Youtube SEO: Does your channel name / user name matter?

[AdoptionHelp]

My predecessor left me a gift of what is arguably the worst kind of Youtube channel name: Our company's name condensed to an acronym with some additional gibberish that may or may not have meant something to her.

In short: Our channel name will never be searched for, will never provide any ranking boost.

Now our Youtube success has been very marginal so far: 31 subscribers, 7,300 video views.

Given that situation, should I seriously consider scrapping my channel and starting  something new with a keyword targeted channel name? Or does channel name matter so little that I should hold on to my 7300 video views?

[JaneCopland]

Hi Ryan,

That's always a tough one: keep something that has some history but also has a big flaw, or start afresh. I would say that if you expect or aim to receive far more than 7,300 video videos in the long run, and wish to attract many more than 31 subscribers, start again. This is also assuming that the channel is not particularly old, or doesn't have many traditional links itself.

The channel name is going to help your SEO if it's a good one, but I fear the branding is the main concern here. You will have a far harder time establishing trust and authority if you have a "random" user name, rather than something recognisable.

[AdoptionHelp]

Thanks for the reply Jane!

It actually does have a fair amount of history, created in Oct 2008. I'm still on the fence having a hard time weighing the pros and cons. On the one hand you can set the H1 tag to be whatever you want, but the username changes your page title and the anchor tag text on all your site actions. I'm starting to lean towards 'create a new channel'.