The Blueprint to Make $$$ on YouTube from Day 1

Every single day, from every corner of the world, there are over three billion people typing into the YouTube search bar things like, “How to train my dog,” or “How to do your own bookkeeping,” or “How to dance.” And yes, this is an entertainment platform, but it's still the second largest search engine in the world. If you want to generate an income off of this platform from the beginning, you need to use it in that way. So, if we know that over three billion people are coming here every single day to learn something, what's the

most effective or efficient way to generate an income that's real and sustainable from the beginning, without a lot of views or subscribers? Teach something. For almost a decade now, I have studied YouTube. I've used it myself, and I've taught thousands of people how to turn their channels into a very real and very consistent income. Like Nate, who teaches people how to pass the Certified Management Accountant exam, and whose very first video on his channel generated his first $677 within two hours; or Solom, who teaches German and had less than a thousand subscribers when she hit

her first $10K month; or Jeffrey, who teaches men how to save their relationships and was hitting consistent $10K months with less than 700 subscribers, and now has gone on to generate multiple millions from his channel. So, in this video, I'm going to show you the strategy to earn an income from YouTube from day one, without a ton of views or subscribers, any affiliate marketing, without having to have brand sponsors and sponsored content, and most importantly, without having to rely on the qualifications to get you to be a part of the Partner Program. None of those

things are required. Why this is really important is because if we're looking at just these options, a recent study actually showed that 48% of content creators are burnt out and frustrated because they're generating less than $1,000 a month, even though they're working their butts off to try and achieve all of these things. These can be nice side incomes if you want to leverage them, but if you want a real full-time income, this strategy is the most effective way to do so. And let me tell you, if you're solely focused on the Partner Program and generating

AdSense, well, I have a channel of over 500,000 subscribers, and this is how much I made from my channel in the last month, compared to what I made with this strategy in the last month. So, let's get into how to turn YouTube into a passive income machine. Before I get into these details, I have put together a free guide on the ten steps to turn your knowledge into a full-time income. If you want it, just comment below the video, “Give me the guide,” and we'll be sure to send you over the link to download it.

So really, there's kind of two ways that people approach YouTube. The first way is what I call the “publish and hope” method. This is totally normal; people tackle it in this way, meaning they're just putting up YouTube content and consistently making that content, just hoping that eventually, it's going to magically make them some money or generate some AdSense revenue or whatever it may be. The problem with this is that a lot of people want to become content creators because they want that creative freedom and they want that time freedom as well, and this kind of

destroys that. What it also does is it positions you to work for the algorithm because you're constantly chasing the algorithm for the signals you need to actually have success with a video, and you really don't have a ton of control over that. You can make the best video in the world, and it may get crickets. The alternative to that is to work with the natural function of YouTube. I talked about this earlier: this is a search engine. We see these big, huge creators simply using it to entertain, but that's a small percentage of creators here

on YouTube, and it's a really tough game to play because you're not in control of how the algorithm serves up your content, who it serves it to, etc. It's a really, really hard road. Now, when you work with the natural function of YouTube as a search engine and you position yourself to be found by people who'd be interested in paying you for your expert experience and knowledge, that puts you in a power position. What that does is it allows you to make the algorithm work for you, so you become the boss, and no longer is

the algorithm the boss of you. This doesn't require you to have a ton of views; it requires you to have really quality, targeted views and subscribers, which completely flips the game on its head and gives you so much of your time, energy, resources, and power back. So really, the strategy behind this is, first and foremost, what do you want to be known for, and what's the thing that you can talk about with a sense of credibility, experience, and expertise behind you? That is what you're going to build authority in inside of the algorithm. What that

does is it also builds your audience. So, it's authority and audience at the exact same time, which positions you in a really, really solid place to consistently be discovered by new folks who would actually want to pay you for your knowledge. We're going to talk more about how you actually monetize your knowledge and sell it a little bit later, but these are kind of the basics that you need to know. We dig in. Okay, so let's talk about how most people, um, get themselves into what I call the hamster wheel on YouTube of just constant

