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

Here’s a question with two extreme options. As a new creator, would you rather spend a month making one video or crank out 30 videos in 30 days?

Hypothetically, this is your first month on YouTube. It’s a tough question to answer because there are no in-between options. You can’t make 15 videos that month or even five. You have to choose: Thirty videos or just one.

If you need some inspiration, here are some responses to get you thinking. According to the vidIQ community (and whoever else the YouTube algorithm sends Community polls to), most people would make one quality video.

Our poll got 20,000 responses. Seventy-three percent were in favor of one quality video and 27% opted for 30 videos.

As YouTube educators, we're going to have to side with the 27%. 

Quality vs. Quantity: Which Is Better for New Creators?

When you’re just starting out on YouTube, making one video over 30 days doesn’t help you grow. And we’re not just talking about views and subscribers. One video doesn't let you track your overall growth. You’ll never know how your lighting, audio, or presentation style is improving because you’ve only attempted those things once.

 with Luria Petrucci of Live Streaming Pros, he had the same idea about quality versus quantity.

“I’d pick the new video for a month option every time,” Brownlee says. “It lets you learn the skill of finishing a project, starting a project, and evolving your skills as it goes on. If you’re able to look back at something you made a month ago and immediately see tangible things you would change, you’re getting better. If you stop seeing things in your old videos that you’d do better, you’re not getting better anymore.”

This practice is a “forever thing,” says Brownlee. No matter how big you get on YouTube, you should always try to 

Eventually, Making Lots of Videos Leads to Quality Content

Before you start a channel, you need to understand seven core principles to succeed on YouTube. One of those is 

developing a healthy relationship with perfectionism

. Every creator wants to make the best video possible. But if making a perfect video outweighs your desire to test and learn, you could be missing out on valuable experience.

7 Beliefs You Need to Have to Grow a YouTube Channel

Most new creators don’t know how to make videos people enjoy. They have to try new things and learn as they go. That’s why, in your first month on YouTube, making the perfect video shouldn’t be your priority.

Learning to present on camera, if that’s your goal

Understanding what makes a good thumbnail

Discovering the benefits of YouTube SEO (titles, keywords, tags, etc.)

You only learn the above skills by making lots of content. In six months, you'll look back at those early videos and probably find them unwatchable – and that's perfectly fine. It’s a necessary feeling. Take that disappointing moment, that pang of discomfort in your chest, and turn it into a list of improvements for your channel. 

Studying your audience is the key to growing on YouTube. But is it the best place to start when you’ve just created a channel?

In our opinion, the answer is no. If you’re a new creator, you're skipping a few steps if you plan to immediately study your audience. There aren’t many people watching your videos at this point. For now, 

just focus on your skill set – filming, presenting, editing, and optimizing.

 That’s a better investment of your time than analyzing your first 20 subscribers. We explain this even further in the video below.

As the years go by, this will likely change. You’ll get to the point where you have thousands of views and subscribers. Viewers will start leaving lots of comments on your videos, which means you’ve built a community. That’s when your priorities will make a 180-degree shift. Now that you have some technical knowledge, you can finally focus on your audience.

“In most careers, nothing beats experience. The same is true on YouTube, but even more so considering how much content you need to gain millions of views and subscribers.” – vidIQ

This is a good way to play it smart on YouTube and never, ever, waste your energy. Because honestly, the beginning of your journey is about answering one question: 

You don’t get the answer by studying your audience; you get it by making enough videos to form an opinion about YouTube as a whole.

How to Start a YouTube Channel – 10 Brilliant Tips

Now, to be fair, you don’t have to make 30 videos in 30 days. A realistic number is probably five to 12 videos when you're just starting out. But we presented the question with two extremes to help you understand what’s important on YouTube.

In most careers, nothing beats experience. The same is true on YouTube, but even more so considering how much content you need to gain millions of views and subscribers. But don’t worry. As you post more videos, you can 

Hint: It’s not your audience. Viewers are important for channel growth but only if you practice this habit first.

The One Thing New YouTubers Should Focus On

YouTube just exposed its own algorithm. In a video posted to 

, YouTube product manager Rachel Alves discussed how the video recommendation system works. She explained how videos get discovered, whether that’s on the YouTube homepage or suggested content areas. Then she offered tips to make click-worthy videos for those places.

This is valuable information for creators, and yet, it’s not life-changing advice to help you go viral. It’s good to understand how the system works. But if that’s your only focus, growing on YouTube will be the same challenge its always been.

