How to Become a YouTuber and Get Paid: 14 Easy Steps

Some people get paid for doing what they are genuinely good at. Elsewhere, you have those who get paid for doing what they love. Then there are the lucky few who enjoy the best of both worlds, earning money doing things they love and have a real talent for. If you’ve been wondering how to become a YouTuber and start getting paid, you’ve come to the right place.

YouTube has a total global audience of about 2 billion users worldwide. There are currently around 39 million active YouTube channels, equating to tens of millions of content creators looking to make it big. The truth is, anyone can make money on YouTube in modest amounts.

Monetising a YouTube channel isn’t particularly difficult. All you need is at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past year in order to start making money. But simply meeting the basic requirements isn’t enough to become a genuinely successful YouTuber.

If your goal is to turn your YouTube channel into a serious money-maker, you need to take things beyond the basics. The question is – how to become a YouTuber and make decent money when faced with such ferocious competition?

How To Become a YouTuber and Get Paid?

Again, fulfilling YouTube’s requirements to monetize your channel is not particularly difficult. You simply need at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past year – both of which you can buy to get you over the line. Once you meet these criteria, you can apply to become a verified YouTuber.

Being verified can add credibility to your channel and let your audience know that you are a trusted content creator. After getting verified, it’s all about engagement. The more people watching your videos and taking an interest in what you do, the more likely you are to make good money. Ultimately, it is the quality and consistency of the content you put out that will determine the outcome.

Even so, becoming a successful YouTuber begins by asking several important questions about your intentions. With this in mind, here’s a brief overview of 13 tried, tested, and trusted tips for becoming a successful YouTuber and making money from your efforts:

1. Decide a Niche and Define “Why”?

First up, you need to decide exactly what you intend to focus your efforts on. Building a successful channel and YouTube means first establishing exactly what type of content you intend to publish. To make a success of your channel, you need to focus on something you are good at and genuinely passionate about.

The Niche you choose needs to mean something to you and be something that will keep you energized and motivated long-term. Never choose a niche based on what you think your viewers want – stick with something that is true to your own interests and personality.

2. Set a Goal

Setting a long-term goal for your YouTube channel is essential and should be as clearly defined as possible. For example, will you consider your channel successful when you have 1 million subscribers, or would you be happy simply to start earning $100 per week to supplement your wages?

In the meantime, setting shorter-term goals can be great for maintaining motivation. For example, you could first set your sights on getting 500 people watching your videos each day, followed by 1000, then 10,000, and so on. Keep things realistic and set viable short-term goals you can actually accomplish.

3. Determine Your Target Audience

Once you have determined your Niche, you need to think about exactly who you will be aiming your content at. Creating videos without a defined target audience in mind is a recipe for failure. Even the most creative content ideas fall short if they are targeting the wrong audience.

Take the time to build a profile of your perfect subscriber, then go after them with all you’ve got. While creating content, think about who would appreciate it, where they are located, when they are active on YouTube, and what you can do to engage them.

4. Research Competitors Relevant to the Niche

Competitor research can open the door to limitless inspiration on YouTube. Not in the mind of copying other creators outright, but instead seeing how they do what they do. And where possible, find ways to outperform them with your own content. Go through their library and see which of their videos have performed best.

Look at the topics they focus on and consider how you could put your own spin on them. While doing so, don’t be afraid to interact with their subscribers, with the goal of bringing them over to your own channel.

5. Create a YouTube Channel Page

It’s also essential to create a YouTube channel page that differentiates you from your competitors. Creating a channel page is essentially a branding exercise, giving you the opportunity to showcase your unique personality.

Be mindful of the fact that every aspect of your channel page will be scrutinized by your target audience. Every image, every word, and certainly your channel trailer – are all major contributors to how your channel and content are interpreted.

6. Use High-Quality Equipment

Overedited and airbrushed content are rarely well-received on YouTube. At the same time, content that smacks amateur hour is equally unattractive. You don’t need to go nuts with the editing and special effects, but you definitely need to focus on the quality of your content.

