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Do you like cooking? Would you like to start your own YouTube Channel for cooking? This can be both a lot of fun and make you money. You can do this as a side hustle – or you might even start making enough money to make this your main source of income!
But first, you need to get started.
Decide Your Channel’s Perspective & Brand Name
Ever notice how cooking shows often have unique perspectives? YouTube channels are often no different. You can definitely just have a broad cooking YouTube cooking channel. But you might want to also get more specific. You could focus on a specific cuisine, like Japanese, Indian, Italian, French, Chinese, Mexican, etc. Or you could get even more specific, like St. Louis cuisine, Louisiana Creole, New Mexican, Normandy, Viennese, Mongolian, Veracruz, etc. You can also focus on a specific diet. This could be Keto, Mediterranean, Vegan, Paleo, Atkins, South Beach, etc. Or you could just focus on healthy food and foods that will help lead to weight loss in general. You could even focus on beginners or advanced cooks.
Your theme could also focus more on you as a person. If you are a mom, you could focus on meals the whole family will like. Are you an athlete? You could focus on meals that would help your athletic performance. Just got married? Focus on meals for newlyweds! The list can go on and on.
Once you know your perspective, you can figure out your brand name, too. It should in some way reflect your perspective. After all, if your focus is say Keto Diet recipes but your channel name is just your own name, how will people looking for Keto recipes easily find you?
Set Up Your Business
If you don’t have any interest in doing this as to make money, you can just skip this step. But if you want to make money from your YouTube Channel, then you will need to register as a business. Check out your local or state business laws to figure out how to do that, because laws vary depending on where you live. We recommend setting up a LLC, too; we go over details about setting up an LLC here.
Start Making Videos
Your YouTube channel isn’t anything without your videos, right? So you need to start making videos! You can use your phone but if you want even higher quality videos (without having to break the bank), you can consider getting a camera from this list of affordable cameras.
Once you film your videos, you may need to do some editing. Click here to get great, affordable editing software that is easy to use for beginners.
And then you are ready to start your Channel and start uploading videos!
Start a Website
If you have a YouTube channel, people can just find your YouTube channel through searches on YouTube or search engines like Google. But why would you want to stop there?
If you have a website about your YouTube channel, you’ve opened up yourself to a lot more audience sources. Your website could come up higher than your YouTube Channel on Google and other search engines.
You can also use your website to write a lot of content that people could find in searches. By using “search engine optimization” (or SEO) techniques, you can get your website to come up higher. We tell you about some SEO tools here.
You can use your website to post recipes or talk about your thoughts on cooking. You can use your website to do affiliate marketing which can earn you a lot more money; we talk more about that here. There are a lot of different ways you can go about it, and they can all help your brand, your YouTube Channel, and ultimately can help you earn money.
Advertise Online
You can use your website to drive traffic to your Channel. But you can also use advertising to draw traffic to your channel, too. I am talking about paid search engine advertising. That is a quick way to show up at the top of search engines.
Google ads can be great exposure, though they are quite expensive. That’s why I recommend Bing searches. Not as many people use Bing as Google. But people still do use Bing and it is way cheaper to use it. Because of this, I have made way more money off of my Bing ads than my Google ads. Especially because if you click here, you can sign up for a new account and get $100 free in advertising after you spend $25!
Get Social Media Accounts
In addition to having a website and a YouTube Channel, you should also have social media accounts for your YouTube Channel. This is another great way for people to find your channel. You can post pictures of your foods and short clips on social media accounts like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Conclusion
Having a YouTube Cooking Channel can be fun, fulfilling, and profitable. Just stick to this guide and you could have a successful one very soon!
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