There are many strategies to make money from youtube videos, and each of them requires a different approach. All of the are effective, but you have to find one that is more suitable for you.
Some of the most encountered strategies are:
1 – Make money in a high traffic niche on youtube by uploading plenty of videos. (Youtube Traffic Robbers method)
This is the most brutal strategy. It is also the simplest one, meaning that you don’t need a prior experience in marketing in order to get you started. Thus, anyone can make money out of it almost guaranteed if he follows the instructions presented here. Once, you have uploaded enough videos, it can turn into an autopilot income stream. It does not require you to create original videos, and it does not require you to create viral videos- most of which get viral just by luck. This strategy does not rely on luck and you don’t have to be a brilliant marketer to pull it off. It works every time even for total beginners.
2 – Make money in a high paying niche by getting targeted leads
This strategy requires an intermediate level of understanding marketing and is based on building an authority figure/channel on youtube. For this niche you need to build credibility, interact with your users in order to convert them into leads, upload original videos in most of the cases, build your subscribers base, and trying to earn their trust. It can pay off big time, especially since you will be collecting targeted and dedicated leads, to which you can promote over and over again.
3 – Make money by uploading few commercial videos and promoting them
This strategy is based on uploading commercial videos, usually videos promoting affiliate products, or cpas offers, and then using different software’s to make them popular and getting lots of views. The most used softwares are those that inflate your views count by providing fake views, or those that comment, rate, and add to favorites your videos. By artificially inflating those stats, your video will appear on youtube’s most commented list, or most rated, or most viewed, or will get honors, thus getting a lot of exposure and ultimately getting lots of views from real people.
These strategies are not used totally independently (and there are many other strategies and variations). A good marketer will combine them and add his own touch. I am going to explain each of them in detail.
1 – Make money in a high traffic niche on youtube by uploading plenty of videos.
First some general info about this strategy:
Read this in order to decide whether is suitable for you or not to pursue this method:
Aspects of this particular strategy:
- It is free, does not require any money investment upfront.
- It can bring instant results and conversions, usually within few hours of uploading your videos.
- It generally requires you to upload videos daily in order to stay ahead of the game. After several weeks of uploading videos, however, it can turn into an autopilot income stream.
- It is very hard to scale it up big, I would say you can’t earn more than 5,000$ per month unless you build your own super tools, you are a brilliant marketer or you get extremely lucky.
- The work is very tedious and boring when you have to do it manually.
For this strategy, you need to understand the lifespan of a youtube video:
This is generally how a normal youtube video behaves when is uploaded to youtube ( assuming that this videos does not get lucky or viral, and you don’t do anything to promote it besides uploading):
First it will have an initial spike of views within the first 24 hours. This comes from the fact that it will usually appear in the “most recented videos” list on youtube different categories. After this initial spike of views, it will get “sandboxed” with the other millions of videos uploaded. Here it will get very few views every day, usually coming from people searching the phrase contained in its title. Eventually, after several days or weeks, in some cases even months, it will get out of sandboxed, and based on its age – and a couple of other factors- it will rank extremely high in youtube serps. This is the moment when your video has just turned into an autopilot income stream. By ranking high in youtube serps for different keywords, it will get daily visitors without any extra effort from your end.
This is important because in order to see good results with this strategy, you ll have to build your momentum, meaning uploading videos everyday, making cash from the initial spikes of views this videos get, and in the same time building your autopilot income stream by infecting youtube with hundreds of your videos which will pay off in future.
In order to pull this off successfully you need to follow this basic plan.
- Select a niche
- Create your videos to CONVERT
- Spin your videos and upload them constantly
- Monetize your traffic
1. Select a niche.
The basic idea of this strategy is to exploit on niches that are big on youtube and can deliver a lot of visitors to your website, and make money of those, even if you will convert the traffic very poorly.
You first have to look for a niche that gets a lot of views … the best way is to browse through youtube and you ll get a general feeling of how things work.
I will give some examples so that you can have a starting point:
- sexy/ adult videos niche
- soccer videos niche (and other sports as well)
- movies niches (with subniches tv shows, anime etc…)
- celebrity news niches (and goofs, etc..)
