We also delved a little into how they’ve gone about structuring their show, to allow for different types of content and different types of listener: particularly news vs industry stories.

If you’re curious how to find new listeners in the non-podcasting world, or whether you should be thinking about starting a new show to talk about something else, then you’ll learn a lot from Andrew’s story.

Links Mentioned:

• The Motoring Podcast
• The Motoring Podcast Twitter
• The Motoring Podcast Patreon
• Hostile Worlds
• Google Hangouts

Andrew admits that his podcast, like many podcasts, came about simply because of his fascination over cars and motoring. After listening to podcasts (with his now co-host Alan Bradley) and repeatedly making the same comment – “no-one is making a podcast we want to listen to” – they decided to make their own.

The pair record the show remotely, over Skype or Google Hangouts, rather in person – with Google Hangouts becoming their more favoured option of recent times because of the ability to make a video version.

“It’s the people who are interested in the car industry – the ones who are a bit geeky about it” who listen to Andrew’s show. The podcast does go into a lot of detailed stuff, like car registration figures and things like that – which admittedly only a certain level of ‘geeks’ can accept.

“We discuss what we feel is an important news item and then give our opinion on it. We know that we have people from industry, interested members of the public who are not part of the industry, and we have PR people – all these people have got in touch with us.

We’re a bit more old-school Top Gear than new Top Gear. We’re the 80s and 90s Top Gear. Less charging across a desert and more talking about what the door handles are like.”

Is it be fair to argue that the motoring industry is less aware of podcasting? Could this be because of the demographics of the potential audience?

“We’ve approached all the major manufacturers to say ‘hello, this is us, this is what we’re hoping to do. Hopefully in time we can maybe do interviews or test a car or something like that.’ Some manufacturers have come back and were positive and it was great to see something different. Others have said they don’t know what a podcast is and nor do their digital media consultants.

We tried to establish ourselves a bit first and not ask for anything yet, but perhaps ask what their criteria and that sort of thing – the grown up business questions that they can respond to.

We already have good relationships with some of the manufacturers who have loaned us card and we’ve tested them which is great.”

Andrew added:

“It comes about 50/50 where people have asked ‘what’s a podcast’ and others have been happy to listen to it. I’m sad enough to carry business cards for the podcast with all the details so if someone is interested then they can give it a listen.  

It’s been interesting because I don’t think general members of the public understand how easy it is to start a podcast, so they can be quite impressed that we’ve taken that step. We explain it to people as talk radio and they seem to understand.

We’ve actually created a video to show people how to subscribe. We do Tweet out occasionally just to show how easy it is and this is how you do it, and a lot of people have been really thankful for that.”

What about monetizing the podcast?

“Ultimately we want to make money off the podcast. Sponsorship is one of the things that is going to be down the line but we won’t go to manufacturers for that.

We’ve made a conscious effort to say that we wish to be independent, so we don’t want there to be any thought that if we’re taking money from a manufacturer that it may impair our reviews and opinions.

There is quite a vast market of relatable products [not cars themselves] for us to approach and say this is what we do, this is who we reach etc.”

The show was given a big boost after a manufacturer commented on an episode around six months in. “This was the first time we realised ‘important’ people were listening, and that just really gave us a lot of confidence.”

Andrew and Alan have been very proactive in doing their outreach, contacting a lot of people and, in their own words, ‘asking the adult questions’.

“We’ve taken very much baby steps in this, in the sense that we’d take on one manufacturer and test their car, then take a step back and question whether we have the capability to move onto another manufacturer. Do we have the space in our diaries to do a good job?”

So how has Andrew gone about trying to draw his industry towards the podcast?

“Not only have we done it the hard way going into an industry that didn’t really know the medium, but we’ve also not done the traditional things that you see online like having campaigns through Facebook.

My only social media is Twitter so what we’ve gained so far has been through word of mouth and through Twitter.

I think what’s helped us is, from last year, we started a second show (called Rear View) where we interview people from the motoring universe. From those people then discussing the show, and others visiting to hear them, then people are going on to listen to some of our other stuff.

It’s all organic. We’ve never paid for anything and we’re very happy about that.”

Andrew also admitted that meeting manufacturers and potential audience members at in-person events has been key into helping people understand the podcasting medium and help them reach the show.

His show also contains a break in the middle, where he invited the audience to donate to the Patreon account, review the show and pass it on through word of mouth.

What’s the plans for the future of growing the show?

“At the minute we’re trying to expand what we produce on the original news show. In the news show we have our news items from the last seven days that we discuss and report on.

We then also have ‘special editions’, so on those can be a car review or where we have a round table session with designers or car journalists. So we’re hoping to expand those to interest people – stuff to help educate us and educate other people and let them know just how much goes into getting a car onto the road.”

Why did you go about creating a second show? Why not just keep it as one podcast?

“Rear View, our interview show, is the one I always wanted to do and the one I kept quiet for a while. I wanted to find out how people got into the industry, what they do and why they do it.

However when we got together, we said let’s do the news show together while we learn how to podcast and all the pitfalls. From that information, then we would learn if we were ready to do another show or decide if it wasn’t manageable.

Rear View is significantly different in terms of content that we felt it deserved its own feed. Some people may be happy to come along to listen to certain personalities from the motoring world but they weren’t bothered about the news show, so we didn’t want to make that a barrier.

We also found that the shows are listened to in very different ways. The news show is mainly listened to on mobile phones while Rear View is mainly listened via our website.”

That’s all for this week’s show. Thanks for coming along to this episode of Podcraft and we hope to see you back next time!

Remember you can find Andrew’s show on The Motoring Podcast website and on Twitter.

Also, let us here at The Podcast Host know any topics you want us to cover on Podcraft. We’ve also got a new series coming out called Hostile Worlds, so check that out too!

Ryan runs a local design studio business, Slurpp, as well as his own Podcast based around the creative industries in our very own city, called Creative Chit Chat Dundee.

And that’s what we’re going to be talking about on today’s Podcraft – the show about everything podcasting, from equipment to monetization and everything between.

Links Mentioned:

• Creative Chit Chat Dundee Podcast
• Creative Chit Chat Dundee – Twitter
• Patreon
• Pecha Kucha
• Slurpp
• The Podcast Host – Academy
• The Podcast Host – Twitter

To directly quote his podcast’s tagline, it’s a show “picking the brains of brilliant creatives connected to Dundee”.

But isn’t limiting yourself to one city (as so clearly put in the title of the show) restricting both your pool of guests and your audience size? Well that’s exactly what we discussed on this week’s podcast.

While Ryan admits that the majority of the guests do live and work in the city, he also finds people who perhaps have studied or lived there at some point, but have for whatever reason left the city. To him, it’s important to hear the stories of anyone with a connection.

We often argue that a way to create a great podcast is to find a really small niche, and that’s precisely what Ryan has done with Creative Chit Chat Dundee. By sticking to that one location, he’s opened the show up to a city full of people who can relate to the podcast – slowly building up a loyal audience.

One downside to having a niche, however, is that you often find yourself stuck in a corner when it comes to discussion ideas – but this isn’t the case with Ryan. With all his guests connected by the city of Dundee (therefore creating a niche audience) while working in different sectors of the creative industries, there are a wide variety of topics to discuss.

Ryan also discussed his tactics for actually interviewing his guests – revealing that despite not preplanning questions, the same few seemed to illicit some interesting responses time after time.

“The one thing I’ve learned is you get different types of guests and it’s trying to read those people – who will be receptive to doing the show completely off the cuff and who needs a set of questions beforehand…and then you have people who want to turn up with notes.

