WordPress and Blogging tips

In this post we’re going to examine how to plan your podcasts well with scripts.

 

Begin with a written script

 

Write your script keeping in mind how you speak naturally. Because that’s how you’re going to sound on your podcast.

If you come across off as reading the whole thinng. You should write down exactly as you speak.

This helps you escape the formality associatedwith writing.

Read out aloud to see if it matches the way you speak. ALways make sure to infuse your personality in your podcasts. Otherwise the whole thing comes across feeling as way too stuff. And that’s not great for you.

 

The script needs to reflect the exact way you speak and feel and should resonate with yur audience the most.

 

Paint Pictures with Your Words

 

With a podcast all you have is your voice. Unlike a blog post where you can make your point with visuals like images or videos there’s no help here. THat means you need to etch details into whatever you speak. Yo should help people picturize the citation. Tell stories, news and other things to helpthem do so.

 

Keep It Concise

 

The script you use to tell people these stories should be shot and sweet.

Reading directly kills the naturity that you would have otherwise brought to the whole thing. So keep in natural and highly un artificial.

The scripts need to the be short and the point minimizing the distance between what you want to say and what you really say.

 

Give Yourself Flexibility

You nneed to give yourselves ample flexibility. You might want to use certain words. You want to make your point with certain stories, new items, cover them in the script and use certain vocabulary and choice of words. All goood. But, you should also be a teensy little flexible around words and mannerisms .

This flexibility makes your podcast extremely easy to understand and quite interesting.

 

Make It Your Own

Whatever you podcast on realize that your audiennces’s needs are quite different. Also your ownn comfort level with how you present podcasts and speak things, the kind of details you include are all going to make the podcast more or less appealing to uer.

Podcasters if you’re starting out may want to rely more on their script for fear of going off topic The fear is understandable. The segments of your podcast may require some scripting. A broad outline can help.

However make sure you don’t repeat things word for word and rely on broad pointers like intro, sponsor messages calls to action and so on.

 

If you’re podcastinng on your own that’s way different than podcasting with other people like guests. Prepare points in advance and coordinate well the the guest so that there’s no scope for confusion or interruption.

Take a look at some script templates and make sure you create your own before you start venturinng out on your own.

 

Podcast Script Template:

 

Intro: Say the name of podcast, introduce yoruselfves

Music Jingle: Repeat at beginning of each episode to help listeners easily identify your podcast (Duration)

Topic 1: Establish the theme of the podcast and discuss a point

Topic 2: Discuss another point or segment

Interlude: [Music break or sponsor ad] (Duration)

Topic 3: Discuss the third point or segment in more detail

Topic 4: [Discuss one point, topic, or segment in detail] (Duration)

Summarize

Thank audience

Closing jingle

 

As a beginner you may have zero clue on how to approach the growth of your show.

Here are tips to use

 

Show some gratitude

Thank the audience at the end of each podcast episode.

This may be in the form of shoutouts you give to listeners or the interactions you have had with them.

 

The podcast exists solely because there are people to listen and people are the biggest factor driving up the viewership and listernsip of your podcasts.

 

That’s the reason why showing gratitude is of the essence here.

The audience is what gives you feedback and engages with you on social media. Some appreciation goes a long way.

 

Discover the perfect guests

 

Not all guests are going to be perfect fit for your show. That’s the reason you need to be really picky when it comes to choosing guests for your show. Don’t pick just anyone who wants to be a guest. He should be the right fit for you. You are doing a service by picking the right guy.

 

The guests should be highly engaging and relevant to the core. Always keep what your audience wants in mind before inviting over someone.

 

Be Yourself.

 

In addition if you are yourself rather than mimicking someone else you’re going to be one engaging host. That’s the first rule of creating quality podcasts. Take the time to be engaging. No one wants to listen to a boring podcasts and if you put on an act people are quick to figure that out.

Listeners know very well when someone’s acting.

Don’t let these listeners feel bad abot listening to your show. You want to come across as stiff or aloof. You want to appear lively and fresh. Don’t make the mistake of using language that flies above the heads of your listeners.

 

Appreciate whatever happens, acknowledge mistakes and move on.

 

Focus on the Conversation.