- music and videoclips niche
These are some niches that can deliver huge traffic to your websites – constantly, not only occasionally spikes. I’m talking about several thousands uniques on a daily basis, with spikes that can reach even tens of thousands of uniques per day – when there is a special event that goes viral.
Pick a niche that you are comfortably with and proceed to the next step.
2. Create your videos and make them to convert.
This method involves uploading hundred and thousands of videos to youtube, but this does not mean that you’ll have to create hundreds or thousands of videos.
You just need to create anywhere between 10-50 videos (we’ll call them the Basement Videos), depending on the niche, and then re-uploading this videos over and over again on youtube, with different titles, descriptions, tags, etc…
Of course youtube algorithm will recognize this videos as duplicate content, therefore you’ll have to spin them by modifying them a little bit, and re-upload them again as new videos (more about this in part 3).
It is very important to put some effort into making your Basement Videos extremely converting. You only have to create this videos once, and for the next couple of months, you’ll just upload this videos, no need to create new ones. Therefore, you do not need to spare any efforts in making this videos almost perfect for converting viewers into visitors, because this will have a huge impact in the long run.
NOTE: Automatically downloading videos from youtube, watermarking them and then re-uploading will not make you money. You need to upload to youtube CONVERTING VIDEOS. (Videos that will convert your viewers into visitor to your website). Just by uploading hundreds of plain watermarked videos will not get you any decent traffic, people will see the video but not visit your website.
Now, let’s get to video creation part:
First you’ll need some raw videos, not watermarked, that you will then download them and modify in order to form your basement videos.
Sources of videos:
- recently added videos at youtube:
Go to youtube, search for a term that represents the niche you are looking for, and from the results page you get, choose from the drop down menu to sort the results according to Date Added You will be provided with a list of recent uploaded videos where you can find some amazing new videos, some of them unseen before on youtube. Once you find something that you feel is a worthy video, then download it, watermark , and re-upload it using the techniques mentioned furthermore in the report.
While we are here, lets not forget to mention that if the video you plan to re-upload is an adult-sexy one, then do your duty properly, and flag the initial video as inappropriate, such that you can get rid of competition.
Two free programs that allow you to download videos from youtube are
- http://youtubedownload.altervista.org/ – recommended since he also has a converter embedded.
- ultraget.com just downloads multiple videos in flash format, you need to convert them later
To freely convert videos from flash to wmv or avi , you can use media-convert.com
- users channel.
This is another trick that I use, and it most of the time saves me a lot of time. The idea is that once you see a video which looks good to you, with no watermark on it whatsoever, go to the users channel (the users who uploaded the video) and see what others videos has he uploaded. There is a good chances that you are going to find a lot of fresh videos, with no watermark on them, ready to be watermarked and re-upload by you.
- other websites
Believe it or not, you can find at other video sharing websites videos that are not already uploaded to youtube. Use the recently added videos trick and apply it for other video sharing websites on the web.
- the icon video method
The icon video method is the simplest way of creating a video. It’s basically a video created from a promo message (watermarked part) and a picture that is displayed for several minutes in the video. The pictures has the role to increase the length of the video (such that your video will appear to have several minutes in length) AND to appear as the thumbnail of the video (this is one way of manipulating the thumbnail, a very important trick to get lots of views).
An example of an icon video promotion will look like this:
Youtube user search for the keyword jessica alba
In the serps results, he sees a video with the title: Jessica Alba doing a sexy striptease with a thumbnail of jessica alba half naked.
He clicks to see that video, and the icon video appears with a text on a black background: We are sorry, Youtube TOS does not allow us to show the video here. Please visit www.dominateim.com to see the video followed by a picture which will stay there for several minutes, the Jessica Alba half naked picture that tricked him into checking this video first time.
The advantages of using icon videos Is that you can manipulate very easily the thumbnails, which will get you lots of views. Also conversions of viewers into visitors to your pages are higher. Disadvantages? A lot of users will get pissed and report your video.
Once you have downloaded your videos, is time to watermark them and getting them to convert your viewers into visitors to your website.