I’ve found if you go off topic then the guests seem to relax a lot more.”

Also brought up on the show was the need to stay committed to your podcast to get past the dreaded 7-podcast episodes average, with Ryan’s show already hit 31 episodes at the time of this interview.

Ryan said: “I’ve been consistently putting out pretty much every week…and I think that’s what’s really important. I’m pushing myself forward in terms of the quality and motivation. The amount of people I’ve been able to go and speak to in such a short space of time has been amazing.”

So how do you get about getting a show like this out there?

That really is the hardest part. You put in all this work and you have no idea if people are actually listen to your show, so how did Ryan go about it?

Well, one way was to engage with people through events – one of which was Pecha Kucha in Dundee – where different creatives can discuss projects they’re currently working on.

Similarly he received a mention in a local newspaper column, as well as local blogs and websites which all helped to get the word out.

And then there’s of course the constant talking about it – getting you friends to share it on social media to try and pick up an audience through word of mouth.

“I found that if the content is good then people naturally gravitate to it and they will actually want to talk about it. Because there isn’t really anything else there at the moment in that realm then they’re usually up for giving it a go.”

Next up for discussion was monetization. It has to be said that while Creative Chit Chat Dundee isn’t set out to be a business, it’s breaking even at least. How?

You may not think you’ll ever be fully supported by your podcast and that’s a fact people have to accept. But working on a podcast can get quite expensive if you’re putting a lot of time into it, as well as equipment, software and travel expenses.

One way to help cover these could be asking for donations down the Patreon route. Ryan, however, decided to go a different path. Being in the creative industries himself, he created prints, badges and mini books based upon quotes that have come up in the podcast that he then sells on his website.

Despite having little reference to the show, these quirky quotes catch the eye of many, making them popular for people who know the show – as well as intriguing people who maybe haven’t listened before to go and find out what your podcast is all about.

And what about any tips for people wanting to start up a podcast?

“Just go and do it. Ideas are worthless and unless you act upon them.

There’s no ownership over it, there’s nothing there and it doesn’t exist… then someone else will do it and you’ll moan about it because someone did it first.

I’d been thinking about starting it up and eventually it just got the point where I thought I just had to get off my arse and make it happen.

And then it’s about getting that niche. Podcasting works well because you can dive into that tiny section of a topic, and if you can find something you can keep interest in then do it. ”

And that’s it for this week’s episode.

Thanks a lot to Ryan for coming on the show. If you enjoyed this episode we’d love it if you could send us and Ryan a tweet! You can tweet Creative Chit Chat Dundee, or get in touch with us at The Podcast Host’s Twitter.

Also, if you’re struggling with launching your podcast like Ryan was discussing there, we do have our very own premium service, Podcraft Academy, where you can find all our courses and teaching resources – as well as live coaching every two weeks where you can get that motivation to get your show out there!

We’ve been trying to trace down a podcasting expert who specialises in this sort of stuff, and that’s who we’ll be interviewing on this week’s episode of Podcraft – the show about everything podcasting from equipment to interview skills and everything in between.

Who is this expert we’re talking about? His name is Gordon Firemark, an entertainment lawyer from the United States. Gordon hosts his very own show, Entertainment Law Update.

Links Mentioned:

• Creative Commons
• Entertainment Law Update Podcast
• Firemark.com
• Free Podcast Release Form – PodcastRelease.Com
• Podcastlawbook.com
• Podcraft Academy

Gordon’s job is all about negotiating contracts and helping clients when they’re starting up their companies by registering their trademarks and protecting their intellectual property.

There’s quite a few questions that come up in podcasting, and in content creation in general, about how you put your stuff out there.

Treat Your Podcast Like a Business

What are the first things you have to think about? Is there any first steps when it comes to keeping on the right side of the law when it comes to international broadcasting?

“One of the first thing that comes to mind is copyright, and I sort of categorise this under three or four categories.

The first is that you have to treat it like a business even if you are just a hobbyist podcaster. You’re making media and distributing it and that’s going to seem from the outside world like a business, so be business-like.

Use contracts and be mindful of your property and the property of others – and that’s the first point of concern really. I would say if you are using someone else’s literary or musical material you’re probably infringing on someone else’s copyright.”

Copyright Notices

With written work, you tend to see a copyright notice at the bottom of a web page for example. Is that necessary or do you own copyright as standard? And how does that apply to audio work?

“In most countries you are not required to put a notice of copyright – basically it exists from the moment of inception of that.

If you have transaction records of when you uploaded a file to your hosting company then that’s the evidence you have proving that you own [a podcast].”

Using Music & Film Clips

Often in podcasts there are two usages of material. One of which is music and one of which is stuff like film clips or from other people’s podcasts.

A lot of people want to have theme music on their shows – you get libraries out there which are copyright free and supposedly royalty free. You get other libraries that you can buy the royalty rights to use a bit of music. All the terminology is a bit confusing.

So what are we looking for in terms of terminology that means we can use a bit of music for free? Or what should we be looking out for to buy it to use for our show forever?

“The question is whether the owner has granted you or the public the right to use their music.

Royalty free music libraries are generally in the business that you can buy it once and use it over and over again. There are certain scenarios that you buy it once for each use. So, you do need to be careful when licensing music to understand what it is you’re buying.

If the library calls itself royalty free you should be able to rely on that, but double check to make sure they are in fact granting the rights for the use that you are wanting it for – like as your show’s intro.

There are free music sources that are under what is called the Creative Commons licensing scenario. This basically means the owners are saying as long as you give them attribution and aren’t using it for commercial purposes you can use it but just don’t change it.

That’s found at creativecommons.org – that’s the organisation that manages the creation of those licenses.

Just do your homework. Don’t dive in blindly – make sure you’re buying what’s right for you.”

Music Rights

In terms of royalty free music libraries, you can get yourself a track for anything around $10-$50, but when it comes to commercial music it’s completely different.

There are times when it can be very expensive – if you want to use the Beatles or a Rolling Stones song then you’re going to pay a heavy price for doing so.

But there are some bits of music that are much more affordable and sometimes the owners are willing to let it go for a low price. Gordon said: “Don’t be afraid to ask, the worst they can say is no. You might be surprised at how affordable it is.”

“When a songwriter writes a song they have created a work of authorship – so there’s a copyright in the composition. These compositions are managed by a music publishing company which has essentially bought the song from the writer in exchange for paying them a percentage of the revenues.

When that’s recorded by a recording artist, there’s a second bit of creative work – the recording. This is usually owned by the record company that paid for the recording and is distributing the record.

So, when you are using a piece of recorded music you have to get permission from both the composition AND the recording.”

Fair Use

There is something called Fair Use in the US and Fair Dealing in the United Kingdom in which you are allowed, on a case by case basis, to use samples from a piece of work.

There’s no rule of thumb stating that you can take 10% or 20% of a song, it just comes down to what really takes the substance from the already copyrighted work.

If you’re using the piece for educational commentary or for criticism it’s much more likely to favour fair use than, for example, being used in a commercial jingle.

Fair Use (or Fair Dealing) also comes under the same principle when it comes to using a clip from a TV show or film – if you wanted to use a snippet in your podcast – but again it is on a case by case basis.

“In a worse case scenario an owner could sue for copyright infringement, which in the US could be anything from $750-$150,000 in damages. But the practical matter is the owner has to incur legal fees so they have to actually see that there’s been some damages to justify it.

But typically, just getting your piece [podcast, video or writing] taken down is usually the objective of the owner.

