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How to start a podcast in 2021: A step-by-step tutorial for beginner
The podcast industry is flourishing and holding a position in trends.
Nowadays podcast is less competitive than any other digital field.
A study showed that as of the first quarter of 2021, over 600 millions are dominating just only 1.75 millions podcasts.
So, as you can see there is a huge potential of being successful in the podcasting field.
In this article, I’ll walk you through a step by step guide to launch your first podcast. There are so many podcast streaming platforms available some of those are:
Apple Podcast
Spotify
Google Podcast
1. Planning
You should have a solid plan and deep idea about a topic you are going to choose for your podcast. Your ability to cover almost every corner about a topic will help you to stand up in-crowd.
Basically, Your podcast will be the reflection of your strategy and imagination power to execute a plan.
You have planned beforehand what can you cover up and how much value you can provide to the listener to engage them.
Choose a topic
Your niche/topic will help you to grow or scale your audience. Also, there are different types of monetization options available for different types of topics.
There are multiple ways you can choose your topic for a podcast:
Find your expertise on a topic
The topic on which You can gather more knowledge and pass to the audience.
Different types of monetization option on your topic
Remember this is the main theme of your podcast so you should give more time to choose which topic best suits you.
💡 TIPS ON TOPIC CHOOSING: You can try multiple topics and analyze which topic is suiting for you and go forward with this topic.
Choose a format for Podcast
Choosing a format for your podcast is like diving deeper into your chosen topic. So, what types of formats available in a podcast?
1. Solo Podcast:
Solo means you are speaking or hosting your podcast alone. It is also known as Monologue.
Benefits: 👎
You don’t need anyone else to join you.
You don’t need to share your profit.
You don’t need to think about whether another person has an interest in the same field as yours.
Drawbacks: 👎
You have to talk to yourself or on the camera only.
You have to take care of everything alone from recording to editing.
2. Co-hosted Podcast:
In this format, two hosts take participate in a conversation. It can be any friend or colleague.
Benefits: 👍
You will get to know about the co-host’s journey and experience.
You have someone beside you to tell what should tell and what not.
Your work-load was reduced.
Drawbacks: 👎
Your income and shares will be divided into a 1:1 ratio.
If the co-host becomes unavailable or loses interest in the topic, then it will create an extra work-load for you.
3. Interview Podcast:
Taking an interview with someone else who can provide value to your audience.
Benefits: 👍
Provide you and your audience more value and real-life experience.
Guest have their audiences who may join in your podcast and finish up Subscribing to you.
Drawbacks: 👎
Interviewing someone requires professional skills.
Approaching someone to join with you is challenging.
There are also other podcast formats available like:
Story-telling podcast
Documentary
Stand up Comedy
How to Name your podcast:
Your podcast name should maintain the following convention:
EASY TO REMEMBER: You should name your podcast in this way that the audience can easily remember it.
EASY TO PRONOUNTIATE:
You are gonna use your show name again and again on your podcast, so you have to make it in this way it becomes easy for someone to say.
SIMPLIFICATION:
“Simplification is the key to success” You don’t need to take a complex name combination for your show, just keep it simple and maintain consistency.
CONSIDER RELEVANT KEYWORD:
Add some meaningful keywords as your podcast name that express your theme and create positiveness. Like if some name his/her show as “Ayusman Bieb Show”, that does not convey any meaningful message to listeners but if you use “Meditate with ayusman Bieb” or “crawling Web: The ayusman Bieb show” then it describes a bit about the theme of your podcast.
How to Describe your Podcast:
Adding a description helps your podcast to grow multiply. Recent research has shown that adding a meaningful description can help your podcast to rank in podcast platforms as well as helps in SEO.
You should not spam unnecessarily in the description. you have to describe your podcast briefly and grab user attention to let them subscribe to you before leaving.
2. Optimization:
After finding a name and topic you have to focus on how to optimize your Podcast to drive more Audience and letting them subscribe to you. Here are some tips on optimizing your Podcast.
What should be the average length of your podcast?
The length of your episodes varies from topic to topic. Try to cover all the things perfectly within your podcast. You know your audience very well, so you know what length of the content they will prefer to consume the most.
Sometimes 10 minutes contents also get popularity and also sometimes audience love listen to multiple hours podcast.
Research showed that the podcasts with an average length of 30-45 minutes performs well comparing other lengths.
Don’t chop down the main and meaningful parts from the show to reduce the length. If your show runs for say 2 hours then you can cut the video into 2 episodes. Serve what your audience love to consume.
What should be the Episode name format?
Again it is one of the most rank factors. You shouldn’t add a complex name to your episode, it should contain some relevant keyword that helps to rank in Google SERPs as well as in podcast platforms.
As an example, you can name your episode “Episode 2: The podcast Revolution”. It shows the episode number as well as contains some meaningful keyword that improves in SEO.
You can also make seasonal content. Like you can divide episode into Seasons.
Example, “Season 3, Episode 2: The podcast revolution”.
How often should you upload a new Episode?
The frequency of uploading a new Podcast Episode depends upon the topic you have chosen and the audience. You and your audience know whether your podcast should be uploaded daily or weekly or bi-weekly or monthly.
You can also check the analytics then decide how often you should publish a new show. Ensure that your audience should forget you, you should be in their mind.
Rather you should focus on consistency, because if you fail to provide the new episode within the promised period then you may lose new subscribers or listeners.
Schedule every upload time while recording the new podcast, then serve within the promised time, it will impress your audience most rather than frequent updates.
Add a channel art to your Channel:
A channel art(also named as the cover art) leaves a good impression and also indirectly describes Your Podcast.
While making cover art keep this in mind:
Don’t use too many fonts. Maximum 2 fonts are the best variation.
Don’t make a complex image.
Don’t add too much text in art.
Use few texts that describe your podcast.
When you will grow your podcast will become a brand and this art will be your logo. You can make logos from these websites:
You will be need of few gears and software to record, edit and finally publish your Episode online. These are some essential tools you are going to use:
Microphones to record your podcast:
Recording your voice properly is the greatest fact for your overall show. You have to record your voice in this that it is not breaking or making noise in between your important point that interrupts the interest of listening.
That’s why a good microphone comes into place. Majorly everyone uses two types of microphone:
USB Microphone: These microphones are very est to set-up and require less hassle. You can try Neewer USB Microphone to record your voice at an affordable price.
XLR Microphone: This kind of microphone sends a balanced signal that reduces the noise and produces a great sound combination. You can go for Road NT Microphone.
There are many great Microphones available in both lower and higher price range. You can check out these 5 best microphones for your podcast.
💡 TIPS: Place your microphone in an angular position so that while talking air from your mouth does not directly hit the microphone.
How to edit a podcast after recording?
At the initial stage, You will make many mistakes or talk about something irrelevant while recording. That’s why editing comes into place to give the final touch to your podcast.
There are many free and premium software available to edit your voice:
Audacity: It’s a free and open-source audio editing platform that provides a bunch of features while editing your voice. It is a cross-platform software that means you can use both windows, Linux, and mac.
Adobe Audition: it’s a digital workstation for your voice editing offered by Adobe. Its drawback is that it does not come with a free version. You have to subscribe to get access to its pro-level features.
Alitu- the podcast maker: Alitu is a web-based audio editing platform specially made for the podcast that reduces the editing time by automating the conversion and cleaning up your audio files.
you don’t need a professional degree in audio editing to use this platform.
Some of the great features of Alitu:
Automate clean-up and noise reduction
Add intro and outro to your podcast
Add audio fading and transitions
Direct publish to podcast hosting
This software comes with a monthly plan of $28 and a yearly plan of $280. All plans provide a 7 days free trial.
Add intro and outro to your show:
Adding intro and outro is the best option to provide a quick signal to your audience’s subconscious mind. If you have a meditation podcast I recommend you add a cool intro to keep listeners calm.
To find different kinds of music you can check these out:
Transistor: simple UI that supports private podcast features.
Anchor: anchor by Spotify is a free podcast hosting solution that comes as a mobile app. It distributes your podcast automatically to all podcast platforms(eg. Spotify, apple podcast, google podcast, etc.)
Instead of all these, you still can be stuck in problems or facing challenges while creating your podcast.
BUT FEAR NOT GUYS.
I have pointed out few more tips that not only help you to smooth your uploading process but also helps your podcast to rank among the crowd.
5. Pro-tips(recommanded):
You have gathered so much informations till now. Now it's the time absorb some professional tips that will provide a quick boost.
Create a website for your podcast:
Creating a website is probably the best option to get more traffic to your podcast. You can embed a podcast into the website where users can browse and list some of your podcasts and if they like then they can dive deeper into the feed.
You can make a website using WordPress and as a beginner Bluehost will be the best hosting for your website.
Upload Transcript:
Your audience might be from a different country and speaks different languages. Enabling transcript is a solution for them to understand what you are speaking exactly.
The transcript also helps search engines to read your episode that leads to the ranking factor.
Buzzsprout comes with a built-in transcript feature but there are many third party transcript services like Scribie
Make a short Script:
In the initial stage, you may not be able to speak fluently as a pro. But if you make a short script about what are you gonna tell in your episode that can reduce your editing work-load.
It will be smoother to speak flawlessly without getting much error. If you are interviewing someone in your show then you should plan out what questions are you going to ask beforehand.
6. Wrapping- Up everything:
So, now you have an understanding of what you need before stepping into the podcast industry. Once again I’m summarizing every point you should keep in mind while releasing your first podcast.
Points should be remembered:
Choose a topic/niche for your podcast.
Figure out what type of podcast you are going to start(eg. Single, Co-host, Interview, Documentary, etc.)
Choose a relevant name that is easy to remember.
Describe your podcast briefly in few sentences.
Keep uploading consistently.
Add intro-outro and enable transcript
Edit your content before publishing.
So, start uploading your podcast from today onward and Comment below your podcast name I’ll love to subscribe to your podcast.
If you are facing any kind of difficulties reach me over the comment section. Your satisfaction is my priority.
Thank you very much 🙏 for putting your time into my article.
Have a great journey ahead…and happy podcasting 🎤.
