Decoding YouTube’s Algorithm: The Role of Keyword Optimization

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With more than 1 billion hours of video watched every day, YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine. That means you should optimize your videos for YouTube, so they rank well on Google and show up in YouTube searches.

YouTube keywords are the words you include in your video title, description, and anywhere that will help YouTube’s algorithm know what your video is about and what it entails. Keep reading to learn more about YouTube keyword research.

In this article

Why Do We Need to Research YouTube Keywords?

How to Research Keywords on YouTube?

Why Do We Need to Research YouTube Keywords?

Researching YouTube keywords is essential to your success. Here are three reasons why you might want to consider YouTube keyword research.

Helps You Know What Your Audience Is Searching for

Keyword research allows you to understand what people search for when they are on YouTube. In turn, this helps you know what your potential customers are seeking. You’ll then include these terms on your content to increase the chances of your audience finding you on YouTube.

It Helps You Rank Higher

You can use YouTube videos to promote brand awareness and market your product. Having high-ranking videos is a cost-effective way to push your target audience through the sales funnel.

When creating YouTube videos, you need to ensure you are reaching your target audience. And that is why researching keywords is crucial.

Once you have performed YouTube keyword research and determined the most suitable keywords for your topic, you can now use them to create target content for your audience. In turn, this will help you increase the number of subscribers on your YouTube channel. Your chances of your video showing up on YouTube will increase, which will bring traffic to your business.

It’s the Cheapest Way to Market Your Products or Services

Video marketing is expensive, and that is why you have to find every possible edge for your video marketing if you want to lower your costs and increase your ROI. For this reason, keyword research will ensure your audience finds you without spending loads of money that you could have used on services like Google Ads.

Because keyword research allows your target audience to find you, this means more opportunities for you. Most of the users will share entertaining videos.

How to Research Keywords on YouTube?

There are several ways of conducting keyword research for YouTube to find out what people are searching for and determine the content in your video. They include:

1. Using YouTube Search

Although this method doesn’t provide all available search options, it’s still good for getting an idea of the type of keyword with which you’re dealing.

You can start your research by typing the keywords into YouTube’s search bar and reviewing the displayed results. It might be helpful to check out similar videos or video playlists. If your search seems too wide, you can enter several keywords at once (separated by commas), which will help you find better results.

2. Using Google’s Keyword Planner Tool

This tool is helpful for keyword difficulty and monthly searches volume assessment. If you only want to know the number of organic visits a given keyword gets, Google Keyword Planner might be helpful. The tool allows you to create lists consisting of related keywords and provides information about CPC (cost per click) and potential traffic in general.

3. Using YouTube Suggestions

What makes YouTube unique is its ability to suggest content based on your location, subscription, and watch history. You can use this method to find keyword ideas if you have subscribed to relevant channels. Also, you can rely on YouTube suggestions to find out whether a topic is popular or not.

4. Using YouTube Analytics

YouTube has a built-in Keyword Tool that is extremely helpful for researching the best keywords to use in your video titles, descriptions, and tags. This method allows you to see video search keywords with which users are finding your content. It is possible to review top organic keywords together with the respective engagement metrics, including bounce rate and average view duration.

5. Using Third-Party YouTube Keyword Tools

Last but not least, there are several third-party tools available on the market that provide both keyword difficulty and organic traffic estimation data for YouTube keywords. Some of these tools also offer similar features, including recommendations based on your existing subscriptions. Let’s look at some of the popular YouTube tools that you can use.

vidIQ

Designed to boost YouTube views, vidIQ is an effective SEO tool. The tool recommends keywords, descriptions, and titles that will help you to get more views and subscribers.

Performing vidIQ keyword research that relates to your video is a breeze. With just a few clicks, you will know what people are searching for and create content that they want to watch.

The tool allows you to enable inline keywords to know the tags your competitors use on search results. Use them to help you generate ideas relevant to your content. vidIQ also suggests ideal keywords like YouTube.

TubeBuddy

You can also use TubeBuddy to find and evaluate a range of YouTube keywords. You can do TubeBuddy keyword research on its mobile app or browser extension. The tool also shows how often people click on the results and how often users search a keyword.

Keyword Keg

Using the YouTube suggest API, Keyword Keg shows you the terms users search most and the monthly number of searches. You’ll also see what other people are paying for CPC (cost per click). You can use this data to determine the best keywords for your YouTube videos.

Qusetion: Are keywords and Tags the Same Thing?

Answer: The main difference between tags and keywords is where you will place them. Keywords describe the content in your video to help search engines and YouTube’s algorithm find your video. Tags describe what the content in your video is about and how it’s connected.

Make Great YouTube Videos with Filmora

Having high-quality videos can make you stand out from your competitors. Filmora is a video editing software that allows you to create amazing YouTube videos. It has powerful editing tools that will enhance the quality of your videos.

You can also add over 800 cool effects and filters to your videos to make them fun to watch. With just a single click, you can add opacity and speed ramp effects as well as infinite zoom effects.

Additionally, you can adjust the dynamic range and white balance of Your YouTube videos. Furthermore, you can fine-tune the audio of your video to make it crisp and eliminate camera shake.

The best part is: Filmora is compatible with macOS X 10.12 or later and Windows 7, 8, and 10. It also supports all popular standard HD videos, audio, and image file formats.

Conclusion

Now that you know the importance of YouTube keyword research and how to perform keyword research, your target audience can find you easily.

Try It Free Try It Free

With more than 1 billion hours of video watched every day, YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine. That means you should optimize your videos for YouTube, so they rank well on Google and show up in YouTube searches.

YouTube keywords are the words you include in your video title, description, and anywhere that will help YouTube’s algorithm know what your video is about and what it entails. Keep reading to learn more about YouTube keyword research.

In this article

Why Do We Need to Research YouTube Keywords?

How to Research Keywords on YouTube?

Why Do We Need to Research YouTube Keywords?

Researching YouTube keywords is essential to your success. Here are three reasons why you might want to consider YouTube keyword research.

Helps You Know What Your Audience Is Searching for

Keyword research allows you to understand what people search for when they are on YouTube. In turn, this helps you know what your potential customers are seeking. You’ll then include these terms on your content to increase the chances of your audience finding you on YouTube.

It Helps You Rank Higher

You can use YouTube videos to promote brand awareness and market your product. Having high-ranking videos is a cost-effective way to push your target audience through the sales funnel.

When creating YouTube videos, you need to ensure you are reaching your target audience. And that is why researching keywords is crucial.

Once you have performed YouTube keyword research and determined the most suitable keywords for your topic, you can now use them to create target content for your audience. In turn, this will help you increase the number of subscribers on your YouTube channel. Your chances of your video showing up on YouTube will increase, which will bring traffic to your business.

It’s the Cheapest Way to Market Your Products or Services

Video marketing is expensive, and that is why you have to find every possible edge for your video marketing if you want to lower your costs and increase your ROI. For this reason, keyword research will ensure your audience finds you without spending loads of money that you could have used on services like Google Ads.

Because keyword research allows your target audience to find you, this means more opportunities for you. Most of the users will share entertaining videos.

How to Research Keywords on YouTube?

There are several ways of conducting keyword research for YouTube to find out what people are searching for and determine the content in your video. They include:

1. Using YouTube Search

Although this method doesn’t provide all available search options, it’s still good for getting an idea of the type of keyword with which you’re dealing.

You can start your research by typing the keywords into YouTube’s search bar and reviewing the displayed results. It might be helpful to check out similar videos or video playlists. If your search seems too wide, you can enter several keywords at once (separated by commas), which will help you find better results.

2. Using Google’s Keyword Planner Tool

This tool is helpful for keyword difficulty and monthly searches volume assessment. If you only want to know the number of organic visits a given keyword gets, Google Keyword Planner might be helpful. The tool allows you to create lists consisting of related keywords and provides information about CPC (cost per click) and potential traffic in general.

