How to Make Money on YouTube in 7 Simple Steps
People watch more than 5 billion videos in a day around the globe. Have you ever thought about how to make money on YouTube? It is by far the best way to reach out to people and create an impact.
Did you know YouTube is the most popular media platform where people across the globe spend a minimum of 40 minutes a day?
If you wish to grow with digital marketing, you can’t avoid the concept of monetizing your YouTube channel. Starting the process is not all that difficult. All you need is a computer, internet connection, and software to edit your videos. Either create an animated video or shoot one, edit it, and then post it on your YouTube channel before marketing the same.
Sounds very simple; doesn’t it?
It is simple, if you know the hack to make money from YouTube.
It is no more the singers and filmmakers who make money on YouTube. you don’t have to be an influencer to earn revenue from this platform. With the proper knowledge, anyone can make money every day by using YouTube as their digital marketing platform.
Did you know there is a young boy called Ryan, who earn about $22 million every year by simply disassembling and playing with toys over YouTube? Sounds great right? Who won’t like to earn money by playing with toys?
Yes, it’s that simple, and we have curated the 7 amazing steps here, that will help you create your success story with YouTube.
How to Make Money on YouTube?
“How to make money on YouTube?” This question is troubling newbie online marketers for quite some time.
YouTube content creators have no doubt earned a significant amount of revenue, but the path is not so smooth. You will come across several competitors in the market. Every minute, nearly 400 hours of videos get uploaded on YouTube globally. You need to stand out among all these videos in just 6 seconds. Yes, you get only 6 seconds to create an impression.
Hence, it is very essential to understand and follow the process of monetization of your YouTube Channel. Here we have the strategies that will help you overcome all challenges.
1. Money on YouTube with Affiliate Marketing
YouTube channels indulging in product reviews and tutorials, can gain a higher opportunity for revenue generation with affiliate links. Whenever you suggest a product through your YouTube content, and the user visits the link shared by you to buy the products, you get a commission from your affiliate.
However, while recommending a product, you need to mention it within the initial lines of the video descriptions and also mention this link in your YouTube video promotion.
Posting your affiliate’s link to your YouTube video is almost the same as adding an affiliate link to your blog post. So, just like a blog, you should never stuff your YouTube post with affiliate links for monetary purposes. Viewers first need to believe that you are a trustable source for any information, then only will they follow your affiliates.
Now the question is, how to build the trust in your viewers?
According to us, the best way is to help your audience solve their problems with regular tutorials. This can be a great way to reach out to maximum people. Start by sharing videos of issues that you have successfully accomplished.
If you want to monetize your YouTube channel with affiliate links, there are plenty of programs for you. We suggest, visit affiliate networking platforms like Awin or ShareASale to find a suitable affiliate program.
Best results are, however, obtained when beginning your blog in lieu of your YouTube channel and add the affiliate links to the blog. This gives you dual protection or dual-earning opportunity.
To create a blog with a YouTube channel, we recommend using Bluehost web hosting. This is a web hosting platform that gets official recommendations from WordPress as well. Don’t go by our recommendation, choose the best option that has been globally accepted for blog hosting.
Steps to start a blog with Bluehost
- Visit the
Bluehost hosting website and press the “Get Started” button to begin. - Choose a hosting plan to start off (the cheapest package is available at $2.95 per month)
- Create a new domain name for your website or enter the preexisting one.
- Provide Bluehost with your account information, billing details, and account planning.
- Go to “Codeguard Basic” and “Sitelock Security” and uncheck all add-on services.
- Click on the “Submit” button and get started with your new blog linked to YouTube.
2. Earn Money by Becoming An Ad Partner for Other YouTube Channels
Ads are the prime earning source for many YouTubers.
There are different ways of making money as a YouTube ad partner. You can earn by displaying ads before and after videos, get a membership for your channel, or even get ad banners from Google AdSense.
There are certain ground rules you need to understand before earning the certification of a YouTube partner. In fact, the process of starting as a partner has some prerequisites.
- First, you need to adhere to the ad rules set forward by YouTube.
- Second, your Youtube channel must have a minimum of 1000 subscribers.
- Finally, there must be a minimum of 4000 video watch hours against your YouTube channel in the past 1 year.
You must be thinking, how can you get 4000 watch hours in a year if you are just starting? Well, the YouTube partnership rule doesn’t exactly bind you in a particular format or timeline. You can use various combinations to achieve these 4000 hours. You can earn 100 watch hours against 40 different ad videos or create 400 different videos with 10 watch hours each. The combination solely depends on you.
Don’t think this is achievable?
How about checking some examples of YouTube videos that made it to a billion views in a concise time?
You must be familiar with the Korean music video “Gangnam Style”? Well, they earned 1 billion views in 5 months of putting the video up on YouTube. The recent video of “Despacito” broke all records and achieved their 1 billion views in 97 days!
