How to Make Money on Youtube

How to Make Money on Youtube

The power of Youtube. Youtube is the second largest and most used search engine in the world behind Google. The number of Youtube users is astounding making up something like nearly 3/4 of the world. The average watch time per person in the USA today is something like 45 minutes. Youtube is a powerful tool for gaining and audience, driving traffic, and making money. In this post we are going to be discussing a few ways you can make money off of Youtube.

Not every method is going to be strictly about content creation and being paid by Adsense or an ad network, many of these methods are going to require some outside methods such as selling a product, driving traffic to a blog of yours, or even driving traffic through an affiliate link to someone else's product.

This blog post is going to focus on the actual ways of monetization more so than actual tips on how to be a successful Youtuber, we'll save that for another post. One last thing I'll mention. In some ways it's surprising how quickly you can get traffic and even gain a following on Youtube. I've managed to rank longtail keywords in competitive niches on Youtube in literally a matter of day which is actually much better than I do with website or blog SEO which I struggle with, so that goes to show you the power of Youtube.

At the same time however it can also be difficult to make money on Youtube in the sense Youtube seems to reward longtime Youtube users and somewhat shun fly by night operations creating massive amounts of channels with a video or two trying to make a quick viral video score.

Let's get into this. Here is how you make money on Youtube...

Monetize Your Youtube Videos

This is probably the most straightforward way to making money on Youtube, it doesn't require any links to other sites, it doesn't require you make a digital product to sell or even buy inventory of a physical product to sell. It's simply creating content and being paid as people watch that content.

Some niches are more profitable than others. First off some niches have more viewers than others and monetizing Youtube videos is all about traffic, watch time, and engagement. Some niches are also more profitable in terms of the advertisers your channel will draw. For example ads about insurance, debt, and health typically pay a lot of money per click, however are also very competitive. Ads for a new video game or viral type website are going to pay much lower. This isn't to say however you should go targeting high paying keywords for a couple reasons. First off the competition is really high, and secondly, do you really want to be making daily videos about auto insurance or mesothelioma? Probably not.

It will take a while to grow a following and grow your traffic to the point any real money comes in. I've been plugging away at Youtube for years. For the first few years it was frustrating trying to make good content and having 11 views on a video I spent a lot of time making. I stuck with it and at some point hit a tipping point where people actually started leaving comments and engaging with me through my Youtube videos. This felt really good to know people were watching and getting value out of the content I was producing and this really kept me motivated to keep trucking along.

It took several years for me to hit that point and probably within the past few months my Youtube earnings have finally hit a point where I have $100 or more per week in revenue comming in. Hardly enough to support myself or quit my job but a pretty respectable payday for a Youtuber like myself who hasn't really produced any "viral videos" and who isn't a Youtube star or celebrity.

In my mind your Youtube money making strategy shouldn't focus on one thing ie affiliate advertising, direct Youtube monetization, or selling a product, you should be making money a few different ways. This way even if revenues are low you have 3-4 revenue streams comming in off your Youtube Channel.

Selling Your Own Product

Because Youtube is such a powerful way of gaining and maintaining an audience, and because Youtube ranks so well on Google, it makes an ideal place to sell. Now many of you may be thinking well I don't have a product to sell. Well create one or buy one.

If you have a Youtube Channel about baseball cards don't go trying to sell your audience cookware, keep it targeted and focused and don't get overly promotional. That said you have an audience who values your opinion and may take action and buy items you recommend. Don't blow this opportunity by recommending crap just to make a quick buck as your audience will never trust you again. I only advertise products which I use myself and which I find value in. I'm getting more into the realm of affiliate marketing but let's get back onto products.

