Jeff Bullas

It’s wise to be cautious with this file; it’s simple but powerful.

Short Answer: The robots.txt is a plain text file that provides instructions to search engine crawlers, telling them which pages or content files they are not allowed to access on your website.

Its main purpose is to manage crawler traffic and prevent them from visiting low-value or private areas of your site.

Your caution is justified because this single text file can have a massive impact on your SEO. First, you create this file to guide search engine bots by telling them which directories or files to ignore, which is useful for keeping admin pages, internal search results, or shopping cart pages out of their index. Second, for a typical website, a safe robots.txt file often just disallows access to backend system folders while allowing everything else, ensuring all your important text and image content can be crawled. Finally, it’s considered best practice to include a line in this text file pointing to your XML sitemap, which helps search engines easily find a list of all the pages you want them to index. The one command you must never use unless you intend to hide your entire site is Disallow: /, as this single line will block every search engine from crawling any of your content.

Cheers,
Jeff

This is the classic fork in the road for anyone starting an online store.

Short Answer: Shopify is an all-in-one solution that prioritises ease of use, while WooCommerce is a more flexible and customisable system that gives you full control over your site’s content and code but requires more technical management.

The right choice depends on whether you value out-of-the-box simplicity or long-term flexibility and ownership of your content.

The fundamental difference lies in how each platform handles your store’s content and the technical responsibilities involved. First, Shopify is a fully hosted service, meaning it manages all the security, software updates, and storage for your product images and text for a set monthly fee, which makes it extremely simple to get started. In contrast, WooCommerce is software you install on your own hosting account, giving you complete control over your content files but also making you responsible for site security, speed, and maintenance. Second, this affects customisation; with WooCommerce, you have limitless freedom to modify how your text and image content is displayed, whereas Shopify operates within the themes and structures provided in its ecosystem. Finally, don’t make the common mistake of assuming WooCommerce is cheaper just because the software is free; once you factor in the costs of quality hosting, premium themes, and necessary plugins, the total monthly cost can often be comparable to a Shopify subscription.

Cheers,
Jeff

Smart move to get on top of this now rather than after a disaster.

Short Answer: For an active e-commerce site, you need daily automated backups at a minimum, and the best method involves storing complete copies of both your website files and your database in a separate, off-site location.

A reliable backup strategy is your ultimate insurance policy against data loss, so redundancy is key.

Your backup strategy needs to cover three essential areas. First, the frequency of your backups should match how often your site’s content changes; since you’re running an e-commerce store with daily orders, you must take daily backups to avoid losing crucial transaction and customer data. Second, you must back up both distinct components of your site: the files, which include your theme, plugins, and all your media content like images and videos, and the database, which stores all the text from your pages, posts, and most importantly, your product and order information. Finally, the best and most reliable method is to have your backups automatically sent to a secure, off-site cloud storage location, which ensures you have a copy that is completely independent of your web host in case of a server-wide failure. Simply relying on your host’s default backup without your own off-site copy is a significant risk.

Cheers,
Jeff

This is the point where a streamer decides to prioritise technical excellence.

Short Answer: The primary benefit is the complete separation of gaming and encoding workloads, which maximises performance for both tasks and results in smoother, higher-quality video content. However, it is only worth the investment if you are a competitive player who requires maximum frame rates or if a high-end single PC can no longer produce flawless content for your specific needs.

Let’s analyse the specific improvements to your video content and the conditions that justify the cost.

The core advantage of a dual PC setup comes from dedicating system resources to singular tasks, which improves your final content in two main ways. First, your gaming PC is freed entirely from the strain of encoding, allowing it to dedicate all of its CPU and GPU power to the game. This results in higher, more stable frame rates, making your gameplay video significantly smoother. Second, the dedicated streaming PC can be configured to use a slower, more powerful CPU-based encoding preset. This produces a visibly cleaner and more professional-looking video stream for your audience than the typical GPU encoding used in a single-PC configuration, and it eliminates the risk of dropped frames or audio stutter. However, the justification for this investment is narrow. For most streamers, a modern single PC with a powerful graphics card is more than capable of producing a high-quality broadcast. The dual PC setup is only truly necessary under two conditions: you are a competitive player whose performance depends on squeezing out every possible frame-per-second, or your content production is so complex that a single system cannot manage all the required video and audio sources without compromising quality.

