July 2017 Roundup and What’s Coming Up in August!

July 2017 Roundup and What’s Coming Up in August!

One thing that I’ve decided to do is start doing a monthly review and look ahead. This will first of all, allow me to set some goals, and also track where I’m at and where I’m going. At the moment, I’m going to focus more on growth and traffic, not on income. However – if that’s something you guys REALLY want to hear about, tell me in the comments below.

What Worked in July

July was a REALLY good month for the YouTube channel.

The most exciting thing that happened was that SketchUp featured me in their monthly newsletter! (I’ve always wanted to get a 2D SketchUp model!)

SketchUp sends out a monthly blog that you usually get signed up for when you download SketchUp, and they linked directly to my YouTube channel. It was actually pretty funny because I didn’t know they had done it, and I opened up my YouTube channel analytics and found this

790 New YouTube Subscribers on Tuesday!

My subscriber count grew by 791 on that Tuesday(!!!!) and another 510 that Friday! It took me about a day to figure out where all the traffic had come from.

Anyway – suffice it to say, I’m very grateful to SketchUp for featuring me, and very excited to keep coming out with new videos!

The other exciting thing that happened was that I put out my 200^th YouTube video! This was a big milestone for me, and SketchUp posted both on their Twitter and Facebook accounts congratulating me, which I’m also very thankful for.

In July, I featured videos focusing on helping beginners learn to use SketchUp. Some of those videos won’t necessarily get giant numbers of views starting off, but over time, hopefully they’ll develop into a great resource for new SketchUp users.

The other thing that in my opinion was VERY successful is my new theme month system. Before, I was just creating SketchUp videos randomly based on whatever I felt like at the moment. This was making it very difficult to come up with new ideas. What I did is shifted to a monthly video theme system – basically, I’m selecting a theme for each month to give me some direction on some of the videos I’m creating. July was dedicated to SketchUp for beginners. August will be tips for architecture.

What Didn’t Work

I’ve been really struggling to get my Thursday extension videos released. A large part of this is that I’m making videos before I go in to work, and I often have to learn to use the extensions before I make the videos, and I’m not doing the prep work at night. I need to figure out a better workflow so I’m not struggling on Thursdays to get things done.

I’ve also been having trouble getting my weekly content emails sent out. These emails are to my subscribers updating them on what I’ve done the previous week, and it’s been a bit difficult to create 4-5 videos a week and set these emails up and send them out consistently. I’m probably going to try a new workflow to get these done – maybe prep them and get them ready to go on the days I’m not making new videos.

While July was a great month for the YouTube channel, it was NOT such a great month for the website. If you hadn’t visited the site in a while, it was a bit of a mess. I’d been using Twitter and Facebook to drive views to my YouTube Channel, not to my website, so my traffic numbers were horrible. I’d been seeing about 130-170 website visits per day, and most of them were just leaving the website. I wasn’t featuring any new content, and I didn’t have an email opt-in box on most of my posts.

After some analysis, I decided to revamp the way my website looked – as of right now, and this may still change, but I’ve adjusted my front page to more of a newsletter look featuring my new content, instead of the giant opt-in box I had before.

Old Page

New Page

I’m not 100% sure what this will do to website traffic, but I’m assuming the combination of new content and starting to link back to my website instead of direct to YouTube will drive up traffic and help me in organic search as well.

Now let’s get into some analytics –

As of typing this up, for the month of July, the following happened

YouTube Analytics

Obviously so far YouTube has been my biggest area of traffic.

Watch Time: 267,733 Minutes

Views: 67,388

Video Likes: 2,115

Video Dislikes: 15

Comments: 159

Subscribers – Up 2,871 to 9,412

At the moment, I’m on track to 10,000 subscribers in August!

Most Popular Videos (I’ll link to these below)

Creating a Frame and Skin Structure in SketchUp – 4,509 Views

Creating Hexagonal Lattice Shapes in SketchUp – 3,406 Views

Extruding Paths Along Shapes with the Follow Me Tool – 3,381 Views

My Top 10 Free SketchUp Plugins in 2017 – 3,035 Views (In 1 week! This one is growing quickly)

Bending a Shape to Create an Arch in SketchUp – 3,035 Views

Website Analytics

Unique Users – 3,640

Pages/Session – 1.34

Bounce Rate – 62.65%

Email subscribers – +92 – Total 1,008

Other Social Analytics

Facebook Likes – 1,020 Likes

Twitter Followers – 663 Followers

Pinterest Followers – 76 Followers

Patreon Supporters – 14 Patrons

Instagram Followers – Currently not actively posting or tracking

Affiliate Sales

I think it’s important to list the affiliate extensions that I’ve sold copies of down below. These are extensions that, if you decide to purchase them, I receive a commission. They, in addition to Patreon support and adsense from my YouTube videos, are how I pay for new extensions, how I’m going to pay for a 3D printer, and how I keep the lights on here at the SketchUp Essentials. As I said above, at the moment, I’m not going to list the exact money I’m making on these (unless a LOT of you are really interested in that), but I do want to be transparent on how I’m paying to keep the website up and running.

BoolTools2 – 1 Copy

Profile Builder – 0 Copies

Placemaker – 0 Copies

SketchUp and Layout for Architecture – 0 Copies

Artisan – 0 Copies

Skatter – 2 Copies

SketchUp to Layout – 0 Copies

DoubleCut – 0 Copies

Estimator – 0 Copies

August Goals and Look Ahead

Obviously it’s not realistic to think I can duplicate the growth from getting featured in the biggest way possible by SketchUp, but I am hoping to sustain some growth on the channel, and also work on getting more traffic to my website.

I’m hoping that if I get more consistent with posting new content and links to my site, I’ll start showing up on the front page of Google when people search for SketchUp, which should drive more traffic.

1. Create a SketchUp for Beginners Playlist on my YouTube Channel for beginners to find and use to get started with SketchUp

2. Get every YouTube video posted to my website as well as a new post

3. Maintain consistency in sending out a weekly update

4. Do a better job of planning and preparing for weekly extension videos (develop a system)

August is going to be architecture month at The SketchUp Essentials, meaning I’m going to try to create SketchUp tutorials that focus on helping architects. Leave a comment below and let me know what architectural tips and tricks you’d like to see!

As always, I want to thank you for all the amazing support you’ve shared with me. Next month I’m on track to hit 10,000 YouTube subscribers, which is just amazing, and I’m really grateful for all of you keeping on coming back for more.

Thanks, and as always, I’ll catch you in the next video!