3. Using YouTube Suggestions

What makes YouTube unique is its ability to suggest content based on your location, subscription, and watch history. You can use this method to find keyword ideas if you have subscribed to relevant channels. Also, you can rely on YouTube suggestions to find out whether a topic is popular or not.

4. Using YouTube Analytics

YouTube has a built-in Keyword Tool that is extremely helpful for researching the best keywords to use in your video titles, descriptions, and tags. This method allows you to see video search keywords with which users are finding your content. It is possible to review top organic keywords together with the respective engagement metrics, including bounce rate and average view duration.

5. Using Third-Party YouTube Keyword Tools

Last but not least, there are several third-party tools available on the market that provide both keyword difficulty and organic traffic estimation data for YouTube keywords. Some of these tools also offer similar features, including recommendations based on your existing subscriptions. Let’s look at some of the popular YouTube tools that you can use.

vidIQ

Designed to boost YouTube views, vidIQ is an effective SEO tool. The tool recommends keywords, descriptions, and titles that will help you to get more views and subscribers.

Performing vidIQ keyword research that relates to your video is a breeze. With just a few clicks, you will know what people are searching for and create content that they want to watch.

The tool allows you to enable inline keywords to know the tags your competitors use on search results. Use them to help you generate ideas relevant to your content. vidIQ also suggests ideal keywords like YouTube.

TubeBuddy

You can also use TubeBuddy to find and evaluate a range of YouTube keywords. You can do TubeBuddy keyword research on its mobile app or browser extension. The tool also shows how often people click on the results and how often users search a keyword.

Keyword Keg

Using the YouTube suggest API, Keyword Keg shows you the terms users search most and the monthly number of searches. You’ll also see what other people are paying for CPC (cost per click). You can use this data to determine the best keywords for your YouTube videos.

Qusetion: Are keywords and Tags the Same Thing?

Answer: The main difference between tags and keywords is where you will place them. Keywords describe the content in your video to help search engines and YouTube’s algorithm find your video. Tags describe what the content in your video is about and how it’s connected.

Make Great YouTube Videos with Filmora

Having high-quality videos can make you stand out from your competitors. Filmora is a video editing software that allows you to create amazing YouTube videos. It has powerful editing tools that will enhance the quality of your videos.

You can also add over 800 cool effects and filters to your videos to make them fun to watch. With just a single click, you can add opacity and speed ramp effects as well as infinite zoom effects.

Additionally, you can adjust the dynamic range and white balance of Your YouTube videos. Furthermore, you can fine-tune the audio of your video to make it crisp and eliminate camera shake.

The best part is: Filmora is compatible with macOS X 10.12 or later and Windows 7, 8, and 10. It also supports all popular standard HD videos, audio, and image file formats.

Conclusion

Now that you know the importance of YouTube keyword research and how to perform keyword research, your target audience can find you easily.

Try It Free Try It Free

With more than 1 billion hours of video watched every day, YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine. That means you should optimize your videos for YouTube, so they rank well on Google and show up in YouTube searches.

YouTube keywords are the words you include in your video title, description, and anywhere that will help YouTube’s algorithm know what your video is about and what it entails. Keep reading to learn more about YouTube keyword research.

In this article

Why Do We Need to Research YouTube Keywords?

How to Research Keywords on YouTube?

Why Do We Need to Research YouTube Keywords?

Researching YouTube keywords is essential to your success. Here are three reasons why you might want to consider YouTube keyword research.

Helps You Know What Your Audience Is Searching for

Keyword research allows you to understand what people search for when they are on YouTube. In turn, this helps you know what your potential customers are seeking. You’ll then include these terms on your content to increase the chances of your audience finding you on YouTube.

It Helps You Rank Higher

You can use YouTube videos to promote brand awareness and market your product. Having high-ranking videos is a cost-effective way to push your target audience through the sales funnel.

When creating YouTube videos, you need to ensure you are reaching your target audience. And that is why researching keywords is crucial.

Once you have performed YouTube keyword research and determined the most suitable keywords for your topic, you can now use them to create target content for your audience. In turn, this will help you increase the number of subscribers on your YouTube channel. Your chances of your video showing up on YouTube will increase, which will bring traffic to your business.

It’s the Cheapest Way to Market Your Products or Services

Video marketing is expensive, and that is why you have to find every possible edge for your video marketing if you want to lower your costs and increase your ROI. For this reason, keyword research will ensure your audience finds you without spending loads of money that you could have used on services like Google Ads.

Because keyword research allows your target audience to find you, this means more opportunities for you. Most of the users will share entertaining videos.

How to Research Keywords on YouTube?

There are several ways of conducting keyword research for YouTube to find out what people are searching for and determine the content in your video. They include:

1. Using YouTube Search

Although this method doesn’t provide all available search options, it’s still good for getting an idea of the type of keyword with which you’re dealing.

You can start your research by typing the keywords into YouTube’s search bar and reviewing the displayed results. It might be helpful to check out similar videos or video playlists. If your search seems too wide, you can enter several keywords at once (separated by commas), which will help you find better results.

2. Using Google’s Keyword Planner Tool

This tool is helpful for keyword difficulty and monthly searches volume assessment. If you only want to know the number of organic visits a given keyword gets, Google Keyword Planner might be helpful. The tool allows you to create lists consisting of related keywords and provides information about CPC (cost per click) and potential traffic in general.

3. Using YouTube Suggestions

What makes YouTube unique is its ability to suggest content based on your location, subscription, and watch history. You can use this method to find keyword ideas if you have subscribed to relevant channels. Also, you can rely on YouTube suggestions to find out whether a topic is popular or not.

4. Using YouTube Analytics

YouTube has a built-in Keyword Tool that is extremely helpful for researching the best keywords to use in your video titles, descriptions, and tags. This method allows you to see video search keywords with which users are finding your content. It is possible to review top organic keywords together with the respective engagement metrics, including bounce rate and average view duration.

5. Using Third-Party YouTube Keyword Tools

Last but not least, there are several third-party tools available on the market that provide both keyword difficulty and organic traffic estimation data for YouTube keywords. Some of these tools also offer similar features, including recommendations based on your existing subscriptions. Let’s look at some of the popular YouTube tools that you can use.

vidIQ

Designed to boost YouTube views, vidIQ is an effective SEO tool. The tool recommends keywords, descriptions, and titles that will help you to get more views and subscribers.

Performing vidIQ keyword research that relates to your video is a breeze. With just a few clicks, you will know what people are searching for and create content that they want to watch.

The tool allows you to enable inline keywords to know the tags your competitors use on search results. Use them to help you generate ideas relevant to your content. vidIQ also suggests ideal keywords like YouTube.

TubeBuddy

You can also use TubeBuddy to find and evaluate a range of YouTube keywords. You can do TubeBuddy keyword research on its mobile app or browser extension. The tool also shows how often people click on the results and how often users search a keyword.

Keyword Keg

Using the YouTube suggest API, Keyword Keg shows you the terms users search most and the monthly number of searches. You’ll also see what other people are paying for CPC (cost per click). You can use this data to determine the best keywords for your YouTube videos.

Qusetion: Are keywords and Tags the Same Thing?

Answer: The main difference between tags and keywords is where you will place them. Keywords describe the content in your video to help search engines and YouTube’s algorithm find your video. Tags describe what the content in your video is about and how it’s connected.

Make Great YouTube Videos with Filmora

Having high-quality videos can make you stand out from your competitors. Filmora is a video editing software that allows you to create amazing YouTube videos. It has powerful editing tools that will enhance the quality of your videos.

You can also add over 800 cool effects and filters to your videos to make them fun to watch. With just a single click, you can add opacity and speed ramp effects as well as infinite zoom effects.

Additionally, you can adjust the dynamic range and white balance of Your YouTube videos. Furthermore, you can fine-tune the audio of your video to make it crisp and eliminate camera shake.

The best part is: Filmora is compatible with macOS X 10.12 or later and Windows 7, 8, and 10. It also supports all popular standard HD videos, audio, and image file formats.

Conclusion

Now that you know the importance of YouTube keyword research and how to perform keyword research, your target audience can find you easily.

