Answering YOUR Questions about Podcasting

[00:00:00] real quick before we get started, I want to tell you about my newsletter, build something weekly, which you can sign up for@buildsomething.email. It is free. It’s a weekly newsletter that covers the latest news in WordPress and podcasting. It has the latest episode with the top takeaways. So you don’t always have to listen, though.

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[00:00:57] I thought we would do a fun. And I think this is first time, uh, episode where I answer your questions about podcasting. So, uh, throughout the summer, especially a lot of people have been asking me various questions on podcasting. I’ve got five or so here lined up that I want to go through. Uh, unfortunately I don’t have attribution.

[00:01:19] These are genuinely questions. I’ve gotten several times over the last few months. Now in build something more, uh, we’ll be talking about why I’m shifting my focus a lot to podcasting. What I learned at skip the grind, which is a conference or a business, which I’m, I’m calling it a business retreat. It’s not really a conference.

[00:01:44] A business retreat. I went to a couple of weeks ago that helped me focus my offerings, uh, and all of the things that I’m doing. And so you’ll get a little behind the scenes on that stuff. I won’t give away the framework or anything like that, but I’ll talk about my biggest takeaways and things that I didn’t necessarily talk about in the blog post, which I will link to in the show notes over@streamlined.fm slash 2, 3, 2.

[00:02:14] This episode is brought to you by text expander and nexus, whom you’ll hear about later in the show, but first let’s get on with some of the questions. So I was recently on the course creator community podcast. I’ll link that in the show notes as well. Only everything that we talk about in the show notes here.

[00:02:37] And, um, I was asked by the host. About podcasting in the realm of course creation. And then in the Facebook group, which I have also joined, uh, I was asked is podcasting good for promoting a course? Now I did a full episode on this. Uh, and there’s also, I believe there’s an accompanying accompanying blog posts, but yes, I think that creating a podcast for your course.

[00:03:12] I’m not going to go so far as to say it’s essential, but I think it is one of the best marketing and promotion tools that you can have for promoting your course. And here’s why people need to know like, and trust you when they’re buying a course from you. I learned this the hard way. I thought I’ll just put out a course that people want to learn about.

[00:03:38] And they’ll buy it. Right. Very field of dreams approach. If I build it, they will come. I have a big audience in the WordPress space. My first course was how to build a blog. And that was a failure for several reasons. First of all, it was a fully text-based course, uh, when, especially something like that lends itself to.

[00:04:05] Screencasts right. Um, where I’m talking about how to build a blog with WordPress, there should be a video tutorials for step-by-step instructions, how to do something, not just text and screenshots. Second of all, there’s too much free content on exactly how to do that. But third of all, people didn’t know me for starting a blog.

[00:04:32] People knew me as a WordPress developer. And so when people saw this offering, they thought, sure, Joe has a blog, but what does Joe know about starting and growing? And more importantly, monetizing the blog. I see no proof that he really knows how to do that. So people didn’t, they knew me, they liked me, but they didn’t trust me in this subject matter area.

[00:05:03] So if you start a podcast to promote your course, and we talked about this last week, right? With Allister McDermitt on our live coaching call. If you start a podcast to promote your course, you can establish that trust with your target audience. Right? If you have a podcast about how to repair bikes, or you have a course in how to repair bikes, Your podcast could be people submitting questions about bikes they’ve broken and how you would repair them.

[00:05:36] Right. Um, and so having that podcast helps you establish trust. It also helps you figure out what content to put in the course. Heck the course in the podcast can have the same content just remixed. And this is something. That I said on that course, creators community podcast, your podcast can be your course content.

[00:06:06] The difference between the two is that where maybe you’re covering a subject here and there each week for the podcast, the course is designed in such a way to get the listener or the student. From zero to win. So you plan a learners journey for them. You don’t necessarily need to do that with the podcast.

[00:06:27] So is podcasting good for promoting a course? Absolutely. It helps people know like, and trust you, it helps establish your expertise and authority in a certain area, and it helps you test your core. Content in a live and free environment. Right? My friend, Chris Badgett says that every course creator needs a, a free channel, whether it be a podcast, a blog or a YouTube channel.

