Jeff Bullas

This is an important and often-overlooked aspect of building an inclusive channel.

Short Answer: The core of accessibility lies in enhancing your standard content formats. This means providing accurate text-based captions, creating high-contrast visual formats, and using descriptive audio language.

By making deliberate choices in how you format your content, you can make your videos welcoming to a much wider audience.

You can significantly improve your channel’s accessibility by focusing on three key formats. Firstly, you need to perfect your text format by manually reviewing and correcting YouTube’s auto-captions for every video to ensure they are accurate for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing. Secondly, you must consider your visual formats, such as thumbnails and on-screen graphics, by using large, legible fonts and high-contrast colour schemes to assist viewers with vision impairments. Thirdly, you should enhance your audio format by practising “audio description,” which means verbally describing any critical visual information happening on screen that a person who cannot see the video would otherwise miss. Consciously improving these text, visual, and audio formats will make your content vastly more inclusive.

Cheers,

Jeff

Understanding your traffic sources is key to sustainable growth.

Short Answer: Neither is inherently “better”—they are both vital but serve different functions. Browse drives initial reach for new videos, while Suggested is the engine for long-term, compounding views.

You can strategically optimise different content formats to appeal to both of these powerful discovery systems.

A healthy channel has a mix of traffic from both sources, and you can influence this with your content strategy. Firstly, to capture traffic from Browse Features, which includes the YouTube homepage, you need to create video formats with broad appeal on timely or widely interesting topics, packaged with compelling thumbnail and title formats to maximise click-through rate. Secondly, to generate views from Suggested Videos, you should focus on creating deep, interconnected content formats like a video series or a playlist on a specific niche. This encourages viewers to watch multiple videos in a session, signalling to the algorithm that your channel is great at keeping people engaged, making it more likely your videos will be recommended after similar content. A mature strategy uses Browse-optimised formats to attract new audiences and Suggested-optimised formats to turn them into loyal subscribers.

Cheers,

Jeff

A crucial question—tracking the right data is what separates strategy from guesswork.

Quick Answer: True growth is measured by metrics that indicate audience investment, primarily Profile Visits, Follower Growth Rate, and Engagements per Impression, not just raw impression numbers.

However, the secret is knowing which content formats are specifically designed to move each of these key needles.

Different content formats are engineered to influence different metrics, so you must align your format to your goal. First, to increase your Profile Visits and Follower Growth Rate, the most effective content format is the multi-post authoritative thread, as it showcases expertise and gives users a compelling reason to click your name and see what else you have to offer. Second, to improve your Engagements per Impression—a key sign of content quality—you should use interactive formats like polls and open-ended questions that directly invite audience participation. Finally, if your goal is off-platform action, the success of video content with a strong verbal call-to-action is best measured by Link Clicks, which confirms your message was persuasive. Focusing solely on vanity metrics like impressions is a harmful practice that leads to creating shallow clickbait instead of content that builds a loyal community.

Cheers,

An excellent question that moves beyond setup and into actual strategy.

Quick Answer: The best practice is to integrate your shop promotions into a native content strategy, using video and high-quality images to showcase products organically rather than just posting direct links.

Let’s look at the specific content formats that drive the most valuable traffic to your shop.

To effectively promote your shop, you must prioritise content that feels native to the platform. First, short-form video is essential; creating clips that show your product in action, offer a quick tutorial, or give a behind-the-scenes look will generate high engagement and allow you to seamlessly tag items from your shop. Second, you should utilise high-resolution image carousels to present a single product from multiple angles or to feature several items from a collection within a single, engaging post. Finally, the most authentic format is user-generated content, so actively encourage your customers to post photos and videos with your products and then feature that content on your timeline. It is critical that you avoid spammy practices like tagging your products in irrelevant trending posts, as this can lead to penalties and erode the trust of your audience.

Cheers,

Jeff.

A very prudent question that all serious creators should be asking.

Short Answer: Effective protection relies on a strong, unique password combined with multi-factor authentication and vigilant monitoring of third-party app permissions.

Beyond these fundamentals, it’s also vital to recognise how different content formats can be used to compromise your account.

You must be incredibly sceptical of the content you engage with, as it is the primary vector for attacks. First, be wary of video or image posts that promise shocking footage but redirect you to an external site that requires a login; these are almost always designed to steal your credentials. Second, carefully scrutinise text-based DMs or posts offering partnership deals that seem too good to be true and ask for sensitive information, as this is a classic social engineering tactic. Finally, you should never click on unfamiliar links shared within audio formats like a live Space, especially those promoted as special tools or access portals. Your security is as much about your content consumption habits as it is about your account settings.

Cheers,

Jeff.

Your gut feeling is spot on; this choice has a huge impact on how your brand is perceived.

Short Answer: Real photos are better because they build trust and authenticity, which stock photos simply cannot. They show your actual products, people, and culture, creating a genuine connection with your audience.

It’s the difference between showing your customers who you are versus showing them a generic idea of what you are.

Investing in authentic photography provides several tangible benefits over using stock images. First, and most importantly, real photos build trust; showing your actual team, office, and products proves you are a legitimate operation and makes your business feel more human and relatable. Second, custom images give you complete control over your brand storytelling, allowing you to create a visual narrative that communicates your unique values and culture in a way that generic stock photos never can. Finally, using original images can offer a minor SEO advantage, as search engines can recognise that your visual content is unique and not duplicated across hundreds of other websites. The crucial thing to remember, however, is that a low-quality, unprofessional real photo can be far more damaging than a high-quality stock photo, so the investment in authenticity must also be an investment in quality.

Cheers,

That’s the million-dollar question, and the honest answer is: it depends.

Short Answer: Generally, you can expect to see initial movement in 4 to 6 months, with more substantial, business-impacting results taking closer to 12 months.

This timeframe is influenced by your industry’s competitiveness, your starting point, and the resources you dedicate to creating quality content.

Several factors determine how quickly your SEO efforts will pay off. First, the quality and velocity of your content are paramount; a site publishing high-value, well-researched text and media that satisfies user intent will see results far faster than a site with thin or infrequent content. Second, your site’s existing authority and technical health play a huge role, as a brand-new site or one with significant technical issues will have a longer road ahead than an established, well-structured one. Finally, the process of building authority by earning quality links to your content is gradual and cannot be rushed. Be very wary of anyone promising guaranteed rankings in a short timeframe, as those methods often involve risky tactics that can get your site penalised.

Cheers,
Jeff

It’s a common point of confusion, but getting this distinction right is the first step in building a website.

Short Answer: Your domain name is the address of your website, like a street address, while web hosting is the actual house where all your website’s content files are stored.

You need both for a website to work: an address for people to find you and a physical place for your site to live.

Let’s break down the analogy. First, the domain name is the unique, human-friendly text like yourwebsite.com that you register and rent on a yearly basis; it’s what people type into their browser to find you. Second, web hosting is the service you pay for, usually monthly, that provides the physical storage space on a server for all your website’s content, including your text, image, and video files. Finally, you connect them by pointing your domain name’s settings to your web hosting provider’s server, which is like telling the post office where your new house is located. A crucial piece of advice is to always register the domain name in your own name to ensure you maintain full ownership of your address, regardless of who hosts or builds your site.

Cheers,
Jeff