Maximize Your Income: Secondary Revenue Streams For YouTubers

Gabriel said:
Maximize Your Income: Secondary Revenue Streams For YouTubers

A guide by Michael Turner and Gabriel Claridge

Sections

1. Introduction

2. Getting Started (4 parts)

3. Taking Action (3 parts)

4. Maintain and Grow

5. Keeping Options Open (1 part)

6. Credits


1. Introduction

Welcome to the guide for additional revenue sources. We will be talking about brand deals and integration, approaching companies, using other platforms to your advantage and treating your YouTube channel as a business and brand.

We will be making this guide based upon prior experience and knowledge of the YouTube platform including MCNs, brand integration and more. Please do not treat this as professional advice, however we are pretty profess (sic). ; -) We do not guarantee any kind of results nor if it will work as planned for you. We will continue to add more details to this thread over the next few weeks. Questions and feedback can be left by responding to this thread.


2. Getting Started

2.1 Your Brand on YouTube

You need to treat your YouTube Channel as a brand and business (regardless of how much you make from it or whether you are 1 person or a whole group of people). Brand yourself and make a name for yourself. Create a logo for your channel or person depending whether you have multiple channels in which this case can be used across the board of all your channels. You will want to hire a graphic designer unless you are really good at making logos yourself, depending on what you want (simple or complex) simple logos can cost from around $5 to $20 and more complex ones can range from $20 onwards. It’s worth investing money into this as it can be used for many things not just for looking professional. We have many talented designers offering both free and paid channel branding services at YTtalk in the .
  • You could use the logo in every thumbnail of your video;
  • “banner”, , “watermark”, and even for your own website.
These are the first steps in creating your brand and making a good impression on others, the better your branding the longer lasting that good impression is and considering this first is imperative to your success on YouTube.


2.2 Making a Website

This is an extra mile you can go for taking your channel one step higher and can increase your SEO, profits and overall exposure and when done correctly can make lasting impressions reinforcing your brand.

Making your own website can be easy, but requires time, writing and money sometimes but that can be be optional. If your channel has around 5,000+ subscribers I personally would recommend you spend the extra money on a custom domain, custom “domain” email and maybe even using a “pro” or “upgraded” version of a website builder if you’re going for the sleek look - upgrading can get rid of that awful ‘created using weebly website builder’ kind of watermarks and non paying advertisements that you and I hate.

Depending on your budget you can just use a free website builder and not get any fancy additions. The bigger the channel the more time and money you should invest in a website most definitely.

Before getting started have a think about the kind of content that could be on your website, a website should never just be a promotion/monetized platform for you, it should also be a place for you to share valuable content with an audience. If you make gaming videos this content for example could be game walkthroughs and tips on how to do things within the game, if you have a vlog channel your website could feature a blog which you write about your life on. Have a think about what will be going onto your website before delving in further.

Recommended Free Website Builders & Domain Services(easy to use too!):

— Free & paid options.

— Free & paid options.

— Free & paid options.

. This is not the best option for anyone who is serious about their online presence but if free is your only option then it is an option to consider.

Domain Names & Registrars

You will want to name the website domain (custom or not) in the exact name (username) of your YouTube channel or as something which is related to your niche and channel (for example a camera expert whose channel is "AwesomeStreetPhotos" could use prostreetphotos.com) unless you aren’t bothered about additional SEO value or the domain name is already taken.

If your preferred domain name is taken you may opt for another domain TLD such as .co.uk or .net although .com is the most common and most preferred TLD to have. If you wish to acquire a .com domain name which is similar I recommend writing down alternatives to form a list. For example ProGamer911 is your YouTube username, you find when searching for a domain that progamer911.com is taken so you then try to change it up a little so its as close to your original as possible. Your list could contain the following examples:
  • pro-gamer911.com

  • progamergames.com

  • progamer(first name).com

  • progamerrocks.com

  • progamers911.com
Always remember to keep your domain name as close as possible to your username where you can and for every dash and number that you add, the harder it will become for others to remember your website URL.

Consider how others will perceive the domain name, if it has any strange abbreviations when shortened, is it suitable for your audience, is it misleading or to the point, is it too long or hard to remember; consider everything you would normally consider when choosing a username for something important like your channel.

