The immensely popular YouTube site allows users to upload and view videos for free. But now those with popular videos should be able to make some money from the site, based on the number of people who watch each clip.

The new YouTube Partner Programme means you can get a share of the advertising revenue YouTube gets from placing adverts next to your own personal videos, which essentially means they are paying you for the money that you are making them.

Making and uploading a video onto YouTube is easy peasy.  All you have to do is have a camera that you can take a video with.  It doesn't have to be professional quality, but you'll be much more likely to get more views if the quality is decent.  Next you have to register here, by entering your personal details and agreeing to the terms and conditions, and then you are ready to upload.

Once you've uploaded a couple of videos you can apply for the partnership scheme, which you should be accepted onto as long as:

• You create your own original videos that are eligible for online streaming.
• You own or have express permission to use all the videos that you upload.
• You regularly upload videos that are viewed by thousands of YouTube users.

Once you're accepted onto the programme, you pick which of your videos you want to be included in the scheme and start making money.  YouTube does say that its internal checks to approve you for the scheme can take a while, so you’ve got to be patient.

If you want to check out some users who are already involved in the scheme, you'll have to take a look at the already established US YouTube users.  According to the YouTube site, singer/songwriter Tay Zonday, wordsmith Hotforwords and comedians Apauledtv and Peteandbrian are responsible for generating a significant proportion of traffic to the American site.  To make money yourself, take a look at their videos and get some pointers because, with millions of views between them, they clearly know what they're doing.

Once you've posted your videos, the cash should start rolling in without you doing anything.  YouTube is being pretty furtive about exactly what amounts of cash you’re likely to earn from the YouTube partnership programme.  The programme kicked off in the USA where YouTubers who "regularly" produced videos with more than a million views earned several thousand dollars a month. This suggests you’ve got to produce a bunch of excellent-quality videos to earn any serious money.  However, producing just a few videos each month that prove very popular could earn you a healthy bit on the side.

The way you will be paid is through an AdSense account which you will have to sign up for as part of the partnership programme. AdSense is a Google service where websites sign up and get revenue from posting Google adverts on their pages. AdSense only starts displaying your revenue between 60 and 90 days after you sign up, so don’t worry if you appear to be earning nothing at all at the start.

You will have to make $100 before you can get paid and YouTube will send your earnings to AdSense at the end of the month in which you hit the $100 mark.  AdSense will then transfer the funds to you by Electronic Funds Transfer, or if you prefer, they’ll send you a cheque.  This sounds easy, but it takes YouTube 30 days after the end of the month to send the balance to AdSense and then AdSense take another month to send it to you.  So you’ve got a two month delay between making your money and getting your money.  If you don’t make it to $100 dollars in a month, your balance will roll over to the next month.

If you are earning extra money on top of your personal allowance or your salary, you might have to pay tax on anything you earn from the partnership programme.  To make sure you pay the right amount of tax, your AdSense account will not be able to pay you out any money until you have filled in your tax information on the website.  The website has a tax wizard and a load of information on the tax help page to help you out, so it shouldn’t be too complicated and in the long run it will actually be sorting out any tax for you, so you don't have to do it.  If you want to know more about paying tax on extra earnings, click here.

• YouTube partnership programme
• Google AdSense