YouTube: How to Monetize Your Videos and Make Money

In the digital age, creating content (long form videos and shorts) on YouTube is a great way of making money online. Do you know how?

While many are familiar with the YouTube’s potential, it remains an underrated area for those looking for a way to make money online. With the right strategy, creating and editing videos can help make money online. This blog presents various ways to make money on YouTube, from meeting the YouTube’s monetization requirements to various ways within and outside of YouTube for earning passive income.

How to set up YouTube Channel:

To set up YouTube channel, you at least need to have a registered phone that you can use to verify account and activate some of the restricted features for new account. Creating YouTube channel involves creating Google account if you don’t have one, creating YouTube channel, customize your channel, activating advanced feature then start uploading videos and creating posts. Some features may require mobile verification and identity or channel history verification

We will go through the whole process including setting up various ways of making money.

Step 1: Creating Google account.

The first step is to create google account.

Visit youtbe.com and click sign in. Select create account if you don’t have one, else skip to step 2.

Select one of the options presented depending on the account type you want to create. Usually for my personal use or for work or my business if you have a registered business.

Fill in the requested details and make sure they are correct. After submitting basic information, you will be required to select email address or enter existing email then click next to select password and confirm password.

Verify account using mobile phone where you will receive verification code. Once the process is complete, you will now have an active google and gmail account you can use to create YouTube channel.

Step 2: Creating YouTube channel

Go to YouTube.com and log in with your google account.

Click on the profile icon at the top-right corner and select create channel.

Select get started.

Set your preferred username for your channel. Align this with your content for YouTube SEO. Fill in all required date and click create.

Lets now customize our YouTube channel. Head over to profile icon then select “your channel”. This opens your YouTube channel.

Select customize channel. Here you can upload profile icon and channel banner.

If you don’t have one, you can create with canva.com and upload. Make sure you don’t use copyrighted images or copy another channel’s artwork.

Go to about us section and update channel description. Use the right keyword so that your channel ranks when users search for these keywords.

It is time to verify our YouTube channel.

Click on the profile icon again in YouTube.com and select YouTube studio. This opens platform where you can upload and manage your content.

Select setting on the left sidebar.

Select channel menu then feature eligibility tab.

Click verify phone number.

Choose your country and preferred verification method which is either sms or voice call.

Enter your phone number and submit. Get the verification code sent to the number, enter and click submit.

At this point your channel is still restricted to do some actions like longer videos and more.

It is time to activate advance features.

Go back to feature eligibility in YouTube studio settings.

Under intermediate features and advance features, click access features. You may be requested to verify mobile number and other combination of requests. If you prefer to use valid id verification or photo then follow the instructions.

In most cases you might require mobile phone to scan QR code to open ID scanner. It will take few days to get verified and approved. After this the limited features will be enabled. Make sure you enable all advanced feature at this stage. This will allow you to get ready even before uploading your content.

Quick check:

Ensure standard feature, intermediate and advanced features set as enabled.

Now we are ready to start creating content.

While in YouTube studio or on YouTube.com, select create button to start uploading your content. You can upload videos or go live.

As we are looking at monetizing our channel, it is important we create content that attracts views and convert them to subscribers. All this will count towards qualifying for monetization.

What are the requirements for YouTube monetization?

YouTube has minimum requirements for you to monetize your channel directly with YouTube.

You need in in the last 1 year,

1000 subscribers and 4000 public watch hours. This means you get subscribers numbers to 1000 and have public long form videos watch hours to 4000. You can get this on your channel dashboard.

OR

1000 subscribers and 10 million public shorts views. This mean your short videos have accumulated 10 million views.

Also make sure your channel has good standing and no strikes. Avoid this at all costs to maintain health YouTube monetization environment and reduce instances of your account getting suspended.

I always advice on creating different gmail or google accounts for a new channel. The reason is when one channel is terminated or adsense account then you lose all the other accounts.

Time to enable monetization.

Go to earn and click apply. If you already have adsense account then you may be allowed to link or get notification that YouTube will send you email when you reach the above threshold.

If you reach the above or is requested to link adsense account then go ahead.

This will route you to adsense website to create account. Click sign up or sign in if you already have account. For sign up, fill in all details that are requested and match with what you have on YouTube if possible.

YouTube is where you make money but adsense is the company that displays ads and pay you.

Once you complete linking and signing for YouTube partner program, select the ad formats. Choose the types of ads you want to display on your videos, such as display ads, overlay ads, skippable video ads, and non-skippable video ads.

What are many ways you can make money with YouTube?

Ads which we have signed above. Ads are shown on your videos and YouTube pays you some revenue from your views. There is threshold for the amount you need to meet to get paid. Always check based on your country. Important is make sure your address is correct in adsense as that where your pin to confirm address is sent. Once you receive you enter on your adsense account. Once you reach payment method threshold, you can enter your bank or payment details. After that YouTube will pay you if you reach payment threshold.
Channel membership. Once activated for monetization, you can offer channel membership to subscribers where you provide them with exclusive perks like badges, emojis and member’s only content. They will see but to join. This creates recurring income from your subscribers.
Super chats and super stickers. When you are live, your viewers can buy super stickers and super chats to highlight their message.
Selling merchandise where you can sell branded merchandise from your channel. Here you can join print-on-demand services to create and sell products like t-shirts, hoodies and mugs.
YouTube premium revenue. You get a share of YouTube premium subscriber who watch your content. Some viewers may be on paid subscription hence YouTube will share that revenue for views from such viewers.