When I got started on YouTube a while back this one was actually one of the first questions I had, should I upload a ton of videos right from the get-go or should I make one or two videos per week with higher production value.

The quality vs quantity dilemma on YouTube is old and well-known by top creators as it is something that most people on the platform go through when starting out.

That´s why I wanted to write this post to help you guys out!

What Should You Focus On?

A lot has been said about this and the truth of the matter is that NO ONE can tell you exactly what to do.

However, there is practical advice and hiding gems behind some of the daily practices most top creators apply to their channels.

For example, Evan Carmichael (who has almost 2 million subs right now) has said that his channel grew thanks to the fact that he´s been uploading content every single day.

If you make a brand new video every day you´ll give yourself a much better chance to be found and increase your view count and overall subscriber numbers pretty fast.

Now, on the other hand, there are great creators on YouTube like Matt D´avella who states that uploading one super high-quality video a week works great for him… and he´s 100% right!

In fact.

He surpassed a million subscribers in about 14 months thanks to that approach, and if you´ve seen one of his videos you can clearly get why is that.

You can easily find tons of different examples like these two where quality trumps quantity or the opposite is true.

As long as you can make GOOD content with enough consistency you can succeed on YouTube, the only question you should ask yourself is:

What does good content mean to your audience?

There are two things you can do to know this, one is to analyze the type of content that some of the top creators within your industry make, and the other is to simply get some feedback from your own viewers.

If you do that you´ll get a better sense of how does “quality” look like and that way it´ll be easier for you to develop a strategy to create as much content as you can.

The bottom line:

There is no right and wrong here although making your content good at being helpful and/or entertaining (or both) is NOT negotiable.

If your video does not rely on neither of those things it won´t be seen.

How Many Videos Should You Upload Per Week?

If you are starting out as a YouTube creator then this is something you should pay closte attention to.

Whether you upload daily videos or you create one video a week it doesn´t matter as long as you stay consistent with your schedule and you maintain a minimum level of quality.

Now, this does not mean that if you upload a great video once and then wait a month to upload the next one you won´t get any views, that´s absolutely not the case.

In fact.

There are channels with old videos that are still growing, earning money, and getting views every single day.

Like Experimental Fun does:

His newest video has more than 8 months old now but still gets tons of views on his channel and his videos are getting promoted all over YouTube.

So, don´t worry about consistency messing up your channel´s growth but take into consideration regarding your viewers.

What I mean by this is that you have to keep consistency in mind just for the sake of putting out new content for those viewers who are excited to see what your next video is about.

Also, if you are consistent with your video creation process you can improve a lot more than you would if you upload just one video a month.

The Batching Method

You probably have a million and one different things to run already, that´s why adding one more thing to your schedule won´t be an easy thing to do, especially when it comes to content creation and video recording.

If there´s something that most video creators can agree on is that entering into the “video recording mood” is not as easy at first and it can take you quite a while to feel comfortable with it when you are starting out.

Now, once you get into that mode and you´ve recorded at least one video chances are that you could easily make one or two more without much effort… if you set things up right.

There are tons of great examples you can check out for ideas.

Plus, it´ll make it easier and simpler to stay consistent with your channel as you´re going to be able to create (maybe) the whole batching of videos for that month, which is a HUGE time saver.

Therefore, batching content can be a great way both to make it easy to record as many videos as you can in one set and save lots of time.

Here´s how:

• Choose a Day. You want to choose a day when you know you´ll have enough time to prepare everything you need and film all of your clips, don´t into account editing as it is something that you´ll spend the next days doing. In my experience, you´d need at least one hour per video in order to get comfortable, rehearse each sentence and record it. I personally shoot most of my videos on Mondays and Saturdays.
• Create Your Scripts. Next step is to have your scripts already written down. Previous to that you´ll have to some research but I´m going to talk about more about this later. This way you will be ready to go and shoot each and every video, one after the other without much thought.
• Select Your Wardrobe. Last but not least, select a few different clothes that help to give the appearance that your filming on different days of the week/month. Plus, clothes are one of those things that are really important when it comes to feeling a bit more confident in front of the camera, so taking the time to choose well would be a good idea.

High-Quality Videos In Five Steps

Okay, you´ve been giving some thought to how many videos you want to make on weekly basis and what´s an ideal quality you want to achieve with each one of them, now let´s talk about optimazing the entire process.

So, there are many things you could do to make a better video and keep a consistent schedule at the same time.

However, I found there are five key steps you MUST take in order to make the entire process effortless and much more effective.

Here´s how it works:

1. Do Your Research. Your first step should always be doing some research before even considering making a video about something. You want to know how does the competition look like, what are the exact keywords used to rank, the length of the average video and the quality of the information that´s been shared, etc. The goal is to find out how does your end result should be and/or search for high-quality information regarding your topic of choice. You should ALWAYS start this way as it is an effective manner to get a better idea of exactly what you should do.
2. Script Your Idea. The second step is to start writing a script, it can be something as simple as bullet point lists of topics and sub-topics you want to cover in your video or something much more complete that outlines word by word what you want to say. There is no right and wrong here, it merely depends on your preference, however, I want to say that more so in the beginning than ever I´ve scripted every single word in order to make it easy for me to shoot my very first videos.
3. Make The Video. You´ve done your research and you have your script, now it´s time to shoot your video. Saying things out loud before recording and rehearse for a few minutes has helped quite a lot, also, recording in short clips of no more than 30 to 60 seconds can be super useful not only to shoot your video but also to edit later on.
4. Develop an Editing Process. You should have a consistent way of editing, using similar effects, cuts, and scenes, in order to make the entire process fast and productive. So, in order to do that, you must develop an editing process. For example, I always start by cutting out the clips that didn´t work and then I put all the pieces together in the right order, then I start by adding text and/or images (b-roll) that will help to emphasize whatever I am saying, then I color correct, and I´m done!
5. SEO Optimize & Upload. Last but not least, once you´ve done with the edit and you know you have something worth watching it is time to SEO optimize the heck out of it. Follow the simple three-Ts rule: Title, Tags, and Thumbnail. The description is also important but not as important as the other three, there´s (almost) no correlation between higher rankings and SEO optimized description, in fact, YouTube itself has hidden the description on mobile devices long ago.

Now, for that last part, I mean regarding SEO you should follow my channel as I give great advice on exactly how to optimize your videos in order to be found and rank on YouTube.

Final Thoughts

Now that you know what you should be focusing on in order to grow your fanbase and get discovered on YouTube you just need to take more action.

If you are just starting out and you think you can´t make more than one video a week then try to make it AWESOME.

On the other hand, if you can actually create more than one video a week then try to double your output, it´ll surprise you how much growth you´ll get just from doing that.

Whether you choose to increase the quantity or the quality of the content you put out you should be aware of providing value to your viewers one way or another.

Enough said, I hope this information was helpful, have a nice one!

Matt Porta