And some podcast hosts might adopt the three-strikes policy that YouTube does, where if you get caught three times then they start to disable your account or refuse you access to it.”

Guest Contracts

We’ve talked a bit about copyright but we wanted to go into a bit more detail about protecting our own work.

Firstly, what if we have someone else involved in our material? For example during the interview with Gordon, is that jointly owned? Should we be thinking about giving people contracts before they come on the show?

Gordon’s advice? Yes. Use a release with every guest on your show.

“Generally a workable solution is to get them to acknowledge something like that on the show, but I do advocate using a written release and I’ve actually created a downloadable release that anybody can have for free – which can be found at PodcastRelease.com

It is a little challenging to get your guests to sign something in advance, so some people have adapted it to make it a web form etc, but it’s definitely worthwhile.”

This was actually something that has previously came up in conversation with one of our members over at our premium service, which you can find at Podcraft Academy.

Trademark Protection

Another topic that was discussed was around trademarks. At what stage does a podcast have to get to before you would recommend investing in trademark protection?

“This is an area that does vary a bit from nation to nation. But basically, if your show title is distinctive and becomes identified with you as a brand then it’s worth protecting.

Now, your show is ‘Podcraft’. It’s a distinctive word but also suggestive of what you’re talking about, so you could probably register it under the idea that it’s a coined phrase and somewhat distinctive.

I’d say once you hit around a hundred episodes it’s a pretty good description that you’ve achieved some distinctiveness, assuming you have the downloads to prove it.”

And why should someone take that step? What’s the benefit of that?

Well quite simply you don’t want someone coming into the marketplace with a confusingly similar title for another show – whether it’s in the same or different medium.

So a registered trademark would avoid that, at least in terms of the media, and would allow for a legal challenge against anyone using the same name.

Ownership

Are there any other types of contracts that Gordon might recommend having in the world of podcasting?

“If you have co-hosts, the same people on the show every episode, then it’s important to have some kind of contract between the co-hosts and even a producer to indicate who owns the show and the various rights and responsibilities.

That way in the unfortunate event that someone isn’t pulling their weight they can be dismissed and the show goes on or not. And also this would apply to monetization – who gets what.

Similarly if you have sponsorships then it’s important to have that relationship in writing, so the expectations are laid out as well as the timing of payments and that sort of thing.

Beyond that there’s not that much that would call for a contract, but there may be certain situations where it’s needed”

There aren’t too many forms like this on the internet, but you would be able to visit your local solicitor or lawyer to help draw something out for you.

Entertainment Law Update

If you’re interested in getting more detail from Gordon’s show, Entertainment Law Update, it’s a monthly show about his industry and everything around the entertainment law area.

Also, if you have any questions about contracts that you’d like Gordon to have a look at, then you can find him at firemark.com.

He also has an e-Book called The Podcast, Blog & New Media Producer’s Legal Survival Guide which is a starting point before hiring a lawyer – which can be found at podcastlawbook.com.

That’s all for this week’s episode. Thank’s again to Gordon for taking the time to chat to us and answer all our questions and we hope you join us again next week!

We disagree. You don’t need 20 episodes (or even 10…or 5) episodes recorded before you launch your show.

We’ll be explaining this, and more, in detail on this episode of Podcraft – the show about everything podcasting from launching to monetization and everything in between.

We’d also like to thank Podbean for once again sponsoring this episode. Podbean is a hosting platform that’s been around for years but in recent months have been creating a lot of new tools to help podcasters do what they do best.

Links Mentioned:

• Hostile Worlds
• Podbean
• The Podcast Host: Academy
• The Podcast Host: iTunes Rankings: How Does It Work?

So do you really need 20 episodes to start a podcast? Or maybe the better question is – how many episodes do you need to start a podcast?

The answer? One. One episode makes a podcast. It’s as simple as that.

One of the biggest reasons we would argue against stacking up and launching with 20 episodes is that it’s an excuse just to procrastinate – which could lead to you never even launching the show at all.

It’s too easy to put things off, but once you actually launch and have that need to post something on a regular basis – that’s when things start to progress.

Not only that, but it’s also unrealistic for most people. You’re talking about undergoing a huge job – with maybe 10 hours of content just to get the show started.

Another major part of podcasting is taking on board feedback. If you record 20 episodes and start putting them out, after the third episode you might get a bit of feedback from a listener – which is something you might want to read out on the show (or adapt future episodes). If all your episodes are already recorded, you can’t do this.

And that’s what creates a great show – when you’re actually adapting to what people want.

When you launch your show you don’t really know how people will react – and if you’ve recorded 20 episodes already then you have no flexibility and no listener engagement.

Likewise if you’re doing an interview show, it’s harder to book guests onto a show that hasn’t yet launched. You can’t link them to previous examples of your podcast which could make them hesitate coming on the show.

Another point to make is someone else could easily launch a show with the same idea as you – while you’re sitting procrastinating with 12 episodes recorded but not launched. All your efforts would be brushed aside because someone else got there first.

In terms of iTunes or Apple Podcast rankings – if this is something that concerns you and you want to see your show in the rankings, then it must be said that where you rank is all to do with the amount of subscribers since your podcast was born.

If you haven’t launched your podcast yet, you aren’t getting any subscribers and everyone else, every day, is getting further ahead of you.

For more information on iTunes rankings, check out our handy article here. 

But… are any the reasons for why you might actually want to have a few podcast episodes pre-recorded?

Well, maybe recording 20 episodes is still a bit too much, but there are some reasons for having a few episodes recorded before your launch.

One example could be related to a new show we’re making called Hostile Worlds – an audio drama/documentary hybrid.

We wanted to do a few episodes in advance because they focus on a particular topic and we’ve set the scene – so it was easier to create the three episodes at once before launching.

If you’re writing an audio drama as you go, and you mention something for example in episode 10, then that’s set in stone and has an effect on future episodes – but if you record these episodes in advance then you’re able to plan the series in a better way.

So if it’s a serialized type content that does have to tie in closely together – with a beginning, middle and end – then it may be worthwhile doing in that case.

If you’re doing just a standard podcast, then it may be a good idea to record around three or four episodes before you launch. It’s not set in stone and up to each person, but it’s a nice number to give new listeners a bit of time to decide whether to subscribe or not.

But remember – if it gets you started and makes you committed then launching with one episode is totally fine.

The act of starting and getting a bit of feedback is so powerful and makes such a difference to your progress.

The fact is iTunes and all the other directories will open the door for you if you have one episode, so if it’s good enough for them then that’s all the more reason to launch.

Hopefully this has given you some encouragement to get your show out there, even if it’s just one episode at a time!

We’d also like to remind you of our premium service – Podcraft Academy. This is where we hold a lot of our resources, courses, tips and tricks and live sessions helping people make the most out of their podcast.

It’s a monthly subscription service – and you can find all the details for it here.

Finally on this episode  we spoke a bit about a new short series we’re going to do for next season.

We’re going to be looking into highly produced podcasts, so if you’re interested into documentary podcasting and bringing in multiple elements then this might be something right up your street.

And that’s us for this episode – the last one for this season. We hope to see you back for next season (after at least a two week break)!

Once again we’d like to thank Podbean for sponsoring this episode of Podcraft!

We’re taking another break from listener questions this week. This time, to have a chat with Doug Kessler, the Creative Director at Velocity Partners.

Doug chats about his role at the B2B marketing company, before moving onto a subject he discussed recently at the Content Marketing Academy in Edinburgh last month – How to use swear words in your marketing.