These days, most everyday smartphones are good enough for shooting decent YouTube content. Just be mindful of the fact that any issues with the quality of the video (or the accompanying audio track) will make it difficult for people to take your work seriously.

7. Create a Content Schedule

Your posting schedule should reflect the times your target audience is at its most active and engaged. This means researching when your users are most active on the platform in order to tailor your content schedule accordingly.

If it’s more convenient to do so, you can use a scheduling tool to automate some of your publishing tasks. But as engagement plays a major role in building a successful YouTube channel, you’ll need to ensure you’re as active as possible when your viewers are.

8. Add CTAs

It’s easy to underestimate the power and influence of a simple CTA. Time and time again, research has shown that one of the best ways to get people to take action is to simply tell them what you want them to do.

If you want them to leave a like, ask them to do so in your videos. If you want them to subscribe to your channel, remind them in your video descriptions. You can also add CTAs to your comments and comment replies, just as long as you avoid coming across as pushy.

9. Promote Your Channel

The truth is, publishing stellar content alone isn’t enough. Promoting your YouTube channel plays an equally important role, as it’s your job to build hype around your videos. This is where your other social media channels can be worth their weight in gold as promotional channels for your YouTube content.

Every time you publish something new on YouTube, let the whole world know about it. If planning on publishing something special, count down to the event like it’s a big deal. Don’t expect your content to automatically find its way into the hands of the right people; it won’t.

10. Catch (the Right) Trends

A common mistake made by many creators is attempting to get on every bandwagon that comes along. Catching trends can be great, but only if they are of genuine relevance to your target audience.

Following the crowd with every trend that comes along indicates desperation, combined with a total lack of imagination. Before you attempt to leverage any current or upcoming trend on YouTube, consider whether or not it is genuinely appropriate for your viewers.

11. Learn to Use YouTube Analytics

Getting to grips with the basics of YouTube Analytics will empower you with the information you need to make positive decisions for your channel. Analytics essentially provides you with a blueprint for success, with a clear and concise summary of what works, what doesn’t, and what needs to be improved.

All aspects of your long-term growth strategy on YouTube should be based on information extracted from Analytics. Why make things up as you go along when you have a comprehensive archive of accurate data and reports to base your decisions on?

12. Understand YouTube SEO

Ensuring your videos appear prominently in the YouTube search results holds the key to building a successful channel. After all, you can’t expect your channel to stack up subscribers in viable numbers if nobody knows it exists.

This is where an understanding of Youtube SEO pays dividends. Your job is to embed SEO-friendly keywords and search terms into your written copy in order to make your videos easier to find. Video titles, descriptions, tags, comments, and more – are all great places to tell the YouTube algorithm what your content is about.

13. Respond to Comments

Encouraging viewers to comment on your videos is essential for generating engagement and interaction. But what’s just as important is ensuring you respond as promptly as possible to every comment you receive.

Irrespective of whether the original comment is positive, negative, or neutral, it still warrants a reply. Comment replies are an important demonstration of interest and engagement on the part of the creator. By contrast, creators who sit silently on the sidelines are never as appealing.

14. Build Your Audience

Last up, and every effort needs to be made to get more YouTube subscribers for your channel. The more people who subscribe to your channel, the easier it becomes to start making decent money. Bear in mind that most revenues generated on YouTube are proportionate to the number of viewers the respective channel has.

The more subscribers you have, the easier it becomes to get paid sponsors on board. Whether your goal is to stack up a million subscribers or just a few thousand, it’s a task that needs to be prioritized from day one.

Conclusion

Monetising a YouTube channel is fairly straightforward, but generating decent revenues on YouTube is a different matter entirely. It’s natural to assume that becoming a successful YouTuber is all about putting out great content.

Quality content plays a role, but you also need to work on your broader channel growth strategy. This means taking every opportunity to promote your channel, interact with your target audience and appeal to YouTube out the rhythm.

It also means getting to grips with the basics of YouTube analytics and knowing how to make your content stand out with strategic SEO. Bring each of the tips above into your YouTube strategy, and you could be turning a decent profit from your efforts in no time.

How to Become a YouTuber?