In this conversation, Christian Taylor shares his journey as a content creator and YouTuber focused on online tech, particularly software tools for entrepreneurs. He discusses his initial foray into comedy skits, his pivot to tech content, and the importance of affiliate marketing in his revenue model. Christian emphasizes the significance of targeting beginners in WordPress, managing burnout, and balancing content creation with business needs. He also explores alternatives to WordPress, the popularity of page builders, and the dynamics of audience engagement versus search traffic. Finally, he reflects on the potential of long-form content and podcasts in the future.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Christian Taylor
00:21 Journey into Content Creation
02:08 Pivoting to Software and Tools
04:07 The Role of Affiliate Marketing
07:11 Exploring WordPress and Beyond
09:51 Creating Accessible Content for Beginners
11:28 Balancing Content and Revenue
13:10 Managing Burnout and Content Creation
17:32 Exploring Alternatives to WordPress
19:23 The Importance of Diverse Tools
23:53 Understanding Audience Needs
26:45 The Path of a YouTuber vs. Product Owner
29:21 The Future of Long-Form Content
33:58 Where to Find Christian Taylor
Brian Coords (00:00)
Welcome to webmasters.fm. Today we got Christian Taylor. Christian, how are you doing today,
Christian Taylor (00:03)
Doing well, how are you?
Brian Coords (00:04)
I am good. I’m excited to talk. I didn’t really know you before, but we got to hang out at Presconf and I feel like I got to know you pretty well. So I’m just excited, excited for you to be here.
Christian Taylor (00:13)
Yeah, excited to be here as well. Thanks for having me.
Brian Coords (00:16)
What’s your kind of like brief bio for people who don’t know you or like what you do in the space?
Christian Taylor (00:21)
Yeah, I’m a content creator, YouTuber with a focus in online tech. cover a lot of SaaS tools for entrepreneurs, small business owners, things like how to build a website, how to get a custom email. Also venturing into some security stuff like comparing password managers and VPNs, just different tools that a small business owner would be researching to increase their online presence.
Brian Coords (00:47)
How did you find that topic niche area?
Christian Taylor (00:50)
That’s a loaded question. So I started my channel 14 years ago doing comedy skits or what I thought were comedy skits. I look back at them now, I’m like, that’s incredibly cringe, but 10 year old me thought that the videos were hilarious that I was making. I quickly became interested in tech. So I started reviewing hardware like iPhones, headphones.
Brian Coords (01:07)
It’s awesome.
Christian Taylor (01:15)
If you know, Marquez Brownlee or minus tech tips, I wanted to be like those creators. So that’s kind of who I modeled stuff after. Uh, meanwhile, while this was going on, I’ve always had a bit of an interest in web design. My dad’s a software developer. He has worked for himself most of his life. Um, I was also homeschooled. So being home, you know, seeing him build stuff with code just kind of sparked that interest for me.
Brian Coords (01:17)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (01:43)
So on the side, was starting to explore WordPress, Wix, different website builders. And as this was happening, I became very curious where the best place was to buy a domain name. Cause I’m like, I keep seeing, you know, there’s GoDaddy and Namecheap and Hover and all these different places and they’re all selling the same thing. So what’s the difference? So I decided to make a comparison video. I thought,
Brian Coords (01:59)
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (02:08)
Nobody’s gonna watch this. Why would someone interested in iPhone reviews watch a video on whether you should use GoDaddy or Namecheap to buy a domain? But I thought, you know, I’m really curious. I’m gonna do this as a passion project. I don’t care how many views it gets. So I remember it was Super Bowl Sunday one day or one year. I’m not a sports fan at all. So my family’s in the living room watching the game and I’m in my room just researching
Brian Coords (02:28)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (02:35)
buying domains that go daddy and name cheap and just kind of dumb with their customer support. how do I connect my domain to my website? I don’t know anything. And just seeing the responses they gave, how easy to use the dashboard was comparing pricing, all that stuff. So I published that video and to my surprise, it ended up being one of the most profitable videos on my channel as far as AdSense.
Brian Coords (02:37)
Uh-huh.
Christian Taylor (03:01)
also did really well with views. So that caused me to kind of take a step back and say, wait a minute, I’m making all these hardware videos, which is expensive. You’re oftentimes buying the products when you’re smaller. I mean, the smartphone companies, they’re not gonna send you a smartphone until you’re a very sizable creator. So if you’re reviewing phones, you’re putting all this money into it. It’s super competitive.
Brian Coords (03:01)
Hmm
Yeah.
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (03:25)
Meanwhile, I have this video over here that’s doing really well with both views and revenue. So I thought about it for, I think it was about two years, just having this identity crisis of being emotionally attached to the hardware content, but realizing, wow, this software content, I think I could build a business on this much easier than this other thing over here. And it was an interest. It always has been an interest for me. So
Brian Coords (03:39)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (03:51)
After thinking about it, I eventually reached a point where I said, okay, I’m ready to pivot. I want to go all in on the web products and tools, see what I can build there. And a year after I made that pivot, I was able to go full time and I’ve been full time for five years now.
Brian Coords (04:04)
dang.
That’s crazy. you, I mean, there’s like a lot there. Did you get into like affiliate links and stuff too with software? Because I have to imagine that’s like gotta be part of the revenue. Like a lot more easily than like, I don’t even think they, do they have iPhone affiliate links? I don’t know, but.
Christian Taylor (04:18)
Yeah.
Yeah,
I mean, it depends on, you you can get like a Best Buy affiliate link or Amazon, but like who’s buying an iPhone from Amazon? That’s kind of sus. So yeah, affiliate links are a huge part of my revenue. They were a larger part of my revenue earlier on when I made that pivot. Ironically enough, I didn’t use affiliate links when I made the domain comparison. I had not really grasped that concept yet. So that increase in revenue was just
Brian Coords (04:28)
Okay.
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (04:50)
from YouTube ads and we can get into why that was in a minute. it, looking back on it, I don’t really regret not using affiliate links because domain names are so cheap and most of those programs give you, I don’t know, 20%. So it’s, know, here’s $2 because they bought a $10 domain. Yay. Like it’s, it’s not that lucrative. But what was a game changer for me is in 2019, this is right before I started going full time.
Brian Coords (05:00)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (05:18)
I made a VPN comparison video and that’s when I really got into affiliate links and thought, you know what, I should sign up for every affiliate program for each product I talk about in the video. Even the ones that I flat out say, this is not good, don’t buy it. Because I’m still giving a brand impression, even if it’s bad, on that video. Some people say there’s no such thing as bad press. I don’t know, we could debate that. But.
Brian Coords (05:27)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (05:42)
You know, if the person watches the comparison and they buy the one that I don’t recommend and they they clicked my link and they still bought it. I feel like that’s I’m still justified in receiving a commission for that. So I signed up for all the affiliate programs, put that video out in twenty nineteen. I forgot about it. Like I forgot that I signed up for the programs. And then I remember. I think it was two months later.
because there’s a time period for the commissions to lock in case people ask for refunds or charge backs and all that. But I got the first payout two months later and I thought it was a scam. I got a PayPal email. This company sent you a payout for, I want to say it was like five grand. And I’m just like, what the? This has to be fake. This is a scam email. Log into my PayPal account. Sure enough, the money is there.
Brian Coords (06:10)
Yeah.
jeez.
Christian Taylor (06:33)
I wasn’t checking performance at all on any of the affiliate dashboards. So I went and logged in and I’m like, my gosh, this video is printing conversions. And that was a pivotal moment that allowed me to go full time once I just started repeating that format, signing up for every affiliate program that I could. And yeah, the rest is history.
Brian Coords (06:42)
Yeah.
Dang, how much of what you do is WordPress specific and how much of it is like, obviously domains kind of applies to everybody, other things, but was there a point where you specifically targeted WordPress things or is it more just web development and if WordPress comes up, then so be it?
