5 Proven Strategies to Grow Your Business on YouTube in 2026 | Ep. 76

If I were starting YouTube from scratch, these are the five YouTube tactics I’d use to grow a solo online business. I’ll show you how to attract your ideal clients, turn your channel into a funnel, and keep your email list engaged. Discover the strategies that work—even if you don’t have a big team. Let’s make your business binge-worthy!

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🟣 Video Brand Academy: https://videobrand.link/vba

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Transcript

If I was starting YouTube over from scratch or. If I simply wanted to take a massive advantage of YouTube over the next year as a business owner, these are the five proven strategies that I would use. To grow your business on YouTube over the next year, I wanna share them with you. And this is going to be relevant for you if you have a solo online business, especially where you don't have a big team of people to help you kind of like create this huge, massive content ecosystem.

YouTube is the most powerful. Platform for growing your audience online has more users than any of the other video platforms your content actually lives on. The longer that it's on the platform, so for the time, energy, and effort that you put into showing up online, creating content to attract your. Audience, your ideal clients and customers. YouTube is the simplest and most powerful way to do that. So here's how I would take advantage of YouTube in 2026. We're gonna talk about it here on episode 76 of Video Brand Infusion.

My name is Meredith and I'm here to help you infuse the best video marketing strategies into your business so that you can become and be a binge-worthy video brand. Let's get into it. So number one. I've talked about this before, but I cannot stress this enough. Create content that solves the problems that your ideal paid clients and customers are already searching for. The problems that your ideal clients and customers are going to Google or Gemini, or chat GBT or YouTube. And actually typing in, how do I, blank, blank, blank. What are the problems that people are actively seeking to solve right now? Not what you think your ideal audience is searching for and not what you know or what you think that people should be searching for. I am not even necessarily talking about what the keyboard research tools are telling you people are searching for. If you have an established business. And you have worked with clients and you have a course or program and you have had clients and students in there, you already know the problems that people are searching for solutions to, 

Regardless of what the keyword research tools like Vid IQ and Tube Buddy tell you, you know, your client or customer more than those tools do I guarantee it. 

I'm not talking necessarily about big topics like how to get started with yoga or you know, something like that. I'm talking about really. Specific topics like what yoga poses are best for blank or does yoga work for blank? People want answers that are tailored to them, right? They want to solve these problems that they have for themselves.

They're searching for themselves. 

 And it's really easy to speak their language because all you have to do is look at the frequently asked questions that your clients, students, or, uh, prospective clients and students are asking you. 

Those are the problems that. All of the other perspective clients and students for you are going and actually typing in somewhere to get the answers to. And because of YouTube's algorithms and because of even just like Google's algorithms and ai, when you create long form content that actually offers up solutions that people are searching for in plain, everyday, easy to consume language. You are going to be ranked in the search algorithms and referenced in the AI algorithms. Is that even the right word for it? You are going to be the leading expert that the AI tools are looking toFor the information and the content that people are searching for.so it's not enough to just simply create content. like people in your niche are searching for. You have to think about what are the problems people are searching to solve? 'cause people who are searching for solving problems are searching for solutions. And if you have a course or a program, or if working with you in some way is a solution to the problem, you want to be the one that shows up as the thought leader, as the expert, as the person with the solutions, right? you can totally use Chat, GPT or Gemini to help you kind of figure out what those problems are. But inside Video Brand Academy, I have a brainstorm breakthrough tool that does exactly that, but it's trained by me. It's trained by the curriculum inside of VBA. It's not chat, GPT. Just kind of like making wildly confident yet wildly wrong.

Uh, guesses that chat GPT tends to do sometimes. Number two, this is, um, extremely underutilized by business owners particular that I work with. This strategy is what essentially. Grew my channel from day one. If you don't know my background, I started my channel publishing, consistently every week in 2015, I created a lot of tutorials and how to videos on how to use a GoPro camera, how to edit GoPro videos.

And I just took what I knew about SEO content, like in the blogging and website world, and I applied it to YouTube. 

