How to Make a Website Like YouTube in WordPress

There’s a reason YouTube is often referred to as the “Housing Brand,” so many big companies are trying to replicate its formula for success.

While you may be tempted to simply “clone” YouTube to use as a reference point for your website, the best way to build your own successful YouTube-like platform is to actually examine the platform itself and learn from its best practices.

Let’s examine how to make a website like YouTube in WordPress.

Choose A Niche

One of the first steps to building a successful YouTube-style platform is to choose a niche. You want to pick a topic or area of expertise that you’re passionate about and that has the potential to become a profitable venture.

For example, if you’re passionate about lifestyle or fashion, you could create a blog around those topics. Or if you’re an expert in photography, you could use that as the basis for your blog.

Whatever it may be, make sure you pick a topic that you believe will be both profitable and worthy of your time.

Find Your Voice

Building a blog around a niche topic doesn’t mean that you need to limit yourself to writing about only that topic. You can use the platform to its full potential and write about anything you want.

The key is to find your voice and determine what type of content you want to write about. What do you want to cover? What makes you passionate about your topic?

Some creators will even write about topics they are not exceptionally passionate about just to build their credibility with audiences. However, sticking to your specialty will help you build a following and eventually a profitable audience.

Curate A List Of Topical Ideas

Once you’ve determined your niche, the next step is to work on creating a list of topical ideas that you feel would be both valuable and interesting to your audience. These could be anything from a list of the best food blogs to follow, to a guide to the best festivals to attend, or to a top-10 list of the best horror movies ever made.

Whatever it may be, make sure you’ve got a list of at least five topical ideas that you feel confident will be valuable to your audience. If you can, come up with some more ideas and put them on the list. Having more topics makes it easier to find the right blend of content for when you do finally get around to writing about one of the existing ideas.

Build Your Audience

YouTube and its ilk thrive through sheer volume of content. The more content you put out, the more people will come. This is why you need to work on building a following before you get too distracted by the thrill of making money through content creation.

There are multiple ways to do this. You can start by simply sharing valuable content on social media. Perhaps you’ve got a blog post that’s been really well-received or an especially immersive video that’s gone viral. You can share this content on your social media channels to build a following.

However, you can also create more subtle ways to attract potential followers. For example, if you’ve curated a list of top-10 tips for photographing food, you can share these on your Instagram account with the accompanying #foodphotography or #foodpics hashtags.

This will allow you to connect with other creators who are also passionate about food photography and engage with them on your platform.

Generate Videos Using Software

Videos are a key component to any successful YouTube-style channel. There are tons of free tools available online that can be used to easily create videos and upload them to a channel.

The two most popular and simplest to use video tools are definitely TikTok and YouTube itself. You can use these tools to generate short videos around any topic you choose. Generating videos using software is a great way to save money and time over having to film and edit a video yourself.

Although videos allow you to explore a wide range of topics, make sure that you keep things light and entertaining. People who are using your platform to build credibility as a speaker or entertainer will want to see a different side to you than your food or lifestyle videos.

Find Equipment For A Bumper Crop

Once you’ve got some content, the next step is to search for a decent quality camera to fit within your budget. If you’re planning on publishing your videos on TikTok or YouTube, then it’s a must that you invest in a good mic as well.

Once you’ve got a decent mic, the video editing software you’re using should also have a built-in voice-over feature. If you can afford it, invest in an external microphone as well to have more options in terms of the volume level.

If you believe that videos are going to be a significant part of your business in the near future, then don’t waste your time with cheap, home-brewed videos. Instead, invest in some professional equipment and the best possible software to edit and create videos. This will save you both time and money in the long run and give you much more professional looking videos to publish.

Create A Publishing Schedule

Building a successful YouTube-style channel means consistently putting out good content. To do this, you need to have a clear idea of when you’re going to publish new content.

Decide on a schedule and stick to it. If you’re looking for inspiration, study YouTube creators who are regularly publishing content and see how they manage to keep up with a schedule. You don’t necessarily need to put out content every week, but you should try to do so regularly enough to keep your audience interested.

Measure And Analyze Success

After you’ve been publishing content for a while and have built up a small audience, it’s time to take a step back and examine how you’re performing. If you’re using Google Analytics, you can find a lot of data there that you can use to track the success of your channel.

The first thing you’ll need to do is decide what metrics you’re going to use to measure your success. For example, are you going to look at the number of views your videos receive? How about the amount of revenue they generate? Are you planning on implementing any affiliate marketing strategies through your videos?

Then, use the metrics you’ve chosen to track your performance over time. With every new video you create, you’ll be able to see how you’re doing compared to the previous one. Hopefully, your performance will steadily increase and you’ll be able to declare success soon enough.

With YouTube’s user base expanding to every corner of the planet, there are now more than 300 million people logged into the platform every month. Not only is it an incredible feat to even be considered among these ranks, it’s also a testament to the success of these creators.

It’s not easy to carve out a niche in a crowded market, but with solid content and a little bit of luck, you surely can. With the right mix of passion, strategy, and execution, you can certainly build a successful YouTube channel. Enjoy!