10 Steps to Monetize Your YouTube Channel from Day One!

Have you ever wanted to make money on YouTube but are worried about wasting your time? Are you not sure how to even begin? Well, I have an easy 10-step guide that will get you on the right track as fast as a coworker disappearing when there’s actual work to do.

• Pick the Right Niche for a YouTube Channel
• Pick Affiliate Offers to Promote
• Create a Landing Page and Email Sequence
• Get the BEST Equipment for Your YouTube Channel
• Pick the Best YouTube Settings for Your Channel!
• Choose What Topics You Want to Cover in Your Niche
• Create the Best Packaging for Your YouTube Video
• Make a YouTube Video
• Optimize Your Video for More Views
• Repurpose Your YouTube Video for More Views
• Do a Slow-Motion Victory Lap… around your living room.

Keep reading and I’ll share these steps in more detail. Plus, I’ll share how you can 10x your income even with a small amount of views from YouTube!

Why it’s Important to Monetize Your YouTube Channel from Day One

You are more likely to continue if you see a paycheck, even if it’s small.

Also, let’s be honest YouTube ads don’t pay a lot of money. Plus it takes a while to qualify to be able to run YouTube ads. You need….

We want you to have MORE money MUCH faster. In order to do this you want to think backwards somewhat.

How to Pick the Right Niche for a YouTube Channel

The first step is choosing the right niche. The right niche has to be…

• Interesting to you
• Profitable

The most important thing is it’s interesting. If you hate it, then your audience will too. Ask yourself…

• What do you love doing even without earning money?
• What are you MOST curious about?
• Where do you enjoy spending your time, when not at a job?

When you have a few options, then narrow it down by flipping a coin or cross off any choices you’re not sure about. It also should be profitable.

• Are there podcasts about your niche?
• When you Google your niche do advertisements show up?

If so there is a good chance you can also make money. For a complete guide to how to pick a niche, I recommend this blog post HERE.

How to Pick Affiliate Offers to Promote

Affiliate offering is BY FAR the fastest, easiest, most lucrative way to make money online. This is when you mention a product and if someone buys you get paid.

You don’t have to deal with shipping, payments or customer service!

The commissions can be small to LARGE. Even better is something called PLR (Private Label Rights). This means you keep 100% of the money, do NO work to create the products, and has more uses than WD-40 in my grandpa’s hands.

You can use them as bonuses, give them away, use it to grow your email list, sell them, and more. Something like this HERE, can be a great idea.

The cool thing is almost everyone has an affiliate offer. The easiest way to find them is with networks. I recommend applying to a few networks and then choosing a bunch of products to promote.

Just remember they have to be very good products.

If not, don’t recommend them to anyone else!

If you can’t find any products then it’s better to know this NOW. Maybe choose another niche. For more about how to choose affiliate offers check out this post HERE.

How to Create a Landing Page and Email Sequence

The way to make money with Affiliate Marketing is thinking long-term. Instead of just promoting 1 product, you want to promote multiple offers of a niche to 1 person.

This way you don’t even NEED that much traffic to earn money.

The way to do this is with email. Plus there are TONS of benefits such as…

• You own the list
• Can promote multiple offers
• Can contact someone WAY into the future
• Promote your other content
• Do list swaps
• Easier to get accepted into affiliate programs
• MUCH higher conversion rate
• Great for launching products
• Get valuable feedback
• Protects you from algorithmic changes
• More personalized marketing

Back in the day, I worked at “Best Buy.” When someone purchased a computer my job was to remind them of other things they might need such as a printer, ink, table, surge protector, mouse pad, software, and more.

This way they win because they don’t have to drive back to the store, and the store wins.

Honestly, I didn’t win because I got paid by the hour, but you get my point. You can do the same thing!

The secret is you have to send emails correctly. Lucky for you I have a FREE guide all about how to earn money with email and if done correctly can 2x, 3x even 10x your income. You can view this free guide HERE.

How to Choose the BEST Equipment for Your YouTube Channel

Now that you have your landing page, products to promote and emails set up let’s start to drive traffic and get you paid!

But hold on cowboy – you need some equipment just like a plumber needs a butt crack.

You might get overwhelmed and intimidated by all the bells and whistles you can have on a YouTube channel.

Remember we are trying to make money not look like Mr / Mrs. Fancy Pants going to the top night club!

