I Deleted 54 Videos and 1.5 Million Views. Here's What Happened.

About 5 weeks ago, I deleted 54 videos on this channel. That was 1.5 million views completely gone, totally on purpose. Everyone thinks this is insane, and you may be thinking that as well. And this is the part you're not going to expect. I'm going to spend this entire video telling you not to do what I did because 99% of YouTube channels out there don't need this level of a prune. But watch what happened to mine, because if you are in that 1%, this video might change everything for you. I've been teaching coaches and course creators how to use YouTube as a sales asset for over 10 years, and that means this channel is over 10 years old, and it has a lot of content that went through a lot of my eras, specifically for a lot of people that I don't necessarily serve anymore. I don't create that type of content anymore. So I want to show you exactly what I removed and why, and then what has happened a few weeks since that deletion, or this prune I'm calling it, like the real numbers. And then I'm gonna give you a test at the end of this video that will tell you whether your channel needs this level of pruning or not. Spoiler alert, it probably doesn't. So I'll show you what to do instead if it doesn't. So here's what was actually on my channel: 862 videos. And buried within those 862 videos were 4 main types of content that were really working against me. And it's not because they were bad videos, but because who those videos were made for and to attract. So let's think of this as 2 buckets. Every video that I removed from my channel fell in one of these 2 buckets. And some content was confusing the YouTube algorithm who my channel was for, and that can cost you clients. My biggest example of this hurt the most to delete. I had a video, How to Create a Social Media Content Calendar in Asana. It was my top video for years, and I love talking about content creation organization. It was the biggest contributor to my growth in my channel over the last probably 6 years. And when I finally looked at it honestly, I couldn't find a single client that came from that video, not even one. Now, thousands, tens of thousands of people watch this video, but None of them wanted YouTube coaching. They wanted a free Asana tutorial. So every view trained the YouTube algorithm to go find me more people who wanted free Asana tutorials. And then here's the one that really got me. Some of my top videos of all time were videos around scripting and script writing, or what I call video game plan, is my thing. In fact, I sell an entire course on building a video game plan for YouTube. I'll link it in the description box if you want to check it out. But those viral script videos on my channel. Weren't selling my course. Now, there was one script video that was driving sales, and it was titled and packaged specifically for coaches. The viral ones titled generically really brought in basic starter-level YouTubers. Now, it's kind of the same topic, it was just a completely different audience. And that's really the trap you fall into. It's not about whether the topic is right, it's about who that title is calling in. And then I had one video on my channel about creating a YouTube watermark. And I'll be completely honest in why I made it. I saw other people in the YouTube guru niche making it and getting big views on those videos, and it was really growing their channel. And I, at the time, was in my imposter syndrome era. So I made that particular video because those big numbers on those channels made me feel like I was falling behind. And that video worked for views, but it did nothing for my business. And all of those views coming to that video told YouTube my channel was for YouTube beginners. Now let's talk about that blurry signal. There are usually up a couple things that are going to fall in this blurry bucket. Typically dated content like 2028 content, 2020, 2022, and trend chasing content. So any video with a title with the past year on it, you could unlist, or if it's still relevant, that's the key. If it still works today, just change the title to the current year. But things like platform drama commentary or things that were happening in the news or in the industry at that point of time, anything that told YouTube that this was general business content instead of the channel for coaches and course creators for using YouTube for lead generation needed to go. Another blurry signal was duplicate videos. Now let me explain this because I do say you can create the same video more than once, but the thing is I had 6 videos about content calendars, multiple videos on your first YouTube video, and the reason I did that is because back then YouTube gurus had said if you find one video that does well, keep doing it over and over and over and over again. That doesn't work on the platform for business owners. Because if it's not specific to your audience, the person you want to enroll in your course, you want to apply to your coaching program, YouTube can't tell which one of those 6, 10 videos is the actual answer for that person. So then it doesn't recommend any of those videos to that right person, that ready-to-buy viewer. So here's an action step for you right now. Look at your own library of YouTube videos and ask yourself one question per video. Who does this video call in? And can that person pay you? This is why I don't attract YouTuber beginners because these people are just getting started on YouTube. They're not ready to invest in working with me. So that's how you need to look at your videos and ask that question because none of these videos that I pruned were bad videos. They were good videos pointed at the wrong person. And on YouTube, the audience that your content attracts becomes the audience the algorithm builds for you forever until you change the signal. So those are the 2 buckets of videos that I removed. Now the question everyone asks, was it worth it? So here's what actually happened, the real numbers. I'm not gonna sugarcoat what it's like to delete those videos and how bad it feels to see your views drop off a cliff. It was pretty ugly. My daily views dropped from about 700 a day to under 150 because those old videos were really driving the residual traffic to my channel, and I basically ripped them off like a Band-Aid and got rid of them in one fell swoop. And for about 2 weeks This channel looked like it was dead on arrival. You do a prune like this, that time period is tough. And because we're so attached to vanity metrics and viral numbers and more, more, more, you've got to really prepare yourself for that drop-off. Then I started publishing brand new content, content built only for the buyer that I want to attract to this channel. 