Do you want to make money on YouTube? Millions of creators are earning a very good living from the platform by uploading content that drives huge views and engagements. Whether that income is from advertising revenue, merch sales, or brand deals, we keep you updated with best practises and ideas.

How To Make Money on YouTube

Do you know how to do keyword research so you understand what videos people are actually searching for on YouTube? Do you know how to create a custom YouTube thumbnail? Do you know how to create a Playlist on YouTube?

vidIQ has a ton of tips that will help every creator maximise their video content. We publish content every week to keep you up to date with all the best practices.

YouTube Tips & Tricks

YouTube Shorts content is set to explode! 

All the latest tips, tricks, and rock-solid advice you need for this new feature.

YouTube Shorts

Ask any YouTuber and they will tell you that generating significant views and subscribers isn't easy. But with the right strategy and tools, any video creator can build an engaged subscriber base when they understand what those subscribers want to watch.

Appealing to an audience to watch content you are passionate about making is just the first step, you need to know how to reach them and get your videos discovered. Our guides to how to guide more views on YouTube will give you the best tips to succeed on the platform.

How To Get More Views on YouTube

Six months ago, we told creators to experiment with YouTube Shorts. We advised them to film vertical videos under 60 seconds (as the requirements suggest), post them to YouTube, and create a featured section on their channel to house the content.

Why did we suggest this? In just a few weeks, we saw channels getting thousands of views from Shorts. They mostly came from the YouTube Shorts shelf, a display area where different Shorts are featured. By the time a creator’s video left the shelf, it would have hundreds, thousands, or millions of views.

That’s how powerful Shorts are. With them, you can gain more subscribers in two weeks than you’ve had all year. Without them, you’ll miss a valuable opportunity to get discovered on the platform.

How to Create a YouTube Short: The Complete Beginner's Guide

If you want to know exactly why that is, watch our latest video about Shorts and the competition that’s quickly surrounding them.

The best time to post a Short was months ago. But if you hurry, you can still reap the benefits of creating content that gets played millions of times.

Need a push to get started? Here are three undeniable reasons to experiment with Shorts.

Reason 1: Creators Are Still Getting More Views and Subscribers From YouTube Shorts

The first reason is a little obvious but worth repeating. Extra views from Shorts have helped many channels grow, and they’ve got the numbers to prove it.

. In September 2020, he had 40k total channel views. After posting original, 3D-animated Shorts, he now has more than 3M subscribers and almost 2B views.

How This YouTube Creator Got 1.5 Billion Views In Just 80 Days

Jake isn’t the only creator to reap the benefits of Shorts. There’s also MrBeast, a popular creator who grew his 

 to 4.79M subscribers. Professional YouTube channels such as 

 have Shorts with more than 200k views each. Members of the vidIQ community have seen explosive growth, and some TikTok creators have successfully transitioned to Shorts.

You could be next if you act now. Shorts are viewed 3.5B times each day, so there are plenty of people willing to watch your videos.

Reason 2: Pretty Soon, You’ll Have to Compete With Creators From the U.S.

Did you hear the news? Beginning in March, U.S. creators will get a beta version of the in-app Shorts camera.

The announcement came from Neal Mohan, chief product officer at YouTube. On Feb. 17, he shared the news in a 

“Currently, Shorts is available in beta in India. Since the beginning of December, the number of Indian channels using Shorts creation tools has more than tripled... In the coming weeks, we'll begin expanding the beta to the U.S., unlocking our tools to even more creators so they can get started with Shorts.”

To be clear, anyone can post a Short today. As long as a video is vertical and under 60 seconds, YouTube will recognize it as a Short. What Mohan is mentioning above refers to a TikTok-style camera that’s only available in India. With it, creators can record, edit, and post Shorts directly inside the app, adding music and other special effects to their content.

When the U.S. market gets the Shorts camera, things are going to get very competitive. More creators will have tools for creating better Shorts. Plus, thousands of people who never posted a Short will do so just because there’s a new feature encouraging it.

In the coming weeks, it’s going to be harder to do what creators like Jake, MrBeast, and LegalEagle have done. Rather than wait, it's better to experiment with Shorts right now.

