How To Create A Youtube Channel For Real Estate [FULL TUTORIAL]

It's a no secret that YouTube For Real Estate is the number one real estate marketing platform in the world. Some real estate YouTube channels are closing over two million dollars in gross commissions in just one year!

Better yet? Realtors using YouTube pay $0 to run and operate, and the videos work for you 24/7 for the rest of your life!

But it is not as simple as just uploading videos. In this blog, you will learn step-by-step how you can create your own real estate YouTube channel to start getting inbound leads and calls directly to your phone with clients begging to work with you like you are a celebrity!

Creating Your YouTube Channel for Real Estate

The question I get every day from Realtors is “I have an old YouTube channel, should I just use it or create a new one”?

Or “I have a YouTube channel with a bunch of property tours and listing videos. Is it okay to just use that channel”?

You can use those channels if you want, but I prefer to start with a clean slate. The good news is that you do not need to create a new Gmail account or email. You can simply create as many YouTube brand accounts as you would like by following these simple steps.

Step 1 - On the top right of YouTube is your circle logo. Click that and select “YouTube Studio"

YouTube Channel for Real Estate- Jackson Wilkey

Step 2 - On the bottom left of the YouTube studio select “Settings”

Step 3 - In the tab settings, go down to "Channel", then go over to “Advanced Settings” and scroll to the bottom and select “Manage YouTube account”

Step 4 - Select “Add or manage your channel(s)”

Step 5 - click the “CREATE A CHANNEL” tab

Step 6 - Name that beautiful new YouTube channel

What Should You Name Your Real Estate YouTube Channel?

The traditional way of real estate marketing states that you must use your name on every piece of marketing. This is not the case for YouTube.

YouTube for Realtors at the time had to be completely crumpled up and thrown away. At first, my YouTube channel was just my name, and then I switched it to our real estate team name, which was the Real Agent Now Group.

It took me almost a year to figure out that the YouTube channel was not about me, or what we thought was a gangster team name haha.

It was about my city and the information people were begging for, PERIOD!

Plus, when I started understanding the magic of SEO, that's when I switched our real estate YouTube channel name to Living in Portland Oregon — something our clients were searching for 1,000’s of times a month!

That is the day we made a huge power move! Now as you see above, ORGANICALLY we rank all over page 1 of YouTube AND Google too!

This is the reason today you see thousands of “Living in City State” real estate YouTube channels all across the country all producing incredible results not from views and subscribers but actual closed real estate sales!

Creating Your YouTube Channel Banner Art

Another huge discovery I had was with the YouTube channel banner art and what it needed to look like and say.

Again, we must retrain our Realtor brains from always talking about ourselves. It was taught that we need to have our name, brokerage, cell phone, email, squeeze pages… shizzzzz what else can we put on there that is salesy as hell.

I ran with that for a while, but it was way wrong. If you provide massive value, which is information about all the areas of your city, then these people will call YOU!

They don't want to go to a page to look at houses and be thrown into a drip campaign and called 50 times.

THEY JUST WANT TO TALK TO THE PERSON THEY SAW ON VIDEO!

But to get these raving fans, we must understand again that the channel is about your city, NOT YOU!

3 Things Your Channel Banner Art Needs

A picture of you (and team members if you have them)
The words “Subscribe to Learn All About (City, State)”
The words “New Videos Every Week”

Here is a look at one of ours for you to copy!

We do not have our names and numbers on here as we want the subscribers so that YouTube can collect the data it needs to recommend our videos to others!

Oh and this channel has sold over $100 million in sales too!

Where To Put Your Channel Art and Logo

YouTube did a beautiful thing about a year ago and made branding your YouTube channel all in one spot!

For this, you need to go to your YouTube studio again and on the left hand side there is a tab that says “Customization". Then select the top middle button “Branding”.

As you can see in the picture above you have your picture (your YouTube channel logo) your Banner image (YouTube channel art) and this is where you can insert both of those!

If you ever need to change these in the future you can do that as well!

If you look at the tab next to that “Basic info” this is the next part of your real estate YouTube channel we need to fill out!

First thing is, if you ever want to change your real estate YouTube Channel NAME you can do that here at the top. Just click that pencil.

Next is filling in the description! It is crucial that you do this correctly. The point of this description is to tell your viewers what the YouTube channel is all about NOT to talk about YOU and your squeeze pages, landing pages, cheap homes, websites, squeeze pages again, how cool you are, that you are a top agent. Ya that shit

Here is what you need, and go right ahead and steal it!

Are you wondering what it is like to live in Portland, Oregon? Well, this is the channel you need! We absolutely love this town and our #1 goal is to showcase every inch of the Portland Metro through our videos so you have a complete understanding of the best area that fits your lifestyle!

We work with clients from all over the world that are relocating here, and we ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! Reach out to us day/night/weekends ANYTIME because we've got your back when moving to Portland Oregon!

