I earn ,000/month from "How to" videos on YouTube
07-14-2014, 04:35 PM
This is my first attempt at a datasheet for you kids.
There was a thread about YouTube marketing from 2013 that got slightly derailed by one particular channel idea ("Any YouTube Marketers out there?", http://www.rooshvforum.network/thread-26637.html) - I figure a new thread with a specific title will benefit the forum.
Details
I can't tell you the channel name because as far as I know, it's against YouTube's Terms of Service to divulge earnings.
There are a few main ways to earn money off of YouTube:
1. Create a channel with regularly-published videos (i.e. "New video every Tuesday")
Most of the big-name channels follow this format. People will wait for the new EpicMealTime video, Michelle Phan video or Lonely Island video. They have subscribed to the channel and each new video appears in their YouTube Homepage feed. This practically guarantees that X people will see each video. You must continue to produce "quality" content, and by that I mean you are creating content your viewers expect and will take time out of their day to watch.
2. Create a channel of videos will appear in searches
This is the format I follow. I have a series of videos that people will watch when they need help with something. I will detail my process below.
3. Create a channel, build a following and then parlay into a Paid Channel
This is a newer method. If you have 10,000 subscribers you can create a new channel of similar content and charge people to view it. You can also simply start requiring subscribers to pay to access the videos that you once offered for free, but that's not an ideal strategy. The best analogy is the Freemium model: Offer people something for free, and if they want even more they can pay to get it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemium)
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My method
I have a couple hundred videos of "How to _____" that will help people if they have trouble doing something. Kind of like an education channel, but people will watch it when they need to do something and have no idea how to.
If you have specialized skills in any area, you can create videos that will help laypeople.
YouTube is the ideal platform to do this on, because:
1. YouTube is more monetizable than text-only webpages.
2. Key: Google puts YouTube videos near the top of its own searches, because YouTube ads are one of Google's main revenue streams.
If you google "How to put on a condom", the first hit is a YouTube video:
1/3 of my traffic comes from YouTube searches
1/3 of my traffic comes from Google searches
1/3 of my traffic is everything else: "Suggested Videos", social media, and views that YouTube can't figure out the source of.
^^ This is completely different from the big-name channels (which are driven by subscriptions+virality) and one-hit-wonder videos (which are social media driven). People are finding me because they need help with something.
IF you create a How-To channel with videos like I have, I recommend UNCHECKING "notify subscribers" each time you publish a video. The big-name channels get lots of views this way, but the guy who viewed your "How to tie a Windsor knot" and subscribed to you, doesn't want a "How to fold your suit for a trip" at 4PM the next day. You can lose subscribers by posting content that doesn't give them an immediate dopamine hit. By being a channel they subscribed to, but without publishing videos to their feed, you'll appear high in their future search results without coming off as irrelevant.
----------
How to know what videos to create
If you already help people with stuff, you likely know what people need help with. If you don't, there's a few ways to mine the data:
1. Go to a forum on your topic and sort by "Views". The forum threads with the most views (usually double or triple the next-most-viewed threads) are likely getting their traffic from somewhere else (quite possibly Google searches). It's something people are searching for. Steal that thread title, or change it slightly, and create a YouTube video about it. Who's Google going to funnel traffic to - its own site (YouTube) or some forum that only displays text ads?
2. ^^ Do a similar thing for Yahoo Answers (sort by "Most popular"). Clearly Google will prefer to send searchers to YouTube, if there is similar content.
3. If you stumble across a video that seems to generate traffic (for example, "How to tie a Windsor knot"), create a dozen videos, one for each kind of knot.
--------
How much does YouTube pay?
When I say "$1,000 per month", it's more complicated. I have months of $1500 and months of $300. It will vary with the type of content you have, but here's my earnings for an unspecified time period. It's $1 for every ~250 views.
Best months are November and December because of Christmas advertisers.
You can probably guess how your own videos will vary seasonally: math videos are poor performers in summer because kids aren't studying, how to make margaritas is better on summer weekends, etc.
It really is cyclical, and YouTube traffic continues to grow. Here's the $ from one of my oldest videos. I uploaded it ONCE and it continues to get more and more views. Also note how cyclical this is, year-to-year. I smudged the line so they can't track me.
-----------
Extra tips for boosting traffic
- Create a tag that is specific to your channel, and put this tag on ALL of your videos. For example, Roosh could tag all this videos with "RooshVIDS888", and YouTube will be more likely to put his own videos in the "Suggested Videos" column when people watch any particular video of his
- YouTube is explicitly against "Thumbnail gaming", but only punishes videos when the thumbnail has NOTHING to do with the video. Any single frame from the video is allowed, with text overlay. Take a look at the "Most viewed" videos of Fail Army. It's not a surprise that the video with an attractive girl has the most views, followed by massive cleavage, and even not-hot-girl-in-bikini has a decent showing.
- ^^^ Bonus, but kind of unrelated: Compilation videos and Top Ten are HUGE. People just sit on YouTube apparently and binge-watch videos to waste time. The bonus is that these people generally aren't smart enough to install an AdBlocker haha.
-----
Feel free to ask questions. Also, feel free to leave feedback on the datasheet and/or how I can improve future ones.