When opting for an alternative TLD you may consider playing on the extension for example your YouTube username could be vicrocks, instead of going for a .com or .net you may opt for a .ks so the domain becomes vicroc.ks. Many large websites use this technique for example delicio.us and bit.ly and it adds a bit of fun into a domain name when used well.

Have a look at our list of open TLD’s to see if you can come up with something original and fun, all of them are open for registration regardless of the country you live in or where your website is hosted:

.com, .net, .co.uk, .in, .io, .jp, .la, .md, .ms, .pl, .sc, .sh, .tc, .tk, .vc, .vg, .ws, .im, .asia, .me, .mobi, .tel, .xxx, .org, .nu, .cc, .tv, .info, .biz, .us, .as, .cn, .se, .it, .name, .pro , .es , .ac, .ag, .am, .at, .be , .bz, .de, .eu, .fm, .gs, .no, .dk, .gr, .fr, .hu, .ie, .is, .hr, .si , .sm , .by, .ua, .gl, .sk, .gi , .ba, .lu, .ad.com, .mt, .ax, .org, .uk, .ch.com, .pt.com, .tr, .fi, .ru , .nl, .lt, .ro.com, .es, .cz, .li, .ee, .mc, .fo, .lv, .af, .my, .mn, .pk, .ph, .qa, .sa, .sg, .lk, .tw, .tj, .tm, .ae, .uz, .vn, .co, .nz, .az, .ge, .hk, .ir, .iq, .jo, .kz, .kr, .kg, .cl, .ca, .gt, .hn, .bo, .co, .gf, .gy, .pe, .sr, .uy, .mx, .ec, .bs, .aw, .bb, .ky, .cu, .dm, .do, .gd, .gp, .ht, .mq, .pr, .kn, .lc, .tt, .cr, .sv, .dz, .ml, .mu, .ma, .na, .cg, .re, .rw, .st , .sn, .sl, .so, .sd, .gm, .tg, .tn, .ug, .bj, .bi, .cm, .cv, .cf, .td, .km, .cd, .dj, .gg, .ga, .ly, .mg, .au.com, .eu.com, .gb.com, .gb.net, .no, .com, .se.com, .se.net

Please note that some TLD’s may have an impact on your website’s SEO, .info domains which are very inexpensive for example have been known to host questionable websites and you may not want to host your pride and joy on a .xxx TLD.

Where to Buy a Domain Name

— All new registrations of .com’s come with free whoisguard which hides your contact information which includes your address, .com’s are at the time of writing $10.87 (Michael’s personal favourite as they have of the year for money off all newly registered domains.)

. Pricing starts at $2.99 per year and upwards (varies on domain). *Some builders allow you to purchase a domain from them directly but can cost double the price.

Webhosting & Business Email Services

— Starting from $8/Mo (Gabe’s personal favourite)

— Starting from $1/Mo (free custom domain if you pay an annual payment)

— Litespeed powered webhosting services starting at $3.85/mo.

. Pricing starts at $2.99/mo (please note all custom domains allow you to use any prefix before your domain for example tommy@myawesomewebsite.com so there is no need to purchase a custom email address if you have a custom domain name).

Steps to building a free website:
  • Decide on the platform you will be using to create your free website for example , or .

  • name and redirect it to your free website - Optional.

  • Use the provided website builder to design your website to your tastes.

  • Populate your website with content.
Steps to building a paid website (on your own):
  • Decide on the platform you will be using for your paid website, this could be , , , , for a whole list of potential CMS’ you may browse . Once chosen proceed to download your chosen software. (A personal favourite of Michaels is WordPress)

  • Purchase webhosting and . Pricing starts at $2.99 per year and upwards (varies on domain). *Some builders allow you to purchase a domain from them directly but can cost double the price.

  • to point your domain to your webhost.

  • If your hosting includes cPanel visit your cPanel, login and proceed to the mysql databases section, noting its name along with a new user/password and then add the user (giving the user privileges) to the database noting the username and password.

  • Upload the necessary files to your server using an FTP program such as making edits to any configuration files with your database information as required. Find out here.

  • Complete the installation process referring to any Readme.txt files in your CMS software download.