Christian Taylor (07:02)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, at this point I would say it’s probably 40 to 50 % WordPress. I’ve been clear from the beginning that I do not want to be a WordPress channel. I got more involved in the community from a partnership that I had with Cloudways a few years ago. My contact there, he’s no longer with Cloudways, but…
He just kept reaching out and bugging me saying, hey, are you gonna be at affiliate summit? Are you gonna be at WordCamp? And that’s before I knew any of these events existed. at the time, I didn’t see the value in going to those events. I was like, I’m gonna be out thousands of dollars for what? Just to say hi to people? What’s the point? Teenage me didn’t grasp the concept and the value of networking.
Brian Coords (07:36)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (07:55)
But eventually I got tired of the people at Cloudways bugging me. So I went to Affiliate Summit first and then they convinced me to go to WordCamp US when it was in San Diego. And that really is what got me more into WordPress, just making those in-person connections, being asked to collaborate in the space. so it’s, guess I’ve just, I’ve kind of ended up
Brian Coords (08:06)
yeah.
Christian Taylor (08:20)
where the relationships are, but I would still say WordPress is 40 to 50 % of my channel. I don’t see it ever being more than 50 % because I do want to make sure I’m diversified and I’m not all in on the WordPress basket or any one product category or software, because things change rapidly with tech.
Brian Coords (08:33)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. And WordPress is kind of unique, like in that sense that you go and all of a sudden it’s like an insider’s club and everybody knows each other. And it’s really good for like, as in networking, meeting people, finding ways to like partner on things and stuff. But it is, it is a bit of a bubble, you know, like you it’s, it’s a lot of the same faces and stuff like that. do you, do you feel like WordPress? Cause like there’s people that do like WordPress like
Christian Taylor (08:55)
Yes. Yeah.
Brian Coords (09:03)
content, like news about WordPress, or covering releases, or that sort of stuff. But when you do something that’s about WordPress, what’s your angle on what you’re making?
Christian Taylor (09:14)
I try to focus more on beginners making WordPress accessible to the average user. I would say, you another distinction between my channel and a WordPress channel is I’m not really interested in covering the news. I did cover a little bit of the drama that’s happened recently, but I mean that like even mainstream outlets were covering that. So that’s kind of why I pulled that in to my content. But I don’t…
Brian Coords (09:34)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Christian Taylor (09:39)
I don’t really want to portray my content as like a WordPress channel. I’m not a WordPress expert. It’s more, Hey, here’s how you could build a web project. By the way, we’re using WordPress to do this.
Brian Coords (09:52)
Mm-hmm. And you’ve done, didn’t you do a course on like WooCommerce recently?
Christian Taylor (09:56)
I did, yeah.
Yeah, I did one with WooCommerce and the cadence theme. That was a partnership with WPNGEN. I’ve done another one with cadence, just building a general WordPress site as well. So I do have those resources. I try to make it accessible to beginners, but yeah, I just, not gonna be that channel that’s like WordPress 6.8, let’s do a rundown video on everything that’s new.
Brian Coords (10:18)
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (10:19)
wonderful creators out there to make that type of content.
Brian Coords (10:23)
Do you track the traffic of WordPress content versus other content to make sure you’re always hitting, obviously the point is you want people to watch it, you want stuff that resonates. So do you track that and see, yeah, there is interest in these sorts of things?
Christian Taylor (10:38)
Yeah, know, strangely enough WordPress might be the least popular topic on my channel. So the, the main reason that I cover it as much as I do is one, it is a passion for me. I enjoy it, but two, from a business model perspective, it’s been the most profitable with both affiliate programs and sponsorships. It’s, I find the more niche content is it.
usually attracts a higher value audience, but a smaller audience. So it’s like this back and forth. One of the most successful series that I have on my channel is browser comparisons, web browsers, know, Chrome versus Brave, or all the variations you could think of. Those things print views. They often will get a hundred thousand views or more per video, but they’re almost worthless from a revenue perspective. They don’t do well with ad revenue.
There’s no potential for affiliate conversions. Sure. I can get sponsors on that, but even then it’s harder to sell those sponsors because they’re thinking, well, this is just a generic audience. Like this is not like a niche value audience that we really want to get in front of. So the amount that they’re willing to pay, even with triple the views is lower. So for me, it’s been this, this delicate balancing act of.
covering WordPress enough to give people practical help and also monetize on it from a business sense, but also make the other content that gets better views, maybe gross the audience more, but it’s not really driving revenue.
Brian Coords (12:01)
Hmm.
Okay, yeah, and like, all of the sort of like business stuff that goes underneath, like, you know, people like, I like to make stuff on YouTube, but like, I don’t, it’s not like a business for me. It’s just like a side thing that I don’t put a tiny, like I put a tiny amount of attention into it. But like, yours is like a business, you’re profitable, you’re making money. How did you, like, did you have to teach yourself like the actual business of it and like, how to act, you know, how to be profitable, how to like…
manage the money, how to know to even go for like sponsorships, affiliates, ads, like all the different things. Like, did you just teach yourself everything?
Christian Taylor (12:42)
Yeah, I’m mostly self-taught. It has been a long process over the years. Early on, I was focused on learning how to make the videos, and that was all self-taught, watching creators who inspired me, who I look up to, trying to copy their camera presence, editing style, the format of their videos, learning storytelling. So earlier on, I went through a course on storytelling, YouTube best practices. It wasn’t focused on revenue.
was strictly just how to make better videos that are more engaging. Later, when I pivoted to full-time, I would say that was honestly by chance. I didn’t know what I was doing from a revenue standpoint. I just signed up for some affiliate programs. So a lot of, probably two years after that VPN comparison video blew up, I was going through this identity crisis of…
how do I monetize this consistently? I feel like I won the lottery. I keep trying to make part two, part three, round four, replicating the same thing over again. And it worked a little bit to an extent, but then it started to die out. And that’s when I really focused in the last two years on learning how to pitch to sponsors, becoming a better salesperson, learning how to optimize content for conversions.
And so it’s kind of been a mishmash, I guess, of being self-taught, taking courses, learning from other creators. There’s not like a YouTube university. I mean, there probably is these days with how popular it is, but not when I started.
Brian Coords (14:13)
Yeah.
Yeah, and like, there’s been this trend, like over the last maybe like two years of popular YouTubers hitting like a burnout phase where it’s like a content treadmill and stuff like that. Do you ever feel that or do you feel like you have like a good balance and you can keep it like any job? You hit a point for the job where you’re just like, now it’s work. Like it was fun, now it’s work. And that’s just like a normal part of life. But like, how do you handle just the churn of videos and like the constant work that goes into it?
Christian Taylor (14:43)
That’s a great question. A big step for me that I took was hiring out the editing. I did start to reach a phase of burnout because I was on this weekly cycle of Monday, I would respond to emails and have some meetings. guess context, I have had a creative director for a while who would help with ideation, reviewing scripts, he does all my thumbnails. So.
That was probably step one was bringing him in so I wasn’t an echo chamber and just beating my head against the desk. Is this a good idea or not? Because that’s one of my big struggles. I think probably a lot of business owners struggle with that is you can get excited about just about any idea, but is it actually objectively good or are you just in your own head like, yeah, this is amazing. So bringing him in, that was a good first step, but it wasn’t.
really alleviating burnout. It was more bringing in a consultant who can make things better. So step two was hiring out the editing because I realized I was stuck in this cycle of Mondays I would meet with him, respond to emails, Tuesdays I would script the video, Wednesdays we would shoot, Thursday, Friday would be a mix of editing and responding to emails. Sometimes that would spill over into Saturday and then the cycle repeats.
Brian Coords (15:39)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (16:00)
So every week it was just that grind of feeling like I couldn’t expand my business into other mediums or even travel to events because, know, man, who’s gonna edit the video this week if I’m gone at a conference? And I did start to feel that burnout of just, I can’t do this anymore. I’ve gotta change it up or I’m gonna crash. So that was a great step, hiring that out. I do sometimes feel burnout.