Links Mentioned:

• Content Marketing Academy
• Doug Kessler – Twitter
• Edison Research – Podcast Analytics
• Gillies and Mackay
• Velocity Partners
• Velocity Partners – How to use swear words in your fucking marketing
• Velocity Partners – ‘Let’s Steal From’ blog series

While Doug admits it isn’t about glamourising swearing, it can certainly have an impact in your marketing. He also talks through the different techniques that swearing can teach us when creating a marketing strategy (without even swearing) – it’s about honesty, authenticity, pushing boundaries and having a strong voice.

Doug also discussed in depth the objections behind using swearing in marketing – the fact that some view it as “lazy writing” or the issue of people finding it offensive. On the flip side, it can attract like-minded people and make your blog/podcasts/videos seem more authentic.

“For me, I think it has helped keep my voice authentic and real and therefore attracted people who value authenticity and don’t mind swearing.

At the same time I think we probably have alienated some people who we would have liked working with but don’t like ‘sweary people’ and that’s a regrettable downside.”

Swearing in marketing isn’t done very often. There’s a surprise element when it’s used – and when used well it can signal confidence. One example of this is a post by Gillies and Mackay which brought in massive business.

But, in certain circumstances, you may look like you’re trying too hard to get attention.

If it doesn’t fit with your brand, it might not work. Equally people may be less inclined to share your posts if it includes swearing or you might have to spend time to defend yourself.

That’s us for another episode of Podcraft. We hope you enjoyed the show, and we hope you tune in again next week! If you have any questions about the show, or any questions we could answer in another episode, please feel free to get in touch.

You can find us on Twitter, drop us an email via the contact form, or leave us a comment on any relevant blog post!

This week for you we have a few different things. We’ve got a quick question via voice that Joe Kearny sent us in via SpeakPipe.

We’ve also got a voice message from Freek Zilvold from The Engineer Podcast, which is an interesting one! We’ll play that later one too, and then we’ll finish up with a question from Matt.

We love getting these voice questions, so send them in if you can.

Go across to our contact form, and you’ll find a SpeakPipe link on it, which basically is just a way to send in a voice message.

You can also send us in regular questions, again through our contact form, our Twitter, email to info@thepodcasthost.com, or by leaving a comment on any relevant blog post on the site!

LINKS MENTIONED

• Patreon
• SpeakPipe
• Stripe
• The Engineer Podcast
• The Podcast Host – The Peerless Podcasting Websites Course
• Podcraft Academy
• WordPress

First up, it’s a question from Joe Kearny. He said:

“Hi, my name’s Joe. I’m about to create a website for my podcast. I have an option with my current hosting company to have the new site as an add-on to my current site, for all intents and purposes, the new site will appear as a separate site, except it won’t have an SSL certificate.

That’s my question; would that be a problem now, or could it be a problem down the road? Thanks for any help you can give me.”

Thanks for sending in the question, Joe,

We get a lot of people coming onto our site and creating their website through the Peerless Podcasting Websites course we run.

If you haven’t come across that, it’s our course where we show you how to set up a website for podcasting. Whether it’s a brand new one, setting up a new WordPress install, or whether it’s converting an existing WordPress website into a podcast ready one.

This is a question that does come up every now and again, and it’s whether you need an SSL certificate, basically.

First of all Joe, you’ve got a good approach. If you’ve got web hosting, often you can have more than one website on that web hosting, so if you run a business website or a company website, quite often you can just buy an extra domain name and have a personal podcasting website or a personal blog or whatever as an add-on.

This works absolutely fine and you’re quite right to go that way. You don’t generally need an SSL certificate for a podcast website, the only reason you need an SSL certificate is if you’re actually doing transactions, like money transactions on the site.

It could be a problem in the future if you suddenly decide you want to start selling merchandise like t-shirts or mugs or whatever for the show, or you want to start taking sponsorship through the site, or donations, and using something like Stripe, which needs an SSL certificate. But to be honest, you can add them really easily.

As long as you know you can add an SSL cert to it, then you’re all good. Just check with your hosting that you can do that, and even if you can’t, actually you can break out a WordPress site, back it up and put it somewhere else pretty quickly and easily.

If it saves you bother and a bit of money right now, then it’s not a big thing to move away if you need to in the future, but to be honest, most podcast websites don’t need an SSL at any point.

Even if you do start taking money, you’re more likely than not taking the money elsewhere, for example by working with Patreon. You can set it up on a WordPress, and it is good for setting up an e-commerce site, but there’s no need to.

Hopefully that helps, Joe. Next, onto the voicemail we recessed from Freek. He said:

“Hello there. This is Freek Zilvold from The Engineer Podcast. I started this podcast in January of this year, and my ideal listeners are engineers or people who want to start in engineering and they’re looking for inspiration or motivation within their career.

How many listeners? Well, I started in January, on average I get about ten to twenty listens per show. I’m on SoundCloud right now, and my best way to reach new listeners is through social media; Facebook, Twitter, my mailing lists.

How do I monetize my podcast? Well, actually I don’t, I’m really doing it to gain experience and to use the information to write blogs and a book. I hope this helps. Have a great day now.”

Again, thank you very much to Freek for sending in that little bit of feedback, letting us know how he’s getting on.

That was send in as a response to our request last week, as well as the one that we put out via our email list – just hoping to get some short clips sent in.

We’re asking for anything from one to two minutes, just of you talking about your podcast – what works for you, what doesn’t. Everything that you’re doing around monetization, promotion, listener numbers, to give us some metrics.

It’s great and people love to be able to hear it and compare themselves to others. If you want to share some of your experiences, like Freek, we can mention your podcast which will maybe get you a few more listeners too.

You can send it over to info@thepodcasthost.com, or you can do it via our SpeakPipe page, which is over at our contact page, and of course, you can send us questions that way as well.

Now, on to Matt’s question. This is our main question for the day. Matt said:

“One question that I’ve had brewing in my mind, what is the conversation like when you do an interview call?

Is it straight through, just like what is published, or is it often choppy with you having to start over, or asking a question to rephrase something?

I’m launching my first podcast and I’m struggling to get the hang of how much or how little to edit the conversation during the call, versus in post production. Thanks, from Matt.”

That’s a great question Matt. How do you run an interview? How do you go about it?

A simple answer is that you really do get better with practice through interviewing, which inevitably is true.

There’s also a bit more in depth that we could go into – things like being quite diligent and questioning ‘does my guest know what to expect here?’, as well as making sure you’re in a silent area and using a decent microphone. The prep stuff.

Spending a bit of time doing some prep could go a long way towards it being a smooth experience when you actually sit down and do the conversation.

Within Podcraft Academy, we have a PDF checklist that you can send to potential guests, or to guest that are coming on your show. It coaches them on the sort of basics of sitting down to record an interview.

When it comes to editing, on the one hand it can be quite handy during an interview that isn’t live if there is a point you would like an edit, and don’t be afraid to say so.

There’s two schools of thought here. One is that doing that can be great if you really need to do it, but you may often find that it can become a bit of a crutch.

If you continually stop and start, stop and start, stop and start, when you actually sit down and edit it, it might not flow very well.

Whereas if you pretend that your recording is going out as live, the conversation will seem to flow a bit better – while occasionally giving yourself allowance to make an edit if it really needed it.

Keep it dynamic.

Another important factor is to take ownership over the interview. It’s about not being afraid to tell the interviewee that you want to go back and rephrase a question, and to be honest you can do that without having to require an edit.

A lot of it is about summarising stuff. Your interviewee may say something and take two or three minutes to explain it. So, by picking out a couple of points they make and asking them to summarise it or rephrase it, you get down to the important stuff.

