Transcription
So you've probably been hearing a lot lately about one of the fastest growing trends online, which is YouTube automation. Maybe you've seen that some people are making tons of money with it, and you want to get in the game. Maybe you want to understand the difference between what makes a video take off and go completely viral versus those channels that never seem to get more than 100 views. Maybe you're not even sure what YouTube automation is, or maybe you know what it is but you don't know how to get started yourself. Or maybe you don't know what niche to do, or what video topics to make. Perhaps you just have no clue how to put these videos together the right way. Or maybe you're scared about doing all this work just to get hit with copyright strikes, or reused content, or maybe even getting the channel demonetized.
So, in this video, I set out to create the most in-depth, most up-to-date, and most important YouTube automation training in history. Why? Well, because I can. So, if anything throughout this video sparks your interest, feel free to click the link down below, book a call with me and my team, and we can talk about any of these things.
So, why should you listen to me over anybody else? Well, most of the information you see out there about YouTube automation is flat-out wrong. How do I know? Well, it's because I'm considered the pioneer of faceless YouTube automation. What that means is, I was the first person to start teaching YouTube automation over 8 years ago. You see, I've been doing YouTube automation for over a decade. So, through numerous years of trial and error, I've developed clear-cut systems and processes for not only creating successful faceless YouTube channels, but also automating it so it takes less of my personal time. So, to this point, I've taught over 10,000 paying people how to do YouTube automation. And in fact, I've created one of the largest and longest-running YouTube automation communities in the world. On top of this, to my knowledge, I've created more results and successful students than anyone else in this industry. You see, a lot of people out there teaching this just want to make it sound super easy so they can sell their course, but there are a lot more steps than what most people make it out to be. And that's why you see a bunch of people out there making terrible YouTube automation content. You see, I like to take a realistic approach and teach you what actually works. Why? Well, because it helps you actually get results, and that is rewarding to me.
So, what is YouTube automation? Well, first of all, let's talk about what it's not. So, YouTube automation is not stealing, it's not illegal, and it's not against guidelines. It's also not spammy, low-quality AI content, unless you're taking the bad advice that I mentioned earlier. I define YouTube automation simply as high-quality YouTube videos created efficiently, either through the use of software or hiring a team. So, we'll talk more about how to do those things later. But as a whole, people come to YouTube usually to either be entertained or to learn something. And the facts are, there doesn't have to be a person in front of the camera in order for you to be entertained or to learn something. In fact, most of the videos that you actually watch on YouTube are probably faceless YouTube automation videos, and you didn't even realize it. So, if you want some examples of YouTube channels doing faceless YouTube automation the correct way, check out channels like Bright Side, that cover interesting random facts; Rebound, that covers NBA; Tech Zone, that covers technology; and Touropia, that covers awesome travel destinations.
So, here's the deal: YouTube automation is one of the most powerful things you can do online. And you're probably saying, "Jordan, why is that?" And it's because it can have really high profit margins. This is because, at its core, it's free to post a YouTube video. Anybody pretty much can do it. So, there aren't very many businesses out there that you can start for free. Now, of course, you're probably going to want to invest a little bit of money into the creation of the videos just to free up your time and so that you can have experts that do it. So, we'll talk about that coming up. But the thing is, there are very few moving parts in this business compared to most other business models. There's no website, there's no customer data to manage, you don't have to worry about emails or customers or inventory, you don't have to do any marketing or run any ads, you don't have to learn a million different social media platforms, and you don't have to invest in risky things like crypto. You're simply just posting a YouTube video, and every single time you post a YouTube video, that video becomes a revenue stream that can pay you for years to come.