Brian Coords (16:13)
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (16:27)
with the type of content I make, but as long as I’m mindful of that and intentional to bring in new ideas that I’m excited about, that’s important and that, I guess, alleviates the, it keeps me excited and passionate about it. So I know if I’m starting to reach that point, it probably means that I’ve been accepting too many sponsors, maybe in one category.
because it’s really common in the software space, companies want you to make a dedicated video about their product. So there’s only so many web hosts that I can partner with and say, I’m gonna show you how to install WordPress in this hosting dashboard. The content’s helpful to a point, but if that’s all I do, I’m gonna start to get burned out. So it is, again, that balancing act of what’s making money and how do I monetize, but also there are times that I have to say,
Brian Coords (16:51)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (17:19)
I’ve got to try something different that I can’t monetize yet for my own sanity as a creator. And as long as I have enough of that in the mix, I find that things are interesting. I’m always inspired and I’m not facing burnout.
Brian Coords (17:32)
Do you ever look at like other sort of alternatives to WordPress, like a web flow or Shopify or whatever these other sort of platforms, do you make content for other things that are like that far removed from WordPress or is that a different audience?
Christian Taylor (17:45)
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve right now I’ve got a partnership with Wix Studio. I’ve done content on Webflow before. Not a ton of tutorials, more so comparisons, but that’s that’s kind of my bread and butter on my channel in general. But yeah, I don’t have any ties to WordPress other than I like I like the ecosystem and I like the mission of open source. But I am honest with people that WordPress is complicated.
Brian Coords (17:58)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (18:11)
It’s got a steep learning curve. And for some people, Webflow, Wix Studio, Squarespace, even just the normal Wix, it might be a better fit. know that’s, I’m probably gonna get a lot of friction saying that in the WordPress community. But, you know, again, I don’t claim to be a WordPress YouTuber. I try to just have that higher picture view of let’s make some web projects and there’s many tools that we could use to accomplish that.
Brian Coords (18:37)
Yeah, I talked about this with Katie Heath on a previous episode a little bit about like how you, people that like came up in WordPress and like that’s all they know will often want to help out their friends by giving them, helping them set up a WordPress website or whatever. And there’s so many situations where you’re like, it bites you, they hate it, it’s too confusing. They didn’t want to learn a new thing or be technical. It’s just not what they’re interested in and they would have been happier with Squarespace or.
Christian Taylor (18:56)
Yeah.
Brian Coords (19:04)
whatever the one that hits their topic the most. it’s like, yeah, there are people who are like, we’re gonna use WordPress for everything and I’m gonna build everything on top of it. it’s like, think hopefully that trend is passing. Hopefully people are realizing like, no, it can just be good at one thing. It doesn’t have to be good. You can’t try to make it good for everything.
Christian Taylor (19:13)
Right.
Yeah, yeah, I love that. mean, like, I still use Lincoln BioApps. And some people are like, why are you doing that? Don’t you know you can install a WordPress plugin or you can just build in an Elementor? I’m like, yes, and I’m capable of doing that, but I don’t want to. Like, there’s some things that are just better served by other apps.
Brian Coords (19:42)
Have you dug into page builders? Like do you do content specifically on like Elementor you mentioned or anything like that?
Christian Taylor (19:48)
Not, not super hardcore. I’m a bit page builder agnostic. I used to use WP bakery. I know, I know we can all shiver, but I have a, I’ve moved on to other options. Now I’m right now I bounce between elementary and the blocks editor with cadence. the series that I’m doing with Mark Samansky overhauling my website, he’s teaching me bricks. So I am open to many page editors.
Brian Coords (20:11)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (20:15)
I haven’t done a lot of comparison content there because I found that it doesn’t really perform well. I think that’s because
WordPress beginners don’t really care about the page editor. They’ll use anything. They just want to be coached through how to build their website. The people that have opinions on page editors, they’re past the point of watching a comparison video. They already have deep thoughts on, it’s almost like, it’s almost a little cultish, I feel like, with the page builders. Like some people are deeply passionate about the page builder that they use and
Brian Coords (20:30)
Yeah.
OK, yeah.
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (20:50)
They don’t care about comparison content. They’ve already made up their mind on what they
Brian Coords (20:54)
Yeah, yeah, how is, yeah, it’s definitely true that people get into these weird, it’s like sports teams, but with page builders and it’s definitely an interesting thing. I mean, I understand, like if you’re churning out, you know, 20 sites a month or something and you know, then yeah, your tools are a lot more important. If you’re like the business owner who just needs something online, like there’s probably not gonna be a huge difference, but I have to imagine between
Christian Taylor (21:01)
Yes, yeah, that’s a great way to put it.
Brian Coords (21:21)
Like Cadence and Elementor seem very similar to me. I don’t have like a ton of experience with any of them, but they seem a bit similar in like who they’re trying to build for. But then like Bricks to me seems like I would assume is not in the same league. Like does Bricks feel close to Elementor when you’re using it or is it a totally different tool?
Christian Taylor (21:39)
Yeah, I mean, the jury’s still out. I’m at the very beginning stages of exploring bricks, but so far, first impressions, I don’t think it’s as big of a difference as people have portrayed it to be. I’m not talking from a sense of power and what you can accomplish, but more the learning curve. I think part of that could be I may be more of an advanced user than I give myself credit for because
I don’t know PHP, I don’t know JavaScript, but I did start from a young age building static HTML sites, mostly templates, but I know what a div is, I know what a span is, I know CSS pretty well. So looking at a page builder like Bricks, it doesn’t really seem that different from Elementor. I’m like, okay, you’ve got your elements, you’ve got your page structure, you can edit padding, margin, Z index, all the things.
Brian Coords (22:11)
Mm.
Christian Taylor (22:28)
I haven’t quite understood why people say, yeah, Bricks is really advanced and then Elementor is more beginner. I think it’s, I don’t know, maybe because of those limitations that Elementor has. But like I said, I’m still in the early stages. You could ask me next week and I could say, Bricks is, it’s so hard. I don’t understand it, but it’s so far so good.
Brian Coords (22:51)
Yeah. I also think a lot of that stuff comes from marketing and it’s a lot of the people who are pitching a specific one are generally selling a course about it, or they’re selling an add-on for it that only works for that one. So it makes sense that if you’re selling bricks add-ons, you’re going to, you know, talk crap on Elementor and say how it’s not good enough. like I understand that, but like it, it’s probably closer than you think, you know, for a lot of these tools. Yeah.
What other sort of like places do business like if you’re like a business owner and you’re watching comparison videos and your type of content and stuff, like what are the things that you feel like they’re looking for? Like what are the other areas that you dig into?
Christian Taylor (23:30)
Lot of obviously domains, custom emails, that’s another vertical. Email marketing, get asked about CRMs a fair bit. So that might be content that I should dive into more. I’ve sort of stayed away from that because I don’t really use a CRM. So being able to evaluate that critically and choose which one is best, I just don’t.
Brian Coords (23:39)
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (23:54)
quite feel like that’s my wheelhouse, but it makes sense that business owners are, they’re interested in the systems and how to make processes easier. My focus is really on how to help them build their online presence. So those, those Lincoln bio tools, e-commerce, websites, email domains. Another thing that I get asked about, haven’t ventured much into is
Social ads, Facebook ads, Google ads. I might expand to that eventually, but to be honest, I’m constantly trying to figure out how long is the leash? How much do I diversify? What’s too broad? How can I bring more people in without fragmenting my audience too much? And I already know it’s fragmented to some degree. I probably would have a more loyal audience if I was a WordPress YouTuber or
Brian Coords (24:30)
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (24:47)
web flow youtuber but I from my own sanity I just don’t want to put myself in one of those boxes
Brian Coords (24:53)
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that like audience loyalty because it seems like you get a lot of like fresh views on things or like you’re in these like, like you said, focus on like all these little tiny niches that are super powerful. But I guess the alternate is people who try to build like, I guess a singular brand and they go every week and they do a three hour podcast on the same topic week after week. And it’s very similar and repetitive kind of like not. And I don’t mean that in a negative way, but it’s like people
start following it, they know what they’re gonna get, they come in every week to watch the next step of that same journey and stuff like that. But it sounds like your approach is just completely different from that.