The difference between a good podcast host and a mediocre one is that a good host keeps his focus sharp on the conversation at hand. He keeps the whole thing really engaging and informal.

If yo’re engaging inn a true conversation, you would talk to them in the same way like you’re talking to a friend. Listening to this conversation feels authentic and the stream of conversation carries far and wide

 

YYour audience should feel as part of the podcast and feel as if they’re directly being addressed to.

 

Review Yourself.

 

Whenever you publish podcast episodes you always want to be improving yourself. That’s the best way to move ahead.

THe practice that you put to get in front of the audience helps you understand their thoughts annd views and better yourselves.

 

As you go on reviewing you will realize the mistakes you made during recording. You might not be able to remember everything. When you listen to the podcast, you can review the entire process and see what you can gather around the different topics.

Don’t publish new episodes just for the sake of publishing and forget about them. Keep learning.

 

Focus on Your Content.

 

Another big way to improve the engagement and presentation of the podcast is by being really engaging and interesting to the audience by presenting real and interesting content.

An engaging host will boring information is much more worthlistening to than a boring host.

 

The key to succeed is bringing interesting content coupled with engaging presentation.

A podcast can change lives delivering content in the best possible way.

 

In this guide I am going to walk you step by step to be a great podcast host and increase your podcast downloads.

 

There are both general and specific strategies that work.

 

1. Publish more episodes

The obvious thing is as you publish more and more episodes the base traffic on your site increases and that means the number of podcast viewers and subscribers goes up.

More episodes mean more downloads from the same extant audience.

Each episode is a new opportunity to engage with more people.

 

Publishing more has other benefits as well. Each new episode is another opportunity to engage your current fans and attract new listeners. New episodes are also more SEO value for your website. 

 

Get feedback from your most loyal bunch

Your most loyal listeners are teeming with feedback. They’re those who comment on your podcasts, reply to emails and drag in their best friends to your show. They are the ones behind the rapid growth you’re experiencing.

 

You get these people and you get them to talk.

Ask them for their honest feedback on what you can do to make your podcast better.

As to what you should do.

Ask them to be honest with no bars attached.

 

Tease upcoming episodes

If people are already in love with your show, what better way to get more of their love than to tease up and coming episodes.

 

This way you can build the necessary hype that will propel the growth and viewership of your upcoming content. You will give your audience a reason to love and like you.

If you get a guest who the readers requested in overwhelming capacity before, that’s the perfect spot to build some hype for your upcoming episode.

 

Ask for reviews and ratings

You don’t get what you don’t ask. If you want reviews and ratings you better ask people. 

Rating and reviewing may not show any wonders at this point in time but in the long haul they prop up your downloads. With this you can invite support for the show.

Use auto play

If you use something like smart podcast player you can set the audio to autoplay. This is a common thing with youtube videos that start to play as soon as the page loads.

 

The plays of the podcast player is seen as the download of your podcast episode based on its analytics.

Each autoplay means a new download.

If you do this aggressively people may discard the show though.

Always measure the impact is having.

 

UP the rss feed limit

POdcast directories say Gplay and ios source directly fromthe rss feed to display the podcast to users.

BUt RSS feeds tend to generally put  a limit on the number of items listed on the list. When you upload a new episode the old one at the last falls of.

This reduces the total number of episodes that listeners can actually enjoy.

 

The default number of items on some lists is no more than 10.

 

Talk to the host and find out how to set limits, remove or extend limits. If possible make the limit as high as possible so that more of your content is available to list for podcatchers and also for the different dictores.

 

Stick to schedule

Whether it be blogging or podcasting, sticking to a schedule is a difficult ask. I know because I’ve been a blogger for over 9 years.

But the thing with a schedule is people tend to become used to it and wait for new episodes to grab them as soon as they go live. Try to stick to it. Avoid late publishing. Don’t miss episodes and don’t disappoint them.

 

Choose a schedule that you can always meet and think of publishing contennt two weeks in advance.

 

The schedule should be explained to fnas.

 

Submit to directories and podcatchers

A big tip is to get the show’s rss feed and submit the same on every relevant podcast directly you can find. Spotify, iTubes and Gplay are staples but there are also little known directoriesthat provide a good link.

 

On an episode by episode basis, here are all the things that you can do to increase the number of downloads you’re getting.

