Lessons

Lesson Info

Your Home Base: How to Set it up for Podcast Listeners

So they found you, they've listened. You are sending them back to your website but what, like what goes on your website? So this customer path only works if you have each part of it in place. You both need a way that they're gonna find you, both through your title and description on iTunes, and the meeting you in person and all the ways people find you. You need to verbally say it when they listen and then you need to have your website setup to actually make the sale when it happens. So I call this your home base because people get overwhelmed if I say, "Website or shop." Your home base is a central place. On iTunes you send people back to it. In your emails you send people back to it, on your podcast you send people back to it. It needs to be one place and it needs to have the way that they buy from you, the way that they listen, it needs to have all of the things. So what I do, or what I really suggest for each episode is that you create a post, and most websites are gonna call this ...

a blog post, but it's not necessarily a lot of written content. You create a post for every episode. So in that episode what some people do is they just send you back to the website, so this week I'll say, "Go to taraswiger.com for those links." The problem is somebody listens to this in three months, taraswiger.com has totally different stuff at the top of it, so then they're like, "Where was it?" They have to dig. So what I really recommend is creating a post for every episode that has its own URL that you can easily say. And then you say in the episode, "Go back here for that." You also write in the episode description, "Find everything here." And if you watched the, or you're gonna watch the YouTube for Growing Your Business class you'll see that in the description of your YouTube videos I put the link to go back to the site that has more details. I don't put all the details on YouTube, I don't put them all on iTunes, because I want to send them back to my site. The same thing with Instagram, I'm sending people back to my site. Same things with my emails, I'm either having them buy directly or sending them back to my site. So for those posts that you're gonna make on your page I'm gonna tell you everything to put on it to make it really effective at making the sales. So every episode will have a blog post that has links to everything you've talked about. So if you said, "Follow me on Instagram", "Subscribe to my emails." If you said, "Oh I'm working on a new product "that I just put in the shop today." "Oh I just published a new pattern." All of those will be linked. So when I said in my podcast, "I'm going to CreativeLive to talk about podcasting "you can register for the class in my show notes", this is where I put it, this is your show notes. So obviously you're gonna put links to everything you talked about, you also are gonna put your audio player. So in Squarespace that audio block that's the audio player. So what you do in Squarespace is you add the, you upload the file to the, they call it audio block, and that then shows up in your blog post. And then you can move that around. So you can put it at the top, you can put it at the bottom. It makes more sense to put it at the top because that's where people are gonna click. Then also you're gonna write a description of what you talked about. The more keywords it has in it the more Google is gonna know what that's about. Because remember that Google can't listen to your podcast. So if you have a super informative episode all about how to do something the internet has no idea because the search bots aren't sure what that episode's about. So you need to give it a really good description. So this will go in your post about it and it will also go in that audio file's description. So when you upload something to either Squarespace or to Libsyn it's gonna give you a place to write the description of that episode. You wanna put this because that will tell iTunes what this episode is about, that's how it will populate on iTunes, is you put it in that audio description. So is that gonna go in the blog post of that as well? Yes. You're gonna put it in two places. Because what you want is iTunes to be able to read it and you want the Google search bots who are scrolling through your site to read it. So basically you could do like a transcript or your show notes is that there? Yes. And that's also gonna go and duplicate over on iTunes? Yes, what I do, is I don't put everything in that description, I don't put the links to everything, and I don't put, I don't go super into detail, I do a couple of sentences of description and then say, "For the full show notes go back to, "this blog post", and then this blog post has it all. You do that in Libsyn or Squarespace? Exactly. Okay. It's a little tricky with Squarespace 'cause it's all in the same place, like both your audio description and your blog post. But it makes it easy 'cause it's all in one place. But is it like just a different tab on their backend? It's a different thing you're editing. Okay. And, like I said, they have a detailed, they have a video that walks you through it, and they also have detailed descriptions. And if you are using Libsyn because you're already using something