Are you dreaming about driving your Lamborgini to the grocery store to buy some fruit while the money is flowing into your bank account?
Well, to be fair, the fact is that if you recently began your internet marketing, these dreams are probably very far away.
I’m not saying that it’s impossible though, because almost everything is possible in the new era of the internet if you are willing to work and fight for it.
My name is Anna Liutko and I run a successful YouTube company with several hundred successful YouTube Channels.
In this article, I will show you exactly how I began my journey a couple of years ago, so you can do the same.
Let’s begin with the first simple steps of how to get started with your new lifestyle.
How to earn money on YouTube
There are a few steps that you should follow to create a successful channel.
If you start off in the wrong direction and just publish videos without a strategy, you will most likely fail or it will take much more time.
To effectively create the channel you deserve, follow the steps closely.
This is how I did it, and here is a monthly income report for one of all my channels. If I could do it, so can you! I hope it will give you some motivation to continue!
1. Create Your Channel
To make money on YouTube, of course, you first need a YouTube channel to publish your videos on.
Creating a new YouTube channel is fairly easy and you can just go to YouTube.com, press Sign In in the top right corner and follow their instructions.
If you are still not really sure about it, follow these steps.
- Log in to YouTube and locate the User icon or the Sign In icon at the top right of the screen if you already have a Google account.
- If you don’t have a Google account ready, press Register.
- When you have logged into your Google account, locate & click the Gear icon to get to your YouTube Settings.
- Press Create a new channel.
- Choose “Use a business or other name” if you want to create a business account, which is recommended.
- Add your Name or Brand Name and press Create.
When you have successfully created and logged into your new “money-making machine”, you can continue to the next step.
2. Decide Type & Niche
The is probably the most difficult step of this process – What is the channel going to be about and how will you make the videos?
The first thing you have to consider is whether you want to be in front of the camera or whether you want to create videos without showing your face.
There are a few different types of videos you can create to make money on YouTube. The most popular types are:
1. Vlogs / Lifestyle Filming
This is the type of video for people who love to be in front of a camera and are good at entertaining people when showing their daily lifestyle.
This is probably the most common and easiest way to start a fast-growing YouTube channel if you are good at it. It’s also a very cheap way to start as the only thing you need is a camera and some video editing software.
If you are the type of person that doesn´t like to show your face in front of the camera – don’t worry, there is still a lot of other types of videos that you can make, just continue reading.
2. Video Gameplay
Another popular video category is Gameplay videos because the gaming community on YouTube is huge.
Some people just film their gameplay by recording their voice while playing and some people also show their faces on the videos while they are playing – such as Twitch streams.
If you want to begin with this type of content, it’s probably easier to begin streaming on Twitch and then uploading the funny and successful content onto YouTube later.
This is also a cheap way to get your YouTube video going.
3. Product Reviews
Product Reviews are a popular type of content because there is a lot of money to be made with reviews.
Usually, people buy or receive a product from a company, and then review it with their own thoughts about the pros and cons of the product.
Monetization with these types of channels often comes from sponsored content from the companies, together with an affiliate link in the description to the product on Amazon.
Every time people buy the product through your affiliate link to Amazon – you will get a small commission of their purchase.
This can generate a lot of money and it is pretty easy to do if you like to be in front of the camera – however it is not necessary to show your face.
The downside of this is that you will need some money at the beginning to buy products to review as the companies will most likely not give you free products before you have a lot of engaging subscribers.
4. Animated Information Content & Kids Content
This is the perfect type of channel if you really don’t like to be in front of the camera and are a bit more of a technical person.
The downside of this is that, if you don’t know how to create animated videos, you will either have to spend a lot of money on freelancers creating the content for you – or you will have a long learning curve to create animated content.
The good thing is that if you have some money to spend on content – there is a lot of money to be made in animated content.
Animated kids videos are the type of content that my company is using – the downside is that YouTube recently removed most of the ads for kids’ content which made the revenue fall down a lot.
