Do you know that you can make money from YouTube without 1000 Subscribers and 4000 watch hours?
Lemme Guess… You currently own a great YouTube Channel but the issue is that you find it hard to reach the minimum threshold required (4000 watch hours and 1000 Subs).
And even if you do reach the YPP threshold, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be accepted or should I say approved for monetization.
In this article, I’ll tear down a step-by-step process on how you can make money on YouTube without 1000 Subscribers even if you’re just starting.
Getting Started
First and foremost, you need a YouTube Channel. You can open one by just signing into the YouTube App, on your smartphone. Everyone knows that…
So once your Channel is created, you’ll have to now decide on the type of content you’ll be uploading, if you’re gonna be uploading random videos you see online, then this article is not for you.
Come back when you’re serious…
In General, to get started with this strategy, you should complete these tasks:
- Choose a niche in, which you can comfortably create content on.
- Design your profile using Canva, in relevance to your niche.
- Create an account on Tubebuddy or VidIQ.
- Upload Content.
Choosing a niche
This is the most vital part of this strategy.
Your Niche defines your earnings, your audience, and your monetization strategy.
To select a niche, just look for something profitable that you are good at. E.g. Victor is good at playing PS5 football games, he’ll then open a YouTube Channel which is in the ‘Football Game niche’.
Now due to a lot of competition in the ‘Football Game Niche’, Victor has to niche down to a more narrow audience.
There are 2 best PS5 football games which are FIFA 22 and PES 22.
Let’s also say Victor is better at FIFA 22, then he can create better content on it. So now he niches down to ‘FIFA 22 PS5 Gamer’ — This could be a perfect YouTube channel name.
Note* The Character ‘Victor’ and the niches mentioned are just for illustrations tailored to make you better understand where am driving.
Channel Design
Having a decent enough YouTube Channel can get you more Subscribers, though not proven yet.
You are required to add your YouTube Channel Art which is the Big Banner directly above your Channel and its content.
You should also create and upload a custom channel profile image.
The best part is that you can do all these with just your Smartphone, to do that:
- Signup up for Canva
- Search for the Design you want to create, e.g. ‘YouTube Channel Art’.
Canva already has pre-made and free templates which will help you if you have no graphic design knowledge.
Here’s a detailed guide on How to Start a Profitable YouTube Channel, read the article and follow the tips…
External Tools
To Implement this strategy well, you have to do proper SEO for your YouTube videos, so that they can rank on Google as well as YouTube Search.
Doing SEO for YouTube is very hard and that’s why I recommend you sign up for either: Tubebuddy or VidIQ.
These are by far, the best YouTube tools in the market, they have an option where you can integrate your current Channel.
They’ll Analyze it and then give you recommendations on what you need to do.
I particularly love Tubebuddy, if you’re signed up and using the Chrome Extension, it’ll make sure the video you are uploading to YouTube is SEO optimized.
How does Tubebuddy do this?
It simply has an in-built algorithm that consists of what top channels do to rank on Google, what do the top channels do?
- They do upload high-resolution and click-worthy thumbnails.
- Adding keyword they want to rank for within the first 100 words present in their description
- They add relevant tags, so their content will be better recommended by the YouTube Algorithm
I do recommend, that you sign up for Tubebuddy and also download the Chrome Extension.
Bonus: Here’s a definitive Guide on Launching your YouTube Channel for Success in 2022.
Making Money on YouTube without 1000 Subscribers
Now here’s where the big $oys start filling your account, quick warning though, it’s not quite easy.
I have the steps I followed to generate steady income from my YouTube Channel which is still around 600 Subscribers as of the time of writing this.
But before I expose the blueprint…
Take a look at your competitors and steal their monetization process.
What I mean is, how are they generating revenue outside the YouTube Partner Program?
Some use, Affiliate Sales either on service or Digital products while some use link shorteners, this all depends on your niche…
Below are some of the methods that I know…
Affiliate Sales
For Somebody, who runs a YouTube Channel that creates content about Tech, he/she reviews phones and pc accessories as well as various tech gadgets.
How will he/she better monetize their content and make money on YouTube without Subscribers?
The best is surely Affiliate sales.
How do Affiliates Sales help you make money on YouTube?
Maybe he creates and uploads a video titled ‘Tecno Pova Review…’
Then he can signup for Amazon Ads, Jumia Affiliate, etc where people can purchase gadgets easily without leaving the comfort of their homes.
Now…
In the description, he/she may now add something like ‘Get Tecno Pova for $100 — his/her affiliate link — (limited discount)’.
Earnings Potential
Ok, if his/her video was uploaded and passed quality checks from VidIQ or Tubebuddy (meaning that they are SEO optimized) then it is 90% guaranteed to get views.
Let’s say the video didn’t do that well and got like 10,000 views in 1 month and also Amazon pays him/her 10% per sale.
This means that on the sale of a Tecno Pova from their Amazon link, he/she gets $10.
Out of the 10,000 people that watched your video in that month, let’s say 100 were convinced they needed the phone and decided to purchase it.
Then your revenue on Amazon would be — 100*10 — $1000.
And that’s great if you ask me, cuz you won’t even make that amount with the YPP if you have only 10,000 views.