It doesn’t necessarily mean you need to edit it, but you can do. It just means you’re bringing out the really valuable points. You’re rephrasing it, you’re summarising it, you’re highlighting it.

Another great point that ties into summarising your guest’s responses is to actually listen to what they have to say.

By listening to their answers and not just sticking completely to your set list of questions and moving onto your next point, you might be missing some great points that could have been expanded upon by your guest.

Listening to your guest is how you’re going to get the conversation flowing. Interviewing is a real skill and people often underestimate how hard it is. They underestimate the difference between a really experienced interviewer and a novice one in terms of how good the show will be.

There’s interview shows out there that do really well and other ones that just don’t at all, and the difference is how good they are at drawing out good, valuable stories and stuff like that.

Like most things, you get better at that on-the-fly editing as you go, but even if you’re really good there’s a point of difference in the fact that you edit interviews. If you decide you’re going to do a one hour interview, and rather than release that hour you’re going to edit it down to twenty minutes, there are ways to go about that.

You can listen through yourself and just mark down or highlight the bits that you really enjoyed and just cut out everything else.

We’re not talking about editing sentence by sentence, but maybe question by question, or a few paragraphs of an answer and cutting out the rest. Essentially, just picking out the highlights. There’s some interview shows that do that, and they’re better for it. They cut out the fluff and just take the highlights.

Obviously you’re committing more time to it, but there’s a definitely point of difference there because most people don’t do that, and a lot of interviews are quite waffley with ups and downs.

If it’s a long interview, you can take listen and think if any questions overlapped in terms of their answers, or whether any answers didn’t provide much value in the end. Don’t be afraid to just be brutal and say, “This isn’t adding anything.” Just get it out. Some would much rather a really, really valuable fifteen minute conversation with loads of good stuff for your listener than having to trawl through an hour long show with just a lot of fluff in it.

Another way to take real control over the conversation is by asking your guest a question and getting their answer. Then you have a quick two minute chat with the quest about it – “Well, I like this part of that, I liked that part of that, let’s ask the question again”, and you make some kind of audio signal in your recording.

This can be a click or a clap, anything that makes it really obvious when it comes to editing it down.

It doesn’t take much to edit it because you’re deliberately rehearsing questions and redoing them, but you’re going to see the clips/claps really obviously in the post production which speeds up the process.

You’re going to go through and all you’re doing is looking for those signals, and you say, “Right, that’s the final take, that’s the one we’re going to use.” You’re really quickly going through and cutting it all out, you’re not having to even review by listening through the whole thing again.

So,  there’s ways like that to do an edited interview, but in a really time efficient manner. It takes a bit of confidence there and a bit of prep with the interviewee as well, you have to make it clear that that’s the way you’re going to go about it, but it’s another approach.

Again, interviewing is just one of those things that comes with practice practice practice. You do it a lot and it becomes easier, you learn the best ways of coaching people and setting things up.

You start to know what to look for, especially the technical aspects like is this recording, and it becomes like driving a car. Before you know it, a lot of it’s just second nature, a lot of it’s in your subconscious and you can really focus on the important part, which is the conversation and your guest.

If you want some more information and tips on how to get the most out of your interviews, then we do have a course on interview skills at Podcraft Academy. This is our premium content, with our how-to courses from launch stuff to interview skills.

Also we’ve got our live coaching, an hour every two weeks where you can come in and talk to us live as well.

If you’re in the academy, you also get access to that interview checklist that we mentioned earlier, that you can send out to your interviewees to get them prepared.

And that’s us, another episode of Podcraft completed. We hope you enjoyed the show, and we hope you tune in again next week!

Once again, let us know your questions and we’ll answer as many of them as we can. Here’s a reminder of where you can find us:

Get in touch with us on Twitter, drop us an email via the contact form, or leave us a comment on any relevant blog post!

We’re back this episode with some more questions from our listeners. We’ve got one question from the splendid, magnificent Dan Brew and also a comment back from Natalie Silverman as well.

Natalie’s comment was one of a few responses to the question we’ve put in our emails (if you sign up for our email list you get something out within a few emails which asks you to contribute to Podcraft).

So, if you fancy getting a two or three minute clip on Podcraft just talking about your show – about what’s working for you in terms of monetisation, promotion, equipment set up etc – then you can send it into us.

We’ll be accepting in questions from the comments section of the website, our contact form, Twitter, or any other means in which you want to ask us!

Links Mentioned

• The Fertility Podcast
• Podcraft Academy
• The Podcast Host: iTunes Rankings: How Does it Work?
• The Podcast Host: The Numbers Game
• The Podcast Host: Your First 8 Episodes: 8 Tips to Avoid “Podfading”
• The School of Podcasting
• Triple Your Clients

First, let’s jump into the questions from Dan Brew.

He asked:

“I’ve been told that I’m a perfectionist in many areas and I’m finding it difficult to start the podcast process until I have all of the perfect technical sound experience, editing knowledge and technical set up created. I currently have a Mac Book and a Yeti mic I’ve just picked up. What are your thoughts on waiting to start versus just jumping in?”

Then, he added a second question:

“How do you find your voice? It’s a tedious and very self reflective process that has me spinning quite a bit. How much was trial and error versus you just knowing?”

These kinds of things are often raised with us – they’re big issues, so ones worth discussing.

It comes down to ‘perfectionism versus progress’.

All the time that you think you’re working by getting all this stuff in place, it’s not half as effective as actually going ahead and doing it. If you’re new to podcasting, you’re not likely to be exceptional straight out the gate. It’s going to take a bit of practise.

You could read all the books, listen to all the tutorials, watch all the videos. But nothing comes close to just experience.

As well as that, there is a lesson to be learned by actually putting content out. If you’re just doing a practice recording that you know won’t be going out live, then you won’t have the pressure to actually learn anything or have anything to reflect from it.

It’s only when you’re putting stuff out live that you’re really practising . The real exposure to actual listeners, to real people, that’s what really forces your learning, and it brings feedback as well.

That’s when people start getting back to you and saying, “This is what I enjoy, this is what I like. This is the good bits of the episode, this is the bad bits of the episode.” You can then build on that.

There’s a number of reasons why you want to get yourself in the game. It comes down to things like your podcast reputation – how long you’ve been out there, how long you’ve been on iTunes and things like that – but as we’ve mentioned before, don’t obsess over the iTunes stuff!

Every day that you’re not launching, you’re not here. You’re sitting on the sidelines, people are overtaking you.

A friend of ours, Andy Brown, runs a show called Triple Your Clients.

Speaking to another friend of ours, who was looking to launch her podcast but was procrastinating, he said to her:

“What are you going to do, how will you feel if somebody launches the exact idea, the exact podcast, the exact concept that you are looking to launch in the month or so leading up to when you’re finally getting perfect?”

She admitted that it would be a complete kick in the stomach – and that forced her to actually launch her show within the next week.

So that’s something to think about – how would you feel, in the meantime of perfecting your show, if someone else launched something very similar to your idea. Would it make you feel bad? If it would, then get out there!

Now, onto Dan’s second question about finding your voice.

Sitting down in front of a microphone and watching it record, your immediate reaction is to become really formal.

We’re used to seeing presenters on the TV, news presenters for example, and so you begin to talk like you don’t actually talk in real life.

You want your podcast, or most podcasts, anyway, to sound like you’re just chatting to a friend down the pub. The listener is your friend, so just be conscious of how you sound as soon as a microphone is put in front of you.

Like most things, it comes through practice.

One way that seems to work quite well is actually to commit to sharing a few episodes with some good friends.

