 Hey everybody, welcome to a special edition of The Journey. I'm so stoked to be joined with Catherine Manning. Maybe you've heard of her. I'm a huge fan of her YouTube channel and she has been uploading videos to YouTube for only three years but has in that time gained over 373,000 subscribers. So we thought who better to ask about creating and optimizing YouTube videos for small businesses than an expert herself. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to chat with you today. So I've got a YouTube channel called Catherine Manning and then another one called Catherine Manning Vlogs where I just share a little bit of my daily life. But my main passion is to help other creators create a life they love doing what they love. And on my YouTube channel, talk a lot about growing a YouTube channel, how I've done what I've done. So learning the YouTube algorithm, how to create thumbnails and all of that fun stuff. So we're really going to dive into it today and I can't wait to see what we're going to share with you guys. I'm curious how did you push yourself to get through that to get to where you are now? Like did you have help? Was there just an aha moment? If you could just take us through that journey of like how this all started in 2016. Yeah, so I was really unhappy in 2016. Like you said, I was unhappy with my job where I was living and just like a lot of different aspects of my life. So I just had one moment I was sitting on the couch eating ice cream for dinner. It was not like a healthy phase of my life. And it just hit me how unhappy I was. And I was pretty young at the time. I was 22 and I was like, is this as good as it gets? Like my life has to be better than this. It has to get better than this. So I decided to, I created my website, which was the contentbug.com. And I just got started blogging and just trying to take control of my life. And it was a lot of reading personal development books and actually focusing on my career to create a career that I love that I was really able to pull myself out of that place and get to where I am today. What has been the most rewarding part about creating videos? For me, one of the things I always try to remember is that I'm creating videos for the person that I was back in 2016. So like what did I need then? What would have really helped me to start on this journey and actually move a little bit faster than I did? Because yeah, now my channel has 370,000 subscribers, but it took me over a year. It was like a year and a half and I didn't even have 300 subscribers. So like I spent a long time working on my brand, trying to grow my brand with little to no result. So now I just try to create content that is going to help someone else when they're getting started. And the most like rewarding part to me is whenever I hear people say, Hey, you've actually helped me grow from 3000 to 100,000. Hey, I got the courage to actually change my life. Like I'm doing this thing. I'm starting a YouTube channel, whatever it is. And it's just, it's really cool to see that I'm actually making an impact on people's lives. When you do post videos, do you feel pressured like to win keyword searches versus sharing something just that you're passionate about? Or do you try to make a combination of the two? Yeah, that's something I don't talk a lot about. But since I'm in the nation, just the world of helping other people grow on YouTube, sometimes I feel like I have to constantly be on top of everything. So like always ranking for keywords, always getting a lot of views, always getting new subscribers, you know, I kind of feel like I constantly have to be proving myself because otherwise, like why would someone follow me if I don't actually know what I'm talking about? So that can definitely be a challenge. And I can look back at my YouTube channel even a year ago and realize that I was creating videos just because I thought that they were going to get a lot of views or even my thumbnails were like way too clickbaity and just not like those are the videos that I look back on and cringe. And I'm like, why were you doing that? But yeah, I've definitely created videos before just because I thought they were going to rank for keywords. And then I create other videos that I just want to create because of passion. And it's funny, the ones that I always create off of passion do way better than the ones that I think like I'm creating just because they're going to get a lot of views or they're going to rank for these keywords. All right. So you've mentioned that you've taken the time to learn the Google algorithm, big buzzword, what are some things that you would recommend people learn to better optimize their content? Yeah. So Google's algorithm is insane. And I, I had to say, I was lucky I learned Google's algorithm first before I even tried to learn YouTube's because YouTube's is so much easier compared to Google. Like there's so many factors that goes into it. But your keywords, I feel like is probably the most obvious thing that you need to pay attention to. But something that I feel like a lot of people ignore, especially if they're just like writing a blog post or they're filming a YouTube video, they don't think about what they actually include the exact phrases and having like different variations of that phrase and just like specific buzzwords, like it may seem common to you, but it might not be common to someone else. You have to think of what is someone else searching and how can you actually incorporate that into your content and the title, the description and everything else that goes into it. All right, cool. So let's say someone is starting a very new YouTube channel. You have given some great advice to this on your YouTube channel already. I got some good tips yesterday actually, but what would you give different advice to a new YouTube channel versus someone who has this like already established channel? Okay, so the advice that I would give to both of them is really hone in on your audience and who you're trying to attract to your YouTube channel. And that's going to determine your niche, which I feel like is a big buzzword, but it's basically like, what are the topics that you're going to create videos on? And that's helpful for both because if you already have an existing channel, you might want to go back through your old content and figure out what videos don't actually relate to that and what videos are holding you back. So there's videos that have only 10 views and it's not something that you're trying to talk about in the future and that's not the direction you want to go. Just unlist that video or make it private, whatever. It's just not helping you to go the direction that you want to go essentially. You mentioned thumbnails. I was checking out actually how much your thumbnails have changed over the years. What is your strategy around video development and thumbnail creation on your channel? Oh, that's a lot of