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[00:01:49] <teaser sequence>

Joe Casabona: Word of mouth has long ruled the lead-generating roost for freelancers and small business owners. But that’s an untenable, unscalable business model. What does work, you wonder? Ask web designer Jess Freeman.

60% of Jess’ leads come from content creation alone, 40% from her blog and YouTube. While many of you YouTube as a place for entertainment and influencers, well, only the most popular channels make money. Jess shows us that’s not true. And she shares some fantastic tips on how you can leverage YouTube to build trust and generate leads.

Plus, in Build Something More, we talk WordPress versus Squarespace. Jess and I are very similar in a lot of ways, including our line of work, how we’re leveraging YouTube, and our opinions on WordPress and Squarespace. So this will be a great episode.

This episode, by the way, is brought to you by Ahrefs and Nexcess. You can learn about them and find all of the show notes for this episode over at streamlined.fm/251. But for now, let’s get into the intro and then the interview.

[00:03:06] <intro music>

Intro: Hey everybody, and welcome to How I Built It, the podcast that helps small business owners create engaging content that drives sales. Each week I talk about how you can build good content faster to increase revenue and establish yourself as an authority. I’m your host Joe Casabona. Now let’s get to it.

Wants to know the best way to get new episodes, top takeaways, and other tips, tools, and tricks to become a more consistent creator? Sign up before Build Something Weekly. It’s totally free, totally weekly, and it will provide you the resources you need to build good content and drive sales.

On top of having these episodes delivered straight to your inbox, you’ll get some quick thoughts, recommendations, and a content roundup, the perfect way to start your week. You can sign up for free at streamlined.fm/subscribe, that’s streamlined.fm/subscribe to get my free weekly newsletter.

[00:04:08] <podcast begins>

Joe Casabona: Jessica, how are you today?

Jess Freeman: I’m good. I’m excited. Thanks for having me on the show.

Joe Casabona: My pleasure. Thanks for being here. You are one of the many guests so far this year that have been recommended by Brittney Lynn who our listeners heard from last week. So far everybody that Brittney has ever recommended has been fantastic. I’ve no doubt you will be as well.

Jess Freeman: Well, I hope so. I hope so. Brittney is a dear friend of mine, and I love learning from her and just getting to work with her. So I’m excited she introduced us.

Joe Casabona: Yes, likewise. Especially because 60% of your leads come from content creation. I think this is something really exciting to talk about because I feel like I’ve been freelancing since 2001. People who know my story know that my first client was my church. And they were like, “Make us a website.” And I was like, “I don’t know how to do that.” And then they said they’ll pay me and I was like, “I can figure it out.”

And then from there, like, for a very long time, my leads were word of mouth. Just people I knew. And I carried that into when I went full time. And I was like, this is… it was like, kind of okay… I’m not going to say it’s okay for any business. But it was still working for me, until I switch to like a product model, specifically membership. Like word of mouth really doesn’t work well there because it doesn’t scale. But you, you do web design, is that right?

Jess Freeman: I do. That is 95% of my work. I leave the other 5% because I still do a little bit of graphic design. That’s how I started my business. So occasionally I do some other projects. But most of my work, I’m doing websites.

Joe Casabona: Awesome. So why don’t you tell us a little bit more about kind of who you are and what you do in that type of your business? And then we’ll move into how content drives leads for you.

Jess Freeman: Yeah. So I have been in business for 10 years. I started as a graphic designer. And I always tell people that I kind of fell into entrepreneurship because I started freelancing in college. And I did a lot of t-shirt designs and posters for the clubs on campus and stuff.

And then once I graduated, I was still freelancing but I had moved, I lost all my clients because I was no longer on campus. And was basically starting from scratch and was having to deal with clients and contracts and all that kind of fun stuff. I learned very quickly that charging $5 or $10 for a t-shirt design was no longer going to work. I had to raise my rates since I was no longer in college.

So I was working full time in corporate. I say corporate; I actually also worked at churches. I was a designer at a few different churches, and running just creatives on the side doing that. And within two years had enough business that I was able to quit my job and take Jess Creatives full time.

And then about a year, maybe two after I’d gone full time, that’s when I started doing websites. And I remember at my last job, they were like, “We want you to start doing websites.” I was like, “I don’t know how to do that.” And they were like, “You should learn.”

Joe Casabona: Learn that.

Jess Freeman: So yeah, so that’s what I did. It was actually towards the end of that time when I was working full time and juggling Jess Creatives that I also started creating content. I started blogging in 2014. And so I’ve been creating content for seven years, which sounds so long ago. And so I’ve done a little bit of everything. When I say a little bit, I’ve basically done everything. I’ve done blogging, I’ve done podcasting, and YouTube as well.

And at one point, for a very short amount of time, I was doing all three. And that was bananas. So I quickly was like, “Yeah, I don’t have time for this.” So I was like, we have to pick and choose what we’re going to move forward with.” So currently, my main focus is YouTube for my content creation. But we can dive more into that. But yeah, so I’ve been in business for 10 years. I do websites, a little bit of other design. But if I’m not making videos, I’m building websites.

Joe Casabona: Awesome. I love that. And I came to a very similar conclusion in late 2021. Because when the pandemic started, I was like, “You know, I’m going to really invest in my YouTube channel because I just bought my a6400 and I was like, “I’m making courses. I need a good setup.” And I made a video in February because of divine intervention.