content creation and a lot of frustration. So, what it looks like is you create random content, which leads to creating more random content, and nothing works. This leads to crickets, and it just creates the self-fulfilling hamster wheel of you nonstop creating content and hoping that one of them is going to hit. Why I call this hamster wheel is ultimately because you're really just guessing. You're guessing, and you're hoping, as I said earlier, that one of these pieces of content is going to hit. But even when it hits, what does that really mean? Because generally, it's

not going to bring in a ton of income for you, and it's not going to really allow you to sustain the work and the time and the energy that you're putting into creating this content. So, the other way to approach it is what I call algorithm domination. Algorithm domination follows a very specific strategy and creates the opposite of that hamster wheel; it actually creates this engine that fuels your growth and your authority building. So, ultimately, it has to start with: who are you trying to serve? So, ideal viewer—who is the person who's going to be

most interested in what you have to say? From there, this is probably the biggest word I need you to remember from this video: relevant content. We need to make sure that any content you create is not random; it's relevant, and it feeds back to this ideal viewer. It's exactly what they want to see, hear, and learn from you. Because what does that do? It starts to teach the algorithm, "Oh, okay, this channel is about this, and they're trying to reach this kind of person." And so, what that does is then the algorithm actually knows what

the heck to do with your videos and your channel, and you're not kind of fighting this uphill battle with each piece of content you post. You're actually going, "Oh, I know exactly who this is made for," and I know I'm starting to build a little audience around that, and the algorithm is starting to understand who you want to reach. So, then it starts to work for you, as I mentioned earlier, and it starts to serve your content out using its internal traffic sources. So, we'll talk more about this later, but those are things like browse,

suggested, and search traffic sources. And I think the big takeaway from understanding why this works so well is because, especially in the beginning of when you are starting to grow a channel, this is a harsh truth, but it's true: no one cares. No one cares about your channel. No one cares about your content. Someone told me the other day, "My mom won't even watch my YouTube videos," and that's the truth. So, what you have to do is you have to make people care. Following this strategy and knowing who you're actually trying to reach works in

your favor. And so, the process of this is we need to focus on that search traffic first and foremost. So, what this looks like is I kind of call it the hockey stick of growth. So, you have your first couple of videos. I usually recommend, like, your first eight videos are really test videos because ultimately, we have to put content out in order to know what works and what doesn't. But in those first test videos, we need to make sure that we know who we're trying to reach and make relevant content for them so this

little engine can start to work from the beginning. Once you understand, "Okay, we have a bit of a baseline here, we know kind of the data that we're collecting, we know which videos are working, which videos aren't, which videos are generating engagement," then you start to focus on search traffic. So that is the first focus on your YouTube channel. That means you're making content that addresses pain points, FAQs, etc. I'm going to dig more into this strategy a little bit later. And from there, what it does is you start to build a little baseline of

audience members. These are audience members, if you were wondering what I was drawing here. So, you start to build this little baseline of audience members, and they're finding you through the search result. They're sitting there typing into the search bar, as I said earlier, and they're finding you with a helpful answer, a valuable video. You're becoming a thought leader and an authority. Even if you're starting from scratch, if you have good valuable content, people will listen. So, they're seeking out your help and advice; they find you through search results, and then what happens is they

start to subscribe. Then, when you put out more content, your content becomes suggested to that original audience. And this is where things get really interesting. As long as we focus on relevant content and you don't go off path and post something random, what happens from here is you start to tap into browse traffic and all three traffic sources working at once for you. So, what this does is it means that every time you post a video, not only is this initial audience getting suggested your content, but you're also then getting pushed on the homepage to

relevant ideal viewers through the traffic sources—not through your own doing, but the algorithm is actually starting to work for you. So, that gives you an understanding of how the actual process works in detail, but this also brings me to the number one rule of monetizing from day one. As a reminder, if you want... My free guide on the 10 steps to turn your existing knowledge into a full-time income online: comment below with "give me the guide," and we'll send you the link. As I mentioned earlier, people want to pay for your expertise, but you're probably

