How To Grow a Business with YouTube. In this list we have blog posts, videos and tips all about how to start a business and how to grow it with YouTube. how to make money online.
Perhaps you’ve recently considered leaving your full-time job to undertake a new challenge in your career. From freelancing, or even turning your side hustle into a full-time gig, there are various reasons so many people have recently decided to permanently quit the workforce.
Due – Due
While self-employment does offer better flexibility in your schedule, the ability to be your boss, and having the relaxation to work from home, it’s no wonder more than four million people were seen quitting their jobs during January 2020.
Times have been changing since the advent of the pandemic, and extended lockdowns have shown people that starting their own business can be financially beneficial if done right, and not having to answer to anyone else can help improve innovation and productivity.
Yes, being self-employed has its perks, and it’s become undeniable that working from home, and being your own boss is a lot more attractive than being stuck in an office or having to work for a company that doesn’t have the same moral stance as you.
Starting a business, whether it’s in your hometown, or perhaps somewhere else also brings financial constraints, even if it looks like the grass is greener on the other side. There are a lot one first needs to consider before making any drastic changes.
So whether you may be currently caught in the middle of leaving your job, or maybe you’ve already quit, it’s time to start talking about the financial mistakes you may endure in your time as a self-employed individual.
From budgeting, time management, work-life balance, and saving properly – there are a number of mistakes freelancers and the self-employed are making, and this article will help you avoid those mistakes.
Not Budgeting Properly
Right from the start, it’s time to get your finances sorted. Now that you’ve left a steady job, and a full-time salary, you need to start budgeting a lot better. Counting every dime and nickel you spend, and cutting back on unnecessary expenses.
There’s a simple equation that works, and it’s one you can apply to either when you’re freelancing, or when you still receive a monthly paycheck.
Split your earnings as follow:
50% Needs: These will be important bills such as utilities, mortgage, rent, and groceries.
30% Wants: This can be for things you want at a certain time, such as luxuries, or eating out now and again but aren’t truly a necessity.
20% Savings: It’s advised that you put at least 20% of your earnings in savings, an emergency fund or perhaps return that money into the business
If you’re operating a small business from home, or online, you will have to make cutbacks on your wants, as this will help you save a lot more, and you can use any excess cash to support the business.
Inadequate Use of Time
Perhaps one of the reasons you decided to work for yourself or start your own business is because it gives you the ability to spend more time with your family and do what you enjoy. While this may be the case, a lot of entrepreneurs, freelancers, and self-employed people still don’t understand the value of time.
Now that you have more time to do a lot of different things, it should be second nature to prioritize certain tasks and projects. Consider work that’s a high priority, and get that out of the way first.
Have a diary or tabletop calendar where you can write down important tasks that need attention. Focus on the important things first, before you go on to complete other projects.
Yes, having balance as a freelancer or self-employed person isn’t easy, working from home and maybe still having a family, but consider how every minute or hour you’re spending doing something unimportant, you could be using that time to learn a new skill, grow your network, look for new clients, or finalize a certain project.
Time is money, and it’s a standing fact you need to grasp right from the very start.
Unable to Separate Business and Personal Expenses
So perhaps you might have an idea on how to budget now, but you’re still not seeing any money come in and being put back into your business or entrepreneurial ventures.
Separating personal and business expenses is one of the main reasons a lot of small businesses, or freelancers can struggle to make money.
Although your new self-employment may only start taking off, you need to consider the money that’s coming in, and how it’s being divided.
For personal expenses, use your checking account, as money comes into the business, pay yourself a small salary, if possible. That account and money can now be used for personal purchases.
Any business-related purchases should be captured in a spreadsheet for tax-related purchases, and to ensure you don’t overspend on the business side.
As the business grows, or you start getting more jobs, you can start thinking of setting up a business account. Just remember, once you set up a business bank account, there can be tax-related expenses and filing you will need to adhere to, so be sure your business is on a level of income before opening a business bank account.
Not Tracking Expenses and Revenue
This goes hand-in-hand with separating personal and business-related expenses, and you must consider what you’re spending, over how much you’re getting in.
Some business owners tend to overspend, purchasing new stock, or goods when it’s not needed, or perhaps even when there’s not even cash flow to make a large purchase that isn’t needed right now.
It’s vital to the success of your business or freelance career that you keep track of how much is being spent, over the amount you’re making. If you’re a freelancer that works from home, purchasing expensive office equipment you might not require right now can make a dent in your budget.
The same goes for an entrepreneur making large business purchases when there’s not sufficient cash flow to sustain it.
Make sure that expenses are not more than your revenue or income, if you start seeing red on your books and in the budget, then it’s time to start paying closer attention to your budget.
Savings. Savings. Savings.
So perhaps you already had a healthy-looking savings account before you quit your job. By now, you started using some of that savings to either get your business off the ground, making necessary payments until actual money starts coming in, or you paid off some outstanding credit card debt.
Whatever you spent your savings on, it’s important that you now look to put back what you have taken out. It might not be possible immediately, but over time as you start generating a substantial income, you can place a portion of your revenue or income into your savings.
Your savings is your lifeline when you reach a point when sales were lower than you anticipated, or perhaps you haven’t received as many contracts as you’d hoped for.
Keep track of how much money you’re setting aside as an emergency fund, as you’re now completely in control of your money, expenses, and the income you make, you have to consider the seriousness of your savings.
Before anything else, make sure that you set aside at least 20% to 30% of your income into a savings account. You can also be smart about it, and place it in an account that receives a decent percentage of interest every month, or in a mutual fund.
Be sure to do proper research before you start looking at various ways you can make your savings grow, as you can run the risk of losing it as well.
No Efficient Tax Planning
Taxes are different for self-employed workers or working as a freelancer, and the sooner you get on top of it, the better.
For self-employed people, you will generally report your income and withhold your own taxes. There could be a possibility that you will need to pay a self-employment tax as well, and if you operate a small business, there could be business-related taxes that need to be filed as well.
Freelancers would also need to learn the rules of what to file, withhold and report, especially if you work from home.
It’s good that you plan for taxes as you start your new career ventures, as it’ll help you see how much money you need to set aside for taxes.
There are also different categories for business tax and freelance taxes, which can range from business expenses and purchases to personal expenses that can be filed as a business purchase. It’s a tricky and complicated system that if not properly understood, can cost you quite the amount of effort and money.
Now that you’re self-employed, and being your own boss, it’s time that you start taking better care of your finances. Not having that hefty paycheck each month, and having to make your own money comes with a lot of responsibility.
The better you understand how to work with money, and how to budget and save up for an emergency, the more comfortable you’ll become with business and personal finances.
People today understand more than ever the importance of diversifying when it comes to your source of income. After decades of financial crisis’ and global pandemics, younger generations are acutely aware of how risky it is to put all your eggs in one employment basket.
This has always been the case for YouTubers, of course. Since the beginning of YouTubers making money from their content, it has always been the advice for smart YouTubers not to rely solely on YouTube to pay their bills. Adpocalypses, changes to personal situations, and much more can make YouTube earnings evaporate in no time.
Of course, telling you that it’s important to spread your wings a bit financially is all well and good, but we want to go that extra step and give you a few ideas on where you can spread your wings!
A side hustle is defined as any job or occupation that is not your main job or occupation. In a traditional sense, an example of this might be someone working in a factory through the week and then doing a few shifts tending bar on the weekend. In this case, the bar work would be a side hustle.
Of course, things are a little more fluid these days, with the lines between side hustles and a “main job” being a little blurrier, but there is an emotional component that is strong these days than it once was. It is not uncommon for people who make their money online to have something that they consider a side hustle actually be their primary source of income!
Still, whether you classify something as a side hustle based on the money it makes you or how important that activity is to you, the basic premise remains the same; it’s a way of earning money that you consider secondary to another way of earning money.
How Much Money Can You Make With a Side Hustle?
The amount of money you can make with a side hustle will, of course, vary tremendously depending on several factors, such as what the side hustle is, how good you are at it, how much time you put into it, and more.
As mentioned above, how much money it makes does not necessarily affect its status as a side hustle. If you consider YouTube your “primary” hustle, you may well find one of your side hustles overtaking as your largest source of income. Our advice would be to not think too much about things like the exact amounts. As long as you’re making enough (whatever “enough” means to you), it doesn’t matter which hustle is making the most money.
Don’t Think of it as a Side Hustle!
While you should get too hung up on the specific amount being made by any form of hustle, it’s important not to think of things as secondary, or unimportant. If your job involves making money on the Internet, you should consider all of it your job, whether it’s making the most or not.
If you start thinking of legitimate income sources as unimportant, you run the risk of letting them slip until they stop being legitimate income sources. You may think of yourself as a YouTuber, but if you have half a dozen side hustles, they will quickly amount to a significant portion of your income, so you probably literally can’t afford to neglect them.
Top 10 Side Hustles for YouTubers
That’s enough about what side hustles are, it’s time to get to our top ten side hustles for YouTubers. Of course, if you simply searched for side hustles and found this post, you aren’t a YouTuber, don’t stop reading. We’ve picked these ten side hustles because they work well with YouTubing, but they are perfectly viable side hustles for other walks of life, too.
In fact, if you see your main hustle on here (blog writer, or podcaster, for example), just swap that one out for “YouTuber” and keep on reading!
Oh, and a little side note about the YouTube Partner Programme, we haven’t included that in this list because we assume that if you’re looking to add side hustles to your resume, you’re already making money from YouTube.
#1 Affiliate Marketer
Affiliate marketing is perhaps one of the most well-established means of making money on the side for YouTubers. This is the process of promoting something in the course of your usual content and making a little money on the actions taken by your viewers.
The most well-known example of this is, of course, Amazon’s affiliate program. When enrolled as an Amazon affiliate, you will be able to get a personal affiliate link from any Amazon product. Viewers who happen to buy that product will not pay any extra—indeed, they wouldn’t even know it was an affiliate link if you didn’t tell them (more on that in a second)—but you will make a small commission on anything they buy through your links.
There are many forms of affiliate marketing available, as well as services designed specifically to facilitate linking companies with people like you. It should be noted, however, that you should always give some sort of indication to your viewers that a link you have put in the description or a product you are promoting in your video is something you are promoting as an affiliate. It’s not hard to find out, and viewers will be turned off by this kind of dishonesty. It could also get you in trouble with YouTube.
#2 Merchandise Seller
Whether you have some kind of merchandise that exists independent of your YouTube channel, or you start releasing merchandise that ties directly in with your YouTube channel, having that channel can be a great way to promote it.
Naturally, if your merchandise is tied to the channel (for example, t-shirts with the channel logo on them), you’re going to want to promote it from that channel. Alternatively, if you want to start (or already have) a small clothing line, you sell artwork, or you sell pretty much anything on a site like Etsy, you can leverage the popularity of your YouTube channel to give that side hustle a bit of a kickstart.
#3 Course Instructor
Many YouTubers have some area of expertise, even if their channel is not about imparting that expertise. These days, the administrative side of creating and hosting an online course to teach other people things is relatively painless. There’s still a lot of work in putting the course together, of course, but there’s a lot of work in running a YouTube channel, as well, and you’re not letting that stop you… are you?
Of course, if your channel is centred around educating, such as a DIY channel, or tutorials on coding, it will be much easier to translate that audience into an online course. But even channels that are not about teaching viewers something can take advantage of this side hustle, as long as the course is teaching a skill that is on display when you make your videos.
#4 Channel Manager
If you have a particular flair for handling YouTube channels, you might consider turning your attention to becoming a channel manager. Essentially, you would take on the management of other people’s channels, and handle almost everything except for the content itself.
Many people don’t have the time or desire to effectively manage their channel themselves, but proper channel management can make an enormous difference. As you will no doubt be aware of this is a side hustle you are considering.
The main thing to beware of here is letting this side hustle take over. A good channel manager will typically have several clients. And, while managing a channel doesn’t take nearly as much time as making content for it, it all adds up if you keep adding clients to your roster.
#5 Blogger
Bloggers may resent seeing their profession listed as a side hustle on a YouTube blog—especially since blogging was a viable source of income before YouTube—but don’t be mad; YouTube can just as rightly be called a side hustle for bloggers. And the good news is this makes sense whichever way round you look at it.
Essentially, you have something to share with an audience, and you are currently doing it in video form. By translating that content to written form, you can reach a whole new audience. Or you can make it supplemental, giving your YouTube audience something else to consume.
#6 Podcaster
In a very similar vein to being a blogger, you can get more of your message out in audio-only form through podcasts. And, again, if you are a podcast, you can easily look at this suggestion in reverse, with YouTube being the side hustle.
This suggestion works best for channels that already have a podcast-like feel, such as panel show channels, or interview channels. If you regularly put out hour-long videos that are mostly talking, you’re going to miss out on a lot of viewers purely because of the time requirements. Not everyone has that much free time to sit and watch YouTube.
Those same people might have an hour’s worth of commuting to do every day, or regularly go for a job and like to listen to something while they do. They might just want something to put on while they do a bit of cleaning around the home. If your content is already podcast-like, putting it out as a podcast will involve negligible work. And, if it succeeds, it could drive more traffic to your YouTube channel.
Of course, you can still make a podcast if your channel isn’t the kind of channel described above. As long as you have something interesting to talk about, you can find an audience.
#7 Produce Video Content
This one is a little trickier. As we mentioned above in the channel manager section, creating content for a channel is the most time-consuming part, so the idea of producing video content for others might not seem like the best plan.
While you could certainly produce video content for other YouTube channels, we’re suggesting something more specialist, such as making animations idents, or infographic clips. If you have a skill for this kind of thing, there will undoubtedly be plenty of people and companies that are happy to pay for your services.
