There are countless channels to stream podcasts, such as Spotify, iTunes or Sticher, but an important yet overlooked component of launching a podcast is a creating a “home base” or dedicated podcast website for your show. Ilina Dobreva, Marketing Specialist at SiteGround offers best practices for hosting podcasts and advice on creating a podcast website in 3 simple steps.
After putting in countless hours developing ideas, writing scripts, and recording episodes, the last thing you might want to do is spend more time on a website, but having that will only help your podcast grow. A standalone website for your podcast guarantees three things: ownership, findability, and simplicity. Let’s break it down.
1. Ownership
While there are many platforms today that can host content – blogs, videos, podcasts – anytime you decide to use one of them you have to keep in consideration what this means when it comes to who’s owning that content.
While podcast streaming platforms may offer many benefits, it’s always better to give your audience more than one way to listen and to be platform-agnostic. Having your own website where you control and own your content and design, is an excellent way to allow your visitors the chance to choose how to stream your content in a way the best suits them.
Moreover, a major part of creating a successful podcast is branding it carefully, which you can do to a degree on an external platform, but usually, there is a very limited set of options. Excellent branding is the base for any prosperous business endeavor and having full control over how your website looks, what color palette it has, what options etc., is a great way to build that foundation.
Not to mention you can later expand your project by adding donation options, an online store for your own merchandise, and so on.
WordPress is a great platform to build your podcasting website with. Not only its structure is very well-adapted (after all, podcasting is not very different from blogging), but it offers plugins specifically designed for podcast websites.
2. Findability
It’s a known fact that organic traffic is amongst the best converting kinds. Most marketers agree that this is the most valuable channel when it comes to attracting visitors. While it’s true that you’re not selling anything directly, you’re still looking to attract an audience.
Building a website for your podcast gives you amazing opportunities when it comes to SEO. Thanks to the built-in blogging option and the fact that WordPress is very SEO-friendly, you’ll have the opportunity to write content that is relevant to your podcast topics and subsequently, attract organic visitors. Not only that, but down the road, if you decide to invest in some paid advertising (PPC) it would be much more convenient – and authoritative – to promote your own website, instead of a random subdomain.
An added benefit is having detailed website analytics (we strongly recommend integrating Google Analytics), which helps measure and better understand your listener’s activity. It’s no secret that podcasting stats are not very in-depth, so having website analytics to gain a better understanding of your audience is essential. This is valuable for not only content topics but possible sponsorships you may seek down the line as well.
3. Simplicity
Nowadays we are so overwhelmed with sources of information, even the slightest difficulty can be quite off-putting. Simplicity in this case means that you make everything as easy as possible for your visitors. A centralized hub – such as a website – for everything you have to offer to your listeners is probably the smartest move you can do from a UX point of view. Listeners can read and subscribe for more information, leave comments, questions, and ideas for future episodes. Remember, the more engaged your visitors are, the more likely it is that you’ll gain their loyalty and keep them coming back.
We also recommend starting a newsletter and building a subscribers list, which can greatly help you with your podcast content promotion. Newsletters are still an amazing tool for retention and it’s always a good idea to integrate them into your strategy.
Where to start?
Once you’ve decided that moving forward with creating a website is the right decision, you’ll want to decide on a website-building software and a web hosting provider. Again, WordPress has a variety of options and even offers themes specifically for podcast-focused sites. It’s no surprise that 35 percent of all websites on the web are built with this platform.
Once you’ve settled on your website-building software, make sure to find a quality web hosting provider, which can save you lots of work on launching, optimizing, and managing your website, so that you can focus on producing content instead. With the wealth of opportunities in the podcasting industry, having a dedicated website for your show’s “home base” can take your hard work to the next level and help you reach a variety of new audiences. So, don’t hesitate, and start building your online presence.
By Ilina Dobreva
Marketing Specialist
SiteGround
Bio: Ilina is one of SiteGround’s storytellers, who has a special talent for explaining complex technical concepts into plain English. She is passionate about reading and writing, continuing to pursue her interest in journalism and modern publishing platforms, but with a pinch of tech and web design for good measure.
Email: ilina.rezheva@siteground.com