So podcasting has been on and popping. People are falling head over heals in love with this media and when visitors goes to the podcasters websites, it’s a hot mess.
Planning.
The whole purpose of a website is to give people an adventure to explore. What I’ve often seen is a website that looks good, but doesn’t direct the visitor into a specific journey that will eventually land them on their service or product page. With every design, I ask my clients what their objectives and goals are because those goals will help us to determine whether the website it successfully giving them the results they are looking for. A great example is Side Hustle Pro website. At the start of Nicaila’s project, her objective was to organize the information currently there, uplevel the visuals, and add more interactions. I also analyzed that her previous website didn’t showcase her as the expert, so we made a goal to use more images of her throughout the site so her audience connect her face and the podcast together.
Organization.
What some of the most successful podcast websites do well is organize their information. Without a doubt, visitors are coming to the website, not just to learn about the host themselves, but to skim through additional episodes for more content consumption. When that information is organized and categorized, you find people staying on your site longer, thus turning into fans of your content. Once they become fans, they are more likely to engage with other parts of your website. The best podcast sites number and categorize each episode. From a website perspective, it’s great to have between 3-5 categories. You want to try not exceed this or it starts getting overwhelming. And even better, as you think of each category, I always recommend clients relate them back to the product or service they are offering to their audience. For instance, Jenna Kutcher’s Podcast site for Goal Digger lumps the episodes into 4 easy categories that people can explore.
Interactive show notes.
Now this is something I don’t see nearly enough. I know I know. You’re thinking, “the whole point of the podcast is so people don’t have to read.” True. But believe it or not, there is a whole world of people who want to actually get some info on the podcast episode before even hitting play. Show notes don’t just offer up a summary of the episode, they’re also a gold mine of information for search optimization aka, it helps with your website ranking. Now I’m not saying transcribe your episodes word for word. I recommend summarizing the juicy points into the top 3 to 4 takeaways. Again remember, anything more will overwhelm the user and discourage them from further interaction. Great show notes are also your opportunity to link to related episode, your sponsor affiliate links, your opt-in and your product or service. For example, when redesigning the Sister’s in Loss site, it was important to capture all this information (sponsorship, service, links), into something visually interactive.
Summary: Amazing podcast websites do three things really well…
- The website is strategically designed to keeps people reading and interacting with the site. And ultimately directs people to the website’s opt-in or product/service page.
- The website content is organized. This gives people who are visiting your website with the intent of listening to more episodes a way to filter or sift through their favorite topic. Again this encourages people to stay on the site, and direct them to your opt-in or offering.
- They have interactive show notes. Not just a 1 paragraph summary of what you’re going to be listening to, but 3 to 4 juicy takeaways that encourage people to interact with the links associated with the show episode.
Which point had you saying “yes
, I need to do that”? Go ahead and share with us below.
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