Is the Youtube space convoluted or is there enough areas where one can create contents?
They have similar subscriber counts (between 200k-350k subs), in a similar space. One channel pulls in $80k a year, one about $200k a year, and one over $200k A MONTH.
This is largly because of outside deals. YouTube CPMs for music content is generally garbage. However, outside deals and affiliate marketing for gear reviews is pretty lucrative. More lucrative is online courses. My friend pulling in $200k+ a month has gone heavy on the online course side.
That being said, this sounds cheesy, but DO NOT do Youtube for the money. You will make FAR FAR more cash in the short term by either: 1. Studying leetcode for job interviews at FAANG companies. 2. Taking up contract work on the side. 3. Being an uber driver. For real.
Youtube is a GRIND. My friends who ”made” it posted three quality videos a week. For 1-2 years. While working full time. Before they had ANY significant traction.
For your first year expect to make MAYBE $10k, if AND ONLY IF, you post 3 quality videos a week.
I’m currently growing my own Youtube channel now, I’m only at one video a week but I do genuinely enjoy making them. I’m also growing my LinkedIn too (organic reach on LinkedIn is BANANAS, I trend every four posts). But again, I ENJOY doing these videos, I writing scripts, I enjoy public speaking.
So to answer your question: it is 1000% not too late AT ALL. It’s still VERY VERY early. There is MASSIVE MASSIVE oppertunity on these platforms. However you HAVE to make content you love or you WILL quit. Hopefully I’m not discouraging you from posting, please post, but only do what you enjoy!
* Make 10-15 videos, articles, blog posts, whatever. Make at least $500
* Write a blog post "How I made $500 online". Get some traction. Sell a course on "How to make $500 online". Get more traction. Make $20000.
* Write a blog post on "How I made $20000 by selling "How to make $500 online"". Sell a course on "How to make $20000 online by selling "How to make $500 online"". Make $100000.
* Write a blog post on "How I made $100000 by selling "How I made $20000 by selling "How to make $500 online""". Make $1000000.
Think about the unit economics. Average video view earns you roughly a tenth of a penny in advertising. A connection that improves your career prospect is worth very roughly $10,000. That's a ratio of ten million to one. Whatever audience you manage to generate is worth far more to your career as a software developer than it is as generic eyeballs on videos.
Of course you may become a viral hit, but that's a matter of luck.
If you chronologically relate it to the history of television, on-demand online content is at the equivalent of about 1965.
There's still a huge amount of the global population that doesn't really listen to much of this kind of content passively - e.g., while driving/commuting, working, exercising, etc, as many people still don't even know you can really do this. And mobile data is still expensive in a lot of places in the world.
So, I can easily see the audience scale (measured by hours consumed) increasing another 10-20x in the next 10-20 years.
Even then, I doubt there's anyone, even people (like me) who spend many hours a week consuming online media, who thinks "there's no room in my life for anything other than what already exists".
So, no, it's not too late, and indeed it's never too late. But you need to figure out what is the unmet need that you can fill, then work hard over a long period of time to deliver something special for your audience.
We do a revenue split, and I handle the shipping and manufacturing, my goal being for this to essentially be a source of passive income for the content creators.
My observation is that merchandising is an important revenue stream: either physical products, or digital ("for $5 you can have the sheet music that was used to make this video.") Digital merch seems to have a better long-tail and obviously the best margins. Physical merch is cyclical: strong sales at the start, and then they drop off after a few months.
Patreon seems to be an important revenue generator too - exclusive content, or see content ahead of time - which is fed by the videos that the content creators post in order to amass their audience.
Finally, individual video sponsorships seem to be important, and with a popular channel, can earn in the ballpark of $2k/video (don't know the variance here, just using secondhand knowledge.)
The point being, I think that you have to continually be creating content, and it may not necessarily be passive income. And a non-trivial amount of revenue is generated via other means, or partnerships/sponsorships, which is viable after building an audience.
[1] My specific niche is making notebooks for musicians, and you can see the folks I've collaborated with here! https://www.themusiciansnotebook.com/collaborations
I don't know that spending a ton of time researching topics, planning, recording, and editing your videos counts as "passive" income.
> Is the Youtube space convoluted or is there enough areas where one can create contents?
Yes.
That said, if you wanna do it, do it.
You can put samples from your courses on YouTube to drive in traffic to the full courses on your own site.
I considered this too - after doing some research on my own, talking to some other people I know who do YT and chatting to my SO (digital marketing manager) I learned YT advertising alone does NOT generate very much until you are consistently pulling a lot of views regularly (couple videos at a week at 10000+ views each. This can takes years, if ever, especially in the space you are describing - technical content). Profitability on YT is much less about quality and more about quantity and above all consistency, which is very difficult if you are looking to produce high quality content - this takes time.
YT is an exposure platform. It is a good tool for this - you can make your own content and monetize it separately, and use YT as a means to advertise and get exposure. See [0], start-react-native on IH. The founder, William Candellon, also was on the IH podcast, where he described his journey. Basically YT -> generating a following -> release paid content on his own platform and funnel in leads from his YT following.
