YouTube Just Made Its Biggest Change Yet
Your YouTube views are about to explode, but your income is not likely to immediately grow with it. YouTube yesterday just made the biggest change I've seen on the platform, because they're now going to count impressions as views. I already did a video about this called YouTube Just Changed What Counts as a View, so I'm not going to repeat everything from that one. Here I'm going to give you an idea of who this is really going to help and how you can use it to your advantage.
YouTube has suffered as a platform for a long time — and by a long time, I mean since TikTok and Instagram got big. YouTube has suffered because people look at the views on YouTube and think they're so low compared to things like Instagram and TikTok. All this attention has gone to TikTok and Instagram literally because of one number metric. And YouTube's changing that. There are going to be some bigger income opportunities on YouTube as sponsors and brands start taking YouTube more seriously when they see the view counts inflate on YouTube videos compared to Instagram and TikTok. Right now, I estimate most views are going to go up at least 10x, and in some cases 20 to 50x on videos.
Why This Helps Smaller Creators Like Me
Now, while that sounds exciting — and it certainly will help me get more views — there's nothing that sucks as much as... well, there's probably something that sucks as much. Oh! There's probably something that sucks as much as me being a YouTube coach with a new channel and then your boys out here getting less than 100 views on some of my videos, and people figure, oh, you don't know shit! You don't know shit about YouTube, because look at your low-ass views. Well, to me, the threshold of knowing shit is probably about 1,000 views, where if you can see that I've got thousands and thousands of views on my videos, you might figure I know a lot — a little something you don't.
This is going to help smaller creators get an audience, and it's going to let more people be looked at as bigger creators on the platform. That's going to change some dynamics significantly, because my videos really have a lot more views than they look like they do. A video like this would be a 2,000-view video if the new metrics were in place, and they're going to start in about a week. So when you look at my videos and you see I've got a couple thousand views, that's more respectable. And then you might check out my YouTube coaching and consider working with me, because you're like, oh, okay — this guy's got a channel he just started a few months ago on YouTube coaching, and he's got six channels total that he just started this year. And when you see the millions and millions of views on those channels, you'll be like, okay, this guy does know what he's talking about. Whereas people don't respect a few thousand views anymore, because platforms like Instagram and TikTok have just destroyed what that means with how easy it is to get a few thousand views on those platforms.
More Views Will Not Equal More Money
Meanwhile, though, those views are not going to turn into more money. Having more views on your video is not going to equal more revenue, because the revenue is still going to be charged the exact same way. And those views on your video are not going to equal, for most people, more actual sales. Now, for me, with this YouTube coach channel, they might — because when I make a video that gets over 10,000 views, it'll be a lot easier to stand out. The videos that have 10,000 versus 100,000 versus a million are not as different. What struggles on YouTube is the video with 10 views, 50 views, 100 views. Your mind just automatically assumes that video sucks and nobody's watching it. So this is going to really differentiate the truly tiny creators — the ones who even with this new view system will only get a few hundred views — from the step up into getting thousands of views, and especially 10,000 views, as tens of thousands of what are now impressions turn into views in the future.
Meanwhile, some of the larger creators are going to get bigger numbers, and that's probably not going to help as much. It's been harder to break out of the small-creator channel, but the more people who are up in there, the more the bigger channels don't stand out. I don't care if a video has 10 million or 100 million views on it — that doesn't matter that much in terms of social proof. People don't evaluate bigger numbers as much. The difference between a million and a billion is massive, and you're going to start seeing videos where more or less every one of MrBeast's new videos will probably have a billion views on it. But the difference in whether somebody's going to click a video when it has a million versus a billion is not that big compared to whether a video has 10 or 20 views versus 1,000 or 10,000 views. So there are going to be a lot more opportunities for smaller creators to stand out.
Where the Money Actually Comes From
But you're going to need those views. You're going to need them to make your income off of YouTube. I've made $600 this month in YouTube ad revenue on six channels, on what will be, with the new views metric, about 2 million views — right now, it's about 2 million impressions. But where have I made most of my money? JerryBanfield.com. I made $300 yesterday on JerryBanfield.com: two people bought the lifetime chat access and one person bought a one-on-one Zoom call. When my videos have a few hundred views each on them, I'm able to make $300 in a single day off of a new website setup that I just made. When you get thousands and thousands of views, that gets even more logical.
And it's important: if you want to make some real money, you need to have your own website, which is easier than ever to set up right now with AI, and you need to be selling different things — just anything. Try selling anything on your website. Like I've got the lifetime chat access on my website. Then I've got options to talk to me now, and I have one-on-one Zoom calls, and I sold one of those and two of the lifetime chats yesterday. And then I also have a Skool community, which sold yesterday too — that's how we got the $300. Then I have a book, and a sponsored crypto video offer, and somebody should be buying that shortly.
Own the Platform You Send People To
So the inflated views count is going to provide a bit better social proof, but that's not actually going to increase your income on YouTube itself. It will make it easier for you to earn income off of YouTube. And in my experience, the best way to earn income off of YouTube is to have your own website that you fully control. Because as long as you're using something like Skool, or as long as you've got some platform like Udemy, or any other platform — even if it's a Shopify store — they have control. They're scraping you. You're stuck in their system. Your data's all locked in with them. And if you piss them off, they can ban you. If their business goes downhill, yours goes with it. You really need a platform you control that you send people to. So with all this effort you're putting into YouTube, the one thing you need to have that most YouTubers don't have is your own website, where you can test all forms of monetization. Up until now, it has been really hard. Oh yeah, that's what she said. Wait, I don't know why she'd say that. Or maybe that's what he said.