thinking, "If I'm putting out free content, why would they pay?" Well, there are a lot of reasons, and I've talked about them in past videos. But honestly, we're in a day and age where there is an information overload, so people are really seeking out experts. They're seeking out people who know what they're talking about and have a lot of credibility. If you can position yourself to be found—as I just spoke about—there is a lot of trust built there. You can only teach so much through YouTube content; the real transformation happens with an actual blueprint, roadmap,

and method that is packaged. That is how we can actually monetize your knowledge from YouTube without having to rely on those other sources like AdSense and affiliates and all those things. I was going to write it out, but we'll just make it a small online course. The online course, and then from there, what am I doing? Ideal. There we go—ideal viewer, which, spoiler alert, is also the customer. From there, we're actually going to create a price point for this. Your productized knowledge, which is your online course, will have a price point that is based on

the value of the outcome. If you're wondering about creating a digital product or an online course, at the bare minimum—and this is what I've been doing for a long time—pairing together YouTube and an online course, the online course must take your client on what we call the "ideal client journey." It really takes them from this zero state to this hero state. So the price of your program needs to be based on the hero state, which is fundamentally based on a transformation. It's not just you providing a bunch of information; that's why it's really hard to

monetize your knowledge on YouTube alone—because there's so much information out there, and it's a sea of information. When you can actually create something that transforms people, then you have the ability to charge based on the outcome they'll achieve from following that roadmap, from following that blueprint. But you're leveraging YouTube to position yourself as the expert and get them in the door. I've talked about two really important factors here that are the basis of this actually working as a strategy: what you want to be known for and who you want to reach. So that's your ideal

viewer. Once we understand these things, everything else becomes a lot easier because every single video you make needs to be directly reflective and relevant to those two factors. A really easy way to position this is to come up with what we call your transformation statement, which is ultimately the baseline of what you're going to create your online course around. It can be simply put as this: "I help [ideal client] at their zero state go from zero state to hero state so that they can achieve desired feelings and outcomes related to getting to that hero state."

If you can just fill in these blanks, this is the very basis of creating content that will actually attract ideal clients for this online program. This speaks to the fact that a very small audience, as evidenced by the examples I shared at the beginning of the video, can really create a big business—because one view can equal one client for your online program. So that shifts you from waiting to monetize your channel and content to being in full control from the very beginning. Why this is vital for you to know—especially in terms of that flywheel we

just talked about—is that if your ideal viewer is subscribing for a certain kind of content on a certain topic, that’s what they’re going to want to watch more of. Where people tend to go sideways and find that it doesn't work well is when they unfortunately create random content that just doesn't appeal to the ideal viewer anymore. It's pretty simple: if you have content pieces that generate high retention—meaning people are watching the whole video and you're getting really good feedback and signals that people are engaging—that's a huge clue as to the kinds of topics you want

to pursue moving forward to further build your authority and attract even more ideal viewers. But the problem is, if you start creating random content, it’s going to kill all the momentum and really hinder your ability to monetize the knowledge you have in this way. So we always want to feed that flywheel—not the hamster wheel. From there, I want to talk about something that's vitally important, which you might have had some clues about thus far: you do not own YouTube. Ultimately, you don't own the algorithm; you have no control over the algorithm on really any social

platform, which is why an email list is crucial to your success in growing any kind of online business. So at the very bare minimum, when you're creating relevant content for your ideal viewer, you absolutely have to be driving those viewers to an email list because... What that allows you to do is it allows you to build your own audience off of the platform. So what that does is it creates this really incredible process that every time you have a new video, you have a built-in audience. You're not sitting there waiting for the algorithm to push

your content to people; you actually can send your email list to your video. And what do you think that does? Well, these people are hyper-targeted because we're making relevant content for that ideal viewer; therefore, every video you create is pretty darn interesting to them. So then they're going to click on the link from the email, go to the YouTube video, give it a like, subscribe if they haven't yet, leave a comment, and that tells YouTube, "Wow, this person really knows what they're talking about! They're getting a ton of engagement on their videos, and it's quality

engagement. We should start pushing their videos out more to more ideal viewers," which brings you in potentially more clients and customers. So how do you get people onto your email list? Well, there are a bunch of ways to do this, but in the very beginning, even just setting up one of the first things that I did was just setting up a very simple PDF checklist that was relevant to the content that I was creating. So that's an easy step for you to just create a PDF. You could do it in something like Canva or even

