Simplification is the Cornerstone of Successful YouTube Content

Frankly speaking, this is, first of all, not a secret, and secondly, it applies far beyond just creative work on YouTube. Yes, that’s right—without any preamble, we dive straight into this topic. So, muster all your focus, and let’s unravel this "secret."  

Consider how we consume various forms of art: movies, TV shows, books, paintings, music.  

Each of these is a finished product created by professionals—or even entire teams of experts—who have spent years mastering their craft, honing their skills, and pouring their time and creativity into producing a single piece of content for us to enjoy.  

We tend to perceive what brings us pleasure in broad strokes. Let’s be honest—few of us dissect a song into its lyrics, melody, arrangement, vocals, and the skills behind mixing and sound engineering. Most of the time, we simply listen to the track and mentally give it a "like" or "dislike." That’s the extent of our analysis.  

But that’s exactly how any form of content should work: it evokes certain emotions and associations in us. Based on those feelings, we either want more of that content or we don’t. As viewers, we’re not supposed to ponder how much effort went into creating something. That’s for us—content creators—to think about because it’s our job.  

Ultimately, the goal of this interaction between creators and consumers is the emotions of the latter.  

Now imagine if all of cinema consisted solely of Christopher Nolan films. While Nolan loves playing with mysteries, crafting intricate plots, and loading his works with layers of meaning and references, eventually, we’d get tired of it. At some point, we’d crave something like another *Fast & Furious* movie—because our brains need rest and a type of content that delivers emotions straightforwardly, without making us extract them from complex narratives and twists. And that’s perfectly normal.  

YouTube is just a video hosting platform. It doesn’t require Nolan-level concepts as the foundation of every video. Quite the opposite, in fact: YouTube is primarily a platform for relaxation.  

Google has been proclaiming this since 2016, and more recent studies only confirm this trend.  

Even when it comes to educational content, we still expect the creator to explain complex topics in simple terms. If our goal were truly to learn a new profession from scratch, we’d probably enroll in a university or take professional courses instead.  

But when it comes to solving everyday problems—like how to assemble a cabinet or reinstall Windows—that’s where YouTube shines. We’ll gladly watch those kinds of videos, sometimes even more than once.  

Of course, there are nuances and exceptions, but we won’t dwell on them now.  

The main task of YouTubers is to evoke emotions in their audience. Oddly enough, this task sounds simple—and it’s achieved through simplicity.  

Take this example: you watch a video of funny dogs, laugh, and feel positive emotions. Then you come across a heartfelt video about volunteers helping elderly people, cry, and feel moved. Finally, you decide to wind down with some true crime stories before bed—only to find yourself too scared to sleep because of the adrenaline rush. It all boils down to emotions.  

The simpler and more straightforward your videos are in guiding viewers to the emotions you want them to feel, the better and more effectively your content will be received. And from there, you’ll see more views, higher retention, broader reach, and all the other joys of being a YouTuber.  

The main catch lies in one thing: creating simple, emotional, and engaging content is actually hard.  

And that’s where the logical question arises:  

How to simplify videos for viewers?

A major problem for most YouTube creators is the urge to pack a decade's worth of experience into a 10-minute video. But audience attention is an extremely valuable resource. If viewers start feeling bored while watching your content, be prepared for them to leave in search of something more engaging—likely heading straight to your niche competitors.  

This happens because, as researchers have long discovered, today’s viewer attention span is comparable to that of a goldfish:  today’s viewer attention span is comparable to that of a goldfish: we can only focus on something for about 8.25 seconds.

Now, let’s return to the issue highlighted at the beginning of this section: our desire to cram as much information as possible into a single video. This often leads to several critical mistakes that heavily impact both attracting and retaining your audience:  

• Overly long videos without a clear purpose or structure: Lengthy videos that meander without a focus can quickly lose the viewer’s attention. If the audience doesn’t see the point or progression, they’ll likely click away.  
• A video without a defined topic: Content that lacks a clear subject or fails to deliver on its promise (e.g., vague or misleading titles) confuses viewers and leaves them unsatisfied.  
• Mixing multiple unrelated topics on one channel: When a channel covers too many unrelated themes, it dilutes its identity and makes it harder for the audience to know what to expect. Viewers subscribe for consistency, and when it’s missing, engagement suffers.  

Considering that capturing the viewer's attention is both costly and fleeting, we cannot afford to approach content creation haphazardly. Otherwise, we risk losing their interest.  

The creators who succeed on YouTube are those who have mastered the art of explaining complex topics in simple terms. However, simplifying content is no easy task, and that's where we aim to help you.  

One step in this direction is understanding your audience—their interests, pain points, and needs. If you know what they want, creating videos tailored to those specific needs becomes much easier.  

Before sitting down to write a script or plan for your video, you must understand your audience—what they feel, what they need, their emotions, and beliefs. Unfortunately, many bloggers are unaware of who their viewers are, making it difficult to move toward success.  

If you already know your audience, try crafting a clear thesis for the message you want to convey. This will simplify your content for both yourself and your audience. Don’t overload a single video with multiple topics—stick to one message per video. Viewers can’t process excessive information and will quickly disengage.  

Another critical element that enhances your chances of captivating viewers is your content itself. If you have something valuable to say, people will listen.  