Try It Free Try It Free

With more than 1 billion hours of video watched every day, YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine. That means you should optimize your videos for YouTube, so they rank well on Google and show up in YouTube searches.

YouTube keywords are the words you include in your video title, description, and anywhere that will help YouTube’s algorithm know what your video is about and what it entails. Keep reading to learn more about YouTube keyword research.

In this article

Why Do We Need to Research YouTube Keywords?

How to Research Keywords on YouTube?

Why Do We Need to Research YouTube Keywords?

Researching YouTube keywords is essential to your success. Here are three reasons why you might want to consider YouTube keyword research.

Helps You Know What Your Audience Is Searching for

Keyword research allows you to understand what people search for when they are on YouTube. In turn, this helps you know what your potential customers are seeking. You’ll then include these terms on your content to increase the chances of your audience finding you on YouTube.

It Helps You Rank Higher

You can use YouTube videos to promote brand awareness and market your product. Having high-ranking videos is a cost-effective way to push your target audience through the sales funnel.

When creating YouTube videos, you need to ensure you are reaching your target audience. And that is why researching keywords is crucial.

Once you have performed YouTube keyword research and determined the most suitable keywords for your topic, you can now use them to create target content for your audience. In turn, this will help you increase the number of subscribers on your YouTube channel. Your chances of your video showing up on YouTube will increase, which will bring traffic to your business.

It’s the Cheapest Way to Market Your Products or Services

Video marketing is expensive, and that is why you have to find every possible edge for your video marketing if you want to lower your costs and increase your ROI. For this reason, keyword research will ensure your audience finds you without spending loads of money that you could have used on services like Google Ads.

Because keyword research allows your target audience to find you, this means more opportunities for you. Most of the users will share entertaining videos.

How to Research Keywords on YouTube?

There are several ways of conducting keyword research for YouTube to find out what people are searching for and determine the content in your video. They include:

1. Using YouTube Search

Although this method doesn’t provide all available search options, it’s still good for getting an idea of the type of keyword with which you’re dealing.

You can start your research by typing the keywords into YouTube’s search bar and reviewing the displayed results. It might be helpful to check out similar videos or video playlists. If your search seems too wide, you can enter several keywords at once (separated by commas), which will help you find better results.

2. Using Google’s Keyword Planner Tool

This tool is helpful for keyword difficulty and monthly searches volume assessment. If you only want to know the number of organic visits a given keyword gets, Google Keyword Planner might be helpful. The tool allows you to create lists consisting of related keywords and provides information about CPC (cost per click) and potential traffic in general.

3. Using YouTube Suggestions

What makes YouTube unique is its ability to suggest content based on your location, subscription, and watch history. You can use this method to find keyword ideas if you have subscribed to relevant channels. Also, you can rely on YouTube suggestions to find out whether a topic is popular or not.

4. Using YouTube Analytics

YouTube has a built-in Keyword Tool that is extremely helpful for researching the best keywords to use in your video titles, descriptions, and tags. This method allows you to see video search keywords with which users are finding your content. It is possible to review top organic keywords together with the respective engagement metrics, including bounce rate and average view duration.

5. Using Third-Party YouTube Keyword Tools

Last but not least, there are several third-party tools available on the market that provide both keyword difficulty and organic traffic estimation data for YouTube keywords. Some of these tools also offer similar features, including recommendations based on your existing subscriptions. Let’s look at some of the popular YouTube tools that you can use.

vidIQ

Designed to boost YouTube views, vidIQ is an effective SEO tool. The tool recommends keywords, descriptions, and titles that will help you to get more views and subscribers.

Performing vidIQ keyword research that relates to your video is a breeze. With just a few clicks, you will know what people are searching for and create content that they want to watch.

The tool allows you to enable inline keywords to know the tags your competitors use on search results. Use them to help you generate ideas relevant to your content. vidIQ also suggests ideal keywords like YouTube.

TubeBuddy

You can also use TubeBuddy to find and evaluate a range of YouTube keywords. You can do TubeBuddy keyword research on its mobile app or browser extension. The tool also shows how often people click on the results and how often users search a keyword.

Keyword Keg

Using the YouTube suggest API, Keyword Keg shows you the terms users search most and the monthly number of searches. You’ll also see what other people are paying for CPC (cost per click). You can use this data to determine the best keywords for your YouTube videos.

Qusetion: Are keywords and Tags the Same Thing?

Answer: The main difference between tags and keywords is where you will place them. Keywords describe the content in your video to help search engines and YouTube’s algorithm find your video. Tags describe what the content in your video is about and how it’s connected.

Make Great YouTube Videos with Filmora

Having high-quality videos can make you stand out from your competitors. Filmora is a video editing software that allows you to create amazing YouTube videos. It has powerful editing tools that will enhance the quality of your videos.

You can also add over 800 cool effects and filters to your videos to make them fun to watch. With just a single click, you can add opacity and speed ramp effects as well as infinite zoom effects.

Additionally, you can adjust the dynamic range and white balance of Your YouTube videos. Furthermore, you can fine-tune the audio of your video to make it crisp and eliminate camera shake.

The best part is: Filmora is compatible with macOS X 10.12 or later and Windows 7, 8, and 10. It also supports all popular standard HD videos, audio, and image file formats.

Conclusion

Now that you know the importance of YouTube keyword research and how to perform keyword research, your target audience can find you easily.

Earn While You Entertain: The Content Creator’s Guide

How To Make Money on YouTube

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Not many YouTubers begin making videos with the aim to get rich. For most, it’s a way to scratch a creative itch, to enjoy being in front of an audience and as an outlet for their talents and opinions. However, the potential to make money on YouTube is huge, and eventually any busy channel is going to start asking itself, how do YouTubers make money?

This subject is less about ‘if’ you can make money and more about how to make money on YouTube. It’s been proven time and again that the potential is there, with popular stars like Lily Singh and Roman Atwood generating around $8 million a year. And, of course, everyone’s heard of PewDiePie and his whopping $15 million income.

You don’t need to have a following of millions to earn money on YouTube though; even small channels have a variety of methods available to them to start making their hard work pay. If you’d like to learn how to make money on YouTube, we’re going to look at eight ways of generating an income via your videos. Let’s get started.

How to make money on YouTube

• Make money on YouTube with ads
• Make money on YouTube without ads

We’ve discovered that making money on YouTube can be split into two main categories; making money through advertising or making money without ads involved. We’ve split our article into these two categories to make it easier for you to see what your options are.

Make money on YouTube with ads

By far the easiest way to start earning money on YouTube is to monetize your channel using ads. Until relatively recently, anyone could enable monetization on their YouTube channel and start earning for every watch of their video. But that all changed in January this year, when Google announced they would be raising the standards required to have ads shown on your channel.

Now, you need to be part of the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), which means you need to have met certain minimum criteria before you can start benefitting from ads. These include:

• Having 4,000 or more watch hours
• Securing 1,000 or more subscribers in the last 12 months

This means that, before you can even consider being a part of the YPP, you’ll need to knuckle down and grow your subscribers. There’s lots of helpful tips out there on increasing subscriber numbers, but it all boils down to creating excellent content. As they say, ‘if you build it, they will come’, so work on creating new and exciting content for your channel to get where you need to be.

Should you join YouTube partner or not?

Meeting the minimum requirements of the YPP is crucial to starting to host ads, but even when you’ve hit the 1k subscribers and 4k hours viewed, should you be monetizing your channel right away? Put it this way; in order to make any money from ads, you’re going to need a lot of views and loyal subscribers, which means your focus needs to be firmly on creating content rather than complying with advertising rules.

Sometimes it’s actually better to hold off for a while when you’re early on in your YouTube journey. This will mean that, rather than being distracted by the question of how to earn money from YouTube, your energy is targeted at what matters most, which is building up a library of awesome videos instead.

How to Join the YouTube Partner Platform?

