If you're a website designer who's been thinking about starting a podcast

as a way to advance your credibility and your

marketing, then you have come to the right place. This is not

enough just to think I'm going to do it as part of my

marketing plan. I will just rattle off whatever occurs to me

at the time. As a website designer who has done

exactly that audio is not Created

Equal and been podcasting for nearly two years

now, I have everything in this episode that I am going to walk

you through how to do it and what to expect from it.

Don't just use zoom and think, oh, I'll crib from this.

Hi, I'm Holly Christie. I'm from Websites Made Simple. I

am a website designer and a website designer's mentor.

I also mentor developers and I am here to help you

have an absolute, absolutely amazing career in

website design. So let's get started.

The very first thing when setting up a podcast, actually, before you

even set up, is thinking about the strategy.

And trust me, it is not enough just to think

I'm going to do it as part of my marketing plan. I will just

rattle off whatever occurs to me at the time, put it out in the world

and everyone's going to love it. Trust me, as someone who tried that, it

doesn't work. So before you get started,

before you think about it, get working with

a podcast producer. Whether you decide to go for

the whole shebang, or whether you decide just to get some strategy and

advice, I really advise it as money well spent.

And when looking at the strategy you want to look at, who is

it for? What do your listeners want to

hear, and what are the long or short term goals of your

podcast. So starting with who it's

for. If you're working in the web design space, it could be

that you're looking to share website knowledge. It could be

design knowledge, it could be technical knowledge, it could

be that you want people to work on the strategy

of their websites. I know a few website designers who have moved into that recently.

Whatever it is, get really clear on what it is

you're going to be putting out there because that's going to shape what you name

the podcast and the episodes. It's going to shape the content that's there as well.

And it's ultimately going to inform you of who your

ideal listener is and how best you can work with them.

And I think this stage, as I say, I would absolutely

recommend you work with a podcast consultant producer on this

because a lot of the time we are too close to our own

businesses. And it can be really hard

between knowing what we think our listeners

want or our audience want and actually knowing

what listeners do want. Because podcasting is a really

different medium to chucking up a post on

LinkedIn or Instagram or TikTok or Facebook or wherever you are. And

it's very different to blogging on your own website as well. So really do

get clear, make that the number one thing you do.

And then the second thing you need to look at is production and who

is going to produce it. And I think that we can

often think, well, because we're techies who work in a techie space.

We've got this, you know, we know how to use the software. We could be

using the recording software anyway. And off we

go with it. Record the podcast and off we go. Audio

is not created equal. And something that you really need to bear

in mind with this as well is that lots of your listeners are going to

be listening with no visuals. You can do video podcasts as well. This one

goes out as a video as well as audio, but we still focus

wholly on the audio because a lot of listeners are listening

when they don't have visuals, so they don't have a frame of

reference. All they know is how good the

quality of the recording sounds. So

you really need to think what's going to make your audio stand out.

And here is where I would really recommend that you get a

podcast producer. And if you don't know any podcast

producers, I am more than happy to introduce you to mine, who is Neil

Valeo from Podnose Podcasting. He took my

podcast from a homemade not doing very well affairs

to something that I'm really proud to put out in the world and something that

sounds great. And you're listening to this, so you probably think he's doing a great

job as well. And I will ask him who writes my show notes

to put his contact information in the show notes.

So the next thing is tech. Just like with websites

where we have our websites have to be hosted. The podcasts

need to be hosted as well. And there are a few different podcast

hosting platforms out there. I'm not going to tell

you which ones to use and which ones I use.

If you particularly want to know, you can get in touch@hello,

websitesmadesimple.co.uk but I don't really want to influence you. Use the

tech that works for you. But just bear in mind that you will have to

have it hosted. There will be a hosting fee. Please do not just go

with the Spotify creators hosting thing. I have heard all

sorts of people have all sorts of issues with it. Do use a proper host

and with recording as well, you'll also need the recording

software. And again, I'm not going to tell you which ones to use, but what

I will tell you is don't just use Zoom and think, oh, I'll

crib from this, particularly if you are releasing it

yourself. And you can go out there and find some

podcasts where people have recorded over Zoom and you can really, really hear the

difference. And it's not good, especially when it's an

audio only one as well. So when it comes to

recording the main thing, the main advice that Neil always gives me

is get to the point. Your recording should

have a beginning, a middle and an end. And you also

want to encourage your listeners to engage with it in some

way. And that could be asking them to write in and

asking their opinion on something. It could be that you're looking

at giving them a download and say you want to share the address through for

the download. But make sure your podcast is concise.