  • If you are using a CMS such as Wordpress you can find many free themes at the . Once you find one that you feel is suitable for your website and the visitors visiting it, install it as per the instructions for installing themes for your CMS. Learn here.
  • Throughout the whole preparation and installation process always refer to any readme/install files located within your CMS' file package.

Steps to hiring someone to create your website:
  • Figure out what you need in terms of functionality and design, come up with any colour schemes you like which match your current branding on YouTube. If there’s any particular website features you would like to have write it all down and prepare a list to send to your hired developer/designer. They will find the information useful to create something to your requirements which fits in perfectly with your brand. Consider whether or not it will use a CMS such as Wordpress or Drupal, where advertisements will be placed and so on and ask what your web developer thinks and always make sure to listen to any issues they find in your plans as you may want something which will not work very well and a good web developer will try and tell you this to help you and save you time, money and reputation.

  • Consider the websites hosting needs, a web developer and designer will build and design your website but will not usually cover your hosting costs. Ask them up front what server side software/scripts will need to be in place so you can find out what hosting is right for your website.

  • You can find people to hire to create you a website at many websites or you could source a local web designer/developer, freelance web designer/developers can be cheaper, you can find many on: , , , .

  • Perform research prior to hiring anyone to develop/design your website, find out about their reputation, check for a portfolio/reviews on previous work which has been coded as well as designed, ensure their prices include exactly what you need for example many developers will support you for a few months after completion, find out exactly what you will receive in terms of development, design, after completion support and any potential additional costs, remember that a fixed price can be cheaper than hiring a developer/designer on an hourly basis.

  • Work together and stay in touch with your web designer/developer during all stages.

2.3 Finishing Touches to Your Website

You will also want to embed a video or two somewhere on your website, include backlinks to your channel (ex, linking to your channel when appropriate) when writing about yourself and by other means.

You ought to create an ‘About’ and ‘Contact’ page on your website too, this way it is easy and convenient for the brand/company to contact you and learn more about you in the case they are interested in your channel. A contact page also helps drive network invitations and recruiters to your email account instead of them spamming your YouTube inbox. If you’re in a multi-channel network your website could also be a reference for the network when trying to find brand deals for your channel. In addition it is also a good idea to have a page dedicated to showcasing all of your latest videos, this is good for both visitors and advertisers visiting your website.


2.4 Monetizing Your Website

What Advertisements Will You Display

Something you will consider is what advertisements your website will display, consider if they will be solely from an advertiser you have contact with or from Google Adsense or another or both. In my own experience I find that both works best so that you don't have all of your eggs in one basket.

Consider your websites content and whether or not the advertisements that will be displayed will be suitable or the best for your audience/traffic. For example if your channel’s niche is gaming, blocking stock market advertisements via Adsense may be a good decision although these days advertisements are usually tailored to the visitor rather well and are getting better. When working with an advertiser directly check their website before allowing them to advertise on your own website, find out what they offer and if it will be suitable for your audience.

You will want to have some good content on your website before adding advertisements to your website. I like to make sure I have at least 30 well written posts/articles before even considering having advertisements and you could follow that too.

Finding Advertisers

Finding advertisers you can build relationships with and work with directly allows you to run more than Google Adsense ads. You are able to work with these people directly and tailor everything to their needs too. Finding advertisers can be tricky for many but there are a few ways and one of the most effective is by spreading the word.

To spread the word about your website for your channel you could try visiting websites which allow you to offer your advertising services, for example webmaster forums such as DigitalPoint have sections made for this purpose.

When posting to these websites explain your niche within your threads, let them know about your traffic statistics when requested and help them reach your audience as easily as possible.

Cold emailing can be used if you know of companies who might be interested in advertising on your website, if your audience would be beneficial to their company and you can contact them regarding this you may be able to find yourself a direct advertiser cutting out any middlemen. When emailing a company keep it short, to the point and give them a reason to reply to your email. If you don't hear anything back make sure to follow it up in a few days without coming across as needy or desperate.

Having a good and working contact form on your website will help advertisers get in touch with you easily when they arrive at your site, another reason why good SEO is important is it will also bring you advertisers. If they arrive and are able to easily find how to contact you it will make the whole process a lot smoother for them and lessens the chance they click off of your website in frustration. I recommend either having a contact link in the main navigation of the website as the final navigation link and/or within your footer in a colour that can be easily read. Most people look for contact links in those two places. If you are using Wordpress a quick way to set up a good contact form page with captcha support is using , I have used this many times in the past and it has never failed me.