Reason 3: If YouTube Monetizes Shorts, You Can Make More Money

Right now, there’s no way to monetize Shorts. The Shorts display area doesn't support ads, and advertisers may not want to appear on a seconds-long video.

But if you think about YouTube’s history, things are always changing at the company

Just because creators aren’t making money from

Shorts today, that doesn’t mean they won’t in the next five or 10 years.

It's likely YouTube isn’t doing this for free. With content as popular as Shorts, the platform could be searching for ways to monetize it as we type.

Before that happens, put yourself in a position to earn Shorts revenue. If you start posting them now, you can increase your chance of monetizing that content.

Use These Tools to Start Leveraging YouTube Shorts

Even if you decide to post a few Shorts, you’ll need a way to measure their impact on your channel. When you 

, you’ll find two powerful tools within the Chrome extension – one for tracking Shorts views and another for researching popular Shorts on YouTube.

This dashboard is on the top right corner of all YouTube pages. Hover your mouse over the menu to discover how many Shorts views your channel earned in the last 48 hours. For easy access, click the box beside this metric to add it to your dashboard.

This tool lets you research the most-viewed videos on YouTube for any keyword. To access it, go to the YouTube Studio and click 

Type #Shorts into the search bar, then filter the results to show channels with 1,000 or less subscribers. This will show you all of the small channels on YouTube getting tons of views with Shorts. You can use this as motivation to start posting your Shorts or an idea generator for future Shorts.

Shorts are doing well on YouTube. They’re going to be around for a long time, so don’t wait to post your first vertical, less-than-a-minute video. Do it now to reap the benefits before creators in both India and the U.S. can do the same.

Is it too late to capitalize on the viral nature of YouTube Shorts? No, not yet. But in the coming weeks, it may be harder to stand out with short video content.

3 Reasons to Upload YouTube Shorts Before the Competition Gets Tough

YouTube shorts are the new hot trending topic in the YouTube world. But what are they? 

YouTube has not been totally clear about how they work, so we decided to do our own investigation into YouTube Shorts.

On this episode of TubeTalk, vidIQ's own Rob Wilson, Dan Carson, and Liron Segev answer all your YouTube Shorts questions including:

What are the requirements for creating them?

Do you need to have #shorts in the title and description?

Should you put Shorts on your main channel

Want to Know Even More About YouTube Shorts?

How Creators Can Get More Views With YouTube Shorts

Can You Get 1 Million YouTube Views By Making Short Videos?

YouTube Shorts: What We Know About How They Work

TubeTalk has been informing video creators and marketers since 2014, and is one of the most respected and listened to podcasts in the online video industry. Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE to TubeTalk on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode!

You can also find the complete list of all the

In this episode of TubeTalk, vidIQ does its own investigation into YouTube Shorts. You're welcome.

YouTube Shorts: The Ultimate Guide

To say 2020 has been weird is an understatement! So as we round off the year and head into the final quarter of 2020, what should we focus on as YouTube creators?

While it's easy to be despondent, you can easily double-down on the skills you have and still finish this year on a high note! In this episode of TubeTalk, we're joined by YouTube mastermind Benji Travis. As one of the guys behind the influential 

, he knows a thing or two about YouTube success! In this episode you will learn:

Important lessons for creators from the 2008 recession

That you have skills that businesses need

Want to Know the Five Big Mistakes YouTubers Make?

Benji has joined us before on TubeTalk to talk about the top five mistakes YouTube creators often make. These mistakes can often block their path to success. 

TubeTalk has been the #1 podcast for video creators and marketers since 2014. It's one of the most respected and listened to podcasts in the online video industry, so don't forget to SUBSCRIBE to TubeTalk on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode!

You can also find the complete list of all the 

2020 has been a very challenging year, but YouTube creators can still end the year on a successful note. Find out how in this episode of TubeTalk.

What YouTube Creators Need to Focus on for the Rest of 2020

Convincing viewers to subscribe to your YouTube channel may be the hardest thing you’ll ever do. It takes time and effort to create unwavering loyalty among viewers, so of course, no one gains millions of subscribers overnight. 