#8 Stock Trader
This one doesn’t really tie in to you being a YouTuber unless your YouTube channel revolves around you being a stock trader, or talking about stock trading in some form. If this isn’t you, you can still get into stock trading (or currency trading), to earn a little (or a lot) extra on the side, just be sure you know what you’re doing. We categorically do not recommend anyone dabbling in the stock market without knowing what they’re doing beforehand.
#9 Become a Consultant
You don’t have to make content to take advantage of your expertise. Consultancy work is a great way for you to exploit your own knowledge while helping others. One example of this could be helping other YouTubers grow their channel (assuming you have proven yourself able to do this in the first place of course!), but it could just as easily be any other area of expertise you have.
#10 Champion a Cause
This one is kind of cheating. You won’t necessarily make any money from championing a good cause, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Whether it’s planting trees or donating to charities, you have the power to make an impact.
Final Thoughts
YouTube is undoubtedly a great platform for launching other projects, whether they are passion projects, side hustles, or even new careers. The list above is a relatively small selection of the possibilities for adding new hustles to your game, so don’t worry if none of the above work for you.
Of course, if all else fails, your side hustle could always be other YouTube channels.
Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube
Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.
1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search
I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.
When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.
Big mistake!
I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.
That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.
Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.
3. Rev.com helps people read my videos
You can’t always listen to a video.
Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.
This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.
A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.
4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube
I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.
I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.
That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.
5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways
I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.
And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.
I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.
I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.
As concerns about online privacy increase and the abilities of nefarious parties online continue to expand, the worry over things like websites accessing your webcam without permission naturally increases alongside them. While YouTube is not a “nefarious party” in an online security sense (though a healthy distrust of huge corporations is rarely a bad thing), users understandably still want to maintain their privacy, even from platforms like YouTube.
To give a brief answer to this question, no, YouTube cannot access your camera… unless you allow them to! And you will need to allow them to for certain activities, such as recording shorts through the YouTube app or live streaming directly through YouTube Studio.
YouTube In The Browser
Any reputable browser, such as Chrome, Firefox—or any of the other major web browsers in use today—will explicitly present you with a choice when a website wants to use your camera. We can’t speak for every browser on the market, of course, but if you use an obscure browser, you should be at least knowledgeable enough to stay secure while using that browser.
With the more well-known browsers, however, you will always be asked before a website is granted permission to anything on your device that is not part of standard web browsing protocol. You can revoke these permissions at any time, though the precise steps you need to take to do this will depend on the browser you are using.
So, when using a browser, yes, YouTube can access your camera, but you have to allow it, and you are free to revoke that permission any time you wish.
YouTube will only ask permission to use your camera if you are doing something that requires it, such as live streaming directly through the YouTube site. This is important since requests to access your camera at seemingly inappropriate times could be a sign that your computer is infected with something malicious.
YouTube On Your Phone
Things are a little more straightforward on a mobile device, such as an Android phone or iPhone, assuming you use the YouTube app and do not go through your phone’s browser.
With the app, you will likely be asked for the relevant permissions the first time you run it. If you have previously denied those permissions and now want to grant them, you can take care of that in your phone’s settings.
The scope for requiring the use of your camera for YouTube on your phone is a little narrower since you cannot live stream from your mobile device (though you can set up streams on it), but you can still record shorts through the app in much the same way that Snaps are recorded. Or, for those of you with longer-term memories; Vine videos.
Is YouTube Trustworthy
It’s all well and good talking about how you can grant and deny YouTube permission to use your camera, but is YouTube trustworthy in the first place?
Unlike the aforementioned nefarious parties, YouTube is beholden to a range of international laws regarding what they can and cannot do. There is also a free market aspect to the situation; if YouTube suddenly decided to start filming you randomly without giving you a proper warning and without explicit consent, they would very quickly lose users
All of this adds up to a trustworthy company in terms of safety, though as mentioned above, it is perfectly normal to have some reservations about blindly trusting a corporation. Still, you should not have to worry about YouTube stealing your webcam for malicious purposes.
Camera Precautions
When on a computer (rather than a phone), especially if the computer in question is a laptop, you may have some warning that your camera has been hijacked. Many webcams these days have a light that is activated when the webcam is recording, and the same goes for certain models of DLSR and other more expensive cameras. If you notice your camera lit up when it shouldn’t be, you should look into that immediately. If you are not currently using a website or an application that uses your camera, your computer could be infected with a virus or other malicious software.
Of course, not all cameras give a visible or audible warning that they are active, and while having a camera that does warn you is handy, the best defence against your camera being used without your consent will always be to ensure that you are being safe on the Internet. Don’t download files from unknown sources, be careful about the links you click, and keep your anti-virus software updated with the latest definitions.
Do I Have To Give YouTube Permission To Access My Camera?
If you are not prepared to grant access to your camera to even a company like YouTube… you don’t have to. There are currently no YouTube services that are only usable with direct access to your camera. You can upload videos and shorts and live stream through third-party streaming applications.
The argument for allowing YouTube to access your camera is one of convenience. If you make a lot of shorts, your fastest and most convenient method will be to grant access to your camera and record your shorts through the YouTube app. The argument is less convincing on PC, where it is often just as easy to use a third-party streaming alternative rather than granting YouTube access to your camera in order to stream directly into YouTube.
Final Thoughts
While the threat of online security breaches is very real, YouTube is not, nor has ever been, the perpetrator of this kind of activity, and it is a safe bet they will remain so for the foreseeable future. As with most aspects of life online, it is crucial to stay on top of your security, because a missed update here or a questionable download there can be the difference between a secure computer and your bank details being available on the dark web!
If in doubt, revoke all permissions for services like YouTube, you can always grant them again later.
Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube
Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.
1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search
I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.
When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.
Big mistake!
I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.
That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.
Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.
3. Rev.com helps people read my videos
You can’t always listen to a video.
Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.
This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.
A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.
4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube
I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.
I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.
That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.
5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways
I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.
And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.
I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.
I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.
YouTube is testing a new TikTok-like feature that allows creators to upload short vertical videos, called Shorts.
Ahead of its full release, some creators say they are seeing huge audience growth by posting short videos.
But for now, videos that appear in YouTube’s Shorts section don’t earn creators any money.
TikTok is top of mind for all the major social-media platforms.
Following TikTok competitors from Instagram (Reels) and Snapchat (Spotlight), YouTube is slowly rolling out its own rival in the US called “Shorts.” And in preparation for the launch, creators say YouTube is quietly promoting short videos, spiking engagement and reach for some channels.
While the full Shorts feature hasn’t launched in the US yet, creators are still able to upload short vertical videos that mimic TikToks.
Similar to TikTok videos, Shorts are vertical videos that can be up to 60 seconds long. YouTube announced the feature in September, and has been testing it officially in India, where it has added a short-form video creation tool and camera to the YouTube app.
Beyond India, some elements have been implemented as a beta test to the YouTube app, like a carousel (“shelf”) of short videos that appears in a section on the homepage and under videos.
YouTube is currently experimenting with different ways to help users find and watch short videos, and the company is testing adding a Shorts entry point on the Explore tab, the company said.
As YouTube prepares for a full Shorts launch, creators said a key to getting short-form videos into the special section is to add “#Shorts” in the title or description, though sometimes videos are added even if they don’t have the tag. YouTube confirmed that creators don’t need to use the hashtag but that adding it would increase the chance that a video would be shown on the Shorts shelf.
Daniel LaBelle, a comedy creator with 1.6 million YouTube subscribers, launched his channel in April to repost the TikToks he was making after his wedding photography business dipped due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“I posted for probably five or six months, built up 30,000 subscribers and then out of nowhere in November things exploded,” LaBelle said, adding that his channel went from 30,000 subscribers to over half a million within a month. “I think it was because of the Shorts, but I still don’t know for sure.”
Some of the short vertical YouTube videos LaBelle posted on a whim in the beginning of 2020 were being picked up by YouTube in November and added to the new Shorts feature, he said. LaBelle then noticed the view counts on those older videos begin to soar (his most viewed short has 23 million views).
“You can get a lot of attention on your channel by doing these short-form videos,” said Alex Sibila, a part-time YouTube creator with 4,800 subscribers. “Some of my Shorts are now my most viewed videos.”
Sibila is an electrical engineer and makes videos about electric vehicles and owning a Tesla. He uses the vertical video feature to share 30-second teasers that direct back to some of his full-length videos. His Shorts range from 20,000 to 50,000 views, which is more than the 1,000 to 5,000 average views his longer uploads attract.
“They are still shown on your channel as regular videos,” Sibila said of his short videos. “Then if you are on mobile they have the Short shelf, and that is where you get a lot of views. If videos are pushed out to the Short shelf then they are getting shown to a lot of people and that’s what is going to make them viral.”
As the battle for short-form video heats up, YouTube will compete against TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat to be seen as a platform where creators can make money, reach new audiences, and build a sustainable business. Snapchat’s Spotlight and TikTok have each set up programs dedicated to paying creators on an ongoing basis.
Read more: Snapchat is minting overnight millionaires with its TikTok competitor but creators worry the gold rush will end soon
Creators generally earn money on YouTube from the ads placed in their videos through YouTube’s Partner Program. How much money a creator earns from AdSense depends on the video’s watch time, length, video type, and viewer demographics, among other factors. YouTube also keeps 45% of the ad revenue, with the creator keeping the rest.
LaBelle’s short-form videos earn money when they are viewed in the subscriptions section of YouTube, where ads will play before the video. But if the videos are viewed in the Shorts section of the YouTube app, they don’t earn money because videos on the Shorts shelf don’t get ads or generate subscription revenue right now, the company confirmed.
Still, LaBelle said he is making more money off his short videos on YouTube than he is on TikTok, where he has 14 million followers.
“I am at a point where I am trying to prioritize YouTube as much as I can,” he said. “It’s been a fantastic income source as well, just being on YouTube and working with the AdSense program.”
“YouTube just kind of threw this onto us without any warning or introduction,” said Rob Wilson, a content strategist at the YouTube analytics and growth platform vidIQ. “It still feels to me like a beta test that could change radically.”
But for now, creators are figuring out their own strategies and trying to get the most out of the feature, and the extra boost provided by the platform.
Sibila plans to post two under-60-second videos a week to share on Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube.
“Trying to get people to click on those longer videos and check out my channel is tough sometimes, especially as a smaller creator,” Sibila said. “Now that I’ve started posting more Shorts, I’ve found that they can be incredibly viral and they are very shareable.”
“It’s super exciting,” said Kevin Parry, a stop-motion animator and visual effects artist. “The struggle for me has always been to make one piece of content and have it work on every platform. With most platforms now pushing shorter formats, I can make one piece of animation, or one behind-the-scenes clip and post it everywhere now.”
For many of us, the Covid Pandemic means that we’re trapped at home, trying to get our videos planned, shot, and edited while trying not to go stir crazy.
The line between working and playing gets blurred also. It’s all too easy to get stuck in a rut of doing a bit of work on your channel, then giving yourself ‘a break’ and playing a game or mindlessly scrolling through Instagram for an hour.
There are things you can do to make Covid enforced work patterns more enjoyable, however. A few little tweaks to your working practices can improve your mood and productivity when working from home.
It’s worth experimenting with home working practices too. One estimate reckons that 30% of the workforce will still be working from home regularly at the end of 2021.
So to help you better handle the current do-everything-from-home formula, this post has seven tips you can apply straight away to make working from home on your YouTube channel or any other job more enjoyable.
#1. Get Up and Get Dressed.
I’ve worked from home for myself for several years now, so I can confidently say that watching morning TV in your PJs while pecking away on your laptop is not the path to a healthy working habit.
Similarly, you may think you’re being clever when your all business up-top for your Zoom meeting, but all bedtime down below out of sight of the camera lens.
You need to treat your work like any other job. That means getting dressed in regular daytime clothes to signify that you have ‘left’ rest and relaxation behind and you are now ready to do some work.
The physical act of putting on a pair of jeans/trousers or skirt is a mental signal that your morning routine has started, and it’s time to get stuff done.
You don’t have to dress like you are going into the office, but you need to make yourself respectable enough to meet people outside of your usual home bubble.
A good rule of thumb is to dress smartly enough not to feel embarrassed when you open the door to the Amazon delivery driver.
The same advice applies to showering and brushing your teeth — at the start of the day, make yourself ready for the day.
We can’t all have a desirable ‘battle station’ like the picture below.
Whether you’re planning your next video, working on a side-hustle, or just doing your conventional job, separating your work and play is vital for your mental health.
It’s also best to separate your work time at home from the rest of the household chores that need doing. Doing a bit of work, then tidying the lounge, then getting back to some more work mashes the day together into one confusing mess.
And while you may already have a place to record your videos set up in the corner of a spare room. Aim to have a particular spot in your home where you sit down to work too.
Desks are inexpensive to buy if you have the room. They come in a variety of sizes suitable for most needs, and if you have the budget buy yourself a proper office chair, too. It helps to encourage a healthy back posture while you work.
If your budget is small, keep an eye on the local ads on Facebook and Gumtree, as you can often find bargains on secondhand office furniture or even snag them for free.
If you absolutely do not have the room for a desk and chair, put a ‘work stuff’ bundle of items together. This can be your laptop or tablet and a selection of notebooks you use. At the start of the working day, set them up in the place you’ll be working in, like the kitchen table, for example.
Then, at the end of the workday, pack them up, and put them out of the way to signify that you have finished working and ready to start some household chores or down-time.
#3. Routines and Commuting
Psychologists call the separation of work and play segmentation. Some psychologists also claim that those who segment their work and relaxation properly perform better in each area.