I’m going to say I made a video in February on how to set this camera up and that blew up. It’s still my top-performing video because it was basically like how non-photographers or how non-camera people can set up the a6400 to be their webcam. And I was like, “Wow, maybe there’s something there. Maybe there is something to this YouTube thing.”

And so for a while I was doing one video a week and one live stream a week. And then I launched a new YouTube channel and I was doing like two or three YouTube videos a week on top of two podcasts a week on top of blogging. And I was like, “This is too much.”

So I put a pause on YouTube. And I thought, you know, my videos are very tutorial-based. They’re kind of like people are going to find the thing they’re looking for when they’re looking for it. So I would definitely love to exchange notes on your strategy, because we’re kind of in the same field.

Jess Freeman: Yeah.

Joe Casabona: The other thing that was really interesting to me in your kind of origin story here is you started almost exactly 10 years after I started. And again, 2001 I was in high school. I continued all throughout college. I have a manuscript for a book called “The Student Freelancer,” that kind of talks about, like all the things, you know, like using your paid client projects as like school projects, which I did very often.

I tried to do the t-shirt thing, too, I was not good at t-shirt design. And it was not nearly as easy today as it was when you or I were doing it right. Printful and Cotton Bureau didn’t exist. So I actually like had to find a distributor and like pre-pay. I tried pre-selling, which was also hard because like PayPal was the only thing that existed.

So it’s just very interesting to see kind of like the different a decade makes. Because content strategy was not a thing when I started. My blog was basically me whining about… It was like teen angst and movie reviews and very poorly written movie reviews. Like, “Donnie Darko. I liked it. It was different.”

Jess Freeman: “It was different. It was really good.”

Joe Casabona: Yeah, yeah, it was really good. And so all of those posts are hidden. They’re private posts. I can’t bring myself to delete them but they’re all private posts because it’s all still on casabona.org somewhere. But before we move into the content, you make websites. So I do need to ask you, what do you use to make websites? What’s your platform or toolkit?

Jess Freeman: I build those on WordPress and Squarespace. And most of the time, I’m using Divi to build on WordPress.

Joe Casabona: Nice. WordPress, Squarespace, that sounds like a good Build Something More topic. So maybe we’ll talk about two topics, but WordPress, Squarespace, and then you use Divi in WordPress, which is definitely something I’d like to talk to you about. I know the developerly people are very like the poopoo Divi.

Jess Freeman: Some of them, yes.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. People in the WordPress space have strong opinions about-

Jess Freeman: They have very strong opinions.

Joe Casabona: It’s like your world is not the only world that exists.

Jess Freeman: Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Casabona: Do you use advanced custom fields?

Jess Freeman: I do not. But I would say probably because none of my clients have really needed to. Most of my clientele are just business owners like me who just kind of need home, about, services.

Joe Casabona: Nice.

Jess Freeman: Maybe two sales pages instead of one. Like, it’s very rare that someone’s like, “I need these very specific things to happen.” It just kind of like, “Here’s my services. Here’s my blog.” That’s about it.

Joe Casabona: So, which is great, right? I suspect that makes it very easy for you to systematize your web design process as well, right?

Jess Freeman: Yes.

Joe Casabona: I feel like the web design world is changing, especially because of page builders and things like that. And even like WordPress full site editing, people are worried that because more people can design websites—heavy quote fingers there—that their job is at risk. But if you find a good niche, we can kind of leave the heavy development to the agencies of the world and then we can design good websites for our niche.

Jess Freeman: Yeah. I have heard lots of people say that over the years or ask me that over the years, like, “Oh, are you afraid that web design is going to go away because so many people can DIY?” And I’m like, “Yes, there are tons of people who DIY. The people who come to me are like, ‘I have DIY, and I only got it so far, and I want it to look better. I want it to do these other complex things that I can’t figure out. I don’t have the time. I don’t want to spend the time.”

Like there’s always going to be people that DIY and there’s always going to be people who don’t want to spend the time. I’m one of those people that I’m like, “Yeah, I could probably do this, that and the other in my business. No, I will automate it, I will either not do it, I will outsource it, something.” So there’s always going to be those people. But there’s always going to be the people who were like, “Yeah, I don’t want to mess with it. I’ll just hire somebody.” So I’m not scared of the page builders and Squarespace and web flow and all these builders that are coming out.

Joe Casabona: I love it. Because even with that your years of knowledge and experience aren’t going to disappear tomorrow.

Jess Freeman: Right.

Joe Casabona: So you have a 10 plus year head start on someone who’s like, “I need a website today.” The way I like to think about it is nobody asks a lawn mowing service, “Hey, are you afraid that you’re going to lose business because people can mow their own lawns?”

Jess Freeman: Right. There’s always going to be people who want their lawn mowed for them.

Joe Casabona: I am one of those people. I very happily pay 30 bucks a week. I pay 30 bucks a week to never have to worry about my lawn.

Jess Freeman: There you go.

Joe Casabona: And as we record this, I have two children. As this episode comes out, I have three children. So I have a lot of other things that I got to do, right?

Jess Freeman: Yeah. It’s not a priority for you. And for business owners, some of them, it’s like, my time is better spent with clients or creating content or whatever it is, not spending two months trying to figure out how to build this frickin’ website.

Joe Casabona: Right. Right. Exactly. And again, like for you, or I, or anybody else who makes websites, it’s very easy for us to spin up a website quickly. I did a domain transfer this morning while my kids were eating breakfast before school. Like I switched. That’s something that like when I first started, I would have been sweating like I was going to cut the wrong wire and blow up the whole building.

So it’s just you learn things, and then you can do things quickly. The people who need your service… I mean, you know, now we’re belaboring the point. But I love that point of view. It’s something that I always want to push on whenever somebody else mentions it, because there are still too many freelancers and small business owners who worry about that, who worry about niching down, who try to do everything themselves. And probably those two things are related, right? Because they’re like, “Well, I can just do it myself. So I’m going to do it.” Not realizing that not everybody wants to do that.

For a Christmas gift, we’ve wanted to hang these pictures up in our living room. And we’ve just haven’t had the time. There’s a lot of pictures; you got to arrange them the right way. And so for Christmas, I’m hiring somebody on Angie’s List or Angie, I guess is the word-

Jess Freeman: I love it.

Joe Casabona: …to do it for us because it’ll make my wife happy, I won’t like cut my finger or whatever. So “use your time wisely” I think is a really important thing.

Jess Freeman: Yes.

Joe Casabona: Now that we’ve belabored that point, 60% of your leads come from content creation. What made you start creating content in the first place? And then when did you realize that this was a good lead generator for you?

Jess Freeman: So if I’m totally honest, I think I started creating content because I was in one Facebook group. This is like back in 2013 so the Facebook group world wasn’t totally full like it is now. So I was in literally one business Facebook group. And it was a bunch of freelancers.

It was like one of those groups where every like Thursday, you could share your blog posts for the week. And I was like, “I want to share my blog. I don’t have a blog, but if I shared my blog that would get people to my website.” That was the thing that made me start blogging. And I was like, “Sure, that would work. I could get people to my website.” So I did that for quite a while.

And then I remember it wasn’t like right away. I don’t remember the exact timing but I remember at some point in that year or so that someone inquired about working with me and they were like, “Oh, I read your blog on (whatever it was that I’d written) and you really sound like you know what you’re talking about and I would really love to work with you because I need logo, website, whatever it was.” And I was like, “What? First of all, you read my blog. Yay. But second of all, it made you want to work with me.

And so that was really like, “Okay, so I’m getting more traffic to my website.” Because by then I’d started like sharing it on Pinterest and Instagram and my email list. So I was getting more traffic to my website but was starting to get more inquiries. And now here I am seven years later, adding in YouTube and podcasts and still getting those notes in my inquiry form where people are like, “Well, I watched you on YouTube, and I’ve been watching you on YouTube for months, and you seem really nice and you really know what you’re talking about. So I just really want to work with you.” And I’m like, “Okay, great.”

So, I think it’s just that feedback that has kept me going with the content creation, because I mean, seven years is a long time to create content. But yeah, that’s kind of how I started was, “Oh, wait, I can get people to read my blog, to go to my website.”

Joe Casabona: “Somebody did this.” That’s so interesting. I always equate a lesson like this to learning by doing right. Like, you could sit in a math class, math was my weakest subject-

Jess Freeman: Same here.

Joe Casabona: You could sit in a math class and you could do it along with the teacher and the teacher’s guiding you and you feel like you get it. And then you go home and you don’t get it. Or for me, for programming, honestly, too, I have my master’s in software engineering, but like my first programming class, we would do something in class and then I wouldn’t get it. And then I had to do some kind of coding thing for a client and it clicked. And I was like, “Oh, yes.” This feels obvious to me now. But when you do something, it really sticks, right?

So you said, for example, somebody would find your contact form via YouTube, and they said, “I’ve been watching you for months and I want to work with you.” So this is not like I put out a piece of content today. I have new leads tomorrow situation, right?

Jess Freeman: Correct. Content is a long game. For me, it has proven to be a place to like build that… I don’t want to say relationship because I don’t really… I personally do not feel like I have this great, quote-unquote, relationship with my readers. Like, I’m not one of those like 2010 bloggers who was hearing from their readers every week in the comments.

But it’s this way to build trust with the viewer or the reader, whichever they are. And for them to just get to know me and see my personality and for me to talk about different topics and teach them these different things. And then finally, they’re like, “Okay, now I’m ready.” Like, I stay top of mind for them. I’m teaching them new things. So I become like a resource to them.

And then once they are ready, whether it’s a budget thing, a timing because of personal life stuff, or if it’s maybe it is something that I say in that seventh video that they’re like, “Okay, now it’s time. Now I need to hire Jess. I need to get this website read on,” whatever it is that finally makes it click, then after all this trust I’ve built with them, they feel like they know me, and they’re like, “This is a no brainer. I want to work with you.”

Joe Casabona: That’s great. I love what you said there too, because I feel like I’m not the best creator sometimes because I don’t get the engagement that it seems everyone else is getting.

Jess Freeman: Same.

Joe Casabona: By the way, if you’re listening to this, just say hi. Let me know. Say hello.

Jess Freeman: Just say hi.

Joe Casabona: You know, like these huge podcasts have like listener mail, and I’m like, “I never get listener mail.” And I’m like, “Do I never get it though? Or do I just don’t get it like weekly so I don’t think I get it?” But what you’re saying is you feel like you’re in a similar situation, but it’s not necessarily the relationship. It’s the trust, right?