 

1. Quality control each episode

It’s an important and basic step. Nobody likes listening to podcasts that come with very poor quality audio. Intead craft your episodes in a way that they have grat audio. You don’t want ardent fanns abandoning the show if the quality goes down the gutter.

Before you publish a single episodeyou should filter out imperfect audio, scrub clean long pauses and bad transitions. The problems should be reviewed by a third party before you hit publish.

 

The perfect equipment ensures you don’t face a problem.

 

Craft a compelling title that has search-ability

A compelling title gives you seo benefits and helps the You’ve probably seen a million episode reader decide if the podcast is for them.

The correct title is supposed to give the reade rinformation and help them choose the podcast episode for listening.

Also this helps search engines correctly identify what the episode is about.

A good title should be compelling enough to make the reader download the episode. Use great language and description to make sure they do.

 

Share soundbites

A podcast is all about the interesting things you say. There may be a good quote from the guest and if you fail to give it attention people are going to miss out on the episode. Post the sound bites on social media nad email them to subscribers.

 

4. Have your guests promote the episode

Always ask your guests to promote your podcasts on their social media feed. This gives them a good number of choices.

iTunes is a big platform where you can promote your podcasts. Turns out 70% of iTunes is responsible for as much as 70% of a podcast’s listens and downloads

 

Here are the strategies to try when promoting your podcasts on iTunes.

 

Podcasts have come a long way from 2012.

 

Here’s the big list of podcast promotion strategies we’re keen to try.

 

1. Leverage your guest’s audience

When you invite a guest to the podcast make sure that you take advantage of the audience available at his end.

 

Your podcast can be in an interview format where you interview up and coming stars of different industries.

That means they have access to big audiences both on their blog annd Twitter channels.

 

Make it easy for guests to share promote podcast episodes and send them note on the day that the podcast episode goes live.

This gives them cue to promote your content.

 

Make it easy for guests to share your podcast episodes. Also prepare in advance way ahead of time for each podcast episode that you want to showcase.

This can be done by including different things like

Pull quotes

Images around your podcasts

Links to the episode

Prewritten social media messages and updates for ensuing weeks.

 

For podcasts it might seem that the more number of epsidoes you put out the more successful you’re going to be. That’s not true.

The quality of your content trumps quantity every single time.

 

Solve problems with podcaass

Provide insights

Hustle.

 

Make use of the guest’s big audience

 

2. Promote on social media … in a dozen different ways

Share a number of things that are highly shareable on social media. Thinks like images, rich media and evergreen content that form a staple of social media content.

 

You can be creative with social media posting and generate clicks for each time you leverage postings creatively.

 

Send your episode tweet or as a Facebook post. This should feature iTunes URLs as well

Create quote based images on Canva.

 

3. Release at least 3 episodes on launch day

When you’re doing something online such as podcasting it’s bound to get negative reviews.

From Pat flynn“I actually received negative reviews from people who had listened to the first episode and were upset that there was only one.”

 

You wouldn’t really believe that a man such as Pat Flynn with his own podcast player would hear something like that.

Your best bet to avoid risk is by publishing 3 to 5 different episodes when launching.

 

The minimum number is 3 it gives people a bench of options to go through before committing and deciding if they stay with the podcast.

The launch strategy is key to hitting the new and noteworthy section and get huge traffic from iTues.

 

Convert the podcast to videos for YouTube

When it comes to YouTube, seo is more important than ever. So you need to name the video with appropriate keywords preferably the name of the person being interviewed.

 

The podcast gets more mileage and views if you repurpose it in many different ways. You can post it as a video on Facebook as well.

 

The biggest thing you can do is convert the audio and add it to the YouTube channel to generate thousands of views.

 

When you make the video YouTube automatically generates closed captions and transcripts for the video.

If you’re too lazy to transcribe this is a fantastic option with AI.

 

Video especially ones from youtube regularly grace the top pages on Google driving lots and lots of traffic. Google values it more.

 

A youtube version is great for rankings.

 

When converting use a canvas size that is 2560 pixels by 1440 pixels width. Make the viewing resolution up to 2k.

 

5. Submit your podcast to directories aggregators

The first thing is these directories and podcast aggregators are great for the SEO of your podcast and get you more views and much more traffic.