And the beauty of YouTube automation is that there's no personal brand behind the camera. So, when you're a personal brand, you have to constantly shoot content, you have to have good lighting, you have to have an awesome camera, you usually have to be pretty good-looking, you have to be well-spoken, and you have to be super entertaining on camera. I've been on camera for years, and my lighting still looks pretty dumb. I still sound pretty bad on camera. It's just a skill that takes years and years to master. But with YouTube automation, that all goes away. You no longer are physically tied to the channel, which means you can hire, outsource, and delegate the work to highly skilled people, and it's relatively inexpensive to do so. And the best part is, you are no longer physically tied to that channel. This means you can pump out content much more quickly, and usually more content is going to equal more money in your pocket. The coolest thing is, you only have to master one platform, and that's YouTube. So, you don't have to post content all over the internet on all the different social media sites. All you have to do is master getting eyeballs on YouTube itself. And this is because YouTube has an absolutely gigantic user base, and they're one of the best at putting the right content in front of the right audience. In fact, YouTube is the number two visited website in the world, behind Google. And Google owns YouTube. So, the reason why you never see massive competitors come out and really challenge YouTube, even though all it is is a place to share videos, is because Google is the number one most visited website in the world, and they dominate search engines, which means YouTube just continues to get stronger and stronger because they can keep pushing YouTube while hiding any competitors. All that means is, YouTube is not going anywhere. YouTube also has the second largest user base in the world, behind Facebook. Basically, YouTube just continues to grow year after year. And here's the thing: YouTube has paid YouTube creators $170 billion over the past 3 years. So, all you have to do to get in the game and start capitalizing on this $170 billion they've paid out over the last 3 years is simply just to start uploading YouTube videos.
So, what is all this YouTube automation about, and why do we do it? Well, because YouTube has what is called the YouTube Partner Program. What that means is, you get paid for having ads on your videos. So, pretty much every time you click on a YouTube video, you're going to see an ad at the beginning, you're going to see some in the middle, and you're going to see some at the end. Well, every time that happens, the creator of that video makes money, as long as their channel is monetized. And why does this happen? Well, it's because billion-dollar companies know that there is a massive user base on YouTube, and they want to advertise their products and services in front of that audience. And not only that, it's really easy for advertisers to target the exact audience and demographic they're looking for through the power of YouTube. So, these corporations are willing to pay top dollar to get in front of these audiences on YouTube. And because YouTube knows they would not be anything without the creators, they share that revenue with the creators.
So, how does this actually work for you? Well, it's as simple as getting accepted into the YouTube Partner Program, and then you literally just click a button that says, "I want ads on my video," and then YouTube just does the rest. At that point, your only goal is just simply to get views.
So, how does it all work? Well, there's two main terms that you need to know. Number one, it isn't as important to you; it is CPM, and that's simply just how much a video earns before YouTube takes their cut. Number two is much more important to you, and that is RPM. RPM is how much you actually get after YouTube takes its cut. So, a quick Google search will show you that the average video on YouTube will get between $2 to $5 per 1,000 views. But that number can range all the way from $1 per 1,000 views up to $30 per 1,000 views and beyond. So, basically, you can reverse-engineer the amount of money a video is likely to make just based on how many views they have. So, let's say a video has 500,000 views. So, all you have to do is take 500,000 divided by 1,000, and then multiply that number by one, and then multiply that number by 30, and that number is going to get you anywhere from $500 to $15,000 per 500,000 views.
So, why is that range so large, you ask? Well, different niches are worth much more to advertisers than others, which means companies are willing to bid against each other and pay top dollar to get in front of certain sorts of audiences. And normally, those audiences are going to be audiences that are specifically tailored to the product or service they're selling, or audiences that they know have a lot of money to spend. So, someone listening to something like rain sounds or relaxing noises really doesn't indicate that they have any money. On top of that, there's really no specific products or services that they could really sell to that audience. So, no company out there is really saying, "Hey, we have got to place our ads in front of these rain sound videos." Right? However, someone actively searching how to buy real estate for investing is a whole different thing. So, that is indicating that they have a lot of money that they're looking to spend, and they're interested in making a large purchase or learning something that could be extremely valuable for them, which means they're going to be willing to pay a lot of money for that product or service, and therefore, the companies are willing to pay a lot of money to get in front of that audience.
Now, you're probably saying, "Okay, so I should probably be in a high-paying niche, right?" Well, not necessarily. You see, because the amount of people searching how to buy real estate for investing is much smaller than Steph Curry's best moments. So, although getting paid a lot more money for a lot less views is great, you can make just as much in a lower-paying niche that gets a lot more eyeballs and a lot more searches, as well as something everyone worldwide is interested in. So, the trade-off to a higher-paying niche is that it can be more competitive, and there may not be as big of an audience for that niche. So, in general, it may be harder to get views or gain traction, which is why research is so important. So, there are other secrets for raising CPM and RPM that we will discuss later.
So, a lot of people think that YouTube automation just means you're posting really spammy, crappy AI videos like rain sound, celebrity motivation, or relaxing noises. And this is not even close to what we're doing. So, a lot of people will say, "Yeah, I've tried YouTube automation before. I went to Fiverr, I hired this guy from Pakistan, he made me 8-hour long relaxing noises, and it got four views. YouTube automation obviously doesn't work." So, do not do this. First of all, those videos are extremely easy to make. So, whenever something's really easy to make, then everybody tries to do it. Therefore, these niches become extremely saturated. And even worse, they are impossible to stand out. Every single video is the same, all the thumbnails are the same, the titles are the same. And like I mentioned earlier, they're some of the lowest-paying niches on YouTube.
