Kristen Doyle 0:00
If you have a podcast, I want you to do something right now. Go to your website, open it up in a brand new tab, and pretend that you’re a first time visitor who just heard about your podcast and wants to listen to more episodes.
Kristen Doyle 0:18
How many clicks does it take visitors to find your show? Can they even tell that you have a podcast? If you’re cringing right now, stick with me, because today we are talking about giving your podcast the home it deserves on your website.
Kristen Doyle 0:34
Last week, we talked about how your website is never really done because your business keeps growing and evolving. So today we’re starting a short series on some specific ways your site might need to grow. And we’re starting with one of my favorite things, creating a home for your podcast.
Kristen Doyle 0:54
If you’ve added a podcast to your business, or you’re planning on starting one soon, then you need more than just basic blog posts that highlight your episodes. Your podcast deserves a gorgeous home that grows your show and your business, and in today’s episode, I am going to teach you how to make that happen.
Kristen Doyle 1:19
Are you a digital product or course creator, selling on platforms like teachers pay teachers, Etsy or your own website? Ready to grow your business, but not into the kind of constant hustle that leads straight to burnout? Then you’re in the right place. Welcome to The Savvy Seller.
Kristen Doyle 1:37
I’m Kristen Doyle, and I’m here to give you no fluff, tools and strategies that move the needle for your business without burning you out in the process. Things like SEO, no stress marketing, email list building, automations, and so much more. Let’s get started y’all.
Kristen Doyle 1:58
One of the biggest mistakes I see podcasters making is treating their podcast like it is somehow separate from their website, like it’s some totally different thing, and that people who want to listen to their podcast episodes are going to go to a podcast app and find their podcast there. When really, your website is like the home base for your business. So if your podcast is part of your business, and if it’s at all important, it needs to be right there on your website, front and center.
Kristen Doyle 2:31
And your podcast episodes deserve a whole lot better than getting lost in the jumble of your regular blog feed. One of the problems with relying just on podcast apps is that everyone uses a different podcast app to listen to your show, so it’s really hard to know which link you should be sharing.
Kristen Doyle 2:52
I know when I first started podcasting, I really struggled to know which link I should be sharing on social media or in my emails because I didn’t know which app people would be using, and I didn’t want to send people to maybe Apple podcasts, even though that is the one that’s used most popularly with my listeners.
Kristen Doyle 3:14
I didn’t want to send everyone there, because people who have an Android would get sent over to the Apple podcasts website, and it’s just not the greatest listening experience for them. By creating a dedicated podcast hub on my website, I now have one link I can share with everyone, and then they can navigate out to whatever their favorite podcast app is from there, or they can even listen right on my website, and it’s a nice, clean listening experience.
Kristen Doyle 3:41
Another benefit of having this all on my website is that when you host your show notes on your own site, you can control a whole lot more of the SEO details, and you can get more traffic to your website from Google search. It also gives you a great place to start getting people who are listening to your podcast to join the rest of your world.
Kristen Doyle 4:03
Maybe you want them pixeled by your Facebook or Pinterest pixels so you can retarget them with ads. Or you want to offer email opt ins there so that you can get your podcast listeners onto your email list. Having your show notes on your website and sending your podcast listener straight there is a great way to do both of those things and to help you grow your audience.
Kristen Doyle 4:26
There are really two parts that you need to add to your website if you really want to show off your podcast and give it the home it deserves. The first is a podcast hub, and I’ll tell you what that is in just a minute. The second is your show notes, pages for each of your episodes.
Kristen Doyle 4:47
So let’s start with creating your very own podcast hub. A podcast hub is like a landing page that welcomes people to your show, tells them exactly who the show is for, what you’re going to talk about on the show and how it’s going to help them.
Kristen Doyle 5:06
Just like your website’s home page, you want that podcast hub to immediately answer the question, Who is this for? How do you help them, and where do they get started? So you’ll want to include a header area with a clear description, telling people, like I just said, who it’s for and how you help them.
Kristen Doyle 5:26
You also want to make sure that you add easy links for people to listen on their favorite podcast apps. And you can use your podcast data to tell you which apps are most popular with your audience. I will say for me, Apple podcasts and Spotify are hands down the two most popular but that may not be the case for your audience, so look at the data you have available to you.