The real focus should be your audience, not an algorithm. Viewers are the heart of the system, and the machinery is there to support their intent.

“YouTube’s recommendation system is designed to find videos for viewers, not viewers for videos,” Alves says.

Above all, that statement is what Alves wants you to grasp. In the video below, each secret about the algorithm comes with a caveat: 

Want to learn how YouTube recommends videos? Just keep reading. You can use the secrets below plus 

How YouTube Recommends Your Videos to Viewers

The YouTube algorithm has two goals when recommending videos:

Helping viewers find videos they want to watch

Overall, YouTube wants people to return to the platform because they enjoyed being there. But finding the best way to do that took years of testing and correcting.

In the past, clicks and views were supreme. YouTube recommended popular videos to viewers, even if they included clickbait titles and thumbnails. Around 2011, viewers shared their feedback, and it wasn’t positive. Users didn’t want sensationalized or misleading content on their homepages.

To fix this, YouTube started prioritizing 

 in 2012. In theory, how long someone watches a video should reveal how much they enjoyed it. But like clicks and views, Watch Time wasn’t a perfect metric. Just because someone watches a 15-minute video about dog training, that doesn’t mean they enjoyed the experience. There could be other reasons they watched until the end. Maybe their puppy destroyed three couch pillows, and the owner desperately needed to correct the behavior.

“I’m sure you’ve all spent time bingeing through a series that you watched hours of but you still didn’t feel that good afterward,” Alves says. “What we wanted to identify is how do we define quality or valued Watch Time.”

satisfaction indicates the value of a video.

 Instead of prioritizing how long someone watched, the better question to ask was, did they enjoy it? Would they do it again?

How YouTube Measures Viewer Satisfaction, the Catalyst for Video Recommendations

From 2015 to now, YouTube has prioritized viewer satisfaction. It’s also placed an emphasis on promoting responsible content, which helps viewers fulfill their search intent. If you’re looking for ways to fight hyperpigmentation, for example, it’s best to learn from an authoritative source on YouTube – perhaps an esthetician or a dermatologist.

YouTube does three things to discover and promote satisfying, responsible content:

Ask viewers what they like (via surveys) and optimize for those things.

YouTube trains its prediction models using surveys – millions of them. Even with a large number of surveys going out, viewers aren’t inundated with feedback requests. Alves says they may receive one or two surveys each month. The surveys ask for video ratings and why the viewer enjoyed the video. They’re able to select words such as “informative,” “life-changing,” “inspiring,” and more. The goal is to gauge which videos are truly satisfying and not just highly watchable.

“We no longer consider all Watch Time on YouTube to be equal,” Alves says. “We really focus on satisfaction. Surveys are one of the most important pieces of data we use to train this.”

This data isn’t available to creators yet, but Alves says YouTube is working on it.

Likes, Dislikes, Shares, and Not Interested Signals 

When someone likes your video, that tells YouTube your content is satisfying. The same logic is applied to video shares. Additionally, YouTube is paying attention to interest level, or how often viewers say they’re “not interested” in a video.

Now that you know likes and dislikes serve a purpose on YouTube, always aim to please. And be sure to 

 to see the percentage of likes and dislikes on every video. These percentages are green when videos have lots of likes and red when there are more dislikes. Going forward, you can do an audit of your channel and 

see which videos are producing more likes than dislikes.

 Videos in the dislike category may reveal what you can tweak in your content strategy.

For most channels, Alves says the YouTube homepage and suggested content areas are top traffic sources. The homepage recommends videos based on a user’s watch history. Suggested content appears alongside a video someone is currently watching.

No matter how hard you try, there’s nothing you can do, statistically, to influence these traffic areas.

“A lot of creators ask, ‘How do I optimize my content so I get more views from the homepage or suggested videos,’ ” Alves says. “The difficult answer is you can’t. You can’t optimize for a traffic source. You can only optimize for people or viewers.”

YouTube uses two categories to rank homepage videos. The first is 

All of this has to do with how videos perform on homepages. Before making a recommendation, YouTube wants to know if people watched those videos, selected “not interested” or performed other actions.

Personalization is the second category. YouTube pays attention to viewers’ watch history, including how often they watch videos from certain channels.

3 Ways to Make Your Videos Stand Out on the YouTube Homepage

 Make them eye-catching but easy to understand in less than a second. Remember, the homepage is where many viewers discover content for the first time. Using a colorful graphic with minimal text is a good way to catch their attention.

