When first starting to grow a new YouTube channel it may seem that making a good video will cost a lot of money.
After all, there’s the camera gear, video editing software, programs for thumbnail design, and many more little costs that could add up.
This cost is especially hard to bare knowing that first videos usually don’t perform that well on YouTube.
Of course, not only do you have to buy the equipment but also learn video editing, develop a good camera presence, discover how to record and edit audio, understand SEO, and many more skills that are required to make a viral video on YouTube.
That’s why in this blog post I want to show you how to make a YouTube video for free!
All you need is an internet connection and a device that has a microphone.
And if you’re reading this, chances are that you have both of those things.
You will learn:
- The best free tools for creators that can help generate videos for free.
- How to make an engaging YouTube video without showing your face.
- Free YouTuber courses to learn editing and sound design.
- How to find free stock footage and royalty-free music.
- How to edit videos for free.
- How to do keyword research for free.
- How to make a killer thumbnail for free.
How to Make a YouTube Video for Free?
In order to make a YouTube video for free you can use free AI tools to generate scripts, free stock-video websites for b-roll, devices that you already own for recording the voice-over and visuals and edit the video with free video editing software.
Here are the steps required to make a YouTube video from scratch completely for free and without having to show your face on camera:
1. Generate video ideas with AI
If you struggle to come up with YouTube video ideas yourself you can use AI to help you.
AI is great for guiding you in a specific direction but is usually not good enough to come up with the entire idea.
I would use AI to generate rough ideas of your ideas and then refine them into actual video ideas myself.
VidIQ has a great built-in idea-generation tool that you can use for free to generate up to 3 video ideas every day.
Go to app.vidiq.com > daily ideas.
Another great AI idea-generation tool is Rytr.
You can sign up for free and generate video ideas by going to Rytr.ai > use case > video idea.
2. Script the video with the help of AI
While AI can help with idea generation it can help write entire scripts for your YouTube videos.
You can use AI content generation tools that can help you write outlines of scripts or even entire video scripts from the topic that you tell it.
The best free AI script-writing software is OpenAI’s playground tool or Rytr.ai.
Of course, you don’t have to rely on AI to write video scripts and can do it yourself.
This is easy to do for free because you can write your script using Notion, Google Docs, Apple Notes, and other free software that can edit text.
Learn more about how to write an engaging video script here.
3. Record the voice-over
If you’re creating a YouTube automation channel or one where you don’t show your face then a high-quality voice-over is one of the most important things for your channel’s success.
You might think that you need an expensive microphone and a studio set up to record high-quality audio for your videos but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
In fact, you can make your voice-over sound professional without any expensive gear.
For my channel, I use a built-in laptop microphone to record voice-overs and they turn out great.
While the microphone is important, your environment, how you speak to your microphone, and how you edit the voice-over later are what make the difference between a terrible and great-sounding voice-over.
I made a free Skillshare course that you can watch with their 30-free trial and it’s all about how to make an amateur voice-over sound professional without using expensive gear.
The course goes over how to set up your environment, record, edit, and enhance the voice-over.
View voice-over course on Skillshare.
4. Find free stock footage or movie clips
If you don’t plan to record yourself or your own b-roll footage then using stock video is great for filling in the b-roll holes in your edit.
Adding b-roll to your footage can also make your video more engaging to the viewer because it adds pattern interrupts changing up the visuals and letting the viewer hear your voice and see something happening at the same time.
The best free websites to download stock footage for YouTube videos are:
- Pexels.com – best overall.
- Unsplash.com – best for free stock photos.
- Pixabay.com – best for free stock videos.
5. Edit the video for free
There are 2 best video editing tools to edit a YouTube video for free:
While both of these tools offer paid features the free ones are enough to edit a YouTube video for free.
But which one should you choose?
DaVinci Resolve is best if you already have some video editing skills and a decently powerful laptop or computer.
DaVinci Resolve is a full non-linear editing software and it requires newer hardware to run and some more advanced knowledge about video editing.
Canva is best if you don’t know a lot about video editing and/or have a less powerful laptop or computer.
With Canva all the editing takes place online which doesn’t rely on how powerful your laptop is.
6. Make a Thumbnail for free
Canva is also the best place to create a thumbnail for free.
Although the free version of Canva has a limited set of features, it still has 90% of the tools that you’ll need to make a thumbnail.
The only key feature that the free version of Canva is missing is the background remover tool but there’s a workaround:
If you don’t have Canva Pro but have a Mac computer or an iPhone, you can right-click on any image > quick actions > remove background to remove the background from any image for free.
Then you can import that image into Canva and continue working on the thumbnail.
I’ve also put together an article on how to create a viral YouTube thumbnail (based on Mr.Beast – the biggest creator on YouTube)
How To Make A YouTube Thumbnail Viewers Can't Resist
Read More7. Optimize for SEO and publish
TubeBuddy is the best tool to optimize your YouTube video with keywords so it ranks on YouTube Search.
It’s a free browser extension that lets you input any search phrase and shows you how competitive it is and how many people search for it per month.
It also helps you automatically generate tags as well as shows you which position your video ranks for on YouTube search for each video tag.
Here’s a full TubeBuddy review if you want to know more about this keyword research tool.
Was this guide about how to make a YouTube video for free useful?
There is a lot more that goes into making videos for free on YouTube.
You have to constantly put out the best videos possible, and only over a long enough period of time, you’ll maximize your chances of growing a successful YouTube channel.
To speed this process up, I’ve put together a list of YouTube guides for you to check out next: