In this digital age, consumers spend a significant amount of their spare time on the internet. As such, it’s fair to say an online presence is integral for business success.
If you have a website, you’re one step closer to unlocking the value of a global audience, but you’re not quite there yet. For your website to consistently have a lot of traffic, it must have content that your target audience finds entertaining, insightful, and useful to their specific needs.
Some of the most effective and popular ways of increasing web traffic include content marketing and SEO, social media advertising, and PPC ads. If you’re like most businesses, a few of these may already be part of your strategy to increase web traffic.
If there’s one theme proven to be true and effective in digital marketing, you cannot solely rely on one or two marketing strategies. For instance, you may have a very effective SEO strategy, only for Google’s ranking formula to change, setting you back a few steps.
For this reason, you should diversify your digital marketing strategy to ensure that you have multiple sources of traffic to your website. One method that’s increasingly becoming an effective method of increasing traffic to your website is podcasting.
How to Drive Website Traffic with Podcasting for your business
Not too sure about podcasting yet? Here’s some data to help you decide.
In the first quarter of 2021, The Infinite Dial research was sponsored by Commercial Radio Australia (CRA), Triton Digital, and Southern Cross Austereo (SCA). Data from the study suggests that podcasting awareness in Australia stands at 91%, which is higher than 78% in the US.
When it comes to weekly and monthly listeners for Australians 12 years or older, the figures are at 26% and 37%, respectively. However, the most important bit of information is that podcast listeners, who enjoy an average of five shows each week, are rising by the day.
So, if you think podcasting may be worth a shot, you couldn’t be more right.
Read on to learn more about what it entails and how to drive website traffic with podcasting.
What Is Podcasting?
Before you find out some strategies you can use to drive website traffic with podcasting, it’s best first to understand what a podcast really is.
In simple terms, a podcast is an audio program just like a radio show. However, podcasts are available to listeners via smartphones and computers on a subscription basis. Podcasting is the process of preparing and distributing podcasts to subscribers’ devices using RSS.
Podcasting was initially a way for individuals to spread their message on particular topics and build a community of people who share the same interests and beliefs. Now it’s a tool for big and small organisations from sectors such as TV, Radio, and even churches to reach their audience.
Some of the main reasons people love podcasts include:
- They can listen to them at their convenience
- Listeners get content on topics that interest them
- Podcasts are easy to access
- They are multi-task friendly
- Come with a sense of community and belonging
How to Start a Podcast
As you begin your journey into podcasting, there are some steps you should take to ensure that it’s a big hit among your audience.
- Find an interesting topic that your target audience will love hearing about and subscribe to
- Create your first podcast
- Create an RSS feed on your website for distribution purposes
- Inform your customers via email
- Create awareness by releasing a press statement for the podcast
- Make it easy for listeners to give feedback and interact with you by creating a feedback mechanism
- Increase accessibility by submitting your podcast to directories
- Make it easy for customers to find your podcast by optimizing your website
- Determine the frequency of releasing podcasts
How to Drive Website Traffic with Podcasting
How to Drive Website Traffic with Podcasting
- Develop a Marketing Strategy for Podcasting
- Give Your Podcast a Personality
- Use the Best Naming and SEO Practices to Increase reach
- Getting Listeners from Podcast to Website
- Use YouTube Clips
As exciting as it may be to become a podcaster, it does not suffice for you to realize a significant increase in web traffic. You have to take a long term and strategic approach to podcasting, for which you should:
1. Develop a Marketing Strategy for Podcasting
For your listeners, podcasts are a platform to access engaging information concerning their interests. As long as you keep consistently providing them with such audio content, they will listen to your podcasts religiously. Over time, you’ll notice the number of subscriptions will increase as your podcasts become popular.
At this level, your audience will recognize your brand as an authority in that topic and become loyal. They’ll become more open to purchasing from you or promoting your brand in whatever. However, all this depends on your ability to consistently deliver content that excites them.