. Knowing the “language” of your audience will help you use terms and phrases they’re already searching for on YouTube.

 Humans love routines. You can train your viewers to expect weekly videos by sticking to a schedule. Subconsciously, that may inspire them to click on your videos when they appear on the homepage.

How to Make Custom Thumbnails – The Essential Guide!

Do you need help making better thumbnails? 

will reveal how your graphics look against those from other creators. You can type in a keyword and see which style(s) channels are using for any topic. Then you’ll know exactly what to do to make yours stand out.

 for free to start using this tool. Then read our guide about 

Ranking Content For the ‘Suggested Videos’ System

YouTube suggests videos to viewers based on two things:

Sometimes it goes even the deeper than that. Videos that are watched one after the other, as well as topically-related content, are fair game.

4 Tips to Make Your Content Suggestion-Worthy

Build a series of videos around certain topics.

 This gives YouTube more content to suggest as people watch videos of the same topic.

Don’t let people leave your content domain.

 Use playlists and end-screens to keep them in a loop, constantly displaying your channel’s best content.

 It sounds simple, but you get what you ask for. Make the verbal request and see how many viewers oblige.

 Strong branding helps a viewer remember you and your content. People should be able to identify your videos in a suggested content list.

How to Make Videos That Satisfy Your Audience

With YouTube tracking viewer satisfaction, that means one thing for you and your content: 

You can’t just make informative videos and expect to get more views.

 They have to be enjoyable too, or YouTube won’t recommend them.

You can start by copying what YouTube is doing. You can 

 how they feel about your videos and encourage them to leave comments. Maybe you're testing a new filming background or a different teaching method on YouTube. To know if your videos are truly enjoyable, get some feedback.

There are lots of little ways to make satisfying videos too. You should always:

Let your personality shine through. Be witty, relaxed, friendly – whichever represents you.

Use visual aids to help viewers understand your message.

Be relatable by showing your vulnerabilities.

Having YouTube recommend your videos to viewers is a gift. But are you ready for the next step? Once you have new viewers on your channel, learn 

YouTube doesn't 'recommend' every video to its viewers. Keep reading to learn which type of content – or rather, which performance metric – is fueling the system.

YouTube Algorithm Guide: How Your Videos Are Recommended to Viewers

 is no longer a secret. Getting invited to the app is still a challenge, but it’s worth the effort once you’re inside. You can network with experts in almost every industry. There are clubs for real estate agents, digital marketers, musicians, actors, and of course, YouTube creators. Clubhouse is audio-only, so conversations often feel like conferences. There are different rooms, stages, hosts, and moderators. Audience members listen along, sometimes with muted mics.

 created a YouTube club for small creators. They called it Rising YouTuber, and at the time, they were still rising themselves. They both had channels with around 1,000 subscribers.

How to Expand Your YouTube Community Without Burning Out

At first, the goal was to connect with creators and brands. Ghatt, who is a seasoned Pinterest marketer, was seeking community. Lewis was networking to land sponsorships for her beauty channel. Everything changed when creators on Clubhouse asked Lewis for 

. That’s when Ghatt and Lewis started the Rising YouTuber club to help small creators grow.

“When we joined, there were a lot of YouTubers around,” Ghatt says. “We would go into different rooms, and because some creators were larger, they would use terms like KPI (key performance indicator), CPM (cost per mille), and CTR (click-through rate). They would use those acronyms, but they wouldn’t break them down. We said to ourselves, there are smaller creators in this audience that have no idea what they’re talking about."

Solving those problems helped Ghatt and Lewis become Clubhouse experts. They became in-demand moderators and gained YouTube subscribers along the way.

In this episode of TubeTalk, we chat with Lewis and Ghatt about how Clubhouse benefits YouTube creators. They share their experience as Clubhouse moderators and give networking advice to creators.

To network like a pro, do these five things on Clubhouse:

Many Clubhouse rooms operate differently, so observe before speaking. Sometimes listeners can take the stage at any point. In other rooms, audience members speak during a specific time – a Q&A session, for example.

If you’re on stage, let people know you have a channel. 

Say the name of your channel. Spell it out. Lewis used this strategy to gain new subscribers.

Make sure your introduction is an accurate representation of your lifestyle. Don’t say you offer a service or expertise you don’t have. The real experts will call you out!

