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How To Make $$$ By Reviewing Stuff On YouTube

Jay Wessman

Well-Known Member
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How To Make $$$ By Reviewing Stuff On YouTube

What’s uuuuuup?

So lately I’ve been getting into ‘reviewing’ stuff on YouTube (and on my niche sites) to make $ and I thought I’d make a tutorial to show you how I’m doing it.

I’ve been setting up channels where I personally review all sorts of gear in all sorts of niches (both physical and digital products) and I’ve even been branching out to work with other YouTubers to help them to start up review channels too… and basically what I’m finding is that this simple approach can be extremely profitable if you’re willing to put the time and effort into doing it properly.

And I’m not talking about those terrible review sites with the stock graphics and poorly worded articles that have probably just been copy pasted straight off the Amazon site.

I’m talking about actually buying the products, trying them and doing a real video review on YouTube along with a blog post with actual footage of the product in action.

But why am I taking all of this extra effort to buy the products and to make video reviews as opposed to just using stock images and articles?

Two reasons:
  • They convert insanely well. Nothing beats a real review where you can actually see that the person really has bought and tried the product and as a result these types of videos convert extremely well… even for higher end products costing $500+ allowing you to get $50 commissions, $100 commissions and even higher.

  • The competition is next to nil. So few people are actually willing to step away from their computer for a moment to properly review a product and then go on camera that it means that those who ARE willing to put in the effort are able to rank and bank with ease.
Examples...

Before I get into the ‘how to’ portion of this post though here's a quick example of how profitable these videos can be.

The following is an income shot I just grabbed that comes from just ONE review video of a physical product that has nothing to do with the 'internet marketing' niche:

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As you can see the commissions are nice and healthy, they're regular and it just comes in on autopilot once the video is up and ranking.

And when you consider that I've got dozens of videos like this in all sorts of niches it starts to add up pretty quickly.

Now I can't give you the niche or show you the video for most of these because like I said - these keywords are so low in competition that it'd be stupid for me to 'out' them.

But here's an example that you CAN see.

Some of you guys might remember that I reviewed Lukes tool ‘FPTraffic’ on my 'Lazy Ass Stoner' channel a while back which is a tool that I’ve been using to grow and automate my Facebook pages. I basically just put together a video where I talked about how I was using FPTraffic and what I liked about it and towards the end I give out my affiliate link.

And basically this review video now ranks in the top spots of YouTube for things like 'FPTraffic', 'FPTraffic Review' and even things like 'get more Facebook Fans', 'How To Get More Facebook Fans' and so on:

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Towards the end of the video I give the watcher my affiliate link and as a result I've been making autopilot income every month since I put the video out... without doing ANY extra promotions.

Here's a screenshot:

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And because this product is recurring and because people choose to stay signed up my earnings month to month tend to grow without doing anything extra.

And you really can do this in basically any niche you want. You can do it with physical products, with software, with tools, courses… whatever.

Anyway let’s get to the ‘tutorial’ portion of this post.

Step 1) Choosing A Niche/Keywords

The very first thing you’ll want to do is choose yourself a niche. Your channel should all be based around one ‘main’ niche/type of product.

And the way in which I find ‘review’ keywords to target is the same way that I find keywords to target in the Google search results – by using the good old Google Keyword Planner.

Generally speaking if people search for something in Google they also search for it in Youtube.

So for example if I was to set up a review channel in the ‘cooking/kitchen’ niche I could target something like this:

4-keyworda.png


As you can ‘Bakerstone Pizza Oven Review’ gets a total of 320 searches/month.

But when we look at the competition levels in YouTube we can see that the competition is basically non existent with just 219 results in total turning up and not one of them is targeting ‘Bakerstone Pizza Oven Review’ in their titles:

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I’ll say it again. That’s 219 results. Not 219,000… not even a 1,000. Its 292 videos in the entire world and most of those videos still aren’t even targeting this keyword.

What’s also cool too is that by doing this can also go after the product keyword itself which in this example is ‘Bakerstone Pizza Oven’ which gets 480 searches/month and again this keyword still only has 393 results in YouTube…

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This really is the definition of ‘low competition’.

Here’s another example. Let’s say you have a beauty/style type channel.