in Keynote or PowerPoint, turn it into a PDF, and then just create a simple landing page that people can go to, type in their email address, and then they get the lead magnet in return through their email. From there, they're on your list, and then you can continue to nurture them with value. You can also position yourself as a further authority for them to make them more incentivized and build more trust with you to become a part of your paid offer or your paid online program. So really, to sum this up, what you need to

know is you have to have your content plus a call to action from the beginning. And even if you have nothing to sell right now, that's okay. If you are creating content, at the bare minimum, start building this email list because when you do have something to sell, you'll actually have people to sell it to and not have to rely on the algorithm to show you to the right people. And if you want to see this sort of like chunked out and exactly how it flows, we go from the video to the CTA, which gets

people to click a link that gets them their freebie of whatever that may be. So let's say it's a lead magnet, which could be a checklist, a PDF, an ebook, etc. Once they then download that lead magnet, they're on your email list, so they're going to start getting emails sent to them. One of those emails is going to be your YouTube video every week, which again just continues to build your authority with this audience that you actually own and is your biggest asset in your online business. From there, eventually, you’re going to get to a

place where, if they aren't incentivized to become a part of your online program right away, because you're continuing to nurture them, at some point you'll have another CTA to work with you. And why this works so well is because once they've gone through this whole process, they are so warm and warmed up and nurtured to have enough trust in you to go, "Yeah, I think this is the person I want to work with." Because you're not just going straight from a stranger on the street asking them to buy what you have to sell; you actually

start to build a relationship with them through this constant communication and constant value-add, which makes it a lot easier to turn these strangers who discover you on YouTube through search, suggested, or browse into paying clients. So let's talk a little bit more in-depth about what it actually looks like to convert strangers into potential clients. We call this the content scaling funnel or the YouTube scaling funnel. To conceptualize this, if we're at the top here and we're bringing somebody all the way down, it's going to be a longer sales cycle for that person to become a

client from stranger to client. So you want to think about the sales happening at the bottom. In some cases, this makes a lot of sense. If it's more of a cold lead, meaning somebody who doesn't really know why they would need your expertise or your knowledge or help of any kind, but they kind of are in the realm of starting to do a little bit of research—especially on YouTube—we want to serve them something that's valuable but not taking them directly to the sale because that's not going to make any sense, and they're not ready for

it. They're not at the point in their customer journey where that would make sense. So the best thing to offer somebody at this stage is really an ebook, you know, checklist, PDF, etc., something that's a low barrier to entry and not super intensive for them to have to go through because their commitment level at this stage is low. Whereas the middle of the funnel is warmer—they're not hot yet, but they're warmer. They're kind of like dipping their toe in and feeling out the water. They're a little more advanced in their research; they know that they're

seeking out some kind of a solution, but they're still in the middle part of their customer journey. This stage, what makes a ton of sense is to be with a webinar training of some kind, which is just a video training that's super in-depth on your method and that warms them up and educates them as to why they should become a buyer. Their journey to becoming a buyer is much shorter now. A hot lead is here at the bottom, and you'll notice that it goes from bigger to smaller. The reason is that your hottest leads are

going to be a much smaller group of people that are really at that place where they're like, "I am ready for help. I am ready to buy. I'm ready to become a client and actually do the work." Even though it's small, it's really, really, really important. So this person is pretty much ready to go right to buy. For this person, you can give them your conversion call to action. What I mean by that is it could be a buy button, it could be applying for a strategy session, or it could be getting on a call

with you or your team to potentially become a client. You can make their journey to sale a lot shorter because they actually are in pain, they have urgency, and most importantly, they have intent. That is the key to YouTube; it is an intent-based platform. If you think about paid advertising of any kind, it's kind of popping up when you least expect it, whereas on YouTube, people are actually sitting there and typing into the search bar to find solutions to their problems and answers to their questions. Their intent is very high in finding a solution, which