Joe Casabona: I assume that people are writing to Tom Hiddleston after every Loki episode going, like, “Hey, I love your episode or whatever,” right? It’s probably very much the same. People maybe they smash that like button or whatever. I don’t say that in my videos, by the way.

Jess Freeman: I don’t either.

Joe Casabona: I ask them to like, but I never say Smash. Like treat your computers with respect, people. Don’t smash your computer. But building that trust, super important, right? Especially these days where people are inundated with lots of information, there are lots of solutions out there, the quote-unquote, “perfect recommendation” is still so much better than just Googling someone.

Again, going back to that Angie’s List thing I was looking at, there were like nine choices, and two had reviews and one had reviews for the exact thing I was looking for. So I’m like, “This is the only person I’m going to talk to. This is the person I’m going to hire.” So building that trust is really important.

Now, I think a mistake I have certainly made is teaching people like me to do things that I do. Who are you teaching on YouTube?

Jess Freeman: So I have also run into this issue because I think it’s our default to be like, “Oh, I learned how to do this new thing on WordPress. I’m going to make a video about it because it’s so cool.” And then you’re like, “Wait, I’m just attracting other people.”

So I don’t really teach design things. I don’t teach like how to design things on Squarespace or WordPress. But I am teaching the solo business owner, freelancer, entrepreneur whenever they want to call themselves. I really focus on how to leverage their website. And yes, I do some tutorials on like, “Oh, here’s this plugin that you would really benefit from.” I’m probably not going to do a tutorial on like, “Okay, so you’re going to go install plugins and do it and like set…” But I will just talk about the plugin and how to maybe…

Joe Casabona: God.

Jess Freeman: You’re like, “Here’s some great settings for you” and like whatnot. Because one, if it’s a DIY, they already know how to set up, how to install things. So then you don’t need to show them. And two, if they are someone who hires someone, if they have someone on hands like me, they can be like, “Hey, Jess, have you heard of this plugin? Is that something I need? Should I set it up?” Because I have clients asking that sometimes.

Or when they do hire someone in the future, maybe they have a note somewhere of like, “I really want this plugin on my site because it does X, Y, Z.” So I don’t focus on teaching them how to design but that, okay, you’ve worked with a designer hopefully, here’s how you can leverage your website to build your business.

Joe Casabona: Oh, man.

Jess Freeman: So occasionally, yes, I do have tutorials that might be like, “Oh, this is how you can do this on the back end.” But usually, it’s just kind of I’m introducing you to something, “Here’s things you need to think about.”

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Joe Casabona: If you saw me grab my phone, I was opening up TubeBuddy. I don’t know if you use tools like that. You use TubeBuddy or…?

Jess Freeman: Yes, I love TubeBuddy.

Joe Casabona: Okay, awesome. I will link to TubeBuddy and everything else we talked about in the show notes, which you’ll be able to find over at streamlined.fm/251. So I just grabbed their Black Friday Cyber Monday deal. I was looking at it for a while, but I signed up for vidIQ for a year. And I’m like less a fan of that and TubeBuddy is already so much better.

But my last few videos, looking at the stats here, get more engagement on newsletters with Gravity Forms where like it’s a full-on tutorial on how to set up like conditional formatting or conditional logic blah, blah, blah. 18 views but swapping Beaver Builder for Gutenberg, 263 views. How I’ve configured my Stream Deck, 111 views. Gift guide, 174 views.

None of those are step-by-step tutorials. It’s just kind of me talking about stuff and things to think about. So it’s really interesting you said that. I’m looking at the stats, and the stats haven’t stuck for me yet. But you’re introducing topics to people or introducing tools to people that then you can then implement for them.

Jess Freeman: Yes, yes. So, especially in terms of YouTube, I see my videos as either, one, they are connection content. So it might be like your gift guide. I don’t know what’s in it, but I would assume that might be something that’s a little more connection. I’m not really teaching you anything. You get to know me a little more or know my personality, or I’m educating. And that’s where like, Hey, we’re going to swap Beaver Builder for Gutenberg blah, blah, blah. Like I’m actually teaching you.

So sometimes I know that a video might not produce a lead, it might not get as many views on my channel because it’s more of a connection piece. So it might not be as search-friendly for those new viewers or people who don’t even know me, compared to “Okay, now my subscribers might be more interested in this.

Joe Casabona: Gotcha.

Jess Freeman: When I took a break from YouTube last fall, I just took like a three-month break, but I put up a video and it was just titled “Taking a break or something.”

Joe Casabona: I was going to facetiously ask if you did that, because that was like a trend this summer, right? Like in 2021 summer, I would say, a handful, maybe half a dozen of the people that subscribe to put up videos that said, “Goodbye.” And I’m like, “Is it really good?”

Jess Freeman: “Or you’re just tricking me?”

Joe Casabona: They were all just tricking me. But taking a break is [wale?]. It’s not misleading if you’re going to break.

Jess Freeman: But it had more views than a lot of my other videos. Not like drastically. It wasn’t like thousands of views, but it was a little higher. And maybe it was because it was like the quote-unquote, most recent video on my channel for a while. But I just thought it was interesting because I was like, “I bet more subscribers clicked on that because they’re like, “What do you mean taking a break? What is happening?”