If they can achieve it, so can you. But the process doesn’t end there. It is barely the beginning of monetizing your YouTube channel as a partner. Once you have achieved your 4000 view hours and won your position as a YouTube partner, you will slowly start making some money. Upon achieving this position, you will see a “$” sign appear beside your videos on the YouTube video manager page. This indicates that your video is ready for monetization.
The concept of earning from YouTube might not seem like a good idea after the beginning of YouTube Premium. After all, users of YouTube Premium watch their videos uninterrupted with ads. But in these cases, YouTube supports the ad creators by paying them an average percentage based on the total watch time their video gets.
However, it is best not to depend on YouTube ads as your sole source of earning. Try some other potential avenues to make money on YouTube.
3. Let your Youtube Fans fund Your Channel
Do you have many followers on YouTube? Have you ever considered encouraging your fans to crowdfund your upcoming videos and YouTube channels and also earning profit from them?
The concept is intriguing if you give it a throught.
Try using platforms like Patreon to get paid for the videos you create for YouTube. This platform encourages your fans to subscribe to your YouTube channel for as low as a dollar. Some of them even earn rewards upon opting for subscription from their favorite content provider.
Tipee is another such tool that gives you a combination of once in a lifetime donation and recurring subscription. In fact, here, you not only the support of your fans, but also the assistance of your community.
Many non-profit and profit raising Youtube channels are utilizing the fan-funding strategy to keep their channels running.
Your fans won’t fund your content if it is not entertaining enough. It has to be interesting, and add value to their needs. If you have managed to keep your viewers, be prepared to see the wonders your fans can do for you.
4. Be the Master of YouTube SEO
If you are new to YouTube video creation and haven’t yet achieved many followers, you need to gear up and try the SEO techniques to monetize your YouTube content.
Mastering YouTube SEO techniques are very similar to that of optimizing your blog or website for search engine ranking.
- Do keyword research by using tools like Moz and Google Keyword Planner.
- Think out of the box to decide the niche of your YouTube video content and keyword research.
- Do research on the videos popularly searched by users or your target clients over YouTube.
- Make sure to use the best quality keywords in your YouTube video, video Title, description, and even the tags.
All these steps are very essential when you try to monetize your YouTube channel with SEO support. But the process doesn’t end over there. When the launching of your YouTube content is complete, you need to check the “Traffic Source: YouTube Search” to stay updated on what people are searching for and what their reactions are upon coming across your video.
Google users generally come across search results for tutorials, “how-to” blogs, funny videos, and product reviews on YouTube.
If you want to rank high on YouTube, search with SEO support, you might want to focus on these 5 factors.
- The length of the video
- Number of subscription you have received after people watched your videos
- Total number of comments received against your video
- The ratio between thumbs up and thumbs down
- The click-through rate or CTR from the YouTube search outcomes
All these factors cumulatively help in developing trust, channel strength, enhanced number of views, and ultimately, retain from the audience.
5. Create a YouTube Marketing Funnel and Utilize It The Most
To monetize your YouTube channel, you need to optimize it for sales purpose first.
How to get that done?
You can start by choosing a relevant niche, followed by becoming a partner. But the job gets exciting when you plan the marketing funnel on YouTube.
YouTube is already known to be a great platform for spreading any new message. But it can be even a better place for making money when you club your YouTube channel with your blog. This is how we create the marketing funnel for YouTube and make the best out of it.
As you connect your blog with YouTube, you start generating e-mail leads. Your fans now know your product better and ultimately end up buying it.
This is aa two-way game.
For example, you choose an affiliate product and write a blog or product review on it. Then you create a YouTube video explaining the details about the product and add the link to your product. Optimize each of them to drive sales to either the blog or your YouTube channel. Your fans will either end up clicking on your affiliate link to YouTube from the blog or the reverse direction and finally buy the product. So, you earn a commission from YouTube and your affiliate, whereas you also develop a reader base for your blog.
6. Become an Influencer Over Amazon
A new trend set in the market of digital marketing – Amazon influencer.
Amazon Influencer Program is a great way to increase your presence over social media, YouTube especially. As you start influencing people over Amazon, you earn money as people recommend your product over Amazon.
So how does the process work?
- Join the Amazon Influencer program
- Link your Amazon Influencer profile with your YouTube Channel
- Give product reviews and recommendations
- Create an affiliate link for the Amazon product in your YouTube content
- Influence your viewers to purchase the product through your affiliate link
- As and when your viewers go through the affiliate link and purchase the product, you will start earning a commission of 8-10% against each purchase
However, not everyone with a YouTube channel can become an Amazon Influencer. There are many parameters that get judged for approval to be an influencer by Amazon, as the count of your YouTube followers, and similar metrics.
7. Gain More From YouTube Red Subscription
Our final step on how to make money on YouTube is about the process to earn from YouTube Red subscription.
YouTube Red is a subscription package where the user pays a monthly amount of $9.99 to enjoy YouTube videos without ad interruption.
