How To Edit Videos For Youtube as Beginner in 2025 (STEP-BY-STEP)

0:00 What if you could go from raw footage to publish YouTube video in under one hour without any editing experience. In today's video, I'm going to show you step-by-step how to edit your videos efficiently while still engaging your viewer. Whether you are a creator or a business owner, what I'm about to share with you will not only save you hundreds of thousands of dollars per month spent on editing fees, but also hundreds of hours that you're going to get back to actually film more videos to grow your channel. So let's dive in. Now, in order for me to teach you how to edit videos, the tool that I'll be using is Descript. Now I've been using Descript Descript for the last couple of years, some of my most popular videos were edited on Descript exclusively. And even now, as I have a professional video editor back on my team, we still use Descript as a huge part of our video editing process. Now, luckily for me, I've talked about them so much here on this channel.

0:46 They actually reached out and they've agreed to sponsor this video. So let me share my screen and show you my entire process on how I use Descript as my video editor of choice. Now the first step of editing any video is your project setup and organization. So what you're going to do over on Descript, you can see that I have tons of projects that I've done over the years. To keep myself organized, I've actually created a few folders. I've got my Instagram stories, shorts, and I have also got my YouTube videos. How you create these folders is you simply go into your workspace and then you can create a new folder for YouTube videos specifically or whatever you're thinking of editing. Once you've created a new folder, the next step is to create a new project. It's gonna be a video project. I'm gonna name my creation, which is gonna be the title I'm thinking of for my video.

1:32 And then I'm gonna load up my clips. Now, if you've watched any of my previous videos where I teach you how to film videos, my recommended method is to always film in sections. This basically means you say a few lines within your video up until what you can remember, then you stop record. Then you film the next section. This is helpful because if you ever make a mistake, you can just go back to the last clip and delete it. And you're not wasting a lot of space in your memory card. And you're also not left with a one three hour long clip with tons of bloopers and mistakes. Now, if you are using this method, you likely will have a lot of clips that you need to drop into Descript. So let's do that right now. Now, what I typically do is I hold down the function key on my keyboard. I select all the clips and I drag it into my Descript project. What Descript will now do is transcribe all of my videos. Once Descript is done transcribing my video, it's going to look something like this. It's

2:18 pretty much like a Google doc. And what I love about text-based editing specifically is I can just read my videos, see exactly what I want to cut out. and then I can strike it out or I can just delete it with my keyboard to remove the entire section and it's going to apply that edit on the actual video. But before I go ahead and manually edit this entire video, the very first step that I do as a foundation is I use descript AI tools to clean up my video first. And the very first feature that I tap into is removing retakes. So what I do is I go into under Lord and then I will select the entire script and select remove retakes. What this basically means is when I'm filming, I often have to repeat myself constantly because I'm trying to get that perfect take. That is a retake. Let me show you an example

3:04 of what it sounds like. Book reviews, maybe that's something that you're really passionate about. Book and podcast review, book, the, book reviews, maybe. Now, of course you can manually edit out all your retakes yourself, but it does take quite some time. And as you can see here, there's about one hour of raw footage that I've uploaded into Descript. What I can do is by allowing Descript to remove all the retakes, I've now trimmed my video down to 48 minutes. And on the side here, you can see all of the retakes that Descript has uncovered. And as I scroll down on the side, you can see that Descript has clearly removed all of those retakes for me. And if I were to show you the example, I showed you earlier, this is what it sounds like now. Book reviews, maybe through understanding your unique advantage, you're someone who really loves reading books and sharing what you've learned from those books. Once

3:51 as many retakes has been removed from my video, the second feature that I tap into is removing filler words. So I'll select all go to under Lord and then remove all of those extra words that I add in that don't make my video concise. These are the ums, the ahs, the so's and the repetitive words that I typically do whenever I'm nervous being on camera. As you can see, the script has now identified 71 filler words. And as I go through the script, you can also see that it's highlighted those words for me, like kind of so, and so I'm going to remove all of them. And you can see that it's trimmed my video a little bit more. Now, the third feature I tap into, which is my favorite feature is removing word gaps. A lot of times when I'm filming, I actually speak very slowly because I'm trying to think about what I want to say next. Here's an example of what that looks like. So when I do send them over to