But back to like point number one about solving problems that your ideal clients and customers are searching for. You want to be the subject matter expert at the thing that they're using day in and day out in your industry. 

and coaches and course creators, understandably. They want their teaching to happen inside of their programs. Right. And I get that. That makes total sense. But if you want to get traction on YouTube, like real quick and like long lasting traction, be extremely knowledgeable, helpful, and giving with your experience in your content. Just teach. 

 if the program or like course that you sell is, um, like teaching families how to homeschool successfully, for example, become the subject matter expert on the curriculums that are out there, that your clients and customers are trying to research right now.It doesn't even have to be something that you are necessarily recommending and saying, Hey, you should go use this curriculum. You should buy this. But if it's something that you have a lot of knowledge and experience about that you have to share, you create a ton of content around that that is helpful and useful. That is. just absolutely no brainer, but also really fast way to establish yourself as an expert in your industry, in your niche, specifically on YouTube, because people are searching for these questions, these problems, they're researching, and they're trying to figure stuff out. When you swoop in as an expert or a thought leader in the industry, you can't go wrong. 

 number three. This one's an easy one, but I don't want you to overthink it. Okay? Pin your best content to the top of your channel in a start here playlist. So what do I mean by this? And what do I mean by don't overthink it? You can customize the layout of your YouTube channel in the backend and YouTube studio.

On the left hand side somewhere, there's a customization option, and you can create these sections of your YouTube homepage, create a playlist, call it, start here, and then give it. A title, give it a great headline, and then in that playlist, you're going to put the videos that you have that either and, and or either have really good retention, really good watch time, or if you have a freebie or a cheat sheet or something that you're pitching in that video.

These videos are leading to a really good high conversion rate. Or really good engagement from your ideal clients and students. In the comment section of the YouTube video, you make a little playlist, five, six videos or more. You put that playlist at the top of your channel. In the channel customization options area in the YouTube studio, and then the highest converting, um, most like attractive attention grabbing content for your ideal clients and students, and, uh, just like the best engagement sort of representation of your content.

That way what you have pinned at the top of your channel is very clearly going to get the attention of your ideal clients and students, and it's going to generate. More, uh, more goodwill in the algorithm, if you will. If you know that you are sending constantly, kind of sending people to a video that has really good retention or really good engagement, those are already green flags for the algorithm.

Pin that stuff to the top of your channel. So that you can fuel those green flags even more. Right? And if you are growing your list with YouTube, which we'll talk about in just a second, and you know, there are certain videos that are driving more traffic to your lead magnets, your freebies, or even to something that you're selling, pin that to the top of your channel.The reason I say don't overthink this is, you know, essentially your analytics will tell you what videos are getting, the highest retention, the most engagement. And you should have a sense of like, Are these attracting the exact ideal right type of person that I want to have on my channel?

Like, are they my ideal customers? Don't just put what you think are your best videos at the top. It's not there to show off the topics that you think people should watch or the things that you care about. Your analytics will tell you what's performing best on your channel

 and it doesn't matter how many views these videos have either. What matters is on the backend, are they generating more green flags, goodwill in the algorithm for you? Are they generating more leads for you and are they attracting the ideal Right client, customer, audience, viewer that you are trying to.

 attract on your channel. You put a, like a lot of time and effort into the content you create, and this is a way that you can use one of YouTube's own feature to, um, kind of game the system a little bit by putting your best performing content right at the top of your channel.

Number four, turn your channel into a funnel. And yes, I teach a backstage YouTube funnel concept inside of VBA, inside of the YouTube funnel Playbook. But ultimately, 

 Your YouTube channel is a funnel. Whether you have deliberately set up a sales funnel with your channel or not, you can still utilize the YouTube funnel fundamentals by always growing your list. So cheat sheets and checklists. If you follow what I said for number two, which is become a subject matter expert on a product, like a physical product or a piece of software in your niche, make a cheat sheet or checklist for that. Just a one page thing. People opt in, they download it.

Now they're on your list. It's the easiest thing in the world for you to create, but it's also just like a no-brainer thing for people to opt into if they're trying to learn a product or a software. Why wouldn't they download your cheat sheet or your checklist, right? It's so easy. You can put links in your descriptions. Links and YouTube descriptions are clickable. And you can put links to your cheat sheets, checklists, opt-ins in every single one of your videos so that you don't even have to think about it if you forget to mention it or if you mention it and then you forget to put a link in, just put it in all of your videos, put your links to your stuff in all of your videos. at the very top of your channel, you have a bio section or the about section. You can have multiple links in your bio, But the link at the top of your link list in your bio will be visible on the homepage of your channel.

So make it a good one. Make it something that people want to opt in for so that it's easy for people to opt into your stuff and it's easy for you then to grow your list as you create more content and as the YouTube algorithm keeps bringing more people to your channel. 

and number five. Naturally, if you are using YouTube to grow your email list. And I like to say that the email list is sort of like the bridge between your audience on YouTube like your paid course or program. 

