Quick Daily Podcasting Tips by Alitu

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about tagging another podcast in a positive tweet. I know that “positive tweet” sounds like an oxymoron. But there apparently was a time when people acted reasonably to one another on that platform. So if you’re on twitter, and so is a podcast in your niche that you really like, why not post a nice tweet about them? Here, you might talk a wee bit about why you like it so much. Maybe the show was also a big inspiration behind starting your own, and that’s definitely worth mentioning too. If the podcast interacts with your tweet, it’s going to be seen by many of their followers, some of which are going to want to check out your own show. So make sure you get a clear link to it in your bio, too. By the way, you can always tweet this show @thepodcasthost. I mean, I won’t see it. But I’d like to think our admin would at least tell me about it. I’m sure they would.

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking, again, about podcast review incentives. This time around, though, you’re incentivising the content. So how does that look? Well, you might announce that when you hit a certain number of reviews - let’s say, 25 - you’ll do something a bit out of the ordinary. That could be a unique, highly-produced episode, an interview with a top-tier guest, or a live broadcast from somewhere that resonates. Depending on your niche or topic you could even vow to personally do something like run a marathon, do a parachute jump, or fast for a week. Your audience will also feel like they’re part of something, chipping in their own reviews to edge forwards towards a collective goal. This isn’t just a great way of getting more reviews, it’s also a way of building community and engagement too. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/morereviews

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about podcast review incentives. Another way to incentivise podcast reviews amongst your audience is to offer a prize for everyone, rather than one listener taking all in a prize draw. The same principles apply here. Listeners screenshot and email their reviews to you - that way, you know who they are, and how to get in touch with them. And they get something in return straight away. Obviously, it’s better if this is a digital incentive. An ebook, access to a course, or a private bonus episode. You don’t want to be posting bottles of wine all around the world, do you? Again, mention this on your episodes, but nowhere else. A bunch of low-value generic reviews will only make it look like you’ve used a click farm to get them. And that’s going to put more people off your content than attract them in. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/morereviews

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about podcast review competitions. Here, you’d ask each person who’s reviewed your podcast to email you a screenshot of that review, and enter them into a prize draw. It’s perfectly legit to incentivise reviews this way. The big caveat, though, is that this is open to your listening audience only. Not the general public. How do you ensure that? You only mention it on your episodes. That way, only your listeners will hear it. Yes you could potentially get more if you splashed it all over the internet - especially if you’re offering a lucrative prize. But any extra reviews you get here are going to be low value. Who wants a “great show, five stars” comment from someone who’s never even listened before? For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/morereviews

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about asking individual listeners to review your podcast. Don’t panic. This isn’t a week-long task of sending out a personalised email to every single listener you have. Instead, it’s about approaching three to five people who you know listen to every single episode you put out. These could be folks you’ve heard from before via email or social media. Or, they might be active in the same online community as you. In any case, it’s worth reaching out to them personally to ask if they fancied writing a short and honest review for your show. Most people will be only too happy to help. You can even add these reviews to your own website, and, if your listener creates any content of their own, give a link back to them. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/morereviews

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about how to encourage podcast reviews. As we mentioned on the last episode, podcast reviews can be great “social proof” that you can use in your marketing and promotion. There are a few approaches and angles here, so we’d like to spend the next few episodes running through them. But the starting point is, of course, to ask your audience. Ask them at the end of each episode, in your Call to Action. Send them to a link or page on your website where you list all the platforms they can leave a review. For example, Podchaser, Apple Podcasts, and Castbox. You might even create a few wee tutorial videos to show them how, too. This is the low-hanging fruit of getting more reviews, but there’s more you can do too, and we’re going to talk about them next week. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/morereviews

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about leaving a positive review for another podcast. Have you ever heard the term “a rising tide lifts all boats”? Well, this can be true in your own podcasting niche. There are probably other podcasts out there that you enjoy, that cover similar topics, or have similar target audiences to you. Don’t see these shows as competition. In fact, leaving a positive review for them on a platform like Podchaser can be a win-win for you both. Lots of podcasters share their reviews publicly because they’re great “social proof”. So if you leave one that also happens to mention your own show, then you can end up with a few new listeners heading your way. Of course, it goes without saying that your review should focus on the podcast you’re reviewing, rather than your own. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/writingreviews

