Top 10 Tips to Boost Your Income on YouTube

If you are wondering “how do YouTubers make money in 2023”, then this article is what you need. Starting to earn with YouTube is not an easy and fast challenge, but mastering certain techniques will more than pay off your time and effort.

At the end of 2021, the MrBeast channel was recognized as the highest-paid channel on YouTube. His income was $54 million that year. We decided to list the best tips to boost income on YouTube to show you that absolutely anyone willing to put in the effort can do it.

1. Join the YouTube Partner Program

To get started, you should study the information on how to make money with advertising. Be sure to join the YouTube Partner Program and set up monetization. These are activities of paramount importance, whether you’ve settled on making money through content creation or not.

At the initial stage, YouTube will ask you to agree to comply with all monetization rules, and will also inform you in which countries the Partner Program is available. Further, if you have already reached 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watching your videos in the last year, you will be able to apply for monetization. 

Payment is calculated between $0.30 – $2.50 for 1000 views. The exact amount depends on the number of your subscribers. To stay up to date with your channel’s stats, try Social Blade, Live Counts, or another YouTube subscriber’s tracker.

By becoming a Partner, making money on YouTube will be available in several ways: the above ad revenue, YouTube Premium subscription fees, as well as features related to your subscribers’ costs – Super Chat, channel member, and buying merchandise.

2. Sell Your Own Merchandise

Another way to ramp up your income on YouTube is to sell your own products to the audience. These can be clothing items, all kinds of cups, bags, and caps with a unique design, such as your brand logo. To sell a physical product, you will have to purchase materials to produce it, as well as involve manufacturers. If that’s not for you, take a closer look at virtual content like e-books, art prints, or online courses.

MrBeast’s merch can also be a successful example here. The product cannot leave indifferent almost anyone; it is very attractive and noticeable. The channel’s logo was developed in several versions, so almost every product is exclusive. MrBeast also draws inspiration for his merchandise from his creative YouTube video ideas. However, don’t go overboard with the assortment – the more items you offer, the easier it is to get confused.

To understand how profitable selling merchandise is, consider the example of PewDiePie, a real celebrity on this video platform. Although his focus on making money on YouTube is video games, he earns $6.83 million a year from merchandise sales.

3. Be Consistent with Your Branding

Talking about how YouTubers get paid, it is important to understand that the design of your YouTube channel should serve as a storefront, which demonstrates the essence of your activity even with appearance. Your subscribers need to understand who you are and what you offer them, and all this can be achieved with the proper branding. Find the recognizable style that will make you stand out.

Brand identity created by visuals is one of the most important components of your strategy. We advise you to create an intro for your channel, which will help your subscribers to get to know you better and what you dedicate your work to. Try Filmora9, Wideo, or another professional YouTube intro maker to cope with the task. Rest assured, with such programs, your video intro will grab the viewers’ attention and contribute to your brand recognition.

Wondering how it works? Find the Xbox channel on YouTube and look at its design – its main colors are white, black, gray, and neon green. Having visited this channel several times and watched a few videos, seeing the same color scheme and similar style will make you think of Xbox.

If you don’t want to spend time mastering video editing software for Windows, refer to the FixThePhoto video editing service. The experts will take into account all your wishes and requirements and you will promptly get a video that meets all industry standards.

4. Endorse Affiliate Products

Affiliate marketing is the promotion of a product or service of another brand on your channel, for which you receive a commission. As an affiliate marketer, you can include product placement, endorsements, and more in your content. We advise you to pay special attention to this type of monetization for those whose activities on YouTube are devoted to product reviews.

To get started with this method, you need to sign up with companies or affiliate programs that suit you best. After successful registration, you will get links to products, and you will be able to choose the most useful and interesting for your subscribers. Then you can simply include product links in the descriptions below your video. 

For a clearer idea of what this looks like in practice, check out Peter McKinnon’s channel. He is a popular YouTuber and affiliate marketer who makes money from links to buy various cameras and recording equipment from Amazon. 

Below each of his videos, you will find a link that will take you to the Amazon online store. When someone in his audience clicks on a link and subsequently buys that product, McKinnon gets a small commission. Its amount depends on the brand; the range is from 5% to 50%. In addition to the description below the video, the first comment is also a great place to post such a link. Be sure to pin it so your followers can always see it. The average income from this method is about $5,000.

5. Offer Channel Memberships 

Another method of making money on YouTube when you reach 30,000 subscribers is to launch channel memberships. It costs $4.99/month for your follower, and in return, he/she gets to watch your video earlier, write live chat messages for members, exclusive emojis, etc.

A viewer knows how hard it can be to get a YouTuber to pay attention to his/her question in the comments, so by becoming a member, his/her posts in the comments, chat, and Community tab will stand out. Don’t forget to remind people in your videos about the opportunity to become a channel member.

6. Use Crowdfunding

Another way to earn with YouTube is to collect donations online. Crowdfunding is a great way to make money, which can act as a regular income through small monthly donations, or to fund your channel project. You can find a list of approved crowdfunding websites on YouTube.

To ensure regular funding, look into Patreon, which makes it possible to publish exclusive videos and perks for your patrons. For a one-time fundraiser, GoFundMe or Kickstarter is more suitable.

A good example is Philip DeFranco’s independent news show, which appeared thanks to Patreon. As for specific numbers, with 30,000 subscribers, your earnings will vary in the range of $315 – $1575 per month.

7. Optimize Your Page with Search Ranking Optimization Tactics

To make your videos shown to users more often, try to master Search Ranking Optimization techniques. After keyword research, you will learn how to create suitable content and how to optimize the existing one. The challenge with choosing a good keyword is finding one that is popular enough but not too competitive. To find the perfect one based on real user queries, check out the Keyword Tool and Google Trends.

Selecting keywords for your titles, you should stick to your brand or video theme, as well as tags – they should be specific and relevant. As for numbers, the perfect title length is 50 – 60 characters, and the number of tags should be in the range of 10 – 15. Other tips to boost income on YouTube are to increase the visibility of your videos with closed captioning. 

Google and YouTube read and the index closed captions, making videos easier to find. What’s more, with the help of subtitles, your content will be available to more viewers, which will affect the number of views and rankings.

8. Monetize Live Streams via Super Chat 

While googling “How do YouTubers get paid”, you are likely to see Super Char and Super Stickers in the search results. These tools allow your subscribers to buy eye-catching chat messages or even pin them to the top of your live stream. To start monetizing your stream, activate Super Chat. Its monetization rates are $1 - $500, where YouTube owns 30% of the revenue.

In addition to exclusive emoticons and highlighted messages, your followers will have access to members-only rewards, such as a chat with you. It’s important to organize everything properly here – inform your subscribers about your live streams in your videos and on social networks where your audience is concentrated.

9. Encourage Subscribers to Try YouTube Premium

Invite your followers to subscribe to YouTube Premium – it’s a good way of making money on YouTube as well. This paid service allows them to watch videos without ads. Channel owners will automatically receive a 45% share of the revenue from their videos being watched by YouTube Premium subscribers. 

The overall distribution of revenue depends on the number of Premium subscribers viewing your videos. Another benefit of YouTube Premium is that users can watch your videos offline, as well as play them in the background, which increases your video’s watch hours.