You could do something like Gary Bernhardt does with his "Destroy all Software" series. A new 10m-15m video a week, and charge for access - either a one-off or a subscription service. I do something similar to generate leads for the course I am working on. [1]
[0] https://www.indiehackers.com/product/react-native-starter-ki...
There is still opportunity, but you’ll have to work hard to capitalize on it. You may never see more than a few dollars after making dozens of videos unless your work is standout.
1) Youtube videos require SEO just like a webpage. You need to create backlinks to your video and maybe send some traffic to it to make it relevant. Brian deen has some very good videos on it.
2) Pay attention to the engagement metrics, bounce rates etc. It matters a lot for getting your video in search results.
3) Invest some time in peripheral things like a good thumbnail, video optimization, etc. The more clicks you get the higher it starts ranking.
4) Last but not least monetising video based on ads is not where it's at. Most successful Youtubers are often making more money with affiliate marketing (most) and sponsorships.
So when you want to create content for Youtube make sure your priorities are clear. Are you doing it to generate income or is it just a hobby. There are very different approach to both.
Of course, this requires that you can play chess at a master level or else no one will want to watch. But maybe you can live stream yourself hacking? Deep learning is a hot topic that could attract viewers. I wouldn't tip but I'd watch that.
Youtube is hard work. You need to attract a community, and keep feeding that community. A single video is not going to make you much money; consistency is key. It can be hard work, and only a few really succeed. Although the ones who do succeed tend to succeed spectacularly.
2. Create small (< 2min) videos for Youtube and use it as marketing platform for your coursework on other site. This utilizes YT's massive user base but avoids being drowned in all the trash there.
He's had a heavy snowball effect this year from a small following to being features in way larger educational platforms
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeU-1X402kT-JlLdAitxSMA
if you put out content consistently, and aimed at beginner to mid level with decent videos - high resolution, clear screen / camera / audio / basic editing. You can absolutely get views and traction.
I am not saying don’t try, but you have to be willing to make at least a 100 solid videos before you get in the swing of things based on my research.
There's always room for new stuff, if for the simple reason that people are always hungry for something new.
And to echo what others said, don't expect any meaningful level of passive income from YouTube for many months. I've been making Android videos since October and have earned zero income despite having 2.5K subscribers.
- it won't be passive income
- it will take some time to figure out how to do it
These are the problems you need to solve:
1. Pick a niche
2. Create your audience
3. Build your course
4. Sell your course
Let me share a few tips, as someone who started his own programming Youtube channel in late 2017, and last month made 7k. (https://www.youtube.com/c/eattheblocks)
1. Pick a niche
Web development is a large topic. There are already some very established channels on this, and as a beginner it will hard to compete with them.
What you need is to go for a specialized tech niche. Example: - React - Testing - Java - Frontend - Mobile - Devops - etc...
You can do some research to see how crowded each tech niche is.
You can also create your own niche by combining a tech and a business application. Ex: Python for finance.
2. Create your audience
You need to create a following of people who really like your content, because later some of them will become your customers.
And to do this you need to publish regularly helpful videos. By helpful, I mean helping them to solve their problems. So it's very important that you spend time to understand in details their problems. And their problems don't necessarily overlap with your own personal interest.
Now, let's get more specific to Youtube. There are 2 source of traffic on Youtube:
- Search
- Suggested videos
As a beginner, you want to focus on search. You will create videos that solve a very specific problem. That way you have a chance to rank for these keywords. You won't have a lot of traffic like this, but it will a good beginning.
Search is good, but what will really make your channel grow is suggested videos. Once you have a small following, you want to start optimizing for this. Youtube will show your videos as suggested videos IF if believes people want to watch them. And it will believe this IF the people who already watched your videos watched a good portion of them. Or better, if they kept watching other videos of your channel after.
To make this happen, you need to:
- Have a good title and thumbnail that make people want to click
- Have a good hook at the beginning of each video. i.e 10-15 seconds where you catch the attention
- A short branding where you explain the value of your channel. Ex "Hey I am X and on my channel I teach Y"
- A good main content, where one part follows logically the previous one. If possible try to teach while telling a story. You can search what is the "South Park rule".
- A conclusion that leads them to other videos on your channel.
3. Build your course
It's often difficult to decide what to put in the course, and what to make free on Youtube.
Here is an easy way to think about it. On Youtube, you will give useful, but very specific help. Ex: How to write a Redux reducer. And in your course, you will teach the whole process. Ex: How to build a Full React application.
There are 2 caveats:
- making the course too long
- making the course too broad
Beginners always think they have to make their course super long to make it attractive. That's exactly the opposite. Think of your course as a shortcut to achieve a goal. Students want to achieve their goal as fast as possible.
And your course also need to be very targeted. If you try to teach too much, and it's just a mix pot of various tips and tricks, it's gonna be harder to sell.
On a practical level, I recommend to use a service like Teachable (that's what I use) to host your course. Think of it like a white-label Udemy. They take care of hosting your videos and billing your clients. Huge time saving.