And it’s funny that I talk about that because I took a maternity break, maternity leave this year for a few months and I didn’t take a break from YouTube. Like I pre-scheduled all my videos for maternity. But I’m like, “Why did I do that when I just took a break just because I needed a break last year and didn’t take one this year?” But that’s [inaudible 00:33:42] for me I guess.

Joe Casabona: It’s so funny to think about that, right? Because kind of the same thing. I worked really hard and pre-scheduled a bunch of videos that I’m now thinking I probably should have spread out a little bit more. And I just decided, you know, I didn’t have any in the queue. And I was like, “I don’t have time. I’m working on my next LinkedIn Learning Course or whatever.” And so yeah, I didn’t make a taking a break video. Maybe I missed the boat there.

But coming back into 2022, I have a much different strategy for my YouTube videos, right? Because again, it was kind of like how to do this specific thing in Gravity Forms as opposed to if my audience is creators, maybe it’s like “tools to help you build landing pages easier,” right?

Jess Freeman: Mm-hmm.

Joe Casabona: Or how to grow your mailing list where I talk about like some WordPress plugin, but also other things as well. I think that’s really interesting. And I like what you said connection content. Lie get to know me a little more or education content.

So I can tell you like the gift guide video is based on some of my popular blog content. But that’s like a gift guide for people who work from home gift guide for podcasters. And that’s affiliate link-driven income. But the video, you’re right, like my personality comes out a lot more in that because I’m like, “I really like this thing” or like, “Here are these wheels that I recommend for your rolly chair.” Their rollerblade wheels, they’re amazing. So I think that’s really interesting as well.

And I do want to ask. Your YouTube channel, if you don’t mind me asking, I didn’t prep you for this, but is it monetized? Do you try to monetize it? Is that any sort of driver in what you create?

Jess Freeman: So yes, it is monetized. It’s been monetized for a year or two. I mean, I don’t make tons of money from it, but it’s a nice little stash of cash every month. And then in terms of like affiliate or sponsorships, sponsorships I don’t like overly seek out. I probably do two or three a year at the most. And affiliates, that I will also I think sporadically try to work in. Because I keep a Google Sheet for my editorial calendar. And I’m like, “These are all topics I’m talking about this year. This is when they’re going to publish.”

So I have like a good overview of what I’m going to talk about. But then I will think about like, “Okay, in one of these topics, can I mention something I’m an affiliate for?” Or “Okay, so what is something I’m an affiliate for that like maybe if I want to try to increase some clicks, get some more money for that, can I do a video on it?”

And since my channel is business and “tech,” quote-unquote, like apps and programs that I use… I say tech and I’m like, “I’m not as techie as a lot of YouTubers.” But business apps, programs, and then some website strategy, and that kind of stuff, it is easy for me to just pop in, like, “Oh, this is what I use for my social media scheduler.” And I did that video a few months ago, and like one of my loyal followers was like, “Oh my gosh, I miss these videos,” like where I tell them what I use. And they were like, “I’m going to check it out.”

And I was like, “Oh, I didn’t realize… you could have told me.” I know you’re on my email list, you follow me on Instagram, these other chances to tell me, reach out and say hi and that kind of thing. So I don’t make it a huge focus. For me, YouTube is about creating that connection and building that trust. So the affiliate income or the monetization is more of like a secondary thought in my brain. I didn’t start this YouTube channel to be like, I’m going to monetize it and become a millionaire and become YouTube famous. I was like, this is how I’m going to connect with my audience so…

Joe Casabona: Nice. And I know that like a big driver for the people who are trying to monetize on YouTube or make a lot of their money on YouTube spend a lot of time on the thumbnails and the titles. There’s a podcast called Cortex by CGP Grey and Myke Hurley. And Grey in one of the members-only portions of the podcast talked about how disheartening it is that the main driver of people watching or clicking on a video is the thumbnail or the title instead of the quality of the content. So how much time do you spend on the thumbnail and in the title?

Jess Freeman: The title, we talked about, I use TubeBuddy, so I am trying to optimize those titles as best as I can. I will be honest, I don’t spend a lot of time on the thumbnails even as a designer who has the skills to make really fancy thumbnails. And I think part of it is just my design style. Like I very much like a minimalist and keep things simple.

I see other YouTubers that like I follow that are in the business me sure like Teach YouTube strategy and stuff and theirs are really complex and they have multiple elements on it. And I’m like, That’s just not like what I… That doesn’t look good to me. And so I probably could spend more time on the thumbnail.

But I see YouTube again is, yes, I am trying to attract new leads and new people to my business, but it still is that connection factor. So I’m sending people from my email list and Instagram and Pinterest to my YouTube channel. So it’s like I want to create connection with those people who already know me. So that’s why I’m not as worried about the thumbnail, if that makes sense.

Joe Casabona: I think that makes perfect sense. And you’re right, there are some people who… like Matt Ragland, like he says, like, his thumbnails that do the best are the desk over headshots or whatever. Mr. Beast goes ham on his thumbnails. But then you have… There are some creators. I see this in the ASMR space. I don’t know if you use ASMR.

Jess Freeman: I don’t.

Joe Casabona: I was curious.

Jess Freeman: I know what it is but I don’t watch it.

Joe Casabona: But most of those videos are just screenshots from the video and those are generally good enough. I think it really depends. I think I spend too much time on my thumbnails because I don’t feel like I get a good return. But TubeBuddy is definitely something that I think I’m going to leverage, especially for the… I don’t think the titles are not great. I’m very, like direct in my “Oh, this is how to do thing,” instead of like, “blow up your mailing list,” or whatever, like however you’re supposed to do it.