Love this community, wanted to give back.
There was a thread about YouTube marketing from 2013 that got slightly derailed by one particular channel idea ("Any YouTube Marketers out there?", http://www.rooshvforum.network/thread-26637.html) - I figure a new thread with a specific title will benefit the forum.
Details
I can't tell you the channel name because as far as I know, it's against YouTube's Terms of Service to divulge earnings.
There are a few main ways to earn money off of YouTube:
1. Create a channel with regularly-published videos (i.e. "New video every Tuesday")
Most of the big-name channels follow this format. People will wait for the new EpicMealTime video, Michelle Phan video or Lonely Island video. They have subscribed to the channel and each new video appears in their YouTube Homepage feed. This practically guarantees that X people will see each video. You must continue to produce "quality" content, and by that I mean you are creating content your viewers expect and will take time out of their day to watch.
2. Create a channel of videos will appear in searches
This is the format I follow. I have a series of videos that people will watch when they need help with something. I will detail my process below.
3. Create a channel, build a following and then parlay into a Paid Channel
This is a newer method. If you have 10,000 subscribers you can create a new channel of similar content and charge people to view it. You can also simply start requiring subscribers to pay to access the videos that you once offered for free, but that's not an ideal strategy. The best analogy is the Freemium model: Offer people something for free, and if they want even more they can pay to get it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemium)
-------------
My method
I have a couple hundred videos of "How to _____" that will help people if they have trouble doing something. Kind of like an education channel, but people will watch it when they need to do something and have no idea how to.
If you have specialized skills in any area, you can create videos that will help laypeople.
YouTube is the ideal platform to do this on, because:
1. YouTube is more monetizable than text-only webpages.
2. Key: Google puts YouTube videos near the top of its own searches, because YouTube ads are one of Google's main revenue streams.
If you google "How to put on a condom", the first hit is a YouTube video:
1/3 of my traffic comes from YouTube searches
1/3 of my traffic comes from Google searches
1/3 of my traffic is everything else: "Suggested Videos", social media, and views that YouTube can't figure out the source of.
^^ This is completely different from the big-name channels (which are driven by subscriptions+virality) and one-hit-wonder videos (which are social media driven). People are finding me because they need help with something.
IF you create a How-To channel with videos like I have, I recommend UNCHECKING "notify subscribers" each time you publish a video. The big-name channels get lots of views this way, but the guy who viewed your "How to tie a Windsor knot" and subscribed to you, doesn't want a "How to fold your suit for a trip" at 4PM the next day. You can lose subscribers by posting content that doesn't give them an immediate dopamine hit. By being a channel they subscribed to, but without publishing videos to their feed, you'll appear high in their future search results without coming off as irrelevant.
----------
How to know what videos to create
If you already help people with stuff, you likely know what people need help with. If you don't, there's a few ways to mine the data:
1. Go to a forum on your topic and sort by "Views". The forum threads with the most views (usually double or triple the next-most-viewed threads) are likely getting their traffic from somewhere else (quite possibly Google searches). It's something people are searching for. Steal that thread title, or change it slightly, and create a YouTube video about it. Who's Google going to funnel traffic to - its own site (YouTube) or some forum that only displays text ads?
2. ^^ Do a similar thing for Yahoo Answers (sort by "Most popular"). Clearly Google will prefer to send searchers to YouTube, if there is similar content.
3. If you stumble across a video that seems to generate traffic (for example, "How to tie a Windsor knot"), create a dozen videos, one for each kind of knot.
--------
How much does YouTube pay?
When I say "$1,000 per month", it's more complicated. I have months of $1500 and months of $300. It will vary with the type of content you have, but here's my earnings for an unspecified time period. It's $1 for every ~250 views.
Best months are November and December because of Christmas advertisers.
You can probably guess how your own videos will vary seasonally: math videos are poor performers in summer because kids aren't studying, how to make margaritas is better on summer weekends, etc.
It really is cyclical, and YouTube traffic continues to grow. Here's the $ from one of my oldest videos. I uploaded it ONCE and it continues to get more and more views. Also note how cyclical this is, year-to-year. I smudged the line so they can't track me.
-----------
Extra tips for boosting traffic
- Create a tag that is specific to your channel, and put this tag on ALL of your videos. For example, Roosh could tag all this videos with "RooshVIDS888", and YouTube will be more likely to put his own videos in the "Suggested Videos" column when people watch any particular video of his
- YouTube is explicitly against "Thumbnail gaming", but only punishes videos when the thumbnail has NOTHING to do with the video. Any single frame from the video is allowed, with text overlay. Take a look at the "Most viewed" videos of Fail Army. It's not a surprise that the video with an attractive girl has the most views, followed by massive cleavage, and even not-hot-girl-in-bikini has a decent showing.
- ^^^ Bonus, but kind of unrelated: Compilation videos and Top Ten are HUGE. People just sit on YouTube apparently and binge-watch videos to waste time. The bonus is that these people generally aren't smart enough to install an AdBlocker haha.
-----
Feel free to ask questions. Also, feel free to leave feedback on the datasheet and/or how I can improve future ones.
Love this community, wanted to give back.