I recently celebrated a milestone
of 20,000 subscribers
so I'm providing this information
for anyone who's thinking
of starting a YouTube channel
or wondering how much money
YouTubers make.
The short answer is that
as of right now,
my small channel makes
around $400 a month,
but you'll want to stick around
for the longer answer,
because I'm about to share
three really important tips
that I guarantee
will increase your revenue.
I know this because I've done
the same things myself recently,
which have doubled my income on YouTube.
The first one is captioning
also known as subtitles,
this little CC icon
next to my videos
means that closed captions are available.
So they're accessible to deaf
and hard of hearing people,
as well as non-native speakers
who might find it easier
to read along.
But more importantly,
from an income perspective,
it helps videos rank higher
in the search results.
This is because
when a video has captions,
YouTube slurps up
all that delicious data
to use in their algorithm,
which determines whether a video
gets displayed to people in
the search results.
All the words that are picked up
from the subs
get fed into the YouTube machine.
And are used to determine
whether your video is relevant.
The more you feed YouTube,
the more YouTube feeds you.
My ad revenue is literally doubled
since I started using
these captions on my videos.
I use a company called Rev
for all my captioning,
and you'll find a link
in the description,
which will get you $10
off your first order.
$10 off means that
you'll get eight minutes of captions
for free.
After that it costs
$1.25 per minute of captioning.
Personally, I don't hesitate
to buy these subtitles
for every new video
that I put out now,
because I always get way more exposure
by having them,
which results in more ad revenue.
You can just send Rev
a link to your YouTube video,
and they reply with the captions.
Alternatively,
if you don't have the money to spend,
you can just do the captions yourself
by typing them up manually.
The more information
that you supply to YouTube,
the more likely you are to rank
in the search results,
which means that more people
will see your content,
which means that you'll get paid more.
So having captions,
isn't something you should overlook,
whether you decide
to pay for them
or do it yourself.
My second tip is also about
increasing your exposure
in the search results,
but in a different way.
When you upload a video,
you can either guess
what words are being searched for
and hope for the best
with your content.
Or you can use software
such as TubeBuddy,
which acts like x-ray vision
for YouTube.
You can use it for free
by clicking the link
in the description.
It shows you analytical information
about your videos,
as well as the same information
about other people's videos.
Also, it gives you access
to what keywords
have been searched for on YouTube,
where the videos rank
and about a billion other things,
that'll help you get traffic.
What happened with me is that
I started out with a free version
and then ended up paying for Pro
when I realized how good
the software is.
Pro gives you access
to more advanced features,
which makes sure
that you're using the best keywords,
in titles, tags,
and descriptions.
That way you can make sure
that even if you're a small channel,
you're using keywords
that people are actually searching for,
and that you can compete
against the bigger channels on.
I believe it's already paid for itself
within the first
couple of days of using it.
Because although I consider myself
quite knowledgeable about keywords,
I was surprised
by what a difference,
just a few changes to the keywords
made on my videos.
The third tip is something
that I only discovered recently,
which is playlists.
I knew what playlists were,
but never bothered
setting one up my channel.
A few weeks ago
when I started organizing the videos,
I decided to put my Redbubble content
into a big playlist.
So they were easily accessible
if someone came across my channel
for the first time.
When I checked the analytics
a week later,
I found that putting them
into a playlist resulted in
thousands of extra views every day
and added on an extra 50 hours
onto my watch time.
It takes about 20 seconds
to create a playlist.
So this is an excellent investment.
Remember, more views means more revenue.
So there's no reason
not to create a playlist.
It encourages people to watch more.
The most important tip
that I can offer you about YouTube
is to create genuinely useful content
for your audience.
This is what I always say
about print on demand
that I usually talk
about in my videos.
If you want to be successful,
then you need to create
something your audience actually wants
and will find useful.
I mean, create whatever you want,
it's your channel after all.
But if you add value
to the lives of other people,
then they'll want
to watch your content
and you'll get paid.
It's important to bear in mind
that I didn't make this channel
with the intention of being monetized.