like WordPress or some other, your site is built on Blogger or something else, in Libsyn when you upload the audio file, you'll go in and you'll write this description in there along with your title and your episode number. And you'll also then go to your blog post and put all this on your blog post. So I also really recommend doing a photo for Pinterest. So people like to pin things that they like and that they wanna listen to or pay attention to later. So I'm gonna give you a couple of quick tips to make your audio podcast more pinable, 'cause that's the thing right? Like you can't pin an audio file you can only pin a photo, so what you do with that photo is, not just a picture, but put the name of your episode on that picture. So you're kind of like creating a thumbnail for that episode, and make the words big and readable and make them clickable. Like "10 Tips to Healthy Living," which is actually not specific enough but whatever your specific episode is put that right there on that image, put it at the top of your post so that when somebody is like, "Ooh that's good I wanna share that", or, "I wanna save that", or maybe you were talking about three ways you use essential oils at the beach. I'm going to the beach I want to save that to my beach board. You've given them something they can save. What I see a lot of shows do is they just have text, people can't pin that, and Pinterest is a huge source of traffic. And Megan Auman has great classes about Pinterest here at CreativeLive. If you want more details about how to make that a great image. But just put some photo with text on it because what that's gonna do is when somebody does pin it and I see it later I know it's not just a pretty picture. It leads to something 'cause it has the text that says, "Three tips for summer beach", whatever. Someone has asked just about the quality of the image like is there a certain resolution or size that you tend to use or what would you recommend? For Pinterest, for your blog post? I guess for the, 'cause even the thumbnail, I guess, you're gonna potentially be reusing that images on, in various forms. Yes. So for your, for your podcast thumbnail, like the one that says, "Explore your enthusiasm", that has your title on it, the thing is iTunes tells you exactly what they want. So I think right now it's 1,700 by 1, and a specific DPI, iTunes tells you. And they've changed it like three times since I started so you wanna go to iTunes and it will tell you the exact resolution that you need. And it's gonna be pretty big. So then you can use that wherever you wanna use it. If it's a photo that you're putting in your blog post it's gonna be determined on your blog post theme, right? And what your thing looks like and what image makes the most sense for your thing. Also a class on Pinterest will tell you the images that are the best size and shape for Pinterest. [Blonde Haired Woman] Can I say one more thing, or ask one more thing? Yeah. So basically every, what you recommend is for every episode that you have of a podcast you should also have a coordinating blog post about it? Exactly. So whether you think of it as a blog post or other people call it their show notes, or other people call it a page on their site, you need some place on your site that centralizes it all. Thank you for asking that 'cause I wanna make sure I really clearly say that. So that's what we're talking about here. We're talking about on your own site a place to send people back to that has everything. Including the audio player, the description, the links, something so they can pin it, and what this does to is this is the place when you're having a conversation and you're like, "You know what, I actually did a episode about that, "would you mind if I sent you that link?" You're gonna send them the link to this. You're not gonna send them the link on iTunes or YouTube. If you're doing a YouTube video along with your podcast, you're podcast is both video and audio, you'd also embed that video here. And if you guys want an example of this, I'm not just trying to send you back to my site, you go to my site and you click on the podcast tab, you'll see my most recent episode. It has an image, an audio player, a video player, the description. And what people tell me is that they do one of the three options they have, they either read the transcript, they listen to the audio, or they watch the video. So, then the last thing you wanna make sure you have is some way that they can either subscribe to your list or buy from you. So if you did a whole episode about a piece of jewelry that you created. Maybe it was these drop earrings that are melted, recycled glass, and you talked all about your melting process and where the bottles came from and where you were inspired by, and that's what your episode was. Maybe you talked to a friend about how she gave you the idea, then in those show notes, what you would say verbally is, "So to see these earrings and get information "about how to buy them go to sundropjewelry.com/podcast3." That's not a real link by the way, I made that up. And then in that post at the bottom and the top, like the image that you use for Pinterest would be the story behind these earrings. That would be the image for Pinterest. The bottom would be a button, Buy These Earrings. Or