Many mistakenly believe that flashy editing and stunning visuals guarantee a video's success. But then, how do podcasts succeed? Most podcasts are just long conversations, often shot on one or two static cameras. Yet, they’re incredibly popular and often watched or listened to in full.  

And what about funny cat compilations, often poorly shot? Their appeal lies in the content, not the production quality. This proves that views primarily depend on substance, not just technical polish. Creators earn audience attention by delivering meaningful content.  

Moreover, your content reflects the effort you’ve invested in creating it. People are more inclined to watch videos crafted with their interests in mind. For instance, compare these two video concepts: "I earned a million dollars, now watch me drive a Bentley for half an hour" versus "How I earned a million dollars: sharing my journey and insights." Videos focused solely on boasting fail to connect with audiences and often push them away.  

If you help your viewers navigate their journey, they’re more likely to spend more time with you.  

Remember the 8-second rule of viewer attention? Start your videos by addressing your audience's pain points and questions directly, and you’re more likely to hold their attention—provided you deliver on your promises and maintain their trust throughout.  

Every idea in your video should start with a clear thesis and end with a conclusion. This simplifies content consumption for viewers. For instance, begin a section with a question, provide a step-by-step answer, and conclude with a summary. This structure helps viewers retain the information and eliminates any sense of ambiguity.  

Following this approach will make it easier for you to develop your topic, write your script, and generate a positive response from your audience.  

Another vital aspect of clarity and simplicity in videos is the ability to draw from personal experiences. When we share our own stories, we naturally explain things more simply than when relying on external examples.  

Now, let’s summarize the key takeaways from this chapter to help simplify your content:  

• Study your audience and their needs: Can you understand their perspective and pain points?  
• Convey a clear message in each video: Focus on a thesis you want to communicate to your viewers.  
• Work on your video content: Ensure you explore the topic thoroughly, present it simply and clearly, structure your video effectively, introduce and conclude each point, and incorporate personal experiences as examples.

Why is simplifying so difficult?

In this chapter, we will be referring to quotes from great people. Let's start with Einstein.

"If you can't explain something simply, then perhaps you don't understand it well enough", — and we generally agree with this thought, but at the same time want to caution you.

The level of immersion in a topic is both our curse and our salvation as authors, because there are people who cannot stop studying information to become super experts in something, which leads them to constantly consider themselves not competent enough to run YouTube channels.

Here it's important, of course, to find a balance between not getting buried headfirst in research and not explaining things too superficially.

Besides you and your content on the platform, there are hundreds of thousands of other creators who are also trying to make great videos. If you try to create content in a topic you're not strong in, you'll simply lose to those authors who are well-versed in the essence of the question.

This is precisely why we often say that simply repeating someone else's success will not equal your own success.

Simplifying something is indeed difficult because being verbose is easier than being concise.

However, as we discovered above, the best author is one who has skillfully learned to make complex things simple. We often try to squeeze a 10-hour research into a 10-minute video, and to learn how to make it interesting for viewers, you'll have to master the law of simplicity.

And on this note, there's an interesting quote from Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States. His subordinates asked him how much time he needed to prepare his speeches. And he replied:

"If I am to speak for 10 minutes, I need a week to prepare. If for an hour, I am ready right now."

Our main task here is to simplify content. And this is very difficult; we ourselves are constantly learning how to make our articles shorter, but more understandable and easier to digest.

A lot of information and little storyline is a mistake.

If you overwhelm the viewer with exclusively useful information with statistics and graphs, you'll break their brain. Even in an educational video, there must be a storyline that controls the content of the video.

Sometimes in strong dynamics, you need slowdowns so the viewer can catch their breath, and in an overly stretched text, on the contrary, you need dynamics. It's often difficult for authors to evaluate from an expert perspective how comprehensible their content is. Check with people around you whether they find you understandable and interesting to listen to and watch.

If the topic and video format are uninteresting in themselves, it will be boring no matter what. All elements of creating a video, including topic and format, are interconnected with your presentation and depend on each other, affecting perception as a whole.

Showing and telling is much more effective than just telling. After all, today not only do people better perceive visual information, but TikTok-style thinking is killing views of long videos with static images. Visual stimuli help to absorb your message, making your speech more interesting. Visuals stimulate imagination.

Here are some practical visual things that affect video watch-through rate:

• Body movement: gestures, facial expressions, and appearance greatly influence perception. Even if you have a static video, it's already an excellent way to diversify the frame and your speech.
• Frame filling: background, objects, light, composition also work on the overall picture of perception and information assimilation.
• Angles and framing: if you have multiple cameras, and you can set up multi-camera shooting from different angles, that's a big plus, of course. However, even switching between different shot sizes with a single camera can make your videos easier to perceive.
• Cutaways: these aren't always about cinematic shots you've shot additionally; they can also be simply pictures, titles, quotes, graphs and diagrams, presentations, visual aids.

As you might have noticed, we didn't say anywhere that you must shoot something complex, multi-layered, on a fancy camera, or anything of that sort.

Despite the fact that simplifying is indeed difficult and necessary, it doesn't mean that YouTube content should initially be so serious and multi-layered.

But to create uncomplicated yet quality videos, you'll still have to practice and acquire some skills. Remember that your mastery does not depend on talent, but only on how much time you spend becoming better at something. Good luck