In this video, I’m going to show you exactly how much YouTube paid me for a 1,200,000 view video and share some of my own tips & tricks for growing my own channel to 50,000+ subscribers in less than a year.
Click Here To Watch The Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osn2HfJMmk0
I get asked this on a daily basis so I figured I would make a video talking about it, explaining how YouTube monetization works and giving you guys some tips to start your own YouTube channel.
Also, I figured I would experiment and jump on the trend of “How much I made from XYZ” videos that do so well here on YouTube…
One of the craziest things about this video is that it was the very first video I ever uploaded to this channel. Seriously. I never expected my first upload to do this well, let alone hit 1,000,000+ views in under a year, gain my channel 50,000+ subscribers and make me over $10,000 in free passive income every single month for the next year…
So how exactly did I do it?
Believe it or not, ranking and having success on YouTube isn’t entirely up to chance. If you know what you’re doing, are willing to put in the work and are deliberate about making it work, you can do this too.
Here’s my simple cheat sheet to ranking your videos on YouTube. If this video gets a good response, I may make a full, comprehensive tutorial/guide going more in-depth on starting a profitable YouTube channel.
First things first… How long should your videos be? The sweet spot that I’ve found is 20-25 minutes. This helps you rank up watch minutes (which are more valuable to YouTube today than views), but not so long that your view retention (the percentage of your video people watch) stays high. View retention is also extremely important.
The second biggest tip I can give you is to sign up and download the Chrome Extension, VidIQ. This is the ultimate tool for ranking on YouTube and does a lot of the work for you.
With every upload, VidIQ will not only help you to proper keyword research to write your titles and tags, but it will give you a full checklist of everything you need to do to fully optimize your video then give you a 0 – 100 score.
So make sure you’re taking the time to complete every item on that list, from sharing your video on Facebook and Twitter, adding cards and end screens and pinning your first comment.
Which brings me to another big tip I have that has given me a major advantage over everyone else in my space.
I take the time to reply to every single comment that’s posted on every video and I plan on continuing that for as long as I can. YouTube loves videos with a lot of engagement and this is one of the best actionable ways to triple it on your channel.
The last quick tip I want to leave you with is another big one. Stop linking away to other websites in your video description. I know this may seem counter-intuitive at first, but you need to keep in mind that YouTube is a business and that business only makes money when users stay on the website and keep watching ads. So don’t drive them away.
If you’re building a channel for business, retarget your viewers with pre-roll ads which are not only cheap but very effective. This is one of the main reasons I’ve been growing this channel and is a huge source of revenue for my company, DeepWork.
You know how you’ll watch someone’s video and they essentially stalk you around the platform for the next 3 months? That’s Calle retargeting. Google lets you retarget everyone who has either viewed, liked, commented or subscribed to your channel for the past 365+ days and it’s VERY effective from a business standpoint.
Another thing that is vital to your video being successful and having a high click-through rate is your video thumbnail. Make sure you take the time to design simple, yet eye-catching thumbnail including the most crucial information and creating curiously about your content.
Feel free to not straight up copy, but use some of mine for inspiration. Thumbnails are a surprisingly big part of how to make money on YouTube.
Tip: Have you noticed that YouTube has started implementing hashtags? Feel free to add 2-3 at the bottom of your descriptions. It can’t hurt and I’m sure YouTube will make these more valuable as time goes by.
One thing you can do though (and YouTube likes this) is linking to your other videos in your description like I’m about to do in 3… 2…