WordCamp Notes: Podcasting With WordPress - Ray Ortega

The Podcaster Studio

Why WordPress for podcasts?
does everything a podcast needs
starts w/ basic creation all the way up to full blown sites and community
membership site, monetizing

50% of podcasters are using WordPress

affordable, free but cheap/shared hosting in the beginning can work well
better pricing than other CMS options

Portability
can start on WordPress.com or .org
ease of use, no coding knowledge required

30% of the web runs on WordPress

Facebook has massive community of podcasters, easy to get support, a fix, help, etc.

plugins pretty much do everything
need an audio player

podcast SEO and web SEO - they're different

custom URLs

easy customization
custom themes, free and premium
don't have to know coding or be a designer, can get your podcast online quick without knowing too much

When you build your podcast on WordPress —
can create and control your own rss feed
allows you to put in proper tags for google, itunes, etc
podcast seo - how do I get found in spotify, in itunes, etc.

right now you have to go thru a host

tools to get yr podcast found
web seo plugins
separate the podcast feed from the blog feed
this becomes more important as google gets into things

content first platform
WP was built on blogging
podcast is really a blog with a media feature in it
all the info / resources that people wont get thru your podcast, that can all live at your website. don't spend the first 5 minutes of every episode telling people who you are and were to find you, etc. that's what the website is for.

Relationships & Community
fellowship w/ others who share a common (niche) interest

leading a conversation
starting a podcast around a niche topic
sparking a conversation to have with each other

podcasts do niche interest best
work well for people NOT getting served thru mass media platforms

people come for content and STAY for the hosts
they want to learn more about you eventually

most people find podcasts via community
someone told you about it
or you heard about it on another show

when you tell people how to find your podcast
"hey subscribe to us wherever you listen to podcasts"
unspecific
excludes that first time listener
better to also have your own domain name too

go to podcaster studio / "slash subscribe"
that URL is branded for my show
then has all the different ways they might want to listen

Great podcast sites have --
an "about" page
- one of the biggest trafficked pages, people want to know more about the host
important to lead what the podcast is ABOUT. skip long "how i got into podcasts" stuff until later on down the page

a "contact" page
super frustrating when you can't figure out how to get in touch w/ the podcaster
get rid of any "busy noise" on this page so people can just focus on contacting us
add a "how did you find out about the podcast" question so we know where to focus our energy for promo

subscribe and page links
and on there add links to subscribe on apple, android, email, google, etc.
there's a plugin to create all these links

comprehensive show notes
300-ish words so you can start getting into the Google search
outline the main topics of the podcast
maybe breakdown a timecode w/ subjects start if you feel like
Google doesn't index audio
your site lives outside the iTunes directory
embed Youtube, gets you more YouTube exposure too

episode player
some players are better than others
don't shove it at the bottom of the page! put it up top so it's obvious!
"oh i don't listen to them on a web page"
it still let's people scrub and sample a podcast, get a feel for what it is
then they'll click subscribe if they like it
make sure your player is mobile responsive

search
"instant search" WP plugin works well

also an "archive" page w/ just the titles can help

"Feedback" - Disqus plugin to filter out spam
make it EASY for people to give you feedback

forums -- nice but they can be hacked so be careful
or if you don’t want to maintain it, move them to a FB community maybe

"be a guest on my show” link

But first, you actually NEED a podcast

what do you need?
media host - separate form web host
might be a violation of terms of service of your host
if you get popular overnight, it could crash your website
media hosts can be more reliable, can give you stats
you also need that rss feed
if you don't have an rss feed, yo don't have a podcast
that's how people subscribe to the podcast

media hosting
the best companies support wordpress
libsyn
blubrry
     you get full control over the rss. no one can hold your feed hostage
     industry standard stats
     built by podcasters FOR podcasters
     ahead of google usually
     efficient workflow (upload and tag)
     tag - want to have meta data inside each episode so when it's in a mp3 player it will dispaly the critical info htat you want
     podcast rss feed - a media file feed
     blubrry has a wysiwyg editor to build the rss XML file

soundcloud was infamous for not letting you OFF soundcloud, could cause you to lose your audience

easy customization
Studiopress
iceable
elegant themes
wordpress.org/themes

Branding
how do you name your podcast?
look for the domain first
tell a stranger the name and see if they can tell what the podcast is about

email
"media@ podcast name" will help with getting press passes!

having your own website
let's you add your website inside itunes pages
so things inside itunes can link back to YOUR website

future proof
if yr media host shuts down
if you build on wordpress, the rss feed still works you just have to move your media files

if the media host is free, that's a HUGE warning sign
FREE is a super bad business model

SEO Optimization
show notes
     the more you write, the more you tell google about your episodes
     people don’t search in podcast directories
     if they’re searching on line for a topic and you've covered it really well in the show notes, they can get picked up by google

a good theme has built in SEO features

episode titles
make a title for the search engine
people cherry pick episodes - make the first 3 or 4 words important

customize your permalink structure

google's approach to podcasting
they're just scraping the web
having a website is that much more important now w google doing that
google search app on android is displaying podcasts at the TOP
and it includes a player

Monetization
w/ podcasts, it's a totality of all things
donations, woo commerce plugin for selling products
affiliates for blog posts and gear pages
display ads
membership site
patreon

useful plugins for podcasts
Blubrry PowerPress - best way to create rss feeds
Yoast SEO
Gravity Forms
Pretty Links - go to site.com/gear and track whoever goes to that /gear link
Social Warfare - for social links and sharing
Simple Podcast Press, Smart Podcast Player
Memberpress
Patreon WordPress
SpeakPipe
Libsyn Podcasting Plugin
Akismet Anti-Spam
minoOrange 2 Factor Authentication
Wordfence
WordPress Database Backup
WP Super Cache
Google Analyticator