Have you ever wondered about the different earning opportunities available to you to make money on Twitch? If this is something that you’ve considered, then we’re ready to help you find out more about the different earning opportunities available to you as a new or up-and-coming Twitch streamer. We hope this guide will help you make the most of your Twitch streaming efforts and ensure that you’re getting the best from your Twitch Streaming goals overall.
Can You Make Money on Twitch?
First of all, we need to ask the all-important question: is making money on Twitch possible (and if so, is it worth it?). While most people start a new Twitch account for the fun of it, streaming can quickly become a huge time commitment – and as such, it’s worth considering whether you could make any extra money from your Twitch streaming efforts.
Luckily, it’s absolutely possible to earn money through Twitch – but there’s a caveat. While you can make a good passive and active income through the platform as a streamer, you’ll first need to establish a reputation for your channel and build your audience.
Fortunately, there are several ways to learn how to make money on Twitch. We’ll outline some of the most crucial of these a little later on, but before you can begin earning an income, it’s critical that you’ve got the right exposure.
As with other online money-making avenues, the amount of income potential you can make from your account is tied to the number of viewers and supporters you receive for the streams. As such, before you can hope to begin earning on Twitch, you’ll want to look at some of the key ways to increase your exposure. Don’t panic, though; this doesn’t have to be a major headache!
How to Gain Exposure for Your Twitch Channel and Content
As we’ve already outlined, making money on Twitch is absolutely possible; in fact, it’s potentially one of the most lucrative online earning opportunities for creators. But to begin seeing the returns on your content, you’ll first need to get exposure for your channel.
Fortunately, even as a brand new Twitch streamer, there are plenty of excellent ways that you can begin attracting new viewers and subscribers. We’ll take a look at these initially to help you develop an effective and well-paying Twitch channel overall.
Start By Choosing a Niche You Love!
One of the biggest mistakes people make when starting a new Twitch account is choosing a niche solely because it appears lucrative without considering their own personal preferences and passions. Indeed, if you’re looking to make money on Twitch, it might seem like a no-brainer to choose a highly popular category or niche. After all, you might be thinking that if there’s a bigger potential viewer base, there’s more potential to earn big money – right?
Well, this is a misconception that often leads a lot of people to struggle with making money on Twitch. There are two key reasons for this.
Streaming Can be a Drag If You Don’t Love What You Do!
First of all, choosing a niche that doesn’t align with your personal preferences can make it incredibly hard to keep producing content. Indeed, as a Twitch streamer looking to make a part-time (or potentially even full-time) income, you will need to continue posting new content or streams on a regular basis; the highest-earning streamer may do this daily, even! However, if you’re posting content on a topic that’s lucrative but not enjoyable to you, streaming can very quickly become more burden than fun. And once you lose interest in the content, you’ll likely struggle to find motivation to continue working on it at all.
Don’t Let Disinterest Damage your Content’s Quality
Twitch streaming should always be enjoyable – and that’s equally true for your viewers, as well as you! With this in mind, a second key reason why it’s crucial to choose a niche you love is for the quality of content. Your streams will be way less engaging if you don’t have a genuine passion for what you’re talking about.
After all, most of us aren’t professional actors; as such, unless you’ve studied acting for years and can pull off an engaging stream even without having a vested interest, your streams will likely suffer if you’re not fully engaged. Along the same lines, if you love what you’re talking about, your streams will naturally be much more engaging – and this can help keep your viewers interested and coming back, thereby building a community of loyal fans rather than the occasional bored viewer.
In short: always choose something you love talking about for your Twitch streams, rather than just streaming about something that seems lucrative. In the long-term this will help you see better returns – and keep you streaming for longer, too!
A Great Username Pays Dividends!
There’s more to starting your new Twitch channel than just picking out a specialty – you’ve also got to choose your username. This is a lot more important than many people realize initially; so, if you want to help your content appeal to a wider range of viewers, we recommend that you start by choosing a great username for your Twitch channel overall. Ideally, you should pick one that’s both memorable and descriptive.
For example, if your specialty is for FPS games, this gives you a wide range of options to work with – usernames such as ThatFPSGuy or JohnSmithFPS will give your viewers a quick overview of the type of streams you’ll offer. By contrast, names such as NinjaWarrior546 don’t really give much information at all, and the combination of numbers will make them harder to remember as well – potentially limiting your reach.
Of course, if you’ve already got a username and it’s not ideal, that’s not the end of the world. You may need to work a little harder to make your content appeal to viewers, but it’s not going to stop people from discovering your channel and the top-quality content you have to offer!
