Transcription
Most of the YouTube growth advice that worked in 2024 and 2025 is now outdated. And if you keep using these old tips in 2026, it will actively hurt your channel. So, it's critical you stop doing these six things. Let's get into it.
All right, first up, this one is unfortunately going to ruffle a few feathers and some of you won't be too happy to hear this, but the AI generated video boom is over. Now, I know this won't come as good news to some of you, but the end of 2025 marked the end of the AI video boom. Now, over the last few years, we've seen a major shift on YouTube. Like, we've seen the platform get completely taken over by so much low-quality AI slop, and there's been a monumental shift in how people actually create videos. But just as quickly as it rose, AI generated content is now crashing faster than ever because there has simply just become way too much AI content on the platform now. And the vast majority of people on YouTube don't like it anymore.
Now, I actually ran a poll asking you guys what you think about this. And the vast majority of you said you didn't like AI content. And most people say they can spot an AI video from a mile away and that they'll like immediately click off if they know it's like AI generated. So if you see any more gurus out there telling you that you can become a millionaire by creating AI faces videos and channels, they're lying to you. The majority of people on YouTube are now seeking authentic real human touch. Like they want real raw content from real people. And this means essentially that the faceless AI content boom is pretty much over. But that doesn't mean AI is over though. Like in fact AI is still growing and will continue to grow at a rate we've never seen before. But the most successful creators on YouTube are the ones that use AI to help them, not replace them. And in my opinion, AI should only ever be used for things like helping with ideas or research or title help, like those kind of things. It should not fully replace you or your thinking or human opinion. Now, I use AI a lot, but I only ever use it to support me, not replace me. And you should be doing the same. Like, this is the exact stuff I teach step-by-step in the YouTube Academy. But let's keep on going.
Then next up, the belief that audiences from shorts are somehow low quality. Now, this is something I want you to totally forget about in 2026. Like the idea that shorts viewers are low quality and that they won't support your long-form content. This is completely untrue. And the people who actually believe this are genuinely missing out on so much potential growth. Like people still for some reason think that viewers who come from shorts won't watch your long-form videos and all this other like total nonsense. Now the real issue most people face is not that shorts are inherently bad but because they actually have the wrong strategy. Like the most common issues I see are most creators post random shorts. There's no direct connection to their long-form topics. Their shorts aren't setting high expectations. and their shorts give no reason to continue watching the rest of the channel. And yes, if you make any of these mistakes I just listed, then the audience you bring in won't be suitable for your long-form content. But what you need to understand is if people just wanted short-form content, they would only use like TikTok or Instagram, like the two platforms which are literally built around short-form content. Like YouTube has always and will always be the long-form platform. So, if someone decides to load up YouTube and consume content, they're doing so because they want to see both long-form and short-form content. And this means that every single short-form viewer can also be a great long-form viewer, too. But to harness shorts viewers and convert them into long-form viewers is all about balance and strategy. And it's as simple as this. Your shorts should directly relate to your long-form videos. Support one core idea and act as a bridge, not a separate channel. Now, for me on my travel channel, all of my shorts were just short clips taken from my long-form videos. Like, this means they were directly related and supportive of my long-form content. Like, they acted as a bridge between the short and the actual long-form video. Now, if you want to clip up your own long-form videos into shorts, I'd suggest using an AI tool like Nexus Clips to do it all for you.
Now, the next thing is you should never pay to run ads to promote your channel. Now, look, I really don't know who's out there telling you to do this, but trust me, it's quite possibly the worst piece of advice I've ever heard, and it quite literally kills channels. Because when you run these promotions, YouTube doesn't actually care where these views come from. They only care about getting returns for your money spent. So what usually happens is most of your viewers will come from low-cost countries like India, Indonesia, and Nigeria. These are places where YouTube can give you what looks like the most return for your money, but it's actually cheap return. And let's say you've got a fitness channel or a cooking channel, for example, and you want to target English-speaking people from the United States or Europe. So, if you pay to have your channel promoted, this will bring in the totally wrong audience. Another thing is that paying for views instead of actually letting the algorithm do its job organically is destroying your algorithm rating because it trains the algorithm to only ever rely on paid ads. And one final thing to consider is like, are you actually planning to pay for ads on your channel forever? Because that's what you're going to need to do if the only way you're growing is by paying for it. Because once you start paying for ads, your organic growth totally stops. And the only way you'll get more engagement is by buying more ads. Like it's a negative death spiral that never stops. Now, the only people who should be buying ads is the people who've got a product or a service to sell. If you're not a business, you don't need ads. Ads are for selling, not growing. So, if you're running ads right now or you've considered it before, don't.
