July 1, 2021

Do I Need A Website For My Podcast?

Do I Need A Website For My Podcast?

I get this question alot, "Do I NEED a website for my podcast?" This is usually from a person who feels they are not a "technical" person and they fear making a website. They feel you need to be a "nerd" to create a website. Well, fear not, you don't...

I get this question alot, "Do I NEED a website for my podcast?" This is usually from a person who feels they are not a "technical" person and they fear making a website. They feel you need to be a "nerd" to create a website. Well, fear not, you don't need to be a nerd, but you do NEED a website. Here is why

  • How is Google going to find you? When you publish an episode with text describing what is in the episode it is "Google Food."
  • You want a CENTRAL place for your audience to go to. Your social media (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc) are "Satellites" but these come and go (periscope anyone?). 
  • Your website is the place people to go take action. This could be to subscribe/follow to your show, join your email list, leave a voicemail
  • You don't want to say "Find my show in (app)" and those apps have horrible search features and in some cases, you can't be found. By sending them to your website they don't have to search for those links. You can make it easy to follow/subscribe.

Check Out Podpage

Right now I love Podpage. This was designed on podcaster feedback and makes it super easy to create a beautiful site for your podcast in less than 5 minutes. You can try it for free for seven days check it out.

If you want a little hand-holding, I do have a course at www.schoolofpodcasting.com/learnpodpage

Need Some Help With Your Podcast

Schedule a strategy session at www.podcastconsultant.com/schedule

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Transcript

Have you ever been in that situation where your child has been out playing, they come in, they're a little dirty, they're a little stinky? And you say, hey, before you get ready for bedtime, you have to take a shower and they go, Waaa, I don't want to take a shower. Well, today, we're going to kind of see how that sometimes it's very much like the person that goes, Waaaa, I don't want a website. 

So again, I'm answering a question I get a lot. And that is do I need a website? For my podcast? While much like the smelly child I was talking about? In the intro? Yes. Yes, you do. And why? Let's start with that. Why do I need a website? Because you want number one, a home base? So that if somebody says, Wait, where was that? Again, they know, go to podcast consultant.com. In my case, the other thing is, you want to be found? What does Google use to find your words on a website?

That's why a big reason why you need a website. You're also probably if you're doing this for a business, you're going to want to grow your email list because your email list puts your products one click away from people, well, how are they going to sign up for your newsletter? That's right. They're going to go to your website, if you're doing any kind of consulting, where are they going to go to schedule that you're what it is the whole thing, your website is your home base.

And a lot of people think I'll just use my Instagram or whatever, no, your website is the home base. It's that home planet, and all the other social media things, they kind of just float around your home base that way, if any other those social media places go away, they become unpopular. People know Oh, go to your website.

Now. I understand this one day, if I'm not really technology and myself, we're not really on good terms. I get that. And that's why websites are scary. I totally understand that. And I got to tell you, I've been working with a guy for a couple of years now he came out. And this is how you design a product. You contact your target audience and say, What do you need? This is what I'm thinking is this good or not.

And that is podpage., If you want something that is more than what your media host, because many media hosts will give you a website and we'll talk about that in a minute. And you want more than that. But you don't want to get into the world of WordPress, or Squarespace or Wix. Because especially Wix says it's super easy. I'm here to tell you their interface is pretty bad. And I've seen other people take sites like siteground. And they have all these templates. But none of the templates are for a podcast. So it's not exactly a great fit.

And that's where podpage comes in. It's not a media host. It's a replacement for Wix, Squarespace, or like I said, your podcast host often will provide a free website. And these websites are not bad. Some of them are not great. But if all you need is a website where people can listen and subscribe and follow your podcast many times, you can get away with the free website that comes with your media host. And when I say I make a media host, I'm talking about Lipson captivate those types of places, they will have a website that comes with your media host. And again, if all you need is someplace for people to subscribe and listen to your podcasts, those might do fine. But when you want to grow an email list when you want to sell products when you want it to make it easy to schedule you for selling services or things like that, and many of them again, have ways to integrate that pod page is made for podcasters. And that's what I love about it.

The other thing I love about it is if you're not going to use podpage, what if you need something more powerful than podpage? That's when you move into WordPress. But as an educator trying to teach people WordPress is a little difficult because there are a million options for WordPress. So which ones do you pick? Again, podpage is made for podcasters. Now if you have your own website already, maybe on WordPress, then just remember, a podcast is a blog with a media file associated with it.

 

So go ahead and write up your show notes like it's a blog post and then just in bed The player, and you'll be fine. Because if you've already got a website, you're already attracting Google. No sense recreating the wheel, especially if you're happy with your website. So to answer that question, do I need a website for my podcast? Yes, you do. And my favorite answer right now, if you just want a quick, great-looking, not too technical website, if you go-to podcast, consultant.com slash pod page, you can go over if you've already started your podcast, you just need your RSS feed. You put it in there, and you can actually try it for free for seven days and play around and make sure it's a good fit.

If you want to check out podpage if you're like, hey, Dave, I know you said this was easy, but I need a little hand-holding for the record again. That is okay, you're doing something especially if you've never built a website, you're gonna be out of your comfort zone. I'm here to help you with that. Now let you know it's really not as bad as you think if you go out to podcast consultant comm slash 98 because this is Episode 98. I will have a link to a free absolutely free course on how to set up your podcast website using podpage. And Natalie Think about it. If you want to see podpage in action. Just go out to podcast consultant.com. I use it for my website.

Thanks so much for listening and for joining me on my mission to rid the world of boring podcast. I'm Dave Jackson, and I want to be your podcast consultant. Come visit me over at podcastconsultant.com And let's schedule a strategy session today.