Top 50 Most Useful Websites For A YouTube Gaming Channel (And Not Just Gaming!)

Making YouTube videos is absolutely amazing, but it can get quite hard at times, and if you're a gaming channel on YouTube, you have even more competition than others.

You have to keep your viewers happy, deliver quality content, make sure you're not breaking any copyright laws, and find music and images for your videos, all while making sure your content is better than the content of all the other gaming channels out there.

This list will help you simplify that job and make you life as a YouTuber much easier!

There are 5 sections total, each with 10 websites:

• Top 10
• Free Music
• Free Photos
• Cheap Games
• Other Usefulness

There's even a bonus section at the end!

1-10. Top 10

1. How to monetize gaming videos legally. This is probably one of the most useful posts on the internet for a YouTube who records video games, because it shows you which companies allow you to monetize their gameplay and which ones don't.(http://www.wholetsplay.com/wiki/doku.php)


2. SocialBlade. A very useful tool for analyzing yours, and your competitors' channels. (http://www.socialblade.com/)

3. vidIQ Vision. One of the most useful tools ever for analyzing your competitors tags, social engagement, watchtime, and other numerous statistics about their videos so you can beat them. (http://vidiq.com/apps/vision/)

4. YouTubeGaming Forum. The biggest forum for YouTube Gamers out there. You can share your videos here to get some backlinks and views from other games on YouTube. You can also get feedback on your channel, videos, or talk about life. (http://youtubegaming.com/forum/)

5. AlphaBetaGamer. An incredibly useful website that summarizes all of the latest free alpha and beta games and tells you if there are any key giveaways happening for those games. Great place to find free games to record! (http://www.alphabetagamer.com/)

6. Sumo Paint. An absolutely amazing online alternative to Photoshop. If you don't have Photoshop and you don't want to use GIMP, you can use this online website to create your thumbnails! (http://www.sumopaint.com/app/)

7. Desura. Why do I have Desura on here? Simply because you can find new IndieGames on here and record them for YouTube before most of the people hear about them. You can be a YouTube hipster and record it first. That way you'll stay on top of the search results later on! (http://www.desura.com/)

8. Coursera. Why am I putting an educational website on here you ask? In my opinion educating yourself is the most important thing to do no matter what your hobbies or jobs are. Even if you learn things not related to YouTube, you might make the weirdest connections between what you learned and YouTube or your job which will help you become much more successful. (https://www.coursera.org/)


9. Twitter. Yes, twitter is on here. Why? Simply because it's a great way to get some more clicks to your video, and YouTube likes if your video is shared on Twitter, so you should share some of yours! Just don't share every single video you have because then your twitter newsfeed would be full of junk. (https://twitter.com/BeatDaBest)


10. Fiverr. If you don't want to create your own thumbnails, caption your own videos, or you want backlinks to your video you can order services on here for only $5! (https://www.fiverr.com)

11-20. Free Music

11. Audionatix. My favorite website for free music for YouTube videos. All of the songs are there are free to download and use commercially, and there are loads of songs so you don't have to repeat them! (http://audionautix.com/)

12. BFXR. This isn't a free music website, but it's a free sound effect website. You can use it to make random sound effects for your video. I haven't used it myself yet, but if you want to spice your videos up a bit, you can use it. (http://www.bfxr.net/)

13. Newgrounds Audio. Newgrounds has plenty of free music that you can use in your videos. However, most of the songs are free with non-commercial use if you give attribution to the artist. If you want to use it commercially, you should probably talk to the artist. (http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/)

14. Free Music Archive. Not all of their songs are free for commercial, video use, but you can use their search function to find songs that allow for commercial use. At the time of writing there's over 4465 songs on there. That's pretty good, right? (http://freemusicarchive.org/curator/video)

15. YouTube Audio Library. Even though a lot of the songs on here are overused, with a couple minutes of searching you could find a new song. They also have a couple of high quality sound effects if you need them! (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)