Watermarking the videos
The simplest and free watermark tool is the Windows Movie Maker program which comes free with every windows installation. In order to be able to import and edit videos in Windows Movie Maker you need to have them into an avi or wmv format. You can media-convert.com to convert them.
(Video tutorial on how to use WMM necessary?)
The way you watermark your videos will determine whether the viewer will go to check your website and make you some cash, or you have just done useless work for the youtube community by providing them with a nice video, but being unable to profit from it.
I usually use a 3 step watermarking process for all my videos, which I like call it the Bermuda Triangle Watermark technique. Why? Because once the viewers gets to my video, it is almost sure that they will visit my website.
1. The first step is to complete watermark all the video-from beginning to the end- with the url of your website. This way, you ensure that there will be no other blackhatter coming and downloading your video, watermarking and adding his credit and url and re-uploading it.
2. The second step is to add at the end of the video (or at the beginning of the video or both at the end and in the beginning of the video depending on the niche), another message- like a promo, which will convince the viewer to go to your website. This is where you actually convert the viewer into a visitor-or fail.
3. The third step is to prolong the end of the video, with the address of your website on a black screen, and keep this end for 30 seconds- 1 minute. Why? Because at the end of every video, youtube display a screen with similar videos. This can distract your viewer and forget about the plan to go to your website, and may choose to check one more video instead. By prolonging the end of the video with the url, you assure that your viewer focuses more on the message you just sent to him.
At this step you should have a set of videos ready and watermarked, with which you are going to work from now on. If you have any trouble creating your videos, please check the forum and ask for support.
3-Spin your videos and upload them constantly
Once you have a set of converting your videos, then it is just a matter of spinning and uploading them over and over again before the traffic pours in to your website.
The simplest and free- method to spin your videos is to import them in windows movie maker, add another frame of credits at the end, and save them with a different name. The small frame addition is enough to trick the youtube filter into thinking that this is a completely different video than from the previous one.
For multi video upload, the simplest and free- way to do it, is using youtube’s in house video uploader, located at http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_multiupload (you need to be logged in to see it).
In order to use it, you ll have to install a small application (follow the instructions given by youtube there or ask for support in the forum).
Once this is done, you ll have to pick the videos to upload, input titles, descriptions and tags, and then the software will automatically upload all your videos without any extra effort from your side. You can let it run overnight.
Titles, descriptions, tags, thumbnails and annotations
Titles:
Some advice:
- Do NOT use generic names/facts (like Sexy girl)
- Use numbers, precisely values work best (How I made 5670$ in one month, 3 Secrets to magic )
- Use superlative terms (best, worse, most beautiful, top goals, most amazing)
- Use capitalization (BEST video on youtube, the WORSE accident EVER, )
- Use catchy words ( unseen before, secret, never released, the hidden truth, top confidential)
- Imply the reader affectively (OH my god, Can YOU believe, girl stripping for YOU, have YOU seen this?, YOU do not want to miss this, etc..)
- Use exaggeration and misleading titles, just to get views (see FULL movie here, this is the UNCENSORED version of girls gone wild-although obviously you censor the video). You ll convert the views latter into visitors, your job is just to attract views at the moment.
- Use keyword rich titles- they help with rankings
Tags:
The more the better. Use very sought words. Reach the maximum number of characters allowed.
Description:
Your url written as http://www.url.com should be the first thing in your description, followed by a short explanation of the video (optional) , press enter several times, and after that follow with a lot of keywords. You can extract them from a keyword generator tool, or you can copy them from other videos. Description is still an important factor in ranking a video, especially for long tail keywords.
Thumbnails
Thumbnails are crucially to getting a lot of views to your youtube videos. As of now, youtube gives you three choices for your thumbnail: the frame that appears at of your video, the one at and the one appearing at . (The one in the middle is automatically chosen, you can manually select any other one).
Unfortunately for this method, there is no simple way to manipulate your thumbnail (Unless you use the icon video method). Even if you insert an image exactly in the middle of the video, the spinning process will increase the length of the video, therefore modifying constantly your thumbnail.
Ratings
Ratings are an important factor determining how well your video will rank in youtube’s results page.