 

There’s the iOS podcatcher and there are at least 20 other apps that collect and play podcasts. There are also tons of directories.

To give you an idea here’s a list.

 

Overcast

Stitcher

Podcast Addict

Podcast subreddit

PodcastLand 

TuneIn

Bello Collective

Castro

Podcast Republic

Downcast

PodcastLand has a featured podcast of the month,

 

These services are all useful.

 

Transcribe the audio

For a very low monthly price or on fiverr you can outsource the transcription of your podcasts fully.

Most successful shows share the full transcription of their podcasts on their blog posts.

 

You can choose highlight and choose only certain parts of the show should you wish to go that route.

 

It’s up to whether you want the full transcript or just the highlights.

The full transcript is great for SEO and is a handy place for you to collect leads.

 

Run a giveaway contest

The next tip to get more listeners for your podcasts is to run a giveaway or a contest.

 

The rules of participation should mandate that people need to leave a review to participate.

 

Asking for review on itunes should be set as the minimum criteria to enter. This would give them enough motivation to enter and also increase the reviews on your iTunes podcasts.

 

All the below ideas are good ideas as prizes

Gift cards

Stickers

T shirts and so on.

 

A 5 minute guest spot on the podcast is another viable giveaway you can include.

mentioning it on the show. Ask people to leave an iTunes review in order to enter.

Usernames are generally the same names that can be found as their social media handles and that’s how you reach out to the winners.

 

 Find partners to mention you

Mentioning other brands and podcast hosts and getting mentioned by them in return is a big way to grow your show.

 

The strategy works because it showcases a reciprocal effect.

 

When you mention a brand that’s an opportunity for them to reach back out to you.

 

Be a guest on other people’s podcasts

There are lots of successfully running podcasts. If they’re not inviting you, reach out to them and invite yourself. Make guest appearances on as many shows as can sponsor you.

Do this on a weekly basis and let your voice be heard on several channels.

This is a lot of great advice you can use.

 

When you’re starting a podcast you don’t want it to be something that you alone or your grandmother alone listen to.

You want an audience for your podcasts.

 

Social media is one of the best ways to market your podcasts because podcasting inherently is highly social. Social media users are avid podcast listeners as well.

 

Turns out 64% of monthly podcast listeners also tune in to social media several times during a day.

Social media is crowded though and that means you need to be highly strategic in your social media use when marketing and promoting podcasts.

 

Here are a few tips to help you grow your podcasting community with social media:

 

Use the right platform

There are dime a dozen social media platforms coming up almost on a daily basis. So what’s the right platform. The right platform is one that your audience uses and is online on.

 

Consider all of these factors when choosing a social media channel. The topic of podcast, People you speak, if they are young or not. Youngsters tend to use facebook and Instagram the most.

 

If you have zero clue where your audience keeps hanging out ask them on where they hang out and what happens to be their favorite social media channel.

 

Your audience might be on several platforms but the thing is you want to be marketing on the platform where they’re most active on. You want to post social media updates on channels where your audience is most likely to see those.

 

Focus on one or two platforms at most.

 

Use hashtags

Hashtags are the traffic currency on social media channels. Want to promote your podcasts on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook?

Use hashtags.

Hashtags are basically keywords that help you propel your post to top rankings. They help you reach the top for relevant and specific terms.

 

Hashtags should aptly describe the content of your podcast. A branded hashtag is one of the best things you can do for your business as it becomes a good branding tool.

With your podcast ask audiences if you want to use the hashtag and see how effective it turns out to be. 

 

Create images with pull quotes

Social media is a highly visual platform. There’s no way you can generate traction for a medium that’s purely audio. Tweets with images get tweeted more and generate much higher engagement.

Even though podcasts as a medium are fully audio you can use visual marketing to drive traffic and leads.

 

How to do this?

With pull quotes.

It’s an easy way to pull quotes from episodes and create quote-based images that should help generate curiosity around the podcast. Such quotes are always easy to find if you’re hosting guests or are putting well-researched content out there.

Use free design tools like canva to add such images.

 

4. Use sound bites

As a podcaster the audio content is beneficial to people. It should be highly engaging. You cannot simply create any kind of content.