Cheers,

Jeff

It’s easy to get fixated on the biggest number on the page.

Short Answer: While 10,000 views on a VOD is a nice milestone, it is not a “good” indicator of channel health. A far better and more actionable measure of success is your Average Concurrent Viewership, as this metric reflects your ability to build and retain a live community around your content.

Let’s differentiate between a vanity metric and an actionable metric for your video content.

First, you need to recognise that a VOD view count is a passive and often misleading number. This cumulative figure for your archived video content lacks the context of engagement; it does not tell you how long those people watched or whether they participated in your community. Because it offers very little insight into the actual performance of your live broadcast, it is considered a vanity metric: nice to look at, but not useful for strategic decisions. Second, the metric you must focus on is Average Concurrent Viewership. This number represents the actual size of your live audience at any given moment and is the primary indicator of a healthy channel for several reasons. It is the core metric that potential sponsors and partners will analyse, it directly reflects the real-time appeal of your live video and audio content, and it is the figure that gates your progress through the Twitch Affiliate and Partner programmes. Focussing your efforts on growing this live number is a far more productive use of your energy.

Cheers,

Jeff

Thinking about sponsorships is a sign you’re shifting from a hobbyist to a business owner.

Short Answer: A media kit is a concise visual document of your key channel data, which you then attach to a short, personalised email that pitches a specific content integration idea to a highly relevant brand.

Let’s break down the essential text and image components of your professional pitch.

First, your media kit is a single-page document, effectively the visual resume for your channel. This image and text-based asset must contain four key elements. It needs a short biography describing your content and community values. It must also feature relevant data from your analytics, focussing on engagement metrics like average concurrent viewers and chat activity rather than just your follower count. You should also include your audience demographics if you have access to them, as this is crucial data for brands. Finally, the kit needs to list the specific content integrations you offer, such as a timed video segment, an audio mention, or a brand’s logo image on your overlay. Second, your approach is a carefully crafted text document in the form of an email. Your primary task is to find the right marketing contact at organisations that genuinely align with your audience. The email text must be brief, personalised, and clearly state why you believe a partnership would be a good fit, showing you have researched their brand. You then propose one simple content idea, attach the media kit, and end with a professional closing.

Cheers,

Jeff

Looking at data is the first step to streaming like a business.

Quick Answer: Stop looking at individual numbers in isolation and start correlating key metrics to the specific video content you produced during that time to identify patterns in what works and what doesn’t.

Here are the most important data relationships to analyse in your stream summaries.

First, you must correlate your Average Viewers metric with the actual content of your stream. After every broadcast, review your summary and note what game you were playing or what activity you were doing, then compare this against the viewership data. A simple text log of this information over weeks will clearly show you which of your video content formats are resonating with an audience. Second, you should compare your Unique Viewers to your Average View Duration and number of chatters. If you are attracting a high number of unique viewers who then leave quickly, it suggests your stream’s discoverability is good but your audio content—your commentary and interaction—is not engaging enough to make them stay. Finally, pay close attention to your traffic sources data. This text-based information tells you precisely how viewers are finding your channel, which directly informs how you should manage your promotional content; for example, if traffic from Twitter is consistently low, it signals that the images and text you post there are not effective at converting followers into viewers.

Cheers,

Jeff

Executing a series well is a sign of a sophisticated creator.

The Blueprint: You must film the entire series in advance. Hook the audience in Part 1 with a compelling open loop, clearly label every video, and release the parts on a rapid, daily schedule.

A successful series isn’t just a long video cut into pieces; it’s a deliberately structured viewing experience.

The first and most important rule of planning a series is to have all parts completely filmed and edited before you post episode one. This is non-negotiable as it guarantees you can deliver for your audience. Your next focus must be the structure of Part 1; it needs to be engaging on its own while ending on a strong cliffhanger or an unanswered question that makes viewers feel they need to see what happens next. You must also clearly signpost that it’s a series from the very beginning. This is done by using consistent on-screen text, for example ‘(Part 1 of 4)’, and by mentioning it in your caption. When it comes to the launch, the optimal strategy is a rapid release, posting one part each day on consecutive days. A powerful tactic is to post Part 2 by using the ‘video reply’ feature on a top comment from Part 1 asking for the next installment. Once all parts are live, you should immediately group them into a Playlist on your profile to maximise binge-watching for new viewers who discover your series later.

Cheers,

Jeff