1. Go to your Account Settings and, under Channel, select Status and features.

2. Click on Enable next to Monetization.

3. In the next screen, click the blue Enable my Account button.

4. The YouTube Partner Program Terms will pop up. Compared to a lot of the “Terms” you are asked to read and agree to when signing up for things online the Partner Terms are fairly short and readable.

5. After reading the terms there are three boxes you will need to check to proceed. The first is to confirm that you read the Terms. The second box is a promise not to click on the ads in your own videos to try to create profits artificially.

The third box requires you to promise not monetize content that you do not own. The most extreme version of this would be stealing somebody else’s video and trying to monetize it on your channel. However, using a song or sound effect in your video you do not have the rights to also counts. There are a lot of places you can get free music to use in your monetized videos, and YouTube’s own Audio Library is one of them.

6. After you have checked all the boxes and moved on you will see a pop up explaining how to monetize your individual videos.

Your channel is now monetized, but you will not be able to earn money until you have linked your channel to your AdSense account.

7. There will be a reminder to link your channel and your AdSense account in the next screen. Click on the Link my account button. Or, go to Google.com/adsense and click Sign Up Now. Either method will take you to the Welcome to AdSense page.

8. Click Sign In to sign in to your Google account, which is the same as your YouTube account.

9. After you have signed in it will show you your channel url next to My website and give you a chance to change your language. Click Continue.

10. The last step is to fill out all your contact information before you submit your application. Your approval should come within two days.

11. Go to your Video Manager and check the boxes next to all the videos you want to enable ads for.

12. Click on Actions and then select Monetize.

13. In the window that pops up you will be given a chance to choose what kinds of ads you want to allow in your videos. You must also specify here if you have included paid product placement in your video.

14. Wait for the review process to finish and ads to start appearing in your videos. If you are using any licensed, royalty free, content (like a music track) then YouTube may ask you to prove you have the rights to it.

How much you can get from Ads

The ad revenue generated on YouTube is split between Google and you. You’ll get 55 per cent and Google / YouTube will take the remaining 45 per cent. This means that, if an advertiser spends $200 on your channel, you could be earning $110 directly. You’ll earn both for ‘impressions’, which is the number of views the ad received, and ‘click throughs’, which is when someone clicks on the ad for more information.

Be aware that, in order to get paid, your audience will need to have viewed at least 30 seconds of the ad, or to have clicked through to the advertiser. As a rule, around 15 per cent of viewers will convert into ad revenue, so you can start to calculate just how much your video could be worth.

To give you an example, if you enjoy daily video views in the region of 3,000 views per day and achieve click through / view rates of the average 15 per cent, you’d be earning $0.85 - $1.40 per day or $25 - $43 a month for that one video. If you could increase your views to 5,000 per day, your monthly earnings would rise to $41 - $70 per month.

When working out how to make money on YouTube, keep in mind that every single video has the potential to earn you money. Although one video might only make a dollar a day, imagine when you’ve got 10 videos performing to the same standard, or 100. As you build up your library of content, you have the potential to earn exponentially more as time goes on.

Want to know how much you can get from Ads? Check this YouTube Money Calculator

How to optimize your video to attract advertisers

There is, understandably, a good deal of competition for hosting advertisements on YouTube. In order to get more and better brands advertising in your space, you’ll need to make sure you’ve done all that you can to make your channel attractive to them.

1. Target a specific demographic

Your advertisers want to place their products in front of a very specific audience, so the more embedded in your niche your videos are, the more likely you are to attract investment. If you try to be all things to all people, advertisers are going to see that you’re a risky prospect and will move on to a channel that’s more targeted.

To check demographics, YouTube has everything already there for you. In the YouTube Studio, you’ll find the exact demographics of your audience profile, including age, country of origin and gender. You can see how appealing your videos are to the people you are targeting by checking the spread of representation here.

1. Pay attention to your video metadata

YouTube metadata is an often-overlooked element of content that is actually incredibly important, both for advertising revenue and for views in general. What we mean when we talk about metadata is your tags, title and description of your video, all of which should make use of high traffic keywords that you’ve researched as being relevant.

YouTube’s own keyword suggestion tool can be a great place to start finding those golden keywords that will get you noticed. Advertisers often use your metadata to locate videos that their customers are watching, so SEO is crucial here. Not only that, but when viewers are looking for new videos to watch, the SEO of your metadata will define where in the search results you fall, so putting some time and energy into this can get you more views too.

1. Avoid dodgy video content

There are some types of content which are just not a good idea for YouTube. In fact, the platform could exclude you from advertising altogether if your content is found to contain any of the following:

• Sexually suggestive content: This includes making jokes based around sexual topics, as well as partial nudity of anyone in the video.
• Violence: This ranges from topics of extremism to videos of people sustaining serious injuries, as well as threats and suggestions of violence.
• Inappropriate language: Even the most popular YouTubers have started bleeping out their profanities, so avoid vulgar language or anything that could be construed as being threatening.
• Drugs: Promotion of the use, sale or abuse of drugs and other controlled substances is forbidden.
• Sensitive subjects: This includes references to wars, race crimes, natural disasters, political conflicts, even if you don’t show images of the situation itself.

When you’re considering how do YouTubers make money, you should recognize that those who make the most money avoid creating content that breaches any of these rules. YouTube does notify you if it feels your video is in breach of ‘advertiser friendly’ policies, and you’ll have the chance to contest the ban, but if you steer clear of dodgy content in the first place you shouldn’t run into any issues.

Make money on YouTube without ads

Of course, life is not all about ads, and with YouTube continuing to tighten its criteria around advertising it can be a good idea not to have all your eggs in one basket. Add to this the huge viewership you’re going to need in order to make serious money, it’s worth investigating other methods of making money on YouTube. Here are some of the best ideas.

1. Work with brands

Influencer marketing is big business right now, and brands all over the world are investing in individuals who have secured the loyalty and trust of their target demographic. Sponsored videos might feature product placement, promoting a product from your sponsor, or you may be asked to produce a particular piece of content to support their campaign. Check out influencer marketplaces like Famebit, Grapevine Logic and Crowdtap to see what’s available to you. If you want to make work with brands, you can check out InflueNex , a powerful influencer marketing platform, which will help you to build good relationship with brands.

1. Selling products or merchandise

Selling ‘merch’ is a great way to discover how to earn money from YouTube. T-shirts, tote bags, mugs, hats…whatever fits with you and your brand can become an amazing source of revenue for your business. Not only does this increase your exposure as a brand by putting it out there into the non-YouTube world, it also gives your fans a way to literally buy into what you’re doing.

1. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing doesn’t have to be hard work or complicated. Registering with big sales platforms such as Amazon is often as simple as filling out a couple of forms. Once registered, you can use your own special links to hook your viewers up with a product that you would recommend, and you’ll get a proportion of the final sale value. It’s not only Amazon who offer affiliate programs; most major brands will offer some kind of sales commission, so if you’re in a niche that calls for specialist products to promote, do contact brands directly to find out what they can offer.

1. Crowdfund

If you’ve got an amazingly creative idea but lack of funds is stopping you from putting it into action, crowdfunding could be the way to go. Crowdfunded projects can use the money they make to buy better production equipment, hire people to work on the project, pay for props, anything really. A good way to get started with crowdfunding a particular idea is to create a ‘trailer’ or sneak peek that gives people a better idea of what you want to do. Make sure it gets them so excited that they can’t help but donate to your cause!

1. Renting out your video

You have the ability to rent out individual videos for cold, hard cash, just like a pay per view service. The options for this are in the Creator Studio, where you can set the amount you want to rent it out for as well as creating an enticing trailer to encourage people to buy. Choose to either sell your video permanently, letting the person view it whenever they like, or rent for a limited time, usually 24 to 72 hours.

1. License your content to the media

If you’re lucky enough to make a video that goes viral, you can make serious bucks by licensing it to the wider media. From online news sites to TV shows, there are loads of other content creators out there willing to pay good money to use your amazing clip, and may will reach out to you directly with offers. You can also proactively offer your content for sale via sites like Juken Media, where others can find it and purchase it directly.

