Are you looking to make some extra money?
Luckily, you have arrived at the right place!
With more than 2 billion monthly active users of YouTube, you probably are aware that YouTube is a great platform to earn money. Apart from ad revenue, there are several other ways to make money through YouTube.
The good thing about making videos on YouTube is that you can create content around anything you are passionate about. So, the process of creating videos isn’t most likely going to feel like work.
But there are more than 500 hours of videos uploaded on YouTube every minute. Just imagine how you are going to make yourself discoverable in YouTube’s infinite ocean of content?
This is where the process of making a lot of money from YouTube becomes a little complicated.
In this article, we will tell you the 10 best strategies on how to make money from YouTube videos.
But before we dive into the different strategies, let’s first understand how much money you can make from YouTube.
How Much Does YouTube Pay?
Well, there is no straightforward answer to this question. Your income depends upon many factors like how many views you are getting on your ads, how many people are following up on affiliate links, and similar metrics.
The YouTube pay rate also differs depending on the content that you are creating. For example, finance and educational videos have higher CPM (aka Cost-Per-Impressions).
But on average, it is found that YouTubers are paid around $3 to $5 per 1,000 video views. If you can gain more views on your videos, the numbers can add up to make a pretty decent income.
As you gain more views on your videos, the sky will no longer be the limit for how much money you can make through YouTube.
A nine-year-old boy named Ryan Kaji, who reviews toys on his YouTube channel, is the world’s highest-paid YouTuber who, according to Forbes, earned more than 28 million dollars in 2020. Not bad for a nine-year-old, right?
In short, your YouTube earnings depend on the quality of your content and views it can gain. Now, it’s time to get into the strategies that you can use to make money from YouTube.
10 Best Ways to Earn Money from YouTube
1. Enrol in YouTube Partner Program
Joining the YouTube Partner Program is the most typical way the YouTubers make money through YouTube.
YouTube Partner Program assists YouTubers in generating revenue by displaying advertisements on their channel. You have the freedom to choose what type of ads you want to allow on your channel by customizing the ad settings, while YouTube takes care of the rest.
Once the ads are displayed on your videos, the revenue would be shared between the creator and YouTube. Here 45% goes to YouTube, and the remaining goes to the creator.
This means, if an ad generates $100 of revenue, then $45 will go to YouTube, and $55 will go to the content creator.
Initially, this won’t get you a lot of money, but your income through ads will increase as your view counts increase.
After starting your YouTube account, there are some eligibility criteria to participate in the YouTube Partner Program.
The following are the eligibility criteria you should meet:
- You should have 1,000 or more subscribers
- Your videos need to have at least 4,000 watch hours in the past 12 months
- Your age must be 18 years or older before you apply for monetization of your videos
After you meet the requirements above, you can then set up a Google AdSense account. Make sure that you fill in the details correctly while setting up your Google AdSense account, as it will be responsible for making all your payments.
Now, let us find another popular way to earn money on YouTube.
2. YouTube Affiliate Marketing
YouTube affiliate marketing is a marketing method where you sell and promote the products of other companies on your YouTube channel.
In this process, companies generate a unique link for affiliate marketers, who create engaging content around the company’s product and guide the audience towards the link in their description box.
The affiliate link can either be to sell products or to drive traffic on the company website. As each link is unique, the company will know which affiliate marketer has contributed to the sale, and they would be paid commission for every sale they make.
Unlike the YouTube Partner Program, there are no eligibility criteria to become a YouTube affiliate marketer. Anyone with a YouTube channel can do it. YouTubers are generally paid around 5% to 30% of commission per sale.
So, the more affiliate links you promote, the more your income will be. Therefore it is essential to create quality informative videos.
To grab the attention of more brands and businesses towards your channel, you would have to create the type of YouTube videos they prefer.
Here is the list of those videos:
- How-To Videos
- Product Review Videos
- ‘Best Of’ Videos
- Unboxing Videos
- Vlogs
Another way to maximize your YouTube affiliate marketing earning is to become an Amazon Influencer. There is no difference between being an Amazon Influencer and YouTube affiliate marketer.
In this case, you recommend and review the products offered by Amazon and encourage your audience to purchase these products through the affiliate links. Usually, Amazon pays 8 to 10% of commission for every sale.
But to be part of this program, you need to have a decent subscriber or views count on your channel.
Interesting read: The Ultimate Guide to Master YouTube Affiliate Marketing
3. Start Making Sponsored Content
As your YouTube channel grows, you can start making engaging promotional videos for brands. This is a form of influencer marketing where brands sell or promote their products through content relevant to their target audience.
If you have a good fan following, many brands themselves may approach you.
This process might sound very similar to affiliate marketing, but there is a slight difference between them. In affiliate marketing, you are paid as per the sales you generate. For collaborating with brands to create videos for them, you are paid a fixed amount.