You need 2 things to succeed with YouTube.

• A decent web camera
• A decent mic

With a web camera, I recommend something inexpensive like these options HERE. Mine was super cheap.

With a mic you could start with the mic on the web camera. The truth is that 80% of a video is the audio. Your audience will be ok if it’s a crappy picture, but if the sound is annoying then your audience will drop.

You don’t need a microphone as large as the Statue of Liberty when you first start. I recommend and use something like this HERE, because it works with PC, plus it works with my phone to make Short videos.

This is all you need to get started.

We are NOT worrying about the top editing software or trying to learn Photoshop to make things as perfect as a dating profile picture (which are usually fake).

You might be worried about lighting. The main thing is you want lots of light shining on your face!

• Use natural light – Position your computer table in front of a window! Bam. Cheap, best light!
• Use software – You can use software to show your computer screen and make your face small.

If these solutions don’t work you can always get a ring light like these HERE and they are not too expensive.

How to Choose the Best YouTube Settings for Your Channel!

Let’s create your YouTube channel.

Step 1 – Go to YouTube.com and sign in or create an account.

Step 2 – Go to your profile picture and create your channel. You can use your name or make it brandable. Remember you can always change your channel name later!

Step 3 – Customize your channel.

Description – With your YouTube channel description you want to talk about your channel then promote your landing page and the free gift you will give someone when they sign up.

Then at the end of your videos, you can tell people to click on the link in your profile and promote your landing page and free gift.

This can earn you money on day #1.

I recommend using ChatGTP to come up with a good YouTube channel description of your niche, remember to also promote your landing page and include the link.

Go over to Canva HERE, and create a banner for your channel. Oh, and create a nice profile picture!

Channel Settings

• Set Your Channel as Made for Kids or Not. If you’re not sure pick “not for kids.”
• Choose the country where you are located.
• Channel keywords. Choose some keywords that best describe your channel. I recommend going to ChatGPT and asking “I’m creating a YouTube channel about ___ give me the best keywords that describe the channel.” Then put those keywords in.
• Contact information. You can put an email address so someone may contact you. I think it’s a great idea. You can even put your phone number if you want. Trust me – Nobody will probably EVER call you. It does look good too.

Channel Verification

• You might have to verify your phone number to enable custom thumbnails and the going live option.

Customize Channel Layout

• This is where you create an intro video for new subscribers. I recommend keeping it short and describing the benefits that your channel can give someone.
• Make sure to also include the link to your landing page and promote the free gift you give them if they join up.

Bonus Tip

Go to Settings, channel, advanced settings and scroll down, and click on “Don’t show potentially inappropriate words.”

Google Translate sometimes isn’t perfect and might show an inappropriate word and this could hurt your rankings.

Oh, and in the upload defaults you can choose a ton of tags that automatically get filled, so you don’t have to manually do it.

How to Choose What Topics You Want to Cover in Your Niche

Are you ready to make some videos?

The best way to choose what videos to create is using ChatGTP. Ask it to give you 50 ideas for videos to create on your niche and you have a bunch of options to pick.

Once you have a topic that you want to target, head over to VidIQ HERE. They have a free tool to look at how competitive a keyword is and how much traffic it gets.

You want keywords with..

• Lots of traffic
• No competition

Wow, “Plane Crash” has the best score I’ve ever seen.

Shows you how twisted humans can be. You see how the competition is “low” and the search volume is “very high?” That is what you’re looking for.

If the keyword you enter has a bad score, then simply try another keyword. You could also ask ChatGTP to come up with 50 variations of the keyword and plug that into it VidIQ.

How to Create the Best Packaging for Your YouTube Video

Packaging is 50% of your video. This is the Thumbnail and Title. After you figure out what keywords you are targeting, you have to “sell your video.”

If nobody clicks on your video then it doesn’t matter how well your video was.

This is both an art and a science.

Thumbnail

There are some universal facts about making a clickable thumbnail.

• A human with eye contact with an emotional reaction gets more clicks.

This just works, we are wired from birth to look at other humans, if they have a weird expression it might save our life. Look at Mr. Beasts’ thumbnails they usually have him on it.

• Being different.

You could say high colors and contract work, but you just want to stand out! If all the videos are black and white and yours is colorful – you will be picked.