Topic Titles Do Make a Difference
So, you’ve chosen to stream for a game you love – but how can you make sure that your streams catch the attention of potential viewers? Well, there are several great ways to attract potential viewers, but getting the titles right for your Twitch videos is one of the most crucial.
When potential viewers are looking for great new content on Twitch, the title is likely going to be the first information about your video they see. So, getting the title right cannot be overstated – but this is something that many new Twitch streamers overlook.
The most crucial tip we can give for getting your Twitch stream’s title right is to ensure that it’s descriptive without being overly wordy. Indeed, your potential viewers often won’t see the entire stream title, so you’ll want to ensure that you get the main message across in the first few words.
Don’t just go for a generic title, either; a title like “Fallout 4 Playthrough Part 20” is going to get much less attention than a title such as “Storming the Institute: Fallout 4 Part 20.” It only takes a few careful word choice changes to propel your Twitch stream to greater heights, after all – make sure potential viewers know what you’re offering to really get them interested.
Now, this tip may become a little less important as time goes on and your channel grows; once you get those first loyal viewers, attracting new people to your channel may be less tricky. Nevertheless, we still recommend you give your stream titles some thought – because there’s always room for new viewers if you want to increase your income potential!
Choose Twitch Thumbnails Carefully
Along with the title, the thumbnail for your stream is likely to be the first thing that actually catches your viewers’ attention while scrolling through the masses of Twitch videos on offer. With this in mind, it’s naturally crucial that you’ve spent some time carefully considering your Twitch thumbnail design – it’s got a lot of heavy lifting to do!
What do we mean by this? Well, simultaneously, your Twitch thumbnail needs to do all of the following things:
- Capture the viewer’s attention from other streams in the list (usually through bright color choices and designs overall, but this varies from stream to stream)
- Give the viewer information about what the stream is going to contain (without being too small for them to read or understand easily – a difficult balance for many people)
- Provide viewers a taste of what’s to come, including your streaming style and the like. After all, every streamer is unique, and you should work on this to attract new viewers
- Hook the viewers after the initial notice; you need your viewers to click on your Stream link to get involved with the content, and the thumbnail plays a significant role.
These are just four of the key jobs that an effective Twitch thumbnail needs to do. As such, if you’ve got the design wrong for your Twitch thumbnail, you might find yourself falling down on these points. Naturally, this could have several significant consequences for your stream’s success overall (the most obvious and prominent being you fail to entice viewers to watch your content).
So, please don’t let this be the case for your live streams; make sure you’ve carefully designed and planned your stream thumbnails to attract attention from viewers overall.
Always Use Reliable SEO Strategies
At this point, we’ve outlined some of the key factors you could consider to help your content appeal to potential viewers. However, there is still a significant challenge we need to tackle; ensuring your content is actually reaching by the viewers you’re appealing to!
You can have the best possible stream content with an amazing thumbnail and an appealing title – but if your Twitch stream doesn’t appear in front of viewers, they’ll never get the chance to see the efforts you’ve put in.
Fortunately, though, there are ways that you can implement SEO, or search engine optimization, strategies to promote your Twitch stream. With a little time, care, and patience, you should begin to see more views on your streams overall.
Don’t Target Too Many Keywords at Once
One of the most vital tips we can give for new Twitch streamers looking to add a little SEO to their stream or channel descriptions is to focus on just a handful of keywords. It’s often appealing to try and target multiple keywords at once – for example, hoping to get your stream or channel ranking in the Twitch results for five or six keywords.
However, this is a mistake that often leaves your content ranking for none of the keywords. After all, you’ve only got so much space to work with, and trying to cram in numerous keywords can damage your stream’s potential overall. So instead, try to pick out two or three valuable keywords that you can naturally incorporate into descriptions (more on that later), and simply choose different keywords each time you stream to increase the appeal to a wider audience.
Remember – once you’ve got a loyal viewer, they’ll be much more likely to come back to your channel for more. So, once you’ve successfully targeted one keyword, move to the next set; this may help you increase your reach overall.
Make Sure Your Descriptions are Long Enough
Many streamers make the mistake of neglecting their descriptions or about panels in favor of producing content. However, this can have a severe negative impact on your content’s SEO abilities; as such, to boost your stream’s ranking potential, we highly recommend that you dedicate some time to creating effective descriptions before the stream itself.
How long should an effective SEO description be for your Twitch streams? There’s no set figure for an appropriate Twitch stream length, but as standard, 200-300 words will be a good place to start. Longer descriptions might be even more valuable for boosting your stream’s SEO potential – but, with this in mind, you should also be careful not to create a description that’s overly longwinded and frustrating for your viewers to read.
