While the web has been bombarded with ways to make money on YouTube, there are quite a few strategies that you can actually trust. Earning money from the comfort of your home has always been intriguing for many. YouTube tops the chart when it comes to earning money and generating passive income online.
Gone are the days when YouTube ads were the only way to make money on the world’s biggest video broadcasting platform. Affiliate marketing and Merch sales have recently become the fastest source of earning money on YouTube. With that being said, you can now monetize your channel in several different ways and create several revenue streams to make profits and grow your savings.
This article will explore and discuss everything you need to know to make money on YouTube in 2023.
How to Make Money on YouTube
The world has witnessed thousands of celebrities who earned international fame by creating videos on YouTube. The platform allows anyone to sign up for a free account and publish content to attract an audience from across the globe.
However, making money on YouTube shouldn’t be the sole reason behind setting up a channel. Once you put your heart and soul into creating compelling and engaging content, you would be thrilled to discover the lucrative opportunities that you can utilize to earn money online.
So, actually how do you get paid on YouTube? If you are willing to put in your time, effort, and creativity you can for sure make money by uploading videos like millions of other people out there.
Here are some creative ways and monetization strategies to earn money on YouTube that you may try depending on your interests and goals.
Top Tips to Make Money on YouTube
- Join Partner Program to Earn from YouTube Ads
- Start Affiliate Marketing on YouTube
- Become an Influencer on YouTube and Create Sponsored Content
- Sell Products and Merchandise
- Offer Channel Memberships to your Audience
- Crowdfund your Videos
- Opt for Fan-Funding
- License your Videos to Media Channels
- Make Money on YouTube Without Making Videos
Let’s get into the details to see how things work.
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Join Partner Program to Earn from YouTube Ads
As this strategy is perhaps the most popular one to generate income on YouTube, so it’s better to discuss this first. To make money with YouTube ads, you must sign up for the YouTube Partner Program.
However you won’t be able to avail of this opportunity if your channel has less than 1000 subscribers. Also, you need to accumulate more than 4,000 hours of watch time within a time frame of 12 months to be able to monetize your YouTube channel.
If you do have a channel with more than 1000 subscribers and a watch time of more than 4000 hours, then get geared up to generate a good amount of revenue.
Here are a few things that you must comply with to successfully register with the Partner Program.
- The videos you upload must comply with the rules and policies specified by YouTube.
- You must reside in a geographical area eligible for channel monetization.
- You must sign up for a Google AdSense account to link to your YouTube channel.
In your account handle, click the “monetization” tab to keep track of your subscribers and watch time. You will also be notified by YouTube when your channel gets eligible for monetization.
As a Partner, you can earn money through YouTube ads, chat features, and premium subscribers who pay a specific amount each month to view your content. The news of making money with YouTube shorts as a partner is also doing the rounds.
When you upload a video on your channel, you will be paid for the number of times a user watches the featured ads or click on an ad displayed during the video. An average YouTube channel makes somewhere around 18 USD per 1000 ad views. The more subscribers on your channel, the more the chances of earning a higher amount of revenue.
How Many Views Do You Need To Get Paid On YouTube?
The number of views you get on your YouTube videos does not affect the amount you can potentially earn. If your video gets thousands of views but none of the viewers watches the ad or clicks the advertisement, unfortunately, you won’t be able to make any money. A viewer must view the full ad or click on the ad for you to earn money on YouTube.
You will be able to withdraw the money earned through clicks when your accumulated balance surpasses USD 100.
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Start Affiliate Marketing on YouTube
Marketing products and services on YouTube via video content can be the most suitable way to monetize the traffic on your channel. In simpler terms, affiliate marketing is a process whereby you earn money by promoting or advertising a product manufactured by a brand or seller.
Product review videos have proven to be the most watched type of content on YouTube so far. Creating videos that explain products’ work, their pros and cons, price, and other details help people to make an informed choice.
Affiliate marketing on YouTube can help you in earning a reasonable amount of money without having to make any significant investment.
Here’s how it works:
- Find a brand, business, or organization offering lucrative affiliate programs.
- Sign up as an affiliate to promote their services and goods to your audience.
- Once you are successfully registered you can follow the guidelines set by the organization to create custom links to services and products you plan on promoting on your channel.
- Make demos, review products, or indirectly refer to the products/services in your YouTube videos. While doing so, incorporate the custom affiliate links in the description of the video so that interested viewers can follow the link to explore and purchase.
- As an affiliate, you will be paid a commission when a viewer clicks on the link and buys the product. You can sign up for as many affiliate programs as you deem necessary to increase the possibilities of making money online.
- However, you would have to notify your audience about the collaboration with a brand whose products/services you feature in the videos.
Here is an interesting read on ways to make money online with affiliate programs.
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Become an Influencer and Create Sponsored Content
This works similarly to making money via affiliate marketing. Brands and companies who are interested in the content you create might sponsor your channel or offer you goods or services in exchange for a “shout-out”.
This means you will receive monetary gains when you promote a brand and its merchandise in your channel. This is also sometimes known as “brand collaboration” or “brand deal” and is a lucrative method of making money on YouTube.
This strategy will work only when you have a large following. Channels with thousands of subscribers are often contacted by brands to collaborate for a campaign. If you manage to gather a decent number of followers on your YouTube channel, you can also request companies for collaboration.
Find brands in your niche that you would like to partner with and reach out to them to see if they are equally interested in working with your channel.
Brand deals and collaboration can help you in earning a good deal of money in the form of commissions, lump sum payments, or free products or services.
No matter what deal you get into, don’t forget to disclose the collaboration in the video or the description box.
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Sell Products and Merchandise
If you a business or produce some sort of merchandise or service that you think is relevant to the audience on your channel, you may choose to advertise it on your channel. Let your followers know about the goods you sell by putting in links to products in your videos.
