YouTube & Shorts
Everything on growing with short-form on YouTube — what the Shorts feed rewards, how Shorts and long-form feed each other, and how to mine the channel you already have for clips instead of starting from zero.
31 guides
How to price a YouTube sponsorship from your own numbers
Multiply the views a new video realistically gets in its first 30 days, in thousands, by a CPM you can defend. Then price placement, usage rights, exclusivity, extra deliverables and rush work as separate lines.
How to get your first YouTube sponsor
You do not need a set subscriber count for a first YouTube sponsor, just a clear niche, steady uploads and a short pitch to brands you already use. Here is where first deals come from and what to send.
How to report results to a sponsor and get renewed
Send the sponsor views at seven and 30 days, retention through the integration, link clicks and code uses, audience demographics and notable comments, then use the effective CPM to price the renewal. Most of these numbers come from YouTube Studio.
How to track a YouTube sponsorship's performance
Before the video goes live, set up a tracked link, a unique promo code and a note of the sponsor segment's timestamps. Here is where each number lives, why clicks undercount and what to agree with the brand.
The best YouTube sponsorship platforms for creators
In the YouTube Partner Program, start with the free Creator Partnerships tab in YouTube Studio, where brands come to you. Outside it, brokers and marketplaces find deals for stated fees of nothing to 15 percent. Here is how five compare.
How to livestream on YouTube, using YouTube's own numbers
The subscriber rule blocks one route and not the others, the bitrate table is published, and the archive has a 12-hour cliff most guides never mention.
How to create a YouTube channel
Creating the channel takes a minute. The two decisions worth slowing down for — which account owns it, and which handle you take — are the two that are annoying to reverse.
YouTube Shorts ideas, and why each one works
Metricool's study of 799,718 videos found the Shorts feed generated 61% of the YouTube views it measured. Most of the ideas that suit that feed are already sitting in footage you have filmed.
How to make money on YouTube in 2026
YouTube pays 55% of watch page ad revenue, 45% of your Shorts pool allocation, and 70% of memberships and Supers. Those splits are the only fixed numbers in the whole business — and the entry bar doubles on 1 February 2027.
The best time to post on YouTube, and how much it actually matters
Buffer says Sunday 10am. SocialPilot says weekday afternoons. vidIQ analysed 40.2 million uploads and found the hour barely matters by day 30. Here is what to do with that.
How long should a YouTube video be?
Eight minutes is a real revenue threshold and a terrible content target. Here is what the length studies found, what YouTube's own rules say, and how to pick a number for your channel.
How to get more views on YouTube
YouTube's own help pages say tags are near-useless, upload gaps do not correlate with growth, and publish time has no long-term effect. That rules out most popular advice. Here is what is left.
YouTube thumbnail best practices, and the evidence behind them
Most thumbnail guides still quote a spec YouTube has moved past and a CTR benchmark nobody can trace to a study. Here is the current spec, what YouTube's own test measures, and what breakout thumbnails contain.
Do YouTube tags matter? What YouTube actually says
YouTube's own help page says tags play a minimal role in discovery and are mainly useful for common misspellings. An entire industry of tag tools implies otherwise.
YouTube chapters: the exact rules, and what they change
Three rules decide whether your chapters appear at all. Here they are precisely, plus what chapters do for YouTube search and Google key moments — and what they do not do.
How YouTube Shorts monetization actually works
1,000 subscribers and 10 million Shorts views in 90 days gets you through the door. After that your ad revenue goes into a shared monthly pool, and you keep 45% of your slice of it.
What average view duration actually measures
Average view duration is a number of seconds. Average percentage viewed is a share. Watch time is the total. Mixing them up is how the same video ends up looking like both a hit and a flop.
What CTR on YouTube actually measures
Impressions CTR is not clicks divided by everyone who saw your video. YouTube counts impressions on some surfaces and not others, which is why the number moves for reasons that have nothing to do with your thumbnail.
How to read YouTube analytics without guessing
YouTube Studio has seven tabs and most creators read them top to bottom. Open the one that answers the question you actually have, and a weekly review takes about fifteen minutes.
YouTube end screens: the exact rules, and what they are worth
Three published numbers decide whether you can have an end screen at all. Here they are precisely, plus the devices where end screens never appear and the ranking claim YouTube has never made.
YouTube playlists: what they do, and what people claim they do
Series playlists are the only playlist feature YouTube says affects recommendations. The famous session watch time argument is an inference nobody has published data on — and your playlist analytics measure less than you think.
YouTube Community posts: who can post, and what they actually do
You no longer need 1,000 subscribers, or 500, or advanced features. Here is what actually gates the Posts tab now, the format small print, and the one documented reason to post that has nothing to do with reach.
YouTube Shorts vs long-form video
Shorts are better at reach, long-form is better at everything after reach. The interesting question is how they feed each other.
The best YouTube Studio alternatives for making Shorts in 2026
YouTube Studio's 'create a Short' flow asks you to scrub the timeline and pick a segment by hand. If you'd rather have the best moments found for you across a whole video, here's an honest look at the AI clipping tools that do it.
The best AutoShorts.ai alternatives in 2026
AutoShorts.ai automates faceless channels with generated video on a schedule. If you actually have real recordings — a podcast, a talking-head channel, a webinar — the right alternative works from footage, not prompts.
How to grow with YouTube Shorts
Most creators approach Shorts as an extra distribution channel. The ones who grow fastest treat them as a compounding system — here is what that system looks like in practice.
How to repurpose YouTube videos
YouTube videos are already edited, paced, and valuable — here is the workflow for turning them into a week's worth of short-form content without starting from scratch.
Best YouTube Shorts tools in 2026
From long-video repurposers to Shorts-optimized editors and caption tools — the complete picture of what's available and which tool fits which workflow.
Why your YouTube Shorts aren't getting views
If your Shorts keep stalling under a few hundred views, it's almost always the hook, the framing, or the first second. Here's how to diagnose which.
How to turn YouTube videos into Shorts
Your back catalogue is full of Shorts you haven't cut yet. Here is the workflow for turning long YouTube videos into vertical clips that actually get watched.
What's the ideal length for Shorts, Reels & TikTok?
There's no magic number — there's completion rate. Here's how to pick a length that keeps viewers to the end on each platform.
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