Kristen Doyle 5:47
You also want to feature your most recent episodes. I really recommend that you put an embedded podcast player for the current most recent episode, as well as showing off your show notes for all of the other recent episodes that you’ve had. That way, people have a spot right on your podcast hub page where they can go ahead and start listening to you right away, but they also can navigate through other recent episodes as well.
Kristen Doyle 6:15
So those are the kind of essential elements that you have to have on your podcast hub page. But while you have people there, there are some other strategic things you might want to add on to help grow your show and keep people listening.
Kristen Doyle 6:31
One of the first things I would recommend is that you add an email opt in specific to the podcast, and you could use something as simple as just a simple form asking them to subscribe if they want updates when you release new episodes. But what typically works best is to have an email opt in of some sort.
Kristen Doyle 6:50
And those email opt ins might be a playlist of episodes around a certain topic, something that you think might really get people excited, or maybe some other resources to help people get acquainted with and start listening to your show. If you can get people opting into your email list, that is a great way to get them to move from just listening to your show to really being a part of your world, so that you can help serve them better and also eventually sell to them as well.
Kristen Doyle 7:20
Another idea for helping people to get started on your show and getting them listening to more of your content is to create some paths for people to get started so that they can get started with certain sets of episodes depending on where they are, as far as what you are helping them with in your show.
Kristen Doyle 7:42
So for example, I have three paths on my site that help people kind of segregate themselves based on what they want to work on in their business, whether it’s their website, their offers and products or their sales processes. And when people click on these, they get taken to a list of episodes just for them that really helps them work on that specific thing.
Kristen Doyle 8:03
Another thing that I have added to my podcast hub page since I initially launched it is a list of top episodes. I believe I have my top five listener favorite episodes listed right there on my podcast hub page with links over so that people can listen to them. And I do go in and change those out from time to time as those most popular episodes change.
Kristen Doyle 8:25
So including either some paths for people to choose to follow along, or those top episodes, is a great way to help people discover some of your best content. So once you have your podcast hub page set up, you’re going to need Show Notes Pages to link on it, and I shared earlier that one of the biggest mistakes I see people making when they put their show notes onto their website is just creating them like any other blog post.
Kristen Doyle 8:54
Your podcast is not the same as a blog post. Blog posts are written content with images and links and lots of details. These are long form content a podcast show notes. Page is going to be different. You’re not going to include all the same content. You’re going to include a little teaser to get people excited, to tell them what’s in the episode.
Kristen Doyle 9:16
Maybe you’ll include some time stamps, but you’re not going to write an entire blog post about your podcast episode right there on the show notes page, because if you do, then people have no reason to listen to the podcast episode. So since it’s such a different type of content, it really deserves its own page layout that looks different and functions differently from your blog posts.
Kristen Doyle 9:39
Let’s talk about some of the key elements, the important things that you need to include on your show notes. I always start with the episode number highlighted at the very top of the page. This helps people who are maybe looking for a specific episode to locate that but it it also helps people who maybe found an episode on your website, but they want to listen on their podcast app on their phone. It helps them to go and find that episode, because they can always scroll through and find it by episode number.
Kristen Doyle 10:09
So definitely include your episode number highlighted right at the top of the page. I always include the date that the podcast episode was published. This is a little different from my blog post, because I don’t put dates on blog posts, but I do on the podcast because, again, it helps people to find that episode.
Kristen Doyle 10:27
And for sure, you’ll want to include an embedded player so that people can listen to the episode right there on your website. Now, your podcast host might offer an embeddable player that you can copy paste onto the page, but I like to include a custom one that really is styled to match the site, so it blends in and it looks like it belongs on the website.
Kristen Doyle 10:47
And then below that, you really want to make it easy for people to find what they’re looking for by having clear separated out sections. Sometimes I style these with borders or background colors and clear headings so that it’s easy for people to scroll and find what they need, and I’m able to separate out different types of content.
Kristen Doyle 11:07
The flow for me usually is a short blurb about the episode followed by time stamps to help people locate parts that they want to re listen to, or even just to give them an idea of what this episode is going to cover, then I like to include links, whether it’s links I’ve mentioned in the episode, links to related episodes, or maybe even just some other links I want to make sure to share with people.
Kristen Doyle 11:33
Below that, if this is a guest episode, I always feature the guest share their bio and links for where my listeners can find them on the web as well. And then the last thing that I include is a collapsible transcript section. And I know a lot of people worry about adding transcripts to their show notes page, and they’re not sure if they should add that or not.