Christian Taylor (25:30)
Yeah, and I don’t think there’s a right or wrong approach. There’s definitely two paths. I don’t think either is right or wrong. It just depends on your preferences and goals as a creator. One path is what you described. You have a very niche focus, probably more of a loyal community that’s gonna come back and watch every video, but you’re gonna be stuck doing one thing. The other approach, the one that I’ve taken,
is I focus more of my content for search. 97 % of my views are from non-subscribers. So I do have a high, I hate to use the term bounce rate, but people that come in, you know, they search, they click, they watch one video, they get what they need, they’re gone. They probably will watch my channel again over the years. They’re gonna remember my face. They’re gonna remember, yeah, I like that guy’s take on tools. But…
due to the nature of comparison content, helping people in the beginning stages, they’re not gonna come back and watch every single video. For me, that allows me the freedom to explore new tools, kind of move around to my interests within, still within a niche, you know, I can’t get too crazy and start doing yoga videos on my channel or I don’t know, that’s kind of wild, but.
You know, within software, gives me that freedom to kind of move around to one where I see market trends and two, what my current interests are. But I realize I’m not going to have a super loyal core community that’s going to come back and watch every video. I do have a few of those. I’ve got a Discord server and I honestly am surprised sometimes by the loyal viewers that are chatting in Discord. I saw the video this week or it’s like they click every video, which is just crazy to me.
Brian Coords (26:53)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (27:13)
But yeah, it’s definitely two distinct paths. One, I would say the the loyalist audience path is probably better if you want to monetize that community directly through some kind of membership program or selling a product like a course. The other path is probably more ideal for affiliate revenue and YouTube sponsorships. And I think that’s why I’ve gravitated towards that because I’ve
Brian Coords (27:26)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (27:38)
I’ve always seen myself as a YouTuber first rather than a product owner who happens to make YouTube videos to get their product more exposure.
Brian Coords (27:41)
Hmm.
Yeah, I that makes a lot of sense. were talking before we started recording. You were asking like, is this a video podcast? And I was like, I don’t really know what this is. It’s just like an opportunity to like talk to people and stuff. There’s like literally no strategy to it. And the only strategy is like if I make like 20 good personal connections in my life, like that’ll help me because I don’t have anything that I’m selling and I’m not looking for high traffic, but it’s not like it’s.
Christian Taylor (27:56)
You
Brian Coords (28:14)
It’s not because it’s mainly because this isn’t like a thing that’s there to monetize. It’s just a thing that’s like almost like a chance to learn and a chance to kind of just grow as a person professionally and like sharpen my professional skills or something like that. But like, do you is there what is the do you ever look at like interview podcasts on YouTube? Because I’m always shocked that people watch long form interview podcasts on YouTube. Like I it’s hard enough to imagine listening to
you know, a four hour podcast. when I’m driving and I’m doing other things and I’m walking the dog and I can do all this other stuff, but like, there people, do you know what watching long form video YouTube content? And do you ever look at that as something you would do?
Christian Taylor (28:54)
That’s a good question. I honestly, I’m kind of in the same boat as you when I put myself in the shoes of the consumer because I, I don’t often watch podcasts on YouTube. If it’s also available on a podcast app, I’m usually just listening to the audio version. I do feel like it’s worth posting to YouTube though, because the YouTube discovery algorithm is so powerful. I have discovered new podcasts by them.
coming up in my YouTube feed, I tap it, I start watching it. I probably eventually will just add it to my podcast app and switch over to that. But I think purely just from discovery, it’s worth it. Also, I know not many people have YouTube Premium. I have YouTube Premium because I just love YouTube both as a viewer and a creator. So with YouTube Premium, you can lock your screen and the audio continues to play in the background.
So that’s another use case that I’ll do is I see it come up in my feed. Maybe it’s a podcast I know, maybe it’s a new one. I tap it, I start listening. I end up just locking my screen and treating it like any podcast app. So do I think it’s worth posting to YouTube 100 %? Do I think it’s worth posting a video or should you just do like a still frame with the audio? That’s tough.
I, as much as it’s a pain, feel like it is worthwhile to post the video because YouTube really emphasizes watch time. And if, if that means someone even watches for another 60 seconds, just because there was video and they could see your face and the guests face over a static frame, that’s going to make a difference with how much YouTube pushes it in the algorithm. So I don’t, you know, from a, from a consumer perspective,
Brian Coords (30:21)
Hmm.
Christian Taylor (30:39)
Do I really want video? Not really, but I guess I would describe it this way. It’s like there’s a non-zero chance that I will get sucked into a podcast on YouTube if it has video. There is an almost 0 % chance that I’m gonna keep listening if it’s just one of those still frames. I’m gonna be like, this is boring. I’m either gonna bounce and immediately head to the podcast app or I’m just gonna get bored and check out right at the beginning.
And that’s sending the signal to the YouTube algorithm. Hey, this content doesn’t perform. People keep bouncing. Let’s stop showing it to people. You did have a part two to your question, which was, do I see myself getting into long form content? Never say never. I have been interested in starting a podcast for years. I’ve debated it. My creative director has this joke. You know, I keep saying I’m going to start a podcast and then I just never do it. And that’s because
Brian Coords (31:12)
Mm-hmm.
Haha.
Christian Taylor (31:32)
I don’t want to start it until I’m confident that I have the resources to do it for the long run. long run, excuse me. I would want to see that I could do it for at least six months or a year committing to weekly episodes. And until I can reach that place, I don’t want to just start a new project and then abandon it in three weeks. Cause I do have a history of doing that with being overly ambitious, launching something and then.
Brian Coords (31:44)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (31:57)
I just abandon it. So yeah, I want to avoid that, but I would love to get into long form content, especially interviewing guests. I feel like that podcast format has really taken off in the last two or three years. I used to see podcasts as, man, I either have to rope a cohost in and they have to be committed to, or I don’t want to just talk by myself for an hour, but now I’m seeing this sort of new wave of
Everyone has a podcast that’s a little bit dramatic maybe, but a lot of people have podcasts and for some people, I think you and I have talked about this, it’s honestly just an excuse to be able to interview people that you find interesting, which I think is awesome. I would love to do that. I would like to expand to it at some point, just not sure when the right time is.
Brian Coords (32:41)
Yeah.
Yeah, I’m trying to figure out like when I set up this, I really wanted just an audio podcast because that was really the main goal is just the conversation. And then I was like talking to people and it was like, well, now you need to put it on YouTube and then you can like connect your YouTube to your audio podcast. And it like puts a still image there. And then but then I was like, I already have the video. So I’ll upload that. So now my channel has like both and kind of doesn’t make any sense.
Christian Taylor (33:12)
Mm-mm.
Brian Coords (33:14)
And like, think I need to go back and like turn off the other one and figure it out. But like YouTube makes all of it super confusing, but it’s yeah, it is really, it is, I don’t know. It is really cool to get the opportunity to just like sit down, talk to people. There’s definitely situations where I’m like, I would never ask that person to hang out with me on zoom for 30 minutes. But if I have a podcast, then they will say yes. And it’s probably a little imposter syndrome. They probably would just say yes anyway, but it seems to work pretty good.
Christian Taylor (33:20)
Yeah.
Brian Coords (33:42)
I guess like to wrap it up, where, what, I mean, other than just randomly finding you in the YouTube algorithm and stuff, do you like have any sort of a thing you kind of point people to as like a here’s where to follow me or like a producty kind of vibe that’s beyond the video?