In fact, before that happens, you may ask viewers to ‘like, comment, and subscribe’ hundreds of times.

But once you get the number you’re looking for - several hundred, a thousand, or even hundreds of thousands - that’s going to feel amazing. All the hard work of starting a channel, sticking to a niche, and uploading consistently will finally be justified.

And guess what? Nothing will bring you down - not the army of bots spamming your videos with sub4sub comments, not even the discrepancy between 

. Nothing will steal your joy except maybe, quite possibly, seeing a number like this on your channel analytics dashboard:

By the way, that’s how many subscribers our YouTube channel, 

, has lost since joining the platform: 349,032.

But why does this happen? How can any creator lose so many subscribers on a free platform?

If you’re experiencing the same thing, don’t worry. 

The relationship between creators and viewers is just like any other. It goes through changes, seasons of uncertainty, and sometimes it ends altogether. To prepare yourself for the impact of losing fans, watch our “Why Am I Losing Subscribers” video on YouTube:

As long as you’re gaining more subscribers than you’re losing, that’s a win. But if you need more proof, here are six reasons why all YouTube creators lose subscribers at some point:

7 Reasons Why Your YouTube Channel is Losing Views (And How To Fix It)

1. You’ll Lose Subscribers when YouTube Deletes Fraudulent Accounts

It’s true. Now and then, YouTube audits your list of subscribers to track down annoying bots and spam accounts. This process includes some form of account verification, and if YouTube detects any suspicious activity, it may remove those accounts from your subscriber list or the platform altogether.

In the past, YouTube performed these audits three or four times a year, but the process is more nuanced today. Instead of waiting for bot and spam accounts to pile up through the year, YouTube audits accounts in real-time -  or at least within 24 to 48 hours of you gaining new subscribers. That lets the platform remove illicit users as soon as they subscribe.

 from your channel, just know this: There's nothing to worry about, and it’s not your fault. Your subscriber count may decrease, but that just means your channel - and all of YouTube - is becoming a better place for viewers and creators alike. Here's some info on that topic:

2. Viewer Fatigue Can Make Fans Unsubscribe

Have you ever stopped watching your favorite YouTube channels for no particular reason, even though you enjoy the content?

If so, you’re not alone. Thousands of people experience viewer fatigue on YouTube, and if that feeling becomes too heavy, unsubscribing is just one way for viewers to reclaim their headspace.

Rob Wilson, our YouTuber in residence here at vidIQ, found himself in that exact predicament. In 2015, he fell in love with the work of filmmaker and storyteller 

. Around 7 p.m. each night, he’d watch his daily vlogs after downing a cup of tea, which became his ritual for 18 months.

But one day, Casey decided he wouldn't upload daily vlogs anymore and took a break from YouTube. When he returned to the platform, he also decided to post non-vlog content every few days. All of that led to Rob watching less of Casey’s videos over time.

The interesting thing though, is that Rob maintained his subscription to Casey’s channel for quite a while. Only after seeing Casey’s videos constantly pop up, and realizing he was never going to watch them, did Rob finally hit unsubscribe.

3. Viewers Unsubscribe When They Outgrow Your Channel

 and watch our videos regularly, you know our value proposition to you. As you embark on the journey of mastering YouTube, we educate you on how to overcome the challenges of being a creator. 

But does that mean we're going to educate you from zero subscribers to 100 million subscribers? Probably not.

It's not feasible to target every YouTuber - the beginners, the intermediate, the advanced - so we speak to one particular audience. Right now, those viewers have channels with less than 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of Watch Time. Basically, they’re working toward 

When you reach 50,000 subscribers and have already monetized your channel, your relationship with us could change. If we're honest, maybe the vidIQ channel is no longer for you when you’ve secured huge brand deals and sponsorships.

Always remember that your viewers are on a journey of self-discovery. They may outgrow your channel as their interests change, and that’s OK. There are more than 2 billion monthly users discovering new things on YouTube, and many of them will fall in love with your past, present, and future content.

4. Viewers Unsubscribe When You Don’t Post Evergreen Content

As a creator, you should understand the potential shelf life of the topics you cover. 

