Did you know that you can make money on YouTube without ever uploading a video? YouTube allows it’s users access to a library of videos that fall under the Creative Commons license. This License allows you to use other people’s YouTube videos (and make money from them) as if they were your own.

 1. Choose a Target Keyword

In order to find videos that are going to get traffic and generate the most money from advertising, you first need to do some keyword research. Keyword research is the process of finding and selecting keywords/topics that people are searching for that aren’t too competitive.



Use Google Trends to pickup on topics that are trending. A search for the term “gardening” reveals that searches for that topic hit their lowest point in December, and their highest point in early May. This data reveals that late winter/ early spring is the best time to focus on posting gardening related content.


Perform a keyword search on KW Finder or SEM Rush to find a target keyword. Keywords with the highest search and CPC values have the potential to generate the highest financial return, but are usually the most difficult to rank for (as shown under the DIFF tab). From this example, I chose “Vegetable garden planner” as my keyword because it’s a long tail keyword with a relatively high search volume and a medium difficulty, and therefore YouTube competition for the video is likely to be low.


2. Re-Publish YouTube videos


In this section you will learn how to re-publish Creative Commons-licensed YouTube videos that relate to your keyword, optimize them to get lots of traffic, and then re-publishing them as your own.









3. Optimize video for traffic


In this section you will learn how to use clickbait and captions to optimize your videos in order to increase your total views.

Use Clickbait


In case you haven’t heard, clickbait “describes web content that is aimed at generating online advertising earnings, especially at the expense of quality or accuracy”. If used responsibly, it can be a legitimate marketing strategy. Clickbait is used frequently by large media companies such as BuzzFeed and UpWorthy to increase website traffic.


Although using clickbait is frowned upon, it’s use is so widespread simply because clickbait is an effective way to increase traffic. If you don’t have the Photoshop skills to make effective clickbait, at least design an attractive thumbnail for your video.



The key to using clickbait successfully is to capture your audience’s attention with a “shocking” video thumbnail and video title. However, you must also a deliver a quality video in order to ensure that your user engagement rate and video ratings remain high.


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