So, what do you do instead? So, I always recommend to start by just brainstorming five or 10 different things that you're actually interested in. So, this can be things that you're already a fan of, things you already watch, things you already look up, and things that you're already knowledgeable about, or just something that you're interested in learning more about. So, why do I recommend this? Well, that is because, contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as the perfect niche on YouTube. And in fact, actually, the video topics that you choose inside of a niche are much more important than the niche itself. So, more on that later. But with that said, some niches obviously work better for YouTube automation than others. So, once you get that initial list of 5 to 10 things that you enjoy, then the important part is doing the validation research to validate that, yes, this is a niche that can thrive on YouTube. It does have a big user base, a big audience base, and it can be made faceless. So, the reason why it's important to pick something that you're knowledgeable about and that you already enjoy is because it makes it so much easier to do that research process. On top of that, it's much easier to understand what is good content in that niche, what sort of thumbnails and titles will make people click on it, and you know what appeals to that audience because you're already a fan of that audience. So, you already know what appeals to you. You also already understand the terminology, you know all the names, you know the history, you usually know everything you need to know about that niche already. So, for instance, one of my niches is professional wrestling. It's easy for me because I've been a lifelong fan. I know all the stories, the wrestlers, I know the history, and I'm constantly researching it for fun on a daily basis already. I also know what makes me click on videos, so I know what makes the audience click on videos. Now, if I were to decide to go into a boxing niche, I really don't know anything about boxing. So, even though I may see that it's a good opportunity on YouTube, if I don't know any of the boxers, any of the history, I don't know who's relevant, it's going to be much harder for me and take me so much longer to research that niche. So, this is why I always choose niches that I understand and that I'm already interested in, knowledgeable about, and passionate about, as long as I validate that it is a proven niche that already has a big audience on YouTube and is something I know for a fact I can make as a faceless YouTube video.
So, once you've written down 5 to 10 topics you're interested in, how do you actually validate the niche? The goal here is to find channels in that niche that have at least 500,000 subscribers or have gotten at least 1 million views in a single month. And the easiest way to do this is just to type that channel into socialblade.com. Now, don't pay too much attention on there to the actual income range on Social Blade. They really have no idea who's monetized or who's not. They don't know what CPM or RPM that channel has, so they don't really have any clue. They're just estimating how much that channel makes. But it is very useful for finding out how many views that channel is getting in a month. And the reason we look this up is because if there are other channels in this niche that are successful, that means you can be too. So, if you can find at least five of those, then that shows that there is an audience base for this niche, and that you do have an opportunity to jump in and be successful in the niche. However, you do want to make sure when you're doing your research that you're only counting channels that are doing legit faceless YouTube automation. What that means is, they're not just taking TV clips, they're not just taking compilations of highlights, and they're not just posting music and things like that. You want to look for videos that have a script and a voiceover. This is important because it's going to keep your channel safe from demonetization and copyright issues. And not only that, but it will be much easier to make your channel stand out and be unique from the competition. So, we'll talk a little bit more about copyright and demonetization later in this video.
So, my favorite way to start searching these channels is simply just to start typing broad keywords into YouTube that relate to the niche. There, you can look at other suggested videos and then start going down the rabbit hole of all the different channels you can find. The more channels you can find, the better. So, if you can, you can find at least five channels in the niche getting at least 500,000 subscribers or over 1 million views in a month, that means it's probably a pretty good niche to do. So, if you're between a few different niches and you found that in multiple niches, the best way to weed it out is to see which channels can I find that are more recent? So, channels that recently just started posting consistently within the past like 6 months to 1 year. The newer, the better. If you're seeing that they're hitting 100,000 views or more on some of their videos, that's a really good sign. And those are the channels you really want to focus your study on because those are small channels, those are new channels, which is what you're going to be when you start. So, it's extremely encouraging to find other channels in your niche that just started posting maybe within the last few months, last 6 months, something like that, that are getting hundreds of thousands of views on their video. So, if I were between a few different niches and I saw that, I would choose that one.