16. FreeSound. They have loads of completely free sound effects on their website. The only catch? You have to register which takes a couple seconds of your time... (https://www.freesound.org)

17. FreeStockMusic. Great free music for any type of video you can think of. You do need to register to download it, but it's definitely worth it! (http://www.freestockmusic.com/)

18. Incompetech. You can find numerous great tracks here that were composed by Kevin McLeod. They're completely free to use and download, but you have to give him credit for it either in the video or the description. (http://incompetech.com/)

19. DanoSongs. Another composer's site. He also allows his songs to be used anywhere if you give him the credit in the description or your video. (http://www.danosongs.com/)

20. PublicDomain4U. This website has all of the songs that have the copyright expired, so if you're looking for oldies but goodies this is the site for you! (http://publicdomain4u.com/) 

21-30. Free Photos

21. Free Digital Photos. This is my number one choice for when I need photos for my thumbnails or blog. It's not the best one out there because it only lets you download small sized images (400*267) pixels for free and you have to pay for the other ones. However, it's perfect for my uses. (http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/)

22. Unsplash. 10 completely free to use, breathtaking images every 10 days. What's not to love? (https://unsplash.com/)

23. SnapWireSnaps. Same as above, except there are 7 images uploaded every 7 days. (http://snapwiresnaps.tumblr.com/)

24. Getrefe. More free, public domain pictures. They were all taken using cellphones, but there are some amazing ones on there. (http://getrefe.tumblr.com/)

25. Picjumbo. Loads of free images with numerous categories. Perfect for creating that amazing-looking thumbnail! (http://picjumbo.com/)

26. Superfamous. A Los-Angeles based studio of a Dutch photographer. All of the photos there are free to use, but you need to give him credit. (http://superfamous.com/)

27. Life Of Pix. More public domain images. (http://www.lifeofpix.com/)

28. LittleVisuals. This one is a bit different from all the others because you actually have to sign up with your email, and they send you 7 free images every 7 days. Definitely worth it if you're a free image hoarder. (http://littlevisuals.co/)

29. Gratisography. Pictures captured by Ryan McGuire that are free of any copyright restrictions. Use them however you want! (http://www.gratisography.com/)

30. Splitshire. A blogger who is offering all of the pictures on the blog for free to use however you want. (http://splitshire.com/)

31-40. Cheap Games

31. Cheapshark. Technically, I could simply put this website here and not put anything else because this website collects the price data from the best game-stores online and checks which ones have the best deal. Definitely a must have if you're looking for cheap games. (http://www.cheapshark.com/)

32. Origin Free Games. Origin has a program called On The House where they post one or two games a month completely for free and if you download them during that time period you have those games forever! (https://www.origin.com/)

33. Green Man Gaming/Hot Deals. One of the websites Cheapshark checks for deals. If you want to do it manually you can go to their Hot Deals page! (http://www.greenmangaming.com/hot-deals/)

34. The Humble Bundle. Nowhere on the internet will you find a better deal for as many amazing games as they have on there. (Unless you pirate them) You pay as much as you want, and in many cases you can get 6-10 huge games for only $10 bucks or less. They also have Mobile and IndieGame bundles. (https://www.humblebundle.com/)

35. Steam Sales. If you're willing to wait for the Summer or Winter sale, or if a game you want appears on the Steam midweek madness page, you could get it for cheap! (http://store.steampowered.com/)

36. GOG. Another one of the stores on the Cheapshark list, but you can check them out to see if there's any other deals that aren't listed. (http://www.gog.com/)

37. GetGames. Same as above. They also have a hot deals page that you can check out! (http://www.getgamesgo.com/)

38. Reddit/SteamSwap. Did you know that you can trade games with people if you have a game on Steam that you don't like? Well now you know! (http://www.reddit.com/r/steamswap/)

39. Amazon. Amazon has some great deals on PC games sometimes. The only disadvantage is that the deals only apply to the physical copies of the game. (http://www.amazon.com/computer-video-games-hardware-accessories)