4. Sell your course
Now to the fun part, making money!
There are 2 main business models:
- subscriptions
- one-time sales
One problem with subscriptions is churn. Students want to learn something at a specific point in time. Once this is done, they might not want to stay.
Another problem is that you have to keep producing content. Which might be overwhelming, since you also have to keep producing content for Youtube.
With one-time sales, you sell a specific course. This is an easier sell: your course will help students reach a certain objective faster and more easily that if they were to do it on their one.
A big caveat is to price your course too cheap, thinking you will make many sales. At the beginning, you won't make many sales because your audience is small. So I recommend to start with an expensive course. At least 100 USD. Yes people for that and even higher. My main course is 250 USD.
To sell a more expensive course, you will need a more sophisticated sell process. Enter the wonderful world of sales funnel. The idea is that you will help prospective students to understand their problem better and better, until you introduce your solution (the course) at the end. Practically, that probably mean creating a sequence of 3-5 emails that will lead to your course. Your Youtube videos should have a CTA to register for this sequence of emails.
My final advice is:
- first try alone for a few month
- and then get help. That's what REALLY made a lot of difference for me. I took a course called 30x500 and that was really eyes opening. And now I hired a consultant specialized in online courses. 2 very good investments.
Good luck!
But youtube is still a good platform for content creators for distributing content. It works faster and gives the user a better experience than most other video platforms, and certainly costs less than hosting it yourself.
So my point is that doing youtube should not be from a financial perspective at first. Do youtube for the content creation aspect - you have to enjoy and be capable of doing it. Then, may be you will garner traction, and _then_ think about monetization.
On other hand, there's garbage content / funnel vids with hundreds of thousands of views. Big difference is that the last guy poured all his money on production and marketing.
As the saying goes, takes money to make money.
Other than that - one needs to be somewhat consistent with releasing stuff. You want people to actually follow your channel, and make a habit of watching / looking forward to your vids.
I haven't done anything besides drive referral traffic + create a thumbnail that pops out.
I believe referral traffic is the trick.
YouTube's goal is to keep people on YouTube as long as possible.
Your newly published video is an unknown.
If you can warm up the engagement data with referral traffic, YouTube will begin showing you in a small % of searchers.
As you get more clicks, more watch time, and more comments / likes compared to other videos YouTube could show, you'll begin to be showed more and more often.
Addendum: doing it for the money is perhaps the wrong reason. It's likely that the network of people you'll get as a result will be even more valuable. Plus, you have to enjoy doing it, otherwise it'll be just like any other job.
If you’re good there’s always opportunity. If you’re not, well, the commenters will let you know.
Though for web development, you have Travis media, and for website development, there are already tons of wordpress-focused channels, for this niche you will definitely have a very hard time, I guess you need delve into at least 1 year before you can see sth.
I would think this is a not-good-enough ROI if you choose this niche.
You can take the content you make on Twitch (with a change to possibly get affiliate or partner while the science and technology section is booming) and then take that content and post it to YouTube.
Can people recommend solid mobile development agencies (open to any county)
For instance, while Oddheader joined 9 years ago, he only seemingly started making videos in the last 2. Since then, his channel has blasted past 500,000 subscribers and is well on route to a million+.
https://www.youtube.com/user/oddheader/videos
Others I've talked to who've started in the last few years and done well for themselves include Mety333 (nearly 200k subscribers since 2017), Skip the Tutorial (460k+ since 2017), Ceave Gaming (450k+ since 2016) and various others.
So there's definitely room to succeed there, even if your channel is only starting out today.
But I think you need to keep a few things in mind here:
Firstly, as people say, it's very unlikely your channel will blow up within the first channel. It occasionally does happen (especially if someone's video happens to go viral for whatever reason or a large YouTuber keeps giving them shout outs), but it's not the norm.
So take it slowly, accept your first few videos will probably do pretty bad stats wise (and to be honest, that's probably not a bad thing given their likely low quality) and the chances of making money early on are very slim.
Secondly, you need consistency. As people have said, YouTube is a grind, and you'll almost certainly need to pump out new videos on a regular basis for a year or three before your audience properly discovers your channel. So yeah, pick a schedule, stick to it and try to make sure you have stuff lined up for when burnout/real life issues inevitably interfere.
Thirdly, you really want to have a good niche for your channel overall. Web development in itself is too broad a topic for a new channel in my opinion, and you'll really struggle to gain traction given how crowded the space is right now.
So narrow things down. Think of a particular programming or scripting language you're good at, or a CMS you know how to work with, or a sub topic (like say, usability/accessibility/browser game development/CSS image drawing) that you have some experience with instead.
Finally, remember that having good content and knowing how to market it matters a lot more than your videos' production quality. If you're not saying something people find interesting or that hasn't been said by a million people in the last, even the best microphone, camera or video editing program in the world won't make a difference.
So come up with something interesting, make sure your videos look at least half decent, then invest in building relationships with other content creators, getting an audience on social media sites, etc.
Do that, and you can definitely do well on YouTube, even in 2020.