Be Unpredictable — or Get Summarized by Gemini
See, another thing I'm throwing in here too: if you want to make better YouTube videos, you need to make them unpredictable. Because there's a lot of generic stuff out there — I see so many YouTube advice videos and I'm not watching that fucker, because — yeah, damn, did he say fucker? — I'm not watching that fucker because I could just summarize this guy's boring-ass "duh, YouTube did this, and duh, and duh." I'll just put the link into Google Gemini and summarize that fucker in two seconds. Seconds — maybe three. Is that how long you last in bed? In three seconds I will have the key things from the video.
So you've got to understand: if you want to do better on YouTube, this views metric is giving you a chance. But it's a chance that's not going to turn into more income unless you see what it means for you. You need to have your own website to maximize this, because when YouTube views shoot through the roof, the social proof is going to make it easier for people to trust you and for you to get them to go to your website. But if you're a YouTuber that's just fooling around — like, I see this guy, he's got millions of views on YouTube, making all kinds of potential money, but his channel's not even monetized. He doesn't even have a fucking website. I'm like, man, if I was this dude, I'd be making $10,000 a month. But he's sitting there with all these views, cranking out viral titles, and that momentum can fade. Or you keep cranking out viral titles and talking a lot of shit, and then all of a sudden your channel gets taken down. So that can fade really easily. You need to bring people to your own website, and with AI it's easier than ever. I know exactly how to do it — I built all this with Claude Fable. You can set all this up and then you can put whatever you want on there. You can have a chat yourself. You can charge for damn near anything you can think of — you come up with it. You can have digital products, you can have sponsored videos, you can make games and put them on your website. I have a blog on my website that has thousands of blog posts on it, and this brings in additional traffic. I have shirts, and that link's actually working again. And the blog makes it so nobody can just censor my stupid ass like they could before — this blog is staying up, and all my shit's in writing.
So yeah — I don't like it when he cusses. Well, do you like it when I'm just boring and I talk in a monotone like this? Is that an Indian accent? No, this is just how I talk when I talk very boring, and I'm just... technical. "And, oh, you need to watch all these YouTube views go up." Are you having fun yet listening to my videos? You've got to be more entertaining, because more views may get more people to try your videos. But if you're boring, and if you're not giving people some real value in a video, and if they could just go to fucking Gemini and summarize your video in five minutes or less, they're not going to watch your video. A lot of people don't even realize you can do that now, but more and more people are going to realize it. So being fun and entertaining as well as providing useful information is the future — teaching and performing are going together at record levels.
A Gold Rush for Small Creators
And these new views — they're not really new views. The data has been there all along. They're just going to change what the fuck they call it. They're going to change what they call it. And it's going to give a bunch of people — it's going to be like a gold rush for small creators. And I'm in position: the gold is going to fall on me, baby. It's going to rain down on me, because I'm just a little bit of social proof away from going off. When you have a little bit of social proof, more people get into your videos saying, oh shit, it's got 10,000, 15,000, 100,000 views on it. And then, oh, all right, I'm going to sign up for his YouTube coaching for a month — he'll get me where I need to be. Oh shit, dating videos — like, I have dating videos, and these are doing good. My dating videos are getting hundreds and hundreds of long-form views each. Wait until the change hits these: one of them has got over a thousand now, and with the new views metric that would read more like 10K. It's going to make things easier and easier.
Sponsorships Are About to Get Much Easier
It's also going to make sponsorships much easier. Right now, sponsorships on YouTube have been a bitch, because sponsors look at Instagram and TikTok and they're like, why are we sponsoring this dude on YouTube with a few hundred views when we'll sponsor this one over here with thousands? But look at my dating channel: it has 176,000 impressions. If you called that 176,000 views, I might be able to get a sponsor on that — and it's got rock-solid growth. And when you see that many views on my channel, somebody's more likely to go, oh shit, okay, this guy's legit, I'm going to sign up for this fella's dating coaching. That's going to be easy money. But again, none of it is going to come from YouTube ads. YouTube ads are going to stay the same — from what I can see, they're not going to produce any additional income. But if you're ready for this opportunity, and you jump on it, and you get monetized, then you're going to be in a great position.
Build a Website That Prints Money
Now, if you want to build out your own website like I've got, you can literally do it with Claude. And in my experience, you'll want ICP — the Internet Computer Protocol — which is what I use and what I'd get set up with. If I was you, I'd get the YouTube coaching package and book it, and be like, Jerry, let me get a website like yours. I want to sell calls, I want to sell chat, I want to sell sponsored videos, I want to sell products. I want to build all that out, and I want to build it with AI. This is going to be a great position to be in, because once you set it up, it's yours, and I believe it can just print money indefinitely — I believe this website is going to print me tens of thousands of dollars a month. I've laid the foundation, and it's already setting up: I made $300 yesterday, and again, I've just started up on YouTube.
So I'd grab that YouTube coaching if I was you: have four hours of Zoom calls with me, get tech support, and I'll help you get all your AI stuff set up — get AI to build your own website for you, where you can just customize it and use your voice to tell it exactly what you want. You can build out courses, coaching, all that shit. Build all of it out on your website instead of being stuck screwing around with third parties.
You also, if you want to just message me, can get lifetime access to my chat and pop in there to ask any questions you've got about YouTube — I'm on the cutting edge of what's going on with YouTube. And if you just want a one-off Zoom call, you can pop in and book that too.
Thank you, and I hope you can take advantage of this special time on YouTube we're having right now. If you want to go deeper on any of this, check out my YouTube Coaching playlist. Rock!