When you think of youtube whats the general feeling or thought that comes to mind? If you were like i was i would say music. Its a place where you can find music on any artist you want for free. Other acceptable answers would be tutorial library, viral videos, interviews and much more can be found on this platform. What people dont think of is the major revenue that can be generated using the viral giant as your video upload bank. There are people literally making millions on Youtube. All we want is a small piece of that right? Its not that hard and hopefully after this you will be on your way to your share. One quick thing though, I lied when i said its not that hard. Its actually very time consuming and takes patience and a lot of research. Nothing in life worth while is easy. But. Every single second you spend on this will be doubled in the end. This can make you serious money. Also, the initial investment for this money making journey is nothing. Of course if you do have investment funds they can speed up the progress but it is not a requirement. So check it out, what's there to lose?
Ad sense
First things first, create a YouTube account and turn on Adsense. Most people have a gmail account so all that is needed is to link up youtube using the YouTube account page. Next is to link the official Google advertising platform named Adsense, which is also the official ad company YouTube uses as well. Fill out the Adsense form and enter it in their system. It will take about 2 to 3 days before you are approved but it will happen. As long as you dont have any kind of suspensions with Adsense you should be golden.
Make some Vids Bro!
The obvious initial step should be the content you will be displaying as your masterpieces. I can't really explain what makes the most money or the most popular because there is no one answer. You have smart phone videos getting millions of views then you have professional music videos doing the same. As long as you can form that "It" factor in some way, you will succeed. Just make sure that whatever it is you are using to record that it can do so in HD. If you want to go all out there is also a DSLR camera and an external mic as an option. Since it is the easiest thing to do I record my screen while I play games and post those. That's a quick one but the options are endless. Get creative.
Once you have your video recorded your going to want to edit it and get all the kinks out. You can use a free one off the Internet or you can try Adobe if you want to upgrade. There is also a free editor in YouTube if you want to go that route. Always make sure anything you end up using is not under copywrite. That's an automatic suspension for your adsense account so be cafeful.
Upload
After the editing is finished then you will need to upload them to the actual YouTube servers. You can upload from your phone or computer, either choice is fine. This process is very quick so I won't talk to much about it. I want to focus more on the information area of your videos. Your going to want to be as specific as possible for every video you have. Title , description , and category should be well thought out and well written. YouTube is a major player in the search engine game and SEO will be a huge neccesity.
Promote Promote Promote
Make your channel. Check. Apply and be approved to Adsense. Check. Create, edit, upload, then publish some videos. Check.
So all thats left now is to promote and advertise your channel in order to get those views racked up. Blogs, message boards, Twitter , Facebook, pretty much anywhere that is allowed to promote you should hit. Just always make sure that it is relevant to your videos so you don't get accused of spamming. Also embedding videos in different places you can will work wonders.
Adsense pays you for impressions made on ads shown before and during your videos. Also every click is counted towards your payday. Engaging your audience enough to keep them from clicking away and clicks on ads are more important than the total views so focus on quality. The average payment is around a quarter per click and 12 dollars per 1000 views. The trick is to get them to stay until the end, that's where the big money is at.
Tips to Profit With Your Channel
Longer watch times is the goal to shoot for. Longer watch times equals more money. the longer someone watches a video the more time they have to click an ad. There are an unlimited amount of programs and apps to keep your audience engaged with your videos. Once you put those resources to use make sure to use the free analytics tools YouTube gives you for free. See which videos have the best retention rate, the sources of your traffic, and of course your earnings. Another goal to shoot for would be to land in the suggested videos column. Stick to this guide and it should come naturally.
The perfect solution to engaging your audience is to use the one thing every human being can't prevent from having. Emotions. Find a way to snag emotion from your viewer and your traffic will soar. Encouraging comments and likes in your video description can be a form of call to action. Get the viewer to engage with your video with even a dislike and your chance to convert will double if you do it right. Remember to reply to every comment you get to get a more personal relationship with your viewer. Ask questions and try to keep the comments from ending by asking relevant questions or making relevant statements.
Optimize your titles and description. Meta data is the major player here. Your title is very important when it comes to search engines finding your videos, otherwise known as SEO. One example of an audience retaining video is a video with 101 things listed. The fact that there are 101 things to countdown to will naturally make the viewer stay longer and at the same time google algorithms will love your videos. Keywords are another major factor here. Securing high rank keywords and using them in your meta data will have your videos showing up in other people's suggested videos column. Tags and closed captions are Meta data important as well so do some keyword research and use what your find.
The description to a video is something commonly ignored by YouTube artists and it should be the most important. Keep it at least 4 sentenced long and any links that need to be placed should go at the very bottom. Description first , links last. Simple. Tags come next in the importance of SEO. Tags should all be focused on one keyword found using simple keyword research and should also be limited to around 10. If there are multiple relevant videos always include the same exact 4 or 5 tags in every video.
Another good tip I could give you guys is the interlinking of your videos with each other using annotations, links in descriptions , playlists , and also placing comments on old videos with links to the new uploads. Anything to continue bringing views back to the new material.
Custom thumbnails can also be equally important to good SEO. If you have a good thumbnail it will make a viewer click on your video and what's better than that.
Follow these initial steps and you will be seeing that revenue counter on your Adsense account click itself up to a decent bankroll. Depending on the feedback i receive i will update the post with more advanced techniques to growing a successful YouTube channel so comment on whatever it is you feel is missing and I will fix what needs fixing. Thanks for reading.
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(pictures from Techgyd.com, google images and kimkomando.com)