Youtube Niches to Avoid Like the Plague

You’re just beginning your career as a Faceless YouTube channel owner, and you’ve just read my previous blog post titled “Did You Pick the Right YouTube Automation Niche.” (You Didn’t read it? Go do that NOW.)

Now that you’ve read the article…

How do we avoid niches that could jinx your lovely new financial career?!

Well, keep reading!!!!! Duh. 😉

Because today… I’m going to be teaching you exactly how to know which niches you should stay away from when creating a YouTube channel.

The information contained in this article will keep you from wasting time and teach you how to avoid frustrating issues with monetization.

Pick the Right Boat and Stream

“It’s not about how fast you row your boat; it’s about how fast the stream is running.” – Warren Buffet

Now let’s use this quote in the context of YouTube. It’s not about how hard you’re working or how much effort you put into growing and building your YouTube channel…

… AKA “rowing your boat”…

…instead, it’s about what will get you to your destination FASTER.

…AKA “making money on autopilot”

Plus when you choose the correct stream, you’ll save time and energy by simply being a passenger and flowing peacefully towards your destination and a lucrative, substantial YouTube future!

Now what are these Nasty Niches to avoid?

As Charlie Munger notably said, “Knowing what you don’t know is more important than being brilliant”.

We wrote an article here about how to know if you picked the right niche. But this article is about the inverse. So here’s the questions we ask ourselves

The niches to avoid are ones that don’t answer “Yes” to these questions

1. Is it monetizable?

2. Is it sustainable?

3. Is there low competition?

4. Do you feel good about making these videos? [SUPER IMPORTANT]

We recommend reading everything in this article, but if you’re too busy, watch this video instead

[Video player]

Now let’s avoid the inefficient boat and slow stream so we can get to that destination faster!!!

Question 1: Is it Monetizable?

Here’s Why Your Content Wouldn’t be Monetizable

The first issue that we will discuss is using other people’s content as the main body of your videos. This is an easy way to get demonetized. 

This happens with compilation channels or when Youtube content creators simply download someone else’s YouTube video and re-upload it onto their own channel…

This is one of the quickest ways to get your YouTube account shut down, so I personally don’t touch this type of content with a ten foot pole. You might be able to get away with it for a little bit, but I highly recommend staying away from this.

Compilation-type channels are really easy to get going but you’re not gonna get very far. I get DMS every day about all sorts of issues with this, so make sure to stay away from the compilation channels.

With that being said, I’d also caution you to stay away from anything that might seem like a gray area. You might be able to get results now, but once your channel is shut down and all your hard work is lost, it’s really not worth it.

Keep in mind that Youtube changes rules all the time in their community guidelines. If you’re not vigilant, your channel could be demonetized, or you could get striked.

YouTube Strike Basic Information

To be honest, Copyright strikes are not as big of a deal as people make them out to be. I’ve personally never had issues with copyright that couldn’t be fixed quickly and I never had malicious attempts with my content strategies.

Now if your channel is striked… you’ll get notified via email and consequently, you’ll be unable to perform the following for 7 days;

• No more uploading videos, live streams, or stories
• You can’t start a scheduled live stream
• No more scheduling multiple videos out to post publicly
• Can’t create a Premiere or add a trailer to an upcoming Premiere or live stream
• No more creating custom thumbnails or Community posts as well as creating, editing, or adding collaborators to playlists
• Not allowed to add or remove playlists from the watch page using the “Save” button

Any public videos that you’ve scheduled to upload will be made private for the duration of the 7 days and you’ll have to re-upload it after. The strike will be on your channel for 90 days.

After the 1-week period, full privileges will be restored, but the strike remains on your channel for 90 days. And be aware that a strike is a lenient form of punishment from YouTube; in some cases, they will fully terminate your channel without warning.

TLDR: read our guide on how to avoid Copyright Strikes

Text-To-Speech

Avoiding using text-to-speech. There’s good softwares out there now that you can use, so I’m not opposed to doing a Google AI-type voice.

But, for example, if you use the “Daniel voice” (which was the main text-to-speech voice from the last several years), there’s a good chance that won’t go over well. Recently my team tried utilizing text-to-speech again and our video got demonetized.