It’s hard to switch your brain between working and relaxing in an instant — that’s why those who commute to work hold an advantage over home workers. The commute is when a worker can shift their focus on the day’s work ahead.
Similarly, at the end of the working day, a commuter has the opportunity to decompress from daily work challenges as they make their way home.
To segment your work and relaxation time effectively in these Covid times means that you need a method of transitioning between work and non-work — you are going to need to get into some routines and create a kind of ‘commute.’
Routines give us structure to our lives. They can make us more efficient and build up momentum to help hit our goals. So try to create your own ‘commute’ at home to ease into your working routine.
It may be as simple as taking a shower, eating breakfast, then 10 minutes of watching the morning news. As long as you do the same routine each day while understanding, you will be ready to start work once you have done everything.
In a few days, your commuting routine will become a signal to your brain that you are about to enter work mode.
It doesn’t matter what your best working hours are for this tip to succeed. You may be a night-owl and do your best work into the wee small hours — do whatever works for you — as long as you set a pre-work routine to help ease you in and out of work mode.
#4. Getting Stuff Done – Cut Out the Distractions.
There is a mental state that some call ‘the zone’ and others name ‘flow.’ It essentially means that you are unaware of anything going on around you while you focus on something. Not time, hunger, or even the need to pee.
You are totally at one with the task at hand.
Getting in ‘the zone’ is easier said than done, but there is no real secret to it. You just need to give yourself space to focus. The enemy of focus is distraction, so you should aim to eliminate all distractions from your workspace.
There is a great book by Cal Newport calledDeep Work. It’s all about organising long periods of distraction-free time, so you can enter a flow state and produce your very best work. And it’s worth getting hold of a copy.
What are the causes of work distractions?
One study by a University showed that it could take up to 20 minutes to recover from the interruption of responding to email alerts. So if you are constantly checking your email, you prevent the chance for your brain to settle and enter into the mind frame of a flow state.
What makes the situation worse is having your smartphone within reach when you work as well. People in the US receive an average of 46 push notifications per day on their phones. So, with email and smartphones pinging regularly, it’s a wonder that anyone’s brain can settle down to focus.
Try and cut own as many distractions as you can when you sit down to work. If you don’t need your phone for work, switch it off or at least leave it in another room. There is also a choice of website blocking apps you can install to limit your time spent on distracting websites like Reddit and Facebook.
Another tool that some people find useful to manage productivity is a Pomodoro timer. A Pomodoro timer is a countdown clock that you set to work on a task for a set period. When your selected time session ends, you take a short break before starting the next short working period.
Many people work on a 25-5 Pomodoro system — 25 minutes working, followed by a 5-minute break. After four rounds of 25 minutes, you take a more extended break of 15 minutes. It works because you are only setting the challenge to work for a short time before you take a rest.
#5. Make Time to Exercise and Get Outdoors.
The pandemic has many of us glued to our sofa’s binging on the latest Netflix must-watch program like the Tiger King or The Queen’s Gambit. But, being sat on your backside for hours at a time is not good for your back, bum, or belly.
Doctors have called sitting down the new smoking. Inactivity is really bad for our health and can lead to all sorts of long-term problems like lower-back pain, diabetes, and even cancer.
I live in leafy West Yorkshire, close to some old canals. I take regular walks along the canal to clear my head and give my body some love.
Walking is a good exercise to fit into your ‘commuting’ routine, and most can find time to squeeze in a twenty-minute walk when the work of the day is done.
Walking is also a simple way to remove digital distractions. So, get some fresh air and think about your channel. I get all sorts of ideas for video content while I’m away from the desk having a stroll.
If you’re house-bound during the Pandemic because you’re shielding some who is extra vulnerable, then head on over to YouTube. Jo Wicks has a channel that uploads new home workouts several times a week.
You can do all the workouts with stuff you can find around the home, so there is no excuse not to give your body a little TLC and try to keep in shape.
You don’t want to end up like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, hunched over your keyboard pretending to work while descending into madness. But it’s also quite easy for the more introverted amongst us not to make time to have other human contacts every day.
So you should try to find some time for your friends and family now and again. But It’s a tricky balance to strike, as the primary way we keep in contact with friends is with our smartphones, and as I mentioned above, smartphones are awful for our focus.
A new approach is to schedule a time for socialising. How about organising a Zoom lunch with your friends? Set an agreed time that you’ll all eat your lunch, and you can have a natter and a catch-up over a video conference.
One way to be more sociable and work on your YouTube channel is to try collaborating with other YouTubers, which will bring more human contact as you plan some joint content together.
#7. Mind Your Mental Health.
Mental health problems are one of the biggest risks we all face as we endure lockdown. Humans are social creatures, so the enforced home confinement naturally takes its toll on our mental wellbeing.
There are a few techniques you can use to improve your mental health.
Try and limit the amount of news you watch. You should keep up-to-date with the latest developments in your area, but becoming obsessed with increasing daily numbers or the length of time until life returns to normal is not healthy.
If you find yourself obsessing, take a news break for a few days. Trust me, not much changes in a few days, and you can turn your focus to learning a new skill.
Practice touch typing, improve your photoshop skills, or learn about those weird camera functions you don’t currently understand. It’s doesn’t really matter. Finding a new project to focus your mind on can benefit your mental health immensely.
Finally, try practicing mediation. Many assume that mediation is sitting in the lotus position and chanting. It’s not. Mediation is really about breathing. Sit or lie in a relaxed position, close your eyes if it helps, and focus on your breath entering and leaving your body.
That’s all. Just focus on your breath.
Meditation is scientifically proven to reduce stress and control anxiety. YouTube has plenty of excellent content around meditation; Headspace’s channel is an ideal place to start, with lots of content to help you learn how to meditate and improve your mental health.
Conclusion
Yes, lockdown and pandemics are rubbish! But don’t use it as an excuse not to work on your YouTube channel.
Surviving the new normal of working from home means you need to take a little care of how you structure your day.
Set a defined working schedule, and ideally, a place to sit where you only do work. Getting into routines can help your body and mind know when it’s time to work or play.
I hope this post has been helpful. Why don’t you try applying a few tips and see if they can help make you a happier and more productive YouTuber during this Covid pandemic?
They teach many subjects at school, but one that I think is missing from the syllabus is entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship is the art of turning muck into brass, the practice of taking an idea and nurturing it until it blooms into a money-making powerhouse.
Some people say that you can’t teach entrepreneurship, because you have to have a particular personality or an elusive ‘x-factor’ to have any chance of success. I think they’re wrong.
Entrepreneurship is a skill that can be learned by anyone, and I believe everyone should try to launch a business at least once. So, if you’re a new entrepreneur, and are looking for some help and guidance from those who have tried entrepreneurship and succeeded, here is a selection of books you should consider adding to your bookshelf.
I am much more of an audiobook “reader” as I tend to take it in easier – I even use Amazon’s FREE Audible trials to load up on 2 free books every month.
Book 1: Crushing It!
Author: Gary Vaynerchuk
Number of pages: 288
Published: 2018
Why should you listen to him?: Gary Vaynerchuk is a global social media superstar.
Known affectionately as Gary Vee, Vaynerchuk was born in Belarus in 1975 but emigrated to the USA with his parents at a young age. Raised in New York City, Vaynerchuk showed entrepreneurial spirit as a boy, buying and selling baseball cards at school. He joined his parent’s wine business at 14, and after he took over in 2003, he grew it from $3 million to $60 million a year in revenue.
Vaynerchuk spotted the internet’s potential early, launching a channel on YouTube in 2006 to promote the wine business. Famous for hard work and ‘hustle’, Vaynerchuk now owns a $100 million social media digital agency, VaynerMedia, and gives inspirational speeches internationally about entrepreneurship and social influencing.
Book Synopsis: The book is part motivational and part social media strategy manual. Vaynerchuk explains how personal branding over social media is crucial to success today as an entrepreneur.
The book is in two parts. The first part gets you pumped up for the road ahead and gives you eight foundational principals on which to build your business.
The second part delves deeper into different social media platforms, covering YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and a few others. Vaynerchuk shows you how to use each platform to gain attention and grow your entrepreneurial endeavours. Each chapter is illustrated with real-life case studies from successful small businesses who have followed his framework.
Even though the book is nearly three years old, it’s often found near the top of the charts. It ranks top 10 on Amazon Audible in the categories for Social Media, Web Marketing, and E-commerce. Many people consider it one of the first books to buy when you are thinking about starting a business.
The book is available in several formats. There are the usual hardback and paperback, plus Kindle too. The best way to absorb it is via Amazon Audible, though. Narrated by Vaynerchuk and two other colleagues, you get to understand and learn the book’s lessons via Gary Vee’s unique style of delivery.
Book 2: Primalbranding: Create Zealots for Your Brand, Your Company, and Your Future: Create Belief Systems that Attract Communities.
Author: Patrick Hanlon
Number of pages: 272
Published: 2011
Why should you listen to him?: Patrick Hanlon is a world-renowned branding consultant. He has worked with the likes of Levi’s, PayPal, and Shopify to help them develop their brands and connect with new audiences.
He gives talks and lectures internationally on the topic of branding, is a contributor to the major news networks, and owns several consulting businesses which offer advice on branding in the digital age.
Book Synopsis: How do some companies like Tesla, create a horde of devoted followers while other businesses, despite access to the same level of resources, struggle or even become objects of scorn?
Hanlon argues that companies like Tesla succeed because they build a following of people who become true believers and advocates for their brand.
Primalbranding identifies the seven pieces of ‘primal code’ that humans instinctively use to form groups. He then applies this to branding and shows you how you can use these hardwired human dynamics and apply them to shape your brand and attract a legion of followers.
The book is divided into three sections. The first section explains the seven elements of the primal code. Including concepts such as ‘the creation story’, ‘the rituals’, and ‘the leader’. Hanlon then shows how these parts come together to foster ‘primal belonging’.
Sections two and three then show how these immutable traits can be used by just about anyone or anything to market and promote their products.
The book is available in hardback, paperback, Kindle and also as an MP3 CD (hello 2011!). If you want to build a following that will shout your name from the rooftops and promote your brand freely, it’s an essential one for your reading list.
Book 3: Innovation from Desperation: The Unfiltered Failures & Successes of an OG Social Media Marketer
Author: Desiree Martinez
Number of pages: 234
Published: 2020
Why should you listen to her?: Desiree Martinez is an entrepreneur, YouTuber, and all-round social media guru. As a military spouse, a life moving from base to base with her Air Force husband left her with few career opportunities and forced her to act for herself and think entrepreneurially.
She was surprised to learn that Facebook, a platform she knew well from her college days, was becoming an essential platform for businesses. So she started a social media consulting firm and has since helped hundreds of businesses shape their social presence.
Book Synopsis:
My 5* review for this book which I posted to Amazon reads:
“A real heartfelt walk through the ups and downs of working in media and social media in this current age. Running a business, raising a family and growing a brand is not easy. This is a warts and all story sharing some truly inspirational lessons. Well worth a read!”
The book is part autobiography and part how to launch your own business. It provides an unfiltered account of the ups and downs of launching a business with little support and no roadmap.
There are many lessons to learn from the book. Desiree covers topics like becoming a better content creator, what to do when a new social media platform becomes hot, and how to keep on going when everything seems to conspire against you.
Released in 2020, it also contains a chapter covering the impact of the pandemic. It’s a book to read if you can’t see yourself in any of the thousands of books available about entrepreneurship. Desiree says that she was the girl at school you who would never think could launch their own business, never mind write a book!
If that sounds like you, then this is a book worth reading.
The book is available in paperback and on Kindle, and it’s one I really recommend that you read.
Why should you listen to him?: Tim Ferris is a writer, podcaster, investor, and entrepreneur. Many know him today for his podcast about lifestyle and smart working, but it was this book – The 4-hour Work Week – that propelled him onto the global stage.
He has advised or invested in many well know internet startups, like Evernote, Stumbleupon, and Uber.
Book Synopsis: One of the best books about entrepreneurship available to read.
Ferris argues in this now-famous book about how you should strive to avoid the 9-5 and instead choose to live life on your terms by building lifestyle businesses.
Ferris writes about how he started work after college and found himself working 80 hours a week for $40,000 a year. After a little experimentation with various business ideas and working strategies, he launched his own brand of supplements and soon started earning $40,000 every month, working just 4 hours per week.
Ferris achieved his success by working smartly. He used the 80/20 principle made famous by Italian economist Pareto and outsourced most menial tasks to cheap virtual assistants overseas.
The 4-hour Work Week gives you the tools and the inspiration to build a business of your own, and enjoy the benefits while you are still young by taking ‘mini-retirements’.
Essentially, you design and launch a business that can operate day-to-day without your presence. Something that earns money on autopilot so you can head out into the world and seek out unforgettable experiences.
The book is in four parts; Definition, Elimination, Automation, and Liberation. Each step in the framework guides you through his approach to building a lifestyle business and contains lots of real-life examples to illustrate the points.
The book is available in hardback, paperback, Kindle, and audio CD. It’s become a classic of the genre and regularly makes it into top-10s of books about entrepreneurship.
Remember, if you sometimes struggle to find the time actually to sit down and read; there is an alternative. You can listen to a book when you are out and about—maybe travelling to work or out getting coffee.
You can download and listen to many useful books about YouTube and entrepreneurship using Amazon Audible. Every month for a small monthly subscription, you can listen to a book often narrated by the author themselves.
Revenue from affiliate marketing programs appears to be growing at 10% with no signs of slowing down.
The industry is worth $12 billion and has opportunities for one and all, with over 81% of brands relying on some affiliate marketing program. That is why I have pulled together this affiliate marketing for beginners guide.