Therefore, I would not recommend starting kids’ content right now on YouTube unless YouTube fixes the revenue issue.
5. Compilations
Creating compilation videos is a great way to begin your YouTube journey if you have some knowledge of video editing.
Basically, you just have to research what people are looking for and put different video clips together.
The downside of this is that YouTube has become very restrictive about copyrighted content which will make it pretty difficult to earn money from this because the content in your compilations will most likely have been uploaded onto YouTube before, and therefore you will not be able to enable monetization on the channel.
There are still other ways to monetize these types of channels though if you continue reading the article.
6. Music Creation
This was actually one of the main purposes of Youtube from the beginning.
If you are good at playing any instrument or singing, for example, it’s a great wat to show people all over the world your skills.
The downside of this is that the competition is huge in this niche and you do really have to stand out and be extremely good at what you do to become popular in this field.
The good thing is that if you are good at it – It´s really cheap to begin your journey and it´s not very difficult to become popular if you are really good at what you do.
If you have read through these examples, but still can’t figure out what your channel should be about – join our newsletter and you will get weekly updates about recommendations & news.
If you have decided what you want to do and still not created your logos and description, go back to the relevent steps or continue to the next step.
3. Set-up Logo & Descriptions
The next step is to pimp up your YouTube channel to give yourself a better chance of converting the very few first visitors who will visit your channel to subscribers.
This step can be a bit frustrating if you don’t know what your channel is going to be about yet. If you are not sure what the topic/content will be yet, continue to the next step and come back to this step later when you are sure.
You want to create an engaging and professional-looking logo for your channel.
If you already have some knowledge about web design or just want to try it out to make your own logo, you can head over to Canva to easily create your logo.
If you feel that you don’t want to waste your time on this, you can just head over to Fiverr and buy a logo from a designer – but watch out for the cheapest ones if you have high expectations.
When you have your logo created, you can continue to fill out the Channel Description and About pages in the YouTube settings.
Fill out as much information as possible if you want to be taken seriously.
You should also create a background banner for your YouTube channel. You can also use Canva for this or hire a freelancer or Fiverr or a similar website.
4. Create Engaging Videos
Did I say that coming up with what the type of channel you want to create is the most difficult part? Oh, well that’s not really the whole truth to be fair!
It´s now time to actually create your YouTube videos and publish them.
When you have the material you want to use for your video, it’s time to put it together to make an engaging video. For this, you need video editing software.
There are several free video editing software packages you can use or paid ones if you want the best. Adobe Premiere is a recommended video editing software package if you have some money to spend.
Unfortunately, you do also need some knowledge or patience to edit your videos and it can take some time to learn this.
Another option is to hire someone to edit your videos for you, but this will probably be costly in the long run, so it´s recommended to learn this skill yourself if you want to be a YouTuber.
5. Optimize Videos for Search with Keyword Research
When you have the material ready for upload, you do also have a few things to do when uploading the video.
At the beginning of your YouTube career, it can be difficult to get the first people to watch your videos, so the best practice is to optimize your video for YouTube search to get more views.
There are a lot of ways to do this and it is a very complicated area if you are a newbie, so it’s recommended to check out other articles about this for more information.
The recommended best practices before uploading your video are:
- Keyword Research (To find out what people are looking for)
- Engaging Title (Higher Click-Through-Rate)
- Engaging Thumbnail (You can make these in Canva)
- Detailed Video Description (Include your keywords)
- Add related keyword tags
- Share your video on social media
You have to remember that it can be really difficult and frustrating when your YouTube channel is new to get traction and it´s therefore recommended to learn about keyword research and aiming for long-tail keywords to make this process a lot faster. There are a lot of free tools to find keywords and titles if you search.
6. Continue Until 4000 Watch Hours / 1000 Subscribers
If you are thinking of monetizing your video with ads, bear in mind that you have to get 1000 subscribers and a total of 4000 watch hours to monetize your YouTube channel.
