3 Great Techniques for Making Money with YouTube Videos

Everybody knows that Hollywood producers make millions, but how can you make money with YouTube videos and use them as a launchpad for entering the film industry?

After years of experience making online videos, I have some great techniques for making money online with your YouTube videos.

Using YouTube videos to generate affiliate revenue

Although Google has monopolized YouTube video link overlay ads, you can still add text boxes containing ads to your own YouTube videos. Use these text boxes to direct users to the video’s description.

Though user-created text box overlays can’t contain links, you can put links in your video’s description. Create videos and put affiliate links in your videos’ descriptions and you’ll get a cut of each click, sale, or lead you generate. If you have a video about, say, poker, you can have an affiliate link to an online poker site and get paid for each person who signs up for the online poker site.

Placing ads directly into your YouTube videos

One drawback for businesses about using Google’s YouTube text ads is that they are easy to close out and they don’t draw viewers’ attention very well. The only way for a company to get a creative ad YouTube via Google’s official advertising solution is to pay for a preroll ad (the ads that appear before a video) and those are pretty expensive.

That’s why some companies will pay you to put ads in your YouTube videos if your YouTube channel has a lot of viewers in a targetable audience. Unlike Google’s ads, these ads will stay in your video forever since they’re part of the same video file. The ads can either be banners that run on top of the screen (Google’s text ads block out the bottom) or video commercials at the beginning of your video.

Getting paid through crowdsourced video websites

You can get paid to make web ads, webcasts, and TV commercials from a crowdsourced video website. Essentially, a company requests a video on a crowdsourced video website, you submit a video, and get paid if the company uses it. The rates vary but Playkast pays $50. It’s that simple.

The crowdsourced model is great for new film makers because you can do it without having any professional connections. It’s a great opportunity to get paid to build your portfolio, make connections, and earn money making videos online.

Some of these tips work for almost everyone but others only work situationally. You’re not likely to get advertisers to buy banner ads in your videos if your channel has a wide audience, like women aged 14 to 65. Conversely, anyone can go onto Playkast and get paid to make videos online.

Guest post by Murray Newlands who does blogger relations for Playkast