So, once you've chosen your niche, the part that's even more important is finding solid video topics inside of that niche. But this will really make or break your success on YouTube. So, how do you choose the right video topics? Again, it all comes down to research. You want to start by again researching smaller channels and newer channels in your niche that just started posting consistently recently. You want to do this because if you study channels that have millions of subscribers, they're pretty much going to have every single video take off. They're going to get hundreds of thousands, millions of views on all of their videos because they have a massive user base. So, they're playing a way different game than you're going to be playing when you first start. So, what you want to do is study the channels that are going to be just like you: new and small. So, channels under 10,000 subscribers or less, or ones that just started posting within the last 6 months to 1 year. The newer, the better. Whenever you see a video taking off on one of those channels, write that thing down as quickly as you can. So, whenever I study a channel, I like to look for what I call outlier videos. So, these are recently well-performing videos that are doing much better than their average video on that channel. Where people go wrong, though, is they're like, "Okay, I found a good video topic, so I'm going to make a video just like that." But then what they do is they almost completely copy the title and the thumbnail, and then they expect the same results. You do not want to do this. For instance, if you take a well-performing video title and search it, you're going to see tons and tons of copycats. So, what's going to happen is the viewer might type that title in, and they're just going to click on the top one. And if all the other ones look the same, they're not going to click the rest. So, what you have to do is stand out completely from that other title and from that other thumbnail. And instead, make that video work with the other video and play off of that other video to where it's like, "Hey, that audience, once they watch this video, they're going to have to click on my next because it looks like they're going to get even more information than what they got in this video." And the best way to do this is to study other niches and other viral videos that aren't in your niche. See what's working for titles and thumbnails in that niche, and bring that over to your niche. So, now you're the only unique one in your niche doing something different than all the copycats who are copying all their competitors inside of that niche. So, really, you're taking inspiration from thumbnails and titles from other niches and bringing it into your niche. You can also do this with video topics as well. So, for instance, maybe you're in the NHL niche, and you see an NBA video that says, "Are NBA players getting too good?" So, then you can go ahead and search, "Are NHL players getting too good?" And if you don't find any videos on it, well, you just got a very good video topic idea that's proven to work in another niche that's very similar to yours. And now you can stand out, be the only one that's made that video topic, and the only reason you thought of that was because you were searching other niches similar to your niche that weren't actually your niche.
So, once you have a good video topic ready to go, it's really important to understand the analytics of YouTube and what you're making that video to do to accomplish. So, one of the most important analytics on YouTube is click-through rate. So, basically, whenever a title and thumbnail is shown to the audience, that is called an impression. So, then click-through rate is just the percentage of people that clicked on that video after it was an impression to them, or after it was shown to them. So, you want to shoot for a minimum of 7% click-through rate on your videos. So, the two main factors that affect click-through rate are title and thumbnail. So, you see a lot of people go wrong because they focus all their time and energy on the perfect video, and then when they get that done, then they just throw on a title and a thumbnail like it doesn't matter, and then they post it. Really, this is completely backwards. You see, because if your video is like the best video ever, but the thumbnail and the title are not good, no one's actually going to see the video because they're not actually going to click on it. So, what you actually want to do is make the thumbnail and the title first, because that is basically the marketing of the video. So, if you can't find a way to package that video in a way that's interesting and intriguing through the use of the title and the thumbnail, then there's actually no point in even making that video at all. So, you should be focusing a lot of time and energy on crafting the perfect title and thumbnail before you even start making the video.