You don't always need to find advertisers yourself and that is where Google Adsense and its alternatives come in (search for Adsense alternatives on Google for a plethora of lists), you don't need to find the advertisers or work with them directly allowing you time to focus on other aspects of your channel and website. You simply sign up, setup the ad spaces and they will be filled automatically, essentially they are middlemen working with masses of clients who want their product/services seen on your website.

Advertisement Placement

During the development and design stages of creating your website you will have considered ad placement. Ad placement is very important both for Adsense ads and selling advertisements to advertisers.

Adsense ads perform best in specific places and specific sizes and well informed advertisers know where their ads will be seen and won't be seen. A footer with several ad spaces will usually not perform as good as elsewhere with it not being what is known as “above the fold”. Advertisements placed “above the fold” will usually outperform all other advertisements on a webpage.

An ad “above the fold” is an advertisement which displays towards the upper half of a webpage and is visible without scrolling, a good example of an advertisement above the fold is the one in the header at YTtalk, it is visible without scrolling.

When offering ad spaces on your website you will want the positions and sizes to be good so consideration and attention to where they are located is imperative.

My own personal favourite ad sizes are, I have found these to outperform all the other ads sizes when placed correctly:

728px x 90px , 120px x 60px, 250px x 250px, 300px x 300px, 160px x 600px, 120px x 120px

Many ad placement experts will tell you that advertisements down the left column are always the best as they are always seen by those visiting your website as the eye naturally looks towards the left upper part of the screen and that is mostly true, for example where most websites logos, our eyes focus on that area of the webpage so therefore we will see advertisements more easily there as many of us are blind to advertisements, we know where they're placed and avoid looking at them.

When placing your ads it is a good idea placing them in a column on the left side of your content especially using a 160px x 600px skyscraper but keep in mind when using Adsense advertisements that you are limited to 3 image banner advertisements per page.

I must stress though that having them where the eyes first look isn't always possible and when placing adverts please consider your visitors and how your website is read, never sacrifice usability for the sake of advertisements.

Adding an Advertisement to Your Website

For the purposes of this article I am assuming you use Wordpress and you are adding an advertisement to your sidebar using a widgetized theme with a sidebar which can accommodate an advertisement that is 120px x 600px, if not I will do my best to help you if you reply to this thread.

How to Add an Adsense Advertisement to Your Website
  • In click on My Ads at the top.

  • Click the New Ad Unit button.

  • Change the Ad Size to 160 x 600 - Wide Skyscraper.

  • Give the Ad a name, this can be something relevant such as mywebsitesname - Sidebar Advert

  • Then press save and get code.
  • View attachment 14230

  • Copy the code shown to you.

  • Go to your website.com/wp-admin/

  • Hover Appearance and click on Widgets.

  • On the right click the Sidebar dropdown and then drag a Text widget into the Sidebar, you can change the ordering by dragging and dropping the widget.

  • In a text editor for example Notepad++ type the following <div class="ad1">

  • Then paste the Adsense code onto a new line after the above

  • and then on a new line type </div>

  • Once done copy and paste this into the text widget and then click Save.
Once complete the advertisement may take a while to show. When it does you can align it within the sidebar by adding the following code by going to Appearance > Editor > stylesheet.css and adding and adjusting this accordingly: .ad1 { margin-left:10px; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; } once done press save.

How to Add an Advertisers Advertisement to Your Website
  • Download their banner and upload it to your websites server this can be done via FTP or through a control panel into a directory named banners so you can find them easily.

  • Figure out the URL for the banner, if you uploaded to /banners/ try mywebsite.com/banners/bannerimagename.png

  • Go to your website.com/wp-admin/

  • Hover Appearance and click on Widgets.

  • On the right click the Sidebar dropdown and then drag a Text widget into the Sidebar, you can change the ordering by dragging and dropping the widget.