You should know that creating sponsored content for brands is a form of advertisement. Therefore you will have to be transparent about it with your viewers.
While advertising, make sure that you are not violating any Google Ads policies; otherwise, your account can face suspension or, in extreme cases, termination.
If you are an American citizen, then you have to abide by FTC’s Endorsement Guides.
You can also use the YouTube ads disclosure feature to let your viewers know that they watch a sponsored video. It will keep you away from getting into any legal issues.
Now that we have understood all about sponsored content, the question you might have in your mind is, how can I land a brand deal?
Here’s how:
- Focus on making quality informative videos that are helpful and provide value to viewers
- If you have a dream brand that you want to collaborate with, then make a video reviewing their product and grab their attention. Who knows, after watching that video, they might even approach you.
- Even if your dream brand doesn’t approach you, you can always send them a proposal pitching your idea to advertise their product and how your content will be relevant to their target audience.
- You can also sign up on various influencer marketing platforms like Upfluence and FameBit. These platforms will connect you with the businesses as per your niche.
One of the best things about making sponsored content is that you don’t have to share your earnings with YouTube. You will be paid directly by the brand. To be on the safer side, you can charge brands some upfront cost.
4. Monetize Your Expertise
Another great way to monetize your content on YouTube is to make educational videos on your professional skills. It is akin to providing your audience with an online course.
Suppose you have expertise in skills used in various industries like video editing, photography, coding, and digital marketing. In that case, you can teach your audience these skills, which can help them excel in their career.
But on YouTube, you can’t charge money for it. That is why you will have to upload your online course on some other platform and use YouTube to attract an audience for purchasing the online course.
Prepare a compelling call-to-action in your YouTube videos to promote your course, and in no time, you will see that your audience is taking an interest in it.
Here are some pointers that you need to follow while promoting your course:
- Add all the links to your course in the description box and comment section if relevant, but don’t be too spammy
- Mention your courses once in a while in your YouTube videos
- You can also use YouTube card to promote (Just do it subtly so that your viewers don’t get annoyed by it)
5. Sell Your Services
If you are not into selling your online course, you can alternatively use your skills to offer services to your YouTube audience. This process works similar to freelancing.
Let your audience know what services you can provide and put your contact information in the description box.
Selling your services like this on YouTube can also make an excellent personal brand for yourself. This strategy can help you make a lot of money and build a big community for the services you will offer.
6. Write Blogs to Complement Your YouTube Channel
You don’t completely have to rely on your YouTube channel for making money. Use your channel as a platform to grow your presence on other media.
Writing blogs that complement your channel is one of the ways to do it.
Blogs are also the place where you can promote affiliate links. In some cases, affiliate links and advertisements attached to the blogs have higher click-through rates.
Capturing an audience on blogs is also a way to secure all your brand work if your YouTube channel is ever deleted.
7. Try Selling Your Merchandise
This method might not be very effective when you are just a beginner on YouTube. But it is one of the easiest ways to earn more money.
Selling merchandise means selling t-shirts, mugs, and other items to your fans with your channel logo or something else related to your channel.
YouTube has provided creators with a platform to sell merchandise. That is why you can see many YouTubers doing the same.
To make money from this method, you can begin with something small and then diversify later to more merch.
8. Ask Your Fans and Subscribers to Support You
You can often hear YouTubers say, “Support me on Patreon!”
Patreon is a platform where subscribers and fans can support their favorite artists by donating some money.
For getting people to join Patreon, you can offer some exclusive content just for your Patreon members.
On Patreon, you can set your membership prices. The audience on Pateron pays for that membership, with expectations of exclusive content.
Therefore you will have to always be on point and be more honest with your content.
9. Get Your Content Licensed
As your popularity will grow, media companies will want to use your content for their purpose. You have full rights to charge fees when someone wants to use your intellectual property.
By licensing your content, you can charge media companies for using your content.
The good news for you is that you don’t have to be viral to license your content. You just have to share footage that the media company thinks is worthy of news.
Jukin Media is a platform where you can share some ‘newsworthy’ footage and earn money.
10. Master the Art of YouTube SEO
YouTube SEO is not something that will help you make money directly per se. But you won’t be successful in any of the above-mentioned strategies if you don’t learn how to optimize your videos on YouTube.
YouTube SEO is how your audience will discover your videos from the practically infinite number of YouTube videos.
YouTube is a search engine that has its own unique algorithm. You will have to use high-volume keywords in the description of your videos to rank your videos higher in search results.
Hence, you must learn to use YouTube SEO to its full potential.
Final Words
These were some of the best strategies you can adopt to make money on YouTube. You don’t need to apply all of these tactics.
Once you have found what works the best, you can focus on that. There are thousands of options for you to choose your video topics. Make sure that you go with what you love and not what pays more.
To gain insights about leveraging technology to power up your marketing campaigns on YouTube and other social media platforms, check out SocialPilot.