So, when you're crafting the title and thumbnail, it's important to keep some things in mind. Number one, it should be very obvious what the video is about just by looking at the thumbnail and title. Number two, like I said, it needs to be unique and stand out and different from the others. Number three, the title and thumbnail should spark curiosity. And viewers should be asking themselves a minimum of at least three questions when they look at your title and thumbnail. They should be asking things like, "Who? What? When? Where? And why?" Some examples of this are, "Did he really say that?" "What is happening here?" "There is no way this can be real." A thumbnail should not have more than three words of text or more than three main elements, and everything needs to be big, high-quality, and easy to read. The thumbnail and title should not give away the answer to a question. If it does, the viewer does not need to click on that video and watch it because you already gave them the answer in the title and thumbnail. Psychologically, we are hardwired to read emotions on faces. So, it's really important that you pick the right emotion on the face for the thumbnail, if you do have a face on the thumbnail. And side note: do not use the lame stock footage faces. Those images literally scream, "This is a low-quality video." Use statements that are contrary to popular belief. You can use things like shock, danger, and of course, bright images with high contrast that really pop. Now, I really recommend that you do not do thumbnails yourself unless you're an expert on that, you've done thumbnails before in the past, and you already know exactly how to make people click on videos. And the reason why is because you can get a thumbnail done for you by an expert who knows what they're doing for about $3 to $5. And that three to five bucks can be the difference between a video that literally gets 100 views or one that gets over a million. And a lot of people ask this: yes, you can go directly to Google and grab images from Google and use those on your thumbnail. You do not need the rights to these images in order to put them on your thumbnail. For title specifically, do not use more than 70 characters. This ensures that the whole title will show up anywhere it's shown, including on phones. It's not very important to have keywords in the title anymore. It's much more important to have titles that create a lot of intrigue and curiosity. This is because YouTube is now very good at transcribing the video, so they already know what the video is about, and they're already going to know how to show it to the right audience. The thumbnail and the title should work together to tell a story. Do not repeat the same words in the title and the thumbnail. Some phrases you can use that really spark curiosity and intrigue are things like, "The dark truth," "The real reason why," "They don't want you to know," "The hidden meaning behind," "The shocking reason," "What you don't know about." All those sort of things work really well. So, try to think about those things and incorporate them when you can into your titles. And like I said, take inspiration from your own niche on viral videos, but more importantly, take inspiration from viral videos in other niches instead.
So, the second important metric that YouTube looks at is watch time. Average percentage view, and that is basically just retention. So, retention is what percentage of time does a viewer stay on a video after they click on. So, you want to shoot for 70% of your audience to still be on the video after the 30-second mark, and then you want to shoot for 40% of the audience to watch the entire video if it's around an 8 to 12-minute video. Now, of course, a longer video, like 45 minutes, an hour, it's going to be really hard to keep people on for 40%. However, YouTube does reward overall watch time as well, and longer videos obviously get a lot more watch time overall. And that is actually why you see a lot of really long videos performing really well on the platform recently because obviously longer videos get a lot more watch time overall. So, when you're creating your content, keep all of these things in mind to be able to maximize your CTR and your retention. Another important metric YouTube looks at is engagement. So, this could be likes, comments, shares, all of those sort of things. The best way to increase this is simply just to make really entertaining and engaging content that people enjoy. The comments, the likes, the subscribes, all those things will just come naturally. Another way to kind of create more engagement is just to create a little bit controversial content, nothing drastic or crazy, but just something that really sparks people to want to give their opinion.
So, now that you've got your video topic, it's time to create the video. You want to create a video again that maximizes retention. So, like I said, you want to keep a minimum of 70% of your audience on that video after the 30-second mark. The best way to do that is to create a ton of cuts and transitions inside that first 30 seconds. So, this means really fast cuts. And what I always tell my editor is to make those clips 3 seconds or less. On top of this, you want to make sure that that first 30 seconds really shows the audience what this video is going to be about, and it needs to match what the thumbnail and title told them that it was going to be. Because if they feel like in the first 30 seconds the video is not going to cover what they clicked on it for, they're going to consider that clickbait, and they're going to leave the video very quickly. And when YouTube sees that, they're not going to push that video very hard. Another thing is, you don't want to have one of those intros with the music and the logos and all that stuff. That stuff's boring, and pretty much everybody just skips on past that. So, what you want to do is just get straight into the hook of the video. Same thing at the end, you don't want to have any boring outros, any long outros, "No thanks for watching, please subscribe," all that stuff. Just end the video abruptly without them expecting it. That's going to maximize your attention. And when you're in the meat of the video, what you want to do is rehook the viewer and re-engage them before every new point that you make. So, you basically want to give a cliffhanger at the start of every single point and at the end of every single point, and that will keep them hanging on every single word. And then it's very important that you mix things up, that you pan different pictures, you put a lot of different cuts in the video, a lot of different transitions, different sound effects. And then you want a voiceover that's just high energy, right? Engaging, exciting, right? If it's really boring and really monotone, they're a lot more likely to leave the video because they're just going to get bored, and there's so much other content on YouTube to watch.