Do not overly advertise the merchandise and create compelling and meaningful content that features the products you plan on selling.
You can perhaps sell anything under the sun as long as it is of interest to your audience. Not only physical products but digital services and merchandise including e-books, logos, graphics, animations, e-cards, songs, virtual courses, and downloadable media can also be sold via YouTube videos.
While manufacturing products is not fun and games, if you do manage to create unique goods and impressive services and manage to sell them through your channel, you can grab higher revenues as all proceeds will go straight into your account.
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Offer Memberships to Your Audience
Paid memberships and subscriptions are other lucrative strategies to monetize your audience and make money on YouTube. With this method, subscribers of a channel pay a specific amount of money to get access to exclusive content.
YouTube is now rolling out its patent channel membership program to help creators monetize their videos. This feature however will only be accessible to the users who signed up for the YouTube Partner Program.
As you know how things work, the more viewers on your channel, the greater the revenue.
You need to offer perks and incentives to your audience to lure them to pay the membership fees. The paid subscribers can be offered access to special private lessons, one on one video chats, exclusive content, and free services.
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Crowdfund your Videos
When you run short of money but never on creative ideas, crowdfunding can help you realize your plans in a pretty seamless way.
Whether you require help in purchasing good equipment or need to pay for the participants in the video, you can always rely on your audience to help you gather the required financial resources.
If you have a unique idea for a project, the crowdfunding community can lend you a hand to make it happen.
You must have come across a lot of content creators on YouTube who upload highlights or gives trailers to excite the viewers. It’s a way of showcasing your ideas and asking for help to complete the project.
If you too want to try out your luck, it the better to record a video that explains what you are up to and asks for funds to launch the project.
Popular crowdfunding websites that you may consider for funding your creative projects on YouTube include Kickstarter and Indiegogo.
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Opt For Fan Funding
Similar to how things work in crowdfunding, you can also consider setting up fan funding to receive funds and donations right from your followers.
As a content creator, you are offering people on the internet something of value without requiring them to pay you anything in return. So, if you can pull out engaging content, your followers may be able to show their support in form of paid subscriptions or donations.
YouTube Super Chat, Channel Memberships, Tipeee, Buy Me A Coffee, and Patreon are prominent options that you may consider if you opt for the crowdfunding strategy of making money on YouTube.
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License your Videos to Media
If you managed to create a video that went viral over the internet, you can then perhaps license the content to various media channels and get money in return.News Channels, media outlets, online magazines, and other content creators might ask you about the permission and rights to share your video on their platforms. You can allow them to use your content and get paid for it. You can also choose to feature your content in a marketplace where the chance of your content reaching the right audience is high.
More and more brands and companies are now inclined towards hiring influencers and bloggers to market their goods to a larger section of the audience. A huge sum of the advertising budget is now being spent on influencer marketing and sponsorships to create brand awareness among the public. This fact creates a lucrative opportunity for you as a content creator on YouTube if you manage to partner with high-paying brands. Capitalize on deals that seem suitable to your niche and personal preferences. Partner up with as many brands as you like but make sure to create compelling content to influence your audience to make a purchase.
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Make Money On YouTube Without Making Videos
It’s a lesser-known fact but you can make money without actually making YouTube videos. You can use other creators’ content to attract visitors to your channel. There is a library of videos on YouTube created under the label of “Creative Commons Licence”
This feature allows creators to reuse videos published under the CC-BY License. You can not only re-publish the content but also edit the videos to create your very own adaptations without having to face the wrath of copyright infringements.
Publishing third-party content can be an attractive way of engaging viewers on your channel without having to put in a lot of effort. You just need to find content that suits your niche and is compelling enough to keep the audience hooked.
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How Much Money Can You Make on YouTube?
When it comes to figuring out the amount of money one can make with YouTube, there is no specific figure to be mentioned. You can earn as much revenue as possible if you have a large audience on your channel. Popular YouTube celebrities are earning millions of dollars per year.
Even some lesser-known content creators can earn a minimum of 500 USD per week.
On average an influencer with around 10k subscribers can earn 200 USD per video on YouTube. Creators who have over 100,000 subscribers earn somewhere around 2000 USD per video. You can now well imagine the potential of YouTube to make money online.
So if you pick out the right strategy and let your creative side kick in, you too can make a decent living out of the world’s biggest video broadcasting platform.
Build Up your Audience to Earn More Money
YouTube offers lucrative opportunities for all its users worldwide but it’s definitely not something that would make you filthy rich overnight. It takes a lot of effort, time, consistency, and a highly engaged audience to be able to monetize your channel to make money on YouTube.
However, the good news is with consistent effort and by producing appealing and meaningful content, you can start earning before hitting the 1000 followers mark.
Bear in mind the following tips to kick-start your channel on YouTube:
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- The more content you create, the easier it will accomplish the goal of completing the required watch time.
- If you create YouTube videos targeting an audience from a specific niche, your viewers will be more likely to subscribe to your channel.
- Creative, engaging, and entertaining videos tend to perform better and garner more views. So if you put your blood and sweat into recording an interesting video, it will pay you out.
- Never ignore the power of an attractive title and video thumbnail. These tiny details can help you grab the attention of a larger viewer population.
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Final Word
While YouTube offers a wide range of opportunities to its users to make money online, it takes months or sometimes years of effort to monetize a channel. Time, effort, creativity, and consistency is the key to making money on YouTube.
Engaging, well-recorded, and entertaining content goes a long way. Keep building your audience and continue regularly uploading videos to keep your audience engaged. Once you manage to get a huge number of subscribers on board and gain their trust, you can start off your journey of earning revenues.
The good news is, once you upload a video, there is little that is required on your part. It can be a profitable source for earning a passive income for a long period.
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