Lewis found that even large creators follow small creator clubs. People in those rooms dissect everything about YouTube because they’re trying to grow. Some even do channel audits.

 Clubhouse conversations feel like podcast episodes. However, everything is live, so pay attention. Don’t miss your chance to ask questions or introduce yourself.

Clubhouse is popular, especially during the pandemic. But how long will the popularity last? That’s what everyone wants to know as businesses reopen and in-person events resume.

Ghatt says Clubhouse will survive. It’s a way to connect with people without worrying about what you look like; on Zoom, there’s constant pressure to look presentable. Lewis agrees but says Clubhouse will be around for a different reason – one that coincides with the pandemic ending.

“Podcasting meets LinkedIn,” Lewis says. “That’s basically Clubhouse. I think it will still work because people can turn their digital events into live events.”

TubeTalk is one of the most popular 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​​​ ​TubeTalk podcast episodes 

Can YouTube creators benefit from Clubhouse? This week, we chat with two experts to learn the app's true value. Plus, keep reading for Clubhouse networking tips!

How to Network on Clubhouse as a YouTube Creator

The YouTube homepage is turning into a social media feed. Open the mobile app, and you’ll see that in addition to videos, there are extra posts from creators you’re subscribed to. These may be:

. They’re not just on the homepage of the app; you can also find them on a channel’s Community tab.

If you’ve passed 1,000 subscribers, you have access to the Community tab and its channel-boosting magic. As often as possible, you should use it to connect with viewers and increase your channel’s exposure.

How to Use The Community tab in YouTube Studio

Consider this, for example. What if you could reach your core audience multiple times a day without posting a video – only polls, GIFs, and text? What if your next poll gets 50,000 votes because YouTube’s algorithm promotes it across the app?

That’s what’s happening right now. Our vidIQ polls receive a jaw-dropping number of votes. The exposure introduces our channel to thousands of viewers we’ve never reached on YouTube.

Can the same thing happen to you? Absolutely.

Reaching a New Audience With YouTube Community Posts

Every Wednesday, we host a live stream on the vidIQ channel. One of our viewers, the 

, asked an important question during the Q&A session: 

Should creators use the Community tab and how does it affect channel growth?

“Yes” was our answer. To prove it, we voted on one of ChessGeek’s polls. Our theory was that, when someone engages with a Community post, they’ll see more posts from that channel.

Guess what happened less than 24 hours later? The morning following that live stream, a Community post from the ChessGeek was on our homepage. It nearly covered the entire screen.

Days later, we saw more Community posts from this creator – and we never watched a single video of theirs.

So we proved our theory. On YouTube, it’s possible to:

Encourage the algorithm to show more posts to that viewer.

Watch our video below for more examples of how the Community tab fuels your growth:

Does the Community Tab Have Its Own Algorithm?

Beating the YouTube algorithm is something we’d never encourage you to do. It’s virtually impossible, and there are better things to focus on. Building an audience is more rewarding than chasing dozens of viral videos.

Still, we’re curious about the algorithm behind YouTube’s Community posts. Is it a separate algorithm or is it the same one that recommends videos to viewers? It feels like there’s an independent algorithm for both.

"At this point, every creator with more than 1,000 subscribers should be posting something on their Community tab." – vidIQ

But if that’s true, it means a user is just as likely to see Community posts as they are videos. And we know which one takes longer to create. You can spend two minutes crafting a Community post. Videos take hours.

We’re not going to say Community posts will get you more views. But we can’t deny that the exposure could lead to more views and subscribers for your channel. At this point, every creator with more than 1,000 subscribers should be posting 

Videos and Community posts are very different, but they both have their place on YouTube. That’s why it’s smart to post each type on your channel. If you’re making videos while never posting on the Community tab, you’ll miss a chance to connect with viewers. In fact, sometimes Community posts get 

For example, we posted a Community poll about whether YouTube should hide dislikes on videos. A whopping 29,000 people voted. There were hundreds of comments and more than 2,000 likes. 

We received all this by posting one question and two emojis.

Engaging with a Community post is simple. It often takes one tap. With a video, viewers have to watch for several minutes before seeing something they can comment on – if they comment at all.

To get the most engagement from your Community posts, be sure to:

Never over-promote your videos; that’s what YouTube recommendations are for.

If you’re doing polls, let one of the answer choices be “Other - Comment Below.” That should help you get more comments.

Have you passed 1,000 YouTube subscribers? You can gain even more by posting on the Community tab. Keep reading to learn how.

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