Milestones of my blog and YouTube Channel

I thought I would blog about where I started, where I am, and where I want to be, in terms of my blog and YouTube channel. 

My first blog, as you would see (right at the bottom of this page) if I'd left the layout as it was, was very basic in terms of photos and pictures. As I have posted each time, I think I have learned a few things and added some improvements. 

I also have a few affiliates and I can share more content related to sewing patterns I want to try or suggest for advanced sewers. I can also share ideas on what you can buy to go with your makes. I can share items to buy if you don't have time or the confidence to sew an item. 

As you can see, my blog is mostly centered around sewing and integrating sewn items into your wardrobe.

I also have a YouTube channel, which seems to be doing better than my blog at the moment. I reached 700 views! Starting a blog and a YouTube channel has been one of the biggest learning curves I have ever experienced, at least since I learned AutoCAD years ago. 

I have been reading all the info I can find about how to get traffic to my youtube channel and my blog. I even joined several Facebook groups about blog promotion. I decided to leave them because they are all just asking for clicks in return and that will never grow my audience - they aren't even in my target interest group. 

I also, after watching hours of YouTube videos on SEO, realised that most of the people who are currently using SEO successfully, already have a good number of subscribers to keep their views and watch time up. They only need to let the algorithm know what they have and YouTube will offer it up automatically. 

Apparently, YouTube 'learns' about whether people will keep watching your videos and a beginner like me isn't yet able to produce a highly polished product. A very new channel and blog like mine does not have the required amount of 'footfall' to even show on their radar... 

I bit the bullet. I paid for a small ad campaign via Google Ads. I have been pleasantly surprised! I know, I was resolute that I wasn't going to spend money, but it appears that the most successful bloggers end up either paying for SEO software or advertising. I am keeping my spend very small and learning how to target my niche effectively. I do think this will also inform (me) on how to set up SEO. Don't get me wrong, I am trying to get on top of the whole SEO thing. 

The Google Ads app helps you through every step and allows you to target your ads at an audience as specific as you like-right down to the searches they do and other channels they watch. 

The app helps set up all the SEO automatically and you can start for pennies a day. It is not an ongoing subscription and you can set the end date or even modify it later. At the moment it is only getting me a handful of views a day, but it is giving me hundreds and thousands of impressions. 

This is relevant because people who see an ad a few times will possibly search for your brand or click on it to try it. If they have never seen or heard of you, how likely are they to look for you? No use Google being able to find you if nobody is looking... Making a payment is also really easy and you can do it on your mobile.

I also set up a small ad campaign on Pinterest. Their advertising is a lot simpler than Google Ads, you can run an ad or just 'boost' a pin. The only thing is, the minimum spend is a pound a day, but saying that, you can run it just over the weekend. During the week is not as advantageous. 

By the way, I LOVE using Tubebuddy. Click on the link to try it for free. The layout of the app home screen is so handy and it highlights in bright yellow, new views at a glance. I am using the Pro version, and I have been very impressed by the additional features. 

I can really recommend Google Ads, especially if you use the promote key in the YouTube Studio app. It really is the cheapest form of advertising, with my best results, so far.

Snapshot on 12 June 2021

 If you click on the promote button in YouTube Studio, Google Ads will take you through the process. The absolute cheapest way is to keep the interests broad - YouTube will automatically place your thumbnail next to similar niche channels' uploads. 

You only pay when someone views your video - I work it out to be about 4p per click on Google Ads. The Google Ads that require bidding, keywords in search cost around 10 to 12p per view, Pinterest pin promotions tend to cost a similar amount per view - 10 to 12p. Note that on Google Ads, you can target anywhere in the world. 

The beauty with Google Ads is that you can press the pause button on any campaign or individual ad (some campaigns have some ads.) This is very useful, especially if you only want to run an ad for a day or two. 

I have a suspicion that by using Google Ads when they tell you what needs changing to run your ads, they are learning about you. My blog is quite new (February 2021), but my blog got monetized for running ads rather soon after placing my first ad campaign on Google Ads. I was careful to apply for Adsense as soon as I created my blog and I got a message turning me down flat, pretty much straight away, so I wasn't hopeful I'd be able to host paying ads anytime soon. I have been pleasantly surprised by Google Ads, they have really good video tutorials on how to advertise with them. They also let you know, in no uncertain terms if anything on your website falls foul of their policies.

I have run some limited ads on Facebook, but I think I may be missing a trick because I don't feel that I got the same results as Pinterest ads.

I will update you on how I am doing. Please, any feedback on anything would be great. If you know of tips or tricks, please share them in the comments.

By the way, you will notice there are a few adverts on my blog. 

 I finally got monetized! 

It also happened far quicker than I anticipated, since this blog only started in February this year. That's about 4 months. I will update you on that in the future, as well. I expect it will pay only pennies, but it's a start, for sure!

I have also been using Canva for all my graphics, especially in my YouTube videos. You can click on the link and use the free version or try a trial of the upgraded version.

I will create a follow-up video for my YouTube Channel soon.

You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.