YouTube has Crowned its First Billionaire.
YouTube has a young man who calls himself Mr. Beast. At 24 years of age, he has become a billionaire making gaming and crazy stunt videos. So, if you can create content that people want to watch, you too can cash in on this passive income opportunity. There are many full-time you tubers and many more who want to be full-timers. To make money with YouTube is an appealing proposition with unlimited potential. Imagine just making a few videos a week and replacing a full-time income. Well, it can happen, and it has for many people. However, it is a very competitive industry due to its appeal.
I started a channel just last year. Although I have yet to achieve the minimum requirements to get paid, I have learned enough to say I will succeed as a YouTuber. At first, I started making DIY videos. DIY projects are a lot of work, and every project costs money to do. The DIY niche is for people with unlimited projects, like a handyman or a contractor. I was recording projects when I was helping family members. And I will continue to make videos that add value as they come up. I enjoy making fishing video’s the most, check them out here.
You Can’t Make Money with YouTube if You’re Inconsistent.
After getting burned out on DIY projects, I just wanted to go fishing. So I started making fishing videos. Fishing is way more fun for me than DIY stuff. But, I could only go fishing on the weekends. That left no time for family, and even worse, if I didn’t catch fish, there was no video. Then winter came, and fishing slowed down, the lakes iced up, and I couldn’t make fishing videos consistently. One of the keys to the success of being a YouTube creator is being consistent. This is the key to making money on YouTube.
Finding the Perfect Niche
My experience on YouTube has taught me that finding the perfect niche isn’t as easy as it may seem. You have to have passion for it, and it needs to be sustainable. The niche you choose must have an audience. If you don’t have an audience, then you won’t make money on YouTube. The bigger the audience, the more competition there will be. So, when searching for your niche, think of all the possibilities for titles and content. If you have a shortlist, it’s probably not sustainable.
There are tools available to help narrow down a niche. For example, tube buddy and VidIQ have free versions that give you statistics that show the volume of traffic you can expect for different subjects, keywords, and keyword phrases. They will also show the top channels that you might be competing against. Both tube buddy and VidIQ will help in all aspects of running a channel.
Many channels have chosen “how to create a channel” as a niche. This topic is a very competitive niche, and it’s hard to break into. Imagine learning from a new channel with just a few subscribers and trying to explain how to get to 100,000 subscribers. However, there is valuable information on these types of channels. Hopefully, you can find someone who isn’t annoying to share their secrets to success.
Analytics
YouTube Analytics comes with your channel studio and has a lot of useful information to keep you on the right path. For example, it will calculate and display the click-through rate on videos so you can see how often people are clicking your thumbnail as a percentage of how often it is shown. Click-through rate (or CTR) is also broken down further into categories of traffic sources. Of course, knowing where your traffic comes from can guide you on how to promote your channel further.
Analytics gives you tools to see where you are losing your audience or gaining subscribers. They will also break down how many subscribers you are getting on each video. If you are killing it on certain types of video, make it more like that one. Study it, and figure out what you did right. Sometimes you get lucky and succeed without knowing why.
Average watch time is an indicator of audience retention. If you are losing 50% of the viewers in the first 30 seconds, obviously, your video is not what they expected. If you want to make money on YouTube, you need to pay attention to this information. Make sure your content matches your title and thumbnail.
I have found that people will skip through parts of my videos searching for the good stuff. The lesson learned is to edit out the fluff and get to the point. If you only have 2 minutes of quality stuff, make a 2-minute video. Nothing sucks more than some trying to stretch out a video with their experience at the drive-thru. Unless, of course, the video is about the drive-thru experience.
Viewer Feedback
Likes and dislikes are also a measure of how well your video is performing. There will always be haters, and no matter what you do, someone will give you a dislike. Don’t be discouraged from getting negative feedback on your videos. One feature that I like is when you get a hater that is especially abusive and leaves inappropriate comments, you can remove the comment or remove the user from your channel entirely.
Comments can be fun. You get to interact with your audience. Sometimes you may get questions that leave you wondering if they even watched the video. But for the most part, I have enjoyed helping people and answering related questions. Positive comments are gratifying and appreciated. So, next time you what a video, realize that someone put in some time and effort to make that video, and if you enjoy it or learn something, say thanks or give it a thumbs up.
Likes, watch time, and CTR is what will make a video get found. That is what the algorithm does. It figures out what videos in all niches are getting the most of those three things. If you can be number one in your niche in these metrics, the algorithm will suggest your videos.