Kristen Doyle 11:56
I would encourage you to put the transcript on your show notes page so that those people who either don’t retain things as well when they’re listening, or they just want to be able to read because they can maybe read faster than they can listen, so that those people have that option and they can consume more of your content.
Kristen Doyle 12:15
Since I added that section to my site, I’ve actually gotten multiple emails and DMS from people thanking me for having the transcript on my site. So I know it’s something that people really appreciate. One thing that I’ve done to encourage people to listen to the episode rather than just reading the transcript, is my transcript is in a collapsible section, so it’s down at the bottom of the show notes, and you have to click on it in order to read the full transcript.
Kristen Doyle 12:41
The nice thing about this is it gets picked up by Google when they are crawling the website, so it can help with SEO. But it also isn’t distracting, and it’s not this big, long transcript that fills up the entire page either. It’s there for the people who want it, but it’s collapsed for the people who don’t need that.
Kristen Doyle 12:59
Just like anything else on your website, you really want to think about the user experience. You want to make it as easy as possible for the people who are visiting your site to find the things that they need and on your podcast, this means you want to make it easy for your listeners to find the resources and the links that they need to implement what you’ve taught them, to learn more about something, or to buy something that you’ve shared about in your episode.
Kristen Doyle 13:23
If you’re just starting out with your podcast, or you have a podcast that isn’t currently showcased on your website the way that you think it should be, here’s where I would recommend that you start first. You need a landing page specifically for your show, and you can do that just by creating a brand new page and then styling it and adding some of the content that I talked about in this episode.
Kristen Doyle 13:46
Make sure that that page is linked in your main menu bar, and no matter what the name of your podcast is, I recommend that that link just be called podcast. You want to make it super clear. Think about my show. If the link on my website said the savvy seller, people coming to my site who aren’t specifically looking for my podcast wouldn’t necessarily know what that is.
Kristen Doyle 14:10
So by making that link say podcast, I am A, making it easy for people who are looking for the podcast to find it, but I am B, also letting everyone know that I have a podcast, because while not everyone would recognize and understand the savvy seller, everyone recognizes the word podcast. So make it really easy for people to know that you have one.
Kristen Doyle 14:35
Secondly, get your show notes on your website. Don’t just rely on podcast apps. Get those show notes right onto your website, even if you have to start out by putting them in a blog post, which I know I said, is not the best way to do it, but even if you have to start by putting them in a blog post and then move them over later, definitely start putting your show notes on your website and directing people there.
Kristen Doyle 14:59
I use the Rank Math SEO plugin for WordPress to create easy redirect links so that when you go to, for example, Kristen doyle.co/episode125, you’ll get redirected to the show notes for this specific episode. You won’t have to type in the longer actual URL that I have created for this one, you can just type in that episode number and get to any of my episode show notes.
Kristen Doyle 15:25
And then if you are a little more established and you want to create those custom post types that really showcase your podcast the way that I was talking about in the episode, then you might consider working with a web designer who can create those custom post types and layouts for you.
Kristen Doyle 15:42
That’s something that I offer in VIP days, and it’s honestly one of my favorite things to do for my clients. Keep in mind, your podcast really does deserve its own dedicated space on your website. It’s a great way to grow your audience and to serve your listeners better. You’ll want to create a strategic podcast hub to welcome people and introduce them to your show and custom show notes pages that can make it easier for your listeners to engage with your content and share it with other people.
Kristen Doyle 16:14
Your action step for this week is to look at your website with fresh eyes. Pull up your site right now and try to find your podcast. Is it easy to spot in your main menu? If not, that’s your first task. Create a basic podcast landing page and add it to your main menu bar, even if you know you’re going to need help with those custom things that we talked about later on down the road, you can take this first step right now and it won’t take you but a few minutes.
Kristen Doyle 16:42
Now, if you have a podcast and you want to know if your podcast presence could be working better for your business on your website, then I would love to take a look at your current podcast setup on the website and give you some personalized tips.
Kristen Doyle 16:57
Just send the link to your podcast page to me on Instagram @kristendoyle.co and I’ll share some quick tips and ideas for how you can improve your podcast presence on your website and better serve your listeners. And if you don’t have a podcast page yet, but you know you need one, send me a DM for that too.
Kristen Doyle 17:17
I would love to help you figure out your next steps. Make sure you come back next week, where I’ll share how your website needs to change if you’ve added a course or a membership to the things that you’re offering.