This is the top pick when it comes to making money on YouTube and the data above was just for educational purposes.
Link Shortening (Monetized)
This tactic has been around for quite a long time, but not a lot of people have good knowledge of it.
While not wasting your time, the three very best link shorteners from my experience are Shrinkearn and Shorte. st and one which is currently in maintenance. (will be ready soon).
I’ve personally used this tactic to make money on YouTube many times, all you need is to get traffic to your videos.
It’s quite simple, once you shorten a link, the service you used, acts as a middleman before the visitor who clicked the link gets access to what he or she wants.
Implementing this strategy well will of course boost your earnings on YouTube. But you need to come up with a plan to effectively make the most out of this, see an example below:
So Amie runs a YouTube Channel where he documents how he cooks and stuff, a Food Channel.
Amie can make money from both affiliate sales and link shortening but let’s just look at link shortening first.
She can create content with the title ‘How to bake bread for beginners and then make sure it is SEO optimized by using Tubebuddy as well as VidIQ before and after Uploading to her Channel.
In the description of her Channel, Amie will write a bit of content describing the video and then add her link.
Implementation of this Strategy
As a user clicked on the Baking Bread video, Amie could offer a secret recipe on how to make the bread taste like cake or sth.
What should Amie then do?
If Amie is short on funds, she can open a website on Blogger.com, all She needs to create a blog post, it shouldn’t be fancy, just add the Secret Recipe details and publish.
Then she’ll take the link to the blog post and put it into ShrinkEarn or Shorte.st, generate a monetized short link, and then add it in her video description.
Now, for this method to convert very well, Amie needs to make a great video and in the video, she’ll recommend that her viewers try out the secret recipe… Maybe just reference it.
Earning Potential
Note that Link Shorteners use a metric known as CPM, which can be defined as how much you’ll earn if your links get clicked 1000 times.
Most times, CPMs vary from $2 — $10 depending on the country your traffic comes from.
Since that’s done, let’s do some math…
Let’s say the video manages to reach 10,000 views every month.
Then, 5000 viewers love your content very much that they decide to know your Recipe, they’ll now be pushed to click the link and once they click it, they wouldn’t mind the ads because you’re adding value to them.
They’ll click through and make you your money.
Let’s say your CPM is averaging around $5, then 5000 viewers click Amie’s link every month, then Amie will be making 25$ from just her video.
What if she uploads 10 more videos that are even better than the Baking Bread video, that’ll be averaging $275 every month?
Great! Isn’t it?
You can Shorten Affiliate links and use them on your channel too so that even if you didn’t make a sale, you’ll still make money on YouTube.
Start a Blog
In the last strategy, I mentioned that you shouldn’t have to design your website as it’s just for link shortening.
But, If you want an extra revenue stream or you don’t want to use the aforementioned strategies, then,
You have to start a blog. You could start with a free Blogspot site and then change the free .blogspot domain name to a TLD. Or you could start with WordPress properly.
Since you’re starting new, I suggest Blogger, but if you want to go big ASAP, Then I recommend WordPress.
To Start a WordPress Website, you’ll need a Top Level Domain and a Reliable Hosting partner.
The Top Level Domain can be a .com, .org, etc it’s just a link that will give people access to your website.
Web Hosting will store your files on the internet and make them readily available. Bluehost (<– Get Discount plus Free Domain Name using this link) remains the very best hosting for WordPress.
I have an in-depth tutorial on How you can create a fully functional WordPress Website, make sure to read it if you’d love to implement this strategy.
So once you’re site is up and running… You have to write content on it, exactly the content you upload on YouTube or even better if you have the time to craft up an article that’ll promote your video.
This is efficient because you’ll be using your YouTube Channel to send qualified traffic to your website.
What is qualified Traffic?
This is simply Traffic that converts, the people you get to your site are very much interested in the content.
Quality traffic can be best explained as traffic that comes from legitimate sources like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, Bing, etc…
How then do you make money on YouTube with this strategy?
You’ll then have to monetize your content using either Ad Networks or Affiliate Marketing.
When you send traffic to your site via YouTube, the visitors will see ads on your site, and you are paid for them seeing them.
This is very similar to the Link Shortening strategy, just that you now control the ads shown and the revenue gets to you directly.
Before you start using this strategy to make money on YouTube, you need to properly monetize your blog.
The best way is using Display Ads…
I’ve prepared a List of the top 30 Ad Networks you can use to monetize your website, read them and choose the one you can work with and stick to them.
Some ad networks like Mediavine can pay you up to $35 for every 1000 people that visit your website and see their ads.
Let’s say your site was accepted into Mediavine.
Then your CPM is $20, if 5000 viewers visit a blog post on your site every month, then you’ll make $100 on monthly basis.
This is probable the best way to make money on YouTube even when you don’t have Subscribers, but it’s also the hardest to master.
Running a website isn’t easy for just one person, and you’ll now run both your Channel and Your Site.
Conclusion
Making Money on YouTube is fairly easy if you’ve gone through every detail in this article, you can come up with an even better strategy.
Maybe you can now combine all of them and make the most revenue, profit comes with time.
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If you have any questions on how to make money on YouTube without 1000 Subscribers, do well to ask me in the comments…