Question 2: Is your Niche Sustainable?

What “Stream” Do You Want to Sail On?

Let’s discuss the “stream” from our analogy earlier. This “stream” refers to niches in general, but we are going to talk about the ones in particular that just aren’t very beginner friendly.

These would be the niches that are very difficult to automate, or they’re doable, but take a lot of skills and expertise. Stay away from these if you’re a beginner.

These niches take a good amount of brain power and it might be a couple of years before you get results. It’s also hard to automate videos when you need such specialized work.

Lack of Content Ideas

Stay away from channels that just don’t have a lot of topics to touch on. Let’s say there’s a YouTube channel dedicated solely to making content about mirrors. Sure, you can probably find 20 or 30 different things about mirrors to discuss in your videos but then it gets to a point where you run out of content, so you’ve got to diversify.

Mirrors could maybe be a good idea if you’re getting started for the first 10-20 videos, but you’ll need a strategy to implement after you’ve run the course of this one little niche.

So first, make sure that you have a channel idea that’s not very limited. And secondly, have a game plan of what you’ll do once you’ve run out of video ideas. This will help you avoid the discouraging place where you feel like you can’t produce any more content without sticking to your niche.

Extensive Creativity + General Non-Niche Channels

As a beginner, stay away from any YouTube niche ideas that require extensive creativity just to formulate. These YouTube channel ideas are going to be hard to automate unless you can turn them into something that’s formulaic and easy to systemize. (More on formulaic systems later, so keep reading!)

Avoid generalized non-niche channels. Many beginners want to do a “shotgun approach” with their channel by uploading lots of videos about various unrelated topics.

These beginners create content on anything from space to history to war to animals… whatever they feel like on film day when they’re making videos.

The problem with this particular niche is that it’s going to be difficult to build an audience who will show up and watch your videos on a regular basis. This is because you won’t have a target audience who comes back repeatedly because they’ve fallen in love with your content.

Get Specific With Your Youtube Niche

Pick one very specific niche and make it your goal to be the absolute best you can in that niche. Once you’re successful, then you can make other videos on different topics and test them.

With trial and error you soon figure out what’s a profitable niche for your particular channel and can make more videos in alignment with that. For example, if one video blows up and you’re making money off the YouTube ads on it, realize you’ve hit a good niche and pivot all your content towards that.

Trendy Youtube Channels and Click Bait Content

Trending, “hot” channels are awesome niches for YouTube that you can get results quickly on in you have quality videos. However, these are highly competitive niches and usually lack long term sustainability. It is very difficult to keep up with content creation on these channels since you always have to be right on top of trends.

My team still does some of these like trendy channels but I prefer channels that are more long term and more low competition. Another issue I have with this type of channel is that it often needs high clickbait to generate views.

There’s not necessarily an issue with creating clickbaity content. There’s just an issue when you create clickbait and you don’t fulfill it. 

For example, what if you tilted your YouTube video “Elon Musk Quit Tesla!” when this wasn’t true and he still worked at Tesla? People are definitely going to watch the video and be drawn to instantly click on it. But they’ll realize what you’ve done and most likely end up giving you a “thumbs-down” on your video. 

YouTube will see these dislikes piling up on your video and they won’t recommend your content as much in the future because they’ll realize that people didn’t like this video.

The best YouTube niches have the content that people genuinely enjoy, so if you create click bait, simply make sure that you can fulfill that click bait. This is how to get an edge up in competitive YouTube niches, and that will bring you more video ads and ultimately make you more money online!

Question 3: Is your Niche too Competitive?

Saturated YouTube Niches

Stay away from super saturated niches. I know a lot of you want to start a basketball channel, football, car channel, makeup, etc., but remember that there’s a lot of other channels in that space. 

The more saturated a niche is, the more time it will take to get results. I would caution you to stay away from niches that are not high RPM niches. Things like music, comedy, gaming, drama, Reddit, are very broad and your ad rates consequently will be extremely low. 