So, a lot of people ask a lot of questions and get really confused about how you actually put these videos together. They'll be like, "Jordan, where do I actually get the clips to put these videos together?" It's super simple. You literally just grab the clips from YouTube themselves. So, a lot of people have this misconception that YouTube automation is like stealing, and this literally isn't the case at all. So, anyone who thinks that just simply is ignorant to what YouTube automation really is. Some people think when we're talking about YouTube automation, we're saying you just download full videos and repost them as your own, which nobody's saying that, or they shouldn't be, because yeah, that would be stealing, and that's not what we do. But you see, if you want to make a documentary on Steph Curry, you're probably not going to get on a plane, fly to Steph Curry, and then just start recording him. So, under the rules of fair use, you're actually allowed to just use clips of Steph Curry that already exist. So, the rule of thumb is to keep these clips under 5 to 7 seconds, and that will help you stay within fair use guidelines legally and on YouTube. And fair use just means basically that you're able to use these clips without having to ask for permission, as long as it's inside of a transformative work that you're creating yourself. It's basically just like a research paper where you take paragraphs and then you cite the source. In this case, you don't even actually have to cite the source. And if you don't believe me, you can just Google this stuff. So, when you're grabbing these clips to put them together, you don't have to worry about them being Creative Commons or stock footage or royalty-free clips or anything like that. It can be any clips on YouTube. And actually, I recommend you getting clips from YouTube itself rather than stock footage or royalty-free clips. And the reason why I recommend this is because stock footage clips are normally being used by hundreds or thousands of different videos that are uploaded on YouTube. And that actually increases your risk of being hit by reused content by the YouTube bots because everybody's using those same exact clips. So, it's actually better to find clips from YouTube videos that you find yourself. But the most important thing when using any clips, especially stock footage clips and things like that, is to edit those clips slightly from the original. So, you can do this by zooming in a little bit, panning in a little bit, or adding some sort of a filter or color grade to those clips. This keeps you safe from getting hit with reused content and things like that from the YouTube bots, and ultimately will help you stay within YouTube guidelines and make sure that you don't get demonetized.
So, now that you know the best practices for putting these videos together, what's the best way to actually go about it? Well, there's three main steps to a YouTube video: there's the script, the voiceover, and the video edit. The three main ways to do this is: you can do it yourself, you can use AI software, or you can hire a team of freelancers. So, obviously, the upside to doing it yourself is that it can be free, but it is a big learning curve and it takes a lot of your personal time. The upside to AI software is that it's quick, it's easy, and it's relatively inexpensive. The downside is that the quality is typically not going to be at the same level as a human expert doing it. So, AI is getting pretty good at creating videos from text prompts, but it's definitely not at a level where you're going to hold someone's attention for an 8 to 12-minute video. So, for voiceovers, there's pretty awesome software out there these days that sound pretty realistic. YouTube has come out and said that they do not mind if you use these at all. However, another really cool thing you can do is actually clone your own voice. I've done this before to some pretty amazing results. And the cool thing with that is, is that then it can become a completely unique voice that no one else is using. This is very helpful because again, sometimes you can run into an issue where when a lot of people are using the same exact voice that hasn't been edited or altered at all, it can get hit with reused content on YouTube as well. Main thing you want to focus on if you do use an AI voice software is you cannot be able to tell that it's AI. Because as soon as a viewer can tell that that voice is AI, they're going to click off, and it's going to absolutely crush your attention. Then you also want to make sure you're not using a voice that everyone else is using. For instance, there's a voice I always hear on an ad, and then I hear it on TikTok, and then I hear it on Facebook, and then I just keep hearing that voice over and over. If you use a voice like that on YouTube, people are going to know it's AI, and they're clicking off right away. As for scripts, you can use ChatGPT or something similar to that to help you make the script. However, it's better to just kind of use that as an outline or kind of help you with some of the research and bullet points, but I would recommend that you still rewrite it yourself. The reason why is because ChatGPT is not great at wording it in a way that is going to really hook a viewer for an 8 to 12-minute video the way that a human would be able to. My favorite way to do content though is just to hire a team. So, that may sound scary to some of you who have never kind of been a boss or never really had employees before, but it's actually one of the funnest and most rewarding parts of this process. The most important thing that you can do when you have a team is communication. When I see people fail in this business, it's normally because they're not communicating with their team. They're pretty much just giving them tasks to do, and they're letting them do them. They're not looking it over, they're not giving critique, they're not giving feedback, they're not reviewing the quality, and they're just letting them go off and post videos. That is the complete wrong way to do this. You want to review every single piece of work that they do. You want to