Why you need a (great) podcast website
When it comes to growth, your website is just as important as listing on iTunes.
It might sound like a truism that podcasters want to be heard. And sure enough, the thousands of podcasters we’ve spoken with confirmed that their most important goal is growth: to engage their existing podcast fans and gain new listeners too. But with more and more new shows out there, how do you rise above the clutter? Here are the main reasons that creating an attractive and search-optimized podcast website is the most important thing you can do for your show — and how to do it.
Let’s start with why it’s important to create an awesome podcast website, whether this is your first podcast or you’re a seasoned pro. As we like to say, you don’t have to be Roman Mars to shoot for the stars 😎
Give your podcast fans more value
Your weekly podcast doesn’t end when the episode is over — there’s way more that you should be doing to retain those faithful listeners. Don’t let their interest be constrained by your episode length: give them extra content to engage them and take them beyond the show.
The easiest way to do this is by adding content to your show notes, since these can contain plenty of rich content, including images, lists, and hyperlinks. (This is usually filed as the <description>> or <summary> tag in your RSS feed.) Your podcast hosting service (like Pippa, Podbean, Libsyn, or Blubrry) should ideally make it easy to edit these fields. If you’re using Pippa for podcast hosting, you can add these notes as soon as you upload or edit your episode.
Three simple ideas to get started.
- Add some details and references about the most exciting parts of your episode. (Example: here’s a map of Leakin Park and where Jay was last seen.)
- Add a quiz. This is a great way to get to know your listeners and keep them engaged! (Example: Which contestant on Survivor 37 should not have been voted out?)
- Provide links to other episodes they might like to listen to after this one.
Expand your reach
If your podcast fans are just fans on your podcast, you’re doing something wrong. By plugging your podcast listeners into your broader network, there’s a considerably greater chance they’ll stay tuned, and also bring other listeners along with them. A simple example: if Jane 👍 your podcast on Facebook, Jane’s followers will see this and might decide to check out your podcast also.
Here are two quick ideas to help you get started on growing your podcast audience.
- Add some Tweetable or shareable links for social media. Make it as easy as possible for your listeners to spread the word about why your show is awesome! Give them some pre-packaged tweets ready to fire off, like this:
“Brace yourself for the musical equivalent of #fiftyshades in this week’s episode of That Classical Podcast” — Click to Tweet
2. Encourage listeners to follow you outside of your podcast, especially on social media. Always include your handles for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and wherever else you have a good community—online or offline.
What makes a podcast website good?
If you already have podcast hosting, you might wonder, is this the same as a podcast website? The answer is no: podcast hosting is for delivering your RSS feed and audio files to podcast listeners through podcast apps and other listening platforms. Your podcast website, by contrast, is for providing a web presence for your show and related content on the internet.
Searchable and Findable
After starting your podcast, you’ll be told you need to add your show to a podcast directory like iTunes or Stitcher — and this is correct! But it’s just as important that your show is available online, on the internet, and that it’s easily searchable by engines like Google and Bing.
Getting Search Engine Optimization right is sometimes considered a dark art, and you can spend thousands of dollars trying to improve your Google results rankings. But there are some simple steps you can make early on to ensure that your podcast website is properly structured to adhere to web standards and crawler activities which will raise your profile. For example, all of Pippa’s podcast websites are automatically formatted to work with Google Podcasts, the search giant’s podcast app.
Optimized for mobile
Odds are that your listeners currently have an iPhone or Android their hands or in their pockets right now — so use it! Make sure that your podcast website is responsive (it will look great on desktop or mobile browsers) and platform-agnostic (that it looks great on Apple iOS and Android).
What should my podcast website include?
Once you’ve secured your domain, you can start to populate it with some content. If you use Pippa as your hosting provider, this part is simplified too, since it will automatically generate website content based on your podcast show notes and incorporate the key sections that any podcast website should have.
Your episodes
Include all your episodes with embeddable players. Your podcast host should have a good embeddable player, like this one below from Pippa for Sony Music’s show, the Lost Art of Liner Notes.
Easy subscription options
As mentioned, the key goal is gaining listeners, so it’s crucial to make it easy for them to find you and subscribe to your show, no matter which podcast app they prefer. Put your ‘subscribe’ button front and center.
There are many listening platforms, too many to list, so you should include just a few options. A non-exhaustive list of some good podcast apps would include Acast, Apple Podcasts (or iTunes), Castbox, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Spotify, and Stitcher.
It’s also most important to link to your RSS feed, since this is the “source of truth” for your podcast, and will work on any player or app. Again, assuming you use Pippa for podcast hosting, adding these podcast app links and badges to your website is really easy: just open the website settings and include any links you like
Host information
Talk about yourself a little! It’s frequently observed that a podcast’s success is closely linked to the personal connection between the host and her listeners.
Give listeners a bit of context behind the voice that they hear by providing some background on you and why you make your podcast. This is a good spot to include links to your personal Instagram or LinkedIn accounts too.
Master of your own domain
You hopefully spent a lot of time thinking about your podcast title, and hopefully gave some consideration to how easy it would be for folks to find your show in their podcast apps. But did you think about getting the domain name?
What is a domain name? You can think of a domain as a unique online address like zazzle.com or 99percentinvisible.org The domain is not the same as the podcast website — the domain is the address where your home page will live. And when it comes to internet real estate, like regular real estate, the address matters. There’s a limited supply of good ones.
Suppose you have a podcast called Spitballing with Joe. As soon as you settle on the title for the show, I sincerely recommend checking if the domain name for your show (spitballingwithjoe.com) is available, and then buying it soon. This will make it easier for existing podcast fans and new listeners to find you, which is the goal. There are plenty of good places to buy your domain. We really like Hover and NameCheap.
Some podcast hosting services like Pippa will let you use a custom domain for your podcast RSS feed and website. So, instead of having shows.pippa.io/politics-as-unusual as your website, you could have your website content automatically appear at politics-as-unusual.com This is awesome for growing your brand on your own terms.
Today a podcast website matters more than ever. Some parts are hard work, but Pippa gives you a head start and takes care of many essential components.
Join Pippa with code WEBSITE for 20% off any podcast hosting and website plan you choose.