Instead of winging it with each podcast episode, develop a marking plan governing the content you will release and how you promote them. In this regard, you should:
- Have a content strategy for 3-6 months
- Set out daily, weekly, or monthly activities to keep your podcast running and marketing it
- Execute each phase of your marketing plan
- Track the performance of your efforts
You should not be too rigid with the plan during the early stages. Test out different strategies and see what works as you fine-tune your strategy.
2. Give Your Podcast a Personality
Beyond the topics you will be addressing, it is essential that your audience can relate to the podcast. More importantly, it should be unique. To showcase this to your audience, write a short and compelling story explaining the podcast’s purpose.
Tell them what you hope to achieve with the podcast and what to expect from it. Being clear in this regard will help you appeal more to your target audience.
A branding strategy should accompany such efforts. Though it may take you several months, possibly more, to align the podcast with your brand’s persona, it will be worthwhile.
3. Use the Best Naming and SEO Practices to Increase reach
As podcasts increase in number, it’s becoming more and more difficult for listeners to find new and upcoming podcasts. As such, you should name each episode correctly for SEO purposes beyond creating and releasing your podcasts.
Do a keyword search for the topic in question and incorporate it in the name. If you have a dedicated website for your podcast, it will increase organic traffic. Don’t worry if you do not have one, as the keywords will still improve your rankings on podcast directories.
When naming your podcasts, be careful not to use click-bait titles. Even if they attract more listeners for that particular episode, they will damage your reputation if you do not live up to the promise. As a result, subscriptions may reduce.
4. Getting Listeners from Podcast to Website
Once you begin attracting a loyal base of listeners to your podcast, you must find ways to lead them to your website. Some of the steps you can take to achieve this include:
Use Social Media Extracts
Social media is undoubtedly one of the most powerful tools for digital marketing. You can leverage your following on social media to draw attention to your podcasts and back to your site.
Find sharable quotes or extracts from each podcast episode that will attract people to the podcast. Then, share some as regular posts on Facebook or as tweets. To make this simpler, there are tools you can use to create a queue for your social media posts.
As such extracts draw intrigue to your podcast, they will also increase clicks to your website.
Offer a Free Download With Each Episode
People love when they get things at discounts. When it’s free, it becomes irresistible. As such, offering free downloads with podcast episodes is one of the most effective methods you can use to drive website traffic with podcasting.
With each episode, create a free download for the listeners. The download should provide further insight on the topic you discuss in the podcast. If it provides value to them, they will head to your website to download it.
Create Notes for the Podcast Show
Ideally, podcast audiences prefer content in audio format. However, there are those who, or situations when they may, prefer to read rather than listen.
For each episode, publish the notes on your website. You can also create an outline allowing listeners to extract all the podcast details. Although this may increase the amount of work, it will be worthwhile as it will give search engines something to rank your podcast.
5. Use YouTube Clips
As video content continues gaining more popularity, platforms such as YouTube attract millions of viewers daily. Create short clips ranging 3-4 minutes for each podcast and post them on your YouTube channel.
With each clip, provide some enticing details that attract viewers to your podcast. As you create the podcast, think about the sections that may be ideal for such clips. This will make it easier to implement this strategy.
Make the Most Out of Your Website
Creating a podcast can significantly increase traffic to your website. However, for you to capitalize on it, your website must be able to handle the increase and deliver a great customer experience.
Want to get the most from your website? PixelFish is a website design agency in Sydney. Reach out to us today for web design services that will help you convert website visitors to loyal customers.
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Further Reading
5 Reasons to Customise Your Social Media Strategy for Every Channel
How to Use Instagram to Drive Website Traffic for your business
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5 Key Features for Successful Legal Web Design
Top 6 Features of Website Packages for Small Business
8 Top Website Content Tips for your business
What is Podcasting? 7 Ways Podcasting Can Benefit Your Business
How Many Digital Marketing Channels Should Your Business Have?
How to Create Digital Content for Your At-Home Clients
How to Promote Your Website on Facebook and Drive Traffic
17 Unbeatable Website Promotion Strategies