is why it makes the leads on YouTube really, really warm, and they tend to be extremely hot. So, that sales cycle tends to be really, really short—from the free content to becoming a paid member of your program. This allows us to really understand that, obviously, the content has to be good. I think a big key to this is understanding that the content itself, when I say it needs to be good, it's not that it has to have high production value by any means. My videos for a very long time were just me sitting in front

of a webcam and a window, and that worked very well in implementing this entire strategy. It's more so about the value of what you're saying in your videos needing to be super high and, again, super relevant to the person who's in that place where they're seeking out a solution. So, this brings me to what we call "cracking the code on YouTube." After being on this platform for so long now and working with thousands of people to develop this strategy, it comes down to content optimization, development, and expansion. Each of these phases has to go in

this order. The content is first and foremost, and really, this comes down to what’s the niche you’re in and, again, who you are trying to reach and what you want to be known for. That's the key to creating content that is actually going to appeal to people who are going to become potential buyers. When you do this right, the really cool thing is that it means less content and more potential opportunity—more potential clients and customers. So, I really only make three videos a month, and that’s kind of been the case for a long time now

because I know the intent behind each piece of content is so clear, and I know exactly who I'm making it for. I generally get a really high return on investment from the time I spend creating content, whereas a lot of people who are kind of in that hamster wheel I talked about earlier are just constantly creating content and spiraling without actually getting anything from it. So first comes content: What’s the niche? Who are you trying to attract? What do you want to be known for? That’s really the basis of it. I’m going to talk more

specifically about how to pick topics in just a second, and like the formula to do so, but I think what's important here is that you want to be a big fish in a small pond. You want to think about it in terms of not going after this huge market and trying to be seen amongst a ton of competition on YouTube. We have to find your unique angle and your unique niche to really dominate in, and that’s where that transformation statement I mentioned earlier is crucially important. So really, it looks like this: There’s the industry, which

could be, let’s say, health and wellness; then there’s the market, which would be, let’s say, fitness; and then there’s the niche—the niche is what we’re trying to focus on when we're creating content, and that could be like high-intensity training. So going after the industry on YouTube or the market is going to put you in a lot of competition. Identifying a unique niche and angle for yourself, which is based on your own unique experience and expertise, is what’s going to position you to stand out, become a big fish in a very small pond, and build your

authority quite quickly. Then comes optimization. When it comes to optimization, what I mean by that is really how you’re going to package the video. You have to actually think through what makes somebody click on a YouTube video. So, the biggest pieces of optimization are a thumbnail that’s going to make your ideal viewer click on it and a title that’s hyper-relevant to what they’re searching for and seeking because there's a... There are a lot of options out there, so yours needs to stand out as the most relevant option for them to click on. I’ll talk in

more detail about the specific metrics associated with these things a little bit later in the video so that you have an idea of what you’re aiming for. When it comes to development, that really means the development of the content. Before we even make the piece of content, we’ve got to focus on these two pieces right here. When it comes to development, it means you need to create the content and the script in a way that’s different from what you see from entertainment channels. The biggest piece of this is that you need to focus on retention.

Again, I’ll give you specific metrics for this a little bit later in the video, but how you get high retention in developing your script or your content is by looking at the intro first. A lot of times on YouTube, people will just talk and talk and talk and then get to the point of what they’re discussing. People click off because, why? It’s an intent-based platform. If a stranger on the Internet is seeking out, let’s say, how to train their dog, and they click on a video that comes up in the search results, and the person

in the video goes on and on about who they are, their day, their morning, and random things, that person doesn’t have time and doesn’t care because they don’t have any loyalty to you. They’re going to click off and go to the next person who answers it quickly. So, you have to think about it from that perspective. We are trying to reach strangers on the Internet; we’re not trying to have this audience that already knows us because that’s not going to allow you to really expand your reach and your expertise on a much bigger scale and

level. The intro of your video needs to be as efficient and tight as possible. What that looks like is that you need to hook people, provide them with clarity around the outcome you’re going to give them from that video, provide them with credibility of why you know what you’re talking about, and then dig right in—dig right into the content—so that they don’t click off. They watch the whole video, you get high retention, and it sends signals to the algorithm to say, "Push this piece of content out to more people like this." That brings in more

