So you did it. You figured out how to set up a website, you managed to buy a domain, and now you’re ready to launch your blog. But if you’re like most bloggers, you’re probably missing something…can you guess?
There are far too many ways to sabotage the success of your new blog. One of them is to not optimize your website for SEO, while the other is to launch without YouTube.
Why, you ask?
Think about it this way. If you want your blog to be discovered, you’re going to want to post your articles on every major social media network, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram…YouTube.
YouTube is, after all, the second-largest social media platform, surpassed only by Facebook. It’s also the second-largest search engine (we all know who’s sitting in first place, there).
In other words, when you neglect YouTube when launching your blog, you end up needlessly ignoring the possibility of garnering the attention of YouTube’s 2 billion users.
Think about that for a moment.
If you were to siphon the traffic of even .05% of YouTube’s users, you’d get at least 1 million people on your blog!
If numbers like that interest you then you’re going to enjoy gaining a deeper understanding of what YouTube can do for your future blog this year.
Let’s dive in.
What You Shouldn’t Launch a Blog without Youtube?
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Outside of being its own search engine with billions of searches every day, YouTube is amazing because it gives you easy access to video.
In the past, if you wanted to get any kind of creative content on people’s screens, you had to have lots of money for cameras, equipment, and probably a studio if you wanted to improve the production value.
Nowadays, if you own a smartphone, you just download the YouTube app and hit record.
YouTube is more than just a place to upload videos, of course. Over the past 20 years since its founding, YouTube has become a place where you can analyze competing content, nurture relationships with your fans, and even broadcast live content on the spot.
YouTube Helps You Become Familiar with Your Target Audience and Fans
Another important aspect of YouTube is that it lets you take a look at the analytic data associate with your viewership, similar to how Google Analytics lets you analyze your website visitors.
This happens because, whenever you release a video on YouTube, it’s algorithm tracks and displays relevant metrics in the dashboard of your creative studio.
Once there, you’ll be able to see the age, gender, geographic location, device type, and other useful pieces of information that describe your audience. You can even choose to turn on “Advanced View” to see even more granular data.
This is especially useful if you want to find out who your content is appealing to. If you’re trying to reach Gen Z but keep attracting viewers who are in their late 30s, that’d give you a clue that you may be doing something wrong and need to pivot.
YouTube Helps You Nurture Your Relationship with Viewers and Readers Alike
In the same way that you can communicate with your readers by replying to their comments on your blog, so to can you interact with your viewers on YouTube.
The thing is, YouTube actually goes the extra mile. As per usual, you can talk to viewers by replying to comments, but you can also communicate with them in live chats. In order to do that with your blog, you’d have to download a chat plugin of some kind.
If you don’t communicate with your viewers in a way that’s convenient for them, it becomes difficult to build strong relationships with them. Strong relationships help increase the lifetime value of your viewers who may, eventually, turn into customers of your future products.
YouTube Helps You Turn Your Blogs into Videos
Just because you’re launching a blog doesn’t mean that all of your content has to be in text format. In fact, you’re selling yourself short if you limit yourself to that.
The fact of that matter is that people consume information more easily through visual mediums.
How do you turn your blog posts into videos? There are a couple of ways to go about it.
If you write stories on your blog, you can simply record yourself reading them aloud. If they are more informative, you can take a hint from Brian Dean and present your articles as though they were scripts. The subheadings of your article can be used to break the video into nice chunks.
There are also more than a few software solutions that allow you to turn your articles into video presentations.
Don’t Know How to Make Videos? No Worries
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Learning new skills can be difficult, there’s no question about that. But to say that, “learning how to make a YouTube video is hard” is an overstatement for sure.
Think about it. What does it actually take to make and publish a YouTube video? All you have to do is download an app, record something, and then post it.
Most people aren’t afraid of learning how to make YouTube videos. They’re afraid of producing bad quality videos with their name attached to them. And you know what? Fair enough. But you can’t let that stop you.
Most successful YouTubers are not professional videographers, and if they make high-quality videos, it’s usually because they’ve been doing it for years and got better over time.
You don’t need to start out with the best camera equipment. You don’t need to start with a studio decked out with the best soundproofing materials and lighting setup. You don’t need to start with the perfect on-camera presence.
Consistency and starting at all are the keys in this regard. It doesn’t matter whether the videos you initially put out aren’t perfect. What matters is that they’re good enough.
How do you know you’ll get better? For one, if you’re the kind of person who’s afraid of putting out low-quality content, chances are that you have high standards for content, and people with those kinds of standards are always the ones who get better over time.
Get Your Blog’s Videos On People’s Screens
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Congrats on getting to the end of this article!
You now know more than most new bloggers about successfully launching their blog in 2020.
The thing you should do now is start thinking of ideas for articles you can write. As you consider this, keep in mind the sort of topics that would easily translate into videos.
And if you haven’t already gotten around to it, go ahead and create your blog’s YouTube channel and keep in mind to not launch a blog without Youtube.
About the Author
Hey, I’m Dale! I’ve helped hundreds of thousands of people just like you around the world learn how to create a website over at CreateAProWebsite.com. Whether you want to make a beautiful blog, portfolio, or business website, we’ve got you covered with our easy to follow guides and tutorials!