Looking to relaunch his podcast, my friend and fellow podcaster, Sylvain Grand’Maison, recently asked on the Podcast Artifacts Facebook group what is important to add on a website for a podcast in 2013.
Back in the 2000’s, an RSS feed was vital, buttons to various podcatchers, email subscriptions and of course, an audio player. But are they relevant in today’s world where the website is just one piece to the content consumer’s toolbox?
Sylvain’s question really made me think. The audience of my podcast, Stuttering is Cool, is mostly non-tech so I have always kept and tweaked the podcatchers buttons on my website. And I also offer email notifications (let’s face it, podcasting has never been as easy to access as traditional radio). Then again, I also designed my website to work like a radio. Just press play.
So what kind of advice did other group members give Sylvain? In a nutshell, add the traditional stuff since it’s a best practice to ensure all levels of technological knowledge has been accommodated. Don’t forget accessibility as well!
1. RSS feeds still serve a purpose for apps like Flipboard and Google Currents.
2. Email subscription can be effective if your audience is low-tech. Remember, just because you are a techie, doesn’t mean your entire audience is as well (and you shouldn’t ignore the non-techies). Unless, of course, the topic of your podcast is tech in nature, then you can safely assume some level of knowledge.
And just because you have a website or blog doesn’t mean people will take the initiative and return often. The web is very noisy now and email still seems to be the best way to push messages out.
3. It is good to keep the most popular podcatchers listed so you cover all levels of technological knowledge.
Though to be honest, I need to update mine!
I also suggested using SoundCloud for hosting as I find their audio player quit effective. It simply display the waveform of your audio file. Users know exactly how long your episode is and they can leave comments directly in waveform in relevant areas. I just wish there was an automatic process for posting on WordPress.