Now you know how to earn money from YouTube, what are you going to try? Let us know how you get on and which ways make money for you!

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Not many YouTubers begin making videos with the aim to get rich. For most, it’s a way to scratch a creative itch, to enjoy being in front of an audience and as an outlet for their talents and opinions. However, the potential to make money on YouTube is huge, and eventually any busy channel is going to start asking itself, how do YouTubers make money?

This subject is less about ‘if’ you can make money and more about how to make money on YouTube. It’s been proven time and again that the potential is there, with popular stars like Lily Singh and Roman Atwood generating around $8 million a year. And, of course, everyone’s heard of PewDiePie and his whopping $15 million income.

You don’t need to have a following of millions to earn money on YouTube though; even small channels have a variety of methods available to them to start making their hard work pay. If you’d like to learn how to make money on YouTube, we’re going to look at eight ways of generating an income via your videos. Let’s get started.

How to make money on YouTube

• Make money on YouTube with ads
• Make money on YouTube without ads

We’ve discovered that making money on YouTube can be split into two main categories; making money through advertising or making money without ads involved. We’ve split our article into these two categories to make it easier for you to see what your options are.

Make money on YouTube with ads

By far the easiest way to start earning money on YouTube is to monetize your channel using ads. Until relatively recently, anyone could enable monetization on their YouTube channel and start earning for every watch of their video. But that all changed in January this year, when Google announced they would be raising the standards required to have ads shown on your channel.

Now, you need to be part of the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), which means you need to have met certain minimum criteria before you can start benefitting from ads. These include:

• Having 4,000 or more watch hours
• Securing 1,000 or more subscribers in the last 12 months

This means that, before you can even consider being a part of the YPP, you’ll need to knuckle down and grow your subscribers. There’s lots of helpful tips out there on increasing subscriber numbers, but it all boils down to creating excellent content. As they say, ‘if you build it, they will come’, so work on creating new and exciting content for your channel to get where you need to be.

Should you join YouTube partner or not?

Meeting the minimum requirements of the YPP is crucial to starting to host ads, but even when you’ve hit the 1k subscribers and 4k hours viewed, should you be monetizing your channel right away? Put it this way; in order to make any money from ads, you’re going to need a lot of views and loyal subscribers, which means your focus needs to be firmly on creating content rather than complying with advertising rules.

Sometimes it’s actually better to hold off for a while when you’re early on in your YouTube journey. This will mean that, rather than being distracted by the question of how to earn money from YouTube, your energy is targeted at what matters most, which is building up a library of awesome videos instead.

How to Join the YouTube Partner Platform?

1. Go to your Account Settings and, under Channel, select Status and features.

2. Click on Enable next to Monetization.

3. In the next screen, click the blue Enable my Account button.

4. The YouTube Partner Program Terms will pop up. Compared to a lot of the “Terms” you are asked to read and agree to when signing up for things online the Partner Terms are fairly short and readable.

5. After reading the terms there are three boxes you will need to check to proceed. The first is to confirm that you read the Terms. The second box is a promise not to click on the ads in your own videos to try to create profits artificially.

The third box requires you to promise not monetize content that you do not own. The most extreme version of this would be stealing somebody else’s video and trying to monetize it on your channel. However, using a song or sound effect in your video you do not have the rights to also counts. There are a lot of places you can get free music to use in your monetized videos, and YouTube’s own Audio Library is one of them.

6. After you have checked all the boxes and moved on you will see a pop up explaining how to monetize your individual videos.

Your channel is now monetized, but you will not be able to earn money until you have linked your channel to your AdSense account.

7. There will be a reminder to link your channel and your AdSense account in the next screen. Click on the Link my account button. Or, go to Google.com/adsense and click Sign Up Now. Either method will take you to the Welcome to AdSense page.

8. Click Sign In to sign in to your Google account, which is the same as your YouTube account.

9. After you have signed in it will show you your channel url next to My website and give you a chance to change your language. Click Continue.

10. The last step is to fill out all your contact information before you submit your application. Your approval should come within two days.

11. Go to your Video Manager and check the boxes next to all the videos you want to enable ads for.

12. Click on Actions and then select Monetize.

13. In the window that pops up you will be given a chance to choose what kinds of ads you want to allow in your videos. You must also specify here if you have included paid product placement in your video.

14. Wait for the review process to finish and ads to start appearing in your videos. If you are using any licensed, royalty free, content (like a music track) then YouTube may ask you to prove you have the rights to it.

How much you can get from Ads

The ad revenue generated on YouTube is split between Google and you. You’ll get 55 per cent and Google / YouTube will take the remaining 45 per cent. This means that, if an advertiser spends $200 on your channel, you could be earning $110 directly. You’ll earn both for ‘impressions’, which is the number of views the ad received, and ‘click throughs’, which is when someone clicks on the ad for more information.

Be aware that, in order to get paid, your audience will need to have viewed at least 30 seconds of the ad, or to have clicked through to the advertiser. As a rule, around 15 per cent of viewers will convert into ad revenue, so you can start to calculate just how much your video could be worth.

To give you an example, if you enjoy daily video views in the region of 3,000 views per day and achieve click through / view rates of the average 15 per cent, you’d be earning $0.85 - $1.40 per day or $25 - $43 a month for that one video. If you could increase your views to 5,000 per day, your monthly earnings would rise to $41 - $70 per month.

When working out how to make money on YouTube, keep in mind that every single video has the potential to earn you money. Although one video might only make a dollar a day, imagine when you’ve got 10 videos performing to the same standard, or 100. As you build up your library of content, you have the potential to earn exponentially more as time goes on.

Want to know how much you can get from Ads? Check this YouTube Money Calculator

How to optimize your video to attract advertisers

There is, understandably, a good deal of competition for hosting advertisements on YouTube. In order to get more and better brands advertising in your space, you’ll need to make sure you’ve done all that you can to make your channel attractive to them.

1. Target a specific demographic

Your advertisers want to place their products in front of a very specific audience, so the more embedded in your niche your videos are, the more likely you are to attract investment. If you try to be all things to all people, advertisers are going to see that you’re a risky prospect and will move on to a channel that’s more targeted.

To check demographics, YouTube has everything already there for you. In the YouTube Studio, you’ll find the exact demographics of your audience profile, including age, country of origin and gender. You can see how appealing your videos are to the people you are targeting by checking the spread of representation here.

1. Pay attention to your video metadata

YouTube metadata is an often-overlooked element of content that is actually incredibly important, both for advertising revenue and for views in general. What we mean when we talk about metadata is your tags, title and description of your video, all of which should make use of high traffic keywords that you’ve researched as being relevant.

YouTube’s own keyword suggestion tool can be a great place to start finding those golden keywords that will get you noticed. Advertisers often use your metadata to locate videos that their customers are watching, so SEO is crucial here. Not only that, but when viewers are looking for new videos to watch, the SEO of your metadata will define where in the search results you fall, so putting some time and energy into this can get you more views too.

1. Avoid dodgy video content

There are some types of content which are just not a good idea for YouTube. In fact, the platform could exclude you from advertising altogether if your content is found to contain any of the following:

• Sexually suggestive content: This includes making jokes based around sexual topics, as well as partial nudity of anyone in the video.
• Violence: This ranges from topics of extremism to videos of people sustaining serious injuries, as well as threats and suggestions of violence.
• Inappropriate language: Even the most popular YouTubers have started bleeping out their profanities, so avoid vulgar language or anything that could be construed as being threatening.
• Drugs: Promotion of the use, sale or abuse of drugs and other controlled substances is forbidden.
• Sensitive subjects: This includes references to wars, race crimes, natural disasters, political conflicts, even if you don’t show images of the situation itself.

When you’re considering how do YouTubers make money, you should recognize that those who make the most money avoid creating content that breaches any of these rules. YouTube does notify you if it feels your video is in breach of ‘advertiser friendly’ policies, and you’ll have the chance to contest the ban, but if you steer clear of dodgy content in the first place you shouldn’t run into any issues.