3 weeks after my big prune, I published a video about my client Nicole. That video did over 4,500 views in its first week of being published on my channel that was averaging just about 300 views on videos in that same time period. I got over 50,000 impressions, and this is the real number that matters to me. 85% of those impressions were coming from YouTube recommending me. That's the home feed. And a lot of impressions from people who had never even heard from me before because they weren't being served my videos because the algorithm didn't realize those were the people I was trying to attract. Because for years, the algorithm had classified my channel as a channel for YouTuber beginners. And that's all it was showing my videos to. So after about 5 weeks, one major prune later, it's starting to get this momentum of being shown to coaches and course creators. In fact, let me know down in the comments, are you a coach? Are you a course creator? Are you a YouTuber? Let's do a little test. Leave me what you are down in the comments. And since then, I've had another video go viral for me. Remember, I'm not creating these general broad topics, but they're going viral for my topic, for my audience. And these are really breakout videos for me because like I said, my videos weren't breaking about 300 views in the first week and now I've had more than 2 hit over 2,000 views in the first week. The good news is that's not luck, that's the algorithm relearning who my channel is for. So if you do decide to prune, you've got to expect a time period where it looks like your channel is completely dead. You've got to really think ahead and start planning new buyer-targeted content to publish during that reset and that's what I'm actually doing here on my channel here in August. I'm publishing 2 videos a week to really do this blitz of teaching the algorithm, making the algorithm relearn who I'm about. And so make sure you're subscribed because I'm going to be giving you all the breakdown details of what this blitz for August actually did for my channel and more important for my business. But understand, if you do something like this, you're not going to be thrown in a black hole forever. YouTube really wants to find your people for you. It just needs you to stop confusing it real quick here. And then I want to share with you the test you need to do to determine if you need to do the prune or not. The question underneath all of this, this is who is my content actually attracting? So I built a free custom GPT that will do just that for you. It's called the Who's Watching GPT. You can plug in your next video title, your next video idea, and it's going to tell you whether you are attracting your ready-to-buy viewer, your Expert Esther, or you're attracting a Beginner Betty, because that's the person that's not going to buy anything from you, and then you're going to teach the algorithm to send you the wrong people. This GPT is totally free. You'll go to trenalittle.com/whoswatching or click the link down in the pinned comment below. You can get it, plug in your next video before you even spend any time on it. So here's the truth I've been holding back for this entire video. After auditing about 50 of my clients' channels just the other weekend, here's my honest opinion on deleting videos. 99% of the time, your old content is not what's sinking your channel. It's your titles, it's your hook, it's your thumbnails, it's the structure of your videos that you're making. Most of you watching this today should not do a major deletion. When clients come to me convinced their channel needs this big purge, we almost always find that the real problem in their last 5 was their titles or their first 20 videos that they did, not their first 50 videos that they did. And if you do have beginner-level content, but now you're creating advanced content, that is absolutely fine because YouTube will reshift you. You're the same person serving the same viewer at a different stage in her journey. Remember, a lot of my content was attracting YouTubers, people who wanted to grow, monetize, become a YouTuber. That is not the same person for me as my clients, which are business owners, course creators, coaches, You're only in the 1% if both of these questions are true. First, you have high viewed content for an audience that can never buy from you. A different person completely, not just a different level. Let me know if that makes sense. And 2, this one's important. That content is still actively pulling in views today. Old dead videos with like 12, 25, 50 views aren't hurting anything. You basically look at that as like zombie videos. Old, wrong audience, still bringing traffic to your channel, that's what keeps training the algorithm wrong. So that's the 2 tests you're gonna do on your channel. Now, I also would always default to just unlisting those videos instead of deleting those. Unlisting is going to remove those videos from the algorithm signal, and you can always bring them back. I only tell clients to fully delete videos when the content is a complete category mismatch, like you used to rebuild old car engines and you have viral videos around that, and now you're teaching people how to eat a keto diet. That's a deletion. Everything else, just unlist. One of my clients did a small unlist prune of her first era content, and around video 8 or 9 of her new era content, her momentum really started to shift on YouTube. You don't need to burn the entire library down, okay? Remove what's calling in the wrong crowd, sharpen what's blurring your signal, and for most of you, change nothing you've done in the past. Just change what you're doing moving forward. Now, I mentioned I help my clients build this weekly video sales system where they post one video a week that consistently every single week drives leads, clients, and sales. I've done a completely free training for you and how this system works. The video is on your screen right now to watch.