People always fall into a trap of wanting to sound professional, knowledgeable, all that kind of stuff – which could come from a lack of confidence in a way.

You’re wanting to make sure you sound trustworthy so you end up writing or speaking in slightly bigger words or more convoluted sentences than you would normally.

But, if you commit yourself to sharing an episode before you actually record it, then you become a lot more aware of how you speak.

The commitment to do it helps you think about how you speak in the first place, and then when you give it to them they can give you some feedback on it – like “this didn’t sound like you at all. I’ve never heard you say that in real life”. So that can be a really useful exercise.

You do also have to ask yourself, if you’re putting a podcast out completely in your own voice, might that put a few people off?

The answer is, maybe it will. But, for the people it doesn’t put off – it will probably make them like you more for it.

Having a small audience isn’t necessarily a bad thing because it’s a more loyal audience. You’d rather have much fewer people who really, really like you then a large group of people who think you’re all right, but soon forget about you because you’re a bit generic.

Better a thousand people that love you than 10 thousand that are pretty ambivalent to you.

Hopefully that helps you out with your questions Dan and do get in touch to let us know how you’re getting on as you progress.

Anyone else, too, if you want to send us a question, send it via our contact page or you can tweet us any short ones @thepodcasthost and we’ll include it on future shows. We’d love to get lots more listener questions on the show in the near future.

Finally, we have a comment from Natalie from the Fertility Podcast.

This is her thoughts around what’s working for her, what’s not working for her, and generally how it’s going with her podcast just now:

Hello, I’m Natalie and I host The Fertility Podcast, which launched in September 2014 and I’ve just published my 85th episode. It’s for anybody who has found their route to parenthood hasn’t been straight forward, so they’re not able to get pregnant naturally and possibly having to have fertility treatment or consider other ways.

I get about 300 to 400 hundred listeners every episode. I release an episode weekly. I get new listeners through iTunes, Stitchers, Spreaker, Acast, the podcast is on all sorts of platforms. I also have a Patreon page.

I use Facebook and Twitter mainly and I’m just starting with Instagram, and as far as monetizing the podcast, I’ve got a Patreon page, which I need to do more with, but I’m delighted to say I’ve now got two sponsors who have signed up for 12 months and I’m currently in talks with some other sponsors about getting them onboard and I’m also starting to create bespoke content for other people as The Fertility Podcast, because it’s all kind of relevant subjects, so if you want to find more, just go thefertilitypodcast.com.

Thank you very much for sharing your story with us Natalie.

If you want to give us a similar type of comment – then let us know what’s working for you! Get in touch about your monetisation, sponsorship, promotion of your show, growth or even just about the story of launching your podcast.

We’d love to get some more stories of how you’ve gone about getting your show out there in the first place, so what’s worked in terms of launches. You can sent them as well to info@thepodcasthost.com if it’s a recording or you can pop onto our SpeakPipe page, which is found over at our contact page.

Just before we go, we want to give a wee shout out to Dave Jackson over at The School of Podcasting for giving us a mention on his show.

And for a quick catch-up on what’s been happening with us at The Podcast Host, Matthew has put out an article about the ‘8 tips to avoid Podfading‘.

Podfading, if you’ve not heard the term before, is if when someone launches a podcast, for some reason or another they just stop doing it. This is often to do with the planning and preparation, so we’ve put together eight tips just making sure you’re building on solid foundations.

And for Colin, apart from taking part in Tough Mudder, this week has mainly been working on the design for our new app and putting together wire frames for the workflow.

If you’ve been listening to The Numbers Game you’ll know we’re working on an app just now which is designed to make podcasting easier. It will help you produce a show really quickly, from really simple automation, just turning a basic audio file into a produced, branded podcast with just the click of a button down to some simple editing tools as well.

The aim is just to help people get shows out there easily and more regularly, so Colin has been doing some design on the interface, just figuring out the workflow and everything.

We’re also having a lot of people in Podcraft Academy. So, if you’re looking for more support or to take part in some of the courses we offer – we do a launch course, an interview skills course, equipment courses etc – as well as live sessions, so head over to the Academy to find out more.

That’s it for this episode of Podcraft. We hope you enjoyed the show, and we hope you tune in again next week!

Once again, let us know your questions and we’ll answer as many of them as we can. Here’s a reminder of where you can find us:

Get in touch with us on Twitter, drop us an email via the contact form, or leave us a comment on any relevant blog post!

If you’ve been following along then you’ll know that in our last episode we changed things up a bit from normal.

We plan to talk answer a lot more of the listener questions that are being sent in, as opposed to covering a topic/theme or teaching you something long term over a number of episodes.

We’ll be accepting in questions from the comments section of the website, our contact form, Twitter, or any other means in which you want to ask us!

Resources mentioned:

• Apple Podcasts
• Libsyn
• My Podcast Reviews
• The Drum Up podcast
• The Podcast Host – How do you get more iTunes reviews?
• The Podcast Host – iTunes Rankings: How does it work?
• The Podcast Host – The Numbers Game

As many of you may know, we run another podcast as well as this called The Numbers Game.

Within that podcast, “we talk about the numbers everyone else pretends to ignore”. We’re telling a story of what goes on at The Podcast Host, how we’re growing our business and the numbers that we care about.

We also run a number of experiments as part of the podcast, as well as giving our listeners some homework to help them grow their podcasts too.

And that’s where this week’s question comes from.

Owen Phillipson, who does The Drum Up podcast on cycling, left us some feedback on Twitter.

We were having a discussion on The Numbers Game about the New and Noteworthy section on Apple Podcast and were having a laugh about getting onto it, which sparked his question:

Were you laughing because it’s actually not hard to get in to New and Noteworthy? Why were you laughing about it?

This ties in with a couple of articles covered on the website recently – like an article on iTunes rankings and the fact that people do get obsessed with them. For the article we got a lot of good data from Rob Walch at Libsyn who are very open about their stats.

Part of the article was about New and Noteworthy because, especially when you’re a new podcaster, you think that you might be able to get into it. It’s seen as a sort of holy grail, where if you get featured then you’ll get loads of downloads, be able to give up your day job and all will be well.

They calculate the New and Noteworthy rankings with an algorithm. It’s based on subscribers, ratings and reviews.

A common misconception (partly down to the name) is that you have to be inside your first eight weeks of being on the iTunes store, but in face this isn’t correct. Instead of “New and Noteworthy” it should be called “New OR Noteworthy”.

Between their own work and the clients they have worked with over the years, both Colin and Matthew have had quite a lot of shows in the New and Noteworthy section.

And, over the time that they have been within the section, neither have seen a great amount of growth in numbers.

So, to answer Owen’s question simply: It’s not hard to get into New and Noteworthy.

The thing that is hard, though, is to stay at the top level of it. Get into that bar at the very top that’s maybe five or six long, that’s the hard part.

The story Colin always mentions is that, around a year ago, we had two shows that we released at the same time for two different clients – both in niches with a similar size of audience, so they’re pretty comparable.

Both of them got into New and Noteworthy within the first week, and we saw very little change in downloads from that point. They were getting around a hundred or so downloads in the first week and managed to creep up to 200 within a few weeks.

If people were using New and Noteworthy to find shows, then having that podcast on the front page of the entire iTunes store for close to a week should boost your traffic massively, shouldn’t it?

But the reality is it had no impact whatsoever. And, as soon as they came off New and Noteworthy, not much changed in terms of the number of downloads either.