provide constructive criticism and feedback constantly. Eventually, you can get to a point where you hire someone that actually does that as their job, which is where I'm at now. But for the most part, you want to be in charge of that when you first start out. You see, if they don't hear from you at all, they're just going to assume that you're not even looking at the stuff that they're doing. And of course, when they don't think you're looking at the quality, they're going to relax and they're not going to try as hard, which means the quality is going to suffer, and your channel is going to suffer as a result. So, if they do a really good job, tell them they're doing a good job. Let them know that you appreciate their work, and that you're really happy they're on your team. If they do a good job, say, "Hey, I really like how you did this here. It was really good." You should constantly be communicating with them through WhatsApp, you can create Loom videos to shoot to them, you can get on live Zooms with them, whatever you need to do to stay in communication. Make sure the whole team is on the same page. It's also important to build a winning culture where everybody celebrates the success of the channel. You want to build something that they're all excited to be a part of. So, you want to let them know the grand visions that you have for your channel, and tell them how their work is directly impacting us. Getting them share the big wins with them, share the high click-through rates, the high retention rates, share with them the views. Let them see how their work is actually impacting everything. And most importantly, you want to have fun with your team. The more you can become friends with your team members, joke around, learn about them, have them learn about you, the more they like you, the more they trust you, the more they're going to work hard for you. So, I've had a lot of team members tell me that I'm the best employer that they've ever had, and that means the absolute world to me. They say I'm generous, that I'm caring, and that I'm just easy and fun to work with. So, again, that is the highest praise that I can get. However, it also makes them work harder without me even having to give them incentives because when they like you and they appreciate you and they can feel that you appreciate them, that's just going to push them to work harder. And all of a sudden, people not getting stuff done on time or not doing what you say just goes away.
Another one of the most important things you have to do is be organized. You can use a place like Trello to organize all the work completely for free. And then you want to be organized with Google Drives and folders, whatever you want to use. Just make sure it's organized. It's also important to set deadlines and hold your team accountable to those deadlines. However, you need to be understanding because things do come up, right? So, if they do miss a deadline, don't just yell at them or fire them. You need to get in communication with them and understand why it is that that happened. If it's something that only happened every once in a while, you can understand and let that slide. However, if it keeps happening over and over, that may be a red flag that it's time to let them go and find someone else. However, you also want to be introspective and see, was there something I did wrong that kind of made them go that direction? Because often times, that can mean that team member is not bought in. Maybe you're not paying them enough, maybe you're asking too much work from them, maybe you're not providing enough feedback and critique, maybe they don't feel like they're learning and growing, or that you just don't appreciate what they're doing, and you just haven't been effectively communicating. So, some of that blame can end up being on you as well.
So, there are a lot of affordable and reliable places that you can go to hire really skilled workers. So, you can hire people by paying on a video-by-video basis or by a monthly salary. The beauty is, you can basically use any budget you're comfortable with and still get videos done for YouTube. So, if one video every two weeks or one video a month is all you can afford, you can still do that. Plenty of YouTube channels grow just posting one video a month. The most important thing though is quality over quantity. So, if you have a choice between six really high-quality videos in a month or 50, 50 really low-quality videos in a month for the same exact price, I would recommend you take the six very high-quality videos because quality is king on YouTube.
So, to get monetized and get in the YouTube Partner Program, you need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours. You also need to pass the monetization review, which means you have to know exactly what YouTube is looking for. So, that sounds like a lot, but some of the people that I work with have been able to hit it in about 30 days. So, everything I just mentioned in this video will help you reach it more quickly.
There are other ways that you can increase CPM and RPM and get paid more money for the same amount of views. Of course, the number one way is to be in a niche that's actually high-paying. But outside of that, you want to focus on your audience. If you're making videos that pretty much normally attract a US-based audience, you're typically going to get paid more money than if you start attracting a lot of viewers from countries that have less money. Another way you can increase your RPM is to just add more ads to your video. So, you'll basically get a timeline, and you can place ads wherever you want. We recommend placing ads at 45 seconds, and then every 2 minutes past that. So, that doesn't mean it's going to show an ad every 2 minutes, but it increases the likelihood that it will show one of those ads every 2 minutes. And of course, the more ads that are shown throughout the video, that just increases the amount of money you're going to make from that view. Another thing that can help is creating longer videos because again, longer videos are going to show more ads, and again, more ads is going to usually equal more revenue.
