YouTube is one of the biggest, most popular websites online, with billions of people watching YouTube videos every day. You can find videos on just about any subject that you want, whether it’s; how-to videos, product reviews, entertainment, debates, funny videos, etc.

Professional marketers use YouTube to help generate leads for their online business. Online affiliate marketers use the video-sharing website to send buyers to products they promote. They do this in a number of different ways, ways that you too can be using to promote your own online business.

Now, when you first start using YouTube to promote your business, viewer numbers are everything. You may start out with only a handful of views, but that begins to grow. Depending on the quality of the video, you could end up with thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of hits. But how do take your videos to the next level and actually start making money with them on YouTube?

So, how can I make money on YouTube?

There are a couple of different ways that you can use YouTube to make money.

1. By Using ‘YouTube Partner Program’

YouTube has its own advertising program called ‘YouTube Partner Program‘, which you can use to monetize your videos. You can use this HUGE publishing platform for your own videos and make money through advertisements. You generate revenue depending on the number of times the video is viewed and adverts clicked on. So, if you can come up with a great idea and produce a very popular video on YouTube, you can potentially make a lot of money.

The Partner Program lets you share revenue that comes from overlay adverts that are displayed on your uploaded videos about related products. You have probably seen these on other people’s YouTube videos before.

As well as monetizing your videos, as a ‘YouTube Partner‘, you are allowed to upload higher quality videos, have a branded channel, data on your video own YouTube analytics which to helps you learn about your audience and much more.

You can also featured on YouTube’s homepage, leading to even more views and more opportunities to make money!

Now, before you get carried away, to become a ‘YouTube Partner’ you need to be getting thousands of hits on your own unique videos, on a regular basis. If you fall into that bracket already, then you can apply to the program today, and if accepted, you could turn your hobby into your full time job. If you aren’t quite at that level yet, don’t worry because that’s not the only way to earn money on YouTube!

2. By Using Affiliate Marketing

You can make your own product reviews and how-to guide videos, and upload them to YouTube. For example, if I am promoting a weight loss program or new diet guide, I could create a series of videos talking about/demonstrating the product. Within the video and description section, you can display your affiliate links so that people can check out the product for themselves. When they go on to buy the product via your affiliate link, you earn a commission.  This works in exactly the same way as other Affiliate marketing methods that we have looked at on this website.

3. By Promoting Your Current Business

You don’t necessarily need to make money directly on YouTube to benefit from using it. It can be a great way for you to promote yourself/business to a wider audience. You could supply a link to your website within your videos, & video description, so that people can follow it and buy from you directly.

It can be easier to get traffic from YouTube, than from search engines in certain circumstances. If anything, it’s just another way of pointing people in the right direction towards towards your website.

Making a YouTube Video

Anybody that has a video camera can make a YouTube video, whether it’s an expensive HD 3D video camera, or simply just a camera phone. Record your video, convert it into MP4 or AVI format and then upload it to YouTube. It’s that easy!

You don’t even need a video camera!!! You can create ‘screencasts‘ by recording your computer screen using desktop recording applications such as Cam Studio or Camtasia. Make a PowerPoint presentation on your chosen subject and record it as a screencast. This is great when making tutorial videos on software programs or presentation.

I have used this very method to create tutorial videos for this site (though I do need to do some more). I found that it was a quite useful way of explaining and demonstrating things to my readers. Just give it a go and see for yourself!

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