The email marketing that you do is how you kind of bridge that gap for people. And because of that, as you build your list with YouTube, you now have. An audience essentially on your email list that you can keep engaged with your YouTube content. So I know this sounds like weird, but let me kind of explain what I mean by this, and I'll give you a really good example because the other day on YouTube, I got this comment from somebody that said.

how do you plan which emails to send to your list? And the reason why I wanna bring this up is this comment was left on a video that's actually pretty old.

It's like a year and a half old, but I had just sent an email to my list that essentially send people to this video, and that's because. A lot of the content on my channel is like useful and relevant a year and a half later or even longer, 

 and you know, I'm kind of cherry picking what I think is going to be relevant. 

 It's YouTube videos I've already created. They just happen to also still be relevant. And the magic of this is actually the emails are already createdbecause for every YouTube video that I publish, we send out an email to my list. So this video that I'm recording right now is going to get turned into an email and sent to my list the day after this video gets posted. But a year from now, or even six months from now, or three years from now, I'll be able to take that exact email, copy it, and paste it into an evergreen email sequence to send out in the future if the content that I'm creating in this video is still relevant.

 and why is this important? Why am I talking about engaging your email list? If I'm supposed to be talking about YouTube and growing your business with YouTube, it's because it's all kind of circular. Right. And in my last episode I talked about, the binge-worthy video brand fundamentals in creating this like growth loop. Having an engaged email list helps the entire growth loop because you're using YouTube to grow the list, but then your list are your most engaged people. They like, they literally raised their hand and said, I wanna hear from you In the sacred space of the email inbox. And so it makes sense that those people also wanna hear when you have a brand new YouTube video up for them.

And when you have a course or program, a new thing that you're launching or promoting, you promote that to your email list. Those are the people that want to hear from you and want to learn from you. And inside Video Brand Academy, I have like a mini course on email marketing for YouTube creators, essentially, which talks about my whole process for creating that evergreen systemto make it really simple and easy for me.

Now, there's one more thing that I wanna mention. Let me give you a quick recap on the five strategies to grow your business on YouTube. In the next year, you're gonna solve problems that your ideal client or customer are already searching for solutions to. Number two, you're going to become a subject matter expert in the leading, uh, most used software or product in your niche or industry.

You don't have to cover everything, just like pick one and be the go-to subject matter expert on that thing. Number three, you're gonna pin your best content to the top of your channel in a start here playlist so that your. Fueling even more of the green flags in the YouTube algorithm, which is gonna help YouTube bring more people, more of the right people to your channel.

Number four, you're gonna turn your channel into a funnel by always building your email list. And number five, you're going to engage your email list with your YouTube videos so that you can grow your business with future launches and promotions of your paid programs. The last thing I want to mention, this is not so much a strategy to grow your business.

It's more of, I think, something I want you to kind of like keep in the back of your mind as you go into this next year, which is to lean into your humanness Side note, I'm a huge fan of ai. I am a total nerd. I absolutely love ai, but it's really tempting to look at ways that you can utilize AI or automations to make creating content easier or faster, or to make growing your business easier or faster, or growing your YouTube channel easier or faster. And a lot of the tactics that might seem easy to adopt are going to strip your humanness out of your entire business, your entire content, everything. And I don't think that's the best way to do it. So. I want to encourage you to lean more into asking yourself, how can I be more human, not less human? As the platforms that were all on YouTube and others become more inundated with AI generated content or AI assisted content.

I don't know about you, but. I don't hang out online for just like information or to just, to like consume content. I'm here for connection and I think you're here for connection too. So the more human you can be in all of these five strategies that I shared with you today, the better

Because creating a human connection is something AI can't do, but it's something that humans, I think, will always crave and be looking for. And that's one of the reasons why I have Video Brand Academy, because that's where I get to connect with. Other solo online business owners who are growing their channels and growing their businesses. We have live q and a calls,all the time, essentially where we deep dive on your analytics. I can answer your questions, help you out.

You can get real time coaching from me, and it's the most supportive group of people on the internet. I am biased, but I love the people that we have inside of Video Brand Academy, and if you want help, um, or just a little bit of support, a little bit of handholding as you're growing your channel over the next year, and as you're using YouTube to grow your business over the next year, I put a link down below to Video Brand Academy.

It's the easiest thing in the world to join get started with right away. So I hope to see you on the inside.