How to Make Money on YouTube: The Complete Guide

Ad performance, what's the deal?

The statistics show that the number of views alone is not a good indicator of how much you can earn.

In other words, 1000 visitors does not automatically equal $1.00. The reason is the types of ads that are shown on your video.

For example, let's say you posted a video on how to bake cookies. Most likely, the title of your video will be “how to bake cookies”.

Then, in the description under the video, perhaps you will write the recipe and the products that you purchased to make the cookies. You can add tags to the video that are related to baking, cookie recipes, household appliances, etc.

Now, when someone watches your video, they are more likely to see ads related to exactly what you wrote in the description, title, and tags: cookies, pastries, kitchen appliances, etc.

This will significantly increase the chances that someone (hopefully many) will click on your video ads. Now, I'm going to tell you a little about my theory on how to improve video performance.

Everyone knows that YouTube understands what your video is about from the title, description, tags, category. However, I think Google uses more factors to determine the topic of a video and display relevant ads, namely the transcription from the video (if it can be obtained from the video), the location of the person who is watching the video, and the cookies that are on the viewer's computer .

Google's goal is to make money, and if they don't show the most relevant ads to every single person who watches a YouTube video, they will increase their chances (and thus your chances) of making money.

So I think that Google is looking not only at the data that the user himself added to the video, but also uses all the technologies available to him. But you, in turn, should also do your best to accurately describe the content of your video to Google.

Now we can move on to the next section: keyword research. While it's not necessary, keyword research can greatly increase the chances of your video being found through YouTube searches.

YouTube Keyword Analysis

Before diving into this section, let me say that keyword research does not provide any guarantee of traffic, money, views, or anything else.

Personally, I find keyword research first and foremost great for generating ideas for your future videos. I want to show you how best to test the ideas you come up with during your research.

There are two main ways to search for keywords with this tool: keyword search and video search.

It's very simple, let's say you type "cookie baking" into the search field, then the tool will return you the keywords associated with the phrase "cookie baking", as well as how many times this phrase was searched per month (this is not an exact number).

The second method allows you to enter the URL of the YouTube video you would like to use to get keyword suggestions. This is a great way to find video related keywords.

As you can see in the picture, there is not enough data for the query “baking cookies”, but this does not necessarily mean that no one is looking for “baking cookies”.

This is actually a great example of how to move on to the next stage of keyword research, but first, I would like you to look at the “Match Type” box on the right in the image above.

When you do your keyword research, look at the results for phrase or exact matches.

If you look at the results for “broad” match, you will see numbers that you should not rely on to calculate future traffic.

YouTube keyword analysis, second method

Above on the page, we can see that in the YouTube tooltips, the phrase “cookie baking” does not provide useful data about the number of requests per month (that is, approximately the average number of people who search YouTube for this term per month).

However, that doesn't mean you should give up on the idea of ​​making a video showing you baking delicious cookies from your grandma's recipe!

Enter your keyword in YouTube search:

As you can see, there are ads on the search results page, which is a good sign because it means there are a lot of advertisers who are paying to show ads for the keywords I used to search.

And for those of you who don't know how the ad world works, basically the more ads you see, the more competition. This means that businesses that show ads above other ads pay more to get their ad to show in the first place.

So, if you have a YouTube video with ads from one of these advertisers, and if a viewer clicks on that ad, then you will earn a good income.

Now let's look at the number of downloaded videos for this query (just below the search box) - these are your competitors.

Then, look at all the videos that appear on the first page of search results. How many views do they have? How long have they been uploaded (1 month, 6 months, 1 year, or more)?

Does your keyword appear in titles or descriptions? These are all things to pay attention to... They will help you understand the situation and decide whether to make a video on this topic.

Now, the last step, searching in quotes.

This screenshot shows the search results I got for "baking cookies" in quotes. As you can see, the total number of videos has dropped dramatically, but the ads have stayed the same! That's good, and it means that "baking cookies" is an exact phrase that advertisers are willing to pay for.

So, will the phrase "baking cookies" be good enough to create a video and make money from it? It's up to you!

Maybe through research, you've learned that the keyword "baking cookies" doesn't work for you! You may want to use the phrase "how to bake cookies" or something similar.

It may seem to you that such a study takes a lot of time, but in fact, it is all done VERY quickly.

What video to upload?

In the first part, I showed you some statistics from some of my videos. Next, I gave you an overview of YouTube keyword research methods.

But before you get started, you'll need to spend some time thinking about the kinds of videos you'll be creating and uploading! Here are some ideas to get your thinking going in the right direction:

-Educational videos in areas where you consider yourself a craftsman or are passionate about it (guitar, home repair, baking, etc.)

-Video review on the topic you are interested in (music, movies, games, gadgets, etc.)

-Gameplay video of your favorite games (this is my favorite)

– Personal video (comedy, intellectual, political?)

Enjoy the process A: If you have serious ambitions to make YouTube your main source of income, make sure you understand that there are no guarantees of views or income.

You are going to spend time creating a video, editing it, uploading it (including writing a title, description, etc.,). So try to enjoy the process.

Nobody clicks on ads, right?: Not. Many people think that no one clicks on ads in videos.

So, if you have this mentality, then do yourself a favor and stop projecting it on everyone. It may seem surprising, but quite a large number of people click on ads!

But even if no one clicks on the ads, you can still make money just by showing your ads on your video. Of course, the income from simply showing ads is very small, but this is passive income.

Do not click on your ads: don't click on ads that appear on your own videos.

Research, research, research: In addition to what I have already mentioned in this article, there are several other ways to research.

For example, many videos have public statistics showing which sites are sending traffic to them! Also, look through the comments and look for questions people are asking about things that interest them.

This is a great way to collect useful information for yourself.

Make adjustments as needed: When ads start showing on your video, keep an eye on what's being shown.

There is nothing wrong with such testing and changes as necessary.

You can read about the YouTube Partner Program application process in this article.

I wish you good luck in all your endeavors!