Ep 53: Keeping Your Podcast Fresh and Why It's Important
How often do you actually look at your podcast description, cover art, categories and more? It might be time for a Podcast Refresh!
In this episode, I’m sharing why it’s important to keep your podcast fresh and how making updates can impact and improve your podcast. I share how it’s natural to grow and evolve and you can change anything at any time! Be sure to listen through the end for how you can do you own audit and how to sign up for the Wild Home Podcasting Podcast Refresh service.
What’s in this Episode
Why it’s important to keep it fresh
What you can update today
How to do your own Podcast Audit
All about our Podcast Refresh service
Links:
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Have a current podcast that needs a refresh or a second set of eyes to help you take it to the next level?
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If we just kind of set it and forget it and are publishing episodes without thinking about what somebody who is searching for a podcast on knitting may see when they come to your podcast. Right. If you had a knitting podcast, I don't know. Knitting was the first thing that came to my mind, but that's what came to my mind. What is it that they're going to see when they find your podcast? Are they going to want to click on it? Are they going to want to listen to it just based on what they've seen, what they read in the description?
Welcome to the Wild Home Podcast, where we talk about podcasting life and all the wild in between. Join me, Caroline, every week I share a peek into the world of podcasting and my wild life as well. Ready? Let's get into it.
Hello and welcome back to the Wild Home Podcast, this is the fifth time I've recorded this episode, and I'm hoping that this is the last time that I have to do this. I'm just having all kinds of technical issues today, and I'm having a really hard time figuring out my microphone in my new office. It just I'm getting a lot of feedback and background noise in here, which is not exciting. I really think for me the issue is that I need a different microphone and I need to get that ordered. So I just wanted to share that because I know that a lot of us are at home, podcasters, we're podcasting in our home offices and they aren't necessarily like a soundproof sound booth, professional-grade stuff, which is totally fine. But it does take a little bit of trial and error sometimes. And so anyways, that's where I'm at trialing and airing today.
So today I wanted to talk about something that we've been kind of noticing. The Wild Home Podcasting team has kind of been noticing this. We've been having a lot of conversations about this kind of thing that we're noticing, and that is the lack of keeping your podcast fresh. And so I'm going to talk about what keeping it fresh means for me and for our team, kind of what we think about that and also how you can keep it fresh and why you should.
So I wanted to dive into this today because I know that a lot of us launch our podcasts and we get twenty-five fifty episodes in, maybe we get a hundred episodes and maybe we get two hundred episodes in and we don't really ever look back at the original stuff that we posted. And when I say stuff I'm talking about like cover art description, the categories that your podcast is in, all of those good things. When I'm working with launch clients, a lot of times, you know, they'll kind of get to this point where they get hung up on the fact that, you know, can I make changes down the road if something happens, if I change, if my business changes all those things. And of course, they always say yes. And part of this is because I think when you're in the launch process, if you get hung up on perfectionism and having everything exactly the way it needs to be, it won't get launched. And so, you know, I really encourage people like we want to start somewhere for sure. But I know that you can change it and you may need to change it, because here's the deal. You are going to evolve as a person, as a business owner, as a podcast, or there's no way around it. You're going to change how you feel about certain things. You're going to grow. You're going to be more confident in your voice and your ability to share your message on your podcast. All of these things are going to change and grow with you as you go through your podcasting and your business journey. Right. And so the cover art that you use a year ago may not be reflective of who you are today. Your description may not be reflective of who you are today. Heck, your intro and outro may not fully be in alignment with your business and what you need those things to do for you.
So I think I posted on Instagram last week a little weekly motivation that was about like just checking over your description, like start there, because a lot of times people put their descriptions up and they never get updated. And if you were in the room with me, you would know that I'm raising my hand and pointing to myself because I am totally guilty of this. I realized as I was putting together this new service that Wild Home Podcast is offering, I was like, man, I need the service for myself because my podcast needs to refresh.