Some examples of products you could sell could be a digital product. For example if you're a card breaker, you could put out a guide showing others how to get into card breaking. For those of you who don't know card breaking is a relatively new phenomenon in the sports card collecting world and even Pokemon and those types of cards. How it works is people buy boxes or cases of high value cards. They then, through live streaming sites like Breakers.TV for example, hold somewhat of a chance auction where bidders pay for a specific team. Once every team has been selected and paid for they open the cards and viewers watch to see what cards they draw. The attraction is a buyer can spend as little as $1 on a team, yet draw some special edition card worth over $1,000. Many people in the card collecting world are curious how to get strated doing this themselves so you could put together a guide telling others who the distributors or suppliers of cards are and how to get wholesale accounts with them. You can teach people how to build an audience and a following for their breaks. You can explain and educate them on how to take payment, how to keep organized, how to package cards, etc. Creating a digital product would simply involve sitting down one time and spending a few hours comming up with some informational documents and possibly videos sharing your expertise with others. Then selling this program either by accepting Paypal or setting up a Gumroad account and linking to it in Youtube videos where people can purchase the program. That is a pretty simple and straightforward way to create and sell a digital product on Youtube.

You can also sell physical products as well. They could be crafts you make yourself, if your an artists you could sell your artwork, or you can even buy products to sell. For example if there's a product you enjoy that your audience may enjoy buy it in wholesale quantities and re-sell it to your audience. This would be ideal for someone who has an audience who regularly asks them where they got a specific shirt or product or anything else. THey are asking because they want one, so rather than just giving them a link and steering them to someone else who can sell it to them, why not sell it to them yourself?

Drive Your Youtube Traffic To Your Blog

With Youtube your only means of monetizing is video pre-rolls and overlays. You are pretty much limited to Adsense or whatever ad network your with and you don't really have a lot of control over what ads play, or how often they play. On your own blog however you have complete and total control over what you advertise. If you prefer to run Ali Express affiliate links or Amazon Associate links or a Terapeak or Shopify Affiliate program you can totally do that.

By driving your Youtube traffic to your own blog you have more control on what advertisements you present to your audience. If your website or blog keeps them engaged you have just driven your Youtube audience to another monetization platform of yours. Another great thing about this is many people who would probably never stumble upon your blog or site on their own, will do so because Youtube steered them to your video as one they may potentially like, which in turn steered them to your blog.

Make Money With Affiliate Links On Youtube

Now let me first say don't overdo it. People like your channel because of your content and many people don't like to be sold or advertised "at".

Another thing I would caution, be very careful about what you present to your audience. If you recommend a product or program that is pure crap, your audience will not only lose respect for you, they will no longer value your opinion. For example, if someone came to me wanting me to promote some type of money making software to my audience, I would try it out and make sure I like it, make sure it's user friendly, make sure it's appropriately priced. If it's something I would pay for and use myself I would gladly share it with my audience. If it's not something I enjoy or something that works, I would not share that with my audience regardless of how much money I could make in affiliate commissions or for the ad spot.

Just to give you an example of advertising I like. I'm a huge fan of Terapeak. Terapeak is a tool which allows you to pull eBay sales stats. It's very valuable to eBay sellers, eBay Partner Affiliates and really anyone in the e-commerce space. It allows you to know the best keywords to use in your listings, what your buyers are searching for, the time of day and day of the week your buyers are making purchases, and who your top 20 competitors are as well as how much they are selling. It really is a fabulous tool.

This is something I have been using and paying for myself for 3-4 years. When I found out recently they had an affiliate program it seemed like a perfect fit for me. It's a product I love and use, and it's something I know my audience would find value in. I signed up for the affiliate program and if any of my viewers sign up after clicking my links I get something like $5 for their signup. The program is a very natural fit for me. Even before being a partner I was making how to Terapeak videos showing how to find products. My viewers would naturally ask me what software or program are you using to pull that data. I can tell them it's Terapeak and share a link with them which if they sign up not only gets them a 7 day free trial but gets me a commission for the sale. It's a very natural fit as it's not something I'm pushing on my audience, it's something my audience is asking me for. This is a great example of the type of affiliate relationships you want to form and use. 



Well I hope you learned something about ways to monetize a Youtube Channel besides just Youtube monetization. You really need to realize that Youtube is not an option, it's a necessity for any online business, blog, etc. Youtube as we mentioned above is the second most popular search engine behind Google. Yes I know we don't necessarily think of Youtube as a search engine but it is. It's a great way to reach a large audience and a surprisingly easy to way rank compared to traditional on site and off site website SEO.

For more tips and tricks checkout my Youtube Channel Rules For Rebels.