So you’ve just shot a vlog, but don’t know how to edit it into a great video? This guide will take you through everything you need to create an engaging vlog that gets lots of views and leads to follower growth, from picking the best video editing software to the creative editing skills needed.

The best video editor for vloggers

Pick an easy video editor that has all the necessary features to create engaging videos without overloading your screen with a million different buttons. elevate.io is an intuitive beginner-friendly online editor that runs in your browser. So even if you have an older laptop, you’ll be editing your vlog without a hitch. With elevate.io you can trim, sequence, color grade, transition and transform your footage for free, and unlike other free editors there is no watermark added to your final export. Another benefit to being online is that all your projects and timelines are stored in the cloud alongside your files, meaning you can dive in and continue editing from any device, anywhere.

Organizing your footage

The first thing you have to do before you start editing is to properly organize your video files. 5 years ago, you’d be dragging around a bag of hard drives, which is an absolute pain to deal with. Worse yet, every vlogger's biggest nightmare is breaking or losing an external hard drive, leading to complete loss of all your valuable footage.

The online video editing platform elevate.io lets you safely store and organize all your media in the cloud, accessible by logging into your account from anywhere in the world. Save yourself the hassle of dealing with hard drives and use video cloud storage. By uploading your all clips into your elevate.io workspace, you also get filters and sorting options to organize your footage instantly. Every elevate.io account comes with free cloud storage for your video files.

How to edit a great vlog

The biggest challenge many beginners face is cutting their footage. We often see new creators being afraid to delete boring sections that lead to viewers dropping off, pulling their video’s retention rate down. Retention rate is an extremely important metric that platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok use to determine the quality of your content and how much people are enjoying it. If retention throughout your video is high, the algorithm will consider pushing your content out to a larger audience as it’s doing a good job at keeping people engaged with the platform.

Be brutally honest with yourself when editing your video. Always try to think from the viewer's perspective. Is this part truly entertaining or does it add anything to the story? If the answer is no to these questions, do not hesitate to cut it out to create a tighter narrative and bring the length of your video down.

Start editing your vlog today

elevate.io is completely free to use, without any watermark added to your videos. You also get free cloud storage to keep your footage organized and safe. Sign up and start editing your vlog right now!