Some of these niches only pay around 50 cents per thousand views. So even if you go viral and get 5 million views, you’ll only end up making $2,500. Compare that to a channel with an $8 RPM. If you get 5 million views with $8 RPM, then that means you made $40,000. Would you rather have the $40,000 or would you rather make $2,500 with the same amount of views? 

This is why I aim for higher RPM niches. Of course you can always go and do these lower RPM niches, but I really wouldn’t recommend this unless you’re doing it for fun or you have a business behind it. 

Question 4: Do You Feel Good About It?

If you’re creating content that you don’t resonate with, your audience will definitely pick up on it. However, even “boring videos” can interest your viewer if you’re passionate about whatever you’re talking about.

I would encourage you to stay away from Celebrity Drama and gossip. Talking bad about people doesn’t go over well and shouldn’t make you feel good inside. 

There are times you “gotta do what you don’t want to do to get where you want to get.” Just know that if you choose niches that don’t make you feel good inside, you’re going to have different problems than just financial.

Like poison. In small doses it’s good for you, but if you drink too much, misery will follow shortly.

Summary

There you have it folks! That’s the 4 questions I always ask myself to know which niches to avoid. Hopefully this was helpful for you! I know that if I would’ve read this article when I started my journey on youtube I would’ve saved A LOT of time. I only know these questions now due to running and managing over 50 YouTube channels and having a lot of successes and even more failures.

Oh yeah, Here’s the “Niches to Avoid” List

Now you’re probably saying, “DEVON. Why on earth did you not just give me this list in the first place??!!!” 

Here’s the thing; I want you to succeed!

But I needed you to understand the foundational framework first. 

Here are some examples of niches to avoid:

• News
  • Celebrity Drama
  • Sports news
  • Tech news
• Compilation channels
• Content without adding any sort of commentary
  • Reddit videos

Can you make money off of these? Yes

Will you have issues or a tough time? Yes

Like I said before, I’m just trying to minimize your long term stress and help accomplish your long term goals.

I used to do short term niches like these, and treat this as a cautionary tale.

TLDR: it’s not fun

A Couple of Suggestions

I highly recommend capitalizing on educational niches. Find knowledge to share where you know you’ll dominate the top 10% of the particular industry. Or just find low competition niches that don’t have a lot of content yet. 

Let’s say that you’re really into formula one racing or something like that. Start a youtube channel where you have the knowledge that most people don’t. Be sure that other people haven’t covered the information that you’re bringing to the table. 

Skills that like you are an expert on always have opportunity for new content. Some good ones are sports channels. I did say stay away from basketball if you are a beginner, but if you want to do a sports channel, do golf, hockey or tennis or whatever YouTube niche that doesn’t have that much competition. 

This type of content is popular and always being shown on TV. There’s always new reports to discuss with these sports and you can always find stories to tell. If you are really creative, have tenacity for the long term, and realize you might have to wait a long time to get results, then you can definitely do a more saturated sports channel. Just keep in mind that it may be a lot harder to make money, especially right away.

Use a Formulaic Strategy

When I create a new channel, I create a formulaic content strategy for it

*(out of laziness because coming up with video ideas is really hard and time consuming)

Here’s my 4-step strategy:

• Step 1: Find a viral video that worked for someone else
  • I.e. How Elon musk Spends His Billions
• Step 2: Turn it into a “fill in the blank”
  • How (Famous or Rich Person) Spends His/Her Billions/Millions
• Step 3: come up with 10 video ideas that haven’t been done before
• Step 4: Start producing the videos

If you want a complete breakdown, go read this article on how to find the perfect formulaic strategy for your niche!

Your Turn

We’ve discussed what to avoid, and hopefully(!) some of my tips have helped your creative juices start flowing with YouTube channel ideas for yourself.

 Imagine finally having your own successful YouTube channel, opening your app to see millions of views and checking your balance to see an abundance of money YouTube has paid you! 

It’s not hard. YOU most definitely can do it! If you’re ready to succeed, wait no longer!  Book a call with my team!

If you’re excited about the opportunity to make money online with a faceless YouTube channel, we want to speak with you. 

If you still can’t think of low competition YouTube channel ideas, read my other article on “Did You Pick The Right Youtube Automation Niche” here.