Please note that affiliate links may be included in some posts.
If you love YouTube, this one is for you.
The idea here is that you will develop a content site that profiles and curates YouTube content.
There are a couple different directions you could go:
- YouTube News: Report on YouTube channels & personalities
- YouTube Curation: A YouTube video curation site
- YouTube Hybrid: Curating a genre of video + profiling the genre's top YouTubers
The beauty of this niche is that 75% of the content work is done for you. You'll be leveraging existing content (YouTube videos) and creating 300+ word posts that are fun and informative writeups that supplement the video.
In this way, you can tap into massive keyword search volume for both YouTube and non-YouTube-related queries. Here's an example of a post that follows this process:
CRAZIEST Military Training Exercises!
Origins Explained presents some of the craziest - and most challenging - military training exercises carried out around the world. Israeli Skyscraper Rappel The Israeli Defense forces are trained to deal with any number of situations, hence this "baptism by night." Soldiers must take turns des
You make money from Display Ads and Affiliate Marketing- all of it on a passive basis. Read on for more specifics of how this will work.
Niche Facts Overview
- Lots of low-competition search traffic for YouTubers and their channels.
- YouTube has over a billion users and thousands of popular creators- tons of niches to explore and drive Google search traffic to.
- Leveraging existing videos supplies a free content source that you can add value to with informative, cheaply outsourced write-ups.
- You'll need to add value to the video content- especially in the YouTube Curation model to ensure search traffics 'sticks' to your site, rather than bouncing straight to YouTube.
- Bottom Line: A potentially fun project, though unless you choose a niche with affiliate products, this is more of a Display Ad play.
*If Google Trends doesn't load- just refresh the page.
Diving In...
This is an exciting opportunity. Just writing it up has me half-convinced that I want to start a YouTube Curation-style site.
Let's examine the different strategies and see which one might work for you. The first is YouTube News.
YouTube News
With the YouTube News stratgy, the idea is to profile and report on celebrity YouTubers like Pewdiepie, MarkiPlier and somewhat lesser-known entertainers. It could also examine YouTube policies, analyze algorithm updates, and become an important industry site with strong editorial content.
You'll get traffic in the beginning as you profile smaller channels that have thousands of searches a month, but no one else writing about them!
As I discuss a bit later- you can definitely niche down. So, you might profile the science-fiction community on YouTube, or the car community- the list is endless.
The King Of YouTube:
An example of a general YouTube news site is TubeFilter.com.
TubeFilter is a general news-style site that describes themselves this way:
The web is full of great storytelling. As you’ve probably noticed, there are a lot of excellent programs just clicks away, but too often they get lost in the online video fray. Tubefilter helps you discover and keep track of the industry events and programming worth caring about.
As of this writing, Ahrefs.com reports that they rank #2 in Google for "rhett and link", a popular YouTube channel, that gets 79,000 searches a month. They also rank #5 for "how to basic", another popular YouTube channel, that gets 37,000 searches a month.
You can begin to see the potential of this niche. Not to beat a dead horse, but there's tons of volume and not a lot of competition. In essence, that's been my primary approach to making money online- finding the 'white spaces' and filling them in.
Examining The Keywords
As you can see in the table below, there's a boatload of Google organic search traffic to be had by generating content around celebrity YouTubers.
I grabbed a list of the top 500 or so YouTubers from SocialBlade and provided the Keyword Competitiveness score from LongTailPro (check out the scoring key below the table).
Obviously, some keywords like Burno Mars, Playstation and League Of Legends are not themselves keywords you'd want to compete for- though they could be topically interesting, depending on the genre of YouTube channels and videos you choose to report on.
For example, you could report on professional video gamers- that could be a really fun play if you're a gamer. Plus you could do affiliate promotions for video games and gaming services. It's also a fit for YouTube Curation, which I explore more in depth below.
Top YouTuber Keyword Research
If you like this niche report, please give it a share:
Keyword Competitiveness Scores
- 0-10 (No Competition),
- 10-20 (Extremely Low Competition),
- 20-30 (Low Competition),
- 30-40 (Moderate Competition),
- 40-50 (Somewhat High Competition),
- 60-70 (Very High Competition),
- 70-100 (Don't Even Think About It).
*Read more about their scoring.
If you've ever Googled your favorite YouTuber, you've likely seen that outside of YouTube itself, they have a very limited online presence. Most haven't focused on developing cross-channel awareness.
While there aren't many naturally-occurring products to promote, you can monetize with Display Ads and tap into this targeted traffic. SocialBlade offers YouTube consulting and tax services, which is another revenue opportunity.
This could also be an opportunity for someone who has a successful Amazon affiliate site and wants to diversify into Google AdSense to utilize their existing know-how to spin out a quality fan site.
You might want to niche down with this one. As you can imagine, there are about a billion different genres of YouTube channels, whether it be ASMR videos or videos of Asian women eating large quantities of food.
Popular YouTube Categories
- News & Politics
- Nonprofit & Activism
- People & Blogs
- Pets & Animals
- Science & Technology
- Shows
- Sports
- Travel
YouTube Curation
The other idea I like is YouTube curation.
The concept is to curate YouTube videos, organizing them for optimal user experience, while doing write-ups to provide added value and capture search traffic.
An awesome example of this is TacticalClips.com.
In their words:
We are an online web publishing portal publishing videos of Special Forces missions, guns, gears, vehicles & aircraft reviews, real battle footage from all over the world, self defense instructions etc.