It’s worth mentioning, also, that according to Rob at Libsyn, the front page of New and Noteworthy, is all hand curated. You can get all the ratings, reviews and subscribers in the world, but in order to get on the front page you have to be hand picked by those at Apple. It’s the same with the comedy pages – that’s all hand curated too.

So, if you take into account that most people are listening on their phone on the podcast app, getting into the New and Noteworthy subcategories takes three or four clicks to get there – so it casts doubt on how much traffic is realistically coming through that door.

In reality, most people are searching directly or by topic.

Matthew did, however, write an article about how to get more iTunes reviews that is also quite relevant to Owen’s comment.

The fact of that matter is that getting reviews feels good. It’s good for the ego and gives you motivation to keep going forward. In short, it’s great to hear that people are listening.

So, in his article, Matthew gave some tips on how you might go about getting more ratings all based on your audience. There’s nothing worse than seeing people saying “Could you five star me and I’ll five star you” and they’ve clearly never seen each other’s show. And you can spot all these fake reviews from a mile off.

So rather than complaining, Matthew decided to write an article about helping people gain some more honest reviews for their show.

Matthew admitted that he never really tried hard to get reviews in the last year, despite putting a 10 -15 minute episode out every third week, as well as a 50 minute long season finale.

It was only at the very end of the finale that he came on, thanked the listeners for listening and was honest and said “Look, we’d really appreciate if you gave the show a wee review on iTunes” – purely for the personal pleasure. It’s for the ego boost.

Matthew was shocked to find that, after 18 podcasts, that one request actually sparked a number of reviews. The best way to get reviews, we’ve found, is to just be honest and transparent.

At this point, we should mention that Daniel J Lewis’ mypodcastreviews.com is a great website to see and share all your iTunes reviews from across the world.

So, in summary: iTunes reviews are good – try and get them. But…ask your audience for them. Don’t obsess over them or swap with people. Just see it as a wee bonus for you, rather than this thing that you have to do because you think you’re going to get featured somewhere.

And perhaps spread it out over a period of time – people will notice it more and perhaps be more likely to take action.

That’s it for this episode of Podcraft. We hope you enjoyed the show, and we hope you tune in again next week!

Once again, let us know your questions and we’ll answer as many of them as we can. Here’s a reminder of where you can find us:

Get in touch with us on Twitter, drop us an email via the contact form, or leave us a comment on any relevant blog post!

We also chat in more depth about that for our lesson – talking about the pros and cons of working with a web developer versus going it alone. We chose the latter, but why?

It’s the turn of our content output for the data segment, looking at how many podcasts, videos and blog posts we put out, as well as our social media. And for your homework we’re getting you organised with your output and social media by creating a content schedule. Enjoy!

Story | New style: Changing our Website Template & Eye-Opening Figures

For the past year or so we’ve been looking into using a new template for the website, and we’ve finally done it!

One issue that came about when putting this into practice was that the ‘featured images’ on every post would be duplicated. This meant having to manually remove images from hundreds of posts!  

We’d used the last template for around three years, with a lot of edits done over that time, and it was getting too convoluted.

The new template lets us be more user-friendly and content focused. Simplicity is the name of the game.

The other interesting thing that popped up was during the content refresh work carried out by Matthew. Last summer, Matthew worked on a blog series on growing your audience, and he’s now in the process of turning it into an eBook. During this process and in ensuring everything was up to date, we spotted a big update on listener stats from Libsyn

In June 2016, within the first 30 days, if your new episode received:

• More than 169 downloads, you’re in the top 50% of podcasts.
• More than 1,300 downloads, you’re in the top 20%.
• More than 3,800 downloads, you’re in the top 10%.
• More than 9,600 downloads, you’re in the top 5%.
• More than 27,000 downloads, you’re in the top 2%.
• More than 52,000 downloads, you’re in the top 1%.

However, the updated statistics for February/March 2017 show an increase. They’re now:

• More than 212 downloads, you’re in the top 50% of podcasts.
• More than 1,900 downloads, you’re in the top 20%.
• More than 5,800 downloads, you’re in the top 10%.
• More than 14,000 downloads, you’re in the top 5%.
• More than 41,000 downloads, you’re in the top 2%.
• More than 88,000 downloads, you’re in the top 1%.

This shows a massive increase in the number of podcast listeners!

But…don’t be alarmed if you aren’t hitting these figures. While it’s an interesting statistic, it all depends on the show and the niche you’re in. What’s big for one niche, could be only small for another.

Data | Content Output: Our Podcasts, Blogs, Videos & Social Networking Stats

On today’s data segment we’re looking at the content output here at The Podcast Host.

We’re going to cover five different sections, which are: our blog posts, The Numbers Game podcast episodes, Podcraft episodes, Mountain Bikes Apart episodes and YouTube videos.

We’re also going to track our social growth on Twitter and Instagram, as well as YouTube subscriptions and views.

In March, we put out 13 blog posts, with this dropping down to 11 in April. The aim is to publish at leastthree a week.he decrease this month is partly down to bad planning, to be honest. I was away at a few events so our content calendar wasn’t managed as well as it could have been. But we hope to be back up to at least 12 posts in May.

For The Numbers Game, we got three episodes out in March and two out in April. The target is to average three per month and we hope to be able to achieve at least that in May.

Podcraft has been on a bit of a hiatus just now and we’ve only been uploading interviews. There’s only one episode of that posted in April and nothing in March, but that’s planned at the moment.

In terms of YouTube, we had 14 videos out in March and eight in April. The amount of videos is mainly down to The Numbers Game, with around four or five videos coming from one podcast. But we do have a couple of extra videos in there as well.

Finally for Mountain Bikes Apart, which is meant to be a fortnightly show, we got two episodes out in March but fell down in April. This was a month where consistency failed because of a few away days and a lack of planning ahead.

Now, onto the social stuff.

Our main Twitter account has around 2710 followers – up 3% from last month. We’re putting up around five or six custom-made tweets a day showing off previous content, which builds up traffic. We’re also using Twitter as a way to engage with our audience a lot more.

We’ve been doing a bit of work trying to up our Instagram game, with the figures rising from 472 followers last month to 523 now. This growth is without any real strategy, but we might attempt some experiments around Instagram in the future.

YouTube is doing well, with our subscribers going up from 470 in March to 506 in the last month – purely down to ramping up the video output with The Numbers Game. In terms of views, we’ve increased by around 3% on the previous month to a total of 231,270.

We hope that gives you an idea of the amount of content that we’re getting out there on a monthly basis, as well as our levels of social interaction.

Lessons | Outsourcing Pros and Cons & Picking the Right Template

The lesson today is related to the problem we had around updating our website – it was around a year in the making but it could’ve been done a lot sooner!

This largely came down to the idea that we wanted to outsource the web design. For six months Colin spent time interviewing various web developers – with many coming up with, quite simply, bad ideas and bad designs. It was incredibly time-consuming to try and find someone to do the job justice.

“The look and feel of the website is so key to what we do, from our sales funnel to promoting the content that we put out there.”

In the end, we decided that we would go it alone. Colin then spent a day looking at several different templates and ended up with ‘Extra’ from Elegant Themes. The new theme is very customisable and suited to a ‘magazine’ type page.

Over the next few months we plan to customise the page heavily, but so far in it’s basic form it’s great.

If you wanted to do this, the best advice would be:

Take some time out until you find a decent template library and one that’s right for you. Buy something that you can see has a good dashboard to manage the customisation.

In our opinion, all of the templates on Elegant Themes have this, so by all means give them a try. If you want to use our affiliate link we would greatly appreciate it.