I made it to pass on the information
that I knew to others,
and hopefully help them
become financially independent,
whether that resulted
in a payment or not
was irrelevant to me at the time.
Therefore my channel,
isn't the best case study
for how quickly
you can make money on YouTube,
because I haven't been consistent.
I stopped uploading videos
for 6 to 12 months at a time
on 2 occasions.
And it's only recently
that I've started uploading
consistently again.
I've also been trying
to keep my videos as short
and to the point as possible,
but I've only recently learned
that this isn't ideal
because longer videos
result in more ad revenue.
Not that I'd intentionally try
and make a video longer
if it was unnecessary,
but I mean,
I was literally spending hours,
cutting unnecessary pauses out
and superfluous things
that I'd said out of videos,
when in reality
I was being penalized for it.
So I'm still learning everyday
when it comes to YouTube,
and I welcome any feedback
in the comments
if you have anything that can help.
I've always had the mindset
that we should help each other
and we can all grow
and become more and more
successful together.
That's why I started this channel
sharing exactly what I do
with print on demand for free,
because I want others
to create the life that they want,
freeing themselves from jobs
that they hate
and allowing them to
do whatever they want
with their lives.
Last but not least,
since my channel is primarily
about passive income,
I'd like to mention
this aspect of YouTube revenue.
I think any YouTuber
will tell you
that making content
for this website is anything
but passive.
There's a lot of work
involved with YouTube.
I certainly didn't appreciate
just how much work that was
before I started making videos.
And that's with relatively
straightforward ones
like the ones that I make.
But there is a passive income element
to YouTube in the sense that
once the work's done,
the videos are there
are earning forever.
During the months
that I wasn't making videos, for example,
I was still getting paid.
So in theory,
I could leave my channel now
without doing anything else
and I'd continue
to get income from it
because people are
watching the content.
But if you want to grow your channel
and increase your income every month,
then ideally you'll be consistent
with your uploads.
If I had been
consistently producing videos
since I started my channel,
then I imagine my monthly payments
would be a lot higher.
The other thing to bear in mind is:
even though I only have
about 40 videos,
I've got over a million channel views.
According to the analytics,
last month in August 2020,
I got around 70,000 views.
This is increasing all the time
as I'm currently making
new content every week.
So my revenue will increase with it.
I've seen bigger channels
with way less
and smaller channels
with way more.
So just bear in mind
that your own experience
and income will vary.
It depends on what your focus is
and how much advertisers
believe that your content
is worth to them.
An important number for YouTube creators
is how much you get paid for CPM.
So CPM determines
how much money a YouTuber makes
per thousand views.
Given that I talk about money
a lot on my channel.
My CPM is generally quite high.
Apparently, the average CPM is about $2
whereas some of my videos
have been as high as $20,
but because I generally didn't care
or pay any attention
to income from YouTube until recently,
my average CPM over the lifetime
of the channel is around $12.
I often talked about
whatever I thought
would be helpful to the subscribers,
including explaining about
how to get unbanned from Redbubble,
the psychology behind selling
and videos like that,
which generally don't bring in
very much revenue at all.
This, combined with the massive gaps
in my YouTube journey
has resulted in relatively low payments.
Now that I understand
a lot more about
how that works,
I'll be interested in seeing
how much my revenue increases
over the rest of the year.
I was quite pleased with $400
ad revenue until I did
a bit of research
and discovered that
there are smaller channels
making way more.
But, I guess that's why comparison
is the thief of joy.
And as I've explained,
my channel wasn't intended
to be a moneymaking machine.
Otherwise, I'd be churning out
high CPM videos all the time.
It is nice to get some extra income
from making helpful content, though.
I would be interested in finding out
about your experience on YouTube.
So please comment down below
if you've already monetized your channel
with your own experience,
or if you're thinking
of starting a channel,
and this has been helpful,
let me know too.
If you're interested in passive income
and have come across
this video by chance,
like apparently 85% of the people
who view my videos do,
then have a look
at my other content too,
because print on demand
is my main source of income
and focus of this channel,
which is dedicated
to explaining exactly
how anyone can get started with it
and find success.
Hopefully, it will help you out.
Thanks for listening.