I killed my (profitable) YouTube channel

This is the story of a YouTube channel I made about three years ago. It sort of started as an experiment. Could I reach 1000 subscribers and get monetized? Could I make some money with affiliate links? I saw other YouTubers doing it, so I thought why not me? But this YouTube journey started long before I ever shot a video...

The start of my "make money on-line" journey

I've always dabbled with "making money online." Early in the life of the web - you know, back in the days of AOL discs and Compuserve I created sites with html, using tables for layouts and other workarounds before CSS. I had a nice little side hustle going creating websites for small businesses in that first rush to get your business on the internet.

From web designer to affiliate blogger

Then blogging got hot. As time went by I started a variety of "blogs" (you know... www.best-whatever-i-thought-i-could-sell.com) that were review sites for specific product niches filled with Amazon and similar affiliate links. I had one that was pulling in as much as $2800 a week before a Google algorithm blew my traffic away in one day.

Unlike many bloggers attempting to make money this way, I actually purchased the products, took my own photos and wrote my own reviews from scratch. I tested the products and I showed people the results of these tests. Yet, Google in all of its algorithmic wisdom obliterated my site with the Panda update, while other sites that were in my product niche survived.

Sites that I could tell were created by people that never held the product, never tested the product and just rehashed product content from manufacturers websites survived Panda. While I was happy with the money I did earn, I knew success in affiliate blogging wasn't necessarily attached to doing it the "ethical" way.

The move from human to AI content and SEO tools

Then came the advent of AI writers, Keyword tools, and SEO optimization tools. I admit it. In the past I used AI writers. In my defense I only blogged about topics I really knew about, meaning I could edit the AI content to ensure it was accurate. Yet I could have written my own articles from scratch.

Instead I was lured in to the easy life of doing things with AI. You know the whole pattern - use a keyword tool to find a longtail keyword, use an AI writer to create the article and couple that with an SEO optimization tool to ensure you were using all of the right target keywords and headings. Rinse. Repeat. And I made money. Not quit your job money, but a little side hustle money. And that went on for a while until I got bored and just stopped blogging.

The lure of YouTube money

I've always been good at teaching people how to use software. I was a technical writer for about ten years, writing software end-user documentation. I knew a lot about AI writing tools, SEO optimization tools and Keyword tools. So it just made sense to start a YouTube channel to teach people how to use them.

It took me 6 months to reach a 1000 subscribers and get monetized with Adsense. Honestly, Adsense never really was the cash cow. It was just a tiny percentage of where the money came from. What really made the money were the software subscriptions.

People were flocking to AI tools, particularly AI writing tools and SEO optimization tools. And I just happened to pick two tools - SEOWriting.ai and NeuronWriter - that were super popular. And I did some of the most popular videos on YouTube for them. So I sold a ton of software subscriptions and "lifetime deals." And I did this with a channel that never exceeded 5700 subscribers. In the world of YouTube, that's a tiny channel.

How much did I make? Like any small business there are expenses. And obviously there are taxes on your earnings. Let's just say that it was a very nice little side hustle that paid for some vacations and funded my hobbies. I'm totally convinced if I would have started my channel when Covid started, I could have made quit your job type money. Now? I think the YouTube gold rush is over. I don't think I could replicate my channel's success if I started from scratch today.

Why I "deleted" my channel

Back in March 2024 Google started (and has continued to roll out) various Google core updates. The one in March 2024 just killed the traffic for many small blogs. The tons of free traffic that some affiliate blogs were getting (including a couple of my own) dropped like a rock.

I even did a couple of very popular videos on my channel about the death of blogging. I just felt that ethically I had to let my viewers know what they were up against in this new Google environment. On top of this development, I was just getting burned out doing videos. I found it much harder to do videos about blogging and SEO. And I didn't want people to get the idea that blogging was still in the set it and forget it mode. So my new videos were few and far between.

I saw the light

Let me be totally honest. I don't hate AI. I think it has some fantastic applications. Just not in the blogging world. I just didn't want to be someone promoting the use of AI writers. I knew the best content and the most interesting content came from real humans, not machines.

Slowly but surely I started deleting videos from my channel. First it was about 100 underperforming videos. That was pretty easy to do. It wasn't very painful. Within a few days all I had left were my AI writer and SEO optimization tool videos. In other words, the money making videos. And then I just bit the bullet and deleted them to.

If I wasn't using these tools, I didn't want to promote them. There was nothing "wrong" with these tools. They were well-supported, functional, etc. I just didn't believe in using AI to create keyword stuffed, over-optimized content.

Why didn't I pivot my channel?

I probably could have pivoted my channel and talked about social media or YouTube. I just was burnt out with making videos. Will I ever try another channel? Maybe. Now I'm far more interested in writing. HUMAN writing. Writing for ENJOYMENT. And learning about the indieweb.

So that's my YouTube story. It was a good learning experience. But I've returned to blogging again. The right way. The human way. And that feels good.