4:36 my video editor, she's not combing through hours and hours of bloopers. And I'm also not taking up too much space on my memory card. So when I do send them over to my video editor, she's not combing through hours and hours of bloopers. And I'm also not taking up too much space on my memory card. Now, of course, these breaths and these big pauses in between my words don't make my video more concise. In fact, it makes it a lot longer and it's hard to retain my viewer. And so what I'll do is I'll select my entire script head to under Lord and then shorten word gaps. Now you can set the seconds. For instance, I could do short in any word gap more than five seconds and descript is now, identified 42 gaps. But what I like to do because I like my videos a little bit more fast paced and engaging is I'll do 0.1 seconds. And as you can see now, Descript has identified 421 sections where there's a

5:26 gap longer than 0.1 seconds. So right now my raw footage is 48 minutes. And when I shorten all of these gaps, it's now 36 minutes. So with these three features alone that literally took me less than two minutes to apply, I've now trimmed down my raw footage from one hour hour down to 36 minutes. That's pretty much half of the video already automatically deleted in just a few clicks. This is now going to make my manual editing process so much easier. Now for me personally, removing my retakes, filler words and word gaps is more than enough to get me started with manually editing my video. But there is an extra step that I like using if I ever forgot to use my professional microphone or if I'm filming on my iPhone and I noticed that it's really echoey. I also use this feature if I'm filming outside and the audio just isn't great. that is using the studio sound feature.

6:16 So I have a clip right here that's filmed on my iPhone and I don't really like how echoey it sounds. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to select all, go to Underlord and then click studio sound. What this basically will do is automatically clean up my audio and make it sound like I have a professional microphone. Let me show you the difference. Now, if you wanna take this exercise a step further, I recommend that you actually ask Chachi PT based on the stories I've told you so far, how would you describe me as a person? Now, if you wanna take this exercise Now, if you don't like how it sounds, you can always modify it by clicking on the effect settings and then turning down the intensity to whatever you like. I think that this is a perfect solution and I hope it helps you as much as it's helped me. Now, once you've automatically trimmed down your

7:06 raw footage, thanks to Descript AI tools, the next step is to actually manually review your video. This is important because maybe Descript missed a few things, or there are certain sections in your video that you actually don't want in your video anymore. This happens to me all the time because I talk a lot in my raw footage. And then when I review the video, I'm like, wait a second, I already said that. So let me just delete it. And so how I do this in the most efficient way possible is over on Descript at the bottom here, you can actually watch your video in two X or three X speed. In my case, I like to watch it in 2X speed because it's just fast enough to be efficient, but slow enough so that I can still catch the little mistakes. Now, the first thing that you can do to make your video more engaging is whenever there's a certain point that you want to make, or you want to emphasize, you want to have text and maybe a sound effect so that your viewer can retain the information. Now

7:52 I'm going to show you how you can do this advanced edit easily using descript. If I were to start a new YouTube channel from absolute zero this year. So in the intro of this video, I say, if I were to start a new YouTube channel from absolute zero this year, this is what I would do. Now I want to emphasize the word absolute zero. So what I'm going to do is highlight absolute zero, head over to under Lord and then type in text and insert text. Then I'm going to type in absolute. I'm going to change the font. And by the way, you can also upload custom fonts into the script. If you have a very specific brand guideline in my case, I've already done that. So I'm going to use my font. You can also change the size, whether that's making it smaller or bigger. Now I also want the word zero to show up. So I'm going to take this text, copy and paste and then trim it until it hits zero. And

8:41 this is why I like to script so much because it is text-based editing. I can just read rather than replay the same thing over and over again. And then over here, I'm going to write zero. So if I were to play, it would look something like this. Now this is fine and you can keep it that way, but I actually want to take it a step further and I want the text to be behind my body. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to select the section that I want to be behind my body. And you can see here with the slashes that Descript has made it its own separate clip. I'm then going to select it and hit copy. and then I'm going to paste and now it's added as a layer and it's actually covering my title. But what I'm going to do now is I'm going to select this layer, then head over to visual effects and then hit green screen. What

