November 2014 • A Sweet Pea Chef

Editor’s Note: We have started www.foodblogengine.com where we dive into all the behind the scenes of our six-figure online business. Ever since we started the ASPC YouTube channel a few months ago, we have started getting a bunch of video questions. So, I finally got around to writing a post on the 7 benefits of having a Youtube channel. At its core, I think taking the plunge and adding video is about trying to get outside your comfort zone and adding good quality content in a different medium from what's being offered by others. 1. Give the Audience More Content One really good reason to add video and a YouTube channel to your site is to give the audience more content. When people get a lot of good content that is solving their problems, they stay longer and like to come back and visit more often. We have seen lots of engagement that we wouldn't have otherwise seen without the added video channel and we are only 7 months and 50 videos in. 2. Extra Source of Traffic A nice side effect of adding the extra content is that it drives more traffic. People can now find you on YouTube and on your site. Right now, we still drive more traffic from our site to the YouTube channel than the other way around, but we are starting to see some come the other way. In the beginning, if you only have a food blog, this will probably be your results as well, especially if you start putting videos on your most trafficked posts like we did. Another cool side effect is it grows your brand. Having video someplace else gets your brand out there in another location which starts to grow the level of awareness and expertise that you have. 3. Closer Personal Connection One thing we have noticed with video is it encourages a level of familiarity that helps with building a community. You can create a much more personal connection with people and let them get to know you and see how you act/react to certain situations. There is something about watching a video where you can feel like you are with somebody working on a problem or, in our case, cooking :). The people I trust and like learning from usually have video and I like learning and engaging in that manner. 4. Another Source Of Revenue It can also add another source of revenue to your blog. Whether through YouTube ads or through a video course on your site, it creates more content or a product that gives you another income source which is always good. 5. Modernizing Video is just so hot right now! One of the big reasons we started adding video is we felt like it was a good way to start standing out. While a lot of bloggers have already gotten into the video niche and there are a bunch of people making a living with their Youtube channels alone right now, we felt like there weren't a lot of food bloggers with photos and video. We saw people doing the photos or the video but not a lot doing both. 6. Creative Outlet It gives us a good creative outlet. Lacey gets to do something different than her pictures and actually get in front of the camera a little bit. It's nice to see her sense of humor poke through and her desire to make everything easy for people come across. Plus, Sean gets to film and edit and he really enjoys that. It is fun to experiment in different ways, like the pirate episode. This would be really hard to pull off in a blog post with photos. 7. Get Outside Your Comfort Zone One of the best things about video is that it really pushes you outside your comfort zone. I feel like we do our best learning if we are always pushing ourselves just a little further than we feel comfortable with. Adding video has definitely done that for us and we feel like we are creating some of our best content and hopefully solving our audience's problems with our video series. If you have started your own YouTube channel, share it in the comments below and we will go check it out :)