Podcast Workflows - Tips for podcasters to grow their podcast without wasting time.

Welcome to Podcast Workflows, the show for people who love their podcast, but spend too much time on it.

This show will give you short tips to improve your process, grow your show and save you up to 12 hours per week.

You'll get deep dives on how the best podcasters produce their show and you'll learn a ton.

So let's get into it.

When my show first took off in late 2016, lots of people asked me how I grew the show so much.

And if I'm being honest with you, I don't really know, or I, at least I didn't know at the time.

I didn't feel like I was doing anything particularly special, but one thing that I was doing that I ended up noticing a lot of podcasters were not doing was I had a great website.

I have been a web developer for more than 20 years.

And while I don't do that professionally anymore at the time, I still was, and I would say I still got it at least pretty good.

So when I launched my podcast, then called How I Built It, I was very keen to make sure it had a great website, a website with the episode embed, a good description, artwork, subscribe buttons, an easy way for people to support me or join my newsletter or just easily search for episodes and eventually a place for the transcripts to live.

And I still fully believe today that you need a good website for your podcast.

Maybe more than ever.

I often talk about why podcasting is so hard to grow.

And part of it is a discoverability issue.

There's no place like YouTube for podcasts.

And while YouTube is getting in to podcasts, when you need to watch a video, you know, to go to YouTube.

When you need to, or want to, listen to a podcast, there's no one place to go.

If you have an iPhone, maybe you go to Apple Podcasts.

If you have an Android phone, maybe you go to Spotify.

I have a local podcast where most people listen in the browser, on the website.

There are third party apps like Overcast.

And so it makes finding podcasts harder.

But if you optimize your title and description to be found by Google on a website you control, then you can point people in the right direction to listen to your show or any other show you want, or any other episode, I should say, that you want them to listen to in whatever app they prefer to listen in.

So today I want to talk about the things that your podcast website should have.

And then I'm going to tell you about a wonderful service for building websites called podcastpage.io.

This episode is brought to you by podcastpage.io.

And I do have a video walkthrough over on my YouTube channel that I will link in the description for this episode.

So first let's talk about the things that you need on your podcast, on your podcast's website.

I mean, first just shows artwork, name, and description.

You want to know what people, uh, you want people to know what they're going to get when they get to your website.

You also want an easy way to subscribe the subscribe buttons across all the places where you can subscribe.

Now there is a service called episodes.fm that will kind of curate these for you, but having these buttons on your website, more than once top of the page, bottom of the page, modal, something in the top navigation so that people know that they don't need to be on this website to listen to your show.

So subscribe buttons are a must.

I would say mailing list signup form is really important.

Uh, you want to get your audience to join your community and be in your orbit.

And a mailing list is the best place to do that.

Uh, a playlist or easy way to listen to multiple episodes, your headshot and bio, a contact information page, uh, and any other information that you think would be helpful for your podcast.

So those are, I think the things you absolutely need to have for a podcast website.

And I'll tell you, I'll, I will link to the demo site I set up over on podcastpage.io, uh, so that you can kind of see what it looks like with real information.

But in a very short amount of time, I was able to put together a, a nice looking website that had everything I talked about.

Uh, now I didn't, I actually, uh, as far as like a mailing list, uh, signup goes, I don't have that, but they do have integrations and forms.

And so you can integrate with a number of services like HubSpot.

Uh, if you have the higher plan, you can integrate with Zapier and, and, Oh, and they have, wow.

And they have direct integration with ConvertKit.

So that's the one I use.

They have ConvertKit, MailChimp, uh, and Zapier and HubSpot.

So mailing list issue solved.

So what are the things that I really like about podcast page?

First of all, I mean, I want to be like radically transparent here because they are a sponsor and I am a web developer, but I have, uh, WordPress has been my weapon of choice for a long time.

Uh, and I know that you need to have some know-how to use a WordPress website, especially if you want to make it super easy and import your episodes.

Right.

Uh, and so there's also been a little bit of WordPress drama that I'm not going to get into cause I don't care that much about it.

But when you have a project that big with that much of an audience, uh, and a bunch of different, um, stakeholders will say that they're trying to please, it could be very hard to get something up and running easily.

And when I was in the WordPress space, I would say the opposite all the time.

Um, I would say, Oh no, it's easy.

You can get, you know, famous one click install, whatever.

Uh, but the fact of the matter is that today in the mid 2020s, there are a lot of tools out there that are, I believe much better suited than WordPress.

If you are looking to have just a good podcast website, if you have like a whole media experience or you know how to program like I do and you don't mind putting some time into programming, uh, fine, right?

WordPress or some other tool might be good for you.

But if you are looking for easy and intuitive for your podcast specifically, I don't believe WordPress is that case in point.

My main show, or I guess my, my bigger show, I'll say the Streamline Solopreneur has a fantastic experience.