9:28 it's going to do is actually going to remove the background of that layer. So now when I play it, it's going to look something like this. As you can see, the text is now behind my body. This is a much more advanced edit that people typically do on final cut pro or Adobe premiere, but you can easily do that in descript. Now to take it a step further, I really want to emphasize this point even more. So I'm going to add sound effects. You want to use this sparingly in your video, especially for points you really want to emphasize. I usually use the most sound effects in my hook so that I capture people's attention in the first 15 seconds. So what I'm going to do is I want a sound effect to show up when it says absolute zero. So I'm going to select the area that I want my sound effect to go in. Then I'm going to right click and then add layer. I'm going to go down and click on sound

10:14 effects. Descript has a whole library sound effects that you can use i kind of looking for a whoosh sound so i'm gonna search up whoosh the script has given me a lot of options so i'm gonna listen to them right now all right the first one is already perfect so i'm going to hit this plus button and add it to my project and now it's added it to the section that i want but i also want to hear this sound effect when it says zero so i'm just going to trim it and then i'm going to copy using my keyboard and then paste and then align it. So now let's see what this sounds like. If I were to start a new YouTube channel from absolute zero this year, knowing everything I know now, so far in this video, I hope it's really clear why I like Descript so much and why I recommend it to all my friends, because so far I haven't needed to leave Descript at all for any of the things

11:01 that I've been doing. Now you can watch your entire video and start adding texts and sound effects. But the next thing that I want to do is I actually want to leverage that green screen feature that I showed you earlier. So in this hook, I say, if I were to start a new YouTube channel from absolute zero this year, knowing everything I know now, after seven years of building my own YouTube channel, when I say after seven years of building my own YouTube channel, I really want to show the library of videos that I've done kind of like this edit right here. After seven years of building my own channel to nearly a million subscribers, So what I'm going to do is for the section I want to isolate and make into a green screen, I'm going to hit the slash button on my keyboard for where I want the clip to start and then hit the slash button again for where I want the clip to end. What you've noticed on the side here

11:47 is Descripts actually isolated that into its own clip. This way, whatever edits I apply don't bleed into the other clips that I don't necessarily want the edit in. Then I'm going to highlight this section and go to Underlord and click on green screen again. Now it's basically removed the background. Then what I'm going to do is I'm going to go over to the Descript homepage and click on record. Then I'm going to record screen. Now it's going to have this window show up where you can see my webcam. I'm just going to turn off my webcam because I don't need that. Technically I could also turn off my microphone as well. I'm just going to leave it on and then I can choose whether or not I want to share screen my entire screen or a specific window. In my case, I'm just going to show the window that shows my YouTube channel and then I'm going to hit record. So now I'm recording my YouTube channel and I'm just going to slowly scroll down

12:34 to show all the videos that I've ever done. And then I'm going to hit stop. So now that I've got my recording, it's going to be in my projects within the script, as you can see right now, and you can now see the screen share that I did. I'm going to export this and rather than loading it to the web, I'm just going to do a local export and save it to my computer. And now since I've turned on green screen for this specific section, meaning that when I play the video, only that section has no background like this. Everything I know now after seven years of building my own channel to nearly a million subscribers, there are eight. What I'm going to do is select this section, right click, and then add a layer, click on files, add files, and then add the screen share that I just made. then click add new layer. So now that I've added

13:22 this as a layer, when I click on it, it's actually covering me. So I'm going to right click layer order and then bring it to the back. Now I'm actually in front of this screen recording and now this is what it looks like. everything I know now after seven years of building my own channel to nearly a million subscribers. As you can see, the green screen feature is amazing because it basically removes everything in the background and makes your video look less amateur and way more professional, even though you have no video editing experience like me. Now, of course it's not perfect because it did cut out my drink, but you're usually not drinking something when you're talking, so you should be fine. If I also wanted to move my body, I totally could. And this is how we do a lot of our screen share tutorials. The next edit that you can do to make your video more engaging is do a zoom in effect. I noticed that in the beginning of my intro,

14:09 it's looking a little bare. So when I say if I were to start a new YouTube channel, I kind of want it to zoom into my face for emphasis. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to select the parts that I want to add that animation. And then I'm going to click on layer, click on animation, and it will give me the custom option. And then down here, you're going to see keyframes, you're going to see the first diamond and the second diamond. Now the first diamond is where you want the animation to start, you can always move this around. In my case, I'm going to leave it to the front. And then the last diamond is where you want the animation to end. In my case, I want the zoom to end when I say channel. Now, once I click on the last diamond, I'm now going to increase the zoom of my video. This is going to be where I want the zoom to stop. I want it to stop closer