This is not a place where you just want to have a long

ramble of thoughts or tell stories that are happening to

you. By all means, tell the story, but make sure that they have a real

relevance to what it is you're putting out there because

listeners will drop off as well. So you can have the

this many listeners downloaded the episode, but what you're really looking

for is for people to spend stay all the way through the episode

in the same way that with websites, we're looking to have a really

low bounce rate on a website and we put a lot of work into making

sure that that's the case. Well, you need to do that with your

podcast as well. You need to make sure that listeners are not bouncing.

So make it really easy for them to stay engaged and

do that by being concise.

Advertising. Now this isn't strictly

in the production side of it, but I think it's a really important part because

as a web designer I often get people saying to me, I'm going to

start a podcast. I'd like you to do the podcast page or a podcast website

or something like that. And then they will say that essentially

they want the podcast to be a medium

where they can get a lot of downloads and they can then advertise

and make money off the back of the podcast. That

strategy, it kind of feels old fashioned these days.

I mean, people still do it, but when I first started listening

to podcasts, I don't know, 10, 12 years ago, something like that,

there were a lot of big names who went out and did their

podcasts. And the main kind of strategy around it was to get,

you know, in the same way we have advertising blocks on websites to have these

blocks of advertisers on their podcasts. And it worked for a while.

And I've checked out some of those podcasts these days, and they are getting really

low ratings now because people are saying there's just too much advertising in them and

the adverts aren't necessarily always relevant. And again, listeners

drop off. If you've got a really loyal listener, they will just forward the

adverts, but don't put them in that situation

in the first place. It is your podcast. It is your

opportunity to share what you are doing and your

work. And you don't want to dilute that by having, like,

random adverts that you have absolutely no control over

advertised on your podcast, saying that

you can advertise your own stuff on your podcast. And I believe that you

absolutely should as well. If you listen to my episodes, you will

hear ad rolls within the episodes for what I'm launching or

what I'm doing, or sign up to my newsletter or whatever else. And

again, it's looking at having that engaged listener who wants

to work with me, who wants to become part of this plan where I'm using

podcast marketing as well. So when you are doing

your podcast, do bear in mind what would you like people to

engage with? And it's not really like a like and follow, leave

a review sort of thing. And then once your podcast

has built up, you can look at getting sponsorship for it. And

that's where you'll be talking to people who pay you this amount of money.

And the sponsorship will be much more relevant to your

audience and it'll be much more effective. But let's get your podcast off the

ground first.

I want to talk to you about the marketing and timescales and

what looks realistic with this as well. Because as

web designers, we are used to things usually taking

a little while to get traction. For example, when you submit a

website to Google Search Control and you need to

wait for it to index everything, and then it's got to make sure that

everything's doing what it's meant to, that the images are the right sizes, that

your clickable elements aren't too close together, that every. That your page is loading

quickly, that everything's doing what it's meant to do.

And this is the same with a podcast. And don't be surprised

if in the early days you don't get a huge amount of

downloads. That's just normal. You might not know this. I certainly didn't know

this, but podcast SEO is a thing. And in the

same way that you would take professional SEO advice for your

website, again I really recommend that you have SEO

advice for your podcast as well. Because there is nothing

more soul destroying than putting all the work into the

podcast and then looking at your 29 downloads a week

stats as well. It is possible to get your podcast some really,

really, really good results. But in the same way that homemade

websites don't make money, homemade podcasts don't get your clients

either. So really do get advice. And if you've already got a

podcast up and running, maybe look at having a podcast audit. And if you

haven't, that is the absolute best time to do it because you get to

start off on the right foot with it as well and

finally just get started. I know it seems

a lot, but then so is building websites when you think about it.

We send people off daily and we say to them, you just need to

send me your images, your branding, your website copy,

your keyword data, your info, whatever it is you ask

for with the website build. And you know, sometimes clients stall

and they're like I can't get all that. And they just need

that hand holding with it. But ultimately they

do get started and it's for you to get started with this as

well because podcasting is just getting bigger and bigger. It's not going

away anytime soon. And the sooner you get started,

the sooner you can have it as a really reliable part of your

marketing kit as well. So that's all for me this week.

If you are thinking of starting a podcast for your web design business,

I would love to hear it. So, so do get in touch. You can

find me at hello@websitesmadesimple.co.uk

you can find me on LinkedIn @hollycchristie.

And yeah, let me know how you're doing until next time. Happy web

designing.