just a Buy button, right, get your earrings here, and people click buy. Because if people have heard the whole story they're gonna wanna know how to get it. And the thing I want you guys to keep in mind is that by making a very clear call to action, by making a very clear buy button, you're gonna make it really easy to get the thing that they want. And they really really wanna buy your thing after they've heard this whole story. Okay? Are there questions about this 'cause this is like-- Well there's a question here that says, "Do you have a specific location/link "you provide for all transcripts, "or is there a separate link for each document "when signing up for your newsletter?" We're gonna talk about that. It's not a separate link, I do put them all on one page, which we'll talk about, but I then only give that page to subscribers. So like you guys can't go see it unless you sign up at the big pink box on my site. Now the other thing your site needs 'cause we just talked all about each individual blog post, if you were making this from scratch or using Squarespace you're making it from scratch, also create an about page and put a freaking shop page. Or if you sell services make it like work with me, or learn more. But don't make this podcast website not have a way that people are gonna learn more about you and buy from you. So I think mine is called like Books and Courses. That's the shop page. We've also got a few people online who don't necessarily yet have websites in this form. They have their Etsy shop or they sell in other areas, in spaces online. Can they, can people bypass actually getting a website or do you think they have to? No, I mean you could, I guess, but where it's gonna be much harder you're not gonna have a place where your podcast lives. So even if you have a host that sends it to iTunes, that's why I suggested Squarespace. If you don't yet have a site or you're using Etsy or you're using Ravelry create a Squarespace site, it's super simple to setup, and I'm not an affiliate for them, I get no money by saying this, but you can literally type in a title and then create your first blog post and put your audio file in that. That's gonna be a home for your podcast. It's gonna be a place you can send people back to, it's gonna be a place where you can give them extras and then when I say create a shop page you can make a page that links them to your Ravelry page or your Etsy page. And Etsy even has, you can embed, it looks like your Etsy shop in that page, and when they click on it they get taken to Etsy. So whatever you're using that doesn't have its own builtin website make a Squarespace site and link your shop directly to that. I'm not saying you have to create your own shopping cart but you do need a place where your podcast lives. If it only lives on iTunes you're not gonna get nearly the conversion because people aren't gonna know why to come to your website, or why to go to your shop. If your only call to action is, "Come from my podcast directly to my shop", that's not giving them enough, more detail, more reason, more inspiration to come do it. And the other thing is after you podcast for a while you will absolutely wish you had a site where it all lives. Because if iTunes crashes or you forget what you did and you wanna look it up, like I was telling you I search my own site to figure out where things are, you're gonna wish you had page where it's all collected, all of the details. So don't rely on iTunes for that, make your own site now. And it can be, I made a site for my newest podcast, Essential Enthusiasm, we did it in, like a afternoon or two, of just putting in the name and then putting in all the details and that included submitting it to iTunes. It doesn't have to take very long. But it'll make it so much more effective. If you're gonna do all the work to record a podcast make it effective and have a place where it lives. Now to get people to go to your site you need to give them a reason. Did you have a question. No, I don't have a question, I just think what, like I think people hear the word website and they get overwhelmed, like, "I've gotta go build a website or pay somebody "a lot of money to have a website." Where I say nowadays it sounds so cliched but it really is, can be really simple to build a website without knowing how to code or how to do all of that crazy stuff. I can speak from experience because I created a website for myself last year and I'd put it off for so long. And then when I did it I was like, "Wow, this is unbelievably easy." My 92 year old grandmother could do it if I walked her through it, it's simple. Yeah, and that's, that's why of all the host options in the world I said if you don't have a website go with Squarespace. Because, I had a friend that had been recommending it for a long time, and then I set mine up and I was like, "Oh, this is why she said it's so easy, it's so easy." So if you've tried other things and you've been frustrated, really it's just a couple of steps, they walk you through each step. And then adding a podcast is like no real difference than adding anything else to their site. So I felt like it simplified that process a lot too. If I taught this class two years ago I would've said, "Well first build a whole WordPress site. "Good luck with that."