[00:07:00] And if you’re worried about just releasing, you know, your videos from your pod, from your course on the YouTube channel, podcasting is, is a good alternative. Okay. So that was, that was pretty specific as podcasting. Good for promoting, of course, this next question is a little bit more general. Uh, what makes a good show notes page?

[00:07:26] I can attribute this one. My friend Todd asked me this he’s starting a podcast and this is something I’ve thought about over the last, oh, basically over the summer. Uh, because I think that my show notes page is. Not, not the weakest part of my game, but it’s definitely something that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention lately.

[00:07:53] So what makes a good show notes page? First of all, each episode needs to have its own dedicated page. I think a lot of podcasters make this mistake at first because they set up their podcasts with an RSS. Uh, or some, some hosts, maybe it’s anchor, uh, maybe it’s some, uh, cheaper audio host and then they put the feed on a dedicated website, but the dedicated website doesn’t have individual episode pages.

[00:08:28] We’ll talk about why that’s important in the next couple of questions, but we’re just going to set the stage here. Every episode needs its own dedicated page on that dedicated page. This is the show notes. It should, of course have the audio. It should have a couple of paragraphs describing the episode because this is what entices people, especially new people to listen.

[00:08:53] So this could be a summary or a synopsis. This is also what you’re going to put in the podcast feed. Right? Cause there’s a description area. When you upload a new podcast, there’s a dedicated description area for, or a dedicated summary area for podcast feed. You need some tax to let people know what the episode is about.

[00:09:13] This goes there and then, and then links. Right? We kind of talk about that a lot. What links should go in the show notes, page relevant links. It doesn’t have to be every, I used to do every URL, every service that was mentioned in the episode, that’s over. Uh, so what you should have is the relevant links, right?

[00:09:39] Any book recommendations, any tools that they use pertinent to the topic links to find the guest of course, uh, and, and things like that. So it doesn’t have to be a super long list. It doesn’t have to be completely comprehensive if people really want a link, they’ll reach out and ask you for it, but it should, it should have the relevant links.

[00:10:03] A show notes page should also, I think, and I’ve started doing this more. I have the top takeaways. So this is three, four bullet points. Maybe I write this up in my newsletter. I’ve been writing it up in my newsletter for a long time, but for some reason, decided never to put it on the show notes page, even though this is more text for search engines to crawl, it’s more context to give potential new listeners.

[00:10:30] But three or four bullet points on this is the, these are the things that we talk about in the show. Again, this is to help the listener evaluate and decide if they want to actually listen to the episode. Uh, and it’s, it’s good for, you know, kind of search engine juice aside from those three things, four things, the episode, the summary, the show notes, the links and the top takeaways.

[00:10:56] I think that there are two other crucial things that people are missing. The first is social share buttons. I’ve I’ve I guess three really social share buttons. Right? This is something that I was missing from my, my podcast for a long time, but they are, they’re now, uh, subscribe buttons, right? Because again, a common call to action is subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, whatever, uh, have those buttons on the episode page.

[00:11:24] That way, if people like it. They can subscribe in their chosen app or maybe they don’t want to listen on the web. Maybe they want to save that episode for later so they can subscribe in whatever app they listen to. And then a clear call to action and calls to action. Again, we’ll cover this in a little bit.

[00:11:48] Most podcasts, don’t have a clear call to action. It’s Hey, subscribe on apple podcasts, leave us a rating and review like us on Facebook or whatever. Um, and it’s, it’s four or five things, right? If you have a show notes page, first of all, the, the single URL that you can give is that, um, visit Holly built it slash 2, 3, 2.

[00:12:10] To get all the show notes, to learn more about our sponsors, to subscribe in your app of choice and to join the mailing list, right. Everything I’ve talked about, you can do from this one URL. It’s one easy to use URL. That information is probably going to also going to be in the app, but if they’re listening and they decide to do it later, so a clear call to action, whether it’s sign up for your mailing list or join your paid membership.

[00:12:38] Or get this specific content upgrade if you want, if you want good examples of promoting content upgrades on your podcast, check out Amy Porterfield’s podcast. She’s very good at doing that. So that’s what I think the show notes should have. Uh, the show notes page should have again, episode summary, top takeaways, links, subscribe, buttons, social share buttons, and a clear call to action.