After taking a very quick squiz at the Google Keyword Planner I was able to find the keyword ‘Muk Hair Straightener Review’:

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As you can see this keyword gets approximately 170 searches/month but as you can see in YouTube there’s only 283 results turning up and only one of the results even seems to have the word ‘review’ in their title:

8-ytcomp.png


And again if I search for the main product itself even without ‘review’ on the end of it (‘Muk Hair Straightener’) then that keyword gets another 1,000 searches/month… and it still only comes up with 185 results in YouTube and MOST of the results that do show up aren’t even targeting ‘Muk Hair Straightener’:

8-ytcompb.png


Hopefully you’re starting to see what I’m getting at. These keywords are obscenely easy to rank for.

But let’s do one more example and this time of a ‘digital product’. Digital products are great too because often they have higher commissions and you don’t even have to wait for the product to ship or anything like that.

Let’s say I did a ‘VPN Review’ channel where I reviewed VPN services. VPNs are basically programs that allow you to change your IP so that you can do things like watch that are only available to a certain country regardless of where you are in the world.

After a very quick search I found this keyword ‘Astrill VPN Review’ which gets 590 searches a month and it’s got an affiliate program that pays out 10%-25%.

And best of all it has next to no competition in YouTube:

21-astrill-keywords.png


It’s got a measly 431 results and only the very first two videos even include ‘Astrill VPN Review’ in their title. If I wasn’t already so busy I’d probably even go after this keyword myself!

Then what’s really cool too is once you’ve got your channel built a bit you can also start to target keywords like:

‘X vs Y’ Keywords: You’ll be amazed at how many people search for direct product comparisons like ‘Coke vs Pepsi’ and it’s ridiculous how little competition these keywords often have. Once you have already reviewed a few products on your channel you can then start to tackle some of these ‘x vs y’ keywords too without even having to buy the products (since you’ve already got them).

Furthermore because you already have done the research on each product and have already tested them out these sort of videos take about half the time that a regular review video would take.

For example if I go back to my style/hair straightener example I could target something like ‘Cloud 9 VS GHD’ – two popular and high end hair straighteners:

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This keyword gets 390/searches a month and although it has a little bit more competition in YouTube with 1,020 results it’s still pretty barren with only a few results actually targeting the keyword:

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And since both of these are $300 straighteners which ever one people buy you will make a healthy commission. Find a decent affiliate program that pays out 15% and you’re making close to $50/sale.

These ‘vs’ keywords exist in basically every single niche and hardly anyone is targeting them (even in Google a lot of the time!).

For example with the VPN example I could target something like this:

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IPVanish and HideMyAss are two different VPNs and if you’ve already tried them both then putting together a simple ‘side by side’ comparison of the two VPNS is super easy and as you can in the pic below… the competition is basically non-existent:

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Again the competition is non-existent with only 363 results turning up in ALL of YouTube.

‘Best X’ Keywords: This is another cool and easy one to do especially once you’ve already got a review up.

Just head to the Google Keyword Planner and do a search for ‘best your niche’ and you’ll find a slew of other cool keywords that you can target:

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So for example I could target something like ‘Best Hair Straightener For Thick Curly Hair’ which gets 140 searches/month and whaddaya know it has basically no competition:

16-ytcomp.png


Again these are easy to make after you've reviewed a few things already because you'll already have a good idea of which product really is 'the best' in each different type of category that's being searched for.

You could target all sorts of these keywords. ‘Best Ceramic Hair Straightener’, ‘Best Hair Straightener For Thick Hair’… the list goes on.

And basically if you get a bit creative then you can find and tackle these super low competition keywords aaaaaall day long.

Step 2) Making Your Videos

I’m not going to get into the ‘nuts and bolts’ of video editing otherwise this post would turn into a novel and there are already a TONNE of free tutorials out there as well as on YouTube about how to use video editing software.

You don’t need to use anything fancy. Hell you can use Windows Movie Maker if you want too.

Personally I use Adobe Premiere Pro just because I’m a big fan of the whole Adobe suite and just like the way they all work together but you can do this in anything.

What’s more important than the software you use is things like targeting keywords, being authentic and things like eye catching thumbnails.

Don’t worry though I’ve got you covered…

Scripting / Preparation...

The very first thing you want to do is simply buy the product and play around with it. Make notes about what you do and don’t like about the product as you use it. If there are downsides/things you don’t like about the product don’t be afraid to add them because it will make your video seem a lot more genuine which will result in more trust and ultimately more conversions.