Make money on YouTube without ads

Of course, life is not all about ads, and with YouTube continuing to tighten its criteria around advertising it can be a good idea not to have all your eggs in one basket. Add to this the huge viewership you’re going to need in order to make serious money, it’s worth investigating other methods of making money on YouTube. Here are some of the best ideas.

1. Work with brands

Influencer marketing is big business right now, and brands all over the world are investing in individuals who have secured the loyalty and trust of their target demographic. Sponsored videos might feature product placement, promoting a product from your sponsor, or you may be asked to produce a particular piece of content to support their campaign. Check out influencer marketplaces like Famebit, Grapevine Logic and Crowdtap to see what’s available to you. If you want to make work with brands, you can check out InflueNex , a powerful influencer marketing platform, which will help you to build good relationship with brands.

1. Selling products or merchandise

Selling ‘merch’ is a great way to discover how to earn money from YouTube. T-shirts, tote bags, mugs, hats…whatever fits with you and your brand can become an amazing source of revenue for your business. Not only does this increase your exposure as a brand by putting it out there into the non-YouTube world, it also gives your fans a way to literally buy into what you’re doing.

1. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing doesn’t have to be hard work or complicated. Registering with big sales platforms such as Amazon is often as simple as filling out a couple of forms. Once registered, you can use your own special links to hook your viewers up with a product that you would recommend, and you’ll get a proportion of the final sale value. It’s not only Amazon who offer affiliate programs; most major brands will offer some kind of sales commission, so if you’re in a niche that calls for specialist products to promote, do contact brands directly to find out what they can offer.

1. Crowdfund

If you’ve got an amazingly creative idea but lack of funds is stopping you from putting it into action, crowdfunding could be the way to go. Crowdfunded projects can use the money they make to buy better production equipment, hire people to work on the project, pay for props, anything really. A good way to get started with crowdfunding a particular idea is to create a ‘trailer’ or sneak peek that gives people a better idea of what you want to do. Make sure it gets them so excited that they can’t help but donate to your cause!

1. Renting out your video

You have the ability to rent out individual videos for cold, hard cash, just like a pay per view service. The options for this are in the Creator Studio, where you can set the amount you want to rent it out for as well as creating an enticing trailer to encourage people to buy. Choose to either sell your video permanently, letting the person view it whenever they like, or rent for a limited time, usually 24 to 72 hours.

1. License your content to the media

If you’re lucky enough to make a video that goes viral, you can make serious bucks by licensing it to the wider media. From online news sites to TV shows, there are loads of other content creators out there willing to pay good money to use your amazing clip, and may will reach out to you directly with offers. You can also proactively offer your content for sale via sites like Juken Media, where others can find it and purchase it directly.

Now you know how to earn money from YouTube, what are you going to try? Let us know how you get on and which ways make money for you!

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Not many YouTubers begin making videos with the aim to get rich. For most, it’s a way to scratch a creative itch, to enjoy being in front of an audience and as an outlet for their talents and opinions. However, the potential to make money on YouTube is huge, and eventually any busy channel is going to start asking itself, how do YouTubers make money?

This subject is less about ‘if’ you can make money and more about how to make money on YouTube. It’s been proven time and again that the potential is there, with popular stars like Lily Singh and Roman Atwood generating around $8 million a year. And, of course, everyone’s heard of PewDiePie and his whopping $15 million income.

You don’t need to have a following of millions to earn money on YouTube though; even small channels have a variety of methods available to them to start making their hard work pay. If you’d like to learn how to make money on YouTube, we’re going to look at eight ways of generating an income via your videos. Let’s get started.

How to make money on YouTube

• Make money on YouTube with ads
• Make money on YouTube without ads

We’ve discovered that making money on YouTube can be split into two main categories; making money through advertising or making money without ads involved. We’ve split our article into these two categories to make it easier for you to see what your options are.

Make money on YouTube with ads

By far the easiest way to start earning money on YouTube is to monetize your channel using ads. Until relatively recently, anyone could enable monetization on their YouTube channel and start earning for every watch of their video. But that all changed in January this year, when Google announced they would be raising the standards required to have ads shown on your channel.

Now, you need to be part of the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), which means you need to have met certain minimum criteria before you can start benefitting from ads. These include:

• Having 4,000 or more watch hours
• Securing 1,000 or more subscribers in the last 12 months

This means that, before you can even consider being a part of the YPP, you’ll need to knuckle down and grow your subscribers. There’s lots of helpful tips out there on increasing subscriber numbers, but it all boils down to creating excellent content. As they say, ‘if you build it, they will come’, so work on creating new and exciting content for your channel to get where you need to be.

Should you join YouTube partner or not?

Meeting the minimum requirements of the YPP is crucial to starting to host ads, but even when you’ve hit the 1k subscribers and 4k hours viewed, should you be monetizing your channel right away? Put it this way; in order to make any money from ads, you’re going to need a lot of views and loyal subscribers, which means your focus needs to be firmly on creating content rather than complying with advertising rules.

Sometimes it’s actually better to hold off for a while when you’re early on in your YouTube journey. This will mean that, rather than being distracted by the question of how to earn money from YouTube, your energy is targeted at what matters most, which is building up a library of awesome videos instead.

How to Join the YouTube Partner Platform?

1. Go to your Account Settings and, under Channel, select Status and features.

2. Click on Enable next to Monetization.

3. In the next screen, click the blue Enable my Account button.

4. The YouTube Partner Program Terms will pop up. Compared to a lot of the “Terms” you are asked to read and agree to when signing up for things online the Partner Terms are fairly short and readable.

5. After reading the terms there are three boxes you will need to check to proceed. The first is to confirm that you read the Terms. The second box is a promise not to click on the ads in your own videos to try to create profits artificially.

The third box requires you to promise not monetize content that you do not own. The most extreme version of this would be stealing somebody else’s video and trying to monetize it on your channel. However, using a song or sound effect in your video you do not have the rights to also counts. There are a lot of places you can get free music to use in your monetized videos, and YouTube’s own Audio Library is one of them.

6. After you have checked all the boxes and moved on you will see a pop up explaining how to monetize your individual videos.

Your channel is now monetized, but you will not be able to earn money until you have linked your channel to your AdSense account.

7. There will be a reminder to link your channel and your AdSense account in the next screen. Click on the Link my account button. Or, go to Google.com/adsense and click Sign Up Now. Either method will take you to the Welcome to AdSense page.

8. Click Sign In to sign in to your Google account, which is the same as your YouTube account.

9. After you have signed in it will show you your channel url next to My website and give you a chance to change your language. Click Continue.

10. The last step is to fill out all your contact information before you submit your application. Your approval should come within two days.

11. Go to your Video Manager and check the boxes next to all the videos you want to enable ads for.

12. Click on Actions and then select Monetize.

13. In the window that pops up you will be given a chance to choose what kinds of ads you want to allow in your videos. You must also specify here if you have included paid product placement in your video.

14. Wait for the review process to finish and ads to start appearing in your videos. If you are using any licensed, royalty free, content (like a music track) then YouTube may ask you to prove you have the rights to it.

How much you can get from Ads

The ad revenue generated on YouTube is split between Google and you. You’ll get 55 per cent and Google / YouTube will take the remaining 45 per cent. This means that, if an advertiser spends $200 on your channel, you could be earning $110 directly. You’ll earn both for ‘impressions’, which is the number of views the ad received, and ‘click throughs’, which is when someone clicks on the ad for more information.

Be aware that, in order to get paid, your audience will need to have viewed at least 30 seconds of the ad, or to have clicked through to the advertiser. As a rule, around 15 per cent of viewers will convert into ad revenue, so you can start to calculate just how much your video could be worth.

To give you an example, if you enjoy daily video views in the region of 3,000 views per day and achieve click through / view rates of the average 15 per cent, you’d be earning $0.85 - $1.40 per day or $25 - $43 a month for that one video. If you could increase your views to 5,000 per day, your monthly earnings would rise to $41 - $70 per month.