[00:13:06] Okay. I think, I think at this point, it’s time for a break. So here’s a word from our first sponsor nexus. This episode is brought to you by nexus. Look, I know what it’s like to spend too much time managing your website instead of your business. In fact, the previous web host for this very show made it hard for me to focus on creating content.

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[00:14:50] So check out nexus today. If you want a website and not a project for a limited time, you can get 50% off your first six months. Just go to how I built.it/nexus. That’s how I built.it/n E X, C E S S for 50% off your first six months. Thanks so much to nexus for sponsoring the show. Okay. So we are back. We have answered as podcasts and good for promoting a course and what makes a good show notes page related to that?

[00:15:25] And I actually just did a podcast audit for somebody about this, uh, by the way, uh, if you want to get a special deal on my podcast, audit where I look at your website, your feed, and I listened to the beginning and ends of your episodes. Uh, you can get 20 bucks off of that. If you go to. How I built a EJ slash 2, 3, 2, there will be a link there for $20 off a podcast audit.

[00:15:53] So a question I got recently in an audit I did recently, uh, what is my podcast, a website need and or how can I improve my podcast website? So, first of all, you need a podcast website. I think, um, a lot of, a lot of people will just think the, the feed or the service. That is being provided to them. The website is good enough for, uh, or, or the pages.

[00:16:20] They are good enough. They are not because, uh, they’re, they’re generally limited, right? And they don’t really offer you. They provide the service of syndicating, your podcast and the show notes to other apps. Their goal in mind is nice. Really to help you grow your show outside of getting it syndicates everywhere.

[00:16:46] Their goal is, is exactly that your website, the goal is to acquire and engage and capture new listeners. In a way that, that you can engage with them, right? So people tune in and listen to every week. That’s a one-way street, unless you have a clear call to action for them to engage with you in some way, join our Facebook community.

[00:17:10] Join my mailing list. Join my membership. And your website is the vehicle for that. So what does a podcast website. A lot of the things that we talked about in, in the last question, what makes a good show notes page a single page for each episode. So you can send listeners there instead of saying like, wherever you listen to podcasts, go to how I built a slash 2, 3, 2, everything you need.

[00:17:38] Everything we talked about will be there a clear call to action. So let’s, let’s talk about the homepage now, a single page for every episode. Yes. But what should go on the homepage of your website, your artwork? So people know they’re in the right place, uh, a, a headline that describes the mission of the show.

[00:18:00] Any description of the show with a clear way to listen to the show. If you have a single page for each episode, Perfect. Send them to the episodes page, where they can see all of the episodes you’ve published and pick the one they want to listen to. Right under that. I think you should have subscribed buttons.

[00:18:22] Again, our goal is to get people, to listen to your show, wherever they want to listen to it. So there are in WordPress, there’s a great plugin called podcast subscribe buttons that I would strongly recommend. And you can add whatever services you want there, and then you can add it to your page or any page you want.

[00:18:45] Right. Cause I think again, the, the subscribe button should be on the episode pages as well. I have the latest episode on my page, on my homepage so people can see the latest thing. That’s been published a little bit about you. I think people probably want to get to know the host. Again, a podcast is a great way to get people to know like, and trust.

[00:19:05] So I have a little bit about you and why you started this show and what people will learn from the show. And then an email opt-in build your list. I can’t, I can’t recommend this enough, build your podcast list because this is going to be how you engage. This is going to be how you own that data. Right? A lot of people, uh, you know, if you’re, if your target audience is on Facebook, sure.

[00:19:33] Have a Facebook. But get them on the list and then tell them about the Facebook group, because Facebook groups can go away or Facebook and decide are targets, not really groups anymore. It’s videos. And then they’re pushing videos and they’re no longer pushing groups. And the people who joined your group are just seeing videos and knock groups.

[00:19:52] So get people on your mailing list, have an email opt-in. So that is, that’s what I think the homepage should be. What else should be on your way? The episode page is a way to listen, a way to contact you. And then if you do have a sponsor, if you do have sponsorships, there should be a sponsor page with clear information and how to learn more.