Now, the next outdated tip is deleting underperforming videos helps a channel. Now, this is another big myth that I want you to completely forget about in 2026. A lot of small creators think that if a video doesn't perform well, deleting it or re-uploading it will somehow help the algorithm. It doesn't. In fact, deleting it or re-uploading it actually hurts your channel more than you realize. Like, if you don't want those bad videos showing on your page anymore, that's fine. Just unlist them or make them private. But don't delete them. And here's why. What usually happens is this. You upload a video, it doesn't get many views straight away. You think something's wrong and then you delete it. And people think this like resets the algorithm and it removes bad signals. But that's not how YouTube works. YouTube learns over time. Every single video you upload is collecting data in the background, even if it only gets like just a few views. Now, the data it collects includes who clicked on a video, how long they watched for, where they dropped off, and what they watched next. And this information helps YouTube understand your channel and your audience. Like, it literally tells YouTube who not to push your content to and what topics don't work. Now, that data is just as important as a video that performs well. But if you delete that video, all of that data is gone. So, once you've posted a video and gone live, don't delete it. Just move on to the next one.
Now, the next thing is that I want you to completely forget about going viral because way too many people think that if they can just get one viral video that everything else will fall into place. But unfortunately, the opposite is kind of true. Because having one video go mega viral and bring in a ton of new subscribers can actually be a death sentence for your channel. And let me explain why. Now, naturally, every single video you post on your channel will be slightly different. And this means that every single like viewer and audience each video brings in will also be slightly different. People with different interests, different viewing intent, different locations, different topics, etc., etc. This means that a viewer that liked one of your videos probably might not like some of your other videos, and that's completely normal. Now, let's say you gradually built up a following of 100 subscribers by posting out 50 different videos. That means you are going to have a really diverse audience who all like different things. Whereas, let's say if you have one video that goes viral and brings in like 1,000 new subscribers, that means that all of those new subscribers will probably only be interested in that one specific video topic you posted about. So, when you come to post out a new video covering a different topic to the one they originally watched and subscribed for, those new subscribers probably won't be interested in it. And if the algorithm sees that all of those new subscribers now aren't interested in your new videos, it's going to send a negative signal and stop pushing out, meaning it's going to flop. So, if you want to see success on YouTube, you need to build a channel sustainably over the long term. And you want to do this slowly by getting a few subscribers every single video. This means you'll end up with a really diverse audience that will potentially like every video or every topic you post about. So, just forget about going viral and think about like the sustainability.
And the final thing you need to consider in 2026 is trying to grow a YouTube channel by yourself because this is where a lot of creators end up stuck. Now, most people aren't failing because they're necessarily bad at YouTube. They're failing because they try and figure out everything alone. And as a small channel, I know how tough it is when you don't have any clear feedback or any clear direction. Like, it's sometimes really bloody hard to know what's actually holding your channel back. Like, what are you actually doing wrong? And most of you just end up guessing and changing too many things and essentially just wasting so much time. And it sucks, I know. But almost every single successful YouTuber you see out there on the platform has had some form of help, whether that was a mentor, a coach, or a community, or even an online course that pointed them in the right direction. And that's why I created the YouTube Wealth Academy. It's a course that's designed to give you clear structure and proven strategies so you're not alone out there trying to piece like together everything from random different videos. Now, we also have a great community of hundreds of other creators all supporting each other. So, if you want a clearer path forward instead of just figuring all out by yourself, I'll leave the details in the link below. But if you're not ready yet to invest in yourself, that's absolutely fine, too. But YouTube thinks that this video here is a perfect one for you to watch next.