If you didn’t know that YouTube can help you make money, prepare yourself because you’ll be shocked! For those who aren’t aware – YouTube is a Google-owned video hosting platform where users can upload videos for free. Once a user has created an account and uploaded enough videos, they can get paid to display ads on their videos. This depends on several conditions of course, but the number of YouTubers who are earning more than just a livelihood is not a joke.
Conditions YouTube demands
Creator Conditions
As the video creator and uploader, you must be 18 years or older to qualify for the YouTube Partner Program, which is the program that lets you earn money from your videos. Moreover, you must be a citizen or resident of a country that is in the list of YouTube partners.
Audience Engagement Conditions
Till recently, simply having 10,000 public viewers was enough to get you money on YouTube. Recently, however, YouTube changed its policies to ensure that scammers and other frauds don’t exploit the platform. Now they demand that your channel has at least 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of viewing in the last 12 months.
Content Quality Conditions
The content you post must also comply with a set of policies set up by Youtube. The policies dictate certain terms to make sure that the content is audience-friendly, banning certain elements such as – nudity, violence, drug-use, hate-speech etc.
Within these rules, If you can create content consistently, and garner an engaged audience, then you’re set to go!
Making Money on YouTube – Besides Ad Revenue
The major revenue in YouTube comes from advertisements on your videos. Yes, the revenue per ad may look like it’s very less, but the trick is to gain more viewers and subscribers. When these add up, you can really start earning money! However, Ads aren’t the only way to earn money through YouTube though – there are other things you can be paid for.
Channel Memberships
If your channel is really popular, you can charge membership fees for premium members-only content. Membership or subscription fees are monthly, and YouTube will give you a large share of the amount paid by viewers.
Super Chat
Super Chat is a feature that allows fans and viewers to interact with video creators during live chats. A live chat is a feature where a video creator can go live from their channels, and engage with their viewers in real-time. During these, Super Chat allows viewers to highlight their comments, messages and emojis.
Selling Merchandise
Another way YouTubers earn money is by selling merchandise related to your channel. From mugs, t-shirts, fridge-magnets, notepads to pretty much anything you can think of, as long as you choose an online store affiliated with Google, you’re good to go! For example, if you are a musician, and want to sell an album, you can have a link to a music store on your channel, and sell your album through that.
YouTube Premium
There’s an ad-free version of YouTube known as YouTube premium, available on a paid membership basis to viewers in certain locations. Viewers can also download videos and watch them offline with this membership. If you can get views from premium members, YouTube will pay you depending on how much your content has been watched.
Brand endorsements
As a YouTube channel owner, you can have access to a dedicated audience, often repeatedly viewing your videos. Many brands like to use this as an opportunity to market their products. They will often pay you to display or endorse their products or services in your videos, giving you another channel for earning through YouTube.
So Why isn’t Everyone Doing it?
Given all these ways of making money on YouTube, it doesn’t seem hard to make a living off it, right? Well, yes, and no! With around 50 million video creators on YouTube, you’ll find a very small percentage who have actually been able to turn it into a significant source of income. Yes, there are quite a few people earning millions of dollars per year just through their YouTube channels, but there are a lot more who aren’t!
If you do it right however, you could definitely earn a comfortable living, and maybe even become a multi-millionaire without leaving your home. How to do it right? Well, apart from the obvious requirement of quality content that appeals to a large population of viewers, there are a few things to keep in mind –
Create Sellable Products
No matter what your channel is about, there’s probably a way to create a product you can sell based on it. For example, if you’re an expert on a subject – any subject – then you can write an e-book or design a course around it! Say you’re good at gardening, or cooking, or board-games or whatever can come of use to people, you can write an e-book about it, and sell it through your channel.
If you’re an expert on an academic topic or vocational skill, hop on to sites like Udemy, and create a course for it. If you lead a student to your course through your YouTube channel, you’ll get the full amount for the course! If they search for it through Udemy and find your course, you get half.
Stick to Advertiser Guidelines
Even if your video complies with the YouTube community guidelines, it might not be following specific advertiser guidelines. Different brands may have specific guidelines they need your content to follow, so make sure you find out what they are, and design your content accordingly.
Maintain Video and Audio Quality
While nobody’s telling you to hire a film crew, it pays to invest in some professional recording equipment. If you head on over to the list of top ten earners given earlier and check out all their videos, you’ll see this. No matter what your content is, even if it’s unwrapping toys or ranting about movies you hate, the video and audio quality must be on point!
If you’re wondering how to get high-quality AV recording equipment as an amateur, don’t worry, there are plenty of online resources for you. Websites such as Wex specialize in providing the best photo and video equipment at the most competitive prices.
Why wait? Start Earning on YouTube!
Armed with this knowledge, you should be ready to get started on your YouTube money-making plans. Always remember that the most important factor is the number of viewers, and especially followers, you have. This means that your content needs to be consistently appealing, constantly updated, and socially relevant.