14:55 to my face like this. Now, this is what it's going to look like when I play the video. If I were to start a new YouTube channel from absolute zero, Now if you prefer a more choppier zoom, which is a very popular style among YouTubers, you can do that too. So let's say I want this year to zoom into my face in a very choppy way. I'm going to make sure that when I select this, I'm going to hit the dash button so that it isolates that frame. And then for year, I'm going to do the same thing. Now for the scene where I say this, I'm going to click on my scene and then drag it slightly. I'm gonna use the markers to still make sure I'm center. And then I'm gonna do the same thing for year, but I'm gonna make it even more close. And again, make sure that I am center. So now this is what it's gonna look like. If I were to start a new YouTube channel from absolute zero this year, knowing everything I know now after seven years of building my own

15:44 channel. Now let's say you want to edit your video like a pro, but you really don't have a lot of time. I want to introduce you to one of my favorite features and that is the layout feature. So in my hook right here, I say that there are eight specific things that I would do differently to cut your growth time in half. When I say that there are eight specific things, I kind of want a list to show up. So for the part that I want to have a specific animation on, I'm just going to click on the button on my keyboard to isolate that clip and I'm gonna highlight this section then I'm gonna click on scene and there is a button right here that says layout and you can choose different types of edits so for example I could choose an intro edit and it's going to automatically put the intro there I could also add quotes if I want so it's gonna look something like this eight specific things that I would,

16:31 but for me personally, I really want to create a list. So I'm going to head over here and there's a list option. There's also five more options that I can choose within the list feature. So for example, I could do this one where when I talk, it's going to automatically show this. In my case, I really like this simple style. Now, obviously there are three items in this list. And in my case, there are eight that I want to mention. So I'm just going to quickly edit this. I can also change the background color. So now this is what it's going to look like. There are eight specific things that I would do. Now, I don't know about you, but that looks pretty professional to me and it only took me a couple seconds to make. Now, obviously, if I was actually editing this video for real,

17:17 I wouldn't give all eight tips away in the first 15 seconds of my video, but I really wanted to show you this really cool layout feature that Descript has so that you can edit like a pro, even though you may not have the experience. I also say I'm going to share the exact blueprint. So I'm going to highlight this and then choose another layout. Now with this template, it looks something like this. And in this video, I'm going to share the, and I love that it visualizes that blueprint. Now Descript has added placeholders. So I'm just going to click here and then add media. There are so many sources that I can choose from. I'm just going to keep it simple and use the stock media that Descript has to offer over here. I'm going to do a bullseye sticker. I'm going to choose this one right here. What I can also

18:02 do when I add media is generate an image using AI laptop with YouTube logo on top. As you can see, it's generated those images. I'm going to pick this one and then drag it into the placeholder. And then for my last media, I'm going to go back to the stock media that Descript has. And then I'm just going to click another sticker and add it inside. I'm going to quickly change the text just so you guys can see. And now this is what it looks like. And in this video, I'm going to share the exact blueprint. Now, as you can see, the layout feature is perfect for those of you who want to have professional videos, but you don't necessarily have the experience or time like I do. These edits literally took me just a couple seconds to make, and the impact is quite impressive. Now, of course, I'm only doing it really quickly for the sake of teaching you how to do it. But when you actually spend some time on it, it's going

18:49 to look 10 times better than what I just made. The next edit to do to make your video more engaging is obviously adding some B-roll. I do this a lot in my videos because generally I I'm always talking to the camera and if you only looked at me with very little visual, you would likely get bored and click out of the video. And so how you can add B roll to your video is for the section you want to add an extra visual for. In my case, I want to put a video that shows up when I say that I would do different to cut your growth time in half. I'm going to select it. Then I'm going to click on add layer and then I'm going to click on files and add files. This is where I'm going to add any B roll that I have. And by the way, how I explain B roll is it's basically not your main talking head video. It's all the additional clips that you may be adding to create more visual appeal and make your video more engaging. In my case, I