Include highly engaging content.

 

Social platforms have no place for mp3 files. Hoever it’s easy to convert those audio files to video with the help of tools like Wavve.

Wavve is the one software you need to create video content with the help of images and add the mp3 file in the background.

 

6. Use social media to build your community

Social media is not just a channel to post your content and pray for clicks. A social media platform can double up as an engagement platform to generate clicks and views for your content.

YOu want to engage people and make them feel connected to you as a whole and not just the podcast.

AN easy way to do this is share aspects of your life on social media. Infuse personality into your posts. People listen to you because they like you. Let your personality shine through.

 

Use social media to connect with influencers

If you want popular guests to show up and pay attention start by tagging them on social media channels.

You can’t really go the full circle of spamming them every chance you get but can definitely use the opportunity to build a long-lasting connection that transcends boundaries.

 

8. Promote your old episodes

Social media is so convoluted that your old posts can quickly lose their way. It’s better to promote evergreen content. It’s content that’s relevant and highly valuable to your audiences and gets shared and attracts more and more traffic since the time you originally publish it.

 

Social media is crowded and even being a popular figure your audiences can always lose track of each and every episode you published. That’s where resharing content gives them additional opportunities to connect with you.

 

9. Create a schedule

The best way to generate excitement about your podcast is by posting on a schedule. Stay on top of the schedule and always create content that people can follow and like.

 

40 million Americans regularly listen to podcasts. Podcasts are a growing content consumption medium. Instead of writing blog posts, adding images and linking out, just speak and your audience will listen.

This is the magic of podcasting.

Podcast listeners are highly engaged and are also action takers. So if you advertise or include a call to action in your podcasts, odds are people will take action.

 

Podcasts are a good platform to describe products and services to action takers.

Podcasts whirled into popularity on the back of all the useless commute time that people were occupying. This meant they listened to podcasts on a bus, in queue or when driving cars.

 

POdcasts give people information and that doesn’t mean they have to read something to glean info.

People are visual learners, audio learners and book learners.

 

If you want to be successful at this, there’s only one thing you need to know. You need to be consistent.

Being successful at podcasting is like being successful at any other thing. You need to work for the long term putting out episodes one after the other, on subjects you’re passionate about and are an expert at.

 

Podcasting is ideal for those

Who have a good voice and love to talk.

 

If you’re not confident before the mic that leaks through your voice. People sense your discomfort. That said you need to be the boldest speaker in town. As with everything, as you practice you gain more confidence and can watch your own progress.

 

Also podcasting isn’t being on an island. It’s not about you you and you. Just like with your blog where you at times allow other people to write articles for you, podcasting is similar in a sense.

 

YOu can bring in guests. Guests are people who are experts at something or have achieved something with their lives.

 

For example on the Smart Passive income blog’s podcast episodes, Pat flynn regularly interviews people who are some sort of a business success. That was the idea behind a podcast player like Smart podcast player.

 

A guest who knows his around a subject is an authentic person you can trust.

Also something like this builds interest in your audience.

This helps forge a better connection. When you interview someone you’re asking the person to reveal their life story. This makes podcasts such a compelling medium to tell a story and present ideas in audio.

 

Choosing a niche

As I mentioned before, running a podcast isn’t very different from running a blog.

 

Before you record a single episode you need to decide what you’re up against, who you’re going to create episodes about. You need to zero down in on your niche and overarching theme first.

 

Just like there are blogs on every topic imaginable there are podcasts on scores of topics. Since podcasts are still an emerging platform, the number of podcasts in a particular niche aren’t too many. The niches aren’t overcrowded. That means there’s still a chance for you.

 

Just because a topic has low competition doesn’t mean it’s a light bulb idea to start a podcast around that topic. Instead you should focus on the keyword volume, the advertisement and revenue opportunities, the challenges and openings before you.

 

It depends on what you want to achieve and what you want to talk about. Also, your passion is important. You have to talk about this topic and if you’re not interested, your audience will know and will slowly lose interest. 

Finally go with a topic that has a lot of angles and sub topics that you talk about for a long duration and has enough fodder for you to create hundreds of episodes.