It's a WordPress site, but it has custom code and my VA goes in every week or, you know, one, every episode, uh, she schedules multiple episodes at once, but she'll go in for each episode and create a new post with a template that I created for that.

If you're not familiar with WordPress or you're not a programmer or you don't have a VA, that is a ton of work.

And if we look at this podcast, podcast workflows, I no longer have the time or the bandwidth or the wherewithal to custom code something for this podcast.

So if you go to podcast workflows, I'm using an import tool, but I kind of super hate it.

You know, it creates a, it does create a post for every episode, but I, you know, I will often create podcast episodes based on blog posts or articles I write for podcastworkflows.com.

So then we run into an issue of nearly duplicate content.

And so I either need to go in and just add, like embed my player on the article page or I should have an entirely different website for the podcast that is maybe a sub domain so that it contributes to the SEO where when someone searches on podcast workflows, it's not ramming into multiple types of content.

That's really a less than desirable experience.

And if you're starting from scratch and you're thinking, well, now I need to buy hosting and find the right plugin and the theme.

I really think that podcast page after using it, you know, I got a free account and a shout out to the podcast page team, right?

I was able to get up and running quickly and I'm really impressed with what I saw.

So I think I spent too much time explaining, like pleading my case for this, but I want to make it clear that as someone who has over two decades of web development experience in 2024 making a great podcast website no longer requires development know-how or it no longer requires any kind of development know-how requires hiring a developer.

So what are some of the features of podcast page.io that I really like?

Number one is easy import.

I mean, this is like, this has been the bane of my existence for this show is, is how do I want to handle importing episodes to a website that has similar articles?

How do I create a good experience?

When the main goal of this site is really for written content.

And again, I haven't been happy with any of the solutions I have found.

I have a solution that works okay, but with podcast page is easy import.

It will import your episodes, but if you have reviews, it'll also import those and it will import the subscribe icons.

So again, something that I've had to do in the past is I use, this is a legitimately good plugin called podcast subscribe buttons, but I have to set those up, right?

I have to paste the links in, and like, and if I want different types of buttons, I need to create another set of buttons.

It's really nice that they automatically import subscribe icons.

It's super, super cool.

Then they present you with a theme.

So like you don't need to go hunting for a theme that looks good.

They put a bunch in front of you.

There's also an intuitive customizer where you can choose color schemes, fonts, padding if you want.

And you can really apply your branding and logos and imagery to the pre-made theme or template.

They also have a really nice page builder.

So something that I know a lot of people struggle with in other, I'm not just going to pick on WordPress here and other website tools is, and this was something that really impressed me about podcast page is that a page builder is you're creating layouts and you're adding features and different types of content.

And a blog is someplace where you just want to write and you might want access to those layouts or features, but you're primarily writing and it feels like if one is built primarily for building pages, you're fighting the interface to write and if it's built primarily for writing, then you're fighting the interface to build layouts on podcastpage.io.

The solution is two different experiences.

And so you have these things called custom widgets across the entire site.

So for latest episode or playlist or they also do, I haven't mentioned this yet.

I was going to mention it later, but you can sync YouTube channels.

So if you have a YouTube channel, you can add it and it'll pull in your YouTube videos so that each of those has an individual page on your website, which is also extremely cool because I mean, first of all, the line between podcast and YouTube is blurring, but also if you're creating content, this could be a one stop shop for all of it because they also have a blog, right?

So you have these custom widgets.

So if you want a video playlist or something like that, you can add them on the page layouts or you can add them in the blog and it's a pretty intuitive interface either way.

One is focused on writing, one is focused on layouts.

I love that.

It's crazy that I haven't seen that in other places.

Like the last time I used Squarespace's blog, I hated it.

Right.

So it's, I mean, it was like refreshing.

Maybe other tools do that, but not tools I've used, right?

I'll write on medium or sub stack.

And they are focused fully on the writing process, which is what they're there for, right?

With WordPress, it's like the block editor is trying to have it both ways.

And I, I have frustrations with that too.

So really cool.

Didn't expect to talk this much about that experience, but you know, as someone who's been around the block, no pun intended, pretty impressive stuff I'm seeing here.

So let's see, what are we talking about?

Easy import, customization, and the page builder.

I already mentioned that it will import reviews, which is great because, I mean, first of all, in Apple reviews are regional.

So like if someone from Australia like leaves a review on my podcast, I'm not going to see that in my version of Apple podcasts.

So it's nice to have a social proof page.

They also have a form just to leave like feedback or reviews and make it really easy to leave reviews no matter where someone listens, which is nice because that's another like killer call to action.

That's like, Hey, leave us a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Right now you can just say, Hey, go to, you know, my podcast page, website, whatever the URL is going to be slash feedback, fill out the form or click the button.

Right.

But it's a, it's a single place.

And I've talked about this a lot in previous episodes that you want to make getting feedback and reviews as easy as possible.

