If your pads are lifting, you’re overheating the board.

A couple of tips that can help a lot.

Don’t underestimate the importance of flux. Cheap boards often have a lot of crap on the copper. Flux burns this off, allowing for quicker, better joints. Most solders have flux in them, some more than others. Beyond that, you can also buy rosin flux very cheaply. It’s amazing for cleaning up particularly bad, or sensitive, components.

Have confidence when heating. Most newbies tend to ‘dab’. They are scared to overheat the component or board, and so try to add a little heat at a time. This is actually FAR worse for heat. The heat spreads out into the components and glue, causing problems. Instead, you apply heat once. The iron stays in place until the joint forms. If you back off, you need to wait a few minutes until everything is completely cool to the touch. No tap-tap-taping.

The last point of note is to check your lighting. Most beginners struggle to actually see what they are doing. In low light, our pupils open up, to allow more in. This reduces our depth of field, and makes it harder to focus clearly. You want daylight levels of light on your workpiece. There are several apps that let you measure light levels. You might be shocked at how low it is. Multiple directional lights are the best option. You want it focused to maximise brightness, but multi source to avoid harsh shadows.

You might have figured out most of these, but hopefully, some of it will be of help.