Christian Taylor (33:58)
Yeah, just my website at Craylor.com, spelled C-R-A-Y-L-O-R.com. That’ll point you to my YouTube channel, my favorite tools that I recommend, my courses, which are all free, by the way. Also consulting, if that’s something that anyone’s interested in. I can’t talk today. But yeah, just Craylor.com. That’s kind of my hub for everything to find my…
my socials and just all my recommendations.
Brian Coords (34:25)
Dude, awesome. Thank you for hanging out with me today,
Christian Taylor (34:26)
Absolutely, yeah, thanks for the invite.
Brian Coords (34:28)
Catch you later.
Christian Taylor (34:29)
Sounds good.
Welcome to webmasters.fm. Today we got Christian Taylor. Christian, how are you doing today,
Christian Taylor (00:03)
Doing well, how are you?
Brian Coords (00:04)
I am good. I’m excited to talk. I didn’t really know you before, but we got to hang out at Presconf and I feel like I got to know you pretty well. So I’m just excited, excited for you to be here.
Christian Taylor (00:13)
Yeah, excited to be here as well. Thanks for having me.
Brian Coords (00:16)
What’s your kind of like brief bio for people who don’t know you or like what you do in the space?
Christian Taylor (00:21)
Yeah, I’m a content creator, YouTuber with a focus in online tech. cover a lot of SaaS tools for entrepreneurs, small business owners, things like how to build a website, how to get a custom email. Also venturing into some security stuff like comparing password managers and VPNs, just different tools that a small business owner would be researching to increase their online presence.
Brian Coords (00:47)
How did you find that topic niche area?
Christian Taylor (00:50)
That’s a loaded question. So I started my channel 14 years ago doing comedy skits or what I thought were comedy skits. I look back at them now, I’m like, that’s incredibly cringe, but 10 year old me thought that the videos were hilarious that I was making. I quickly became interested in tech. So I started reviewing hardware like iPhones, headphones.
Brian Coords (01:07)
It’s awesome.
Christian Taylor (01:15)
If you know, Marquez Brownlee or minus tech tips, I wanted to be like those creators. So that’s kind of who I modeled stuff after. Uh, meanwhile, while this was going on, I’ve always had a bit of an interest in web design. My dad’s a software developer. He has worked for himself most of his life. Um, I was also homeschooled. So being home, you know, seeing him build stuff with code just kind of sparked that interest for me.
Brian Coords (01:17)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (01:43)
So on the side, was starting to explore WordPress, Wix, different website builders. And as this was happening, I became very curious where the best place was to buy a domain name. Cause I’m like, I keep seeing, you know, there’s GoDaddy and Namecheap and Hover and all these different places and they’re all selling the same thing. So what’s the difference? So I decided to make a comparison video. I thought,
Brian Coords (01:59)
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (02:08)
Nobody’s gonna watch this. Why would someone interested in iPhone reviews watch a video on whether you should use GoDaddy or Namecheap to buy a domain? But I thought, you know, I’m really curious. I’m gonna do this as a passion project. I don’t care how many views it gets. So I remember it was Super Bowl Sunday one day or one year. I’m not a sports fan at all. So my family’s in the living room watching the game and I’m in my room just researching
Brian Coords (02:28)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (02:35)
buying domains that go daddy and name cheap and just kind of dumb with their customer support. how do I connect my domain to my website? I don’t know anything. And just seeing the responses they gave, how easy to use the dashboard was comparing pricing, all that stuff. So I published that video and to my surprise, it ended up being one of the most profitable videos on my channel as far as AdSense.
Brian Coords (02:37)
Uh-huh.
Christian Taylor (03:01)
also did really well with views. So that caused me to kind of take a step back and say, wait a minute, I’m making all these hardware videos, which is expensive. You’re oftentimes buying the products when you’re smaller. I mean, the smartphone companies, they’re not gonna send you a smartphone until you’re a very sizable creator. So if you’re reviewing phones, you’re putting all this money into it. It’s super competitive.
Brian Coords (03:01)
Hmm
Yeah.
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (03:25)
Meanwhile, I have this video over here that’s doing really well with both views and revenue. So I thought about it for, I think it was about two years, just having this identity crisis of being emotionally attached to the hardware content, but realizing, wow, this software content, I think I could build a business on this much easier than this other thing over here. And it was an interest. It always has been an interest for me. So
Brian Coords (03:39)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (03:51)
After thinking about it, I eventually reached a point where I said, okay, I’m ready to pivot. I want to go all in on the web products and tools, see what I can build there. And a year after I made that pivot, I was able to go full time and I’ve been full time for five years now.
Brian Coords (04:04)
dang.
That’s crazy. you, I mean, there’s like a lot there. Did you get into like affiliate links and stuff too with software? Because I have to imagine that’s like gotta be part of the revenue. Like a lot more easily than like, I don’t even think they, do they have iPhone affiliate links? I don’t know, but.
Christian Taylor (04:18)
Yeah.
Yeah,
I mean, it depends on, you you can get like a Best Buy affiliate link or Amazon, but like who’s buying an iPhone from Amazon? That’s kind of sus. So yeah, affiliate links are a huge part of my revenue. They were a larger part of my revenue earlier on when I made that pivot. Ironically enough, I didn’t use affiliate links when I made the domain comparison. I had not really grasped that concept yet. So that increase in revenue was just
Brian Coords (04:28)
Okay.
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (04:50)
from YouTube ads and we can get into why that was in a minute. it, looking back on it, I don’t really regret not using affiliate links because domain names are so cheap and most of those programs give you, I don’t know, 20%. So it’s, know, here’s $2 because they bought a $10 domain. Yay. Like it’s, it’s not that lucrative. But what was a game changer for me is in 2019, this is right before I started going full time.
Brian Coords (05:00)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (05:18)
I made a VPN comparison video and that’s when I really got into affiliate links and thought, you know what, I should sign up for every affiliate program for each product I talk about in the video. Even the ones that I flat out say, this is not good, don’t buy it. Because I’m still giving a brand impression, even if it’s bad, on that video. Some people say there’s no such thing as bad press. I don’t know, we could debate that. But.
Brian Coords (05:27)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (05:42)
You know, if the person watches the comparison and they buy the one that I don’t recommend and they they clicked my link and they still bought it. I feel like that’s I’m still justified in receiving a commission for that. So I signed up for all the affiliate programs, put that video out in twenty nineteen. I forgot about it. Like I forgot that I signed up for the programs. And then I remember. I think it was two months later.
because there’s a time period for the commissions to lock in case people ask for refunds or charge backs and all that. But I got the first payout two months later and I thought it was a scam. I got a PayPal email. This company sent you a payout for, I want to say it was like five grand. And I’m just like, what the? This has to be fake. This is a scam email. Log into my PayPal account. Sure enough, the money is there.
Brian Coords (06:10)
Yeah.
jeez.
Christian Taylor (06:33)
I wasn’t checking performance at all on any of the affiliate dashboards. So I went and logged in and I’m like, my gosh, this video is printing conversions. And that was a pivotal moment that allowed me to go full time once I just started repeating that format, signing up for every affiliate program that I could. And yeah, the rest is history.
Brian Coords (06:42)
Yeah.
Dang, how much of what you do is WordPress specific and how much of it is like, obviously domains kind of applies to everybody, other things, but was there a point where you specifically targeted WordPress things or is it more just web development and if WordPress comes up, then so be it?
Christian Taylor (07:02)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, at this point I would say it’s probably 40 to 50 % WordPress. I’ve been clear from the beginning that I do not want to be a WordPress channel. I got more involved in the community from a partnership that I had with Cloudways a few years ago. My contact there, he’s no longer with Cloudways, but…
He just kept reaching out and bugging me saying, hey, are you gonna be at affiliate summit? Are you gonna be at WordCamp? And that’s before I knew any of these events existed. at the time, I didn’t see the value in going to those events. I was like, I’m gonna be out thousands of dollars for what? Just to say hi to people? What’s the point? Teenage me didn’t grasp the concept and the value of networking.