Affiliate marketing can help you make money or sell your project alongside traditional marketing. If you haven’t already jumped the bandwagon, consider knowing what affiliate marketing is and how to get started.
Let’s refer to the affiliate marketing definition.
It can be defined as getting paid a commission to help other companies sell their products or services. In simple words, you will make money (commission) whenever you succeed in selling an item, including digital goods.
Unlike traditional selling or marketing, affiliate marketing is digital. You advertise online, and all your buyers are on the internet.
How Much Do Affiliate Marketers Earn?
Affiliate marketing is a rewarding field, and almost everyone makes money here. You must, however, be patient if you want to make a decent amount of money working as an affiliate marketer.
If you search the web, you will find affiliate marketers who make about $100,000 per month by selling affiliate products online. However, not everyone’s lucky; some people only make about $100 monthly.
The truth is that it is a competitive industry. You must invest time if you want to enjoy the benefits. It can make you a millionaire, but this will take time to happen.
Many affiliate marketers lose money when they start. You will make errors initially and may have to spend money to get started. It can take a while to break even. We’ll talk more about it later in this article.
It takes most affiliate marketers 9 to 12 months to break even and make a profit.
Working with a professional and having access to the right help can make this process easier. You’ll know what not to do to make money.
The average affiliate marketer makes about $1,000 per month. It can, however, be challenging to correctly predict how much you will make as an affiliate as it depends on several factors, including your experience, niche, and marketing budget.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
Affiliate marketing involves buying and selling, but you do not have to purchase a product to participate in affiliate marketing.
The structure is built on genuine relationships and transparency and not one-off transactions. Here are a few elements to know about if you want to know how affiliate marketing works:
The Product: This term is self-explanatory; the product is what you will sell. It can be a physical item or a digital good.
Each product comes at a price that may be fixed or variable.
The Merchant: The term refers to the vendor, brand, seller, or creator. Simply put, the merchant is the party that creates or manufactures the product you sell. The merchant can be a big brand like Adobe or a small firm that produces local soaps.
The merchant can also be a single seller like Trajan King, who offers online courses.
The Publisher: Also called the affiliate, the publisher can be an individual or person (you) who sells a product. Publishers use a variety of techniques to make a sale.
We’ll discuss the techniques publishers can use to sell a product later in this article.
Affiliate Network: Since manufacturers do not always sell a product directly, you may need to turn to an affiliate network like ClickBank. They work as an intermediary between merchants and publishers.
These networks work with several brands, giving you access to several products and services under one roof. It is imperative to choose the right affiliate network.
The Consumer: The consumer is your target audience, who will purchase the product. Remember that you will only profit when there’s a successful sale. The job of every publisher is to find as many buyers as possible. The more sales you have, the more money you’ll make.
The Commission:This is the amount of money you will make during asuccessful sale. The commission depends on products and networks or merchants. It can be as low as 1.5% or as high as 40%.
If a product sells for $40 and the commission is 10%, your profile will be $4. However, the network may charge a small fee for its services.
So, how does affiliate marketing work? You will have to find an affiliate network or brand looking for affiliates. Once approved, you will get a custom link that you will have to market.
Each time a consumer opens a website using your link and makes a purchase, you will earn a specific commission. This commission, however, can take a while to reflect in your account as orders can take weeks to get confirmed. Brands also have to take care of the ‘return’ window.
How do you get started with Affiliate Marketing?
Now that you know how affiliate marketing works, it is time to become an affiliate.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to get started with affiliate marketing:
Choose a Niche
The first step is to choose a niche. If you already have a website or virtual presence,, it is best to stick to a niche relevant to your audience. For example, if you have a social media page about health and fitness with 500,000 followers, then it is best to choose health and fitness-related products to market.
If you want to create a new website,, you will have to choose a profitable and easy-to-manage niche. However, remember that it is not only about choosing a niche; you will also have to select suitable products.
Consider the ‘beauty and fashion’ niche; it is a popular option with several products, including beauty products for men, makeup products for women, etc.
We have covered the five best niches for affiliate marketing later in this article with some great tips on choosing an appropriate product. Keep reading for more.
Find an Appropriate Affiliate Program
Once you have selected a niche, it is time to decide how you wish to approach it. You can directly work with the manufacturer or choose an affiliate program. Each option has its perks and cons.
Working directly with the seller may offer you more money since you will not have to pay network fees and other charges.
Moreover, networks may also have stringent requirements, such as a specific number of followers, before you can sign up. But, there are various advantages of working with a network.
First of all, you will have access to many products under one roof. Top affiliate networks have thousands of products for partners to select. This makes management more accessible as you will not have multiple accounts to market various products.
Plus, affiliate networks are also known for ease. They offer insights and analytical tools that make marketing easier.
Lastly, affiliate networks offer more security. If you search the web, you will find several brands offering affiliate programs. While some are reliable, others are only out there to rob you.
Working with a reputable network reduces the risk of scams, as networks typically only include brands or companies that are safe and reliable.
The first step should be to create a website, or in my case, a YouTube channel, that can help people find what you’re selling. It should be in the same niche as the product you’re trying to sell. You can opt for an e-commerce store but that may not be the most effective option as it can be hard to rank online stores.
We suggest you start a website dedicated to the product and post content like blogs and reviews. Since about 97% of people read reviews before buying a product, posting such content can effectively find buyers.
In addition to a website, consider creating social media pages as well. You have various options including Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Since it can be challenging to be active on all social media platforms, we suggest you stick to one that houses your audience.
LinkedIn, for example, can be a great pick if you offer producers for executives, such as hiring services. Similarly, Instagram can be a great option for selling fashion and beauty products since it’s popular among makeup artists.
Market What You’re Trying to Sell
Merely having a social media account or website is not enough; you will have to market what you’re trying to sell. You can have the best product in the world but no one will buy it if they’re not aware of it.
Affiliate marketers use a variety of techniques to market products. Some use paid options, while some stick to free ways to market affiliate products.
The company you’ve joined hands with may have a manual on marketing its products. Affiliate networks are also known to offer marketing materials, including banners that can be placed on your website.
In most cases, you will be given a code or unique link to include in your marketing content so that the website can track your users. Using generic links or product names will not give you any results, as the system cannot link a sale to your account.
Some affiliate networks and companies are very stringent about the marketing techniques used. Could you make sure to go through the terms and conditions so that you do not get into any trouble?
You must know about the product you are trying to market or sell. Buyers may have many questions regarding your product, including its benefits and use.
Not being able to answer their questions can cause them to look elsewhere; hence, get educated and get your hands on what you’re trying to sell so that you’re fully aware of what it’s capable of.
Build Your Audience
Now that your site is running, it is time to build your audience. Remember that marketing is a continuous process. If you stop trying to sell and gain more views, someone else will dethrone you.
Competition is tough. Never take things lightly, and continue to put your best foot forward so that you can sell more.
Your website must be user-friendly. Remember to make it easy for people to give you money. Connect with your audiences and work on building relationships. Relationship marketing can help find success as an affiliate marketer.
Earn and Withdraw Money
Now that you’ve started selling, you will earn money. It can take new affiliate marketers months before they have enough money to withdraw. Also, some networks will keep your money for security purposes before releasing it.
Since affiliate marketing involves real money, you might be required to submit identity documents such as your driver’s license before you can withdraw cash. Hence, use true and real information to sign up for an account. Using fake information can get your account blocked.
How Can I Become a Successful Affiliate Marketer?
Everyone wants to be an affiliate marketer and make money, but only some find success in this field. Here are a few things you must keep in mind to become a successful affiliate marketer:
Choose the Right Product
This is the most crucial step because you will never be able to find success if you do not choose the right product.
The term ‘right’ is ambiguous as what works for someone else may not be suitable for you. Here are a few things to consider when selecting a product:
The Demand
Technically, there’s a demand for almost every product out there, but some have more buyers than others. It is best to stick to a product that’s heavily in market so that you do not have to work hard to find buyers.
You can look at tools such as Google Trends to know more about what’s in demand and what isn’t. Also, remember that some products are not in demand throughout the air.
Air conditioners, for example, usually sell well during the hotter months. If you choose a product that only sells a few months of a year, you might be unable to make a decent amount of money throughout the year.
The Price
Since you will only get a small percentage of the selling price, paying attention to this factor is very important.
Expensive products typically offer more money, but there may be better options since it can be hard to sell expensive products.
Think about shoes; a pair that costs $1,000 and pays a 2% commission will earn you $20 per sale. Since the price tag is very high, you might only be able to sell up to 12 units per month, which means you will earn a commission of only $240 per month.
On the other hand, if you choose to sell a pair that costs $100 and pays a 2% commission, you can sell 150 pairs in a month due to high demand.
Your commission will be $300. This example shows that commission for each unit is higher for expensive products but the overall profit is usually higher for more affordable products.
Always choose a product according to your buyers. If you think they can afford expensive shoes,, you can stick to $1,000. Otherwise, work with more reasonable brands.
The Competition
Affiliate marketing networks carried out over 170 million transactions in 2017. This does not only show how big affiliate marketing is but it also highlights how stiff competition can be. Everyone’s fighting for a share of the pie.
Cutthroat competition can make it difficult for new marketers to make a mark in the field. If you’re still finding a foothold,, try to find a niche or product that is not very competitive.
The Commission
As mentioned earlier, the commission is variable and can be between 2% to 40%. Big names like Amazon offer low commissions but a vast number of products. It’s also easier to sell Amazon products since the company provides international delivery and buyers also trust the brand.
Do not run after high commissions. A lot of companies that offer very high commissions are either scams or unreliable. It can be hard to convince buyers to purchase a product that has been manufactured by a company that nobody knows of. Hence, be responsible.
Select the Right Platform
Do not blindly select a platform. The first decision is between the official site or affiliate networks. If you are going for the latter then select options that are reliable.
Not all affiliate networks accept users from all around the world. Also, some may charge a joining fee or commission on every sale. A very important factor to remember when selecting a platform is the cookie period.
Most buyers will not make a purchase right away. They’ll go to multiple sites and compare products for a few days before they finalize a purchase. Affiliate networks take this period into consideration and offer a ‘cookie period’ that is usually between 20 to 60 days.
If a user reaches a product via an affiliate link through your site and makes a purchase within the specified period, it will be considered a sale and get credited to your account. The higher this period the better it is.
Make Sure to Market Properly
Do not make the mistake of neglecting this factor. You can use a variety of techniques to market products. Here are some of the most popular choices:
SEO, since about 51% of traffic is organic. But, get ready to spend a lot of time on SEO as it can take websites a long time to rank well.
Email marketing, after all, it still offers an ROI of up to 4,300%. You will, however, need a solid email list to make use of this method.
Social media because it influences about 74% of shoppers. Plus, buyers tend to trust reviews found on third-party sites.
YouTube as it is now the second largest search engine and a lot of people love to watch videos about how to use a product before they purchase it.
Website because it can help users find you. Post a variety of content on your site including blogs, infographics, podcasts, etc. Make sure to include a search function on your site and have a mobile friendly website since about 5.16 billion users now have mobile phones and most of them use mobile devices to access the web.
You can use all these marketing methods and compare what works for you. Once you find the option that offers the highest return, stick to it.
Do I Need Money to Become an Affiliate Marketer?
Technically speaking, you do not need money to become an affiliate marketer. However, it can be very difficult to be a successful affiliate marketer without spending a penny.
Here are a few expenses you may have to incur:
Get a Website – starts as low as $150 per year
A website is not a must to become an affiliate marketing but it can increase your chances of finding success. Plus, some affiliate networks have it as a prerequisite.
You can get a free website but a .com or paid domain looks better. It will cost you about $10 per month. Avoid cheap or free hosting servers. They have limitations and they’re also insecure. Spend about $100 on hosting per month.
The next step is building a website. You can use WordPress and other such platforms to create a free site. If you want a kickass website then you’ll have to hire developers. This can cost you between $100 to $1,000.
Come up with a unique name and get a logo. You can create free logos online or hire a designer to get the job done for you. It can cost between $5 and $100.
Create Content for Your Site – starts as low as $200 per month
You must post regular content on your site. It can be in the form of blogs, videos, or podcasts or a mix of all these.
You will not have much to worry about if you can create your own content. The articles must be informative, long, and SEO friendly. Consider including graphics as well since posts that contain images tend to get more likes, shares, and engagement.
Post at least twice a month to ensure your visitors have something to come back to. Plus, you can make money blogging if you play it right.
In addition to your website, you will also have to take care of your social media pages. You must post at least once a day so that engagement can be maintained.
You can use your mobile phone to click photos or make videos. Some marketers also opt to invest in professional cameras to get high quality content for their pages.
You can handle this all on your own but it can take about 10 to 20 hours per week since managing a website and social media is a full-time job. If you’re too busy you can consider hiring a manager or content creator to take care of the job. They’ll charge anywhere between $8 to $20 per hour.
Hire an SEO firm – starts as low as $500 per month
You will have to hire an SEO agency to rank well on search engines. This is important because about 71% of users do not go beyond the first page when they look for a product or service online.
SEO is technical and includes a lot of elements such as backlinks, inner links, keywords, etc. Companies charge between $500 and $5,000 per month for SEO services.
Look for a provider with experience in the business so you can increase your rate of conversion and sell more.
Advertise Your Content – starts as low as $5 per month
Affiliate marketers have the option to advertise on Google, Facebook, and other such platforms. It’s a quick way to reach buyers but such campaigns need to be designed with care because you will not get good returns if you do not target the right audience.
You can hire professionals to manage your accounts. They usually charge a percentage of the total advertising budget. Find an option that offers the best returns.
Which Is The Best Affiliate Marketing Niche?