question because there's, I mean, video strategy in general, there's like a lot that goes into it. So let's start with the thumbnails. Thumbnails change as time goes on, obviously. So if you've been on YouTube or if you've seen any like OG YouTube videos where it's overly saturated, the clickbait is just the worst thing ever. Thumbnails have changed so much from then to now. So you have to continue to evolve your strategy and really figure out what's working in your main niche or like the topic of your videos, what's performing right now. Faces having people in thumbnails is always important and will always get you clicks. So you just kind of have to keep evolving, pay attention to what other people are doing, like what colors are they using, what fonts are they using, don't directly copy people, but it will help you to make sure that obviously what's working for other people is working for a reason. And if YouTube is liking it, you just kind of got to jump on the bandwagon sometimes. But for video strategy, that's like a whole, whole nother beast because there's so much that goes into creating YouTube videos. I know you are a homeowner, which I look up to you for. I'm curious, what are your primary sources of income? Oh, I love talking money. So good because that's most people would say that that is uncomfortable. But all right, cool. Let's talk money. Yeah, I just, I feel like there's such a bad stigma around talking about money and it needs to be more so normalized, especially if you're trying to make money on your own, you need to know how the heck can you do it. And if you want to become a YouTuber or create content, it is good to know. So one of my top sources of income is actually my ads on my YouTube videos. So I get paid through Google AdSense because Google owns YouTube. So when you guys see an ad at the beginning of my video, middle of my video, end of my video, or even like on this sidebar, there's ads over there, I get paid for those, which is great. And then affiliate marketing is also another high source of income for me. And I noticed too, one of the videos that popped out to me was the how long it takes to get monetized on YouTube. And what a brilliant idea with that angle. Because as you said, like, this is obviously a hot topic. But how you angled it, the duration of time, how long does it take? I can see why that was such a popular video. Yeah, that was one of my first videos to ever take off. And when I was looking to get monetized, that was the exact keyword search I typed in. And there were no other videos titled. That's wild. Like this is genius. Like I got a creative video titled that. Yeah, but I think a lot of people start YouTube. And especially during the pandemic, when a lot of people lost their jobs, they were turning the other sources to make money. And a lot of people think of YouTube as like a quick money maker, because you hear of like, Jake Paul, Logan Paul, like big shots that are making really, really good money. When the reality is like, it took me over a year and a half to get monetized on YouTube, like it takes a while, it's not going to happen overnight. And nothing is really an overnight success. Like you don't see the years of hard work that go into it. What are some things that are crucial to your YouTube strategy that aren't inherently known, or it's just not talked about? There are a lot of people that are talking about how to grow on YouTube. And when I was getting started, I looked up to people that had already like 500,000 subscribers. And I was around like 2000 subscribers. And I was like, well, I can't connect them. I can't relate to them because I'm not nearly at that point. I need these beginner tips where I'm at right now. So I started creating videos about how I did the little things that took me to get there. So like we already talked about how long it takes to get monetized, I created that video when I had just gotten monetized, like I was at 1000 subscribers. And a lot of people were able to connect with that because they were also at the exact same phase. But besides that, I really love watching lifestyle videos. I love watching vlogs. It's just my favorite area of YouTube. And I felt like something was missing in the YouTube tips niche where the videos were so extremely, were so extremely educational, but they weren't very entertaining. They didn't keep my focus. So I decided to make my videos just a little bit more interesting. I incorporated some shots with me, like holding the camera and switching angles. And I tried to make my videos really engaging in that sense to set me apart from everyone else that was creating videos similar to what I was creating. Now, I noticed your videos are between, I haven't watched them all, but they're between like nine minutes in summer as long as 20 minutes. Are you aware of your video links when you sit down to film? Is there kind of a window you're shooting for? Do you just go in organically? And look, this will wrap when I get to the finish line. Yeah, I usually, so I try to make my videos between 15 and 20 minutes long on average. When I have like guests on my YouTube channel, it can be like 40 minutes long. Like we just talk forever. But I am very much so aware because at the beginning when I was monetized on YouTube, you had to have videos over 10 minutes long to have an add in the middle of it. So my goal was to always have it over 10 minutes long. Now they've changed that, it only has to be eight minutes long. But still, I know that longer videos tend to perform better on YouTube. And I personally like watching longer videos. So I definitely, I go into a video shoot with an outline, things that I want to hit, things that I want to cover. And usually on average, just from that outline, I know it can be like at least a 15 minute long video. We talked a lot about, you know, your beginning and where you are now. What's next? Yeah, so I have been working on Merch for the longest time. So I'm coming out with Merch, which I am very excited about. And then I'm just, I'm just focused on my content, still creating YouTube videos, focused really on my vlog channel, sharing more in my personal life. And then a big goal for mine in the future is to host a retreat. So I'm trying to figure out what are the next steps to host an in-person event, a retreat, because that would be like a dream for mine and my business. Oh, I'm signed up already. I'm there. Put me on the wait list. Heck yes. I'm so excited. Thank you so much, Catherine, for joining us and sharing a little bit about your journey on the journey with YouTube and your expert advice and your experience, true value. Be sure to leave us a comment below. What was the favorite thing you learned about today or about Catherine? Also, subscribe to our channel. Don't forget to subscribe to Catherine's channel as well and ring that bell so you're the first to know when a new video comes out. Thanks for watching. This is a journey.