Meet Sarah, a passionate content creator with a dream of turning her love for travel and adventure into a thriving YouTube channel. She’s eager to share her experiences and inspire others to make a living from her creative endeavors, however, she’s currently not making any money from her YouTube channel.
How can she fix this?
Here are 7 reasons why she’s currently not making any money on YouTube and what to do instead.
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Lack of a target audience.
Sarah uploads any type of travel video from her adventures around the world, but they don’t seem to gain any traction. She knows that to stand out, she needs to offer something unique. After some research, she decides to focus on eco-friendly travel, a topic she’s really passionate about.
If you want your channel and videos to stand out from your competitors, you need to offer something unique to your audience to gain views and subscribers.
Creating low quality content.
Sarah has been using a low quality camera to record her eco-friendly travels. She invests on a good camera and updates her video editing skills. She meticulously plans each video by writing a script so she stays on point while recording the video. She also creates clickable titles and thumbnails, so if viewers will be motivated to watch her videos.
YouTube says “you can increase the chance of YouTube suggesting your content by increasing your click-through rate and your video watch time”. So if you increase the number of people, clicking on your video and watching it all the way through and even watching successive videos in a row, it’ll increase the probability of YouTube suggesting your content to more people.
She starts each video with a strong hook so viewers be more inclined to watch a video all the way through. At the end of her video, she includes a strong call to action to motivate viewers to watch the next video in the series,
Inconsistent Upload Schedule.
Currently, Sarah uploads videos whenever she feels like it, but realizes she needs to be more consistent to get more views and subscribers. She sets a realistic upload schedule by uploading a new video once a week on Tuesdays. This kind of consistency helps build anticipation amongst her viewers because now they know when to expect her new content.
Lack of Audience Engagement.
Sarah’s frustrated because she hasn’t been able to grow a community on a channel. She realizes she needs to actively engage with her growing audience by responding to comments, asking for feedback, and incorporating viewers’ suggestions into her content. This helps her create a sense of community around her channel.
Another thing she could do to engage with her audience is to post to her community tab on a regular basis. For example, she can upload travel images, share her latest video, add a poll, or quiz her viewers.
The more you engage with your community, the more they’ll get to know, like, and trust you and keep coming back from more of your content.
Not taking advantage of monetization opportunities.
After reaching the eligibility requirements of the YouTube partner program of 4,000 public watch hours and 1000 subscribers in the past 12 months, Sarah’s channel becomes eligible for monetization. She links her YouTube account to her AdSense account and enables ads on her videos. As a result, she starts generating AdSense revenue from her channel. If she makes videos that are 8 minutes or longer, she’ll include mid-roll ads, which allows you to put multiple ad breaks throughout your video. This will help her to generate extra ad revenue,
Not diversifying income streams.
Sarah notices that her AdSense income fluctuates throughout the year and wants to generate more income from a YouTube channel. She doesn’t want to solely rely on ad revenue, so she explores other income streams such as affiliate marketing, merchandise, and sponsorships.
To generate revenue from affiliate marketing, she partners with Eco-friendly brands to promote products in her videos. As a result, she earns commissions on any sales generated from people clicking on the affiliate links in the description of her videos.
To generate revenue from merchandise, she creates her own line of eco-friendly merchandise. From reusable water bottles to sustainable travel guides.
She generates extra revenue from sponsored content by collaborating with travel and eco-friendly brands. As a result, she earns a fee for promoting their products and services.
Not Measuring Success.
Sarah’s channel has been growing slowly and doesn’t understand why she’s not getting many views and subscribers on her videos.
She begins tracking the performance of her videos in YouTube analytics so she can see which videos are getting the most traction.
Under the content tab, she sees the key moments for audience retention, how viewers find her videos, and her top videos that have generated the most traffic on her channel.
Under the audience tab, she sees which videos are growing her audience and which channels her audience watches. She also notices when most of her viewers are on YouTube, so she knows which day and time is the best to upload.
Under the revenue tab, she can see how much money she’s making each month, which ads are generating the most revenue, and what is her top earning content.
By monitoring the performance of her videos in YouTube analytics, she knows exactly what she needs to improve to make better videos.
Lack of Patience and Persistence (BONUS TIP)
Previously, Sarah was just uploading videos whenever she felt like it, so she didn’t see a significant growth in her channel. As a result, she lost patience, motivation, and stopped being persistent. As time passes, Sarah’s YouTube channel grows and her income steadily increases.
Her journey proves that with dedication, passion, and a well thought out strategy, it’s possible to turn her dreams into making money on YouTube into a reality.
If you want to know how to make money on YouTube as a small channel without becoming a YouTube partner, watch this video for 10 ways to monetize your YouTube channel without 1000 subscribers.
Discover my top strategies to get your first 1000 subscribers FAST, so you can join the YouTube Partner Program and start generating a passive income from your YouTube Channel
Click here for more info