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about growing your podcast audience. On Pocket-Sized Podcasting so far, we’ve covered everything you need to plan and create your show. We’ve also made sure that your podcast is optimised for growth. But now that you’ve launched a podcast on solid foundations, how can we take things to the next level? Despite what the internet might have you believe, there’s no “one simple trick” to growing a podcast audience. And it’s certainly not the sort of thing that happens overnight. Instead, it’s a cumulative effect of doing multiple small things over a period of time - in conjunction with the most important factor of all - creating great content. As we switch over to growth mode over the next few months, you’re going to get one quick podcast promotion tip every day of the week. So please do make sure you’re subscribed or following Pocket-Sized Podcasting on your listening app of choice. And, remember, we always love to hear your feedback and suggestions, which you can leave for us at http://thepodcasthost.com/psp

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about adding a ‘Start Here’ page to your website. As podcasters, we can become desensitized to all of the content we’ve created over a given time. You might think that your podcast, blog, coaching service, books, and other products all make perfect logical sense. But for someone landing on your site for the very first time, it can be confusing and overwhelming. Creating a ‘Start Here’ page is a great way of gently introducing folks to your content. You might combine elements from your ‘About’ page and full episode list. Or, you might decide to scrap the other two completely, so there’s less confusion. Ultimately, it’s all about managing that early journey of potential new listeners. Give them something clear and easy that feels like a quick win for them. Then, show them how to get more. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/websitetips

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about adding social sharing buttons to your website. If you’re using a WordPress website, then it’s worth installing a social media sharing plugin. There are plenty of good ones out there, and you can browse through them all in your ‘Add New Plugins’ section. When you’ve installed and activated one of these plugins, you’ll see a wee row of social media icons at the bottom of each post and page, and they’ll make it easy for anyone to share your episodes to places like Twitter and Facebook with one single click. It’s worth mentioning, too, that if you’re using a Podpage website, these buttons will appear on your posts automatically. Whatever route you go down, though, the main thing is that you’re making it easy for your listeners to share your show with others. Over time, this word-of-mouth marketing can have a great impact on your overall podcast growth. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/websitetips

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about creating a ‘Contact’ page on your podcast website. Every podcaster likes listener feedback, but almost every podcaster feels they rarely if ever hear from anyone. In a lot of cases, this is simply because they’ve not made it easy enough. So instead of reading out your email address, twitter handle, and Facebook page out in your Call to Actions, just send them to yourwebsite dot com slash contact to find every way they can connect with you. You might use a contact form or survey software to better structure and organise your feedback. You could even embed a voice feedback widget from a tool like Telbee or Speakpipe here. This lets you easily collect voice questions and comments that you can use on future episodes, too. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/websitetips

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about creating a list of podcast episodes on your website. Some podcasters like to offer a full list of every episode they’ve published to-date. Others prefer to curate a ‘Best Of’ list that can help pull in new listeners. You can do this manually by embedding episode players on a page. Or, your hosting provider might have a feature where you can create this in your podcast player itself. Captivate, for example. You might even choose to create themed pages; for example, here are our listener Q&A episodes, here are our how-to episodes, and here are our quick tip episodes. Ultimately, you want to turn casual listeners on these pages into subscribers, too. So remember to link to your dedicated ‘Subscribe’ page as much as possible, here. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/websitetips

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about creating a ‘Subscribe’ page on your podcast website. As we’ve mentioned many times before, your podcast might be consumed in over 100 different places. So sending your listeners to yourwebsite dot com slash subscribe is better than trying to list them all in your Call to Action. First and foremost, a subscribe page could simply say “find us wherever you get your podcasts”. It doesn’t hurt to provide links to some of the bigger platforms, too. Platforms like Apple, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. If your target audience falls into the “non-techy” bracket, you might also want to go into some detail about what podcasts are, how they work, and how to subscribe to them. Some podcasters even create wee ‘how to subscribe’ tutorial videos for the bigger listening platforms, too. Subscribers are the lifeblood of your show, so make this as clear and as easy as possible for them, and you’re sure to reap the benefits in the long run. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/sharing

