Posted by Melissa Thompson

Short answer: Yes. 

The longer answer is the point of this article. Of course, it is possible to make money with Youtube, but it isn’t so simple. For every person who has replaced their full time income with Youtube, there are thousands more who have their hopes dashed.

As with most things, the best time to have started a Youtube channel was five years ago. The second best time is right now. To get an idea of what kind of money you can make with this youtube money calculator.

There is still a lot of money to be made, but you’ll really need to stand out from the crowd and that isn’t easy. 

Here are the things you need to be doing to make money on Youtube.

Find your niche

This could be the trickiest part of the equation and will make or break your Youtube channel.

To find the right niche, or topic, to explore, you need it to satisfy two criteria. It needs to be something people are searching for enough to get views. And it also needs to have low enough competition to stand out from the crowd.

If you want to do a parenting vlog, then that is going to be very difficult. The competition is fierce. 

By niching down to focus on a subset within that niche, you can increase your chances of getting views and grow your channel.

An example of this would be a worldschooling channel where you travel to give your kids an education compared to a general, overly broad parenting channel.

Don’t rely on ads

Ads pay out less and less every year. The way ads on Youtube work is they pay out a certain amount based on the topic per thousand views. This is called the CPM or Cost Per Mille.

With so much competition out there, it gets harder and harder to get the views to make money and the amount paid is always going down.

If you have other ways to make money on your channel then you will make more money. 

You can do affiliate marketing and link to products on Amazon and get a commission when people buy. Or, better yet, have your own product to link to if you sell on Amazon or Ebay yourself.

Even digital products can be sold. If you decide to do a cooking channel, then have an ebook with recipes that you can sell.

Start an email list

When you link to a landing page for people to leave their email, then you can collect the true fans. People willing to give you their email are asking you to market to them. 

Don’t abuse it and send them offers too often, however. Use the list to help people by sending them short messages with some helpful information. If your blog was about cooking, then send them cooking tips once per week or so. Then a couple of times per month, send them a promotion or link to your product that you are selling.