My podcast needs an app leveling of sorts, because I started it when I rebranded my business from Caroline Creates, which was the name that I had actually been using for my stationery business. And then it became Caroline Creates podcasts. And when I changed it to Wild Home Podcast, I changed the podcast as well and rebrand it. But you know, we have really changed and evolve as a company. Wild Home Podcasting used to be me and like one other person and it's not anymore. It's me and an amazing team of really talented people. And I'm not necessarily in the weeds every day, you know what I mean? And so my perspectives and viewpoints and things like that have really changed. I think we've grown up a little bit, you know what I mean? And so when I look at my branding, I love my logo, I love my colors and everything like that. But the fonts to me aren't quite as grown up as they probably need to be anymore. And so it's little things like that. This is just an example that I'm giving you. I'm sharing some insight into what I've been thinking about. These are just little things that may need to change and grow and evolve with your podcast in your business.
And here's the thing, too, if you are not updating these things, they may not be working for you, so, you know, when I first started podcasting years ago, there was nothing that was crawling like your description or anything like that. You know, it wasn't like it didn't need to be friendly. And that's really changed. And so having a description that has key words and phrases and things that people may search for when they're looking for your podcasts is really important. The other thing I want that description to do is convey to people why they need to listen. And I don't necessarily think my description as it stands, I'm literally going to get off this recording and go update it. I don't know that my description, as it stands, necessarily describes exactly what is happening on this podcast or what I want people to get out of it. Right. It may not be speaking to my ideal listener, to my ideal client. My cover art may not appeal to my ideal listener, my ideal client. I don't know that it appeals to me very much anymore. So these are just in starting places and some reasonings behind keeping it fresh. We want to make sure I've talked about this a million times and our podcast is working for our businesses. And if we just kind of set it and forget it and are publishing episodes without thinking about what somebody who is searching for a podcast on knitting may see when they come to your podcast. Right. If you have a knitting podcast, I don't know. Knitting was the first thing that came to my mind, but that's what came to my mind. What is it that they're going to see when they find your podcasts? Are they going to want to click on it? Are they going to want to listen to it just based on what they've seen, what they read in the description? What about your trailer? How are people going to feel when they listen to your trailer? Are they going to be enticed to listen for more? Or does your trailer not necessarily reflect what you talk about in the podcast anymore? All of these things are really, really important. And when you do kind of make shifts in your business and in your content, it's important that these things get updated as well because it's going to shift. Who listens to your podcast? So if your description says one thing, but your episode say another, they're not working together to find new listeners. Right.
So this is why I wanted to talk about keeping it fresh and why it is important to keep it fresh and not forget about these things. And so let's talk about how you can do a self audit. So let's say you're listening to this and you're like, oh, I think I need to kind of look at things. What do I need to look at? And I'm going to give you kind of a few things that I think are really important to take a look at. Obviously, like I've just been talking about cover art and description for ever. So those are like the two places I would definitely start, you know. When was the last time you updated your cover art? When was the last time you updated your description? When was the last time you updated the picture of yourself on your cover, or do you still look like that? I need to update mine really bad people. I need pictures done really bad. My hair isn't even that blond anymore, but that's really just the pandemic's fault and nobody else's. So let's just place blame where it should be, you know?
So start there. Start at your description, start at your cover. Art, think about is this appealing to my ideal listener when they come to my podcast, are they going to see and read what they need to see and read to want to listen to more? The second thing I want you to look at is your categories. When you first set up your podcast, you may have chosen some categories that you thought really fit your podcast or where your ideal listener may be. Steve, that is still the case. What comes up when you search for your podcast or search for a topic that is similar? The other thing to keep in mind, and this is something that I like to do periodically, is just look at the categories because they are changing a lot. It feels like every other month there's some updates being made on whatever app and the categories are being shifted and changed. In fact, I logged into Libsyn the other day and noticed that I can now only choose two categories in the classic Libsyn.
And so there's just always something changing and evolving. The podcasting world is new, it's growing. So there's just always some adjusting that needs to be made. And I think categories are a really great place to start. The other thing about categories, too, is it's good to evaluate if you're in the right category anyways, even if you're not worried about keeping things fresh, you're just kind of looking at growth. I always like to kind of revisit and make sure that the categories are working for me. So description and cover our categories. And then I want you to think about your intro outro and your trailer. Are those working for you? Do they accurately describe your podcast? The trailer should be kind of a preview of your podcast episodes, and it can be a really short one, but it needs to be a really good preview. Is it a good trailer for you right now? Does your music still feel right? You know, the music needs to fit as well. Does it still make sense, the music that you're using for your intro, is it short, sweet and to the point? Or is it super long and gives a whole bunch of keets, which probably isn't necessary, and then in your outro, if you're recording an outro with every episode, that's one thing. If you have an intro that you're using over and over and over again, does it have a strong CTA? Does it tell people what they're supposed to do after they listen to your podcast? Is it clear? Is it short again? Does the music make sense? These are fun things to look at. Right. And those are things that you can refresh and no big deal. You don't have to go back and change all of your episodes. You can just change those moving forward. Right. So this is where I would start. If you're thinking about doing a self audit of your podcast, this is the first place I would start.