40. G2A Games. Another one of my favorites. It has incredibly cheap prices on almost all games out there. However, most of the games you buy from other gamers, so make sure that they have a high rating and over 100 sales. (https://www.g2a.com)

41-50+. Other Usefulness

41. SteamAlerts. If you're trying to buy a specific game on sale from Steam, this is a must have. Choose your game, put in your email and set the maximum price you're willing to pay and it will send you and email once the game drops below that price! (http://steamalerts.com/)

42. GameLengths. If you're planning on recording a single player game, it might be useful to know how long it will take you to complete the game. That's where this website comes into play! It's user submitted play-times though so your mileage may vary. (http://www.gamelengths.com/#)

43. VideoLC. A really cool website that determines the best time for you to publish your videos based on the engagement that you got on your previous videos and much more. You can get a free trial for 30 days, but it's quite expensive if you want to keep using it. Free trial it is! (https://www.videolc.com)

44. IGN. I like to visit IGN from time to time to figure out what's going on in the game world. (http://www.ign.com/)

45. YouTube Creator Academy. Creator Academy is a course offered by YouTube for improving your channel. Some of the stuff on there is quite basic, but some of the tips they offer are quite useful, so give it a go! (http://www.youtube.com/yt/creators/education.html)

46. Advanced SEO Tactics To Drive More Traffic To Your Videos & Website. I know... I know... This isn't a website. It is however an incredibly useful blog post by one of my favorite SEO guys on the internet named Brian Dean (author of Backlinko). Definitely worth checking out if you want to make your channel better! (http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2340726/5-Advanced-YouTube-SEO-Tactics-to-Drive-More-Traffic-to-Your-Videos-Website)

47. Ahrefs. You can use Ahrefs to check which websites are creating backlinks to your videos! (https://ahrefs.com/)

48. Backlinko. The blog of one of my favorite SEO experts: Brian Dean. Even though most of his articles are focused on website SEO, you can apply most of the concepts to YouTube videos. (http://backlinko.com/)

49. Market Samurai. This is a program that I use to find good keywords and improve my SEO. It's quite expensive though, so if you don't have a website it might not be worth it. (http://www.marketsamurai.com)

50. BeatDaBest. Did you really think I wouldn't put my website on here? You're crazy! ;) This is obviously my go-to website for improving my YouTube channel and it should be yours too! (www.beatdabest.com)

51. Reddit Let's Play. Another great place to go to if you need some help with improving your channel or you just want to talk to someone like-minded. (http://www.reddit.com/r/letsplay)

52. GamerclipsTV. Another website kind of like YouTube Gaming, except this one looks and feels better. Very useful for getting your videos to rank higher! (http://gamerclips.tv/)

53. Goo.gl. Having big, long, ugly links in the description isn't too pleasing, so you can use goo.gl links to make them shorter and see how many people are clicking on them. Be careful because some people don't trust goo.gl or bit.ly links! (goo.gl)

Bonus Website You Can't Miss (Just Kidding, These Are Completely Useless!)

54. Become A Famous YouTube Gamer. If you follow these steps you're guaranteed to get 1,000,000 subscribers on your first day of YouTubing! (http://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Famous-YouTube-Gamer)

55. OMFGDOGS. Um... Yeah. (http://www.omfgdogs.com/)

56. Falling Falling. It's constantly falling!!! Or is it? (http://www.fallingfalling.com/)

57. Staggering Beauty. Have you ever wanted to shake a black sausage until it turns into a rainbow sausage that flickers? Now you can! WARNING: Contains Flashing Images. (http://www.staggeringbeauty.com/)

58. Eelslap. If something just isn't working you can always slap this guy with an eel! Results may vary. (http://eelslap.com/)

P.S. Some of these are from: http://www.theuselessweb.com/

Thank you for reading! I hope you found this list useful!