How to Start a Vlog and Make Money: Everything You Need to Know
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By
Alan
You want to start a vlog, but you’re not sure where to start. To get started as a vlogger, I’ve created everything you need to know about how to make money vlogging right here.
Vlogging is more than just recording yourself talking into the camera for hours on end. There are many ways that you can make money with your vlog and there’s no one way that works best for everyone.
This guide will teach you everything from how to get started, what equipment you need, and how to monetize your channel so that it becomes profitable in as little time as possible!
WHY AIMLESS VLOGGING DOESN’T WORK
If you want to make money with your vlog, you must have a plan. You need to know what kind of content you’re going to create and how often you’ll produce new videos.
Picking a Niche & Creating a Brand
A niche is the topic or genre of your channel. Different niches will attract different types of people, so it’s important to find a niche that’s right for you. Choose Your Audience What will be your target audience?
What are your interests?
Begin with understanding your interest.
The first step is picking your niche.
For example, if you love the outdoors, you could start your vlog that showcases hikes and camping trips. But maybe hiking isn’t quite your thing, but surfing is! You could make videos about surfing trips.
Creating Quality Content
It’s not enough to just make videos about the things you like. You need to provide quality entertainment or useful information for your viewers.
Make sure that you produce high-quality, engaging content regularly. If you release videos too infrequently, people will lose interest and your viewership won’t go up.
Be Consistent & Be Patient
YouTube is all about building an audience and growing your channel! You won’t be able to do that overnight, but if you’re consistent with your uploads and patient, success will start to happen.
Traditional Means of Vlogging Income
There are several ways that people make money through vlogging. Let’s take a look at each of them!
YOUTUBE ADS
One common way that vloggers make money is by running ads on their videos.
The people who run YouTube will pay you a certain amount of money every time one of your videos has an ad shown on it.
You won’t make much, but if you have a large enough viewership, it can make a real difference in your monthly income.
Affiliate Marketing
Another way that vloggers can make money is by selling products or services through affiliate marketing.
This involves adding a link to an item that you recommend in one of your videos and then earning a commission on anything that gets sold as a result.
For example, if you recommend a camping stove to your viewers, you can include a link to where they can buy one. If someone buys the stove through that link, you’ll earn a small percentage of its price.
Sponsored Videos or Sponsored Posts
Not everyone has access to high-profile brands and companies who are willing to pay them money in exchange for promotion.
However, smaller companies will sometimes take out advertisements on medium-approved blogs or pay vloggers to post about their products. These are known as sponsored videos or sponsored posts.
Selling Merchandise
Some people make enough money through YouTube ads and affiliate marketing that they’re able to quit their day jobs!
If you can’t rely on these strategies alone, you might want to consider selling branded merchandise like t-shirts.
Patreon
Another way that vloggers can make money is by using Patreon, which allows viewers to donate a set amount of money every month in exchange for certain rewards.
For example, you could offer your patrons early access to videos or exclusive behind-the-scenes footage.
HOW YOUTUBE ADS WORK
YouTube is an excellent platform for making money — but it only works if you know how to use it correctly. [1]
When creating a YouTube channel, you must be as professional as possible. This means making sure your profile and videos look great and include all of the best information about your channel!
How to Use YouTube to Make Money in the Technical Side
How you monetize your channel will depend on the type of content you’re producing. If your videos are mainly consisting of vlogs or unboxing videos, then it’s likely that you’ll be able to make money via ads.
However, if your video topics are more focused on teaching lessons or showing tutorials, then there are several other ways you can monetize your channel.
If you want to learn more about the technical side of making money with YouTube, check out this article that goes into detail about how YouTube ads work.
Read More: A Guide to Choose the Best Vlogging Tripods
How to Avoid Youtube Penalties & Demonetization
YouTube is constantly changing its rules to protect advertisers and ensure that they’re not appearing next to controversial material.
If this happens, then your channel could be in jeopardy of getting shut down by the Google-owned platform!
To avoid YouTube penalties, you should make sure that all videos follow these guidelines:
No swearing (or censored swearing)
No sexually suggestive or revealing content
No promotion of other channels or videos
No spam or misleading metadata (especially take care with thumbnails and titles!)
If you need to add annotations, then you should add them sparingly and respect these guidelines:
Highlight key points — avoid adding long disclaimers or calls-to-action
Keep annotations animated and under 15 seconds
Try to avoid using the same annotation more than once in a video. They should be used for different points, not just repeated sections
You can find out more about how to avoid YouTube penalties here.
WHY DO SOME VIDEO BLOGGERS MAKE A LOT OF MONEY WHILE OTHERS DON'T
Many people have a mental image of a successful vlogger as someone who has thousands of subscribers and uploads videos every day.
And while it’s true that those who have amassed large followings tend to be the most successful, many other factors contribute to making money from YouTube.
One of these factors is audience retention. If a viewer watches a video and is immediately bored by the content or leaves the platform within 10 seconds, then it makes it much less likely that they’ll come back.
As such, you should always try to keep things as interesting as possible throughout your videos!
Another thing to consider is how many people you’re able to reach with your videos. The more viewers you have, the more likely it is that your videos will go viral and attract other subscribers!
You can increase the number of people that watch your videos by making sure they’re showing up in search results and also by using annotations to link to related videos.
CREATING PAID COURSES
One way vloggers can monetize their channel is by creating paid courses. This usually involves recording yourself speaking for hours on end, but it can be an effective way of making money!
If you’ve developed a set number of lessons that are designed to help people improve certain skills, then you should consider whether they could benefit from being taught in video format or written down as a course.
STOCK PHOTO & VIDEO SALES
One way to make money from your vlog channel without uploading videos is by selling images and other services.
For example, if you have a YouTube account associated with your brand or business, then you can sell stock photos via Shutterstock.
If you’re a photographer or videographer, then there are plenty of opportunities for you to sell photos to corporations that may want them for commercial or promotional use.
WEBSITE AFFILIATE MARKETING CONNECTION
If you have a vlog channel, then it can be a fantastic way to build your authority and put your name out there as an industry expert.
This is great news if you already own a website or blog because you can tap into this audience and monetize it!
One way to do this is by using affiliate, which effectively means that you get paid every time someone buys something through your website. It’s one of the easiest ways to make money online.
IN CONCLUSION
The key to being a successful vlogger is to do whatever you’re most comfortable with and works best!
Just remember that YouTube is an extremely competitive platform, so it’s important to try and stand out from the crowd in some way.
For example, if you have a quirky sense of humor, then you might want to focus your energy on creating videos that make people laugh.
Alternatively, if you’re more interested in beauty and fashion, then it might be a better idea to vlog about these topics instead of making humorous videos.
Whatever your niche is and whatever you can talk about comfortably for at least 20 minutes should be the primary focus of your channel!
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