Since there are a lot of niches out there, it can be very difficult to pick the right one. To help you become an affiliate marketer, we have highlighted five of the best niches:
Health and Fitness
You can sell supplements, gym equipment, gym memberships, and fitness eBooks. Commissions are in the range of 20 to 40 percent.
Wealth and Money
This is a very popular niche. You can work with trading companies, finance gurus, and investment firms. The commission can be up to 50% but competition is very stiff in this niche.
Fashion and Beauty
The industry is worth $2 trillion and has a lot of potential but commission is low – between 3 and 10 percent.
Gaming and Software
With a CAGR of 12%, this is one of the fastest growing fields. It offers very high commissions – up to 30% – and gives a chance to sell a variety of software in multiple niches.
Hobbies and Survival
This one includes all kinds of hobbies such as fishing, golfing, flying, and painting. Commissions vary based on products but the option is very lucrative due to the huge number of options out there.
These are some of the best affiliate marketing niches. Make sure to pick one that fits you the best.
Affiliate Marketing for Beginners: FAQ
Here are some of the most commonly asked questions about affiliate marketing:
#1 Can an affiliate work with several companies?
Yes, you can, there are no limits on the number of affiliate networks a person works with.
#2 How many followers do I need to become an affiliate?
This depends on the network or website you’re signing up for. Most require at least 5,000 followers but some can be more demanding.
#3 Shall I tell people if I am an affiliate?
Yes, the Federal Trade Commission requires affiliates to disclose if they get compensated for promoting a product or service. Not doing so can get you into trouble.
#4 How much money will I make as an affiliate marketer?
You can make between $100 to $10,000 per month depending on your audience, product, and other such factors.
#5 Which is the best affiliate network?
Some of the best affiliate networks include ClickBank, ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, Amazon Associates, and Rakuten Marketing. Compare all these options and pick what fits you the best.
#6 Can I sell outside of the internet?
You can market the product outside of the internet but all purchases must be made online.
#7 When will I get paid?
You will get paid when you reach the minimum threshold that can be as low as $50 or as high as $500 depending on the platform you’re working with.
#9 Can affiliate marketing be a substitute for a full time job?
While there are people making a lot of money as an affiliate marketer, the truth is that it may not be a safe substitute for a full-time job because the amount of money you’ll make per month is never guaranteed.
Ready to work as an affiliate marketer? Check our blog section for tips and get in touch with us to find out more about how we can help you.
You have decided you want to start a blog with no money but don’t know where to start? Well, you’re in the right place – here is my beginners guide to blogging!
How To Start A Blog with No Money?
You can start a blog for free with companies like WordPress, Blogspot and Medium. WordPress is free to use and can even be free to customize with free themes. They offer free hosting but I was suggest upgrading to shared of dedicated hosting should you want a little more freedom.
Blogging is a wonderful thing; it gives you an opportunity and voice. You can write about anything you want and share it with your readers. If you turn your new blog into a success it can even provide an extra source of income.
I’ve put together a super-easy guide to start a new blog from scratch to turning it into a success. This guide will help you with everything you need to know from getting started, to the correct setup to attracting traffic and building your audience to make this a success
Why do you want to start a blog?
The first step on your journey to start a blog is the ‘why’. Why are you here? Why do you want to start a blog? What are you hopes and dreams of what the blog will do?
It’s important to have a good idea of your why before you start. If your reasoning is to write for fun, without a real business plan then your steps would be different to someone wanting to start a blog as a business venture to make money.
I’m going to assume at some point you want your blog to make money, because everyone would like more money, right?
Your next step once you have a good idea of why you want to start a blog is deciding what to write about. Before you do anything at all you should have decided on a niche and have around 10 – 15 blog post ideas around that niche that you can write straight away.
Deciding on a niche
A mistake a lot of people make is assuming you should write about everything, wear many hats and try and solve all the problems – this is not sustainable, nor will it make your blog a huge success.
You need to define a niche and your ideal reader who you want to write for. Your ideal audience will have their own set of interests, problems and struggles which your posts will help them solve.
By niching down and writing around one topic area you will help your SEO (search engine optimization). This is because when Google crawls your website it will see content around one area, keywords that link together and will therefore see you as an expert in that field and will show your posts higher in search results
It will also keep your readers longer, if there are lots of other similar posts that answer more of their questions then the reader is more likely to click around your blog and spend longer reading rather than leaving after reading one post.
Make sure your niche and topic area are ones you love. If you’re not in love with it then keep thinking, if you start writing on an area you are not passionate about chances are you won’t continue with the blog and you will get bored of the creation process
Deciding on a blog name
By this point you should have decided why you want to start a blog with no money and what niche you’re going to write about, you’re almost ready to start the technical aspect of starting a blog but first you need to decide on a name.
This is important because you will be stuck with this forever, so make sure it’s what you really want. Brainstorm a few ideas, think about keywords and what people might Google to reach your blog.
Try and pick a short catchy name, one that will still resonate in years to come and one that will not age. Once you have a name you need to check the domain is available, you should also check the social handles are free too it’s important you maintain consistency across all platforms.
If your name is available as a domain, and all the key social platforms then you are all set to start your blog and claim them as your own.
Where to host your blog
So, you have your niche, your ideal audience and you have now picked a name. Now you need to decide where to start your blog with no money and where to host it. There are many options out there but two of the more popular options are Blogger and WordPress.
If you’re brand new to blogging, I’d say to open a test account on both to have a look around the interface and system to decide which you prefer.
You will read a lot out there about how you must use WordPress if you plan to monetize, which isn’t strictly true.
There are a lot more options for customization and plugins to help your journey but personally I found the interface on blogger simpler. There isn’t a right or wrong answer on who you should host with, and it doesn’t need to be a final decision.
If you decide to start with a Blogger platform (which is free) there are many tools out there to migrate across to WordPress at a later time.
One thing you absolutely must do if you start with blogger is to buy a vanity URL, this will get rid of the .blogspot.com and make your blog look more professional
You should now have the bare bones of a blog; you should have a platform where you are running your blog with a name you’ve chosen and an idea on a niche.
As I mentioned earlier before officially launching you should have 10 – 15 blog post ideas in the pipeline, this is so your readers have something to read when they land on your blog.
Your content is the single most important thing to focus on, it’s the reason people are visiting and is the reason whether they stay or bounce straight off your blog.
By already having a minimum of 10 blog posts it gives your readers a good feel for you and your content and what to expect in the future, this gives them a reason to subscribe to your blog and want to come back.
You should also try and have a regular posting schedule and editorial calendar. If you post at the same time / day regularly your readers will come to expect a post and visit your blog at that time thus increasing your traffic.
An editorial calendar helps you plan ahead, it gives you an idea of what you’re going to write so you know what research to do, pictures to take etc.
You can plan evergreen content to keep readers returning and any key holiday dates that may come up, I recommend keeping a month in advance on your calendar so you can plan and publish accordingly
Final step before launch – Google Analytics
Your blog is almost ready, you’ve got your 10 draft posts ready to publish but your last step before going live is making sure you have Google Analytics installed, this is crucial from the start.
It may not seem it as your traffic will be smaller to begin with, but it will provide you with so many insights such as how people are reaching your blog, which posts are doing well, and which search queries people are using to reach your blog.
These are all helpful for further refining your niche and helping you create new blog posts to answer the questions your audience is searching for.
You now have a blog with a clear defined plan and niche, social channels all consistently with the same handles, 10 draft blog posts you can push out and a method to track all your new traffic to help you decide on your next 10 blog posts – you’ve officially started a blog!
Congratulations.
What else would you like to know about starting a new blog?
Are you looking to start your own business? To start a business with no money is hard and is definitely something that takes time.
I don’t mean 7 hours in the bath soaking like a prune “time” – I mean months of foundation and years of grind, reinvestment and research on the job.
So how do you start a business with no money?
Pick a niche that you are going to live in for years to come. A topic you know and can talk about in fine detail in blogs, videos, phone calls and meetings for hours on end. Over time you will build your reputation, leading to long term success. Lead with value and have patience.
As long as you have the love for the business, the passion for its niche and the ability to delay gratification enough to reinvest the money then you will go far.
Here are nine steps that you should follow to get the best startup possible.
Make sure that you’re picking your niche.
This is the core focus of anything, whether it’s YouTube, a career, a long-term goal, or in this case a business.
It needs to be something that you truly love. Because something that you have been educated to, that you really hate, can only carry you so far.
Love and passion will get you up at six o’clock in the morning.
Love and passion, and the absolute thirst for that specific business, is what will drive you through when that customer cancels on you, or when you’ve had that hard day, or when you’re scrambling around for that extra bit of money in the early days.
The love and the passion of your niche is what will make you want more. More of that niche, more of that business, more in general just going forwards.
I love business, and I love social media, and I love YouTube, that’s why I’m constantly reading new books. I binge Gary Vaynerchuk and many other entrepreneurs – reading and listening to in audio books.
I use Audible to hunt out all of the best stuff. You can do the same too, they even give away free audiobooks to new people, but it’s that thirst for that knowledge, that love of that thing, which will drive you to read more books, that will drive you to educate yourself more, which will drive you to make that content, which will drive you to share it, or sell it to someone.
You Might Need To Start A Business As A Side Hustle
When I first started my own business I was working in security. 12 to 14 hour days, every day. I’d get up in the morning, travel for an an hour and a half to work, an hour half to travel back.
I was tired, I was exhausted, but I knew that security wasn’t going to be my career, I wanted something at that time in the web development world.
I wanted computing, I wanted design. So in the hours when I finally got home, or I was very lucky, on the hours that I worked on a night shift, where all that pay attention to was the CCTV cameras, I took my laptop in and I worked on myself, my side hustle, my passion.
This was back in the day, the dark days when Wi-Fi wasn’t free at every coffee shop and a corner shop.
So unless you could hijack somebody’s Wi-Fi network, or connect to a network that gives you Internet via the cable – you were screwed.
So I had to buy that a little mobile data dongle. A pen drive sized usb stick that would give you half a Gigabyte of traffic for the month and cost £40-50 pounds. and it was it was appalling. It never truly connected, the signal was absolute shit. I mean this is the birth of 3G, it was terrible.
However the point is – if you can use that downtime.
If you do a 9am-5pm, and you’ve got kids. Why not start working the 7pm-1am shift on your side hustle?
Yes you’ll be tired! But you’ll have that passion, you’ll know that that drive, those extra hours, are on you, in you, on your business. This is your time to build your brand.
Maybe you really love real estate, and you want to be in real estate, that’s your own business, and you work in real estate, why not start writing blogs about real estate. Do your research!
Go out there and learn some things. Push your reputation outside of the company that you’re in. This will be your parachute when you leave. This is your reputation, this is your proof that you know what you’re talking about. You could blog on LinkedIn, build connections, grow your influence out there.
Do you have your own website to anchor your content?
Share your blogs in multiple places, it builds you as an individual outside of your specific company, and it preps you for the future, because right now you’re starting of your business, could be your side hustle that expands. Maybe you’re lucky and you have enough money or backing behind you to start full-time.
Live lean, no silly spending. You might have the money to start, it may have been your parents, it may have been some kind of inheritance, you may have been lucky and been invested in. Don’t be stupid, this is money for you and s good source to start your own business. Don’t go out and buy silly watches, don’t go out and buy a stupid car just to impress people, that’s not how this works.
You need to live lean, think sensibly, spend sensibly, put your nose to the floor and grind that brand.
Working your side hustle is a short term fix to build your brand. If you’re full-time, even better, you’ve got those 16, 18-hour days to really pour in that content, really pouring that brand, really reach out to people. And something that I can’t express enough, if you are full-time straightaway don’t get lazy!
Investing In Yourself
This is paramount, I can’t express it enough.
Over the last 10 years many things have changed within technology in social media. YouTube was a mere fledgling 10 years ago, and now it’s the juggernaut that’s threatening to turn off all of your normal mainstream TV.
10 years ago mobile phones were pointless and dumb, now they rule the world, and you can run a business from a smartphone.
10 years ago many of these social media platforms didn’t exist at all, you was shuffling around MySpace, and promoting yourself on Friendster.
Invest in yourself and your future, by learning. Help yourself to start a business with no money by building your knowledge. Constantly listen to the expert, constantly read books, constantly build skills, because it’s that tool kit that will help you in the long run.
When I first started in web design I pretty much a one-trick pony. I could sell, and I’m okay with online social medias through open source software. I was good with forums and networking, keeping my eye what is new. That was the emergence of the social media network.
I could chat I could talk, I had the gift of the gab, and I could show people how to set up forums and blogs, and that was kind of it. I know in the long run if I’d learnt to code, and learn to design and stuff like that, that could build my future, and that can build yours right now.
There’s nothing stopping you going to a library. There’s nothing stopping you googling online, or finding YouTubers that you can listen to, expand your brain, try new things. Or if you are making money, there’s nothing stopping you paying a little bit of money to go on an accredited course.
I don’t mean these charlatans that are like “Here’s my Merc, here’s my Ferrari, this is how I made it, you can have this giant mansion too.” We know who you are Tai Lopez, calm your shit!
But if you invest in yourself it will pay out in the future, because all of the useless general knowledge that’s in my head, all of the random facts, figures, and skill sets are the things that help me think on the hoof, think on the whim, grab that gut feeling out of midair to win me that sale, or to chat to someone.
It’s that piece of knowledge that you throw into a sales pitch, and it could win you that big boy, that retainer, that thing that makes your side hustle into a long-term thing.
Before You Start Your Own Business – Get Your Own Website!
Yes, they’re not as powerful as they used to be, the whole world used to revolve around one man, his business card, and his website.