ideal viewers and potential customers and clients. The final piece is expansion. This piece is missed so often, but what this means is you need to take this very important piece of content—this content that you’ve thought through a lot, and you’ve gone through all these phases—and expand it on other platforms. That means sending it out to your email list. That is super important; you’re starting to build a list of people who will actually care about this video, so send it to them so they actually watch it and give you positive signals. You want to send it

to any social platforms that you have: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn. Post it on other platforms so that you can expand your reach outside of just the algorithm on YouTube to give you even more attention on that video from ideal viewers who care about it, which is going to again allow the internal traffic sources on YouTube to reach more like-minded people without you having to put in as much effort. We have to make sure that we check off that part of the process as well. Now, there’s a lot more to each of these steps, but at

the base level, this is what you need to know to really develop content in the right way and to get the most out of the videos you’re creating, because you’re putting effort into them. So, let's talk about how to create content that actually converts. How do you pick the right topics? What are the video topics that we want to focus on? But before I get into this, I want to remind you that if you do want the guide with the 10 steps on monetizing your knowledge online, comment below with "Give me the guide," and we’ll

send you the direct link to download it for free. So, how do you create content that actually converts? First and foremost, we talked about this earlier: it’s the relevancy of topics. But what does that actually break down to? What are the problems facing your most ideal viewer? If you think about the content scaling funnel that I talked about earlier, let’s talk about this person who’s down here. What is the most relevant content for that person? This is the content that’s going to convert the best. It’s going to bring in the smallest amount of viewers and

subscribers, but those viewers and subscribers are going to be extremely relevant and extremely hot. They are going to be more likely to become buyers and clients of your actual paid program. What are the problems they’re facing? What are their pain points? There are ways to figure this out without having to rack your brain. As I’m saying this, I want you to think through some of the things they might be facing, and a really easy thing is to consider the FAQs they commonly have or come to you for advice on. Also, if you look at relevant

channels that may have a similar audience to whom you’re trying to appeal... To determine what's the content that's getting the highest level of engagement—not necessarily views, but really qualitative engagement, meaning people commenting in-depth in the comment section—those are all very good clues. So, when it comes to the problems, pain points, these FAQs, etc., first of all, you need to look at your own experience, and you need to look at the journey that you're going to take your ideal client on in your online program. That transformative journey from zero to hero should be the focus of

our content. We want to create content for the person who's in the zero state because they are the ones who are seeking out help. We need to consider all of their four aspects at this zero state. You can think about this on your own from your experience, but you can also conduct market research by looking at relevant channels, relevant blogs, relevant social media platforms, industry publications, things like that. Simply put, you can use something like AI and say, “Hey, this is who I'm trying to reach with my content on YouTube. What are the pain points

of this person?” This approach will generate a whole list of pain points and problems associated with that demographic, which will be prime topics for your ideal viewer. Now, relevancy comes first; that is first and foremost. All of these elements will create hyper-relevant content for that ideal viewer. However, because it’s YouTube and it’s a search platform, we also have to consider SEO when selecting topics for our channel. This comes first—complete this process before we think about actual optimization with SEO. When it comes to SEO optimization, there are a few big things to consider, especially if you're

starting at the beginning. We don't want to jump into the deep end. The biggest mistake you can make is, as I said earlier, when you jump into the industry at the deep end with all these people who have millions of subscribers and viewers—you'll just get lost and drop to the bottom of the sea. We have to start small in a fish pond and aim to be a big fish in that small pond. Zero to a thousand search volume per month is really the sweet spot for a brand new channel. This puts you in a position

where you aren’t going after highly aggressive or competitive topics, but rather fair competition. This means that in the search results you won't be targeting a topic with millions upon millions of search results; you'll find a topic where there’s no huge number of people or channels competing with you. Again, that’s where we need to discover that unique niche based on the transformation statement. The final element is what we call views and velocity. Views and velocity refer to the phenomenon where, if you look up a piece of content on YouTube and the channel has, let's say, two

subscribers, but this particular video showing up in search results has a million views, that indicates a topic that is highly interesting for people. You want to use this as a clue for a great topic— one that would be search engine optimized because it’s based around keywords and relevancy to your ideal client. One thing I’ll add is that not every piece of content is made the same way. There are really three buckets of content that I like to identify on YouTube, which I generally see on everyone’s channels, and they serve different purposes: you have Evergreen content,