So yeah, I’m really excited for TubeBuddy for that. And then they also have like AB testing for thumbnails. So maybe I’ll create two different ones and AB test. But your approach jives better with the way I think, right? Which is people are consuming your content in a bunch of places, they’re getting onto your mailing list or whatever, and then you’re sharing those videos.

So that said, what’s your call to action? On YouTube, or Instagram or wherever, how are you getting people onto your mailing list?

Jess Freeman: Surprisingly, I don’t end my videos with like, set up a discovery call or like, “get on my email list.” Like I’m not overly like, calling people to do this thing.

A few things that I do, one, like I will sometimes, again, not every single video, but sometimes in the middle of the video, I’ll be like, you know, we’re talking about X, Y, Z, and I’m like, “Hey, like, I have a free guide for that. You can get the link down in the description.” Kind of like how earlier you were just like, “Oh, and the show notes will be available at blah, blah, blah.” I just kind of like slip that in there.

The other thing I do is I will often because I… I am wondering if you’ve experienced this too, but I always tell people, like, sometimes people are not actually aware of what you do or how they can work with you. Like I sometimes have people who DM me on Instagram, and they’re like, “Do you do web design?”

Joe Casabona: Almost exclusively.

Jess Freeman: I’m like, You had to go to my bio on Instagram, where it says web designer two different times to message me. Because they don’t like reply to a story. And I often in my videos will be like, “Oh, when I was designing a website for our client…” or like “when I was reviewing this website for a client…” Like I remind people on that way that I work with people.

But I also on YouTube, you can have like the upload defaults. So it’s like the text that goes in the description automatically of every single video. I put my website and a few other links in that Upload Defaults. So my website is automatically in the bottom of every single video description. So there’s that.

And then there’s also like, if I’m talking if it’s a video where I am talking about something website specific, you know, like how to set you know, best tools for landing pages or something, in the video, I typically do say like, “Oh, I’ll have links to all this below.” I will also like the first two sentences, you know, it’s a description of the video. Maybe more than that. I will have a link that says like, “Want to work with me on your website? and then put that link. And then also have the links for the products I’m mentioning.

So I think sometimes it’s just a matter of having that link available to people. And I was reminded of that a few years ago when someone commented on a video. It was a video I hadn’t put the link to work with me. like towards the top. It was still not upload defaults, but it wasn’t like towards the top and someone commented was like, “How do I work with you? I don’t see a link to like contact you.” I was like, “Oh, like I didn’t even have a direct call to action for this.” But she called that out. And I was like, “Okay, so I’m going to do this more.”

And then the last thing that I sometimes do is also… I don’t know if you do this YouTube strategy, but I learned a long time ago, like, you be the first comment on your own video because people don’t like to be the first comment. Like they don’t want to be the only name on the screen right there.

And so I always say like, “Oh, do you have questions? Let me know in the comments below, whatever.” Sometimes I will say like, “Do you have questions? Let me know. If you’re interested in working with me, here’s the…” or “if you want to grab that free guide, here’s the link. If you’re, you know, looking for whatever resource, here’s the link.”

Sometimes if it’s an affiliate video, I will literally put like, “Oh, do you have questions about X, Y, Z? Let me know” or “check out the link here.” And I’ll obviously make sure it says affiliate link. So yeah, sometimes it’s just putting those links out there.

Joe Casabona: Giving people the opportunity. Giving them multiple opportunities. Yeah, that’s really funny. Because that’s like something that I teach my podcasting students and clients. I’m like, “You gotta get one call to action that should be to your landing page or a website and say it a bunch of times.” And then on YouTube, just like in the beginning, I’m like, “Subscribe to my channel. All right, let’s talk about like.” It’s so funny that I didn’t…

But the first comment is something I’ve been trying to do more because I did read about this strategy in… Again, TubeBuddy is not a sponsor, but TubeBuddy, reach out if you want to sponsor. I’m going to book them between now and when this comes out. And then I’m just going to edit this part out. But they have a little checklist flat. That’s like you haven’t commented on this or anything.

So pinned comment. I’ve read that like a, like a question. Maybe a question specifically about the video. So I’ve been trying to do that more where I’m like, “What are you using Gravity Forms for? Or like, how are you getting people to engage with your mailing list? Let me know in the comments below.” But some-

Jess Freeman: I-

Joe Casabona: Oh, go ahead.

Jess Freeman: I was going to say one of my highest commented videos it was a tutorial on how to make audiograms like for podcasters. Like the little audio wav things people post on Instagram. And so I did the tutorial, whatever. In the first comment… I don’t think I said it in the video. I think I only said it in the comment. I said, share your podcast below. And people are sharing.

Joe Casabona: Oh, so smart.

Jess Freeman: And I got so many views on that because comments drive more views because YouTube sees that as engagement. So yeah, anytime you can ask a more specific question with like, “What are you using?” or “Yes or no? Do you use WordPress or SquareSpace? Do you use this or that?” That’s better than like, “Do you have questions? Let me know.”

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Or like, in my case, it’s a video to help people do this thing. And then I’m like, “How do you do this thing? And I’m like, you’re looking to me for help for it. So maybe you don’t do this thing yet.” So yeah, share a link to your newsletter or whatever is better. God, that’s such great advice. Well, people listening have definitely gotten their money’s worth at this point. Oh, the last question I’ll ask you here is, do you use the cards or the end screens?