For example, if you started a YouTube channel about fidget spinners back in 2016, where would you be now? Fidget spinners are still cool, but nobody's watching videos about them. And what about the cultural phenomenon that was “Game of Thrones"? The television series was popular on YouTube for 10 years, but unfortunately, the show ended.

I think ASMR is a good topic to evaluate too. It had phenomenal growth in the last five years, and prior to that, many of us didn't know what that abbreviation meant. Now it seems to be an ever-expanding universe with no end in sight. However, as a creator, you can’t be blindsided by its current popularity. There has to be an inflection point somewhere in the future where the topic plateaus or dips in popularity.

If there’s a trend you want to cover on YouTube, act fast, and enjoy the extra views and subscribers you may receive. Just keep in mind the probability of your audience unsubscribing when the trend inevitably dies.

5. YouTube is Competitive. Viewers May Unsubscribe to Watch a Better Channel

This is a bold statement, but probably true nonetheless: If we uploaded videos about YouTube growth education 10 years ago, we’d have millions of subscribers right now. That's because a decade ago, there were fewer YouTube education channels to compete with.

Because there are so many good channels today, including our own, the views and exposure in this niche are divided amongst several creators. So here’s a reminder for every YouTuber: 

If you stand still, never seeking to improve your channel, someone better is going to take your audience.

It wasn't always this way. A decade ago, individual creators making content from their bedrooms dominated YouTube. But these days, YouTube is filled with traditional media companies who’ve taken the platform seriously, or new groups creating phenomenal channels run by skilled production teams. The world is realizing the power of video, so it's becoming increasingly difficult for individual creators to dominate YouTube. 

It's possible, of course. Just extremely challenging.

To make sure your audience grows with you, do everything in your power to become a better content creator with each upload.

6. Viewers Unsubscribe When You Don’t Stick to One Niche

And now, let's talk about the one thing we always cover: the focus of your YouTube channel.

To start, here’s a scenario among viewers and creators that happens repeatedly. After watching one of your videos, new viewers will subscribe to your channel under the assumption that the video they watched reflects your entire channel. 

But upon diving deeper, those viewers may realize your channel is all over the place. They may find gaming content, sports commentary, DIY challenges, and crafting videos during a five-minute scan. All those unrelated topics make it hard to know what a channel is really about.

To keep your audience, don't confuse them by uploading videos about many different topics. 

Instead, try to stick to your channel’s niche. It’s OK to branch out a bit and even ride the wave of certain trends, but you should only do that when they align with your channel’s focus. We did a video on the simple mistakes creators often make on YouTube that includes advice on niching down on your content:

So, losing subscribers is a natural part of the YouTube journey. I would estimate that channels with a million subscribers have lost 100,000 along the way - and I'm probably being generous with that number. 

Your current subscriber count is the number to pay attention to

. If it keeps decreasing overall, analyze your YouTube data to see what’s going wrong and get yourself back on track.

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level and 

 then make sure to download vidIQ. Join over 1 million other users and use vidIQ to help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

And if you’re really serious about growing your YouTube views and subscribers, sign up for exclusive access to the 

 and learn how to launch a successful YouTube Channel in just 30 days.

Are you slowly losing subscribers on your YouTube channel? Here’s why.

6 Honest Reasons You Might Be Losing YouTube Subscribers

When you created your YouTube channel, you probably had an idea of what your videos would be about. Whether you wanted to create Fortnite gaming tutorials, comedic sketches, or hours upon hours of pranks, you at least had 

But here’s a question worth asking yourself: 

Does your audience know what your channel is about? 

It almost seems silly to ask, especially if you’ve been pumping out very specific content. Nonetheless, it’s worth answering to make sure you’re on the right track. For example, if you think your channel is about one topic while your audience thinks it’s about something totally different, that tiny misconception could block your channel’s growth.

Fortunately, a new panel within the YouTube Studio can help. To see if you and your audience are on the same page about the content you create, just keep reading.

YouTube’s ‘Audience Watched’ Panel Is a Data Goldmine

Most likely, your audience watches a wide variety of YouTube videos within your niche. To get a glimpse of what that content is - and whether that proves you have a clear, concise channel by comparison - make your way to YouTube’s new audience panel:

From most YouTube desktop screens, click your profile image in the top right corner and go to the YouTube Studio.