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about creating an ‘About’ page on your podcast website. The ‘About’ page is traditionally the most viewed page of any website, so it’s a good idea to take advantage of this. It should never be done as an afterthought. At first glance, you’d think this would be all about you and your podcast. But the trick here is that it’s actually all about your listener. This is where you can pose questions or problems that they’re struggling with - and that you’re uniquely set up to solve. On top of listening the benefits of what they’ll get from listening to your podcast, you might also want to create a playlist of your most popular episodes to get them started. Of course, you will want to add a wee bit in about you, too. Credibility and personality are important. They’re just not the things you’d want to lead with. Again, make it about your listener first, and that’s the best way to win them over. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/websitetips

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about podcast episode show notes. Show notes are basically the blog posts that accompany your podcast episodes. Many podcasters find this stage of podcasting a bit of a chore, but there are benefits to spending a bit of time and effort on your show notes. They can help attract new listeners through search traffic, offer a handy summary of what’s covered, and provide links and resources to anything mentioned in the episodes. That said, your podcast needs to be sustainable, or you’ll stop doing it. So if you only have the time or energy to do a quick bullet-point summary for each episode, then that’s absolutely fine too. Some podcasters even outsource their show notes to a professional copy writer. So you can still get all the benefits of detailed show notes without writing them yourself, if you have a bit of budget available. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/shownotes

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about podcast episode pages. It’s good practice to create a page or blog post for each podcast episode you release. This gives you one handy place to share each episode, and it means all of the traffic is coming to your own platform, too. Here, the title of your episode would also be the title of your page or post. You’d embed the episode player, preferably near the top. Whilst most folks don’t listen to full episodes this way, it’s good to give them a taster, and point them off to a few dedicated podcast listening platforms in the process. You’d also add in your shownotes, containing links to anything mentioned in that episode. And you can add some episode-specific graphics or images to these pages, too. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/websitetips

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about domain names for podcast websites. Whether you’re using a default hosting provider website, a Podpage site, or a self-hosted WordPress site, you can buy and use a domain name. Domain names are, most famously, dot coms. But you can buy local variations, dot nets, or dot pretty much anything else these days. Whatever you opt for, just try to make it memorable, easy to read out, and most of all, easy to type in. Avoid things like hyphens in your domain name, too. If you’ve got your heart set on one that is going to be tricky to punch in, then you might want to buy a few variations of it and point those to your site, too. An example of this might be a domain name with a number in it. You’d buy one version with the number, and another version with the number spelled out. But do try your best to avoid these situations in the first place. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/websites

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about Podpage websites. Podpage is a service that can build you a website for your show in less than five minutes. And you don’t need to know the slightest thing about web design, either. You can use Podpage for free, but their excellent value paid tiers offer a whole suite of additional tools for SEO, community, and monetisation. To give you a hint of the types of features at your disposal, you can keep track of ratings and reviews, get listener comments and voicemails, build a mailing list, offer memberships, and track analytics. Sure, Podpage is a third-party service so you don’t have that 100% control and ownership as you would with a WordPress site. But for most podcasters, the pros far outweigh the cons here. And there’s actually very little you can’t do with a Podpage site. For a full review of the service, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/podpagereview

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about WordPress websites. If you’re looking for 100% full control, ownership, and customisation options, then WordPress is for you. Here, you can use all sorts of plugins and tools to make your site do pretty much anything. You can run your entire business on there. However, all of this flexibility comes at a cost. There are always things that can break or go wrong. If you don’t have the expertise to run a site like this, then you’ll need to hire someone who does. There’s nothing worse than waking up in the morning to see that your site has gone down overnight. So, is there a middle ground between a fully-fledged WordPress site and the default website given to you as part of your podcasting hosting account? Yes there is. And that’s what we’re going to cover on the next episode of Pocket-Sized Podcasting. For a deeper dive on this topic, head on over to http://thepodcasthost.com/websites

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re asking the question “Do I need a podcast website?” The short answer here is “no”. You don’t *need* a website for your podcast. But, the benefits of having one are almost too good to ignore. For starters, just having that one central place to send people means your podcast is a lot more shareable. We already know that podcast listening happens in hundreds of different places, so it simplifies things when you can just say “find us on my podcast dot com”, or whatever the url happens to be. Running your own website then means you have full control over your branding, and if you plan to sell products or services in the future too, then this is going to give you a massive head start. Your hosting provider does create a basic website for you by default. Some of these are actually pretty decent, and getting better all the time. However, there are a couple of options that can help you take it to the next level, and we’re going to cover them on the next two episodes of Pocket-Sized Podcasting!