This process can take a while when your channel is new and can be a bit frustrating – but do not give up. Everything will get much easier as you start to get some subscribers and traction.
7. Setup an Ads Account
When you have finally got your 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours on your videos – it is time to set up and send your channel to Google Ads for a review.
This process can take a few days for them to review your account and you will want to make sure that your YouTube channel follows their guidelines before applying.
8. Enable Monetization on YouTube
If your account has been approved by Google Ads, it is time to insert the Ads on your account and enable monetization on your YouTube account.
To do this, you have to go to your account settings and select Channel > Status and features.
After this, click Enable in the Monetization section in the Left Menu.
Read and accept the YouTube Terms and follow their instructions.
9. Figure Out Other Monetization Methods.
If your channel is not accepted by Google Ads or you don’t want to monetize your channel with ads, there are still a lot of other ways you can monetize your channel.
To find out more ways to monetize your channel – you will find more information further down in the article.
10. Don’t Stop Until Success
This is the most important step. Your YouTube career will most likely go very slowly in the beginning and you will post videos without earning any money and without people watching them.
But you have to remember the most important key point about Youtube – Content & Patience are the key to success.
A lot of people quit creating YouTube content just because they don’t get any traction in the beginning and this is the biggest mistake.
Just continue publishing great content until you get traction and everything will go smoothly from there.
How to Monetize Your Channel
As we talked about earlier – there are a lot of different ways to monetize your channel to actually earn money from it.
Here is a list of the most common ways.
1. Ad Revenue
The most common and easiest way to earn money is to show ads for your visitors. The downside of this is that you often need a lot of views just to earn a little bit of money.
That´s why we will show you some other ways to complement this income.
2. Affiliate/Influencer Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a huge industry. To do this, you usually talk about a product and post an affiliate link in the video description.
People will click this link and you will get a commission if they purchase the product.
With affiliate marketing, you can make a huge amount of money if you are good at it and get the right contacts.
3. Youtube Premium Revenue
If YouTube Premium members are watching your videos – you will earn more money from your ads.
This is not really a monetization method – but it’s good to know about when you are showing ads in your videos.
4. Channel Membership
Nowadays, you can get people to subscribe and become a member of your YouTube channel with a monthly payment.
This is a great way to create a consistent and long-term income on your channel – if your followers think that your channel is good enough to become a member of it.
You can learn more about Channel memberships here.
5. Sell Your Own Merchandise
Another popular method is to have your own online merchandise shop and to send visitors from YouTube to your shop so that they purchase your merch.
Creating a show is actually not that difficult and you can earn a lot of money from this method if your followers like your content enough.
6. Fan Funding
Donations or Fan funding is also a method some people use to spice up their income. The method here is to ask people to send you donations to either your PayPal account or other payment methods.
For this, you need a pretty strong fan-base though.
How many views & subscribers do you need to make money on YouTube?
The answer to this question is the answer that you do not want to hear – It depends on the niche and what type of monetization you are using.
The RPM or the revenue per thousand impressions vary hugely, and which niche your channel is in can make a huge difference.
The method you are using to monetize your channel is also a big factor to consider. If you are just using Google Ads for monetization, you will need a lot of views to earn money.
If you also use methods like fan-funding, selling merch or affiliate marketing, you can earn more money from a lower amount of views.
Especially if you have a strong following audience.
Conclusion
So by now, if you have followed the whole article, you will have all the knowledge you need to create your first successful YouTube channel.
Here are some key points you shouldn’t forget from the article.
- Don’t quit your journey – continue working until success.
- Choose your channel type & niche closely before beginning
- Do keyword research beforehand & optimize titles and thumbnails before uploading.
- The traffic to your videos will be slow in the beginning – but everything will get easier after a while.
- Try other monetization methods like affiliate marketing or merch to earn more money.
- Research your audience and serve them what they are looking for.
If you have any other questions, leave a comment below – or subscribe to our newsletter if you want more information about how to make this process a lot easier.
