How to Start Making Money on YouTube in Nigeria – and Tips to Grow Your Channel

Do you want to want to know how to Make Money on YouTube in Nigeria?

I’ve been receiving different messages regarding this question and some even ask how they can start a YouTube channel in Nigeria. I know you’re here to get an info about this legit online money making business and I’ll try my best to give you well-detailed information regarding this topic.

Since the advent of the internet, the doors to making money online, especially in Nigeria has been widely opened and lot of smart entrepreneurs has been passing through it. The internet hasn’t just helped facilitated financial buoyancy in the tech world alone, but it cuts across all works of life – be it medicine, agriculture or even commerce.

About YouTube

The tech world has given birth to so many forms of technologies that has changed the lives of many, one of such technologies is YouTube. The company which was founded in 2005 and now owned by Google is the world’s biggest video hosting platform with billions of viewers making use of the site daily.

With YouTube, one can learn of lot of useful stuff, watch trending videos, follow live updates (like sporting events). These and many more you get to enjoy while using this service.

Asides the educational benefits, there exists some financial benefits which many do not know about, in fact it’s a full-time job for some. Today, I’ll be showing you how to make money on YouTube in Nigeria. This post is for those wishing to start, if you already in it, no problem you could still learn a thing or two.

Requirement to Start a Money Making YouTube Channel in Nigeria

Before moving forward, here are some things you’d be needing in other to start racking up the cash on YouTube.

• A good camera

Before thinking of how to make money on YouTube in Nigeria, you should know before now that your number one tool is “Camera”. Without telling you, you know very well that YouTube is all about videos and a good camera will go long way helping you get started as a newbie YouTuber in Nigeria.

We are quite lucky to have smartphones these days with good camera that can be compared to the likes of Canon, Nikon or Panasonic cameras. You could start with a smartphone camera (preferably iPhone), you could then switch to quality DSLR camera as time goes on.

Check here for the: 10 Best Camera for YouTubers

• Internet connectivity / IT Gadgets

After recording your videos you’d be required to upload them to your channel. Your videos might have some glitches here and there, some places to cut and more – you’d need a good laptop or smartphone to edit those videos.

• A space with good natural or artificial lightening

Some YouTubers call it studio, but you could get a good space with adequate lighting facility, it could be natural or artificial. Among the both, I’ll recommend an external lighting device which should provide you with proper light for a much crisper video.

These devices can be bought from any electrical store or online, their price ranges from a low as N10,000 to N150,000 – the higher the price, the better the quality.

P.S. Go for devices with adjustable lights, else some of your videos might get overly exposed.

• Sound Device / Microphone

This is arguably the biggest challenge for YouTubers in Nigeria and the world beyond. A good video with matching sound quality is top notch and keeps the viewers glued to your channel, if a viewer stretches their ears to listen to you, they might just get discouraged and leave your channel.

Yes, your recording device (a smartphone or digital camera) might have a microphone, but the quality of such mics isn’t a good as you’d want, with this in mind you’d be visiting the market or online store again to get a good external microphone. Some of the best brands to choose from will be the Rode, Shure, Heil, or BlueYeti.

• Pick a niche

To succeed as a YouTuber in Nigeria, you’ll need something to focus on – a niche. Every top YouTuber you see today has a field which they focus on and create contents related to such field – it could be tech, fashion, entertainment, education, finance and any other field you could think of.

Now, let start taking about how you can start and make money on YouTube in Nigeria;

How to Start a Channel & Make Money on YouTube in Nigeria

1.     Sign up for a YouTube account

To get started visit https://www.youtube.com for desktop, or https://m.youtube.com for mobile devices. After this, click on sign in and login with your Google account – you’d have to create one if you don’t have any.

After signing in, search for a video and try commenting on it and you’d be prompted to create a channel.

• The next screen will require you to choose your name, or a brand name, below it you have to choose from a list of categories – Product or Brand, Company Institution or Organization, Arts Entertainment or Sport and Others, these are the options available for now. With this you’ve successfully created your YouTube channel, next you have to add a channel art and channel icon.

The channel art and icon can be likened to Facebook’s profile photo and cover photo respectively. You could change your art and icon whenever your want, you have to make it look vibrant with a recommended size of 2560 x 1440 for the channel art.

After adding these, a page description, contact info, email and more will be needed to set up you new YouTube account.

2.     Start Growing Your Channel

Yeah, you want to make money on YouTube in Nigeria, you want to be a top YouTuber, you’ll need to grow your fanbase and I’ll show you how.

You can grow your YouTube channel in Nigeria using:

• Social Media:

YouTube make money from ADs, (more) people will need to view these ADs for you to make money from YouTube. These people in question here, are your subscribers – before now you should have a social media account, you could as well create a page or handle(s) that’ll collaborate your channel.

When you upload a new video, it’s a nice idea to let your fans know by posting it on your social handles, with links to the video as well – this will let more of your fans know about your latest video. With this, you’d see your subscribers grow.

• Nairaland

Another option here is to post it a link to your video on your website or blog, if you don’t have one, you could use Nairaland – posting the link with some descriptions in the related section.

Note: The more people that watch your videos, the more chances of making huge money!

• YouTube SEO

Oh yeah, there’s also SEO for YouTubers, and if you have to make money from the service in Nigeria, you have to utilize this fully with these tips;

How to Properly Do YouTube Video SEO in Nigeria

• Using appropriate tags

What are tags? this are search terms or words you made mention of in your videos. Since search engine crawlers can’t watch vids, they depend on what’s written in the tags when indexing YouTube videos.