I mentioned the YouTube sync or the sync YouTube channels.

They have a blog.

You can add participants, which is really nice.

And they have an intake form.

So that's really cool.

And then the other thing that they do that is just like, it's a lot of work if you're going to do it on your own.

I think that it's memberships.

I'll just say that explicitly.

I think there are people who are like, Oh yeah, you just click a few buttons and set up the membership site and you're good to go.

You're not good to go.

Setting up a membership site is hard.

It's hard.

You need to test everything.

You need to make sure your payment gateway is working.

You need to connect a payment gateway.

You need to make sure that your member stuff isn't publicly accessible.

You need to think through the user experience a lot.

It's not just putting a page on your website.

It's when they sign up, how are they going to get access to their benefits?

When they churn, how are they going to lose access right to those benefits?

What happens?

What if there are different membership levels?

How do we make sure that people paying the lower price can't access the higher level benefits?

There's a lot of testing that goes on.

It's not just like turn on a thing and now you have memberships, but podcast page.io does have memberships built in.

You have the ability to create multiple tiers and then you have the ability to associate multiple podcasts with a podcast website and associate one of those podcasts as a members only podcast.

So you can manually add a podcast or just by RSS feed.

So like the way I would do this, if I were to roll out like a members version of this show is spin it up on transistor, add the, like create myself as a member.

So I get my own private URL from transistor and then add that as a podcast on podcast page and then it'll import the episodes and they'll only be available for members only.

So I think that's really neat.

Right.

Not to mention like it, you know, would save me some money cause then I wouldn't need to like pay for the members only part of transistor.

But, so you can do the same thing with blog posts.

But again, this is, this is a premium feature inside podcast page that makes setting up a membership easier.

I'm not going to say easy because it's not no matter what taking money from other people online and giving them something has gotten a lot easier over the last few years, but it's still, especially with a membership site or premium content, it still takes work.

But I am impressed with just the overall experience of podcast page.io.

Something I haven't mentioned yet, which I freaking love is if you use their service, people can record a message to send to you.

So like I talked about this a few weeks ago, right?

Getting feedback on a podcast is hard and I want to do voice notes.

Or like, you know, voice memos or, or audio, like people quote unquote call in and you know, there are other tools that will kind of let you do that.

Fan list is one of them.

Another one is, is speak pipe, but with podcast page it comes with it and you could submit a, a voice note and then it will show up for the podcaster or maybe the podcast you'll get an email.

I'm testing this.

Yeah.

So I got an email.

I can then download it and listen to it and add it.

Right.

So it's cool.

It's just like a directly email.

It's, it's as the podcaster you get like you just get emails from people with voice notes that you can include in your podcast.

So I love that.

So I know I've talked a lot about this.

This, this is an episode presented to you by podcast page.

If you want to try it out, go to podcast page.io or click the link in the description.

You can use the code Joe Casa Bona, all one word, all caps, Joe Casa Bona for 10% off and their prices start at like $12 a month, which is going to be less than hosting like than hosting your own website or maybe around that.

Right.

I mean there's like cheap hosting, but it's, you know, it's for good hosting that's comparable.

Right.

And it goes up from there.

So if you want some premium features or memberships or multiple websites, it's going to go up from there, but you can get 10% off with the code at Joe Casa Bona.

I want to thank podcast page.io for sponsoring this episode.

Definitely check out the video.

I'm very clearly, really passionate about this.

Um, and I don't just pick sponsors like I don't just take any sponsor and I certainly don't offer a dedicated episode to every sponsor, but I knew I'd be able to get like 20 minutes more.

If I look at this, uh, I know I'd be able to get 20 minutes talking about this and the, and the importance of a good website for your podcast.

I truly believe it's a great way to grow.

Um, I mean one thing I forgot to mention is that they do import, um, transcripts as well.

If you include them, right.

If that's a podcasting 2.0 feature and if there's timestamps, you can click in a transcript to jump to the, to the timestamp in the audio, which is, I'd have to code that custom on my website, on my streamlined celebrity website.

So really impressive stuff.

I'm, I, if you're looking for a good solution, like you, you have grown beyond what your podcast host offers you.

Uh, then I think podcast page.io is a really excellent solution.

Um, because it just, it works with any RSS feed.

And so you can have your, uh, podcast host website as you know, as a place where it's a list of your episodes and then you can have, uh, more of a home base with all of your content over at podcast page.io or memberships.

Really great.

That's it for this episode.

Thanks so much for listening.

Thanks to podcast page again for sponsoring.

If you have any questions or you want to leave me feedback, you can go to podcastworkflows.com/feedback, uh, and you can leave a message there.

Uh, I'm using fan lists for that right now, at least.

Uh, you can go to podcastworkflows.com/feedback and, uh, thanks so much for listening.

And until next time, I'll see you out there.