When working out how to make money on YouTube, keep in mind that every single video has the potential to earn you money. Although one video might only make a dollar a day, imagine when you’ve got 10 videos performing to the same standard, or 100. As you build up your library of content, you have the potential to earn exponentially more as time goes on.

Want to know how much you can get from Ads? Check this YouTube Money Calculator

How to optimize your video to attract advertisers

There is, understandably, a good deal of competition for hosting advertisements on YouTube. In order to get more and better brands advertising in your space, you’ll need to make sure you’ve done all that you can to make your channel attractive to them.

1. Target a specific demographic

Your advertisers want to place their products in front of a very specific audience, so the more embedded in your niche your videos are, the more likely you are to attract investment. If you try to be all things to all people, advertisers are going to see that you’re a risky prospect and will move on to a channel that’s more targeted.

To check demographics, YouTube has everything already there for you. In the YouTube Studio, you’ll find the exact demographics of your audience profile, including age, country of origin and gender. You can see how appealing your videos are to the people you are targeting by checking the spread of representation here.

1. Pay attention to your video metadata

YouTube metadata is an often-overlooked element of content that is actually incredibly important, both for advertising revenue and for views in general. What we mean when we talk about metadata is your tags, title and description of your video, all of which should make use of high traffic keywords that you’ve researched as being relevant.

YouTube’s own keyword suggestion tool can be a great place to start finding those golden keywords that will get you noticed. Advertisers often use your metadata to locate videos that their customers are watching, so SEO is crucial here. Not only that, but when viewers are looking for new videos to watch, the SEO of your metadata will define where in the search results you fall, so putting some time and energy into this can get you more views too.

1. Avoid dodgy video content

There are some types of content which are just not a good idea for YouTube. In fact, the platform could exclude you from advertising altogether if your content is found to contain any of the following:

• Sexually suggestive content: This includes making jokes based around sexual topics, as well as partial nudity of anyone in the video.
• Violence: This ranges from topics of extremism to videos of people sustaining serious injuries, as well as threats and suggestions of violence.
• Inappropriate language: Even the most popular YouTubers have started bleeping out their profanities, so avoid vulgar language or anything that could be construed as being threatening.
• Drugs: Promotion of the use, sale or abuse of drugs and other controlled substances is forbidden.
• Sensitive subjects: This includes references to wars, race crimes, natural disasters, political conflicts, even if you don’t show images of the situation itself.

When you’re considering how do YouTubers make money, you should recognize that those who make the most money avoid creating content that breaches any of these rules. YouTube does notify you if it feels your video is in breach of ‘advertiser friendly’ policies, and you’ll have the chance to contest the ban, but if you steer clear of dodgy content in the first place you shouldn’t run into any issues.

Make money on YouTube without ads

Of course, life is not all about ads, and with YouTube continuing to tighten its criteria around advertising it can be a good idea not to have all your eggs in one basket. Add to this the huge viewership you’re going to need in order to make serious money, it’s worth investigating other methods of making money on YouTube. Here are some of the best ideas.

1. Work with brands

Influencer marketing is big business right now, and brands all over the world are investing in individuals who have secured the loyalty and trust of their target demographic. Sponsored videos might feature product placement, promoting a product from your sponsor, or you may be asked to produce a particular piece of content to support their campaign. Check out influencer marketplaces like Famebit, Grapevine Logic and Crowdtap to see what’s available to you. If you want to make work with brands, you can check out InflueNex , a powerful influencer marketing platform, which will help you to build good relationship with brands.

1. Selling products or merchandise

Selling ‘merch’ is a great way to discover how to earn money from YouTube. T-shirts, tote bags, mugs, hats…whatever fits with you and your brand can become an amazing source of revenue for your business. Not only does this increase your exposure as a brand by putting it out there into the non-YouTube world, it also gives your fans a way to literally buy into what you’re doing.

1. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing doesn’t have to be hard work or complicated. Registering with big sales platforms such as Amazon is often as simple as filling out a couple of forms. Once registered, you can use your own special links to hook your viewers up with a product that you would recommend, and you’ll get a proportion of the final sale value. It’s not only Amazon who offer affiliate programs; most major brands will offer some kind of sales commission, so if you’re in a niche that calls for specialist products to promote, do contact brands directly to find out what they can offer.

1. Crowdfund

If you’ve got an amazingly creative idea but lack of funds is stopping you from putting it into action, crowdfunding could be the way to go. Crowdfunded projects can use the money they make to buy better production equipment, hire people to work on the project, pay for props, anything really. A good way to get started with crowdfunding a particular idea is to create a ‘trailer’ or sneak peek that gives people a better idea of what you want to do. Make sure it gets them so excited that they can’t help but donate to your cause!

1. Renting out your video

You have the ability to rent out individual videos for cold, hard cash, just like a pay per view service. The options for this are in the Creator Studio, where you can set the amount you want to rent it out for as well as creating an enticing trailer to encourage people to buy. Choose to either sell your video permanently, letting the person view it whenever they like, or rent for a limited time, usually 24 to 72 hours.

1. License your content to the media

If you’re lucky enough to make a video that goes viral, you can make serious bucks by licensing it to the wider media. From online news sites to TV shows, there are loads of other content creators out there willing to pay good money to use your amazing clip, and may will reach out to you directly with offers. You can also proactively offer your content for sale via sites like Juken Media, where others can find it and purchase it directly.

Now you know how to earn money from YouTube, what are you going to try? Let us know how you get on and which ways make money for you!

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Not many YouTubers begin making videos with the aim to get rich. For most, it’s a way to scratch a creative itch, to enjoy being in front of an audience and as an outlet for their talents and opinions. However, the potential to make money on YouTube is huge, and eventually any busy channel is going to start asking itself, how do YouTubers make money?

This subject is less about ‘if’ you can make money and more about how to make money on YouTube. It’s been proven time and again that the potential is there, with popular stars like Lily Singh and Roman Atwood generating around $8 million a year. And, of course, everyone’s heard of PewDiePie and his whopping $15 million income.

You don’t need to have a following of millions to earn money on YouTube though; even small channels have a variety of methods available to them to start making their hard work pay. If you’d like to learn how to make money on YouTube, we’re going to look at eight ways of generating an income via your videos. Let’s get started.

How to make money on YouTube

• Make money on YouTube with ads
• Make money on YouTube without ads

We’ve discovered that making money on YouTube can be split into two main categories; making money through advertising or making money without ads involved. We’ve split our article into these two categories to make it easier for you to see what your options are.

Make money on YouTube with ads

By far the easiest way to start earning money on YouTube is to monetize your channel using ads. Until relatively recently, anyone could enable monetization on their YouTube channel and start earning for every watch of their video. But that all changed in January this year, when Google announced they would be raising the standards required to have ads shown on your channel.

Now, you need to be part of the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), which means you need to have met certain minimum criteria before you can start benefitting from ads. These include:

• Having 4,000 or more watch hours
• Securing 1,000 or more subscribers in the last 12 months

This means that, before you can even consider being a part of the YPP, you’ll need to knuckle down and grow your subscribers. There’s lots of helpful tips out there on increasing subscriber numbers, but it all boils down to creating excellent content. As they say, ‘if you build it, they will come’, so work on creating new and exciting content for your channel to get where you need to be.

Should you join YouTube partner or not?

Meeting the minimum requirements of the YPP is crucial to starting to host ads, but even when you’ve hit the 1k subscribers and 4k hours viewed, should you be monetizing your channel right away? Put it this way; in order to make any money from ads, you’re going to need a lot of views and loyal subscribers, which means your focus needs to be firmly on creating content rather than complying with advertising rules.

Sometimes it’s actually better to hold off for a while when you’re early on in your YouTube journey. This will mean that, rather than being distracted by the question of how to earn money from YouTube, your energy is targeted at what matters most, which is building up a library of awesome videos instead.

How to Join the YouTube Partner Platform?

1. Go to your Account Settings and, under Channel, select Status and features.

2. Click on Enable next to Monetization.

3. In the next screen, click the blue Enable my Account button.

4. The YouTube Partner Program Terms will pop up. Compared to a lot of the “Terms” you are asked to read and agree to when signing up for things online the Partner Terms are fairly short and readable.

