How to Get More YouTube
Adsense Revenue On Your Channel
By
Ernest Thompson
Getting more YouTube Adsense revenue, and raking in them big YouTube bucks, is the goal of a number of people with channels and videos on YouTube. This guide will break the process of getting more YouTube revenue down into three parts:
1. Improving your video’s quality
2. Improving the YouTube ads themselves
3. Managing your YouTube channel in the long-term
Let’s cut the intro and get right to work on making those YouTube dollars in this example filled article.
Improving Your Video’s Quality
This is as much about creating better videos as it is about creating a better environment for your videos to be found. Creating a video that people love to watch is one thing, creating a space where people feel comfortable coming back again and again, driving your subscribers and revenue up, is quite another. Don’t rely on every service for subscribers. The sites like idigic doesn’t have favorable ratings. It’s better to avoid these kinds of tools
Personality Is Everything on YouTube
The most viewer-friendly videos on Youtube are those that have personality to them. Being an identifiable person to your audience is the most important thing there is. Have crappy cameras and next to no editing skills? So what? The Smosh team built their million dollar YouTube Revenue empire on this video:
Sure they grew with the times but they started out as people you could identify with, just goofy guys doing their thing. I’m not saying that you MUST be a goof, but you must be someone who your targeted audience identifies with.
Regularly Schedule Your Video Posting
Building an audience, and your YouTube revenue, is all about consistency. Your audience needs to know that you’re an actual presence so that they’ll subscribe, and so that they know when to come back.
Everyone knows that Philip DeFranco publishes new videos every Monday to Thursday. They show up like clockwork, and his audience shows up just as regularly. He even includes it in the header image of his page:
Inconsistency has killed more good YouTube channels than you’d believe. Think of your show like TV. Every show works hard to establish their time slot and drill it into your head when they are on.
Organize Your Videos Digitally
Once you establish your organization as far as times go, you need to start organizing your videos digitally.
Take time to consider:
- Your YouTube SEO tactics: Choose keywords and use them in your title, description, and tags. Using them constantly, but not overtly, will help you be found and help organize where your ‘fit’ on YouTube.
- Using YouTube annotations and links: This will direct people to what you want them to do. Want more subscribers? Tell people. Want them to watch another video? Have a pop-up and tell them.
- Have a video intro: Intros that can quickly establish what you and your videos are all about are important, as viewers respond better when they have a clear idea of what’s to come.
How It Should Have Ended does all of this very well as they put ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ in the title, description, and tags, have annotations that direct viewers to watch more and subscribe, and they use some great intros to establish an online identity for themselves:
There’s plenty more to learn about YouTube SEO and video optimization if you’re curious and want to work harder on making those YouTube dollars.
Creating Your Own Thumbnails
The points above will help people find you in the YouTube search engine. What you need now is a great thumbnail (the image displayed next to your video in search results) to increase impulse clicks.
Do not use the thumbnails that YouTube automatically generates for you; they don’t do anything to help the viewer decide to click on your video. Check out these great thumbnail examples from Epic Meal Time:
Notice how those catch your eye, and how they could get you clicking. Learn more about creating custom YouTube thumbnails if you’re curious about the technical aspects.
Improving The YouTube Ads
First, you’re already part of the YouTube Partner Program, right? That’s the first step. The next step is working to improve your search rankings. Doing a little keyword research for words in your industry or genre can go a long way, I like to use Google Adwords Keyword Planner. To explain it simply:
- Better keywords
- Better traffic
- Better ads showing
- More YouTube Revenue
It all starts back with your keyword research and making sure you’re being found by the right people at the right time.
Tags are another aspect of this. You will use your tags to connect your videos to other relevant videos. Think of it as keyword optimization for after search viewing. Don’t play the ‘just use the most popular tags’ game. That classifies you as spam, and will not endear you to the YouTube audience you want.
Limit In-Video Ads
Having a partner that you work with on your videos as a sponsor can be nice, but be wary of conflicts of interest creeping up. Your YouTube Adsense Revenue will always be there when you build an audience, but sponsors can come and go.
You also have to consider your viewers in all this. Do they want to watch a YouTube ad before your video, and then watch another ad within your video itself? They stopped watching TV because of that to begin with.
I have really only come across one YouTube user who can get away with a sponsor mention and that’s Philip DeFranco. It’s in the first 90 seconds.
It’s tasteful, it’s in his voice, and he doesn’t try to be sneaky about it. His audience understands that those sponsors help him keep the lights on and bring them his content. If you want to include sponsors, follow his model.
Managing Your YouTube Channel In The Long Term
No one ever made any real money off one hit video. Ask every one-hit wonder who ever gets massive radio play, the money isn’t there. The money is in establishing and maintaining a long term audience.
The first step in doing this is in establishing a video style. Be sure to:
- Fill in all of your profile information so you’re not a blank.
- Use a consistent logo, color set, and branding.
- Create a custom header image that tells viewers something about your channel (refer to Philip DeFranco’s above)
- Customize the background color to match your scheme.
Make your YouTube channel feel like your own. Give it your own personal touches and make it memorable for people.
Change Your Video Presentations From Time To Time
Different YouTube viewers will want different things from you. Having varying styles of video presentation means:
- Having short and long videos: That time-stamp at the bottom of a video is something YouTube users look at before they watch a video.
- Creating video playlists: Group similar videos together by topic, time, or whatever. This will let people sit back and catch up with you when they have time. Your plays will pile up this way.
Being diverse, but staying within your genre, will help you snag as many relevant viewers as possible, and keep your YouTube earnings high.
Foster a Community Feeling
Every successful YouTube user knows that they didn’t build their YouTube channel with the latest camera, smart editing, or digital tricks. In the end, they built it with the fans who care about them. PewDiePie has his ‘bros’ and the ‘bro fist’; a perfect example of building a community. He has more subscribers than anyone, so maybe building a community is a good idea.
Ways to foster and build a YouTube community include:
- Asking for comments at the end of your video and responding to some personally
- Creating video responses for the best questions raised about your content
- Participating in the wider world of YouTube by creating video responses to other user videos
- Staying active on other social media platforms
You want your fans to feel like they’re part of this too. This will make them more likely to stick around, and more importantly it will make them more likely to share your content with others.
Ernest Thompson is a social media strategist and analyst who is usually found working behind the scenes. When he isn’t working on a social media campaign you can find him watching the dumbest content on YouTube and calling it ‘work.’
