The order that gets people listening
The new episode first, because most of your traffic comes the week you publish. The apps immediately after, so nobody has to think. Then the archive and the clips, for people who have just discovered you. The guest form, the sponsor kit and the newsletter sit at the bottom on purpose: they matter to you, not to the person who came to listen.
- The new episode
- Spotify, Apple, YouTube
- All episodes
- Clips
- Guests, sponsors, newsletter
Spotify for Creators, RSS and the smart links you may already use
Whatever hosts your feed — Spotify for Creators, Buzzsprout, Transistor, Acast, Captivate — this page sits in front of it, not instead of it. Point the three app buttons at your show pages, and the episode button at the episode itself rather than the show, so the person lands on play instead of on a list. If you already use Pod.link, Linkfire or your host's own smart link, one of the buttons can point there. Put the same page in the bio of every account, and in the show notes, so you only ever have one address to change. Clicks per link show you which app your audience is really on, which is worth knowing before you spend money advertising on one of them.
What to write in a podcast bio
Say the subject, the rhythm and the length: "Long conversations about work. Every Thursday, 45 minutes." People decide whether a podcast fits their commute before they decide whether they like the host, and a show that publishes on a fixed day is easier to adopt as a habit.
Leave the awards and the download numbers to the sponsor kit. In the bio they read as a claim; in the media kit they read as evidence.
Turning listeners into a habit
The newsletter matters more for podcasts than for almost anything else, because listening apps don't tell your audience when you publish — they tell people who already subscribed. An email on the morning the episode drops recovers the listeners the algorithm forgot.
Ask for the follow in the episode, not on the page. "Follow in the app you're using right now" spoken at minute two does more than any button, and the page's job is to catch the people who heard you somewhere else.
What to avoid
A page that still shows episode 12 when you're on 42. A stale top block tells a visitor the show may have stopped, which is the one thing you can't afford them to think.
Sending everyone to a single platform. It costs you the listeners whose app you didn't choose, and it makes your numbers look worse on the platform you did choose, because the traffic never arrives anywhere else.