5 PROVEN Methods to 5,000 Subscribers

Here are the five proven methods that work to get us to 5,000 subscribers. Welcome back to Build-in Public Road to 1 million subscribers, where we share what's working, what's not working, and what you can try next on YouTube. Method number one is using YouTube shorts to grow your account. You may have heard this suggestion from multiple people, but let's look at the data. I've made multiple long- form videos and short form videos, but look what has produced the most subscribers. Long form videos brought me in 492. Short form brought me 5,31. Think of it this way. YouTube Shorts is still a relatively new feature where there is a pool of people swiping and used to that on other platforms. But long form has been around forever. There's a lot of content to compete against. And you'll notice when you post YouTube shorts, it gives you views pretty much immediately. So you have a higher chance of reaching more people faster. Whereas long form, if you don't have an audience yet, it's going to take some time for people to discover your video. Number two, we all start with zero subscribers. So we have to be able to figure out how to reach new people. And that's where this method came in. Optimizing your video for search. What does that mean? I took this amazing program called Video Ranking Academy that taught all the different ways to be able to rank higher in the search when people are looking for videos. If you want to check it out, I'll put it below. But a lot of it teaches how to be able to optimize your videos for search. For example, think of it this way. YouTube isn't just looking at the description, looking at the title, and then looking at the tags on your video. They are also transcribing every word you say. Now, a lot of people will say tags and metadata don't matter as much on YouTube. I hear that. But for newer channels that don't have a lot of data yet, don't have a lot of subscribers and audience to watch your videos and push it to more, YouTube is just trying to find any type of signals to say, who should I send this video to? So, I've been using this program called Vid IQ. I'll link it below. That allows you to be able to do research to figure out what to say in your video, how to title your video, and what to put in your metadata, making it super easy. For example, if we wanted to make a video about how to grow on YouTube, it tells me that every month there's 76,891 people that are searching for that exact phrase. But it also says the competition is pretty high. This goes 0 to 100. I want to find competition for a video that is about 7 to 20, but also with decently high search volume. I look for things that are about a,000 to 2,000 searches a month. Now, that might seem small in comparison, but remember, these things got us to 5,000 subscribers. Once you have significantly more subscribers, you can actually rank up higher in that competition because your audience base will know about you and is more likely to share. Here's an example of one that I did for my top long form video. How to clear system data on a Mac. See, the search volume is 1,155. Competition is right below 20. But check out how my video did. You can see that it brought in 139,000 views. Under my analytics, it brought in 155 subscribers. And this is my top video generating the most revenue. And how I did it was stacking it full of relevant keywords in what I said, in the title, in the description, and the tags. For example, if you watch the video, the first thing that I say is, "Here's how to clear system data on a Mac." matching these keywords exactly, letting people know as soon as they click the video, this is what they can expect. And it's true. This isn't clickbait. Now, a lot of people will do this for long form video, but they miss the opportunity in YouTube shorts. People will say that for YouTube shorts, it gives it to a lot of people quickly and then it stalls. But if you pack it full of keywords that people are looking for, you have the opportunity to give that short extra life. Let me show you what I mean. Here are my top YouTube shorts that brought me in the most views and subscribers. Here are some great examples. People were searching for Amazon's best car phone holder. Now, you can see here in my analytics that shorts wasn't the main driver. YouTube search was. So, of my 128,000 views, 88% of it came in through search, and that brought me 136 subscribers. The same word for this top viewed video, how to enable dark mode on every website in Google Chrome in 19 seconds. Look at how flat it was. And then this massive spike. YouTube search 87%. Chrome dark mode. Google dark mode. This is what people are searching for and what's built into my title, the words that I say, tags, all of it. Number three, remaking video ideas that worked. How many subscribers do you think my how to do the Elmo voice got? Well, if you look at the analytics, 1,400 subscribers. That's crazy. Now, it's a silly video. I get that. But what if I do it again with a different character, a different voice that I also learned how to do? Well, I posted the Elmo one back in April of 2023. So, a few months ago, I decided to try it again with a different voice to see if it'll get the similar results even though it's 2 years later. And it's currently ranked number seven in my top shorts of all time, bringing in 721 subscribers. And you know what I'm about to do next? Why? Because for some reason it works. Which ties perfectly into point number four. Making the videos that didn't make sense. And this one's the perfect example. Have you tried the shoe tying shortcut? Ranked number four of all of my videos. You never know which video is going to pop off. So this one, it shot up to 20,000 views pretty quickly, but then it leveled out. Look how long it leveled out. I posted it in May of 2023, but then April of 2025, look how it shoots up. Currently at 150,000 views, 120 subscribers. Now, I'm not planning to make how to tie your shoe videos for the rest of my life. A lot of the video ideas that come to our mind don't seem like they'll make sense, but they're easy and fun for us. So, why not try them just to see if it resonates with people and to get some good data? And most importantly, point number five, as you can imagine, there's a lot of discouragement along the way as you post videos and try to get views and you realize that only a few people actually see it. And then you start to get some subscribers and what you thought worked, you post it again and it doesn't work. If you felt like that, let me know. I'd love to encourage you. But there's something I need to tell you first before point number five. I'm a Christian and I believe in God. I believe he speaks through the Bible. I believe he speaks through people. And I believe he also speaks through impressions through the Holy Spirit. Several years ago, I had an impression from the Holy Spirit. And then God gave me the idea to help other people through YouTube. But he also placed this idea in my spirit to give away 90% of the profit of anything that I might make through YouTube channel, through side projects, through anything out of my current normal salary. Now, our family has an interesting story that I can share with you sometime, but we've never been able to outgive God. If we gave financially, he would bless us in a significant way in some other place. And we certainly don't give to get. That's not the heart of this. The heart for us is to be able to obey and do the things that God has asked us to do. Now, did he tell us you have to give away 90%. No. But I do feel he gave us the opportunity to do that with the intention to trust him. So, we give away 90% of those profits to our church to help reach and help people around the world. But we also offer a lot of our time and resources into this to help you and others grow and do the things that you feel called to do. This podcast, the one that you're listening to, was also an idea from God to be able to document the journey and share with others what has happened, showing that this is possible for anyone. So, I do believe and I feel like I've heard in my spirit, one day we're going to get to 1 million subscribers. And it's not about the subscribers at all. It's about point number five, being obedient to what you feel called to do. Your passion, your joy, whatever you feel led to do, do that. Colossians 3:17 says, "In whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." So, I started this podcast. I started this journey because I believe that that's what God told me in my spirit to do. So, we're at 5,000 right now, and I'm grateful cuz God made it happen. Now, in no way am I saying that you need to give 90% of your profit from YouTube away. What I am saying is that you need to be obedient to the thing that you feel called to do. In this journey, this podcast, this YouTube channel is dedicated to sharing how God is making it happen here so that the insights can also help you make it happen over there. Not for money, not for profit, not for subscribers, but to help equip you to do the thing that you feel called to do. So, let me know in the comments what is your reason for doing this YouTube channel. I'd love to hear. If you'd be so bold, I would love to encourage you to subscribe to join us on the journey on the road to 1 million subscribers, where we can help you see what you can try next on YouTube. See you in the next video and God bless