Reminds me of the marketing book “Differentiate or Die.” by Jack Trout.

• Uncluttered

When the mind is confused it goes NEXT. You want a few elements to get your point across and that’s it. Look at Mr. Beast’s Thumbnail it’s him and a cave!

• Big Bold Text (3-4 words max).

This depends on the video, but can help.

You can create a thumbnail for free at Canva.com HERE.

Clickable Title

Making a clickable title is easy because you can ask the AI to give you 10 ideas for a title with the keywords “(put your keywords here)” and make each title clickable. then the one that makes you want to click on it, choose it.

How to Make a YouTube Video

Time to put paint on canvas!

A YouTube video is similar to painting, most of the work is in the prework and cleanup. The actual painting or making a video is easy. Making a video consists of a few steps…

• Hook
• Deliver on the promise
• Call to Action

The important part is the hook. If someone is going to drop off it’s usually in the very beginning. What I recommend is going to ChatGTP and writing exactly this into the prompt…..

Give me a 150-300 YouTube description including the keywords “(put the keywords you’re targeting HERE)” with ideal tags and hashtags. Include the keywords in the first 2 lines. Also, give me 5 click-worthy titles that include my keywords. Give me 5 different good hooks at the beginning of my video. Create for me 3 different thumbnails that make someone want to click on it.

The AI will give you tons of titles, hooks, tags, and hashtags that you can include for your video.

For the outline, what I do is first write a blog post and then use parts of it or the entire thing for my video. You could also ask ChatGPT to create an outline for a video about “your keywords.”

You could also tell ChatGTP how long you want the video to be. Then edit and change what the AI gives you.

Next, read the outline a few times and then simply talk into a camera. If you get lost just look back at your outline on the screen.

This call to action could be “Click the link in my profile” for the free guide you will give them when they sign up for your newsletter.

You can also do a screen-recording of showing something on your computer screen, while you talk. I use this software HERE, which is free. Usually, I just write a few notes and wing it. It can be entertaining – since I usually make mistakes!

Also, don’t worry about editing. If you make a mistake just publish it. If it’s a horrible mistake then just remake the video.

You can go MUCH faster without editing. Once you start making some money and get MORE views then you can always learn and add editing later.

How to Optimize Your Video for More Views

The best way to optimize your video for more views is by using ChatGTP. Use the description that was given with hashtags and tags. Then just post it into the fields before you publish it.

Comments can help your video rank, so after publishing your video ask a question in the comments field to get engagement and feedback.

If someone leaves a comment reply if possible or just thank them for a comment. If a troll leaves a “nasty” comment then remember the troll is helping your video rank.

If someone leaves a nasty comment “It usually is about themselves, not you.” Try not to take it personally. Some troll comments have made my day too.

One lady told me “I talk too much,” another guy said, “What is the weird bald guy pointing to.” If you can handle comments like that then you’re good!

How to Repurpose Your YouTube Video for More Views

Good job, you published a video. Now celebrate, you have done something many people wished they had the courage to do!

The power of creating content is leverage. This means you take the work you already did and recycle and reuse it for more views using less effort.

For example.

You can take the VERY same video and post it to other platforms and it takes maybe 5 seconds to do this. You might get a TON of views on the other platform.

You can submit the same video to this place HERE.

I “highly” also recommend taking important parts and making short videos. You can take 1 short video and repurpose it to many places such as TikTok and Instagram.

You can view a complete guide to dominating with short videos that has 50 tips by clicking on the link HERE.

You can view a full list of additional places to post a YouTube video from this post HERE, but be careful because it’s a big list.

Conclusion

With my method – you don’t even need a lot of views to make money. The important thing is to get started. Just make a crappy video to start and always try to improve. It’s never going to be perfect.

With YouTube, there are 2 types of subscribers.

• The person who hits the subscribe button.
• The person who watches one of your videos and then watches a second of your videos in a short amount of time.

This is why “after” you earn some money, change your call to action to link to another of your videos and then to your landing page. You will help you in the long term.

YouTube even has a feature to put a video at the end of your video, to make it easier for someone to watch another of your videos.

It all starts with a landing page and emails set up to earn money on day 1. You can view a free guide to creating this landing page and emails by clicking on the link HERE.

Hopefully, this post was helpful, have a nice day.