  • In a text editor for example Notepad++ type the following <div class="ad1">

  • Then on a new line copy and paste then adjust the following code to link their banner to their website and display their image:
    HTML: 
    <a href="http://theirwebsite.com/" target="_blank"><img src="/banners/theirbanner.png" alt="" /></a>

  • and then on a new line type </div>

  • Once done copy and paste this into the text widget and then click Save.
If it is not aligned correctly you can align it within the sidebar by adding the following code by going to Appearance > Editor > stylesheet.css and adding and adjusting this accordingly: .ad1 { margin-left:10px; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; } once done press save.

View attachment 14229

(the above image shows you a sidebar text widget, you can paste your code in for both Adsense ads and HTML for a banner provided by an advertiser)

3. Taking Action

Now on to the main part — You will need to put your channel out there. You need to carefully wield through all of your existing videos and figure out what exactly your top 3 specialities are - the first 2 are always the easiest to know about. So-to-speak let’s list something I'm good at and I’m really good at playing Call of Duty:

1. Gaming on a professional scale.

2. I’m a Commentator / Public speaker.

3. I have opinions on games I play / Reviewer.

Don’t be afraid to boast a little. Once you’ve figured that out, start making a personal type of proposal which can be done as generic for now until you get used to writing about yourself to a company.

You will want to include some main points in your proposals:
  1. Your full name, channel url and phone number at the beginning.

  2. Why you’re contacting the company. Explain what you’re interested in doing together with this company.

  3. Your top 3 specialities and what you do on your channel and what it’s about.

  4. Your channel demographics. You only need to tell them a short list in your first email (example, 64% of male viewers aged between 16 - 23).

  5. You need to tell them how you can help them in return.
  6. Remember to use proper punctuation and grammar, kids!

3.1 MCNs (Multi-Channel Networks)

You may want to reach out to certain multi-channel networks on YouTube and find out if they can help you with brand integrations, sponsorships and other paid deals outside of ad revenue. Be aware you shouldn’t be giving something like 30-50% of your ad revenue just for a brand deal once every 3 months to an MCN. You will want this brand integration language in your contract, otherwise it means absolutely nothing and doesn’t hold them accountable if they can’t find you deals. Unfortunately, if your channel is still at a small level you may not find very much luck with MCNs helping you with brand deals. Side note: Don’t be shocked if you are given something like a 60% revenue share on brand deals as they will always take a much larger cut than their cut out of your ad revenue.

If your channel is large enough, you may want to have a contractual lawyer review your legal agreement before signing it. If you are unable to use one, make sure to read any and all contracts thoroughly and ensure you understand the the terms.

Larger channels can sometimes guarantee a certain number of brand deals in a period of 30 days usually ranging from 1 - 3 or more sometimes. If you’re not huge on doing lots of brand deals you may not want this anyway.

3.2 Brands & Companies

When it comes to choosing who you reach out it’s really a no-brainer. Match the company’s business model to your video genre of content. You can always go beyond that aspect if you really want to push for any type of sponsorship or brand deal.

Beauty channels have a lot more luck in getting brand deals in cosmetics and makeup but most of these deals are usually just sponsorships - they will give you a free makeup product to use in your video / act as a review of the product. You can try for this with games, fashion, software and others, it is especially good where the companies you are dealing with sell tangible goods (physical products) — Don’t feel limited.

Some companies have FAQs, read them because sometimes they have an FAQ about sponsorships and you don't have to waste your time if they aren’t interested at all. Some will flat out have a NO-policy on these kind of things.

The next thing you can try are YouTube based companies, like . They are most likely to be interested compared to others.

3.3 Taking Advantage Of Other Services

You should sign up to websites and programs that can help with your venture. Here’s a few recommendations:



Simply sign up and you’re in a large database for thirsty advertisers. The good thing about this is that you can drive traffic from your ‘About’ page on your YouTube Channel to your Channel Pages custom URL. This can help keep advertisers to one place and other contact emails on your website. .



The official YouTube marketplace for YouTubers and Brands to meet - VCM.

Here are some benefits of using VCM:
  • Advertisers can find video creators that match their marketing goals and run ads that truly suit the online video environment.
  • Video creators gain exposure to advertisers’ audience and reach.
  • VCM is free to use! Neither AdWords or YouTube takes a revenue share, and all payments are strictly between the advertiser and video creator.
  • No contact information appears within the tool. Once you choose to contact someone you’re interested in working with on a project, an email notification will be sent to that person.
For more information, visit:

You will need to apply and be accepted to participate in the Video Creation Marketplace.