Similarly, StudioPress has a great collection of themes and is great for really heavy customisation. Again, we have an affiliate link if this is something that you are interested in.

Overall, if you do it yourself, you have so many options in terms of customisation. The plan now for us is to continue to look for a developer, but for them to now work closely with us to customise the base template that we’ve already set out.

We’re also looking into WP Curve type services, where you pay a set fee for a job-a-day type thing, but it’s hard to find one with decent terms since WP Curve closed up.

Hopefully that lesson was useful. Not all tasks are good to outsource straight away – often it’s good to do it yourself first, then outsource once you have a set base.

Experiment | Continuing with Popups: Does it Annoy your Readers?

Last episode we kicked off a new experiment, looking at popups again but in a different way. We’re testing the assumption that popups really annoy people and will stop them coming back to your site.

The experiment will run two weeks from Friday 21 April, when we launched our new site template. They’ll be timed popups that will occur after a user has been on the site for 60 seconds – and this will be the generic “How to Podcast” eBook.

Then, from May 7 to May 20, we’re going to do no popups whatsoever across the site. From that, we can compare the engagement metrics in comparison to the previous fortnight.

Because our popups are desktop only – i.e. they don’t show up on mobile devices – we will have to split up our data to show a true reflection of the engagement.

For the last week or so, since we’ve been running the popups, the number of pages per session haven’t changed much. It’s sitting at around 1.47 pages – meaning people are viewing on average a page and a half every time they come to the site.

People are spending around 1.40 minutes on the site, the bounce rate is 75% and the number of new sessions is also at 75%.

For page depth, 80% of our sessions are just one page. 11% make it onto a second page, 3.8% onto a third and 1.7% onto a fourth. Only one in every 100 readers make it onto five pages.

So, this means the vast majority of people are making it only onto one page when they visit The Podcast Host – which is something that we want to improve.

In the next episode we’ll be able to report back on the end of this first section of using popups and how we’re getting on with engagement without them.

Task |  Get Organised: Set Your Schedule & Be Consistent

It’s time for your homework! We want you to get organised and make a plan for your output.

Set yourself a content posting schedule, whether that’s once a week, once a fortnight or once a month month (or anything in between) and decide what you want to post.

Pick one medium first (podcast, blog posts or videos) – the one thing you can’t fail to get out regularly – and make a schedule. Then, get your content calendar setup and stick to it.

Same goes for your social media. Pick your main social platform – Twitter, Instagram, Facebook – and decide how many posts you’re going to have each day. Remember, make it realistic!

By doing this you should start to get a bit of consistency within your work – so you know what you need to be doing and when you need to be doing it.

What do you think?

We’d love to include some listener questions or feedback within the show so let us know what you think!

We want to know what you like and what you don’t like, or just leave some general comments. We’d particularly like to get some audio questions sent in, so if you’re able to record something (even just on your phone) then we’ll include them in future episodes.

Get in touch via the contact page or Tweet us.

Or, if you’re feeling keen, drop us a review on iTunes/Apple Podcasts by the link or by searching for The Numbers Game – it really helps to get us get the show out to more people.

Other Resources mentioned:

• Elegant Themes
• Libsyn
• Mountain Bikes Apart
• Podcraft
• StudioPress
• The Podcast Host: Growing Your Audience
• The Podcast Host YouTube
• The Podcast Host Instagram
• WP Curve

We’re changing it up a bit this week. Recently we’ve been posting a lot of interviews, but that’s not the case for this episode.

The plan is to try and get through a lot more listener questions. People get in touch asking us all sorts of different, interesting things around podcasting – so we’re going to try and get one out every week from now on.

We’ll be accepting in questions from the comments section of the website, our contact form, Twitter, or any other means in which you want to ask us!

Resources mentioned:

• How to upload a Podcast (or where does a Podcast live?)
• Why you should never host podcasts on your own website
• Libsyn Vs Blubrry: Where should I host my Podcast?
• Blubrry
• Google Play Music
• iTunes
• Libsyn
• Overcast
• Podbean
• Spotify
• Spreaker
• Stitcher
• TuneIn
• WordPress

First up came a question from the website’s contact form, from Andy Macleod. He said:

Hi Colin / Matthew.
First of all, amazing website. Loving your work. I’ve just written an audio drama/sitcom on the music industry called Golden Ears (more on that in another email) and can’t tell you how helpful your site has been as I enter the do’s and don’t’s of podcasting world.

I’m working through your peerless website course and have 2 questions.  I have hosting for another website but using very little of its capacity. I’m planing to use WordPress and Blubrry for my audio drama/stomp podcast but should I buy up new hosting space rather than cross pollinate with another site hosting?  I’m just trying to think ahead if I outgrew space etc.

Also, on your course I’ve got to the section on RSS feeds and sending out each episode via Blubrry/PowerPress and you say now your podcast is on iTunes. But does it also send automatically to all the other directories?
Thanks again for all your help.
Best,
Andy Macleod

We’ll start off with Andy’s first question around hosting. To put it simply, you don’t want to go down the media host route. There’s a lot of dangers around hosting on your own site. It might seem fine at first, but it can cause you a lot of problems down the line.

Imagine being 50 episodes into your podcast with 50 audio files, that are all maybe up to 100 meg in size. They’re all being downloaded 50, 100, 200, maybe even thousands of times every week. Suddenly, you’ve got a huge amount of bandwidth there (or, to put it simply, you’re using up too much space).

And web hosts aren’t too happy about that. In fact, in their terms and conditions, they talk about things where they can shut you down, and they will. There’s plenty of court cases out there where that’s happened.

It’s better just to bite the bullet and go with a dedicated media host. As Andy mentioned, Blubrry are excellent, but there are other options available too. There’s Spreaker, Libsyn, and Podbean to name just three.

At the moment it doesn’t cost too much to get into. If you aren’t doing very much very often, a $5 a month plan will have you covered. A $10 or $15 a month plan will give you more than enough space.

If you’re interested in signing up to media hosting, we do have some affiliate codes for Libsyn and Blubrry so it would be much appreciated if you were to use them.

We offer a free month with Libsyn when you sign up using the coupon code podhost and a free month with Blubrry when you sign up using the coupon code podcraft. 

Now, onto Andy’s second question, about RSS feeds and directories.

The absolute priority once you’ve signed up with a media host, created your podcast and been given the RSS feed is to go and submit to iTunes and get on there. That’s the big daddy in the podcast directory world.

The great thing about being on iTunes is loads of other podcast directories and apps pull their directories directly from iTunes. Matthew has never submitted a podcast to Overcast, but all of his are on there, because they’re pulling it from iTunes.

The other big one is Stitcher, so you’re also catering into the Android market as well.

TuneIn is another one that’s well worth it, because it’s the one that ties in to digital radio. There’s also a smartphone app for TuneIn that’s pretty popular. There’s also, of course, ways to get onto Spotify through your host putting it forward (either Libsyn or Blubrry can do this). It’s up to Spotify whether they’ll take it or not, but it’s still an option.

If you’re a US podcaster it’s also worth getting onto Google Play Music, but you can’t yet get that if you’re in the UK.

Finally, we recommend that somewhere on your site, you have a page called ‘Subscribe’. Don’t go overboard here, but link out to a few of the main places we’ve listed if you’re on it. Post the links and let your listener decide where they want to hear it.

That’s it for this episode of PodCraft, hopefully we answered Andy’s question as well as we could.

Again, let us know your questions for the future and we’ll answer as many of them as we can. Here’s a reminder of where you can find us:

Get in touch with us on Twitter, drop us an email via the contact form, or leave us a comment on any relevant blog post!