There’s two types of people who use YouTube – those who go on it to waste time and watch videos, maybe to learn a thing or two. The other though is the creator who sees YouTube as his future revenue source.
Making money online with YouTube doesn’t have to be hard if you know what you’re doing. Stick with me to learn these 6 easy steps to making money online with YouTube.
What You’ll Learn
- Why making money on YouTube isn’t as hard as some people think
- How to get ads playing in your video
- The importance of doing research before getting your channel partnered
1. Plan Ahead & Make An Account
Go ahead and make your YouTube account. Yeah yeah, I know this is kind of obvious. Make sure you don’t overlook important aspects when you make your channel though!
Set your name to be relevant (or just a creative name) to the content you’re going to create – which means you need to know your niche before hand.
Don’t go in blind! Start right off making a good plan on channel development. Know what audience you want to go after, what niche you want to go into, and if you’re willing to put in the time to learn the ins and outs of YouTube.
2. Connect Adsense To Your Account
Adsense is a great way for new creators, who haven’t gotten much traction on their videos, to earn a little bit of money.
You’re going to have to connect a Google Adsense account and be able to fill out tax information. Once all this is done you’ll be on your way to making your first couple bucks!
Adsense works by YouTube (Google) selling ad spots in your video. This isn’t as good as having your channel partnered, but we’ll get into that later in this article.
3. Begin Making Your Content
Great, you’ve now got an account! Since you preplanned what niche you wanted to go into, you can get straight into making your content.
Always make sure to ensure quality content, because no one wants to watch some video that looks like it was put together by a 3 year old (no offense). Put together something that you’ll be proud of and want to share with other people. Exporting your video through Adobe Premiere in 1080p has been the best option I’ve found if you have access to that program.
If you’re going to be don’t any sort of talking in your video, use a good mic. I have an article going over some of the best commentation microphones here.
4. Begin Uploading & Optimizing For SEO
One of the hardest parts is done – video production. Make sure you’re proud of the finished product, and if you are go ahead and begin uploading. Depending upon file size and the speed of your internet connection, it could take a couple hours to upload.
Now that your video had started uploading, you need to SEO the tags, title, and description of your video. SEOing your YouTube video correctly can literally make or break your YouTube career.
Don’t get worried though, as it’s not as hard as you may think. I have a couple different articles explaining the best ways to optimize video in the YouTube tutorials part of my site.
5. Take Social Media To Your Advantage
Now that your video is done uploading, you need to begin promoting it through the power of social media. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ have all proven to be quite powerful when it comes to this.
We’ve all seen those “viral” videos of an animal doing something dumb or weird, but for those of us who have torn one apart, 99% of them have one thing in common – their SEO sucks.
So, how did they go viral without the use of proper SEO? 9 times out of 10 I’ve found that those videos have tens of thousands of Facebook shares, and most of its traffic is coming from Facebook (or another social media platform). Just a few shares or mentions from the right people can give your video quite the boost!
6. Get Your Channel Partnered….Eventually
Getting your channel partnered with people like TGN or Machinima or Union for Gamers (Curse) is a beautiful and exciting thing, but you have to be careful.
I used to be partnered with RPM Network (Maker Studios) on my gaming channel. I was with them for about a year when they “graciously” offered me a contract upgrade that would give me more money. What I didn’t know is they were tricking me into another 2 years with them that I couldn’t get out of. Little did I know, they were known for pulling crap like this.
Basically, do your research before jumping ahead into any contracts. Learn from my mistakes, and don’t let them feed off of you and your hard earned money! I would also be leery of joining any network with little to no requirements. Getting into a harder-to-join network usually results in more money over the long run, better features, and and an all-around better experience.
Conclusion
YouTube is a beautiful thing, and can eventually become a constant source of revenue if you keep working hard at it. Don’t let yourself get discouraged, and learn from others mistakes!
It really helps to get the cash flow if you have the right tools under your belt. You can learn about the ones I’ve tried over at The Toolshed.
If any of you have some YouTube success stories, I’d love to read about them in the comments below.