Now, it’s kind of all buzzing around social media, but you still need places to host your own content, control the narrative, and to push people. This specifically for people with a side hustle.
I have 2 active websites that I try to update regularly. That’s where I can list my services, my expertise, my testimonials, my case studies.
To start a business with no money, I can write two or three blogs a week to boost it to 150, 200 blogs a year, all that are search friendly. Blogs that help people solve theirs problems, me get found in search, and hopefully convince you that I have enough of expertise to teach you something that you didn’t know.
The plan is if I am helpful then maybe you feel indebted to me, and you share me around, link to me as a creditable source. This helps build my brand, and the stronger the brand the more you can charge in future. Building that brand could also open doors do that big pitch, winning you that customer, and in the long term maybe even securing that lifeline to cement your side hustle as a business with a heartbeat.
QUESTIONS – Should I customize my website? Can I just use templates? How much is this going to cost me?
Website customization can look great and hit the nail on the head branding wise but its not always necessary from day onw.
Customization could get you every fine minor detail, they move buttons they put your design, they hone it in your value proposition, but if you don’t have any pennies
The key point is as long as the website looks professional and isnt broken from day one, then you have a starting point!
You just need somewhere to push people. Most custom WordPress templates allow you to pick your color scheme. Many WordPress templates can have distinctive niches or styles and from there you simple start writing. If you have a little income you wish to invest in a premium YouTube template then that might get you a step closer to a unique look – but that isn’t always necessary.
Once you have a site you can establish your own writing style and build up some statistics you can share with potential clients. This is your proof you can attract and audience and could help promote their products or services.
Start A Business with No Money by Creating Content
You need to figure out what you’re good at.
Are you fantastic at writing? Are you brilliant at video? Or maybe you’re a talker? You can create a podcast?
That content is what will carry you forward. That content is what people will get to know you for.
In my case, I’m okay in front of a camera, I could talk about my passion, my love, and those videos are very luckily quite long recently, so I can turn them into podcasts, write them into blogs, and then I can share them out.
Pinterest, LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit, Medium, Forums, Facebook Groups, Twitter – The more you share the content the larger the spider web is to catch more “flies” aka affiliate sales, product leads, video views etc
The content is what will build up your reputation.
Nobody knew who I was three years ago (probably nobody knows who I am now lol) but the difference between now and three years ago is that now I’m able to find clients, pay my bills and based on my reputation and establish stats I can build my income streams month on month.
All this from the proof built from my blogs, YouTube channel, Testimonials and leading lead with value.
However, if I DIDN’T start making content 3 years ago… none of this would exist today.
Best of all this content will always be there to send me traffic, leads and clients. You can reuse it, re-share it and it show your passion and knowledge on your topic and niche.
Yes, some things will change, video quality will change, in some of my older videos I’ve got a completely different backdrop, in some way older videos I have problem with frame-rate.
But, they’re still reusable you can re-share them, and you never know, that one thing that could have turned that person’s brain onto business, three years ago in that video that you made, if you’re re-sharing it, it could still find them today!
Win you that client, that click, that money, that income, that thing that makes you full-time on YouTube. The thing that allows you to be a full-time artist, or a full-time creator!
If nobody knows you, and you get a chance, go business meetings around you that you can go to in the morning. There will be networking groups that do breakfasts or evenings. Places that you can press flesh and chat.
These can help you be found locally. Or you could try it online with chat rooms, forums, Facebook groups.
That outreach is something that gives you that additional thread that you could put in that spider web, that makes it bigger, that catches those flies.
I’m pretty much an introvert, so for me I was reaching out on things like Facebook, and LinkedIn. I reply in forums, I was posting on blogs.
These build up over time – if you are linked via your website and your name, and you leave a very intriguing comment then people might be intrigued and check you out.
This is not me telling you to spam videos and comment sections.
If you truly engage with the post, the blog, the forum, and you help them, they will remember you when they need more advice and maybe even suggest you to others in times of need.
There’s a website I post on from time to time called Quora.
It’s basically Yahoo questions, they post a lot of questions, I answer a load of YouTubey questions, and then I can end up drop in my video, or they click on my name and it drops them back on my website, or my youtube channel.
You can do the same!
These outreach programs could be the way that you get into the DMs of somebody. It could be you reaching out on Instagram answering their question. It could be you tweeting at someone, or replying when they’re asking a question about your specific thing.
Gary Vaynerchuk for example, the world-renown Gary Vaynerchuk, started on twitter by simply replying to everything that had some kind of wine term in it.
When people were worried about a red, or a white, or whether it’s a Rioja, or whether it’s a Grenache, he would jump in, offer them some advice, give them some links, not try and sell, just let them know that his around, over, and over, and over again, and he slowly built reputation.
That is the way that you build your audience on blogs and YouTube – one subscriber, two subscriber, 10 subscribers.
Builds your YouTube channel, build your blog, your websites, your mailing list, and over time – your business.
Can Working For Free Help You Start A Business with No Money?
Many people see this is some kind of slave labor.
I can’t pay my bills with “exposure”
I totally agree! I’ve been in situations where I was saying to myself
Yeah, well I need to pay my gas and electric bill, and you’re giving me exposure – brilliant, Om nom nom nom nom nom nom nom!
Oh no I’m gonna get kicked out of my house now, ’cause that was my rent, thank you!
But there are times when exposure truly does help.
I use a website called PeoplePerHour, but there are other ones out there for example UpWork, Fiverr.
They are “gig economy” websites in which you can set up your offerings for next to nothing but slowly build a client base and reputation.
I get peanuts from it!
However, what I do get is a contacts, reviews and a chance to hone my skills in the niche I offer.
As you start a business with no money these successful sales and interactions are your practice – prepare your brain muscle, build a portfolio.
Over time those 20-30 mini sales can help you land those bigger fish. 20-30 clients willing to praise you and give you feedback that you can put into testimonials and justify your pricing.
Over the last 3 years I have landed some of my largest retainer clients through just doing something small.
You impress them, build up trust and up-sell when you get the chance. Now those clients are the vast majority of my monthly income!
Don’t get me wrong, some are dickheads, right? And that’s fine! Just remember at the end of the day if you designed logos for 20 clients, each with 3 different styles… you now have 60 examples you can display in your rapidly growing portfolio!
You could even use tools to make it easier for you to deliver those tasks – I have a load of easy to use tools on my resources page.
Reinvest Your Income – How To Grow A Business with No Money
Okay so you’ve reached out, you’ve started getting sales, started building up reputation – maybe there’s a trickle of income.
Now this is where you have to be very smart, and reinvest that back in you, your business and your skills.
It can be so easy to get your first pay slip, and blow it on something fancy. It can be all too easy to think this ever growing gold mine will produce clients and money forever… but you need to future proof your business.
In the first year, you’re really passionate, you’ve really got that drive, so you’re really going out there, you’re doing a lot, you’re tapping that low-hanging fruit.
Those connections you may have already known that you could pluck quite easily, quite early, but if you don’t invest in your future, if you don’t keep learning to grow your future – spider web that catches your clients disappears over time.
Very soon all that easy traffic and low-hanging fruit will just disappear, and you’ll start to starve, and so will the business.
If you wanna grow in the future, you need to invest in the future.
There’s no point in eating this year’s harvest if you’re not buying seeds to plant for next year, and next year, and next year.
Keep funneling it back into yourself.
I’m not saying don’t take an income. If you can afford to take an income and still invest into the business then do so, just be smart.
Do you really need that wage? Could you live a little more humble? Could you live a smaller house? Could you use a different laptop?
You could learn to start a business with no money – You just need be a little bit more sensible and use that extra bit of money to invest in your business, to get that next customer, and the next customer, that guarantees you a future three years down the line – rather than just assuming next week will be fine!
Customer Care is Paramount!
You’ve hooked them in, they may even be one of your free clients, if you keep them happy – they will come back.
They might even up-sell or might refer a friend!
Customer care is paramount because if you upset somebody, you’re really desperate in two months time, and you’ve got a fantastic idea that you know that client would really love – you are 100% sure they will buy – if you’ve upset them, you can’t phone them anymore.
They won’t refer you to anyone anymore, and it might leave a nasty taste in their mouth that they spread faster to your potential clients.
Bad news spreads 10x faster, than good news.
Now, for the sake of your small business that you’re starting right now, reset, go back to number five – Create Content – and work your way to Customer care over and over again.
Content
Out Reach
Free Work
Reinvest
Customer Service
REPEAT
Your biggest mistake would be getting lazy – keep building – you can start a business with no money and reap the rewards for years to come!
Content creators upload over 300 hours of video every minute to YouTube. That’s a lot of competition. So, to stand out and grow your channel on YouTube, you need to upload professional videos on a frequent basis with these time saving apps for YouTubers.
But, once you’ve planned the content and shot a video, the work isn’t finished yet. You still need to add graphics, caption it, get the title keywords right, and think about promotion.
There’s lots to do.
This article takes a look at five excellent tools to speed up your content creation process.
Some are free, and some need a subscription. And once you start using them, you’ll find you can reduce the time from recording to upload – leaving you more time to plan and shoot more content.
Let’s begin.
remove.bg – YouTube Image Background Remover
YouTube is a visual platform. Viewers mostly choose what video to watch next based on visual clues from the thumbnail.
Having the right thumbnail then is essential, it can be the difference between success and failure for a video. It’s not enough nowadays to use a boring still from your video.
Take a look at the image below. The thumbnail on the left has the best combination of text and visual, and outperforms the rest of his content combined.
You need to be upfront and centre in your YouTube thumbnail. But making thumbnails takes time, especially if you need to cut-out your portrait from a cluttered background.
Did you know you can turn a 20-minute task into a five-second one with remove.bg?
remove.bg is a free online tool that cleverly removes the background from your image. Leaving you a perfect cut-out of your picture for you to add the finishing touches.
It’s straightforward to use. Drag an image onto the remove.bg’s homepage and they handle the rest.
Here’s an example.
As you can see, the image size for the free version isn’t the largest, but you can process it a little to fit the resolution that YouTube requires.
You can get a higher resolution image if you buy credits from remove.bg. For each credit you buy, you get to download 1 high-resolution image. 10 credits cost £8.00, or you can get credits cheaper by taking out a subscription.
rev.com – YouTube Closed Captions and Subtitles Service
Closed Captions and Subtitles – what’s the difference?
Closed Captions. These are a direct transcript of the audio of your video. A viewer can use them if they don’t want to listen to the sound of your video. They are in the same language as the one spoken, and a viewer can turn them off if they don’t need them.
Subtitles. Subtitles assume that the audio of the video is still on. They clarify the speech if the audio is poor or the speaker has a strong accent. They are also used to provide a translation of speech in another language.
Obviously having closed captions or subtitles on your videos help those hard of hearing or who don’t speak your language. But, there are also other benefits that land this site on the time saving apps for youtubers list.
One of the most important factors of ranking for your video is Audience Retention. That is, how much of your video a viewer watches. Clearly, having closed captions and subtitles promotes access to your content and will help with this metric.
Another ranking benefit is that your uploaded transcription file also helps with your metadata.
The free AI transcription tool on YouTube is not very good. And if you don’t have the time to transcribe your own videos, instead use the service provided by rev.com.
The service works on a per-minute basis and will provide the output in the .srt format YouTube prefers.
kapwing.com – YouTube to Social Media Content Creation
If you’ve been a YouTuber for long enough, you know that for best results you need to promote your video after you have uploaded it.
Gary Vee is a master at teasing his content. On Instagram and Facebook, you’ll find video snippets with closed captions for easy consumption over mobile.
It’s really easy to one of these yourself, head over to kapwing.com.
Hit the ‘start editing’ button and select start with a blank canvas. Then, input your YouTube video URL, and it will import it for you.
Next, using the easy controls, you can clip the section of the video you want to use, add subtitles, and then change it into the best size for where you will upload it.
A great benefit is that all the processing happens at the server-side, so your laptop won’t feel like a baking tray just out of the oven when you use it.
Kapwing is free to use and even lets you produce media without a watermark by registering for a account. You need a subscription to keep all your work private, get faster processing speeds, and long term storage of your media.
A monthly subscription is $20, or you can make a saving if you buy an annual subscription for $200.
placeit.net – YouTube Intro, Outro, and Logo Maker
One way to stand out from mediocre content and show expertise is to add professional looking intro/outro animations to your videos.
An animated intro/outro that is quick and clear tells your viewer who you are, what you do, and helps with your branding strategy.
To quickly make very professional intro/outro animations, I use placeit.net.
There are plenty of templates to choose from; some are image-based and some are text-based, so you should find one to fit your requirements.
Once you have picked a template, you can customise it to fit your needs. It’s easy to change colours and resize logos, so you get an intro/outro that fits your channel’s branding.
For other elements of your channel, like logo’s and banners, placeit.net works well for these too.
You won’t need to hire a graphic designer to create fantastic looking graphics. Here is a sample of the kind of logos you can use as a starting point.
I picked the cupcake above, then changed the text and the central image to end up with the logo below for my new seafood venture. (OK, it’s just an example – I’ve never even eaten lobster!)
As you can see, it’s easy to change the colours and text to create a professional-looking logo you can upload to your channel page.
priceit.net – costs $14.95 per month for unlimited videos, logos, and designs, or if you take out an annual subscription $99.95.
A solid gold entry into the time saving apps for youtubers list with so many tasks that you can use placeit.net for, so it is a worthwhile subscription. But if you’re on a budget, you can get all the graphics you need with a single months payment – just cancel your subscription when you have what you need.
photopea – Free Browser-Based Photo Editing Tool
As a visual content producer, you need a photo editing suite. It can be a great time saving app for Youtubers. But, there’s no need to pay for Adobe Photoshop or PaintShop Pro. photopea.com is a browser-based image manipulation tool that is free to use. It works with all the popular image formats, and even handles .psd files.