For your Twitch stream descriptions, you should ideally aim to spread the keywords carefully throughout the text, so there’s roughly even spacing between each. Be careful not to stuff keywords – approximately once per 100 words will usually be a good place to start for a short description.
Consider Image Names Carefully
It’s common for Twitch streamers to rely on images with text for descriptions over a block of text. This can provide a very professional and sleek finish to your streams – but it will hinder your SEO abilities.
Therefore, if you typically favor images over plain text, try to at least include your target keywords in the image file name. For example, a file called “Fortnight_Stream_Today.png” will be much more effective for SEO than a file called “Panel_01.png.” It’s a simple change, but one that can boost your rankings (although not as much as a complete text description – so, ideally, try to incorporate both).
Natural Content is Crucial
As a final point of note here, we absolutely need to point out the importance of ensuring all keywords are included naturally within your content. This is something that many people struggle to grasp – however, getting your keyword structure wrong can be immensely damaging for your stream’s SEO efforts!
What do we mean by including a keyword naturally? Well, let’s assume that your viewers are searching for content related to Fallout, and you wanted to target the phrase “Fallout 76 Twitch.” However, the structure of this keyphrase doesn’t really sound natural; in fact, it sounds forced and fake, and this can damage your stream’s SEO rating. Instead, you should ideally include the keyword in a more natural format.
An example way to include this keyword in your stream description might be, “Join me today for this Fallout 76 stream on Twitch, and we’ll see whether or not I’m ready to take down my first Scorch Beast (or not!)”
As you can see from the above example, we’ve included the keywords within the same sentence; however, because we’ve used them more naturally, your viewers likely wouldn’t even realize that it was included for search engine optimization.
SEO Is More Than Just a One-Time Effort
At this point, we’ve given some key SEO tips that may help your Twitch streams reach a wider audience. However, it’s always crucial you consider these tips and SEO strategies continually; implementing them for every stream you release will help give you longer-term boosts and, hopefully, drive your channel to greater heights and successes as a result.
Always remember: SEO is more than just a one-time effort, and continued optimization goals will give your streams the best chances of appearing in viewers’ search results overall.
How to Make Money on Twitch
At this point, we’ve clarified how to establish your Twitch account and begin gaining exposure for your videos – a vital part of making money on Twitch. But once you have achieved your goals for exposure and you’re confidently getting thousands of views on each stream, you may want to consider the options for monetizing your content.
Fortunately, there are numerous great ways to make money on Twitch – and we’ve selected our top choices as follows to give you a little more inspiration for your money-making efforts on Twitch!
#1 Join Twitch Affiliates
The most obvious way to make money on Twitch is joining Twitch Affiliates – the inbuilt monetization opportunity for Twitch streamers. Unfortunately, the Twitch Affiliates program is available by invitation only, so there’s no simple “sign up” button. You’ll have to wait until you’ve established your channel to get noticed by the Twitch team.
With that being said, the requirements for Twitch Affiliates aren’t extreme – in fact, they’re pretty easy to reach once you’ve established your channel using the strategies we’ve mentioned above, so it’s an option that anyone who is hoping to make money on Twitch should consider.
Requirements for Twitch Affiliates
The requirements for Twitch Affiliates are relatively simple, and meeting these shouldn’t be majorly difficult. These include:
- Have 50 unique follows
- Have published on 7 unique broadcast days over the past month
- Have a total of 500 minutes of broadcasting content over the past month
- Have three or more concurrent viewers, average, on streams over the past month
- Receive an invitation to join the Twitch Affiliates program
Compared to many other streaming platforms, which can require thousands of views for content makers to join their monetization programs, this is a relatively generous requirement threshold. Of course, the trickiest bit is often getting your account noticed – and as such, producing content which performs consistently is the best way to go about this.
How Much Money Can I Make Through Twitch Affiliates?
So, how much money can you make through Twitch Affiliates? As with any streaming platform, your potential income through the partnership program depends on the number of viewers your streams receive, the amount of content you produce, and the type of viewers your streams attract.
One of the most notable (and unique) earning opportunities through the Twitch Affiliates program is the ability to earn a 5% revenue commission on game sales originating from your streams. What’s more, as a streamer, the Twitch Affiliates program also allows you to offer subscription packages for direct income, as well as a share of revenue from the Twitch Bits program (which allows viewers to “cheer” in chat using Cheermotes.