Depth content, and Viral content. You might be thinking, “Well, I want to go viral.” No, you don’t. I actually work with people who say, “I went viral once and I never want to do it again,” because what does this do? It tends to reach an audience of very cold, beginner eyeballs, which can lead to chaos and really bad leads. Plus, if you go viral on a topic that isn’t relevant to your ideal viewer, it messes up your whole algorithm on your channel. Suddenly, you’ve built authority on a topic that you don’t actually want to be

associated with, making it an uphill battle to attract relevant viewers, and the algorithm has a harder time helping you find audiences through those traffic sources. These are the key focuses: Evergreen content means that it’s timeless—tutorials, tips, FAQs—essentially timeless topics that will always be relevant and searchable to your ideal viewer. Depth content, on the other hand, is about building a relationship, akin to having a fireside chat or coffee with your viewer. This involves talking about your unique experience, background, and credibility, telling stories that are hyper-relevant to them. It’s truly an opportunity for you to connect with

your viewer beyond just teaching and seeking out new audiences. While depth content allows you to forge connections, is it going to bring in a ton of eyeballs? Not necessarily. Evergreen content, however, is the gift that keeps on giving because it continues to position itself in search results, meaning that new people are consistently discovering it. Finding that piece of content every single day—and that’s how our channel continues to bring in thousands of leads continuously, on repeat, on autopilot when I’m not working—because we have so many videos out there working for us when we’re not working. So,

that gives you a really good understanding of, you know, the topics you want to cover, how to really think about it. So, relevancy first, and then looking at the SEO aspect of it, and the kind of buckets of content as well and how they are going to perform. And setting your expectations around them. So, when it comes to metrics for actual monetization in this strategy, there are really only a few that you really, really need to focus on. So, number one: retention. I've already talked about this quite a bit, but if people aren't watching your

whole video or the majority of your video, it's useless. So, we want to aim for a 40% retention rate, meaning people are watching 40% or more of your video, because that's telling YouTube this is a great piece of content. And again, we need to push it to more people that you’re trying to serve—those ideal viewers. Number two: CTR. Obviously, if we want good retention, we need people to actually click on the video and watch it. So, the CTR generally—the rule is kind of like 2 to 10%. Anything above that is phenomenal. The higher on that

scale, the better. That's kind of the rough average for most videos, but this is really important because if you have a high CTR and let’s say a viral irrelevant video—that's not necessarily a good thing, because what that's doing is bringing in a whole audience of people that aren't going to care about any other piece of content you have. And again, it's going to mess with the algorithm, so you want your CTR to be high amongst your ideal viewers and the people you’re actually trying to reach. Again, depending on the type of video, if you're doing

more of a depth video, the CTR is probably going to be on the lower end, but that’s not a bad thing because it's really nurturing the relationships with the people who actually care the most and want to build that trust with you. So, CTR is yes, important, but it also has qualifiers in terms of performance depending on the kind of video and the topic of the video. Then I would say, probably next, is the qualitative feedback, and this is a bit harder to actually measure because it's qualitative; it’s not quantitative. But what this means is

essentially you're looking at the comments that you're getting on the video. If people are sharing the video and talking about the video, that's a really, really great sign. When I look at the comments and I'm looking at qualitative feedback, I'm looking for people to leave more than just a one-word comment. I want depth; I want questions. I want thoughtfulness in those comments, and that's telling me I'm hitting the mark, especially depending on what they're saying. So, really pay attention to the feedback you’re getting on your videos because it's going to tell you a lot about

how much you're actually reaching the right human beings and the right people with your content who are going to become those potential clients or customers for your online program. So, when you do this all correctly, probably the most important metric that you can have is you can do this based on dollar per subscriber or dollar per view. Let’s do dollar per subscriber. So, let’s say the example I gave at the beginning of the video—uh, I think she had, yeah, she had less than a thousand subscribers, but she was making $10,000 a month from less than

