrong with your channel
If you have low impressions, you need to work on your SEO
Find questions in the auto suggest that don’t have great answers to them but appear to have good volume
People aren’t seeing your videos when they search for them
If your impressions are good but the clicks are low, you need to work on your titles and thumbnails
You need to catch their attention and make them want to click on your video
Adding a picture of you to your thumbnail is often helpful
Searchers are finding your video, but it isn’t interesting enough to make them click
Go back to videos will high impressions and change one thing at a time
You can change the title or the thumbnail
Then wait for a few days and see if there is a change
If clicks go down, change that thing again because that change made it worse
If clicks go up, you can choose to try what you didn’t do last time or take inspiration to change the same thing again
Keep testing
If you have good impressions and good clicks, but your watch time is low
Then the videos themselves are not keeping their attention
Move quickly to the value you promised in the title and thumbnail
Keep trying new things until your watch time starts to increase
Are gaming channels worth it?
Determining if a gaming channel is worth it depends on your goal
If your goal is to make money on YouTube, then you need to look at the competition and search volume for the gaming content you want to create
The search volume is the number of people that are searching for something on Google or YouTube
Google owns YouTube so don’t forget to look at the competition there too
If you type in things like:
- Who {game title}
- What {game title}
- When {game title}
- Where {game title}
- And so on
Keep typing in one partial question at a time and look at the auto suggest
I recommend logging out of YouTube for this to avoid unreliable data
Things that come up in the search are things that other people have searched for
Look at those questions that match the game and type of content that you want to create
You are looking at two things:
- Views that the top creators have
- Quality of the content that appears
If no one actually answered the question and it is a typical question, that is a great topic to create a video for!
If you look and there are many creators that have done great videos, the competition may be too high for you to break into
If you want to start a channel that is worth the time, look for something you like, has good search volume, and lower competition