But there are other ways to make money on YouTube outside of just ads. So, you can post affiliate links in your description and pinned to the top comment. When doing this, it's really important to have a call to action in your video, which means you tell the viewer that the link is there, and you tell them exactly why they need that product or service. It's also important that that product or service matches the niche of the video completely, because you want that product or service to be highly tailored to that audience. You can also sell your own product. So, that could be a digital product like a course, it could be merchandise or apparel, or anything else you could think of creating. After your channel starts to gain traction, and it could be actually a really small amount of traction, brands and companies may start reaching out to you to do sponsorships and endorsement deals, which basically just means you might talk about one of their products or services for maybe 30 seconds to a couple minutes inside your video, and they're basically going to pay you sometimes a lot of money just to do that.
After posting a video, what you want to do is wait 5 days before studying the analytics. This will give you enough time to get enough data in to really make a decision on what works and what's not working. You want to look at your impressions first and compare those to impressions you've gotten in the first 5 days of all your other videos. So, if your impressions on a video that you posted are much lower than the others, that likely means you're going after a pretty competitive topic or one that doesn't have as big of an audience interest. So, you want to focus most of your time on creating more of the same video topic.
That actually got you a lot of Impressions compared to your other videos. Again, I'm not talking about views here, I'm talking about Impressions. Sure, just how many times did that video, and thumbnail, and title actually get shown to an audience?
Also, want to take a look at your click-through rates, and you want to take a look at your average percentage viewed, and again, the retention within the first 30 seconds. So, if your click-through rate is low, like under 5%, under 6%, that means your title and thumbnail did not captivate the audience enough. So, sometimes what you can do is after you start to see your views level out on a video, you can change the title and thumbnail, and then sometimes that's going to kind of pick it back up in the algorithm and get it to start taking off again.
Now, if your retention is low in the first 30 seconds, that means you probably didn't make those 30 seconds entertaining enough. You didn't make the cuts 3 seconds or less and add a lot of transition and music and sound effects. You probably didn't tell the viewer exactly why they have to stay and watch this video, and how it relates exactly to the thumbnail and title that you showed them. And you just did not create enough excitement to hook that viewer.
Overall, if your retention is low for the whole video in general, again, you just did not captivate that audience. Maybe the clips or cuts were too slow or too boring. Maybe the voice wasn't entertaining, maybe it was too slow, too monotone, or didn't match the style of the video. Maybe the script itself was boring, or maybe the information was outdated or wrong, or maybe some of the clips or the pictures were actually incorrect. Those sort of mistakes can make people click off because you've lost their trust.
So, understand that growth on YouTube is a long-term game. Some channels take longer to grow than others, and that's okay. Those who stick with it for 6 months, a year, however long it takes, and say, "I'm not giving up until this channel takes off," they're probably going to succeed. Simply just a matter of posting videos, but more importantly, studying the analytics, learning from your mistakes, and learning from your successes on every single video, and making the proper adjustments over time. So, your goal and expectation when you post a video should never be, "I'm going to get a million views on this video." It should literally just be to beat the analytics on the video that you posted last. If you consistently and methodically just keep beating the click-through rate on every video you post, keep beating the average percentage viewed on every video you post, eventually your channel is going to be exactly where you want it to be.
When you look back now, once you get a video to take off, double down on that video. What that means is keep posting more videos very similar to the video that took off. So that means the video topic, the thumbnail, the title, the video itself. Make everything as similar as you can, while still being just a little bit different. You'll see that many of the top channels, when you look at their most viewed videos, a lot of them are very, very similar video topics. And that means that they're doubling down on what's working, and that's exactly what you want to do.
So, a lot of people ask me, "Can you start more than one channel?" My answer is, I always recommend starting with just one channel because if you try to do two at once, they're probably both going to suffer. However, once your channel is to the point where it's consistently profitable, and you've pretty much partially or fully automated that channel, and once it's producing consistent results you're happy with, that's when you know it's time to start a new channel. And that's the beauty of YouTube automation is once you understand how to do this successfully, you can basically just rinse and repeat this process in new niches with new channels until you basically just build a YouTube automation empire.
So, a lot of people get kind of wrapped up in the weeds and they're like, "Oh, before I start this, I got to get an LLC, a business license, I got to do this and that." The truth is, do not worry about all that stuff. So, I did this myself as an individual for years without opening an LLC or a business. I was still able to write off expenses for it for tax purposes and all that kind of stuff. So, it's not at all a requirement to open up an LLC or a business to run something like this. Just focus on posting videos, being consistent, and doing the work. Once you're at a stage where you're super profitable, then sure, you can think about opening up an LLC and a business at that time. But at first, no need to worry about any of that.
This is literally just scratching the surface. If you want to learn more, click the link down below, book a free call with us, and we'll talk about it.