YouTube money-making tutorial

Subscriber and watch time requirements: You need to have at least 1,000 subscribers and reach 4,000 hours of public watch time in the past 12 months. For YouTube Shorts, you need to have 10 million qualified public Shorts views in the past 90 days. These metrics are to ensure that your channel has a certain influence and audience base.

Comply with platform policies: Ensure that your channel content complies with all relevant regulations such as YouTube’s community guidelines and copyright policies. Have no bad records such as community guideline warnings and copyright issues, and turn on two-step verification for logging in to your Google account.

Apply to join: When the conditions are met, log in to YouTube Studio and apply to join the YouTube Partner Program on the “Monetization” page. YouTube will review your channel. After approval, you can start making money.

Increase video views: Optimize video titles, descriptions, and tags, use attractive thumbnails, and improve the ranking of videos in search results and recommendations to attract more viewers. For example, use keywords in the title, create suspense or ask questions to attract users to click.

Increase audience interaction rate: Encourage viewers to like, comment, and share your videos. This can not only increase the popularity of the video but also improve the display effect of ads. You can guide the audience to interact in the video, such as asking questions and initiating discussions.

Target specific audiences and regions for ad placement: Understand the characteristics and locations of your audience, and select suitable ad types and placement strategies based on this information. For example, if your audience is mainly young people, you can choose ads related to their interests; if your audience is from a specific region, you can cooperate with advertisers in that region.

Channel membership: When your channel has a certain number of subscribers (generally recommended more than 3,000 subscribers), you can set up channel membership. Fans pay a certain fee monthly (the price can be set by yourself, ranging from $0.99 to $100). After becoming a member, they can obtain exclusive benefits such as loyalty badges, private live broadcasts, member-exclusive video content, early access to videos, and exclusive emojis. Promote membership in your videos and remind the audience of the special rights they can obtain by becoming a member.

Super Chat and Super Stickers: If you conduct live broadcasts, viewers can use the Super Chat function to pay to highlight and pin their own messages, or purchase Super Stickers (animated images) to add interactive elements to the chat. Both of these methods are ways for viewers to express support and appreciation to you during live broadcasts, and you can earn income from them.

Super Thanks: Some channels will have a “heart +$” thank you button below the video. Viewers can click it and choose the amount to tip to express their recognition and appreciation for the video content.

Establish brand cooperation: When your channel has a certain influence and fan base, brands may contact you for cooperation. You can also actively look for brands related to your channel content and establish contact with them through YouTube’s brand cooperation platform or other channels. Cooperation methods include product placement, brand promotion videos, joint activities, etc. For example, if you are a beauty blogger, cosmetic brands may cooperate with you and let you use and introduce their products in your videos.

Obtain sponsorship: In addition to brand cooperation, you can also look for sponsors. Sponsors may provide financial support for your video production or provide you with products and services for you to display and promote in your videos. When looking for sponsors, ensure that the cooperation content is in line with your channel style and audience needs.

Register for affiliate programs: Join some well-known affiliate marketing programs such as Amazon Associates, ClickBank, etc. These affiliate programs provide promotion links for various products and services. You can choose suitable products for promotion according to your channel content.

Promote products in videos: Add affiliate links in your YouTube video descriptions or naturally introduce and recommend related products in video content. For example, if you make a video about photography skills, you can recommend some photography equipment in the video and attach affiliate links. When viewers purchase products through your links, you can earn a certain percentage of commission.

Create your own merchandise: If you have your own brand or product, you can sell it on YouTube. For example, make and sell peripheral products related to your channel theme, such as T-shirts, hats, mugs, etc. You can design and make merchandise through third-party platforms (such as Teespring) and add merchandise links to your YouTube channel profile or video descriptions.

Utilize YouTube’s shopping function: YouTube provides a shopping function. You can add your own merchandise or merchandise of brands you cooperate with to your videos. Viewers can click and purchase directly while watching the video. However, this function is still being continuously improved and promoted, and not all regions and creators can use it.

Participate in YouTube’s creator fund: YouTube will periodically launch some creator fund plans to reward excellent creators. For example, the previous YouTube Shorts fund was established to encourage creators to make high-quality Shorts videos. Follow YouTube’s official announcements, understand and participate in these fund plans to have a chance to earn additional income.

Provide paid consulting or services: If you have professional knowledge and experience in a certain field, you can provide paid consulting or services on YouTube. For example, if you are a fitness coach, you can provide online fitness course consulting; if you are a music producer, you can provide music production tutorials and consulting services. Promote your paid services in your videos and guide the audience to contact you through private messages or other means.