There are a lot of theories about how to make quick money online, possible business models, how to make money with your music and so on. But I prefer cold, hard facts when I talk about how I make money online.

In one of my niches, which is learning guitar, I make money on YouTube. I make about $81.22 per month and growing, each and every month (YouTube currently owes me $118.11). This is from ads on and adjacent to the videos from less than 50 of my videos. Google puts relevant ads near the videos that relate to the topic you are talking about. The beauty is that I put in the effort once and get paid every month after that. I recently realized that my videos were bringing in consistent ad revenue every month from only about 30 videos. So after I kicked myself for not seeing this sooner, I recently started adding more videos. Sure enough the revenue started increasing. So theoretically if I were to pump out 1000 videos I could be up to $1000/month if things scale linearly. Or repeat this across different niches.

One reason that the advertising model can be attractive is that you are not selling anything directly to your customers. The ads are paid for by other businesses in your niche who want to appear near your related content. Businesses are often more motivated to pay money than your customers (especially with teenagers in a music-related field) because they want to make a profit to stay in business. This way you don’t have to ask your customers to buy anything, sign up for anything and so on. The ad model is still used in television, magazines, radio, newspapers, sporting events and on many online websites.

You might even make more than I do because you can find a niche that has more value. One way to find out these profitable niches is to use the Google keyword tool. After you type in the keyword you’re thinking of using, Google will show you a list of synonyms. You can turn on the ‘Avg CPC’ column which is the average cost per click that businesses are paying to get their ad shown on the search results. A higher value will generally indicate a more profitable niche due to higher competition. For example ‘mesothelioma’ has a max CPC of over $39/click! Whereas ‘learn guitar’ has a max CPC of $1.94.

You can also use the keyword tool to find keywords that people are searching for. You want to make sure you do videos for topics that are in demand. But some of it will be trial and error. Try doing videos that coverage a wide range of topics in your niche and see which videos are getting more views.

Keep in mind that your videos can be embedded in other people’s websites and blogs, as well as your own. So there are more ways to make money than just from the YouTube site itself.

In order to start making money from your YouTube videos you need to join their program and meet a few criteria. This program is known as Revenue Sharing by becoming a partner with YouTube. The criteria are that you make and own your own videos and that you have vidoes that have a few thousand views, which will take a little while depending on your niche.

My preference is for videos that teach or entertain, so some ideas that come to mind are teaching an instrument, teaching software or other subjects, or entertaining with comedy or music performance. You can record the videos with your webcam or if you’re shy use something like Camtasia Studio Version 6 to capture your computer screen (such as a Powerpoint presentation or software demonstration) into a movie.

Once you have the video created, which I do with my Logitech webcam, you can edit it (I use Windows Movie Maker) or just upload it to YouTube as is. During the upload process you can apply for revenue sharing and explain that you own all the content (once you are accepted into the partner program). Make sure you use relevant keywords in the video’s title, description and tags so that you will be found by those searching in your niche.

For an in-depth online course on affiliate marketing, check out Opportunity.com.