When using tags, be sure to use tags that you think viewers might likely search for, words or phrases you think most viewers will likely use when searching for videos on YouTube.

If you own a food related channel and you make a video that teaches ‘how to make egg sauce’, you could use tags like “egg sauce”, “how to make egg sauce”, “types of egg sauce”, “materials needed for egg sauce”. Your tags must be written between the double colon as above, it could also be a word or a phrase – but whatever it is, it should relate to your video.

If you find these phrases difficult to acquire, YouTube’s analytics portal will be of help to you.

• Caption / Translations

YouTube offers an automatic caption service, an AI powered service that transcribes your videos for you. This transcription service is mainly meant for those with hearing difficulties. Search crawlers also use this indexing YouTube vids.

If you want to make money from YouTube in Nigeria, you have to transcribe your videos yourself as Google’s AI isn’t perfect, especially as it doesn’t understand our local language – which you might use at some point in your videos. YouTube gives you an opportunity to add a transcript to your videos; this will make those crawlers comprehend your video better.

• Descriptions

This part is key to making money on YouTube. The description tab on YouTube can fit up to 5,000 words and you should utilize this better. This tab is meant for giving your viewers what to expect from the video, – timestamps, affiliate links, download links and more will be in this part.

The search crawlers also consider this part – especially to early parts of your descriptions. For better results, it’s advisable to write affiliate links, and other non-related on-video content at the bottom, while on-video related content should appear at the top.

• Use eye-catching thumbnails

A thumbnail in case you don’t know, is the image that appear on the video before it starts playing, this isn’t SEO per se but it’s required.

A compelling thumbnail that depicts what your viewers might see in the video will be tempting to anyone. YouTube provides a list of three possible thumbnails to choose from automatically after uploading your video, you could choose any one of the three or you could create a custom thumbnail as some YouTubers in Nigeria do.

When creating a custom thumbnail, please ensure that it isn’t misleading and deceptive, this is strongly frowned upon by YouTube and you could be punished if caught. Your custom thumbnail should give your viewers some hint on what to expect from the video proper, so use a compelling one and not something deceptive.

Now, let talk about the big deal, monetizing your channel and making money from your YouTube Videos in Nigeria…

How to Monetize & Make Money on YouTube in Nigeria

Right now, you must have had some good numbers of subscribers (if not, ask them to), and you’re ready to start making money from YouTube in Nigeria.

Important Notice: Before we begin it necessary to know that before you can monetize your channel your must have gotten 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours – you could get to see these stats using YouTube’s analytics engine. If you’ve gotten this, let’s move on!

• Some requirement; A domiciliary or Nigeria bank account which you should already have, or a PayPal account.

Ways to Make Money on YouTube in Nigeria

1. AdSense by Google

This is another way to make money on YouTube in Nigeria – utilizing the AdSense option. AdSense displays ADs just like Google ADs, but unlike Google AdSense, it’s displayed between the video and not and the beginning.

Google AdSense can’t be skipped; you’d have to let them finish playing before you continue the video. One good thing about this form is that it can be placed at a strategic time which you could set.

How to Be Eligible for YouTube Monetization Program in Nigeria

To be eligible to display Google AdSense, click on ‘My Channel’ tab >> click on ‘Video Manager’ and >> enable ‘Monetization’.

Once this is done, you will be reviewed and if approved, you can start displaying channel should start displaying Google ADs – an AD that you can skip after few seconds before heading on to the real videos.

To get started with AdSense, visit https://www.google.com/adsense/ and click on “Get Started” to register.

2. SPONSORED ADs

This is another way to make money on YouTube in Nigeria, and this isn’t hinged upon the watch time or subscribers – it’s not based on Google.

As a YouTuber, you could get to the chance to review the product(s) of top brands in the country, you’re being paid by the brand to do this. You’ve got to be the best in you’re craft for top brands to walk up to you, a good subscriber base is also needed.

Aside reviews, you could make a video about a topic and in between, you get to introduce the product or service, talk a little about it, and then continue with your video.

3. Affiliate Marketing

Here is another opportunity to make some good money while doing YouTube videos.

As you already know, most of the time you’d be talking about a product or service offered by a brand, most likely you’d be using the product. While telling your viewers about the product or service, you should drop an affiliate link to it in your video description, you’d get some percentage when a subscriber gets to use it.

Quick Advice:

These tips will really help you to start making some money on YouTube in Nigeria, but to keep the money coming by here are some things to keep in mind;

• Consistency is Key – You’ve got to remain consistent in this business, else you’d begin losing subscribers, you need your subscribers to make money, you need to create contents to keep them coming back – not just gibberish contents, but quality contents.
• Quality Content – How good are your contents, what value do they bring? These are some questions you need to answer, if you deliver quality on a consistent basis, you’d make more money and it’s as simple as that.
• Engage your audience – Engagement has a lot of positive impacts on your brand as a YouTuber, get social with your subscribers, answer questions asked on your video, be open to constructive criticism from your audience – try to improve after each video.

WRAPPING UP… Now you can Start Making Money on YouTube in Nigeria

So, you’ve started your YouTube career or wish to start one don’t get discouraged as it might be difficult for you at the beginning, but with time, things will get to fall in place. A lot of top YouTubers in Nigeria went through this process, and you too can.

Help your friends to learn how they can also make money on YouTube in Nigeria by sharing this blog post with them on social media (use social media buttons floating here to automatically share instantly).

That’s it about YouTube and making money from it; I hope this really help.