You should arrive at the main analytics screen. In the uppermost menu, click on the ‘Audience’ tab.

About a third of the way down the screen, probably on the right side, you’ll see a panel called ‘Other videos your audience watched’.

You’ll know you’ve reached the panel when you see something that looks like this:

Or, if you need some extra guidance and would rather hear and see the instructions in real-time, watch our video tutorial:

Not Seeing Any Audience Data? Here’s Why

While some of you may see the ‘audience watched’ panel above, a lot of you might not because of a lack of data.

There are a few reasons why no data is appearing in this panel. It might be because you're violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines or your content is made for kids, which means YouTube won’t collect any audience information. But most likely, it’s because you don't have enough data on your YouTube channel.

To get a more scientific reason for this issue, we went to our beloved vidIQ community to see what their ‘audience watched’ panels look like. 

After creating a poll on our Community Tab, we discovered that 13% of creators in our community found the panel and could see some data. Unfortunately, another 18% could see the panel but no data. And much worse, 14% said they couldn't see the panel at all. The remaining 55% chose a throwaway option, which said, "I’m going to vote here to spoil your data." I guess we walked right into that one, but still, it kind of hurt. We laughed it off in the end. Sort of.

This poll tells us less than half of our typical vidIQ audience is able to see this panel (with data). Our typical audience includes channels under 1,000 subscribers, less than 4,000 hours of Watch Time, and any channel working toward YouTube monetization. 

So that could be a reason some channels (or yours) have zero data. You might need to increase your channel’s Watch Time so YouTube has enough data to work with.

If You Have Zero Audience Watched Data, Use This vidIQ Tool Instead

If you aren't getting any data from the ‘audience watched’ panel, vidIQ has an alternative. As long as you have vidIQ installed, follow this path to get the data you need:

In your YouTube Studio homepage, go to the left menu and click ‘Channel Audit’.

On the next screen, you should see a huge report card on your channel. Scroll down, look to the right, and find a section called ‘Top Suggested’:

Free users can see this section, but paid users can click on it and get a full list of videos. This is essentially what YouTube’s ‘audience watched’ tool would have shown you.

How to Use the 'Other Videos Your Audience Watched' Panel

OK, back to the YouTube audience tool itself. This panel shows you what your audience watched on YouTube over the last seven days. At the time of writing, it shows you 15 videos split into three pages, and you can click on either the video title or the channel’s name to view the content. These videos aren’t sorted by age, the number of views, or channel size, but it’s worth looking through all of them if you can.

Now, here comes the real question: Why is this so important? The basic premise is that the content your audience watches on other channels should be the content they enjoy watching on your channel. That’s how YouTube encourages you to use this tool. You can use it to find new video topics, title and thumbnail ideas, and collaboration opportunities.

And here’s the most important thing to know: 

No matter what you, the creator, think your channel is about, your audience thinks it’s about the topic in your 'audience watched' panel.

How to Research ‘Audience Watched’ YouTube Data

OK, let’s do an experiment using the vidIQ channel. In our ‘audience watched' panel, we should see a list of videos that reflect our target audience.

How to Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers on YouTube in 2020

How to Stop Haters, Trolls, and Spammers on YouTube

How to Color Grade in Adobe Premiere Pro for Beginners

How to Get 100 Subscribers on YouTube Every Day

Dream & MrBeast Gaming Speedrunning 10 Million Subscribers Live 

It's great to see our friends at Think Media on the list. And YouTube is right on the money with a video about how to get your first 1,000 subscribers in 2020. That's the type of content we make, no doubt. 

Nick Nimmin is also on the list with a video about haters, trolls, and spammers. We recently did a video on 

Interestingly, there’s a video about color grading in Adobe Premiere Pro, a video editor. That's something we don't cover on the vidIQ channel, so YouTube doesn't always get it right when it comes to mixed audiences. And finally, another video we're happy to be connected with is fourth on the list: How to get 100 subscribers on YouTube.