There are lots of reasons a YouTuber might need photo manipulation software – here are two of them:
1 – Outlining Your Thumbnails. You have possibly noticed some YouTubers using a white outline surrounding their picture on their thumbnails, it’s a good technique to make a thumbnail pop out on the page.
Here is an example made using the image we removed the background on earlier. Drag the image onto the project workspace, then add a stroke effect in layer styles.
Now it’s ready for your logo, title, and branding.
2 – Making Start and End Screens. If you don’t want to pay for placeit.net to make an animated intro/outro, then you can use photopea instead. Use it to create a professional-looking branding image then edit into your video.
There are lots of templates to choose from. Pick one and edit away.
They even have standard templates for promotional images you can post to Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
Start using these Time saving apps for youtubers today to speed up your production process and make your YouTube videos look amazing. There is a learning-curve with a few of them. But, in most cases, you will be up and running with them quickly and producing professional-looking video in a shorter amount of time.
If you have any questions, please add them in the comments, and I’ll answer them as soon as I can.
And remember to check out my resources page for more useful tools discounts and links!
Working for free. Should I work for free? Should you work for free?
Working for free can be a great way to build up a brand and your personal reputation within your niche. As you work for free you would build up contentions, reviews, a ever increasing portfolio, and most importantly, improving your skills from all the practice as you do so. Working for free might not earn you money in the short term but can be a very valuable investment in your long term future earning power.
It’s become a meme over the years, if you were creative, you’ve seen it. In fact, you’ve probably been approached, and people are like…
“Hi, can you do this, this and this for me?
Great. Sure. Here’s a quote.
“Oh, I wasn’t expected to pay you. I thought you could use the exposure, you know, get out there.”
And people are thinking, yeah, there’s exposure where you promote me and exposure where I die, a cold, lonely hungry death in the middle of a field because your exposure, can’t pay my rent. Your exposure, can’t pay my bills. Your exposure is me dying of exposure. I get that. I do. I do. That’s why you need to be sensible about this. Right?
I couldn’t do the whole free thing to start with either. And it’s become much more of a thing now that I can because I have a steady income.
Make Working For Free Your Side Hustle
Now, working for free can initially be your side hustle. I’m not saying that it has to cost you thousands of pounds to do a project that you hand away for nothing and you have no control over. I mean that you can build upon your future by adding value, leading with value first. Your side hustle has the potential to be the base for your future business success.
When I first started doing YouTube consultancing, I set up a profile on a few freelance websites like PeoplePerHour, on Fiverr. Yes, that does technically mean that I got paid for it, but it was pittance, deliberately pittance because I wanted to attract people to me. So I could pull a few strings and build a few Lego bricks on top of my board. They are good marketplaces that can offer you a chance to practice your skills or build a portfolio. So that aside, on the PeoplePerHour website, or Fiverr for example, I sell really, really cheap logos or really, really cheap Web designs, or really, really cheap channel reviews or video optimizations for say three, four or five dollars.
The money is negligible. But, what it does do, is it gives me a chance to build up 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 examples of me doing the thing that I want to get paid for, to do. If it’s on PeoplePerHour as well then it’s an hour’s worth of work, two hours worth of work depending on how much you’re willing to sacrifice in your time. But let’s say you do 20 logo designs at a $1 each, that’s 20 bucks, that’s not really much for you. It’s a cup of coffee, or that’s your electricity to cover that laptop that made those on, but you now have 20 designs that you can put in your portfolio, 20 designs that you can then show to a new client that is willing to pay you two 300 pounds for a logo and you’ve got 20 examples of stuff that you’ve done in the past.
Yes, it does mean that you sacrifice a bit of your time. Yes, that does mean that you couldn’t have charged 200 pounds for 20 of them each and made four grand. But if people don’t know you, the grand value price of one sale when they don’t want to buy from you is zero, zip, zilch nothing, nada. I would much rather have 20 sales, 20 logo designs at 20 bucks at one buck each, because then I’ve got those examples that I can then go and hunt the next big fish that’s willing to pay maybe a little bit more, 20 bucks each 50 bucks each 100 bucks each.
Working For Free is Improving Your Skills
Now, this is one of the things that that doesn’t dawn on people. I’ve been on YouTube for about eight, nine years. I’ve been creating these videos on this channel for about three. That means somewhere out there, there’s thousands of videos that I’ve edited, or I’ve been in, or I’ve uploaded, I’ve downloaded, I’ve deleted and that means that I can do this, I can communicate with a camera, I’ve improved my skill, I’ve improved my lighting, I’ve improved my ability to talk to you, to edit. Improving my skill, improving my speed, improving my skill set that I can sell to somebody else.
Improving my expertise that I can pitch to somebody else. Hi Mr. logo man. Yes, here’s 20 examples from point number one and I can do it much better than I used to because logo number 20 is better than logo number one because I learned how to do graphic and vector work a little bit better. And instead of it taking me four to five hours to render that wonderful piece of artwork, I can do it in half hour to an hour, and I can start tweaking and I can make it bigger.
Skill, improvement, more money.
You’re investing in yourself by doing free stuff – Building your reputation.
You’ve sold 20 logos to 20 people or 20 teddy bears, or 20 stockings or 20 handmade cards, it doesn’t matter what it is, you’ve sold 20 things to 20 people that can leave you 20 reviews. Those 20 reviews, you can then put on mailing list. Those 20 reviews you can put on your website. There’s 20 reviews, or people that hopefully you can refer to. Those are 20 advocates that know who you are and what you can do, that will refer hopefully another friend next time they need a logo, a teddy bear, a T shirt, a sock design, whatever you’re doing.
That reputations stacks on top of the skill that you’ve learned and the portfolio that you’ve gained. All of which has helped me in the past, hook that bigger fish. That’s got my foot in that door. Though I’ve got a couple of people that have come from these platforms, they are constant retainers, they are clients that I consult with. They are people that I directly work with, and they wouldn’t have found me if they hadn’t have used the freelance site to buy something small from me, for me to over deliver value, for them to trust me with my portfolio, the reputation, the reviews, and loving my work for me to then upsell.
I didn’t advertise for these people. I didn’t put ads on Facebook, I didn’t go out there on Google ads and hook people in. I’ve not pulled them in with some kind of skeezy sleazy kind of sales click funnel. I offered them value at a fair price and created quality, for them. And I’ve got my foot in the door, in which I can start talking to, and then I upsell, and I upsell and I upsell which then, supports the ability for me to give cheap, entries at the other end of that one dollar logo, those five dollar logos, those mini cheap reviews.
Leverage your new skill base, the things that you have learnt, your reputation, your portfolio, that foot in the door, you’re not actually doing it for free anymore.
Yes, initially, you do have to do the legwork, build the foundation and build upwards. And all it takes is for you to slowly stack over time. You put in some hard work.
And yes, let’s say you you have some really bad luck, and you sell 400 of these logos at one dollar each. You now have a huge portfolio, you’ve now had a skill based on these things. It may look like you are working for free, but you’re actually investing in yourself. And sometimes someone will help subsidize that by upgrading or by selling or buying or promoting you. And I did a lot of this at the start of my consulting career. I worked my ass off for 12 months, giving away freebies, or very cheap reviews and very cheap this and very cheap that. Why? Because it built those connections.
I’ve got 400, 500 videos on my youtube channel. They’re exactly that. I worked for free. Don’t get it twisted, yeah. YouTube can pay me a little bit of money in advertising but trust me it is pittance compared to what you can make by building that reputation. Building a back catalog. Making those links, putting your foot in the door and building a business from the ground up. All by just initially working for free. It’s one of the very important steps that you have to deal with when building a business and this nine of them here which I’m sure you know.
If you want more advice on how to start and grow your business using YouTube watch this video below.
– Anyone that’s serious on YouTube and making a business wants to know how to increase YouTube Video CPM income, improve their CPM, improve the adverts that get placed against your content. I’ve got a few tips for you…
If you’ve been creating content on YouTube for any length of time, you may now be monetized. The rollercaster that is YouTube CPM Rates can be a wild ride. The CPM rate is based on the things that are on your channel and it can seem frustrating that you have x amount of pounds per thousand views and somebody else gets many, many more. But, there are a few things that you can do to tweak this.
Evaluate The Existing Content On Your YouTube Channel
Have a look at your analytics. There will be some videos that have done much better than other videos. Pick through those. Have a look at your top five, top ten and see what themes may be occurring in those videos. Are those top ten videos mostly how-tos? Are those top ten videos mostly talking about a set product or service or game? Are they a certain length? Do they appeal to a certain demographic? Are they a specific niche? Are they put in a specific playlist?
Once you’ve figured out the clear front runners in your content, make more of that type of video to increase your chances of success.
In my case – I recently started to add business and money to my channel, as it gets a higher Cost Per Mille (CPM) compared to my normal YouTube Tutorials. It would behoove me more to go and make more business stuff, more business themed, more business titled, more business tagged because these are proven winners for my channel that get a proven track record of additional watchtime or a specific types of advert served against it. For example, Tai Lopez, who possibly spends a fortune trying to sell his e-course online (you know those bullshit ads where he’s stood in front of a mansion or in front of a fast car). He might be throwing 20, 30, 40 bucks at an advert that could hit your audience demographic – whilst he’s not gonna spend that kinda money if it’s against toys.
To increase your YouTube Channel CPM rate, make sure that you’re replicating the stuff that you know gets a higher CPM. I don’t mean neglect the ones that have a lower CPM, but understand the difference between the two.
Make Longer YouTube Videos – Double Your Video CPM Rate With Mid Rolls
CPM on YouTube is based on the advert served, how often and the video. Now If you’re lucky, and to increase YouTube Video CPM, adverts can play at the start, at the end and if you have a 10 minute video, they can also be placed in the middle of your YouTube video (YouTube Mid Rolls).
A case in point is Shane Dawson. Last year he dominated with his docu-series format. Each episode was over an hour long – like giant TV show. This gave him the advantage that he could add an advert every 15 minutes and it didn’t seem forced or tacky.
Now, if you imagine for every thousand views of that advert he got $5 – then the video that gets millions of views would do well for him. BUT, if he adds 3-4 mid roll adverts as well instead of $5 per 1000 advertisement displayed he can increase YouTube Video CPM 300-400% simply by adding midrolls into the longer video format. That’s the way to bump that video CPM because not only can you put one at the start, he could put multiple in the middle, he could put one at the end.
You’ll get more watchtime which might be an indicator to advertisers that people watch for longer, are more engaged and that video is very specific ’cause it’s 10 minutes of a very specific topic, so they could put specific adverts in. So, if you’re talking about how to rip apart a laptop and put it back together, advertisers could put adverts in and here, buy this part, here, buy a laptop from here, here’s Dixons, here’s PC World.
Pick Your Niche Carefully to Increase YouTube Video CPM
This is a lesson I learned, in the hardest possible sense, over the years. In the past I have managed channels that have had millions, millions of views. Those videos are in the entertainment sector. The problem with that is the entertainment sector can get thousands of views much more easily if you tweak it properly because you can pander to the topics, you can pander to the trends, the funny news, the weirdness, that kinda thing. But, that also means that you’ll get slightly lower or in some case, rock bottom CPMs.
Why? Because the topic might be inappropriate or the topic might be overexposed. So, therefore, there’s so many people talking about that, that the advertiser can bid less to get more traffic.
On the other side, let’s say you’re creating tutorials on how to create YouTube videos or educating people on business. This is a slightly harder, smaller niche. This kind of direct topic focus can attract a specific audience, an audience that other people may want to tap into, and can increase YouTube Video CPM. I have made video in the past where I talk about how to start a business.
In that video, I talk about how to start your own business. So, if you’re an accountant or if you’re some kind of business guru or some kind of e-book salesmen or anything that’s vaguely business related, insurance, etc etc – you might be tempted to advertise against that video. And, as you can imagine, the difference between someone trying to sell kids toys vs life insurance, real estate, e-learning masterclasses or anything like that – completely different market and potentially much higher CPMs.
Specific niches have better premiums. I’ve noticed with some of my clients that if you talk about money, you have a much higher CPM than over less business focused niches.
Cut Out The Swearing to Increase YouTube Video CPM
A bit of mild swearing, is not a huge problem. But, if you’re effing and jeffing all of the time, you can either be flagged as inappropriate or the algorithm kind of hears it, kind of sees it and certain advertisers will maybe stir away from you which means that they might be the higher paying ones or that means that you get one or two less adverts per hundred views, per thousand views which means you get less per thousand view CPM.
There is a rumor that if you avoid it in the first three minutes or so, or the first 30% of your video, then maybe, you’re kind of exempt from this, but I would advise that if truly your focus is in maximizing your CPM, either bleep it or avoid it entirely. I understand more than anybody how easy it is to just slip a swear out.
I’m born in Kent. I’m a council estate kid. That’s dragged his way up, effing and jeffing is like a second language to me. It’s ingrained and it’s very hard to stop. Try and curb it and it might help your pocket and you’ll feel a little better for it at the end of the month, at least on camera. Just be wary that swearing in youtube videos might hurt your bank balance.
Make Money Blogging YouTube Videos
This blog right here is proof that blogging YouTube videos can help raise awareness, bring in more eyeballs and even increase YouTube Video CPM in the long run.
Along side your very long article teaching people how to increase YouTube Video CPM you could place adverts from AdSense. This builds up a picture of behaviour within the mind of Google about your audience and helps them track or suggest your content to more and more relevant people.