4. Maintain and Grow

While you’re doing that, primarily focus on building your channel as always. The bigger your channel is, the more likely you are to score a deal. Use annotations to your advantage, and of course SEO. There are many guides out there on SEO just do a quick search or check out this forum at YTtalk as it is filled with useful articles on all aspects of YouTubing. Proper tagging and titling can help tremendously and gives your videos the best chance of being indexed properly!

Keep on improving your content and editing as you make money to help you stay on top of your game. There is always room for improvement in everything and seeing it and working to improve it will always pay off.

You could also look into investing your revenue back into your YouTube channel for things like advertising, that way it could become a cycle, the money coming in from your secondary revenue streams helping to fund your channel and website and your channel helping with the secondary revenue streams and gaining more advertisers. The perfect way of growing both your channel, brand and revenue.

5. Keeping Options Open

When monetizing always keep your options open where possible, if you can try not to just rely on Adsense/network earnings alone, try out some of the methods in this article to find advertisers to work with directly cutting out the middleman giving both parties the better deal. The more secondary revenue streams you have coming in the less you rely solely on one of them, if one begins to fail for any reason at all you will always have a backup plan.

Keep yourself on top of your game by always looking into new possible revenue streams, as time goes on there's newer ways and better ways of making money from your YouTube channel coming out and researching them to see how they would work for you is important to make sure you are doing what so many others aren't doing.

5.1 Affiliate Links - A Big No-No

Generally affiliate links like Adf.ly, Amazon Affiliate, and other content locked links are usually a big no-no if you want to keep your YouTube account safe. YouTube enforces its Terms of Service, Section 4, Term D., 2. strongly and terminates accounts that violate this clause - if your account is terminated, you are prohibited from making new accounts or using any other YouTube account as a matter of fact. As you can tell, you don’t want to get terminated that’s for sure.

Gabriel reached out to his Google representative for comment and here is what they have to say:



The following are also well known to have your account terminated:
  • URLs with affiliate or referrer codes;

  • Monetized plus redirection URLs and;

  • “Content Locked” web pages.
I have witnessed hundreds of account terminations due to using affiliate links. The most common culprit is Adf.ly. You want to avoid that service at all times.

My best advice is to completely avoid affiliate links at all times — unless the person telling you to link this specific referral/affiliate URL can show proof of direct approval from YouTube (don’t settle for a ‘yes’ you should be shown a picture or forwarded email of this approval). If you want to take the risk of having your account terminated then go for it.

6. Credits

Credits go to @Michael and @Gabriel as we both worked on this article/guide together for you all.

If this has helped you or you enjoyed reading please hit the Like button. :)

More guides will be coming soon from the both of us!
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Use Patreon. :D The BEST way to get the most money and reward people for it! patreon(dot)com :)
 
This is a lot of good information. I didn't read all of it, but I did take a few pointer that I'm going to use. Good Post![DOUBLEPOST=1405388934,1405388917][/DOUBLEPOST]This is a lot of good information. I didn't read all of it, but I did take a few pointer that I'm going to use. Good Post!
 
@Gabriel Nice article! I think one thing I want to mention is you can get discounted web hosting services if you hold a .edu e-mail address. Squarespace gives half-price (off everything) with a .edu e-mail address, so the cheapest plan would be $4 a month. But the best deal out the there is virb (virb.com) I haven't used it but it looks very similar to squarespace and the reviews are good. If you have a .edu e-mail you can webhosting complete free for a whole year! So if you are a college student be sure to take advantage of the .edu email.
 
Hey everyone. Great guide by Michael and Gabriel. Just came across this resource and so glad I did.

We're looking for some feedback on a partnership model where we would work with lifestyle-focused youtubers on creatives that would help support our brand's growth. We just launched the platform today: wedressyoutube dot com

We had a nice writeup in The Video Ink as well.

Would love to get this forum's feedback on our model. Also, please let us know if you are interested in possibly becoming a part of it.

Thomas
CEO - Dash Hudson
 
Great info. I am a true believer that is all starts with building your brand and website. What would happened if Youtube went down? You need to have your own internet real estate.
 
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