Posted on December 07, 2011 by CJ Article Team

After all the work you put in to producing your podcast, the last thing you may feel like doing is spending the time updating a website as well. There are plenty of services that will host your podcast episodes for you that don’t require any web administration on your part at all. Not having a website dedicated, at least in part, to your podcast is a critical mistake. Here are 6 reasons why your podcast needs a website.

· Brand Recognition
· Episode Archive
· Listener Interaction
· Daily Updates
· Humanize Yourself
· Monetization

Brand Recognition

Building a successful podcast is not just about putting out new content. If you want to grow your audience and attract listeners, one of the best things you can do is create, build, and nourish your brand. I spend a lot of time talking about the elements of a brand in this article. The website for your podcast is your opportunity to pull the listener away from iTunes or Libsyn for a moment and introduce them to your brand. Who you are, what your podcast is about and all kinds of other elements that just don’t translate into the podcast medium. Building brand loyalty among your listeners keeps them coming back for each new episode and will give you a strong foundation in the even you ever, start a second or third podcast, or get into some other type of online venture.

Episode Archive

Over time you will accumulate a large library of podcast episodes. For one reason or another you may find that you don’t want iTunes to list all 150 of your podcast episodes in the directory. However, every day there are going to be people finding your podcast for the first time and if they enjoy your podcast they are going to want to be able to go back to the beginning and listen to everything they have missed. Having a website allows you to have a central location where every single podcast episode you have produced can be easily found by a new listener.

It will also give them the opportunity to explore all of the other content that you have on the website that they may not have otherwise been exposed to if the only interaction they have with your podcast is through iTunes.

Listener Interaction

The website is another way for you to interact with your listeners. While some members of your audience may not feel like leaving a voicemail or sending you an email directly, they might be willing to leave a comment on a post the find on the website. The comments portion of your website is another great way for you to connect with and interact with your podcast audience. It is also a great way to remind all of your listeners, outside of the podcast, about all of the different ways they can contact you: email, voicemail, etc.

Daily Updates

Sometimes there will be news or events related to either your podcast topic or the podcast itself that is time sensitive. It may be that by the time your new podcast episode is released the information will no longer be applicable or you may have missed a deadline. The website is a great resource for immediate interaction with your audience to let them know what is happening now.

In addition, there may be some things happening in your niche that may not be applicable to your podcast topic but is something that you know your listeners will be interested in. A quick post on the website to let them know what is going on is a great add-on value to your podcast.

One word of caution about this utilization of your website. The same rules for your podcast hold true with the website. If it is not good quality content that provides something of benefit to your user then it doesn’t go on the website. If people who frequent your website find it increasingly full of garbage then they will stop visiting the site. Always be sure to make your website posts interesting with your own added value to keep them coming back for more.

Humanize Yourself

Depending on the nature of your podcast or your podcast topic, you may find it hard to just be yourself sometimes. It may not fit your podcast to be silly or sarcastic during the course of the episode. The website is a great chance to humanize the podcast host for the listeners. Step out from behind the microphone and be a person, not a podcast host.

Give your audience a brief update on how you are doing personally that week. If you are having a hard time getting motivated to put out a new episode, tell them, better yet tell them why. If you saw something that made you think of an email you got from a listener or something you said in a previous episode, bring that up to.

You might even use the website to give the listeners more insight into who you are personally that they might never get to see in the course of the podcast. Connecting with our audience on a human level will give them that much more appreciation for you when you get back behind the microphone as the podcast host.

Monetization

For many of you monetization may be one of the biggest reasons for having a website related to your podcast. Whether you use Google AdSense, Affiliate programs, or sell your own products on the website; in order to make money podcasting there is really no way around having your own website.

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