But the next two are subscriber battles, which is cause for concern. We’ve tested the topic on the vidIQ channel with great success, gaining tons of subscribers from each video. However, they aren't necessarily what we cover every single day. Instead, we're about YouTube education and growth.

If YouTube suggests this content to our audience, they may be left a little disappointed. Everything else on the list looks pretty good, though. If anything, this panel confirms we should do more videos about how to get a certain number of subscribers, how to grow your channel, how to get 100 subscribers every day, and how to get more views.

Can you see the value of this panel and its data? We've been able to learn so much about our YouTube channel in two minutes.

How to Track YouTube Channels That Share Your Audience

With the new ‘audience watched’ panel, YouTube empowers creators to research the targeted and mixed audiences on their channel. But, guess what? vidIQ has a tool to help you track the audiences you share with other creators.

As mentioned earlier, you can click on any of the videos in this audience watch panel to jump straight to the watch page for that video. Well, you can also do this from our channel audit tool. Once you’re on the watch page, next to the likes and dislikes, you'll see a vidIQ button that looks like this:

Next, click the button to reveal an ‘Add competitor’ menu option. Once you select that, you can add the channel of the video you’re currently watching to your competitor list. That allows you to track their most successful videos via views per hour.

If you share an audience as YouTube already suggests, it's likely you can make similar content. It's more likely to be suggested by YouTube and most importantly, watched and enjoyed by more viewers within that audience.

So, what does your audience think your YouTube channel is about? If you’re not sure, all you have to do is follow the data.

If you're new to vidIQ, our creator-obsessed goal is to educate you on your YouTube journey. We help you 

 and create an outstanding career on YouTube, one you can be proud of. For competitor research tools, video analysis, and helpful channel audits, 

YouTube recently released a new audience data tool. If you’re not sure who your audience is or how they behave, let’s explore all the ways it could get you more views.

How to Get More Views from YouTube’s Audience Data Tool

Phone numbers, passers-by, and license plate numbers are common things that often end up in YouTube video footage. But according to YouTube’s 

, certain types of sensitive information - even if recorded by mistake - are never OK to post on the platform.

If you need a reliable way to clear your video of anything that really shouldn't be there, YouTube is on top of the problem. 

To reduce the risk of identity theft and violation, the platform has created a tool for blurring objects and faces in creators’ videos. 

Best of all, the tool is free to use and easy to find in the YouTube Studio.

If you haven’t tried YouTube’s blur feature just yet, here’s everything you need to know to get started.

In the top right corner of YouTube, click on your profile icon and go to the YouTube Studio.

’. This will show you all of the uploaded content on your channel.

Mouse over the video you want to edit, then click the pencil icon to jump into that video.

The next thing you’ll see is a page titled ‘

’. On this screen, find the left navigation menu and click ‘

When the next page loads, you’ll see a video timeline. Go directly below this editor and click the link that says ‘

’. You should see two menu options appear, one to create a face blur and another for custom blurring.

For real-time guidance, watch our video tutorial on how to find this section of the YouTube Studio.

If you want to blur anything other than a face, your best option is to use YouTube’s custom blur tool. This feature allows you to place circular or rectangular blurs over different objects in a video.

A few weeks ago, we used the custom blur tool to hide an object in a vidIQ video. Rob, our YouTuber-in-residence recorded himself waving a red ‘subscribe’ button, and we were able to make it disappear - even with all those jerky movements.

This worked because YouTube lets you track the objects you’ve chosen to blur. All you have to do is find the Blur Behavior section on the video editor page and select ‘

’. If you don’t need to blur a moving object, select ‘

’ to keep everything in place. You can see both options in the screenshot below:

Once you make your selection, you can also reposition or resize your blur shape. To make Rob’s subscribe button disappear, we dragged a corner of the blur box, which is shown in the screenshot above, until it was big enough to hide everything underneath it.

Have you ever needed to blur a face or a logo in one of your YouTube videos? Here's a quick and easy guide on how to do just that in YouTube Studio

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What YouTube Creators Need to Focus on for the Rest of 2020

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6 Honest Reasons You Might Be Losing YouTube Subscribers

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How to Get More Views from YouTube’s Audience Data Tool

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How to Blur Anything You Need to in Your YouTube Video

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