How to Make Money with Videos

How to hit the YouTube home page and earn money from your viral videos.

I was watching a network news journalist interview a teenage girl and her family. Her silly music video generated over 250,000 dollars in the first couple of months alone.

Now her family is quarter million dollars richer! Not bad for an average teenager, with an average voice, and less than stellar video production.

How did she do it? With ads in the video.

As soon as you hit about 1,000 views, Google will ask permission to advertise on your video. When you login to your account you’ll see, “Apply for partnership to take advantage of your popular video.”

If you can make it into the “Featured” or “Trends” section, you’ve hit the YouTube jet stream. The highly coveted home page, in front of millions of people.

To get there takes a mighty viral push. You’ll need to wrangle the support of all your social networks, Facebook and Twitter followers. Here’s how…

SEO for your YouTube video depends on four things:

– How many views you get
– How many thumbs up you get
– How many comments you get
– How quickly you get all the above

Keep in mind the following tips…

A view counts if it’s over 5 seconds long. Make the opening seconds surprise and amaze.

Tell them in the text under the video, to click on the thumbs up icon, aka the “Like” button. Don’t assume they know what to do.

Make an emotional appeal to the viewer. Ask them to leave a quick comment. Even if its just a single sentence. Every little bit helps.

Notes on Viral…

Most viral videos are funny, amazing, surprising or entertaining. Without one or more of these, your video will sputter on the way to the jet stream.

How to Optimize Your YouTube Channel…

– Put your most important keywords in the video title
– Repeat the keywords in the description and tags
– Don’t use a fancy design or border around the video
– Keep the page design simple, with a white background
– Make sure the video preference is set to auto play
– Put a clickable links in video’s description (Facebook, Twitter)

Important Notes from TubeMogul.com
(The video syndication dudes.)

TubeMogul’s data shows that video has a short shelf life. They did a case study of 10,000 videos that had at least 1,000 views. The biggest traffic spike came at three days.

They suggest that you put out a lot of videos, because they peak early. The maximum views come when you do a series of short videos and upload a new one every few days. Thursday afternoon and Sunday evenings are peak viewing times.

They also suggest that you, “Put the name of your brand in the video title, because some services list only the title. It’s important to be consistent and put out topically related videos, as it increases your overall rankings in Google.”

Additional Promotion

In addition to doing the SEO for YouTube, ask your viewers to bookmark you on Delicious. If you make it to their “What’s Hot” home page, you can get a boost of extra momentum.

Be sure to monitor your keywords using Google Alerts and the Twitter home page. (AKA the Goobert method.) Participate in every discussion about you and your brand. Link to the video everywhere you comment.

Be voracious thank you note writers. Jot a note every time someone mentions you. Even if its just a couple of words to say thanks. It goes a long way.

Remember what TubeMogul said, the biggest spike comes at the three day mark. So upload that video and spend the next three days promoting it like crazy, using the strategies I’ve outlined above.

Who knows, maybe your video will hit the jet stream and go viral. Say yes to Google advertising and one silly video could generate all the coin you need for a lifetime. It happens to others. It could happen to you.

So be sure to take your video camera along and keep shooting, because you never know when something funny, amazing, surprising or entertaining will happen near you.