You don’t have to write an entire word for word script or anything like that but in my experience your video will come out waaaay better if you do a little bit of preparation first and actually figure out roughly what points you are going to cover and address rather than trying to ‘wing it’ on the spot.

Recording Your Videos...

Grab your notes and a camera and start yapping away about what you did and didn’t like about the product.

Just keep it simple. Pretend like you are talking to a friend and are explaining what you did and didn’t like about something and it’ll make it seem a lot easier. And remember this is YouTube – not TV. You don’t need to be ‘corporate’, you don’t need to ‘hard sell’… just be genuine and real and don’t worry too much if you stuff up a word or about getting absolutely everything 100% perfect.

Alternatively if you are camera shy then you can shoot a bunch of ‘up close’ footage of the product being used and then simply record a voiceover later.

With digital products you can just record your screen while you use product using something like Camtasia and then talk over the top of it.

Audio quality is much more important than video quality though. If people can’t understand what you are saying then they’ll never buy what you are selling so if you can – try to pick up a decent microphone.

Basically any microphone is better than the shitty ones that come in built with cameras – personally I use and recommend the Blue Yeti which you can pick up for about $150. I know A LOT of other Youtubers that use this exact microphone too and it really will give you 100x better quality than a camera microphone will.

Then at the very end of each video you want to give two call to actions: one to buy the product that you are promoting and one asking the viewer to subscribe.

So you can say something like this:

“To find out where you can buy yourself GHD hair straightener at the cheapest price online then click here to check out my blog where I’ve put up links the absolute cheapest places to buy authentic GHD hair straighteners online. And for more cool videos don’t forget to hit the subscribe button!”

Cutting/Editing your videos...

As I mentioned before I’m not going to get into exactly how to edit a video (it’s not that hard… just pick a video editing program and play with it until you get the hang of it).

However I do have a couple of pointers that should make your videos more successful:

  • Use jump cuts. This is basically what every popular YouTuber does and all it means is cutting out the boring bits, the ‘umms’ and ‘aaaahs’, the long silences etc. Nobody wants to watch a 30 minute video just because you were too lazy to cut out the unnecessary bits. Nobody wants to watch you yawning. Keep it short, to the point and remember people have ADD attention spans these days. This will in turn increase your average viewer duration (aka: how far into your videos people are watching) which will then increase your YouTube rankings. If you’re audience retention is under 50% (you can check this in your YouTube analytics) then you probably need to make your videos shorter and more ‘to the point’.

  • Add background music to keep the ‘pace’ of your videos up. I add background music to just about every video that I make no matter what niche it’s in and it really helps to add a bit of ‘pace’ to your videos and to make them more interesting and engaging. You can find free royalty free tracks that you can use in the YouTube Audio Library or paid ones over at AudioJungle.net.

Step 3) Optimizing Your Videos

Once you’ve got your first video rendered it’s time to upload the video and to optimize it so that it ranks in not only YouTube but hopefully inside of Google too.

And luckily this isn’t too hard to do. We just need to make sure that we do a few things:

Optimizing Your Videos For Your Keywords: This is super easy to do. Basically just make sure that you include your keyword in your title, your tags and your description:

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Also try to make your title catchy, your description at least 200 words and add any other related keywords that you can find in the Keyword Planner tool to your tags section.

Create A Custom YouTube Thumbnail: The more eye catching your thumbnail is the more traffic you’ll get. It’s the first thing people notice when they search for videos or look in the related videos section so custom thumbnails are a must for every video otherwise YouTube will just pick a random segment of your video and show that as your thumbnail which is the last thing we want!

If it's a physical products you can just take a photo of the product itself. Put the product against a nice background and just snap a pic. But if it's a digital product you can hit up sites like PhotoDune.net or GraphicRiver.net (these are paid sites but you can also use free royalty free image sites too) and search for a picture that's related to your niche.

For the VPN example I could search for 'privacy' and find something like this:

18-customthumba.png


Then when you've got your picture take it over to your favorite image editing program (I use Photoshop though you can use Gimp or any other photo editing software you like) and then just add some text to it to make it pop:


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The ideal size for thumbnails is 1280 x 720 pixels.

Annotations & Cards: The last thing that we need to do before we can publish our video is to add annotations and cards to the video. These are basically those links that you see over the top of videos that people can click on to go to another site.