Jess Freeman: I do not very consistently. That’s another thing I’ve kind of slacked off on. But I will say when I was very consistent in using it, I didn’t always have a ton of clicks. And I think that like because I would track that and go look at my analytics. Oh, people aren’t using it a ton. So I think that deterred me from putting in the effort to go add those. I will see end screens then the cards.

Joe Casabona: Okay. Okay. So wait, I think I’m going to learn something here. The end Screens are those… what’s the difference between in screen and end screen? You said end screen.

Jess Freeman: In.

Joe Casabona: I see. I thought you said in screen. Where are you from?

Jess Freeman: Sorry, no. I’m originally from Kansas, but I live in Georgia.

Joe Casabona: Okay, all right. So maybe that’s like a little like… I guess Kansas is not really southern but it’s accent or twang. Gotcha. Cool. Very cool. I definitely use the end screen as well more. Just because they’re easier to set up.

Jess Freeman: Especially because like the template and you can just say yeah, Oh, use like the last one you use. I’m like, yes, just do that.

Joe Casabona: Yeah, I’ll just do that and I’ll swap out the video or maybe I should just keep using like best for viewer, right? Maybe that’s the better. I try to pick a related one.

Jess Freeman: I more often use the best for viewer because I’m putting trust in your algorithm to use the next one. But I also sometimes try to link to a playlist on the end screen.

Joe Casabona: Oh.

Jess Freeman: Because if they go to that, then it’s more watch time for your channel.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Oh, man. I’m learning so much, everyone. Link to a playlist. That’s so smart. And you create them, right? You create them and put them on your… Because good YouTube profile setup is like your main video, and then your links kind of at the top. And then curated playlists that people can go for specific topics.

So if you’re just like uploads, try to do something maybe better than that, right? I have popular uploads at the top and then I have like curated playlists, uploads, or somewhere because it drives me crazy when I go to somebody’s YouTube channel, and I can’t find the latest video.

Jess Freeman: I’m like, “Where’s the latest one?”

Joe Casabona: Yeah, what’s the latest one. But have your curated playlists as well because if somebody sees like an automation video, this is like, “Hey, here’s all of the other automation videos.”

Jess Freeman: And that’s something else I’ll put in the description is like, “Oh, do you want more WordPress information? Do you want more social media whatever?” Then I can link to that.

I have a bunch of different playlists, like on different topics, like you said, but I also have a “new here? Start here.” It’s like four or five videos that I feel like are good representation of my channel. And so it’s not all like my beginner videos or anything like that. It’s just like, “Here’s my favorite videos that I think you might enjoy, or something like that.”

Joe Casabona: Nice. Oh, that’s great. This has been such a great conversation. I’ll end with this before asking you my favorite question. Once somebody converts, right, they… I guess you’re well… actually, you know, now that I’m starting this question, it seems like you’re kind of main call to action here, if they’re not getting in touch, is to join your mailing list.

But I guess what’s the next step after somebody quote-unquote, “converts” from your YouTube channel or other social media, whether it’s “join the mailing list” or “reach out”? Are they like added to a sales funnel? Or is it more personalized on that?

Jess Freeman: So it depends. If they go into my email list, then I do have like a whole funnel that they go through. If they reach out, like they inquire, then that’s much more personalized, less automated. So there’s one quick email that’s like, “Hey, I got your email, I’ll be in touch within a day or two.” And then I send them… I use a templated email just because I’m usually typing out the same information. So I swap out like, “Hi, Joe, thanks for reaching out about Blake. Here’s like a recap of my services, blah, blah, blah.”

And then I also offer them to hop on a call right after, like at the end of that email. I don’t allow people to book a call straight from my website or my inquiry form, just because I protect my time, and you really want to make sure that they’re a good fit. Because if it’s like they want some super complex, something website, or they want it like tomorrow, you know… I don’t usually get those. Most people are reasonable.

But if for whatever reason, they’re not a good fit, I want to protect my time. I mean, it’s protecting their time too that that I just don’t want to automatically hop on a call. I also don’t like to hop on a call just not knowing anything about your potential project. The idea of someone just booking a call straight from my website, and I know nothing about them, or their project just gives me anxiety.

Joe Casabona: I’m not a fan of that either. Like it’s the same way. Now, I do offer free podcast consulting calls, but those help me as much as they help the other person because I’m learning what people want to know. And so that makes it informs my content strategy. But if someone for like a discovery call or something like that, definitely, if somebody grabs a time, they have to fill out a field that says like, “Who sent you this? Where did you get this link?” Where I’m like it’s okay if you say me, because if it’s me, then I know and I can go through my email and double-check.

Jess Freeman: Right.

Joe Casabona: But if you’re like, “Oh, someone gave it to me,” I’m like, “We can’t do this right now.”

Jess Freeman: no, not a good thing.

Joe Casabona: Awesome. Well, this has been great. This is not quite the direction I thought we were going to go in. But I love that we landed on YouTube. Because first of all, I’ve been wanting to get a YouTube, like somebody who’s driving their business through YouTube on the show for a while. And it’s something I’ve been trying to do. It’s something that I recommend that people at least try.

