A Blog for Your Podcast can Increase Listenership

A Blog for Your Podcast can Increase Listenership

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Growing Podcast Listenership

Discoverability and growing podcast listenership are top priorities for podcasts and rightfully so. With the growing number of podcasts, how can podcasts stand out or find more listeners (and get more downloads)?

A dedicated website for podcasters is highly recommended and important in the reaching a wider audience.

With a website and a blog you:

  • Increase the chances of people finding your show,
  • Provide your audience with more content outside of the podcast and
  • Are able to promote products, services and more to your listeners.

I recently appeared on episode 13 of Blk Pod Collective: The Podcast where I explain how blogging can be used as a way to increase podcast listenership.

Blk Pod Collective: The Podcast is a podcast for podcasters, that provides insights, resources and instruction to those looking for guidance in starting, growing and sustaining their podcast. Take a listen.

Resources Mentioned in the episode:

Google Analytics – A free tool that gives you insight on your website traffic. Google Analytics allows you to analyze in-depth detail about the visitors that come to your website. This includes the most popular content on your website. This information can be used to help you send trends and create content that can help with increasing podcast listenership.

Google Search Console – Another free tool that can be used to track your site’s search performance within Google. It will also give you alerts if there’s any index issues that Google is having with your site. Google Search Console gives you insight into some of the searches your website ranks high for. Meaning the searches that were used that led visitors/traffic to your website. This is also valuable insight on the type of content that listeners and potential listeners are interested in which can lead to increased podcast awareness and listenership.

Yoast – This is a WordPress plugin that is used to help with Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It operates with SEO best practices and shows you real time the SEO grade of your post.

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Podcast Recording & Editing Checklist

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A checklist is a great way to keep track of things to do whether the task or project is repetitive or a one time thing.

There’s a lot of things that podcasters need to do before, during and after a podcast is recorded. Without a clear list of reminders it’s easy to overlook what seems to be a minor thing – but in the grand scheme of things is a major thing.

Through Carry On Friends, I’ve been podcasting for over 5 years and I still follow a checklist of things to do before pre, during and post record. And I’ve shared with my clients through Breadfruit Media the same checklists

This Podcast Recording and Editing Checklist is a high level overview of things to consider before you start recording your podcast and after you’ve finished recording. With the variety of software and tools available, the list is a more general list and will not go deep into specifics.

The checklist is intended as a starting point for you. and I encourage you to add items specific to your needs as wells as the various tools and software that you use.

Download the checklist

Click to get the Podcast Recording and Editing Checklist and other essential podcast checklists.

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Introducing the Caribbean Podcast Directory

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For the past 3 months we’ve been busy growing the Caribbean Podcast Directory – a hub to discover podcasts created and hosted by people of Caribbean Heritage whether they live in the region or in the Diaspora.

How the Directory began

CPD started out in February 2018 as an article on Carry On Friends called 10 Podcasts Hosted by Caribbean Americans. In May 2018 at the launch of Breadfruit Media the article was updated to  a directory and given its own page. Now over a year later Caribbean Podcast Directory has its own website dedicated to the discovery of Caribbean Podcasts.  

According to the 2019 Podcast Trends Report, the biggest challenges facing podcasts today is Podcast Discovery. This is especially true for small and niche podcasts. Finding shows isn’t always easy as smaller shows are competing with more popular shows and networks with bigger marketing budgets.  As of Oct 10th Apple has over 750k podcasts  with this volume of podcasts, even with good content it’s going to be harder to get noticed or discovered. 

The Customers

The Directory has two customer bases:

  1. The listener and
  2. The podcaster. 

The first and key promise is to the listener – that when the listener goes to the directory, they are finding active and current podcasts to listen to.

In order to fill that promise, the podcaster plays a very important role. Podcasters can submit to the directory for free however they have to meet certain criteria before shows are added. 

The promise to the podcaster to provide a platform where they can be featured as well as resources and opportunities that might get shared with us.

Directory Criteria

The first criteria for submission is at least one host must be of Caribbean Heritage. This means born in a Caribbean country or have parents, grandparents who were  born in the region.

The second criteria requires that the podcast must be active for at least 6 months with a new episode every month for the past 6 months. Why this criteria? Well this criteria is helpful in fulfilling the first and key promise to the listener. A podcast that is not current or inconsistent reflects poorly on the directory and the other podcasts listed in the directory. 

Think about it this way – imagine going to a supermarket and every other item or two you pick up in the store is expired; you would start to question ‘what type of supermarket is this?’ Let’s say you give supermarket another chance and go back on a different day but the same thing happens. You then make a decision not to go back right?

That is why criteria two is important. The submission details outlines how the Directory plans to support podcasters who seem to be podfading. 
Now for new podcasters who are less than 6 months old it doesn’t mean that they can’t be celebrated and supported for being launching a podcast. The submission details also outlines the Directory’s plan that new shows. 

Our Commitment

Breadfruit Media is invested in Caribbean Culture and committed to elevating the stories and voices of the Caribbean one podcast at a time. 
Through the Caribbean Podcast Directory we are focused on transforming the way people discover podcasts hosted by people of Caribbean Heritage.