Brian Coords (07:36)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (07:55)
But eventually I got tired of the people at Cloudways bugging me. So I went to Affiliate Summit first and then they convinced me to go to WordCamp US when it was in San Diego. And that really is what got me more into WordPress, just making those in-person connections, being asked to collaborate in the space. so it’s, guess I’ve just, I’ve kind of ended up
Brian Coords (08:06)
yeah.
Christian Taylor (08:20)
where the relationships are, but I would still say WordPress is 40 to 50 % of my channel. I don’t see it ever being more than 50 % because I do want to make sure I’m diversified and I’m not all in on the WordPress basket or any one product category or software, because things change rapidly with tech.
Brian Coords (08:33)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. And WordPress is kind of unique, like in that sense that you go and all of a sudden it’s like an insider’s club and everybody knows each other. And it’s really good for like, as in networking, meeting people, finding ways to like partner on things and stuff. But it is, it is a bit of a bubble, you know, like you it’s, it’s a lot of the same faces and stuff like that. do you, do you feel like WordPress? Cause like there’s people that do like WordPress like
Christian Taylor (08:55)
Yes. Yeah.
Brian Coords (09:03)
content, like news about WordPress, or covering releases, or that sort of stuff. But when you do something that’s about WordPress, what’s your angle on what you’re making?
Christian Taylor (09:14)
I try to focus more on beginners making WordPress accessible to the average user. I would say, you another distinction between my channel and a WordPress channel is I’m not really interested in covering the news. I did cover a little bit of the drama that’s happened recently, but I mean that like even mainstream outlets were covering that. So that’s kind of why I pulled that in to my content. But I don’t…
Brian Coords (09:34)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Christian Taylor (09:39)
I don’t really want to portray my content as like a WordPress channel. I’m not a WordPress expert. It’s more, Hey, here’s how you could build a web project. By the way, we’re using WordPress to do this.
Brian Coords (09:52)
Mm-hmm. And you’ve done, didn’t you do a course on like WooCommerce recently?
Christian Taylor (09:56)
I did, yeah.
Yeah, I did one with WooCommerce and the cadence theme. That was a partnership with WPNGEN. I’ve done another one with cadence, just building a general WordPress site as well. So I do have those resources. I try to make it accessible to beginners, but yeah, I just, not gonna be that channel that’s like WordPress 6.8, let’s do a rundown video on everything that’s new.
Brian Coords (10:18)
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (10:19)
wonderful creators out there to make that type of content.
Brian Coords (10:23)
Do you track the traffic of WordPress content versus other content to make sure you’re always hitting, obviously the point is you want people to watch it, you want stuff that resonates. So do you track that and see, yeah, there is interest in these sorts of things?
Christian Taylor (10:38)
Yeah, know, strangely enough WordPress might be the least popular topic on my channel. So the, the main reason that I cover it as much as I do is one, it is a passion for me. I enjoy it, but two, from a business model perspective, it’s been the most profitable with both affiliate programs and sponsorships. It’s, I find the more niche content is it.
usually attracts a higher value audience, but a smaller audience. So it’s like this back and forth. One of the most successful series that I have on my channel is browser comparisons, web browsers, know, Chrome versus Brave, or all the variations you could think of. Those things print views. They often will get a hundred thousand views or more per video, but they’re almost worthless from a revenue perspective. They don’t do well with ad revenue.
There’s no potential for affiliate conversions. Sure. I can get sponsors on that, but even then it’s harder to sell those sponsors because they’re thinking, well, this is just a generic audience. Like this is not like a niche value audience that we really want to get in front of. So the amount that they’re willing to pay, even with triple the views is lower. So for me, it’s been this, this delicate balancing act of.
covering WordPress enough to give people practical help and also monetize on it from a business sense, but also make the other content that gets better views, maybe gross the audience more, but it’s not really driving revenue.
Brian Coords (12:01)
Hmm.
Okay, yeah, and like, all of the sort of like business stuff that goes underneath, like, you know, people like, I like to make stuff on YouTube, but like, I don’t, it’s not like a business for me. It’s just like a side thing that I don’t put a tiny, like I put a tiny amount of attention into it. But like, yours is like a business, you’re profitable, you’re making money. How did you, like, did you have to teach yourself like the actual business of it and like, how to act, you know, how to be profitable, how to like…
manage the money, how to know to even go for like sponsorships, affiliates, ads, like all the different things. Like, did you just teach yourself everything?
Christian Taylor (12:42)
Yeah, I’m mostly self-taught. It has been a long process over the years. Early on, I was focused on learning how to make the videos, and that was all self-taught, watching creators who inspired me, who I look up to, trying to copy their camera presence, editing style, the format of their videos, learning storytelling. So earlier on, I went through a course on storytelling, YouTube best practices. It wasn’t focused on revenue.
was strictly just how to make better videos that are more engaging. Later, when I pivoted to full-time, I would say that was honestly by chance. I didn’t know what I was doing from a revenue standpoint. I just signed up for some affiliate programs. So a lot of, probably two years after that VPN comparison video blew up, I was going through this identity crisis of…
how do I monetize this consistently? I feel like I won the lottery. I keep trying to make part two, part three, round four, replicating the same thing over again. And it worked a little bit to an extent, but then it started to die out. And that’s when I really focused in the last two years on learning how to pitch to sponsors, becoming a better salesperson, learning how to optimize content for conversions.
And so it’s kind of been a mishmash, I guess, of being self-taught, taking courses, learning from other creators. There’s not like a YouTube university. I mean, there probably is these days with how popular it is, but not when I started.
Brian Coords (14:13)
Yeah.
Yeah, and like, there’s been this trend, like over the last maybe like two years of popular YouTubers hitting like a burnout phase where it’s like a content treadmill and stuff like that. Do you ever feel that or do you feel like you have like a good balance and you can keep it like any job? You hit a point for the job where you’re just like, now it’s work. Like it was fun, now it’s work. And that’s just like a normal part of life. But like, how do you handle just the churn of videos and like the constant work that goes into it?
Christian Taylor (14:43)
That’s a great question. A big step for me that I took was hiring out the editing. I did start to reach a phase of burnout because I was on this weekly cycle of Monday, I would respond to emails and have some meetings. guess context, I have had a creative director for a while who would help with ideation, reviewing scripts, he does all my thumbnails. So.
That was probably step one was bringing him in so I wasn’t an echo chamber and just beating my head against the desk. Is this a good idea or not? Because that’s one of my big struggles. I think probably a lot of business owners struggle with that is you can get excited about just about any idea, but is it actually objectively good or are you just in your own head like, yeah, this is amazing. So bringing him in, that was a good first step, but it wasn’t.
really alleviating burnout. It was more bringing in a consultant who can make things better. So step two was hiring out the editing because I realized I was stuck in this cycle of Mondays I would meet with him, respond to emails, Tuesdays I would script the video, Wednesdays we would shoot, Thursday, Friday would be a mix of editing and responding to emails. Sometimes that would spill over into Saturday and then the cycle repeats.
Brian Coords (15:39)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (16:00)
So every week it was just that grind of feeling like I couldn’t expand my business into other mediums or even travel to events because, know, man, who’s gonna edit the video this week if I’m gone at a conference? And I did start to feel that burnout of just, I can’t do this anymore. I’ve gotta change it up or I’m gonna crash. So that was a great step, hiring that out. I do sometimes feel burnout.
Brian Coords (16:13)
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (16:27)
with the type of content I make, but as long as I’m mindful of that and intentional to bring in new ideas that I’m excited about, that’s important and that, I guess, alleviates the, it keeps me excited and passionate about it. So I know if I’m starting to reach that point, it probably means that I’ve been accepting too many sponsors, maybe in one category.
because it’s really common in the software space, companies want you to make a dedicated video about their product. So there’s only so many web hosts that I can partner with and say, I’m gonna show you how to install WordPress in this hosting dashboard. The content’s helpful to a point, but if that’s all I do, I’m gonna start to get burned out. So it is, again, that balancing act of what’s making money and how do I monetize, but also there are times that I have to say,
Brian Coords (16:51)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (17:19)
I’ve got to try something different that I can’t monetize yet for my own sanity as a creator. And as long as I have enough of that in the mix, I find that things are interesting. I’m always inspired and I’m not facing burnout.