And this has been super fantastic and informative. Because first of all, you’re a web designer who is driving traffic through YouTube, not necessarily playing all of the algorithm games, but it’s that trust factor. And this has been a thread of what I’ve been talking about for the last, I don’t know, year or so. You need to build trust. Podcasts help you build trust, YouTube helps you build trust. And as you said, it’s a long game, right?

Jess Freeman: It is. It is.

Joe Casabona: You’re not, you’re not going to put out a YouTube video tomorrow, and then make a lot of money or get a bunch of leads. But if people see you’re consistent… I guess that’s not even something we even talked about is being consistent. Do you batch your videos?

Jess Freeman: I do. Consistency is important. I started with once a week, then I went to twice a week, then I went back to once a week. Currently, I am at every other week.

Joe Casabona: That’s so funny. That’s where I’m going to land, I think, especially because I have two channels. So it’s maybe one per week per channel. But that’s definitely a lot less than what I was doing, which was one for each channel for each week. So yeah, consistency is important.

Set up a cadence that allows you to be consistent. This is something that again, a lot of like my podcast, clients will say like, Hey, I’ve got a back catalogue of like 20 episodes, should I start doing like two per week? And I’m like, “Only if you want to maintain two per week after that catalog is dried up.”

Jess Freeman: Right.

Joe Casabona: Like, release the timely ones earlier, and release the time less ones later, but I would stay at whatever cadence you’re at, and you’re comfortable with.

Jess Freeman: Yeah, consistency is the most important. It doesn’t serve you any good if you do really good twice a week for three months, and then you disappear for like a year. That’s not going to be helpful for your business.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. I mean, and not just from an algorithm standpoint.

Jess Freeman: Right.

Joe Casabona: And I know I said it that way. Not from an algorithm standpoint, even though it does, right, because YouTube does reward the people who are consistent and make good content. But I don’t know about you, but I call my subscriptions every quarter, about every quarter. I look through them and I’m like, Who is this person? I haven’t seen them by. So it’ll keep you fresh in people’s minds if you’re consistent.

Jess Freeman: Mm-hmm.

Joe Casabona: For real last question now. I feel like this is like Lord of the Rings where we have like four different endings.

Jess Freeman: It’s okay.

Joe Casabona: You mentioned your spreadsheet for your content planning. Do you like set aside a day each month to record? How far in advance? do you plan your content?

Jess Freeman: I typically do a month ahead. Like I’ve usually do one month per day. So really now that I’m every other week, that’s like two or three videos. So I usually just try to do that. If I’m like traveling or if I’m like, “Oh, I’m done with client work right now and I have like extra time, then I might try to get even further ahead and do that further out.

But I found that a month or so is pretty good just in case I want to like change my topic last minute, which doesn’t happen often. I’m pretty good about like, this is the calendar I wrote out. This one I want to stick to. But in case a sponsor reaches out, I become an affiliate for anything something and I’m like, “Oh man, it’d be so good to do video about this,” I like to give myself a little wiggle room.

Joe Casabona: Yeah, that’s fantastic. And you know, this episode is coming out early enough in the year folks that you can still plan, I don’t know, your next quarter of content and implement some of the things we’ve learned about here.

Jessica, this has been amazing. I do need to ask you my favorite question, which is do you have any trade secrets for us?

Jess Freeman: Trade secrets. Oh, man. Do I have any trade secrets?

Joe Casabona: This is the best reaction. I have a bell I usually ding but it was like very out of reach when someone says the word “trade secrets.”

Jess Freeman: Oh, my favorite, which might not be very new or groundbreaking to anybody is… like this is for other web designers, correct, that I’m giving to?

Joe Casabona: Content creators, small business owners.

Jess Freeman: Okay. But it is a lot of people who are web designers. It’s not a trade secret but it’s a good tool that I love. Canirank.com will give you really good SEO-friendly topics for your website, which you could also use on YouTube. It’s canirank.com. You put in your website, a few competitors, and they find gaps in your content that will give you some blogs some blog, or video topics. I’ve used it a few times. They have a free trial or whatever free version of it that you can use. And I’ve used that a few times. And those posts are ranking like number one or two in Google-

Joe Casabona: That’s amazing.

Jess Freeman: …very quickly.

Joe Casabona: That’s fantastic. I will at this point mention for full disclosure that Ahrefs is a sponsor of this episode in the first quarter of this podcast. So sounds like they are very similar tools. But canirank.com. And then Ahrefs has their own tool that you heard about at the top of the show. So definitely check that out.

Again, I will link this and everything in the show notes over at streamlined.fm/251. Jessica, this has been fantastic. If people want to learn more about you, where can they find you?

Jess Freeman: I am super easy to find jesscreatives.com and pretty much every social media channel at Jess Creatives.

Joe Casabona: Awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. For those of you who are members continue listening to find out some thoughts on WordPress and Squarespace, how they’re different. What Jess likes may be better than the other? I haven’t asked her that. But maybe we’ll talk about that. And possibly, why maybe it’s okay that you don’t want to lead a team or scale your business.

So if you’re a member, stick around for that. If you’re not, you can become a member over at streamlined.fm/251. It’s all going to be there for you. Just head over there, grab everything. But this conversation is fantastic. Jess, thanks so much for your time.

Jess Freeman: Thank you.

Joe Casabona: And thank you to everybody listening. Thanks to the sponsors who make this show possible. Until next time, get out there and build something.

[01:02:57] <podcast end>