OK, so we've just kind of talked about structural things and like visibility, things like when people come to your podcast, the other thing you really want to look at is, am I in all the places? Is my podcast showing up where it needs to be? Is it showing up correctly? Now, this can get dicey because, you know, sitting down and searching on every platform known to man looking for your podcast is not the most fun in the world. But are you on all the major players? Are you showing correctly, showing up correctly? Is your information being displayed correctly? Right. And so that's another really important piece of this audit process, because, again, you will submit to Apple, and will forget about it. And then while you were forgetting about it, Spotify became huge. And so you need to make sure you're on Spotify. Do Android users have proper access to your show as well? So make sure that you're on apps and places where they need to be. And so this is something that you can do and doesn't take a lot of time. And you can make these updates really easy in your RSS feed host.
And I highly recommend doing this periodically, going in and taking a look, making sure that everything is up to date, you know how it should be, making sure that your activities are all in alignment and correct. That's really important. Right, because we want to make sure that we're sending people to the right place. So I want to take this just a little bit a step further and think about what if we're kind of approaching this as a moment of growth and up leveling for our podcast. So now it's not just about refreshing the podcast for the sake of staying fresh and making sure that it's showing up all for people and that kind of thing. But we also want to use this as an opportunity to grow our podcast into app level, a few things that can help facilitate that growth. And this is where getting some help may be necessary, because sometimes you need another set of eyes on things, another set of ears in the podcasting world. We need another set of ears on things. And there are some other things that you can look at as well, like what are your long term goals for your podcast? And is what you're doing right now going to help you reach those goals? Are you using proper episode structures for your business? Are you growing in the right direction? Can you look back at old episodes and see what has done well for you, what maybe you need to improve upon, right. So you can really kind of dove in and even go deeper as you do this kind of audit and see where there are opportunities for improvement to facilitate growth. And this is something that we have started doing at Wild Home Podcasting a couple years ago. And it's one thing that I kind of realized that we were doing inadvertently. Right. Just helping our clients kind of make decisions moving forward about their podcast. And I really wanted to kind of put this all together into one thing. So that way, podcasters who are established and already have a podcast and are wanting to go through this process can get some support. And so we now have a Refresh package that is all about this. This is exactly what we do. We do an audit. We're going to update everything. We're going to create a plan for strategy and growth and just make sure that you're doing all the things that you need to be doing to grow your podcast, but also make sure that it's working for your business. And so, again, you can totally do a lot of these things on your own by doing a podcast audit yourself like I've talked about. And just really, you know, having a critical eye and a critical ear and thinking about the ways that you can facilitate improvement and growth for yourself and your podcasts.
And if you decide that you need a little bit of help with this, you can head to wildhomepodcasting.com/services. You can scroll down and you will see the podcast refresh there. And I'm really excited about this. I think this is just as the podcast industry is changing, growing and evolving. We also have to do that. Right. And we are doing it because we're business owners. We're constantly working on growth and improvement. And so I wanted this to be something that you could do for yourself today. And so literally, like after this episode is over, I want you to go to your RSS hosts, look at everything, see if anything needs to be updated right now. What can you freshen up? This minute that can help you, that can move forward, and then, of course, if you want to take an even deeper dove, our team would love to help you with that. I hope you have a wonderful day. If you are on Instagram, please come help me up with any kind of topics that you would like me to cover on this podcast. I want to make sure that I am meeting you where you are at and helping you with the things that you need help with right now. So you can go follow me at Wild Home Podcast and send me a let me know which you would love to hear. I am super excited that when this episode comes out, it is almost the weekend. So I hope that you have a wonderful weekend and I will be back next week with a new episode. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. To stay in the know, head to wildhomepodcasting.com. And be sure to connect with me on Instagram at @wildhomepodcasting in the next week.