Like we said before when your viewers turn into premium YouTube subscription, content makers and advertisers fail to impress viewers with their ads. How to earn money then? Don’t worry, even when the viewers shift to the premium subscription you will be able to earn 55% of the revenue generated. Your earning, however, depends on the view time of the content. People are still debating on the decrease or increase in CPM rate with YouTube red subscription.
Your content watch time will determine you are earning in YouTube Red. So, if you are planning to earn from these subscribed viewers, you need to check your watch time over YouTube Analytics. Here you will get the detailed statistics of your content engagement, watch hours, affiliate conversion, and more.
How Much Money Can You Earn From YouTube?
Once we are aware of the 7-steps of making money over YouTube, there comes a major question- how much can you make from this?
The several techniques of ad monetization, selling sponsored products, and affiliate links through your YouTube channel, you can definitely enhance your potential for revenue generation. In YouTube, there are 3 means of monetizing your ads
- Cost per 1000 impressions or CPM
- Cost per view or CPV
- Cost per Click or CPC
When a YouTuber uses CPM process, they roughly earn an amount of $7.60 against every 1000 views.
However, there is a Google policy that says creators get a 55% of revenue share generated from YouTube ads whereas, the remaining 45% goes to Google.t
The concept of earning is a bit different when you sell affiliate products through your YouTube channel. The advertisers pay you in commission based on either CPL (Cost per Lead) or CPS (Cost per sale). When you use affiliate marketing to monetize YouTube, the earning is directly related to the conversion numbers enjoyed by the advertisers.
Another way to earn your commissions is to go with sponsored product selling through YouTube video placemen. You either make a small mention of the sponsored product in your video log or go for a product recommendation for brands that seek recognition.
YouTubers who have successfully developed a long line of followers against their YouTube channel always get higher brand support. You can even get a commission of $20-$50 for a few thousands of views their product receives through your channel.
In short, if a brand gets more than a million views through your YouTube channel, your bank is sure to flood with an amount between $20,000-$50,000. So, if you are not getting a million views with your own content, you can try brand videos to make money. This strategy never fails.
What Kind of Money Does a YouTuber Mak?
More than a thousand of Youtubers will say “zero” or nothing when you ask them this question. But the leading YouTubers even end up making millions every year through their YouTube posts. But if you ask for reality, it is a tough job indeed. A YouTuber can make anything between $0.35 -$5 per view through ads. The basic count says $1 per 1000 views.
The range is highly variable. Furthermore, how much profit your YouTube channel will earn is completely dependent on your niche and views.
YouTubers who have smartly earned millions through YouTube generally put up videos related to celebrity gossip, beauty tips, makeup hacks, the movie fails, news, and similar kind of niche.
To maximize the monetization of your YouTube channel, you can always use YouTube Analytics. That will give you an estimate of your content engagement and views. Once you have the figures in hand, try using the YouTube Money Calculator to interpreter them and get an estimate of how much you can earn from these videos.
Another important thing YouTuber needs to understand is the minimum payment amount you require in your YouTube account to cash the same. You need a minimum balance of $100 to cash the YouTube payment.
Final Thoughts on How to Make Money on YouTube
Making money on YouTube will be slow until you create an impression. Affiliate linking is probably the best way to start monetizing your channel. There are other ways, as mentioned above. However, using analytics always helps in understanding your position. If you know the engagement level, you will be able to improve the content and get better views.
FAQs
Can I Make Money on YouTube without Ads?
Yes, of course, you can. If you feel the amount you are earning from ads is not satisfactory, there are other means of earning through YouTube as well.
- Earning commissions through affiliate linking. Add your affiliate’s link in your video description and encourage your viewers to buy the same. You earn against each sale that happens through that affiliate link.
- Linking e-commerce website to your YouTube content description and earning from merchandise sales
- Selling online books, e-books, and digital products.
- Get donations and ask for crowdfunding from your viewers.
- If you have expertise in any niche, use that expertise to coach online charge for an hourly rate of online tutorials over YouTube.
How Difficult is it to Make Money on YouTube?
Frankly, it is a difficult task to take up.
There is a lot of complications you need to adhere to, just to start the process. Firstly, get over 1000 subscriptions to your YouTube channel. Secondly, get over 4000 watch hours in the past 1 year. Finally, become a YouTube partner. Clearly, it is a time-consuming matter. Plus, you need to monitor your CPV regularly to check on your earnings from advertisements.
If you are not earning enough from views you can always try affiliate marketing and product reviews. They generally pay well. But, the best way probably would be to link your YouTube channel with your blog. This will give a two-way earning opportunity.
No matter which method you choose, it calls for hard work until you start earning.
How Much Money Do You Make from 1000 Views on YouTube?
The worth of 100 views is variable.
Several factors determine the worth like the industry, niche, the country you are located in, your advertisement click rates, etc. the scenario further changes if you use Google AdWords and CPV and CPC strategies.
However, you can consider a thumb rule that says you get a standard earning of $0.75-$1 for every 1000 views from ad banners or $6-$7 per 1000 views when your ad plays before YouTube videos.