5. After reading the terms there are three boxes you will need to check to proceed. The first is to confirm that you read the Terms. The second box is a promise not to click on the ads in your own videos to try to create profits artificially.

The third box requires you to promise not monetize content that you do not own. The most extreme version of this would be stealing somebody else’s video and trying to monetize it on your channel. However, using a song or sound effect in your video you do not have the rights to also counts. There are a lot of places you can get free music to use in your monetized videos, and YouTube’s own Audio Library is one of them.

6. After you have checked all the boxes and moved on you will see a pop up explaining how to monetize your individual videos.

Your channel is now monetized, but you will not be able to earn money until you have linked your channel to your AdSense account.

7. There will be a reminder to link your channel and your AdSense account in the next screen. Click on the Link my account button. Or, go to Google.com/adsense and click Sign Up Now. Either method will take you to the Welcome to AdSense page.

8. Click Sign In to sign in to your Google account, which is the same as your YouTube account.

9. After you have signed in it will show you your channel url next to My website and give you a chance to change your language. Click Continue.

10. The last step is to fill out all your contact information before you submit your application. Your approval should come within two days.

11. Go to your Video Manager and check the boxes next to all the videos you want to enable ads for.

12. Click on Actions and then select Monetize.

13. In the window that pops up you will be given a chance to choose what kinds of ads you want to allow in your videos. You must also specify here if you have included paid product placement in your video.

14. Wait for the review process to finish and ads to start appearing in your videos. If you are using any licensed, royalty free, content (like a music track) then YouTube may ask you to prove you have the rights to it.

How much you can get from Ads

The ad revenue generated on YouTube is split between Google and you. You’ll get 55 per cent and Google / YouTube will take the remaining 45 per cent. This means that, if an advertiser spends $200 on your channel, you could be earning $110 directly. You’ll earn both for ‘impressions’, which is the number of views the ad received, and ‘click throughs’, which is when someone clicks on the ad for more information.

Be aware that, in order to get paid, your audience will need to have viewed at least 30 seconds of the ad, or to have clicked through to the advertiser. As a rule, around 15 per cent of viewers will convert into ad revenue, so you can start to calculate just how much your video could be worth.

To give you an example, if you enjoy daily video views in the region of 3,000 views per day and achieve click through / view rates of the average 15 per cent, you’d be earning $0.85 - $1.40 per day or $25 - $43 a month for that one video. If you could increase your views to 5,000 per day, your monthly earnings would rise to $41 - $70 per month.

When working out how to make money on YouTube, keep in mind that every single video has the potential to earn you money. Although one video might only make a dollar a day, imagine when you’ve got 10 videos performing to the same standard, or 100. As you build up your library of content, you have the potential to earn exponentially more as time goes on.

Want to know how much you can get from Ads? Check this YouTube Money Calculator

How to optimize your video to attract advertisers

There is, understandably, a good deal of competition for hosting advertisements on YouTube. In order to get more and better brands advertising in your space, you’ll need to make sure you’ve done all that you can to make your channel attractive to them.

1. Target a specific demographic

Your advertisers want to place their products in front of a very specific audience, so the more embedded in your niche your videos are, the more likely you are to attract investment. If you try to be all things to all people, advertisers are going to see that you’re a risky prospect and will move on to a channel that’s more targeted.

To check demographics, YouTube has everything already there for you. In the YouTube Studio, you’ll find the exact demographics of your audience profile, including age, country of origin and gender. You can see how appealing your videos are to the people you are targeting by checking the spread of representation here.

1. Pay attention to your video metadata

YouTube metadata is an often-overlooked element of content that is actually incredibly important, both for advertising revenue and for views in general. What we mean when we talk about metadata is your tags, title and description of your video, all of which should make use of high traffic keywords that you’ve researched as being relevant.

YouTube’s own keyword suggestion tool can be a great place to start finding those golden keywords that will get you noticed. Advertisers often use your metadata to locate videos that their customers are watching, so SEO is crucial here. Not only that, but when viewers are looking for new videos to watch, the SEO of your metadata will define where in the search results you fall, so putting some time and energy into this can get you more views too.

1. Avoid dodgy video content

There are some types of content which are just not a good idea for YouTube. In fact, the platform could exclude you from advertising altogether if your content is found to contain any of the following:

• Sexually suggestive content: This includes making jokes based around sexual topics, as well as partial nudity of anyone in the video.
• Violence: This ranges from topics of extremism to videos of people sustaining serious injuries, as well as threats and suggestions of violence.
• Inappropriate language: Even the most popular YouTubers have started bleeping out their profanities, so avoid vulgar language or anything that could be construed as being threatening.
• Drugs: Promotion of the use, sale or abuse of drugs and other controlled substances is forbidden.
• Sensitive subjects: This includes references to wars, race crimes, natural disasters, political conflicts, even if you don’t show images of the situation itself.

When you’re considering how do YouTubers make money, you should recognize that those who make the most money avoid creating content that breaches any of these rules. YouTube does notify you if it feels your video is in breach of ‘advertiser friendly’ policies, and you’ll have the chance to contest the ban, but if you steer clear of dodgy content in the first place you shouldn’t run into any issues.

Make money on YouTube without ads

Of course, life is not all about ads, and with YouTube continuing to tighten its criteria around advertising it can be a good idea not to have all your eggs in one basket. Add to this the huge viewership you’re going to need in order to make serious money, it’s worth investigating other methods of making money on YouTube. Here are some of the best ideas.

1. Work with brands

Influencer marketing is big business right now, and brands all over the world are investing in individuals who have secured the loyalty and trust of their target demographic. Sponsored videos might feature product placement, promoting a product from your sponsor, or you may be asked to produce a particular piece of content to support their campaign. Check out influencer marketplaces like Famebit, Grapevine Logic and Crowdtap to see what’s available to you. If you want to make work with brands, you can check out InflueNex , a powerful influencer marketing platform, which will help you to build good relationship with brands.

1. Selling products or merchandise

Selling ‘merch’ is a great way to discover how to earn money from YouTube. T-shirts, tote bags, mugs, hats…whatever fits with you and your brand can become an amazing source of revenue for your business. Not only does this increase your exposure as a brand by putting it out there into the non-YouTube world, it also gives your fans a way to literally buy into what you’re doing.

1. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing doesn’t have to be hard work or complicated. Registering with big sales platforms such as Amazon is often as simple as filling out a couple of forms. Once registered, you can use your own special links to hook your viewers up with a product that you would recommend, and you’ll get a proportion of the final sale value. It’s not only Amazon who offer affiliate programs; most major brands will offer some kind of sales commission, so if you’re in a niche that calls for specialist products to promote, do contact brands directly to find out what they can offer.

1. Crowdfund

If you’ve got an amazingly creative idea but lack of funds is stopping you from putting it into action, crowdfunding could be the way to go. Crowdfunded projects can use the money they make to buy better production equipment, hire people to work on the project, pay for props, anything really. A good way to get started with crowdfunding a particular idea is to create a ‘trailer’ or sneak peek that gives people a better idea of what you want to do. Make sure it gets them so excited that they can’t help but donate to your cause!

1. Renting out your video

You have the ability to rent out individual videos for cold, hard cash, just like a pay per view service. The options for this are in the Creator Studio, where you can set the amount you want to rent it out for as well as creating an enticing trailer to encourage people to buy. Choose to either sell your video permanently, letting the person view it whenever they like, or rent for a limited time, usually 24 to 72 hours.

1. License your content to the media

If you’re lucky enough to make a video that goes viral, you can make serious bucks by licensing it to the wider media. From online news sites to TV shows, there are loads of other content creators out there willing to pay good money to use your amazing clip, and may will reach out to you directly with offers. You can also proactively offer your content for sale via sites like Juken Media, where others can find it and purchase it directly.

Now you know how to earn money from YouTube, what are you going to try? Let us know how you get on and which ways make money for you!

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

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