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People often ask how they can make money on YouTube without actually making videos. This question can often create confusion as some might literally be asking how to make money without making a video at all. This leads to different strategies like using comments or asking YouTube channels if you could pay them to place your product or affiliate links in their video descriptions. In this article we are taking the question and taking it in the literal sense, meaning people are actually wondering how they can profit from YouTube without making videos.
Many people who answer this via blogs or YouTube videos don’t really address the question being asked because they end up telling you that you actually do need to create videos. In a sense they do not answer the question and feed you a bunch of bull. In this article, I will be giving you 2 strategies that you can actually use to make money on YouTube without making videos. These methods work if you do them right and do not spam. Let’s jump in.
Strategy 1
What you will be doing is research videos and channels in your niche to see how much traffic the video is getting daily, weekly, or monthly. We want to try and find some videos that do not really have links promoting anything in the description box of the video. This is an opportunity that the channel owner is missing out on, and you can also take advantage of this. At the end of the day, both the channel creator and you, will benefit from this strategy.
Let’s take the woodworking niche for this example.
Go to YouTube and type in some keywords related to your niche. Keywords that people are typing in because they want to learn how to do something or they are researching a product because they may be in the buying phase. For purposes of this tutorial we will use the example below but remember it works with any keyword, any niche. You will want to try to find videos that have more views in a less time period but again, this is just an example.
In the example image above I typed in how to make a wooden shoe rack. I found the first video that did not have a link in the description. In this case, the channel is pretty new and they do not have that many subscribers either. Which is also a good thing because they are most likely not making any money from their YouTube channel at this point.
If you were to contact them and tell them you want to give them money, do you think they would be open to this? You bet they would be.
So what we can do now is go to their YouTube channel page, then go to “about” section and scroll down to see if they have a business email that we are allowed to contact them on. Sure enough, we can see in the image below that they do want to be contacted.
Now we gather their email address and now we can organize an email.
The email can go something like this:
Hello Jamie!
I just ran into your YouTube channel and I must say, it is truly inspiring and high quality. I have a product in the woodworking niche that I think your audience would love to check out. It gives them access to a library of woodworking plans for one low price.
I would be willing to pay you $50 per month if you added my link to this video.
Please let me know if you are interested in partnering on this with me. I appreciate your time.
Sincerely,
Kevin
Ok, so a couple things for you. It does not have to be for only 1 video, it could be for several videos on their channel. Also it does not have to be $50. It could be more or less depending on what you are willing to pay and what you see the value of it being. If the video is getting hundreds or thousands of views per day, then it is most likely worth more than $50. In the case above it is a very small YT channel and the video is not getting that much traffic so you may want to stick with $25 or $50 and perhaps ask if they can place the link on other videos as well.
Use your brain and common sense when coming up with what you are willing to pay for the service.
Wrapping up this strategy.
I wanted to show you a strategy that will allow you to get traffic to your product or affiliate product on YouTube but without actually creating any content or videos yourself. This one is extremely effective if you find the right channels to implement this strategy. Now let’s look at the next strategy in this article that will allow you to make money on YouTube without creating videos.
Strategy 2
This strategy will require some thinking outside the box and you will need a couple videos on your YouTube channel. This method will involve utilizing comments to drive traffic back to your YT channel and getting a portion of that traffic to click your links and send them to your website or any other offer you have.
You still will not have to create any videos if you do not want to . You can go to Fiverr.com and hire from a number of YouTube content creators on the platform. Some services even so the entire thing for you. You just give them a keyword and they create a script, voice over, and high quality video.
In this example we will use the weight loss niche. Find a good product on Clickbank or DigiStore24 in the weight loss niche to promote as an affiliate.
Next, create your YouTube channel in this niche.
Hire video creator. This will take a few days to get the video created. You can aim for 1 to 5 videos to get created.
Now that you have your product, YT channel, and some videos on the channel. You are now ready to implement this strategy. Let’s jump into the gold!
Find a bunch of keywords in the YouTube search bar related to your video topics. now go to videos that were published within the last 24 hours or the past week that are getting a lot of traffic.
Go to the comments section and drop a really high quality comment related to the video. Important: do not spam. The comment needs to add value and really be natural. At the end of your comment you can say something like, I just started my weight loss Youtube Channel.
Leave it at that. Don’t even ask people to click or check it out. They naturally will if you left a great comment. Many people will be curious to see what a new YT channel looks like and what kind of info you may have.
Now you are driving real traffic back to your YT channel to videos that you did not create yourself. and of course you have your affiliate links in all your video descriptions and on your Channel link in the top right hand corner of your Youtube banner.
This method is very powerful because you are driving real traffic to your offers. And at the same time you are growing your YouTube channel at the same time. This method will also bring you real views and subscribers to your channel.
The other method that you do have to make videos but not with your own content
Let me now show you another method that allows you to make money from YouTube without making videos, but with a twist. You will have to do some simple video editing and research. You will not have to create the content yourself. You can take other peoples videos that they have given you legal licenses to use the content and you can make some cool videos with this. There are thousands of videos to choose from in any niche. Let me jump in and show you what I mean.