[00:20:17] I published my pricing. You don’t have to publish your pricing if you don’t want to, but definitely an easy way for people to get in touch with you and a contact page. Again, an easy way for people to get in touch with. But our main goal, right? Or your main goal should be with your website, get people listening, get people, subscribed, get people on your mailing list.

[00:20:39] So that’s, I think what your podcast website needs, I’m not gonna, if you want to, if you want advice on the platform, reach out and let me know again, you can do that over at how I built a it slash 2, 3, 2, there’ll be a link to the contact page, reach out and let me know. I’m also on Twitter at Jay Casabona.

[00:20:59] I’m not going to, I don’t want to get into the specific implementation. I think that’s other topic, but whatever comes to whatever platform you’re comfortable with. All right, next question. How can I grow my show?

[00:21:17] The art of podcasting is repetition, right? Cause most podcasters, uh, only have, or most podcast listeners only have one ear of their listener. They’re listeners probably doing something else and not sitting attentively, staring it in the, into the middle distance, hanging on every word. So you need to repeat, and this is what I’ve been doing here.

[00:21:40] How can I grow my show? Have a website, have a single page for each. Have a clear call to action. Having a clear call to action is the most important one. So again, maybe this sounds familiar. If you have a podcast or you listen to podcasts. Heck it’s, it’s going to sound familiar if you’ve listened to the show for a long time.

[00:22:00] Hey, thanks so much for listening. Be sure to rate us and review us on apple podcasts, follow us on apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Be sure to share this with a friend, check out the show notes over here. Thanks to our sponsors, blah, blah, blah. Uh, and, and then the sign off, right? That is too many things to throw at us.

[00:22:23] Yes. If they’re really listening or they really want something, they’ll check the show notes, but the clear call to action should be one thing. Hey, if you liked this episode, get on my mailing list. You’ll get emails about when the episode comes out, as well as the top takeaway. Or Hey, if you liked this, we have a community of listeners that you can talk to.

[00:22:50] Lots of other people thinking about whatever your topic is. You can join that over at your URL slash community, right? Uh, get people where you want them to be. My call to action generally is, uh, if you. If you liked this episode, share it with a friend. I’ve done that one or to capture my audience for all of the show notes and to join our mailing list.

[00:23:15] You can head over to the house, to the show notes page, right? How I built, I had slash whatever. Uh, this is again the clear call to action because there’s only one URL they need to remember, and then they can see everything out there. They can see the show notes. They can see the email. Opt-in, they’ll see a little thing that says want even more join the, build something.

[00:23:34] Okay. Once I get them over there, I experimented with just promoting the build something club. But I think if it’s a first time listener, they’re not really going to care about that. But if they care enough to go to the show notes page or to join my mailing list, then they probably are interested in the build something club.

[00:23:53] So this is an experiment, but getting people to your show, having a clear call to action. Is the most important thing and something again, I don’t think a lot of podcasters do they wait until the end and you’ve lost a significant portion of your audience by then put your call to action at the beginning.

[00:24:13] If you’ve listened to the show from the beginning, you heard my call to action. Join my mailing list. I didn’t give the show notes page, but I gave a very, hopefully easy to remember URL. Maybe I should change it. To uh, how I built it slash subscribe. Right. Or just say the show notes page at the beginning too, because there’s an email opt in there, but either way the call to action is right at the beginning.

[00:24:40] That’s been working out really well for me. So have, Hey exactly. Like I did it. Hey, real quick before we get started, I just want to tell you about this thing that I really want you to know about. You’re a listener I care about you. Join this other thing, and we can, we can, you can get even more useful content.

[00:25:02] So have a clear call to action. Build your mailing list, build your mailing list and have a call to action at the beginning of the show, as well as at the end of the show. All right. Covered a lot of ground here. Let’s take another break and we’ll hear from our sponsor text expander. This episode is brought to you by text expander in our fast paced world.

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[00:27:53] All right. We are back. And the last question I think is a doozy. I saved it for last. It’s a question that somebody specifically asked me on Cora, and while I don’t hang out on Cora. I do get the emails, uh, is podcasting silly, massive untapped market opportunity. This is an interesting question because I think the perception for people who listen to podcasts is yeah.

