Lilly Singh,Bhuvan Bam, Jus Reign, Zaid Ali... if all these names ring a bell, then you are not new to the concept of individuals making YouTube videos, but have you ever given a serious thought to why they make these videos. Sure, name and fame is one thing, but there is serious money involved, did you know that? How else do you think Zaid Ali was able to buy his father a car for Father's Day, despite being a teenager?
If you too want to make money via YouTube, here is a step-by-step guide to do that. While we don't say that you would be raking in a big moolah soon, we do hope that these steps help you know how you can earn via YouTube videos.
1. Make a YouTube channel (duh!) if you don't have one, and add keywords by navigating to theAdvanced section in Settings. Fill in relevant keywords so that people can find your channel easily. Remember to put in a short and memorable name for your channel, with a good recall value.
2. Next up, add content to your channel. Think of what you want to shoot and then make it interesting so that people are interested in watching it. Don't post long videos at first because unless you are famous, people would not spend much time on a video for the fun to begin. Be crisp and concise with the selection of your videos. Shoot HD videos and be a pro at editing, because finishing matters a lot in YT videos.
3. Tag your videos smartly, so that people are directed to your videos when they search for relevant content.
4. Be regular with uploading. Fix a day in a week and try to upload the video by then. This would give you some loyal viewers who would wait for your videos. Mention that day in your channel's description and at the end of all videos.
5. Share all your videos on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. It's advisable to make your presence felt on all major social networks. Keeping the same image on all networks helps in increasing the recall value.
6. Be interactive with your fans, talk to them, respond to the feedback and be appreciative of the appreciation. This would make your videos buzz in the social space.
7. Next big step is monetizing, which you can activate for ads to start getting placed on your channels. Open the Monetization tab and check Monetize with Ads.
8. It's also important for you to setup Google AdSense so that you are eligible for receiving the money, which might not be great at first but would increase with time.
9. Keep a check on your analytics, to know how well or worse you are performing.
10. When your channel gains significant subscribers and views, partner with YouTube. It makes you eligible for winning prize money and some exclusive content creation tools. You can apply for YouTube partnership at any time through the YouTube Partner page. However, you need to have 15,000 plus watch hours for your channel in the past 3 months to be able to apply.