a thousand subscribers. That means that each subscriber is worth $10. Now, if you look at the metric from the inverse of this, the flip side of this—let's say you have 100,000 views, and you’re making $3,000 off that video, that means each view is worth three cents. That is what AdSense tends to pay you. And that’s actually on the high end; it’s usually between one to three cents per view, which is why it’s such an uphill battle to generate a ton of views through something like AdSense, but why you’re in a ton of control when you

make hyper-relevant content for the right people and you actually have something to offer them, like an online program. To kind of bring this all home, something I really want to talk about is the length of your videos. Now, there’s no magic number, because I know a big question is, “Well, how long should the YouTube video be?” and “What do you think about shorts?” So, there is a big reason we don’t use shorts, and we actually have never used them, and it's because of quality. It's because I would rather have less viewers, less subscribers, and this

wasn’t always the case; this is the value of being on this platform for almost a decade. I've learned so much, so I’m focused on the intent and the quality of that viewer. What I have learned through my own channel and our clients’ channels is that longer videos equal quality viewers, because this person is taking time out of their day to search a topic, click on your video, and actually watch it, listen to you. And through that whole video of listening to you and the expertise that you're sharing, they’re building a ton of respect and trust

with you, whereas shorts are going to be content that people are kind of like scrolling through. They'll click on it if they feel... Like it, but it's not necessarily going to position you as an expert, and it's not necessarily going to make you super memorable. So, if people are actually spending time with you, even if it's through a video, it builds this incredible level of trust where they eventually will go, "Well, yeah, this person's the expert, so of course that's who I want to work with, and I want to spend my hard-earned money on." You

really want the engaged viewer who has the intent to actually take action on what it is that you're saying, and if you're sharing more short-form content, that's not necessarily the case. So, a general rule I would say is that between 10 to 20 minutes is a really good sweet spot for YouTube videos. There's no perfect science to this, but 10 to 20 minutes is a good gauge of how long the content should be. To bring this all together, I know this is a lot of information. Relevancy rules. At the end of the day, random content

is going to screw the growth and success of your channel, and also any opportunity you have to really be able to create sustainable monetization. Relevant content is going to allow you to build a really loyal, solid base of people who are invested in you, your authority, and your expertise. So, you always just want to bring it back to that flywheel: ideal viewer, making relevant content so that the algorithm knows what the heck is going on and can catapult you. That allows traffic sources on YouTube to work for you to bring in more ideal viewers with

you doing less work. This is really what creates that engine that generates organic growth of more and more people who are going to care about what you're talking about. As I said, I have been fine-tuning this process and testing it for nearly a decade now. This comes from a lot of experience, and I've tried so many things over the years that I can assure you that this is foolproof. Like, this has worked, and it will continue to work. It's done wonders for our clients, you know, scaling them to multiple millions from their YouTube channels, even

if they don't have a big subscriber base or a ton of viewers. They have the right people watching, and that's what really matters. So, this whole strategy allows you to monetize your content that you own in your own way, and that gives you so much power back. This is without worrying about algorithm changes. I have been on this platform a long time, and while the algorithm has gone through some shifts, the strategy has stood the test of time and continues to stand the test of time because the functionality of YouTube really hasn't changed all that

much. It allows you to do this without constantly creating. You're not constantly throwing content on YouTube and burning yourself out, and you don't need to worry about hopping on different social media platforms and the newest trends. It's tried and true. But most importantly, what this allows you to do—and why it's so important to share for me—is it allows you to grow in a way that isn't attached to time because your channel and your content can work for you when you're not working if you do it in this very strategic way. As a reminder, if you

want to know how to monetize your knowledge online, I have the "10 Steps to Scale Your Skill Set and 10x Your Impact Without Trading Time for Money." Just comment below this video with "Give me the guide," and we will drop you the link to download it, or you can click the link in the description below this video to go grab it as well. Thank you so much for watching, and if you really want to see a real-world example of this, I highly recommend you check out this video with a case study of one of our

clients who actually generated over a million dollars in one year with less than 4,000 subscribers on his channel, and it grew exponentially from there. It's pretty amazing; check that out next. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one. Bye!