UPPER TIERS: OLD McBIFFO HAD A CHANNEL - S-E-S-E-O

I've said it before, but I hate SEO and trying to game the system. Or, at least, game people’s brains to get them to watch.

We know from the metrics that the latest video began getting pushed out by the algorithm, due to strong engagement – watch time is up, likes are up, hours was up, great comments… all good, and that got it pushed out. But… once it did, it just flatlined. Maybe it got pushed to the wrong audience. I dunno, but SO FAR it's not doing as well as our other recent videos. I’d say maybe it was the wrong topic, or went out on the wrong day, but I don’t think it’s that.

Whatever I needed to have done with the thumbnail and title wasn’t there. That’s basically it. We’ve tinkered with it a bit now – I’ve signed up to VidIQ again, done a new title and thumbnail – and we’ll see if that helps. Though probably not (see below)

I mean, you’d think I’d be better at it – I supposedly can write, I have a background in graphic design. Heck, I even got a qualification in psychotherapy! But I dunno.

I feel absolutely lost with it.

Not least because other people seem SO good at it – we clicked on a video the other day which had “Breaking our silence” in the title, because we wanted to see what they were breaking their silence about. Turns out they’re were breaking their silence about jack shit – they just used that to get us to click. We ended up watching the whole thing waiting for that silence to be broken. Well done them… though it has made me wary of watching any of their other videos.

I can make good videos, I can do good research, good editing, Sanja gets great shots, we’re fun on camera, but the actual selling it part… it feels impossible sometimes. We really want to grow the channel(s), because we so believe in what we’re doing. People tell us the videos are getting better and better – I mean, this applies to Digi Level 2 as well – but I cannot fathom how to do it.

We got lucky last year with the sudden growth of the channel, and our videos still remain up from where we were before we kind of pivoted, but we’ve sort of hit a ceiling. It’s SO frustrating. I wish I didn’t care… because there’s a part of me that just loves making them, and sharing stuff that interests me with even just a few thousand people is satisfying. But... I want to do bigger and better videos, but I know I can’t do that without growing the audience. Maybe I'm too focused on the creative side, but it’s baffling.

I see other videos covering similar stuff to us with views in the MILLIONS. How?! How has that happened?!? How do the vids from, say, “Mark Felton Productions” – which have the WORST production values imaginable, ironically, thumbnails that are just grainy pictures of some Nazis, and lazy voiceover – get so many views?! How?!?

Anyway. I'm already regretting signing up to VidIQ. I tested its terrible new generate-a-thumbnail feature, and here are the thumbs it gave me. Note: it rates some of these as 96/100. My original thumbnail was rated 40/100. Awful.