Making Money on YouTube: 5 Secrets to Success

If you want to make money from home then starting a YouTube channel is one of the most rewarding – and flexible – ways to achieve this.

My own YouTube channel brings over $1000 a month in revenue for around three days work a month. I would say that’s worth it!

In fact it’s one of my fastest growing side hustles, so if you have a topic you are passionate about then I think this is a great way to earn some extra money.

This article is going too take a look at how you can get starting with making money on YouTube and the various ways creators are bring in the cash on this platform.

How do YouTubers make money

First of all how do other YouTubers actually earn money? There are various ways they do this, but these are the key ways to bring in cash on YouTube.

All of these begin with launching a channel and creating videos (including main uploads to your channel and “Shorts” which are a bit like TikTok videos or Instagram stories) that appeal to your audience.

Which of these should you focus on? I suggest focusing on more than one! There’s nothing wrong with trying to make money from all of them.

Ad revenue from the YouTube Partner Programme

Becoming a member of the YouTube Partner Programme means you receive some of the revenue earned from the ads placed in your videos by YouTube.

Just starting a channel isn’t enough to join the partner programme, you will need to pass a couple of milestones first.

To qualify you need to:

Get 1,000 subscribes with 4,000 valid public watch hours in the past 12 months

Get 1,000 subscribers with 10 million valid public Shorts views in the past 90 days

Pros

Income rolls in every day once your channel is established
You can focus on creating content you love

Cons

Takes time to meet the requirements
Earnings can be slow to grow

Potential earnings: The top earners on YouTube make millions of dollars every year, for example creators like Mr Beast. Someone with 20,000 views a day can make between $30 and $45 a day.

Affiliate links

Creators can partner with brands they use and recommend to create affiliate links.

This involves sharing personalised web links with your audience. If they click and go on to make a purchase then the creator gets a slice of the sale.

Making money with affiliates works for a variety of niches, including parenting, DIY, interior design, gadgets, and hobbies.

There is a huge variety of affiliate networks and platforms out there. Amazon’s affiliate scheme is perhaps the best known, but many big brands have affiliate schemes.

You can sign up to big affiliate platforms such as AWIN, Skimlinks and ShareASale, which represent multiple brands, in order to create your affiliate links.

Pros

Potential for greater earnings than YouTube ads
Income rolls in every day once channel is established

Cons

Requires a large audience to make decent money
Percentage you receive varies depending on the affiliate scheme – can be as little as one per cent or as much as 50%+

Potential earnings: You may earn as little as $10 a month or thousands a month. It depends on the size of your audience, the percentage share the affiliate scheme offers, the cost of the products you are promoting and your niche.

Selling products

Another great way to make money on YouTube is to sell your own products.

This could be physical products or digital products, as well as services, relevant to your audience.

For example a money blogger may sell money-saving challenge printable tracker sheets. Or a parenting blogger may sell an annual family planner.

Pros

You keep the majority of the profits from this, unlike YouTube ads or affiliates

Cons

Sending physical products can take a lot of additional time and you may need to enlist extra help

Audience subscriptions

Many creators receive direct support from their audience. Most creators who do this will offer something extra for audience members who are prepared to pay a monthly subscription.

Most YouTubers use a separate service in order to facilitate their subscriptions. The popular ones are:

Patreon
Substack
KoFi

All of these platforms will process regular payments and allow you to post content to your audience.

For those wanting to share written, video or audio content exclusively for paying subscribers then Patreon or Substack are the best options.

Pros

A great way to monetise your audience and continue creating the content you love

Cons

Requires a large and loyal audience to earn well
Additional workload as you’ll likely need to invest time in creating exclusive content for your audience

Potential earnings: Generally speaking the conversion rate for audience subscriptions is one to three per cent. So if you have 50,000 subscribers on YouTube you may be able to expect 500 to 1,500 paying subscribers. Say each pays £5 a month, you will get £2,500 to £7,500 a month.

Keys to success on YouTube

There are five key steps to having successful YouTube channel.

1. Understand the content your audience wants

Some experts will say you need to pick a niche. I think the best way to frame this is to focus on who your audience is and what type of content they want to watch.

What do they need help with? What type of entertaining content would they enjoy?

This is where to start, because it’s a loyal audience that will ultimately lead to your success on YouTube.

Some popular YouTube niches include:

Food and cooking
Gaming
Music
Entertainment – TV and movie reviews, celebrity news
Fashion
Beauty
Toy reviews
Crafting
Fitness
Home improvements

Once you know your niche it’s then really important to understand what your ideal audience is already watching in YouTube.

Get out there and research other channels doing the same content, or similar, as you would like to do. Head over to their channel, especially if they are around the 50k to 80k subscribers mark as then you know they’ve done well but you could still grow with inspiration from their ideas.