Creative Commons
What is creative commons?
Creative Commons licenses give a standard way for content creators to grant someone else permission to use their work. YouTube allows creators to mark their videos with a Creative Commons CC BY license. … Other creators get to reuse your work subject to the terms of the license. (google support).
What does this mean for you?
This means that we can search for content on YouTube or Google that is labeled as creative commons and we can use it as our own content. Pretty darn cool, right?
Here is how to do it on YouTube.
Step 1. Put a keyword into the search bar and push search. In this example we will use how to train your dog to not chew on furniture.
Next step is to select the filter option and click on creative commons shown in red below.
What this will do is give you all the videos on YouTube that have a creative commons license and that you are able to use the content and videos however you please. I recommend creating new videos and adding a little of your own commentary, voice over, text, or music to make it your own unique video.
You can do compliation style videos or just use some of one video and then add your own content.
Now are you seeing the value of this strategy? We do not have to film our dog or get on camera. We can let others do the hard work for us.
You will need a video editor to clean up the video and make it your own. Also if you will be combining multiple videos you will need a simple video editor as well.
Recommended Video Editors
Free open source – Openshot.org
Paid tools – WeVideo (affiliate link) and Camtasia
You can select from a number of video editors free and paid. With WeVideo editor it does cost money but it has millions of stock images and video that you are allowed to use in your videos for content and they will be able to be monetized on your YouTube channel. I highly recommend WeVideo but you can also use any other tool you find. As long as you are able to upload your creative commons video and that it has a video editor timeline, you should be good to go.
How can you rank your videos for optimal results?
There are several ranking factors including user engagement, likes, comments, amount of views, viewer retention and many others. Some of these factors we really cannot control but some of the SEO aspects we absolutely can control and improve.
Adding captions could lead to a 7.32% increase in views, which translates into more views and more money in your pocket.
We can also optimize our video descriptions to rank higher and tell YouTube algorithm exactly what our video is about.
If we use SEO to optimize our video title, description, and make sure to have a very appealing video thumbnail, we will surely be on our way to more rankings and more views.
We can control these factors and so focus your time on optimising and adjusting the things you can control.
Don’t try to game the system and “trick” YouTube. At the end of the day it won’t work and you will waste time and money. If your video is good then it will get views and rankings, simple as that.
Record a call to action in your videos
This is important because if you do not have a CTA or call to action in your video, then you will not make any affiliate commissions or sales of your own products. Don’t be pushy about the sale but if you put together high quality content then the viewers will not mind if at the end or beginning of the video you mention the valuable product that you recommend that is closely related to the video topic.
Add links in your video descriptions
Make sure to add links in the video description because without these you also won’t make commissions. This one goes hand in hand with the tip above as your CTA should lead people to click the first link or links in the video description and this will allow you to send buyer traffic to your offer.
Tips to start making money on YouTube without making videos
I hope you enjoyed this detailed step by step article walking you through how to make money on YouTube without making videos yourself. You can use the first 2 strategies in this article to make money without making videos at all or doing any video editing.
If you want to take it to the next step then you can utilize the other methods in this article for using creative commons videos and a video editor to build a YouTube empire. You don’t have to come up with the actual video content, be on screen, or record anything. You simply take other people’s videos and make them your own.
Remember to use common sense with this strategy. If you simply take creative commons videos and download and re-upload them to YT this will not work. YT Algorithm is super smart and will know that it is the same exact video and will give all the rankings and views to the original video.
You must do something unique to the video in order to make it “original” content and to get the YT algorithm to notice your video and get people to watch it.
Selling online courses and placing affiliate links can really beef up your income on your YouTube channel as well.
There are many affiliate programs to choose from and these will allow you to make passive income month after month. If you were to get a viral video and millions of views then you obviously would be making bank. You could also collect leads into your email list and send them to an autoresponder series to make even more sales. Now each time you do a product review you would have subscribers to get immediate traffic from. These continued product reviews would bring you monthly income like clockwork.
Let’s look at different monetization methods and what they look like.
Monetization
YouTube monetization can happen in a number of ways . The most common monetization strategies are through sponsors or sponsorships, selling your own products, being an affiliate and selling products through your affiliate links. Any of these methods are sure to increase your revenue.
You can also get a YouTube Partner program to increase your revenue each month and it is a nice chunk of change. However, it will never be your largest revenue stream on your YouTube channel.
Just don’t sell out and only offer products that your audience will enjoy and utilize.
Conclusion
Thank you for reading this step by step tutorial and all our different methods of making money online using YouTube and not having to make videos yourself. There are plenty of methods and strategies in this article and you can select one or all of them or use them all in combination to truly go out and kill it!
Remember, taking action is the number one thing you can do with your online business. You will not see results unless you implement these strategies and take major action.
If you are interested in starting your online business the right way and do what I do then click here. (paid link) and I will show you how to build a recurring monthly commission business the right way.