I can also give you affiliate options or niche article oportunities you may not have considered before. If you’re talking about real estate, you could link to other articles, videos or affiliate links. People are still buying banner ads. People are still buying pop-ups. Yes, it may be part of the “old web world”, but it’s still equally as relevant. There’s still an audience that would prefer to read articles with visual aid whether it comes through pictures or video then specifically directly only watch your video.
You can always transcribe your videos. Turn them into blogs and then that way people could read three or fours pages of you talking that you fluffed up with nice content, infographics, and then you get double the income.
Many people are going have to work from home in the coming weeks and months. I’ve been working from home for about eight years, so here are the lessons that I’ve learnt that can help you shortcut the learning curve as you fight the urge to watch crappy morning tv and binging on chocolate for breakfast…
Start Early
You will be amazed by how much stuff you can get done starting earlier than you would have done from your normal clock in at nine o’clock. At the moment, I have a human alarm clock that wakes me up at around about six o’clock anyway and she wants feeding and she wants entertainment and Hey Duggie and anything else on TV. But the advantage there for me is that no matter what, whether she’s going to nursery or whether she’s staying at home, I can wake up at six, seven o’clock in the morning and hit the ground running – making content for my YouTube Channel.
Even before my stepdaughter came into my life, I still got up at six o’clock in the morning, let the world wake up around me, grabbed my life saving massive cup of tea and focused in on that days to-do-list.
I find at that time in the morning, you could be the most motivated, and most rested that you will be all day. Time to hit the floor running, tackle the things that you need to do, organize your day!
The sooner you start, the sooner those creative juices can tackle what you need to tackle.
Now, if you’re like me, it might just be the very first thing you do is tidy up the things around you. I’m one of those people that needs a tidy environment work in. So I’ll get up, I’ll make sure that all of the dishes are done, I have a nice cup of tea, I clean the living room, and then I can sit down and then I’m focused because if I’m setting that at eight, nine o’clock in the morning, my brain would be like, “Whoa, I need to pick that up,” and “Oh, you need toast or whatever,” whilst other people might dive straight into their hardest task and get it out the way, knowing that it’s all easier for the rest of the day.
Pretend You Are Going To An Office
There’s that mental block for the first two to three months when you’re you get to work from home where you’re like, “Oh yeah, I’m home,” For love for all the Tea and Coffee in the morning, make sure that you’re in the right mindset.
If you can set it in your head a set time, you switch into work mode or there’s a set chair that you sit in or there’s a set area that you go to, as soon as you know that you’re in work mode, you can focus much more. Rather than, Oh, just sit down and I’ll have my cup of tea, I’ll watch GMTV, I’ll flip through the morning news, now it’s 11 o’clock, now you’ve wasted half the morning. Getting the right mindset. This also includes getting dressed. You can’t just sit there in your PJ’s all day, you need to act like you have any other job.
Get up, get wash, get dressed, brush your teeth and then put yourself in your mindset because then that way you’ve prepared your brain to work.
Structure Your Work Day
Whether you’re in retail, whether you’re in an office, whether you’re in any other job, there will be some form of to do list, whether it’s from your manager or whether it’s from yourself. This structure is the thing you need to inject into your working from home life, that will allow you to accomplish some things throughout the day. For me, I have a to do list that I write on my desktop and they have set days Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc etc
I know that that’s the thing that I need to achieve that day. If I want to bleed into other days and get more done than I can do so, and it shuffles stuff up through that list and by the end of the week I have a little bit more free time to myself, but at least I know that as long as I do those three or five things that that same day I’m on top of my workload, for don’t do those five things. I know I’m behind my workload, these are the things that helped structure me.
For you, it might be your Google calendar. You can set tasks in there, like blocking out time to bulk record YouTube videos, you can have set times, you can have recurring things, you can have your computer alert you when you are five, 10, 15, 20 minutes away from it and even remind you to do them. You can even set your own lunch break so you’ve got a pattern and a routine.
Set A Designated Work From Home Area
This could just be a set work chair or a set place on your dining table or a set room in your house, reset corner of your living room, but a dedicated space helps you click into that mindset, it has everything around you.
I am very lucky that I can work from home and we’re in a three bedroom house. Which gives me the very precious space, the home office! It makes my YouTuber life a little easier as I’ve already got my YouTube filming set set up so I can record in front of it, I can talk in front of it. There is an L shape sofa that I sit on an edits and maybe watch the rolling news, with the TV which is literally just there. But because I have a dedicated efficient workspace, you’ll be amazed how quickly your brain turns on rather than always sitting in the same place on your sofa, whether your Netflix and chilling or whether you’re working.
You need to dedicate a space where you brain can turn on.
Just like they say, if you go to bed and there’s a TV in your bedroom, your brain will associate the TV in staying awake rather than going to bed. You need workplace hygiene, to help you work at home properly, as well as sleep hygiene to help you sleep at night properly.
“Work From Home” Doesn’t Have To Mean “Staying At Home”
I know this can be hard right now, (early 2020), but in an ideal world you’ll get a chance to go out, make sure that you take your laptop with you! Coffee shops, parks, woodlands… you could be anywhere as long as you have a wifi enabled device!
Or if you don’t have to take your laptop, you can take a notepad and just write things down. Just get out of the bubble.
At this point in time I understand that that may be hard, but if you’ve got a balcony or if you’ve got a back garden, as long as you keep yourself in a reasonable safe distance, then you can still do it. Plus, let’s be honest, social distancing still works when you’re working. I know that I prefer not to have people around me when I’m working because if people talk at me whiles thinking it gets me frustrated and annoyed. if I’m sat out in my backyard and all I can hear is the birds and the wind, it’s fantastic for my mental health.
Take the advantage of strolling to your local corner shop that five, 10 minute break, that fresh air, that mind reset because if you’re frustrated on a task, you’ll be amazed what a little bit of eye distancing can do.
Have you ever heard of the phrase of just like computer blindness or task blindness – where you’ve been staring at the same thing for 30 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour, and no matter how much you look at it, it seems to be doing the same thing or it’s the same trouble. You step away from it and you come back, you’d be amazed how quickly you can find that jigsaw piece that you were missing from the puzzle just two minutes ago.
Make It Hard To Muck About On Social Media
Now this has become more and more prevalent in the last few years because everybody can flip through their phone or everybody can just tab over to Facebook or Instagram or take talk or whatever. I know from focusing on editing a video and it hits a hot spot, it can drive me off to Facebook out of frustration, but I’ll come back to it.
But if you can eliminate those entirely and just focus on the thing that you’re doing, maybe even turn off the computer, move your phone away, putting your phone on silent, put it in the up side of the room, whatever, if you can not give yourself the chance to distract yourself, you will get so much more done.
That also means don’t distract yourself with TV of your favorite thing on TV. So don’t sit there and watch Game of Thrones episodes if you really into them because you won’t end up working, you’ll end up watching Joffrey get killed.
Commit To Doing More Things
You’ll be amazed, working from home, how quickly you can spin through some things that may have taken longer in an office.
When you’re in the office environment and there’s other people around, you might take a little longer to the coffee machine or to the water machine where you might every now and then glance over and see someone in another cubicle or stare at the clock or have a look at the call center, whatever.
I tend to find that you can actually do a couple more tasks than you would have done in a more social setting because you’re much more focused. If you ever hit that, the zone and then just kept piling through work, you’ll be amazed how much additional work you’ll get once you’re in the zone when Billy is not there to pass your chocolate or to ask you this question or to point at something to make you chuckle, that throws you out of the zone entirely.
Work When You Are Your Most Productive
Nobody turns on the computer at seven o’clock in the morning and it sprints all the way through their work in the zone, in that niche all day.
We all have our ebbs and flows! We all have moments when we know that we work better, maybe you’re a little bit more groggy in the morning, you don’t want to talk to humans in the morning, but you’re happy to edit videos and take your phone calls in the afternoon.
Maybe you’re not a morning person at all and forego a morning start up because you know that if you got up at nine, 10 o’clock you could work till two o’clock at night/in the morning, and you get much more work done.
Be honest with yourself, if you know that you’re lagging about two o’clock and maybe even you need a nap between two and four then allow yourself to do so, as long as you make sure that you allow yourself to work when you know that you’re most focused at eight o’clock in the afternoon.
Set yourself up for success based on what you know about yourself. If you know that you’re going to be wading through your brain fog, avoid that fog.
Save Phone Call For The Afternoon
I find that in the morning I’m less sociable and so are many others. So what I do is I make sure that I do all my solitary tasks in the morning or after the normal nine to five crowd so therefore, I know at six o’clock in the morning till about 10, 11 o’clock, no one’s really gonna pick up the phone and at 11 o’clock they’re thinking about lunch so I’m gonna start my phone calls at one o’clock in the afternoon.
It also means that it’s seven o’clock in the evening, once again, they’re not going to be there to pick up the phones. So what I do is I allocate that time for around about one o’clock in the afternoon to about five, six o’clock in the afternoon for those phone calls. Not only will my brain be more awake, but I’ll also grind you through so much work in the morning that be ready for a chat.
Keep Your Brain Busy
How many times have you gone to the gym and once you finally started at the gym, you got there, you finally got on the treadmill, but the entry feeling good and you wanna keep going, but the interstate, you sit down and you give yourself five minutes, you’ve seized up and you’re ready to go home. Oh, that’s it, you’re done for the day. I find that’s the same with working at home.
Keep your brain always on something, anything.
What I do in between my pieces of work is that I’ll do a task and if my work brain needs a rest, I’ll go and do the washing up or I’ll go into the clothes washing or I’ll prep my tea for the evening. The reason for that is because my brain continues to stay busy, it continues to spin and spin. It’s like a perpetual motion machine, but because your brain’s been so active, if you used to sit down and turn your brain off, it might be harder to restart that spinning.
Keep your brain going even if you’re just changing it up to make sure that you’re not bored. Edit your stuff in the morning, go for lunch, plan what your Tea happens to be, do your washing, do your hoovering, look after that kid, make sure you’re playing with their toys.
But that way you’re spinning plus by the time you get to bed, you’ve outbrained yourself and you’ll be more than happy to fall asleep, but don’t stop buzzing because the more your brain’s going, the more I find I get done because I’m not having to re-rev that engine to get started each and every time, I’m not doing a task for 15 minutes and then sitting down for 15 minutes and then having a restart, it’s quite consciously flowing all of the time and that also might be that I listen to podcasts while as I’m doing the washing up, so I’m still businessing, I’m still learning and I’m multitasking all at the same time.
For more tips to work from home, check out the video below.
There are many tweaks you can make to your YouTube videos to increase your YouTube CPM.
When looking to increase your YouTube CPM consider the niche you are in. Some industries will pay a premium for advertising and attention. Avoid swearing. Videos that are over 10 minutes in length can have mid roll adverts to boosts its earning potential. Most importantly consider your video’s SEO.
YouTube adverts can earn you a little extra money on the side, but did you know it can be affected by what you talk about, how many adverts you show and what niche you are in?!
Evaluate your existing videos
Dive into your channel analytics and look at what currently gets you your best CPM (cost per thousand views). This will help you understand what topics on youtube channel make you the best money and attract the best adverts. You can then double down on those topics, making more of them to boost overall CPM income.
Videos over 10 minutes long on YouTube can have adverts at the start, the end and as many as you want in the middle called “mid-rolls”.
These can help multiply the money you can make from a single video. Imagine you get $5 per 1000 views for 1 advert and you add 4 more, that is 5x$5 so $25 per 1000 views, a huge jump in CPM rate.
Difference Niches Have Different CPM Rates
This is a lesson I learnt myself the hard way.
You could have an entertainment channel with a broad audience getting millions of views but if your niche is not advertiser friendly, or is too broad it might have a hugely negative effect on the overall CPM of your content.
However, if you target set niches you can boost your income.
Business, Money, Entrepreneurship, Real Estate and other “high end” niches attract higher paid adverts and therefore higher CPMs. Kids content, pranks, jokes, etc offer a wider reach but normally means easier to buy ads against as there are so many people making that content and less valuable transactions connected to it.
So consider the niche you are in if you want to increase YouTube CPM and boost your Adsense income.
Stop Swearing! – Yes this myth is true!
YouTube will listen and transcribe your content and there is statistics that show your channel and video income can and will be negatively affected by cussing/swearing.
When advertisers select what channel “buckets” they want to spend money on, you swearing might make you “less desirable” vs someone who has identical content with more family friendly language in their videos.
Make Money Blogging
If you have your content why not blog those videos onto a website and link that to adsense to maximize the income.
I have 500ish videos on my channel and over time I have been slowly adding them to my website blog.
This can help build search traffic, drive more people to the video and your channel but also gives you a chance to serve more adverts to the viewers. This means not only can you get in-video adverts but banner ads as well.
Passive Income Tips that helped me make over $5000 in “passive income” with affiliate links, marketing, advertising and more in the last 12 months.
Easy money and passive income is a lie – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSC1Dp6Qrfk – I even made a video to rant about how the idea of relaxing on the beach with a martini and your ipad is complete BS, BUT hard work and laying the foundations and build up an automated income that make residual income and helps you earn while you sleep.
Passive Income in 2020, Passive Income meaning lazy money does not exists yet it is a holy grail for some people. Make money online, passive income from youtube, and passive income from investments are the great get rich quick schemes of the internet generation but I am here to tell you honestly that PASSIVE INCOME IS A LIE.
Make A Passive Income Online in 2020 – With HARD WORK!
The only true “passive income business” has been seeded by hard work for years as you build up a client base or a product back catalogue. The true passive income has a foundation of 10-25 years solid graft, investing in businesses, skills, services and customer care.
There is no silver bullet out there that will take you from your living room sofa to a villa in the maldives within 28 days.