Look at their most popular videos and see if you could make your own version. How can you improve the idea? Think of B-roll, fun quirks and educational additions you could make to make it even better.

2. Upload regularly

Setting a regular schedule for when you will upload videos means that your subscribers know when they will hear from you. In addition the platform rewards consistency on the platform.

A regular upload schedule will also help you to hone your craft on YouTube, because you’ll find it way easier to learn by doing.

Your early videos will not be your best. But consistency will mean you improve over time.

However remember it is about quality not quantity.

It’s important to set an upload schedule that is manageable for you rather than churning out content that has been rushed and is not great quality.

When deciding how often you will upload to YouTube think about how much time you have to devote to producing videos every week.

One video takes me around three to five hours to plan, film and produce. Sometimes it takes longer.

If you only have three hours a week to dedicate to YouTube then it’s best to start with just one video per week.

3. Perfect the edit

Editing your YouTube videos is an important part of the process.

The more professional your videos look, the more likely viewers are to come back.

So audio and video quality is important. But the way you edit your video together is also vital.

There are various options for software you can use to edit your videos. iMovie is a good, free option for Mac users.

There’s also Final Cut Pro and Premier Pro, which are paid-for tools.

Some tips for editing a great video:

Remove pauses, breaths and “ums” from your content.
Add B-roll – this is particularly important if your videos are largely you sat talking to the camera. B-roll showing the stuff you are talking about means the audience is less likely to be bored.
Add text, titles and graphics.
Cut out repetition.
Add great music where appropriate – I get my YouTube music from Epidemic Sound for a monthly subscription.

4. Use Shorts

This relatively new feature to YouTube is being pushed hard on the platform, so it’s something that is really worth using when you are starting out to help you grow.

Shorts are short-form video that resemble TikTok.

YouTube now allows creators to monetise their Shorts, so it’s another way for you to grow your earnings.

If you already have a presence on Instagram or TikTok and are creating upright short videos then you can repurpose them for YouTube Shorts.

Shorts should be content related to your channel niche. It can be informative, fun and/or entertaining. For example a quick tip, hack or demonstration of a product.

5. Eye-catching thumbnails

The thumbnail of a video is what is likely to first draw your audience to your video.

It’s crucial this thumbnail not only tells them what the video is about but also entices them to watch your video in the first place.

I use Canva – which is free for the basic version – to create my thumbnails. The platform offers free templates for YouTube thumbnails, or you can make one from scratch.

Key elements of a great thumbnail are:

An eye-catching photo that is clear and in focus
Text – something that gets the viewer to want to watch the video. Keep it short and use a font that is easy to read on a small screen
Consistency of branding in all your thumbnails
Strong contrast so words can be read
Great font that’s easy to read
Catches the attention of the viewer to make them want to click
Something that sparks curiosity – don’t just make the text on your thumbnail a repeat of the title and description. Use something that is attention-grabbing!

Getting started on YouTube

In order to start a successful YouTube channel you will need to:

Choose a channel name and create branding including a banner image
Decide what your channel is about – pick a topic, with related sub-topics, your channel will have content on
Decide on an upload schedule – at least once a week is a good start
Make a great YouTube thumbnail template
Shoot quality videos – you can use your smartphone when starting out
Check analytics to see what is working
Remain consistent

Do you have to show your face on YouTube?

If you’re an introvert, want to do YouTube anonymously or just hate the idea of speaking on camera, that’s OK because there are tons of faceless channels that do really well.

A faceless YouTube channel is where the creator does not show their face. It may involve just their hands demonstrating something, such as a craft or gardening technique.

Gaming is also a good example of a faceless YouTube channel.

Most videos contain some kind of audio, but it does not have to be spoken audio, it could just be music. Alternatively you could pay someone to provide audio for your videos.

How much money can you make on YouTube

The top paid YouTuber is Mr Beast, who earns $82million through his YouTube channel.

It’s great if you are aiming for a similar level of income, but most people on YouTube will make far less than this!

The average earnings for YouTubers who are monetised is $18 for every 1,000 views.

Focus on your audience and build your earnings

There’s definitely an audience for pretty much anything you can think of on YouTube!

The key is to find your people on there and really focus on consistency to make great content for them. This will keep them coming back.

To be successful in making money on YouTube:

Be clear about who your audience is
Make content your audience will love, engage with and share
Your videos should be entertaining and informative
Consider using other platforms to engage your audience – most YouTubers are also active on social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Facebook

Want to make money from home?

Other ways to make money from home that may appeal include starting a blog, which is a better option if you’re not confident the technical aspects of editing a YouTube video.

You can also check out these great work from home ideas.