Call/Text Direct (503) 837-3454

Email: [email protected]

Oregon Agents

Jesse Dau #201222305

Jessica George #201233476

Heather Listy #201232610

Brett Williams #201235000

Washington Agents

Jesse Dau #374130

Heather Listy #20112594

Tova Williamson #122391

eXp Realty

Laying Out Your YouTube Channel for Real Estate

This is the part of this blog that you may need to come back to because you may not have any videos yet, BUT you still need to understand it!

Your channel needs to be viewed as the #1 website for people moving to your city. That means that everyone should be able to find the content that they are after.

On this “Layout” tab, you have the ability to set in place your feature channel videos. There is a difference.

The one on top is a video for viewers who have not subscribed to your channel yet. I used to have a video welcoming people to the channel, but then I noticed all the top youtubers had a very compelling video there and when I went to their channel it automatically started playing and I was hooked!

I stole that from them and did the same! I take a top performing video like where to live in Portland, Oregon when moving to Portland, Oregon and place that in that spot.

Next is “featured video for returning subscribers”, and you can put another great video there.

When I mentioned that your channel needs to be the #1 top website, this next section is where we create that.

Maximize Your YouTube Channel Playlists (Featured Sections)

In this section you have the ability to have 10 DIFFERENT playlists on your home screen. If you do not set these up then your channel will default to JUST most recent uploads.

I realized that people were coming to our “Portland Oregon” YouTube channel but looking for information on Vancouver Washington, Salem Oregon, real estate vlogs, new construction etc. so we created playlists with those titles and then arranged them here.

So now when you go to our Living in Portland Oregon real estate YouTube channel you will see that all of these playlists are on there like this!

Putting the CORRECT Channel Keywords on Your Channel

One of the best ways for your YouTube CHANNEL to rank AND your real estate YouTube VIDEOS to rank at the top is by leveraging the correct channel keywords.

For this, we need to go back to the YouTube studio! In the YouTube studio on the left, go to the “settings” tab and click that. Then go to “Channel” and “basic info”.

This is where you will be able to place the CORRECT channel keywords like mine!

What Are YouTube Channel Keywords

YouTube channel keywords are “terms that give YouTube information and context about your channel. Specifically, they help YouTube understand the type of content you produce and who your target audience is”.

Sooooo channel keywords should NOT be “Top Realtor, Real Estate, Real Estate Marketing, I’m the Best Realtor, etc.

If your market is Boise Idaho then you need keywords like “Living in Boise Idaho, Moving to Boise Idaho, Boise Idaho” etc. Plus surrounding cities and suburbs that you are going to shoot videos about, like “Meridian Idaho, Nampa Idaho” etc.

Enable Your YouTube Channel

There is one final PERTINENT step to take before uploading any real estate videos to your channel. If you do not enable your channel, you will NOT BE ABLE TO DO THE FOLLOWING:

Upload videos longer than 15 minutes.
Upload Custom Thumbnails
Perform Live streaming
Appealing Content ID claims

For this, you need to go into your “Settings tab” and select “Channel”. Then you want to go to the third tab to the right called “Feature Eligibility,” and it is here that you can enable your YouTube channel.

As you see below, this channel is enabled, and you can quickly do the same by selecting enable and then providing YouTube with your phone number to send a text and verify you are real!

As soon as you do that, BAM, you are verified. But why is it so important to enable our channel?

The first two reasons above are the most important reasons why we need to do so and here is why.

“Upload Videos longer than 15 minutes” I go against every Realtor and digital marketer who say “people only want 30-60 second videos MAX”!!! I tell them, “Ya of your ass because you are boring and provide zero value homie”!

The key to ranking on YouTube is due to AVD’s (Average View Duration) and that is also how you start to get your videos suggested more, which is the ultimate goal on YouTube!

Reason #2 to enable your channel is to be able to “Upload Custom Thumbnails”. Thumbnails are over 85% of the reason your videos get selected.

80% of the thumbnails on YouTube get less than a 4% CTR (Click Through Rate) so one of my goals is to always get above a 4% CTR. Over the years I have A/B split test with Tubebuddy 1,000’s of thumbnails to see which ones get the best CTR’s.

But if you want to know the recipe for a great thumbnail here is exactly what youtube says to include in your thumbnail!

Use bright colors and high contrast images.
Include a close-up of a human face whenever possible.
Ensure the text is large enough to read on any device.
Use fonts, colors, and shapes that are consistent with your brand.

Here is an example of a really high performing thumbnail below

Your YouTube Channel for Real Estate is Ready

Phew!! Ok you got this beautiful channel all built out and it is ready for videos to learn what videos to shoot check out this Playlist full of Tubebuddy tutorials for free.

We have spent $10's of thousands of dollars and years perfecting the YouTube for Real Estate process and now we are partnering with agents all around the world and giving them private coaching and all of our courses FOR FREE! Zero splits Zero costs just 100% value because we know the more we help your business the more it helps us. No video experience needed but ONLY for those who want to take their business to the next level and WILL PUT IN THE WORK!

If you want to learn more about partnering with us at eXp Realty, getting all of our training and coaching 100% free letting us help you blow up your business shoot me an e-mail to [email protected]!

Cheers homies!