My friend Daniel Scocco over at Daily Blog Tips has posted a really nice article on how to make money on YouTube. In the post, Daniel details the step-by-step on how to become a YouTube partner.
In a nutshell you make money on YouTube by becoming a YouTube partner, which allows you to display ads on your videos, and then you earn a percentage of the revenues generated by clicks on those ads, much like with AdSense. As for how much money you can actually make, I heard numbers anywhere from $3 up to $10 per 1,000 video views.
In addition to becoming a YouTube partner, you can use YouTube to promote affiliate offers from networks like Amazon.com. An example of how this works would be the video I did with Sally Chow on how to create a paperless office.
The video was put up 18 months ago and has averaged 1,800 views per month. The YouTube pre-roll video ad makes around $10 to $15 per month, but the real money comes from sales of the ScanSnap 1300 scanner I recommend in the video. The affiliate link is embedded both in the description and in the video itself. When a user clicks the link and buys the product from Amazon.com, I get a commission.
Where The Traffic Comes From
Many people may not realize this, but YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world, and when a user searches for “paperless office” on YouTube, my video is at the number-one position.
This is enough to send the video 1,800 people each month. That will result in five to ten sales of the $249 scanner every month. Since putting it on YouTube, the video has made me an average of $150 a month in affiliate commissions from Amazon.com (plus $10 to $15 from YouTube video ads). Not bad for something I created 18 months ago.
How did I rank the video at the top spot? Nobody really knows how the YouTube video ranking works, but most will agree that YouTube gives preference to their partners. Therefore, it’s to your benefit to do the step-by-step on Daniel’s post on how to become a YouTube partner. Not only will this make you money with YouTube ads, but your affiliate products review videos will rank higher in searches, and make you even more money.