How to Make Money off YouTube – Part 2
So you’re here because you want to monetise your YouTube channel. You must have reached your advanced settings stage now. You need to fill in all your information, of course – channel description, your links, everything you want it to be. Your content is up to you, and you should use everything available to make sure that you can promote your content.
Now, you need to add the right keywords in your advanced settings so that your videos and playlists show up anywhere at all. If you have an AdWords account on Google, you can link it. That will also help you with promotions. Make sure you choose your country. This feature is not available in many countries, and if you don’t choose this, you won’t get anywhere.
Next, AdSense. You need to set up a Google AdSense account, and you can do this for free. You will need a PayPal account – also free – or you can use your bank details along with a mailing address, to set this up. This is the first step in monetising your YouTube account.
This was the easy part. Now you have to make your videos, upload them, and popularise them. You need an audience, or you will, obviously, make absolutely nothing out of this. This is why everything we said in Part 1 about choosing the right content is important.
Read: How to Make Money from YouTube – Part 1
Now you need to enable your account for monetisation. You go AdSense, go through all the terms and conditions with a fine-toothed comb, and enable the feature. Note this part of it:
“YouTube will pay you 55% of net revenues recognized by YouTube from ads displayed or streamed by YouTube or an authorized third party on your Content watch pages or in or on the YouTube video player in conjunction with the streaming of your Content.”
That’s what you can expect once you have a wide audience who click on ads. This is what you will see then:
After you do this, every time you upload a video, you have the option to monetise it. Once you have your Google AdSense account set up and going, you need to link your YouTube account to it, and you can get started. Your video will be reviewed before it actually becomes monetised, so be very sure that you comply with all terms and conditions.
Choosing your Ads
Of course, you need ads to monetise your YouTube channel. You can choose the kind of ads you want to add in your videos. InStream ads are the 15 or 30 second ads that run either before, after or in the middle of your video. You can either go TrueView, which will let users skip after five seconds, or not. In Video ads are the little boxes at the bottom of your video. You know them – you’ve accidentally clicked on them a lot. There may also be banner ads. Remember that you can click on ‘edit’, select ‘monetisation’, and change what kind of ads you want on your content.
You need to use analytics, to find out which kind of ad format works for your audience. Which kind is making you more money and giving you more clicks and views? You have to keep an eagle eye on analytics and make sure that you tweak both your content and your ads accordingly.
The biggest point now is that you have to get the word out to a group that already trusts you either as an expert or as an entertainer, who will watch your videos and subscribe to you. Use social media, and use your established network. Get yourself a good reputation on forums that deal with your topic, so that when you launch your channel, you have an audience right there. Use Facebook groups. If you have followers on Twitter, get them to watch it. You need clicks.
Don’t just leave it on YouTube and wait. Embed your videos in every platform you have got. Do you have a blog, even a basic WordPress one? Do you go on Tumblr, on Reddit, or anywhere you can think of? Embed your video, but don’t spam.
Now, you will have an excellent chance of getting more views if you can get your channel verified. Submit additional documents that prove that you have the right to use the content and profit from it if you need to, because remember, you won’t automatically get your content approved for monetisation just by clicking on it. Even using music you don’t hold all rights to can mess up all your plans to monetise YouTube channel.
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