19:36 have this B roll right here where I'm feeling frustrated on my laptop. So I'm going to click on add new layer and it's going to put it specifically in the section that I highlighted. I'm going to click on layer and make sure that my audio is muted because I don't want it to play while I'm talking. And now this is what it looks like subscribers. There are eight specific things that I would do different to cut your growth time in half. And in this video, I'm going to share it. Now the next edit that I've noticed some YouTubers doing is adding captions to their video. Now this is our hit or miss for some viewers, but I've seen some YouTubers do it and how you can do it on Descript is you can just highlight the part that you want to turn into a caption. Then you click on under Lord and type in caption, then click insert. And now you have those captions. Again, you can always change the size, the font, however you want, including the colors. So now this is what it looks like blueprint, including the

20:24 one mistake that 90% of new YouTubers are making that are keeping keeping their channels stuck. Now within these captions, you can also add animations. So if I click on the caption and I click on animation, I can click on in and then have it slide in. And what that would look like is something like this. So that's a pretty cool effect. And if you want your words to show up one at a time, you can just make this shorter. And now it's going to look something like this. including the one mistake that 90% of new YouTubers are making. Now, personally, I think that this type of edit is more suited for short form content. And again, you can always change the font, the size and all the styles, but I just wanted to show you that this is something that you can do on the script. Now, so far in this video, I've shown you a few solid edits that

21:10 you can apply throughout your videos. So let's look at my intro and see what we've done so far. If I were to start a new YouTube channel from absolute zero this year, knowing everything I know now, after seven years of building my own channel to nearly a million subscribers, there are eight specific things that I would do different to cut your growth time in half. And in this video, I'm going to share the exact blueprint, including the one mistake that 90% of new YouTubers are making that are keeping their channels stuck. So that is not bad. Obviously I could do more, but the next thing I want to do is create an actual transition into the rest of my video. So how I'm envisioning this transition is something like this, where I'm typing out what the next phase is. So let's see if I

21:55 can replicate this on the script. Now, before I show you something that's a little bit more advanced, the easiest way to create a transition is you can just click on the section that you want to have the transition. And then on the side here under scene, just click on add transitions and then in, and now you have a lot of different options to choose from. I think the one I use the most is cross zoom. And so this is what it looks like. And I'll stuck the first thing that I, and if you've been loyal to my channel, you've probably seen that transition many times. So what I'm going to do is in that section where I want to add that transition over on my keyboard, I'm just going to hit the enter bar and then click on add scenes. Now it's created this nice space in my timeline based on the animation that I want to achieve. My background is meant to be a different color, so I'm going to make it white. And then I did head over to my YouTube channel and screenshot it my username and

22:44 profile picture. So I'm going to add that image that I screenshotted by adding a new layer. I'm going to click on files, add files, and then add that screenshot that I took. Add new layer. So now it's there. I'm going to make it a bit smaller. Now I don't want all of this information here, so I'm going to right click, add another layer, but this time I'm going to add a shape. Specifically, I'm going to do a rectangle and luckily it's already white. So I'm just going to cover that part. Now it looks something like this. Channel's stuck. Now I have to add my text. So I'm going to head over to under Lord insert text, and then I'm going to add my tip. So now it looks something like this, but I kind of want to add an extra animation where it looks like I'm typing the tip in. So what I'm going to do is click on my

23:30 text and then click on animation and the animation I want is appear. So it's going to look something like this, which is Perfect. This is the exact effect that I want, but I do want it to sound like someone's typing it. So I'm going to right click add layer again, and this time add a sound effect and search up typing. And as you can see, there are tons of options that I can choose from. Let's listen to the first one. I think that's perfect. I'm going to add it in. I'm going to make sure it's trimmed so that it's only showing up during the section that I want. And now let's see what my transition looks like. It's stuck. I think that's perfect. I do think it's a bit long. So what I'm going to do here is I'm just going to trim it in. And I'm also going to make sure that my sound effect is also

