The Unsexy Truths About Getting Monetised On Youtube

We all love to hear about quick success. I personally love reading and watching these stories of how people get monetised on Youtube in lightening speed time.

That stuff is sexy, inspiring, and exciting, it gets all of my creative juices going.

Dream-like stories about how that monetisation transforms their lives, allowing them to quit their job and live happily ever after on Google Adsense royalties.

I lap that stuff up, it’s my guilty pleasure to consume, sometimes more than Netflix.

But what’s not as sexy, is the slow long grind. That slog of video after video with getting barely any views. The journey that takes way longer than everyone else seems to be doing it. The story that would have seen most people giving up on.

Those are the stories that we don’t hear about quite as often, but it’s also the unsexy truth for most.

My Youtube Grind

My Youtube journey is 15 years in the making and not just how I got monetised in 30 days!

Sure, monetised in 30 days can happen, I still see it all of the time as per above. There is no shortage of those videos.

But I always like to share what’s beneath the peak of the iceberg.

The story that was 15 years in the making, that maybe many others wouldn’t share because they might feel embarrassed.

I share because I want people to know that slow progress is sometimes a good thing, and that it’s worth persevering even when it feels like nothing is happening.

I started my Youtube channel back in January of 2008. As of today that is a mere 15 years, and I have just gotten monetised at the end of July 2023.

I know I could have done it quicker if I had made my channel my sole focus, but YouTube was never my only thing. I’m a health coach first and foremost.

I originally used Youtube to showcase my work, ideas, testimonials and a place to house my member's content.

It was only over the last couple of years that I got intentional about actually growing my channel. A change in perspective to see it‘s potential as an additional side income to my coaching and blogging work.

It all started when Medium earnings took off a little, I then decided to pursue blogging. Creating my own website alongside Medium after ironically watching a Youtube video on ‘How My Blog earns $75k per month.

It just made sense to add video to my blog posts for the purpose of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

I was looking to optimise my blog posts and achieve higher rankings on Google. I discovered you can get higher rankings on Google if you also have video on your page. Which makes sense as Youtube is owned by Google afterall, and so that is exactly what I started doing with my channel.

I started creating video’s for my best-performing blog posts. It’s this strategy that really allowed my channel, and my blog to finally start seeing some momentum.

Not only getting organic search traffic from Google. But a lot of people go straight to Youtube to search for the answers to their questions too.

The sweet spot is to find the high search, low-competition keywords.

I found mine in the niche of health and fitness product reviews.

As a health coach I’m primed to give a little authority and insight on this topic.

But really I’m sharing my experience as a consumer.

Though I’m passionate about health and wellness I’m not a full-time fitness nerd who takes it to the extreme and allows it to consume my whole life.

I’m a busy mum of two with stress, real-life problems, who loves food, who like a drink, who likes to live a life of balance. I’m not stick thin and maintaining my weight is not easy for me and that is something that is relatable to many people.

I face the same struggles my audience does and I’m often being served the same adverts that every other 40+ perimenopausal woman is seeing.

There is a lot of snake oil out there with health and fitness products (which has become even more apparent with a recent experience I had with a brand, but that is a whole other article in it’s self) and I want to use my experience as a health coach to help people navigate their decision-making on what’s worth investing their hard-earned money on and what is most definitely not!

The First 1000 Is The Hardest

Though it did take a long time to hit monetisation requirements (1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours), it actually only took 2 videos to change my Youtube trajectory and get to monetisation.

My subscriber count increase was super slow, right up until the 1000 mark.

Since then (which is just over a month or so ago) it’s growing faster and on a daily basis. I have gained almost an additional 500 subscribers in the next 30 days.

It took me 15 years to get the first 1000, then 30 days later I have seen an additional 500 subscriber increase.

It’s the same no matter what you are creating, it only takes that one piece of content to change the trajectory of your work.

From there it can all begin to snowball.

You can see from the above screenshot in my analytics that things started to really take off early in July.

I published a video in January that started doing well (in terms of my channel) and has now had over 22k views.

This one did so well because my video actually got picked up by another high-traffic website that posted a link to my video and review.

But it’s the video I published at the beginning of July that really started to gain traction.

This one is doing better on Youtube search and has gained 30k views in less than 2 months.

Wins & Challenges

Finally getting to monetisation has already started to change my focus and potentially my business model.

I like diversity with my income streams and not having all of my financial eggs in one basket and relying on just one platform. Whilst I could maybe grow bigger by just focusing on one at a time, that’s not how my head works. I like the diversity of doing different things.

I love being a coach, but I found that writing and blogging allows me to be an even better coach as I spend more time researching, reading and testing different things. Then I’m essentially turning my blog posts into videos.

Youtube is helping my blog to grow and vice versa, they complement each other really well. Not only am I gaining subscribers on my channel and other social accounts, but I’m also getting way more sign up’s to my email list too.

Essentially I don’t expect to be able to retire from my Google adsense payments, though I have to say it’s looking like it may be more than I originally thought it may be. I’ll do a full article on that after the first full month.

I have also had a couple of brands reach out to me wanting to work with me. One was a positive connection, the other very questionable, which as I said above deserves a whole article in itself.

Above all else, I am creating videos for the consumer and not just to make money, and I am very conscious to make that very clear.

As well as getting some amazing and wonderful comments from people, I’m also getting a lot of trolling and not-so-nice comments too. But I have been in this game long enough to not allow that to bother me too much. In fact, I quite enjoy replying to nasty comments with kindness and compassion.

So I hope my long ass journey to monetisation has given you some things to think about on your own path, and to encourage you to keep on going.

I can only see Youtube getting bigger and bigger. My kids generally watch Youtube exclusively these days, they barely watch terrestrial TV. Youtube is becoming more and more common resource for entertainment as well as to gain information.

My top focus going forward

• Create the content I really care about, but also consider what people are searching the internet for. SEO has been the game changer.
• Always have the consumer in mind. Give them the best information you can and serve them, not just the algorithm.
• Focus on service first and the financial part will ‘hopefully’ come after
• Remember that haters are part of the job. Anybody who starts making waves will always attract some polarization. I certainly don’t invite it but have come to expect it. My weapon of choice is to respond with kindness and consider they must be going through some real shit in their lives to be that mean. The only way you can truly avoid negative comments is to do nothing, say nothing and be nothing. And I know you don’t want that for yourself either.

You can follow my Youtube Channel Here and maybe we can connect.

What has your Youtube journey been like so far? Were you monetised quickly? Or are you still in the grind?