So, they leverage really cool YouTube videos- some of which it appears they've made themselves, but many are not their own. Their site organizes this video content and provides commentary below the fold.
This commentary enables them to get organic traffic. Plus, the third-party video content is a no-cost resource that enables them to cheaply produce compelling content.
Plugging their site into Ahrefs.com, I see that they are ranking #5 in Google for "danish special forces", #5 for "russian survival rifle", #3 for "pse crossbow ar15", which is a product query. The point is, they rank for some interesting long-tail keywords- all of it supported by video content they didn't even create!
What I would do
If I were approaching the YouTube Curation model specifically, I would hire and train rewriters to summarize YouTube videos to get organic traffic. You could easily mass scale this opportunity.
Once you get a good writer or two, imagine sending off 100 videos to be summarized, having a Virtual Assistant post them for you, and then monetizing this flow of free, organic traffic with Display Ads and Affiliate Marketing (if there are products in the niche).
What you'll need to do is focus on a genre of YouTube video. Below I picked off a bunch of 'hobbies' from Not So Boring Life as a starter list to prime your imagination. Ideally, you'll want there to be solid organic traffic for the genre of video you choose and affiliate products to promote.
Hobby Keyword Research
If you like this niche report, please give it a share:
Perusing the list, bodybuilding looks interesting- you could summarize body-building workouts, profile popular YouTube fitness celebrities, monetize protein powder reviews and gym equipment demonstrations.
I have worked with a bodybuilding trainer and go to the gym regularly, so this niche speaks to me somewhat. I'm not super deep into it, but I know how rabid the fan base is and how much content you can create around types of exercises and equipment.
It's endless.
Badminton is also interesting- you could profile famous matches, outline how-to-play guides, profile popular players that are both on and off of YouTube.
Use your imagination!
YouTube Hybrid
You could also combine strategies- it could be a curation site that also targets organic traffic from YouTube entertainer keywords.
While you won't be able to tap into as many YouTube performer keywords, it's a solid traffic acquisition strategy to consider if the curation model is what primarily appeals to you.
The opportunity
In a nutshell, you're leveraging the existing popularity and search volume of YouTube content, but capitalizing on it within Google Search.
It provides a ready-made content source (the videos) to curate and add value. I love it because the cost of content will be really cheap and it lends itself to mass-scaling.
A great Display Ad play, with some affiliate, too, if you choose the right YouTube Curation-style niche.
You have to provide value, though- there needs to be a reason that users stay on your site rather than just subscribing to the YouTube creator's channel and forgetting about you.
Another thing you should consider- YouTube channels are sometimes removed. So, if you depend too much on one creator, your whole site would basically glitch if the video links break.
How to get traffic
SEO
This will be an SEO play- whether you choose the News, Curation or the Hybrid option.
For the News model, first make a list of all the relevant YouTubers to profile and figure out how you want to profile them.
Perhaps you create a Wikipedia-style resource page like this one for Pewdiepie. Perhaps you create Buzzfeed-style content like "The 10 Craziest Pewdiepie moments" with YouTube and Twitter embeds. IGCritic provides an example of that style of content.
Indeed, you can blend dry, informational resource content with viral-style content that could get you social shares.
There are some YouTube channels that report on YouTube drama like DramaAlert. It might be a good place to get some inspiration from.
YouTube News Channel
With YouTube Curation, I'd recommend choosing a niche with search volume and figure out how you want to organize your content.
Then, I'd do about 15 posts myself- figuring out the best format for adding curative value to the YouTube videos I choose to profile.
I'd then hire a writer to begin churning out this content. If you're a newbie, you might not appreciate how important it is to be able to scale content creation. Discovering a process to automate content that acquires passive traffic is the means of funding a passive-income lifestyle.
This particular niche market is made for content automation and could be a goldmine if you pull it off right.
Read More Of My Niche Reports
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How to make money
Affiliate Marketing + Display Ads
Display Ads and Affiliate Marketing will be your primary revenue generation models.
As I previously mentioned, there's opportunities to offer YouTube consulting services, whether you provide them or you do a lead-generation partnership with a digital media agency, that's up to you.
This isn't as fast a money-making opportunity as marketing high-ticket items like in the fitness equipment niche, but it's honestly a pretty cool strategy.
Because you're not paying to create video content, your content costs will be extremely low. If you can add value to the niche you choose by organizing the video content and providing informative writeups, you'll get a nice flow of traffic that you can passively monetize.
Domain Name Ideas
- TubeThink.com
- TubeAnswers.com
- TubeMinds.com
- IntelligentTube.com
- TubeLeaf.com
- WatchRider.com
How To Get Started
- Choose from News, Curation or Hybrid style and do some research to figure out your approach
- Choose a fun domain name (be careful not to include "YouTube" in the domain name
- Think through tags and categories- these will be crucial to deploy strategically so that you can serve your user curated content.
- Do 15-20 posts yourself, first, before considering outsourcing and beginning to automate the content creation process.
- You can begin monetizing with Amazon Associates and once you have some traffic, say a 1,000 visits a day, you could consider using Ad Inserter to add AdSense to your site.
Pros
- Easy SEO traffic
- Cheap rewritten content + free compelling video embeds
- Fun topic
- Active reader base
- Can be monetized with display ads and affiliate (depending on the niche)
Cons
- Affiliate options can be somewhat limited depending on the niche
- If you depend on a channel, and it's delisted from YouTube, your site can be compromised.
Last Updated on June 26, 2020 by Ryan Nelson