24:17 trimmed as well. Keeping their channels stuck. The first thing that... Perfect. Now, as you're editing your video, you may notice that you forgot to say something that you realize now is very important. That happens to me all the time. And my little hack is just filming those extra bits on my iPhone and then putting it into my video. I've never had anyone complain about it. And if anything, I actually find that people really like it because it adds a little bit more authenticity and relatability to your video. And in my case, I did forget to say something really important. So I'm going to add that extra clip inside. How you do that is the area that you want to add the clip. You just want to hit the enter bar in your space bar and then now you have the option to add a file So now I've added that extra clip that I filmed on my iPhone. Now, descriptors now transcribe my video and I already went ahead and automatically removed

25:06 all the retakes and all of my word gaps. But what I want to do, because it is so different from the rest of my video, I kind of want to make it obvious that this wasn't a mistake. This was intentional. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to select this entire section. And then what I'm going to do is head over to elements. And as I scroll down, I noticed that there's a lot of frame options that I can choose from. And I want to add this camcorder frame. And now, I've got this really cute border around my iPhone footage. I am going to turn on studio sound for my iPhone footage. Now this is what it looks like. I not even like or want. Now, if you want to take this exercise a step further, I recommend that you actually, isn't that so cute. And again, I didn't have to leave the script to even find that border image. Now, so far, I think I've counted at least 30 different things that

25:52 you can do to your video to make it more engaging. So one last time, let's review all of the edits by watching my intro. If I were to start a new YouTube channel from absolute zero this year, knowing everything I know now, after seven years of building my own channel to nearly a million subscribers there are eight specific things that i would do different to cut your growth time in half and in this video i'm going to share the exact blueprint including the one mistake that 90 of new youtubers are making that are keeping their channels stuck Now, of course, all of these things you can apply throughout your video, but we don't stop there because there are so many things that Descript can also do beyond just editing your clips. For example, once you're happy with your video, you can actually

26:37 use Descript to come up with your video title. You can also head over to under Lord and type in YouTube tags, and then it's going to come up with a list of search optimized keywords based on the script of your video. What I like to do is follow up. and tell Underlord to stay within the 500 character limit for the entire list of keywords. Now I have an entire list of keywords that I can paste directly into my YouTube studio. To take it a step further under publish, you can also automatically draft your YouTube description. And what I like to do is under custom instructions, paste that exact list of keywords that I just generated. This way, the description that I get is keyword stuffed. And what I love is that Descript will automatically generate the chapters as well. This is great because so far I haven't really needed to leave Descript at all. Now, when it comes to uploading your actual video, you can export your video and then download it to your computer in 4k and then upload to youtube manually or you can also use descript link

27:25 it to your youtube account and then have descript upload it directly to youtube for you Even though you've uploaded your YouTube video, you can also use descript to promote your video. So if you're someone who has a newsletter or a blog post, you can easily have descript, create a blog post for you. And when I did it for my video, I was absolutely shocked because it was pretty high quality. Not only this, if you're someone that's into repurposing your long form videos, like I am, there are two ways to do it. If you see a section that you really want to turn into a short form piece of content, just select what you want and then create a new composition within that new composition. You can then adjust the ratio and the sizing and then add captions of your choice. This is how I've done a lot of my repurposed videos. But if you want this completely automated and you don't have a lot of time, you can get the script to do this too. All you have to do is select create clips, tell the script the amount of

28:13 clips that you want and the duration that you want. You also have the option to add these layouts as well, or just keep it plain and simple. If you want to refine it further, you can also give the script a little bit more direction, but what does script will ultimately do is pitch you the ideas that it has. And then if you like it, you can click on it and simply review it. Again, this all takes less than 30 seconds to do. And remember, if you don't like the templates that they have, you can easily modify the text, the font, the colors, everything of your choice. For me personally, even though I showed you step-by-step how to make YouTube videos, I've used Descript to host interviews with their rooms feature. I've edited short form content for both my personal brand business and my physical product business. And I also use their screen recording feature almost every day, whether that's creating screen recordings for my YouTube videos or just creating casual ones to share with my team. Now, if you're interested in trying Descript, I have I highly recommend that you

29:01 sign up for their 30 day free trial. I'm going to put the link and the code in my description box and in my comment section below. As always guys, I appreciate you. And if you liked this video, I highly recommend that you watch this video next where I cover my entire YouTube workflow from planning to filming, scripting, editing, and so much more. I hope you have a great day and I will see you in this one next.