So ultimately, what I am saying in so many words is the topic you choose bears thought/

 

Podcast hosting services

 

You need podcasting equipment but prior to all that a major podcasting expense is going to be the podcast host you choose. I recommend Blubrry because the tool has everything for both beginners and advanced users while being priced affordably.

 

With blubrry you can affordably host your podcasts, they give you unlimited bandwidth and the starter plans are cheap to begin with. There’s a rich set of analytics tools you can use as well.

 

The issue with using a shared server hosting that is the same server your site is on for hosting podcast files is that you quickly run out of space and out of bandwidth as more and more people access the files.

The audio files are much larger in size than simple blog posts.

That’s why you need something like a podcast host that minimizes latency and serves data from the place where the visitor is located with its 35 plus data centers.

 

You get an audio player that is completely customizable. You can share options subscribe options and other options.

You get a branded page on Blubrry with blubrry.com/podcast name

Convert your podcast to other audio format, to video epub or pdf

You can an RSS feed that can be used for syndication along with an itunes powered feed

 

 

Upload it to a podcast host like Blubrry and there you get an embed link. The next thing is to whip up a new podcast and add the embed code. People can access the podcast right from your website.

Ultimately use a podcast player like SMart podcast that lets you play your podcasts professionally. Among the tools built in is an email collection tool that lets listeners subscribe to your podcasts as well.

 

The Blubrry podcast host starts with a 250 mb per month plan

Add your name, email id and payment details. Add your credit card or paypal

 

With the coupon you get first month free so that you don’t pay for anything. That’s a great way to test the waters. Once done you get an email with your login ifmriaton.

Login.

Use the embed code on your blog post to display podcast episodes.

There’s also 24*7 support should you feel any problems crop up and need support at any point in time.

With $12.month pricing this is one of the cheapest hosting solutions that comes packed with 100 mb storage, unlimited bandwidth, you get access to podcast statistics and other files.

The statistics report which countries are visiting and listening to your podcasts

You get a number of downloads

And you get aggregated data from all operating systems.

 

In addition to choosing a hosting you need a beautiful podcast player. I recommend smart podcast player. You need to design and upload logos and other artwork like thumbnails and intro and outro clip and so on.

You could do at least some of this with Canva and the stencil app.

 

When you choose a mic to record your voice for podcasting you need to be clear of the basics. Here are the first things to know about.

 

There are several types of mics that indicate how they pick up sound.

I will save you the trouble. If you’re recording a podcast, you’re looking or a cardioid mic. They have a narrow voice pickup range. If you are a sole person doing the podcast these mics are the best.

Omnidirectional mics on the flipside pick up sound in a circular pattern. Imagine you’re sitting in a group and this mic is at the center. So everyone says gets picked up.

If you have a high end dedicated sound proof room go for this.

 

USB – I personally feel USB connectors are best compared to xlr connectors because the sound feels more authentic and there are many ports to pick from.

XLR mics are more expensive and require a much more dedicated space to begin with.

As far as microphones are concerned I’d go with Blue Yeti. No it isn’t blue in color. The two variants are silver and black.

Its a professional tool that until recently could only be shipped from US. Picks up very low ambient noise.

Despite the demands the mic is pretty great at delivering high quality output. One good or great feature about Blue Yeti is it dons multiple hats. With the flick of a button you change it from omnidirectional, to cardioid to stereo to bi directional. Supports all four modes.

 

Edit your podcast

The raw podcast files always have some or the other crop in that makes it difficult to listen to. So the next piece of the puzzle is to edit your recordings before upload. This gives a professional layout to the audio and makes it pleasant to listen to.

What tool or software to use?

I use Audacity which is an audio editing app available for Windows. With the tool you remove noise that you want, you can delete portions of the podcast that don’t seem audible, you can stitch together different portions and eliminate errors.

 

It’s a simple tool that you can use to give the podcast a professional touch.

 

With free hosting solution your podcasts may get deleted any time. They also display ads on your podcast.These are the twin problems facing podcast you upload to free sites.

Don’t make that mistake.

 

POdcasting is not certainly the easiest way to begin your blogging career. There’s certainly a lot of initial investment and tons of work before you see the tiny trickle of revenue dropping by.

Start one and stick with it. Over time you will discover that starting a podcast was a very good decisions.