[00:28:18] Uh, no, no, it’s saturated. I listened to too many podcasts already, but here’s the thing, according to Buzzsprout and I will link this in the show notes. Um, according to Buzzsprout there are. As of August, 2021, uh, uh, a little over 2 million podcasts and roughly 48 million episodes. However, of those 2 million, 100,000, roughly 64% of them are active as defined, uh, by having at least one episode in the last 90 days.

[00:28:59] Frankly, I think a, uh, a consistent podcast is at least monthly, but again, if people take breaks, 90 days gives some good wiggle room, right? Uh, so 64% of 2 million, 100,000 is 1 million, 344,000. So compare that the number of YouTube channels, the number of YouTube channels is 37,000,037 million. And I don’t think people are asking is YouTube saturated.

[00:29:45] Is there too much video content? And the number of active podcasts is one 37th of that. So is podcasting still a massive untapped market opportunity? Yes. Yes, I think so. We saw blogs, blogs have existed since 1994. We saw them explode in around 2004 podcasts. The same, the very first podcast I think, came out technically in like 2002.

[00:30:18] It’s first kind of Russia of techie people listening to podcasts happened around 2007 cereal popularized it even more in 2004. And just in the last few years, we’ve seen celebrities and big names get into podcasting. So if we take the, maybe that the cereal nexus as when podcasting started to really enter the mainstream.

[00:30:48] Uh, where a few years out from the, the 10 year mark. Um, and I think that there’s still plenty of opportunity. Seth Godin said in 2018, that podcasting is the new blogging because it’s the art of showing up and showing people you care. Um, and that’s all you need. That’s not all you need to do with the podcast.

[00:31:12] Right. Uh, but it’s a lot of it. Almost half of podcasts are not active. So if you are one of those people who come and record and show up every week, you’re going to build that audience. You’re going to show people you care. You’re going to establish a, you’re going to establish that trust factor. So is podcasting still a massive untapped market opportunity?

[00:31:41] Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, and I think the fact that. It is one 37th, the size of YouTube channels versus podcasts and people aren’t asking, should I be on YouTube? Right. It’s kind of a given that people should be on YouTube. I think you could still get in the podcast game. Especially in certain niches.

[00:32:08] Yeah. Like if you’re a dude talking about tech or talking about apple, I mean, those are done to death, but if you, if you do biker pears, uh, if you’re a cook, right. Um, if you, uh, if you are a stay at home dad, right. If you do these things, these niche, things that people want to know about. Yeah, you’re not going to have Joe Rogan numbers.

[00:32:37] You’re not gonna have pat Flynn numbers, but you’ll build a following, right? You only need, what is it, a thousand fans, right. A thousand loyal fans or whatever. Um, you can get a thousand fans for any topic and you can build a business that way your podcast doesn’t have to be your main offering. It just has to be the thing that helps people get to.

[00:33:03] So there we go. That’s it for this episode. I hope you liked it. If you do, I’d love to do more of these or last week I did the live coaching call. I’d like to do that as well. A little bit more so over on the show notes page. Uh, how I built a, it slash 2, 3, 2, there’ll be a link for you to call into the show.

[00:33:27] It’ll be zip message. Uh, you can do video, audio or text, and you can ask a question or if you’re interested in coaching specifically around podcasting, um, right in, and I’m probably gonna do a couple of more of these by the end of the year of those live coaching calls. But thanks so much for listening.

[00:33:49] Thanks to our sponsors, text expander and nexus, honestly. Uh, I can’t imagine two better sponsors to have for the show. These are tools I use every day. They’re integral to my business. So check them out for all of the show notes as well as a way to sign up for my newsletter and the build something club head over to how I built it slash 2, 3, 2.

[00:34:14] If you are a member of the build something club, then you will hear my experience at skip the grind and what I’m really focusing on. If you listen to this whole episode, you probably have figured it out, but there’s a little behind the scene stuff. I’ll talk. And, uh, thank you. I appreciate your time. And until next time, get out there and build something. .