Brian Coords (17:32)
Do you ever look at like other sort of alternatives to WordPress, like a web flow or Shopify or whatever these other sort of platforms, do you make content for other things that are like that far removed from WordPress or is that a different audience?
Christian Taylor (17:45)
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve right now I’ve got a partnership with Wix Studio. I’ve done content on Webflow before. Not a ton of tutorials, more so comparisons, but that’s that’s kind of my bread and butter on my channel in general. But yeah, I don’t have any ties to WordPress other than I like I like the ecosystem and I like the mission of open source. But I am honest with people that WordPress is complicated.
Brian Coords (17:58)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (18:11)
It’s got a steep learning curve. And for some people, Webflow, Wix Studio, Squarespace, even just the normal Wix, it might be a better fit. know that’s, I’m probably gonna get a lot of friction saying that in the WordPress community. But, you know, again, I don’t claim to be a WordPress YouTuber. I try to just have that higher picture view of let’s make some web projects and there’s many tools that we could use to accomplish that.
Brian Coords (18:37)
Yeah, I talked about this with Katie Heath on a previous episode a little bit about like how you, people that like came up in WordPress and like that’s all they know will often want to help out their friends by giving them, helping them set up a WordPress website or whatever. And there’s so many situations where you’re like, it bites you, they hate it, it’s too confusing. They didn’t want to learn a new thing or be technical. It’s just not what they’re interested in and they would have been happier with Squarespace or.
Christian Taylor (18:56)
Yeah.
Brian Coords (19:04)
whatever the one that hits their topic the most. it’s like, yeah, there are people who are like, we’re gonna use WordPress for everything and I’m gonna build everything on top of it. it’s like, think hopefully that trend is passing. Hopefully people are realizing like, no, it can just be good at one thing. It doesn’t have to be good. You can’t try to make it good for everything.
Christian Taylor (19:13)
Right.
Yeah, yeah, I love that. mean, like, I still use Lincoln BioApps. And some people are like, why are you doing that? Don’t you know you can install a WordPress plugin or you can just build in an Elementor? I’m like, yes, and I’m capable of doing that, but I don’t want to. Like, there’s some things that are just better served by other apps.
Brian Coords (19:42)
Have you dug into page builders? Like do you do content specifically on like Elementor you mentioned or anything like that?
Christian Taylor (19:48)
Not, not super hardcore. I’m a bit page builder agnostic. I used to use WP bakery. I know, I know we can all shiver, but I have a, I’ve moved on to other options. Now I’m right now I bounce between elementary and the blocks editor with cadence. the series that I’m doing with Mark Samansky overhauling my website, he’s teaching me bricks. So I am open to many page editors.
Brian Coords (20:11)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (20:15)
I haven’t done a lot of comparison content there because I found that it doesn’t really perform well. I think that’s because
WordPress beginners don’t really care about the page editor. They’ll use anything. They just want to be coached through how to build their website. The people that have opinions on page editors, they’re past the point of watching a comparison video. They already have deep thoughts on, it’s almost like, it’s almost a little cultish, I feel like, with the page builders. Like some people are deeply passionate about the page builder that they use and
Brian Coords (20:30)
Yeah.
OK, yeah.
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (20:50)
They don’t care about comparison content. They’ve already made up their mind on what they
Brian Coords (20:54)
Yeah, yeah, how is, yeah, it’s definitely true that people get into these weird, it’s like sports teams, but with page builders and it’s definitely an interesting thing. I mean, I understand, like if you’re churning out, you know, 20 sites a month or something and you know, then yeah, your tools are a lot more important. If you’re like the business owner who just needs something online, like there’s probably not gonna be a huge difference, but I have to imagine between
Christian Taylor (21:01)
Yes, yeah, that’s a great way to put it.
Brian Coords (21:21)
Like Cadence and Elementor seem very similar to me. I don’t have like a ton of experience with any of them, but they seem a bit similar in like who they’re trying to build for. But then like Bricks to me seems like I would assume is not in the same league. Like does Bricks feel close to Elementor when you’re using it or is it a totally different tool?
Christian Taylor (21:39)
Yeah, I mean, the jury’s still out. I’m at the very beginning stages of exploring bricks, but so far, first impressions, I don’t think it’s as big of a difference as people have portrayed it to be. I’m not talking from a sense of power and what you can accomplish, but more the learning curve. I think part of that could be I may be more of an advanced user than I give myself credit for because
I don’t know PHP, I don’t know JavaScript, but I did start from a young age building static HTML sites, mostly templates, but I know what a div is, I know what a span is, I know CSS pretty well. So looking at a page builder like Bricks, it doesn’t really seem that different from Elementor. I’m like, okay, you’ve got your elements, you’ve got your page structure, you can edit padding, margin, Z index, all the things.
Brian Coords (22:11)
Mm.
Christian Taylor (22:28)
I haven’t quite understood why people say, yeah, Bricks is really advanced and then Elementor is more beginner. I think it’s, I don’t know, maybe because of those limitations that Elementor has. But like I said, I’m still in the early stages. You could ask me next week and I could say, Bricks is, it’s so hard. I don’t understand it, but it’s so far so good.
Brian Coords (22:51)
Yeah. I also think a lot of that stuff comes from marketing and it’s a lot of the people who are pitching a specific one are generally selling a course about it, or they’re selling an add-on for it that only works for that one. So it makes sense that if you’re selling bricks add-ons, you’re going to, you know, talk crap on Elementor and say how it’s not good enough. like I understand that, but like it, it’s probably closer than you think, you know, for a lot of these tools. Yeah.
What other sort of like places do business like if you’re like a business owner and you’re watching comparison videos and your type of content and stuff, like what are the things that you feel like they’re looking for? Like what are the other areas that you dig into?
Christian Taylor (23:30)
Lot of obviously domains, custom emails, that’s another vertical. Email marketing, get asked about CRMs a fair bit. So that might be content that I should dive into more. I’ve sort of stayed away from that because I don’t really use a CRM. So being able to evaluate that critically and choose which one is best, I just don’t.
Brian Coords (23:39)
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (23:54)
quite feel like that’s my wheelhouse, but it makes sense that business owners are, they’re interested in the systems and how to make processes easier. My focus is really on how to help them build their online presence. So those, those Lincoln bio tools, e-commerce, websites, email domains. Another thing that I get asked about, haven’t ventured much into is
Social ads, Facebook ads, Google ads. I might expand to that eventually, but to be honest, I’m constantly trying to figure out how long is the leash? How much do I diversify? What’s too broad? How can I bring more people in without fragmenting my audience too much? And I already know it’s fragmented to some degree. I probably would have a more loyal audience if I was a WordPress YouTuber or
Brian Coords (24:30)
Yeah.
Christian Taylor (24:47)
web flow youtuber but I from my own sanity I just don’t want to put myself in one of those boxes
Brian Coords (24:53)
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that like audience loyalty because it seems like you get a lot of like fresh views on things or like you’re in these like, like you said, focus on like all these little tiny niches that are super powerful. But I guess the alternate is people who try to build like, I guess a singular brand and they go every week and they do a three hour podcast on the same topic week after week. And it’s very similar and repetitive kind of like not. And I don’t mean that in a negative way, but it’s like people
start following it, they know what they’re gonna get, they come in every week to watch the next step of that same journey and stuff like that. But it sounds like your approach is just completely different from that.
