These days, it is common for people to make money on YouTube. You might have the same idea and want to give it a try. One question, though: How much money can you make on Youtube? Well, a report by GoBankingRates shows that the highest-earning YouTuber gets $26 million a year. Now, that is a figure from the top earner. What about the average? On average, YouTubers can get around $10.000 to $17.000 a year based on a report by Influencer Marketing Hub. Based on your location, those figures can be average or really big.
So, how do you make money on YouTube? Making money from YouTube is, to say the least, complicated. You need to know your way on how to monetize on YouTube if you want to start making money on YouTube. There are many ways how to monetize YouTube videos. This article will guide you to make sure you understand everything you need about how YouTube monetization works.
- Join the YouTube Partner Program (YPP)
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One of the most common ways to monetize YouTube videos is to join the YouTube Partner Program (YPP). A creator that joins YPP can have their videos monetized, meaning if YouTube shows an ad on that video and the audience watches the ad, the creator will get some revenue.
If you want to join this program to make money on YouTube, you have to fulfill some requirements. YouTube states there are at least 5 requirements:
- You must follow all the YouTube monetization policies. YouTube has strict policies regarding monetization. Make sure to read and comply with the policies
- You have to live within a country or region where the program is available. You can find the list here.
- Your channel must have 4.000 watch time in the last 12 months.
- Your channel must have at least 1.000 subscribers.
- You must have an AdSense Account.
You can find more detail about the requirements here. For a lot of people, the hardest requirements are numbers (3) and (4). Many people often have to spend years just to fulfill these requirements. These days, however, there are a lot of guides for beginners to start building their reputation so that they can start to make money on YouTube as soon as they can.
2. Join YouTube Premium
To join YouTube Premium you need to qualify for YPP. Different from the YPP, creators make money on YouTube when people watch their videos. In YPP, you need your viewers to watch the ads showing on your video. As YouTube Premium members continue to increase, joining YouTube Premium is one of the best ways how to monetize YouTube video.
Membership is the latest way how to monetize YouTube video. With membership, an audience can support their favorite creators through monthly payment which often comes with member-only perks, such as emojis and badges. You can think of it as a patron who donates money for their favorite creators and gets something in return.
A channel membership comes with different levels. A creator can help have up to 5 levels of membership. This way, a creator can have more sources to make money on YouTube.
There are several tips that you can do to make sure you can make money on YouTube through membership. You have to make sure that your channel membership is valuable, meaning that you actually provide something of the same value as the cost of the membership. Regarding this point, you also need to make sure to make the benefits scalable, that is you actually can provide the benefits you promise at each level of your membership. If you manage to do those two things, there is a high chance that your subscriber will be happy to keep their membership every month which will generate income for you.
4. Look for Sponsors
If YouTube does not want to show ads on your video, you can just let a company show their ads on your video to make money on YouTube. Getting sponsors is one of the most popular ways how to monetize YouTube video.
To successfully get a sponsor for your video, you need to know the types of sponsorship. There are affiliate sponsorship and product sponsorship. Each sponsor has its pros and cons.
Affiliate sponsorship is one of the easiest to get. Affiliate sponsorship is when a sponsor gives you a link to their product for you to put into your description. You get revenue when someone clicks the link. You can make more people interested to click the link by creating a video to review the product. Affiliate sponsorship offers the least amount when it comes to money. However, it is one of the best ways for a small channel to make money on YouTube.
The second type is paid sponsorship. In affiliate sponsorship, you make money on YouTube when people click the link that you provide whether you make a review of the product or not. In paid sponsorship, you make money on YouTube to give a review of a product that sponsors your video. Paid sponsorship offers more money than affiliate sponsorship. However, it is harder to get and YouTube has its own rule that you need to follow when it comes to paid sponsorship.
Your channel is small and is not eligible to join the YouTube Partner Program and your video does not have much to give to the sponsor. What do you do? Is all hope lost for you to make money on YouTube? How to monetize YouTube video in a situation like that? The answer is to find a patron.
As has been mentioned before, a patron is similar to a membership. But unlike membership, this monetization on YouTube lies beyond YouTube regulation. Your channel does not need to fulfill any requirements to find a patron. You can use websites like Patreon to start finding patrons and crowdfund your videos into existence.
No matter what way you choose to do on how to monetize YouTube video, what you really need is subscribers. Making money from YouTube after all is about having influence and a platform. YouTube Partner Program requires you to have a certain amount of subscribers and watch time and often big sponsors only want to back creators with a huge number of subscribers. They want to make sure they spend their money right. It only makes sense, right?
With that in mind, you need to focus on the quality of your content and your online presence that can draw many people to subscribe to your channel which in turn enables you to monetize YouTube video. Once you get enough subscribers, you can start thinking about how to monetize YouTube.
The first step to gaining an audience is by locating your niche. Simply put, a niche is an interest or focus on a particular thing, such as reaction video or nature photography. Think of it as something that people are interested in or something that people would love to spend a lot of time talking about. A niche can be helpful for you to think of an idea for your youtube videos and promote your content.
Once you have located your niche, you can start building from there. You can start researching the market of your niche and creating videos that are targeted to a specific audience. You can also learn more about video editing in the process to level up your game. Once you start gaining influence in your niche market, brands that are a part of that niche will be more likely to sponsor your video. You can also easily gain a patron because you know where to look for.
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To step up your game a bit more, you also need to promote your videos. You can use a blog as a medium to promote your videos. In your blog, You can write content centered around your video or simply a summary of your video to make your audience curious and embed your video so that people can watch it from your blog. Having a blog also means that you have other places other than YouTube where you can be found. Your blog can also become a place for your subscriber's community to interact with each other. Moreover, a blog can also become your other sources of income.
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Creating a blog is also not as hard as you think. You can easily create your blog with Strikingly. Strikingly allows you to build your blog from scratch with ease. You can own your own customizable blog which you can design to suit your niche and persona to further boost your presence.
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You can also embed your YouTube videos on your website. Strikingly makes it easy for you to do that. To find out more about how to embed a video on your website, you can visit our support center.
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With Strikingly, you do not have to worry about the price. Strikingly offers a Pro plan which costs $192.00/year plan—it is like paying $16/month. You can also create multilingual websites easily with Strikingly. This feature can be really helpful to reach audiences that do not speak the same language as you.
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You now know how to monetize YouTube. There are many paths you can take on how to monetize YouTube video. Whatever path you take, you need to deliver content that is useful and resonates with your audience.
With the knowledge of many ways how to monetize YouTube videos, you are now ready to start your journey to make money on YouTube. The road to monetization on YouTube is a long and hard one. You need to dedicate yourself and start building your channel as soon as you can. You cannot get the best results immediately. Sometimes, you might have to sacrifice something. However, you must always remember that you are not alone and there are a lot of communities that you can join on this journey.
Are you ready to start your journey to make money on YouTube? Start your personal branding today by creating a blog with Strikingly!