This is a small trick to get your videos an average rating of 5 stars (maximum possible). After you upload your videos in one account, log off, then log in using a different account. Give to all your videos a maximum rating of 5 stars. Then log off, and log in again with the original account (the one that uploaded the videos). In your settings, select do not allow ratings for this video. This way, the average rating of your videos will be 5 stars (as you voted earlier from another account) and no one else can vote anymore.
Annotations
Annotations create clickable link from the video leading to your youtube profile or to another youtube video. This can only be added manually to each video, and for this strategy are not effective. Don’t bother putting annotations on your videos, it will take to much effort with very little ROI on your side.
4. Monetizing your traffic
The monetizing part obviously depends on the niche you select to dominate. I am going to list the most effective forms of monetizing for this particular marketing approach.
- Adsense
Creating a MFA page and sending your traffic there is the most basic way of monetizing this kind of traffic. Some of this niches deliver a lot of traffic, but is hard to monetize it, because there are not many affiliates products or cpas that can be sold successfully to this kind of people, or simply because they do not convert well. Creating a website, with keywords related to your niches, and placing adsense on them, is the simplest way to make some income from this visitors. People will come to your website, and since they won’t find what they were looking for, they will just click an ad that appeals to them and leave your website. (Youtube users are not tech savvy, they click very easily ads, especially if these are targeted)
the ration impressions/unique visitors for the standard youtube traffic is 1.7 This means that 1000 uniques from youtubes will generally generate around 1700 adsense impressions on your website, regardless of how many pages your website has.
For the general and low paying niches (celebrities, politics, etc..), you should expect a cpm between 10$-20$ at adsense. This means that 1000 uniques will generate 1700 impressions, and will earn you somewhere between 17$-34$.
For more specific and high paying niches (movies, anime, etc…) you can expect a cpm of 20-30$, this means that 1000 visitors will generate you somewhere between 34$ -51$.
As you can see, this is not the best monetizing possible, but it is the easiest one. You do not have to bother to pre-sell your visitors, convince them to fill a cpa lead, or buy a product. You get the visitors in bulk, they click an ad, you get paid. Rinse and repeat, and money is flowing into your adsense account.
Domain parking
This is the upgraded adsense way of monetizing. A parked page consists only of ads, so when the visitors come to your website, they have no other choices but to click an ad- or press the back button.
It has the advantage that can work also on niches that are forbidden in adsense such as the adult niches, or gambling, etc…
In order to benefit from this one, you’ll have to sign up with a parking company. I will list some of them here, and I will give a more exhaustive explanation of their advantages and disadvantages in another forum thread or report- this is about youtube marketing, not about domain parking.
- sedo (do NOT try this with the adult niche, you’ll get banned)
- namedrive
- revenuedirect
- parked.com (one of the best)
- domainspa.com
- parkingpanel.com good for adult traffic
If you are a large domain owner, you’ll get access to more exclusive domain parking companies, that pay better, but we’ll talk about this in another discussion.
CPA leads
-This is getting a little bit more complicated, because you need to have an intermediate understanding of marketing and know your traffic in order to get visitors to fill in a cpa lead.
Usually, there are not many cpas offers that work with the bulk traffic youtube approach, but-depending on your niche- you can find some to play with.
A better way of monetizing is using incentive offers- or trying to incentive offers that are not allowed to be incentive. In return you will promise the visitors something that he is looking for.
For instance, if you use celebrity traffic, you can promise to show him a naked picture of his favorite actress in exchange for filling in an email submit/ or ringtone submit.
For instance, if you use movie fans traffic, you can promise him to download free movies in exchange for an email submit/ ringtone submit.
You’ll find more about this method of incenting offers in the cpa forum.
Classic cpa leads generation work much better with other youtube videos strategy yet to be presented.
- Affiliate products and building your list
This monetizing method is not fitted for the bulk videos strategy, and works much better with the other strategies yet to be presented. (Make money in a high paying niche by getting targeted leads and Make money by uploading few commercial videos and promoting them).
To be continued with…
2. Make money in a high paying niche by getting targeted leads strategy.
and…
3. Make money by uploading few commercial videos and promoting them.
Please visit the forum for additional tips, tricks and discussions, as well as step by step blueprints of particular niches.