Christian Taylor (25:30)
Yeah, and I don’t think there’s a right or wrong approach. There’s definitely two paths. I don’t think either is right or wrong. It just depends on your preferences and goals as a creator. One path is what you described. You have a very niche focus, probably more of a loyal community that’s gonna come back and watch every video, but you’re gonna be stuck doing one thing. The other approach, the one that I’ve taken,
is I focus more of my content for search. 97 % of my views are from non-subscribers. So I do have a high, I hate to use the term bounce rate, but people that come in, you know, they search, they click, they watch one video, they get what they need, they’re gone. They probably will watch my channel again over the years. They’re gonna remember my face. They’re gonna remember, yeah, I like that guy’s take on tools. But…
due to the nature of comparison content, helping people in the beginning stages, they’re not gonna come back and watch every single video. For me, that allows me the freedom to explore new tools, kind of move around to my interests within, still within a niche, you know, I can’t get too crazy and start doing yoga videos on my channel or I don’t know, that’s kind of wild, but.
You know, within software, gives me that freedom to kind of move around to one where I see market trends and two, what my current interests are. But I realize I’m not going to have a super loyal core community that’s going to come back and watch every video. I do have a few of those. I’ve got a Discord server and I honestly am surprised sometimes by the loyal viewers that are chatting in Discord. I saw the video this week or it’s like they click every video, which is just crazy to me.
Brian Coords (26:53)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (27:13)
But yeah, it’s definitely two distinct paths. One, I would say the the loyalist audience path is probably better if you want to monetize that community directly through some kind of membership program or selling a product like a course. The other path is probably more ideal for affiliate revenue and YouTube sponsorships. And I think that’s why I’ve gravitated towards that because I’ve
Brian Coords (27:26)
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (27:38)
I’ve always seen myself as a YouTuber first rather than a product owner who happens to make YouTube videos to get their product more exposure.
Brian Coords (27:41)
Hmm.
Yeah, I that makes a lot of sense. were talking before we started recording. You were asking like, is this a video podcast? And I was like, I don’t really know what this is. It’s just like an opportunity to like talk to people and stuff. There’s like literally no strategy to it. And the only strategy is like if I make like 20 good personal connections in my life, like that’ll help me because I don’t have anything that I’m selling and I’m not looking for high traffic, but it’s not like it’s.
Christian Taylor (27:56)
You
Brian Coords (28:14)
It’s not because it’s mainly because this isn’t like a thing that’s there to monetize. It’s just a thing that’s like almost like a chance to learn and a chance to kind of just grow as a person professionally and like sharpen my professional skills or something like that. But like, do you is there what is the do you ever look at like interview podcasts on YouTube? Because I’m always shocked that people watch long form interview podcasts on YouTube. Like I it’s hard enough to imagine listening to
you know, a four hour podcast. when I’m driving and I’m doing other things and I’m walking the dog and I can do all this other stuff, but like, there people, do you know what watching long form video YouTube content? And do you ever look at that as something you would do?
Christian Taylor (28:54)
That’s a good question. I honestly, I’m kind of in the same boat as you when I put myself in the shoes of the consumer because I, I don’t often watch podcasts on YouTube. If it’s also available on a podcast app, I’m usually just listening to the audio version. I do feel like it’s worth posting to YouTube though, because the YouTube discovery algorithm is so powerful. I have discovered new podcasts by them.
coming up in my YouTube feed, I tap it, I start watching it. I probably eventually will just add it to my podcast app and switch over to that. But I think purely just from discovery, it’s worth it. Also, I know not many people have YouTube Premium. I have YouTube Premium because I just love YouTube both as a viewer and a creator. So with YouTube Premium, you can lock your screen and the audio continues to play in the background.
So that’s another use case that I’ll do is I see it come up in my feed. Maybe it’s a podcast I know, maybe it’s a new one. I tap it, I start listening. I end up just locking my screen and treating it like any podcast app. So do I think it’s worth posting to YouTube 100 %? Do I think it’s worth posting a video or should you just do like a still frame with the audio? That’s tough.
I, as much as it’s a pain, feel like it is worthwhile to post the video because YouTube really emphasizes watch time. And if, if that means someone even watches for another 60 seconds, just because there was video and they could see your face and the guests face over a static frame, that’s going to make a difference with how much YouTube pushes it in the algorithm. So I don’t, you know, from a, from a consumer perspective,
Brian Coords (30:21)
Hmm.
Christian Taylor (30:39)
Do I really want video? Not really, but I guess I would describe it this way. It’s like there’s a non-zero chance that I will get sucked into a podcast on YouTube if it has video. There is an almost 0 % chance that I’m gonna keep listening if it’s just one of those still frames. I’m gonna be like, this is boring. I’m either gonna bounce and immediately head to the podcast app or I’m just gonna get bored and check out right at the beginning.
And that’s sending the signal to the YouTube algorithm. Hey, this content doesn’t perform. People keep bouncing. Let’s stop showing it to people. You did have a part two to your question, which was, do I see myself getting into long form content? Never say never. I have been interested in starting a podcast for years. I’ve debated it. My creative director has this joke. You know, I keep saying I’m going to start a podcast and then I just never do it. And that’s because
Brian Coords (31:12)
Mm-hmm.
Haha.
Christian Taylor (31:32)
I don’t want to start it until I’m confident that I have the resources to do it for the long run. long run, excuse me. I would want to see that I could do it for at least six months or a year committing to weekly episodes. And until I can reach that place, I don’t want to just start a new project and then abandon it in three weeks. Cause I do have a history of doing that with being overly ambitious, launching something and then.
Brian Coords (31:44)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Christian Taylor (31:57)
I just abandon it. So yeah, I want to avoid that, but I would love to get into long form content, especially interviewing guests. I feel like that podcast format has really taken off in the last two or three years. I used to see podcasts as, man, I either have to rope a cohost in and they have to be committed to, or I don’t want to just talk by myself for an hour, but now I’m seeing this sort of new wave of
Everyone has a podcast that’s a little bit dramatic maybe, but a lot of people have podcasts and for some people, I think you and I have talked about this, it’s honestly just an excuse to be able to interview people that you find interesting, which I think is awesome. I would love to do that. I would like to expand to it at some point, just not sure when the right time is.
Brian Coords (32:41)
Yeah.
Yeah, I’m trying to figure out like when I set up this, I really wanted just an audio podcast because that was really the main goal is just the conversation. And then I was like talking to people and it was like, well, now you need to put it on YouTube and then you can like connect your YouTube to your audio podcast. And it like puts a still image there. And then but then I was like, I already have the video. So I’ll upload that. So now my channel has like both and kind of doesn’t make any sense.
Christian Taylor (33:12)
Mm-mm.
Brian Coords (33:14)
And like, think I need to go back and like turn off the other one and figure it out. But like YouTube makes all of it super confusing, but it’s yeah, it is really, it is, I don’t know. It is really cool to get the opportunity to just like sit down, talk to people. There’s definitely situations where I’m like, I would never ask that person to hang out with me on zoom for 30 minutes. But if I have a podcast, then they will say yes. And it’s probably a little imposter syndrome. They probably would just say yes anyway, but it seems to work pretty good.
Christian Taylor (33:20)
Yeah.
Brian Coords (33:42)
I guess like to wrap it up, where, what, I mean, other than just randomly finding you in the YouTube algorithm and stuff, do you like have any sort of a thing you kind of point people to as like a here’s where to follow me or like a producty kind of vibe that’s beyond the video?
Christian Taylor (33:58)
Yeah, just my website at Craylor.com, spelled C-R-A-Y-L-O-R.com. That’ll point you to my YouTube channel, my favorite tools that I recommend, my courses, which are all free, by the way. Also consulting, if that’s something that anyone’s interested in. I can’t talk today. But yeah, just Craylor.com. That’s kind of my hub for everything to find my…
my socials and just all my recommendations.
Brian Coords (34:25)
Dude, awesome. Thank you for hanging out with me today,
Christian Taylor (34:26)
Absolutely, yeah, thanks for the invite.
Brian Coords (34:28)
Catch you later.
Christian Taylor (34:29)
Sounds good.