There’s no set expected income from becoming a Twitch Affiliate, but look at it this way – if you can encourage just three people per stream to purchase a game valued at $40, and you stream every other day, you’ll be looking at an extra $1000+ per year alone. That’s not a bad bonus income for a relatively modest goal – and there are still numerous other earning opportunities.
Perhaps the best income opportunity through Twitch Affiliates is the subscription model. Considering that the top 4000 streamers on Twitch have 170+ subscribers at any one time (up to tens of thousands for the most popular streamers), that equates to potentially an annual income of $10,000 from monthly subscriptions alone. This doesn’t need to be difficult to achieve – so, get knuckled down and promote your channel; you could potentially begin growing your income, and there’s no reason you can’t achieve a full-time income on the Twitch platform with some patience and dedication.
#2 Take the Next Step – Become a Twitch Partner
Once you’ve established your Twitch channel as a Twitch Affiliate, you can send an application to become a Twitch Partner. The requirements to become a Twitch partner are a little tougher than for the basic Affiliates program; you’ll need an average of 75 viewers per stream and have over 25 hours of streamed content across at least 12 unique days within the past month. However, if you meet these requirements, you may be able to apply for a Twitch Partnership.
How Much Can I Earn as a Twitch Partner?
The Twitch Partner program offers a CPM advert revenue model, and the payouts for these types tend to fall at around $8 per 10,000 views. This is somewhat lower than other platforms, unfortunately – but Twitch streamers do have the benefits of determining at exactly which points they want to play adverts.
Assuming you’ve done the legwork and you’re aiming to achieve approximately 1000 views on your content once your account is established. If you stream every other day and run three adverts per stream, you could potentially look at a bonus of $2.40 per stream or $36 per month. It might not sound like a lot, but over the course of a year, that can easily add up to around $500 – and it’s the perfect opportunity to take a rest break during the stream for yourself, too.
Don’t Spam Adverts For Your Channel
Once you get approved as a Twitch Partner, it can be incredibly tempting to begin playing adverts often to increase your earning potential – however, this can leave your viewers getting bored and leaving. Try to keep ad breaks spaced out, short, and consistent; this can help to keep your viewers engaged while reducing the risk of losing views on your content.
#3 Make the Most of the Donation Button
Did you know that you can actually add a “donate” button to your Twitch channel? Once you have developed a community of fans who’ll support your work, you can ask for donations through platforms such as PayPay or Streamlabs, and this can be a very good way to bolster your Twitch income – in fact, for many streamers, it might be one of the most lucrative opportunities to earn income overall.
Let’s assume that your streams achieve just 500 viewers, and you stream every other day. For example, if just 1% of viewers donated $5, you’d be looking at around $50 bonus per stream – or almost $10,000 per year from donations alone!
#4 Open a Patreon Account
A growing number of content creators are taking monetization into their own hands through the use of Patreon accounts. Patreon, and other similar platforms, allows your supporters to enjoy unique benefits while supporting your efforts – and it’s undeniably a highly valuable option for many Twitch streamers, too!
On average, Patreon members with at least one patron earn $110 per month, and this naturally increases greatly as you begin to get more patrons supporting your content. As such, opening a Patreon account can be an easy way to earn around $1200 or more annually for your established Twitch account! Plus, since users can create plans on Patreon for as little as $1 per month, it’s surprisingly easy to get new patrons on the platform.
#5 Affiliate Marketing
If you’ve heard of affiliate marketing, then chances are, you associate this with website content. However, did you know that you can also do effective affiliate marketing through your Twitch streams too?
There are numerous excellent opportunities for affiliate marketing as a Twitch streamer, particularly if your niche offers plenty of merchandise or to. Numerous platforms – Amazon Affiliates being the most obvious of these – offer commissions and affiliate marketing options.
As such, if you’ve been looking for a way to bolster your income on Twitch, leaving a link to carefully chosen, channel-relevant affiliate products in the description may be a good way to start. You’ll also need to let your viewers know that the link is an affiliate link and that you’ll earn a commission if they purchase.
To ensure your content always remains on topic, you should only ever review products you have personally used or tried. What’s more, these should always be related to your normal game niche as well (otherwise, you stand the risk of annoying your followers). After all of the effort you put into getting them, why take the risk?
Final Thoughts
If you’ve been looking for ways how to make money on Twitch, we hope that today’s guide may have offered some value. Though it’s one of the newest streaming platforms, Twitch has rapidly grown to become a hub for content streaming services – and as a result, there are plenty of opportunities when it comes to making money on Twitch! However, to get the best results, you must implement the steps and tips we’ve listed in today’s guide for the best results overall; this might just boost your earning potential on Twitch overall.