And basically we want to use 'annotations' and 'cards' to link back to our website where our affiliate links are.

Before you'll be able to use these features you'll need to make sure that you have associated your website with your YouTube account which you can do by going to the 'Creator Studio' section on YouTube and then to 'Channel' and then 'Advanced':

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Once you've got your site linked to your YouTube account you'll then be able to add annotations and cards back to your site at the point where you say "and if you'd like to buy this than click here etc" that link back to your blog post post about that particular product.

And you also want to include a ‘Subscribe’ annotation at the point where you ask your viewer to subscribe. You’ll be amazed at how many people will actually click through to your website or subscribe to your channel just because you asked them too.

Then once you’ve done all of that just publish your video!

Step 4) ‘Promoting’ Your Videos

Once you’re videos are finished and uploaded the hardest bit is over.

If you pick your keywords well then often you’ll find yourself ranking on the first page of Google literally minutes after pressing the ‘publish’ button. Hard to believe when you are used to the longer wait of SEO but it’s definitely possible and by no means uncommon. 9 times out of 10 your video will appear somewhere on the first few pages of YouTube for your keyword within literally minutes.

However with a bit of promotion we can really kick off our videos helping us to truly cement our rankings.

By giving a bit of a ‘push’ to our videos we can drive some initial views, comments and likes to them all of which will help to ‘launch’ your videos getting them ranked even higher and helping them to turn up in the ‘related videos’ section of YouTube.

And the main way that I do this is simple – I use social networks.

For every channel/site that I build I set up a Facebook, a Twitter, a Pinterest, a Google+, a Reddit, and and then I use these accounts to promote my videos.

Now I’m not going to get into exactly how I use eeevery site because I’ve already posted guides on most of these sites but you can check some tutorials I've posted in the past on the Fix about how I do this:

Tumblr Guide: A posted this a while back and this technique still works like crazy and it’s particularly powerful for sharing out videos. Just set up a niche related tumblr, start to follow niche related people, start posting your videos and so long as your videos don’t totally suck ass you WILL get reblogs, likes, views, comments and subscribers.

Pinterest Guide: In this guide I show you how I build up my Pinterest accounts and promote my videos with them. Pinterest is also allows you to post and share out your videos in much the same way.

Reddit Guide: Reddit is definitely a little bit trickier as these guys marketing radar is higher but still totally, totally worth doing if you do it right and a single good submission can literally kickstart a channel from 0 to 100 subscribers in a day.

These three alone are enough to get your channel rolling but if you want to give it some extra juice I’d also recommend also hitting up Facebook & Google+ groups. There are groups on these social networks for just about every niche in existence and sharing your videos inside of these groups is a super easy way to get traction.

You’ll be amazed though at how little social promotions you need to do to get your videos ranking though. Just do enough to get a few eyes on your videos and Youtube will then do the rest!

Misc Tips ‘n’ Tricks…

Before I finish – here are a few more tips and tricks that’ll help you to make even more money…

  • If a product sucks – you don’t have lie and say that it’s good to make $. If something sucks just simply refer them to another one of your videos where you reviewed a similar product that’s actually good. It’s as simple as saying something like ‘at the end of the day though the X just isn’t as good as the Y which I reviewed a while back. You can check that out by clicking here.’

  • Don’t be afraid to target high value products. It takes around the same amount of work to make a video for a $10 product as it does for a $500 product. But with a $500 product you’ll be getting much, much higher commissions. Lower priced products are still a good way to ‘get your feet wet’ and to start making your first few bucks but ultimately I’d recommend re-investing the money that you make on the lower priced products into higher and higher ones if you can because this will send your earnings up exponentially.

  • Coupons / exclusive discounts work great if you can get them. Some affiliate programs will offer custom affiliate coupons that you can use so that every time someone uses one you get a commission. Some programs might not have this option automatically but if you email them nicely they may be willing to hook you up with a custom coupon. Then simply give the coupon code towards the end of the video and your viewers will dig it that they get a discount and buy, buy, buy.

That’s A Wrap…

This post has gotten pretty long now so I'm going to wrap it up but feel free to ask your questions below and I’ll try to answer them for you guys!
 
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Your tutorials are the best, Jay! Thank you for taking the time to do them. :)
 
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