# How to Set Up a YouTube Channel for Your Music > The Official Artist Channel, what to upload before anything else, and the two settings that decide whether your songs ever show up in search. [All guides](/blog) # How to Set Up a YouTube Channel for Your Music Published 24 August 2026, 06:00 UTC · updated 12 August 2026, 21:30 UTC · by Loopin YouTube is the one platform where a video you upload today still finds people in three years. Getting the setup right once is worth more than any single upload. ## Claim the Official Artist Channel first When your music is distributed, YouTube auto-generates topic channels for it — the ones with "- Topic" after your name. Claiming the Official Artist Channel merges those into your real channel, so your uploads, your auto-generated song pages and your subscriber count all live in one place. You request it through your distributor, and it usually needs a small catalogue and a claimed channel. Do it before you build an audience anywhere else on the platform, because merging later means merging two audiences that never should have been separate. ## Upload the full song before you upload anything else Every Short you post can link to a long-form video, and that link is the mechanism that turns eight seconds into a full listen. Without a full-song upload there is nowhere for that to point. A static image with the artwork over the audio is entirely acceptable and takes two minutes. Do not wait for a real video — the upload exists so the song is findable and linkable, not to be watched. ## Title it the way people search Artist Name - Song Name (Official Audio) or (Official Video). Nothing else. Adding your own flourishes, all-caps, or emoji to the title costs you the exact-match search that people use when they half-remember a song and are trying to find it again. Put the lyrics, or at least the chorus, in the description. It is the closest thing YouTube has to a transcript for an audio upload and it is how a surprising share of songs get found. ## The two settings people miss Set the category to Music, which affects how the video is classified and recommended. And do not mark it as "made for kids" unless it genuinely is — that setting disables comments, notifications and end screens, and artists tick it by accident constantly. While you are there, add the track to a playlist of your own. A single video is a dead end; a playlist keeps autoplay inside your catalogue instead of handing the listener to whoever is next. ## Then treat it as a catalogue, not a feed Unlike every other platform, effort here accumulates. A song uploaded properly keeps returning search traffic for years, which means the work is front-loaded and the payoff is slow — the opposite of short-form. Upload everything you release, the same way, every time, and let Shorts do the discovery on top. [Master the track](/mastering) before uploading rather than after, because unlike a streaming service you cannot replace a YouTube file without losing the video's history. ## Frequently asked questions ### What is an Official Artist Channel? A YouTube channel that merges your uploads with the auto-generated "- Topic" channels your distributor creates, so everything lives under one name and one subscriber count. Request it through your distributor. ### How should I title a music upload on YouTube? Artist Name - Song Name (Official Audio), and nothing else. Flourishes, all-caps and emoji break the exact-match search people use when trying to re-find a song. ### Do I need a real music video to upload a song? No. A static artwork image over the audio takes two minutes and gives your Shorts somewhere to link to, which is the point of the upload. ## Related reads - [How to use YouTube Shorts for music](/blog/how-to-use-youtube-shorts-for-music) - [How to release a song on Spotify](/blog/how-to-release-a-song-on-spotify) - [Master your track free](/mastering) --- Source: https://onloopin.com/blog/how-to-set-up-a-youtube-channel-for-your-music