How To Start A YouTube Channel

This is a quick guide to opening your YouTube account, getting your settings in order, and preparing everything else on the backend for video uploads and streaming. This guide doesn’t cover video editing, when the right time is to upload, or how to manage your brand as a YouTuber. With that in mind, here’s how you get the ball rolling.

Jordan Wirth/SlashGear Most people assume you need a new Google account with its own email and password, but you can create a separate YouTube channel alongside your personal one, keeping your personal account private while you watch videos and comment. To do this, open YouTube in a browser, click your profile picture, then go to Settings. In the account section, choose Add or manage channel(s), then click the big “+ Create a new channel” button. Here, choose your name and your profile handle. Then select Create channel, and done.

Next, let’s look at channel customization. Click on your profile picture again, and select YouTube Studio. This is where all the magic happens. Click on Customization on the left-hand sidebar. We recommend adding a banner image here so your profile looks less plain. Further down, we’d recommend putting at least a basic description of your channel’s content. A bit further down, add external links, your socials, Linktree, or links to additional channels.

Below that, add your email address to the contact info section, so people can contact you for sponsorships, collaborations, and other business inquiries. We recommend creating a separate business email. Finally, you can add a watermark at the bottom. We’d recommend a partially transparent PNG version of your profile picture. These customization options take about 5 minutes and make your channel landing page look professional and interesting.

Jordan Wirth/SlashGear YouTube restricts much functionality behind quick, easy verification steps. There are three categories: Standard features, which allow video uploads, playlist creation, and editing. YouTube likely enables these by default, since they only require a strike-free channel; next are intermediate features, which let you upload videos longer than 15 minutes, do live streaming, and make your own thumbnails. To get this one, you need to qualify for standard features and then verify your phone number.

The most important one is advanced features. Once enabled, you can apply for monetization, upload videos, shorts, and livestreams more often, add external links to your video descriptions, A/B test video titles and thumbnails, and submit appeals anytime someone hits you with a Content ID claim. You’ll need to have intermediate features, plus either one-time video verification, submission of a valid ID, or about two months of channel history. Without advanced features, it is much harder to build a successful, profitable YouTube channel. Luckily, these feature eligibility requirements are easy to meet and take only minutes to comply with.

One final related setting we recommend: under “Advanced settings,” next to “Feature eligibility,” you can mark your channel as “made for kids” or not. Beyond the legal requirement, it’s important to categorize your channel correctly so — if you are making a kid-focused channel — it ends up in children’s recommendation feeds. Further down in the same section, you can remove potentially inappropriate words from automatic captions.

Jordan Wirth/SlashGear You don’t need us to tell you that generative AI has opened Pandora’s box. Vibe-coded programs and increasingly realistic deepfakes are only the tip of the iceberg; now we have AI being used to steal entire channels. AI can rapidly copy everything from a channel’s visuals to a creator’s face and voice, stealing their revenue. We think YouTube certainly isn’t doing enough, but Likeness detection is a good step forward.

Likeness detection flags channels that reuse your face and voice in their content. YouTube’s automated systems will scan new uploads for facial and vocal matches of enrolled creators, giving you the chance to submit a claim for removal. YouTube notes that the voice-matching part is in an experimental rollout, but we’re glad it’s there since many people have faceless YouTube channels. That said, this feature doesn’t guarantee YouTube will take down stolen videos from AI-made channels; YouTube has a history of being pretty terrible at content moderation. If nothing else, you will at least know when your content is being stolen, rather than being blindsided later when copycat channels have already built a following off your face, voice, and content.

Enrolling is easy. While still in YouTube Studio, click Content detection on the left sidebar, then Likeness and Start now. You’ll need to agree to a video biometric scan of your face, a voice recording, and a government-issued ID. Google will use what you submit to detect copycats, so record a clear video in a well-lit room. You can enroll multiple people, too.

YouTube Monetizing your channel is too complicated to explain in a couple of short paragraphs. You have to follow a nauseating list of content and advertiser guidelines, YouTube legal requirements and policies, and more. The short version is this: you can earn money from ads on your videos and shorts, plus memberships and Super Chat donations.

Click on “Earn” on the left-hand side of your YouTube Studio page, and click the “Apply now” button at the very bottom. You can’t apply with a brand-new YouTube channel, but it’s worth understanding how the process works when the time comes. You can meet some basic requirements now, before you’re eligible for monetization. You need to be in an eligible country or region and have a strike-free channel; make sure you’ve enabled 2-step verification on your account and applied for advanced features in YouTube Studio; finally, you will need an active AdSense account.

Jordan Wirth/SlashGear Here are a few extra tips to know before you upload your first video. First, go back to Settings in the bottom-left corner and click “Upload defaults.” The “Basic info” tab lets you set a default title, description, visibility settings (public, unlisted, or private), and tags for each video. Under “Advanced settings,” you can allow for automatic video chapters, select your video category, change your language settings (such as for captions), choose whether to allow comments, set moderation strictness, and choose whether to show video likes.

In the same settings area under Community moderation, you can advise viewers on how they should behave in comments and control how strict automatic moderation is, including blocking certain words and reviewing posted hashtags and URLs. YouTube also includes an extremely helpful audio library full of free songs and sound effects you can use in your videos without risking demonetization. Even though they are free, some do require attribution. We highly recommend researching music licensing because YouTube’s moderation systems are known for being too sensitive.