The latest podcast statistics will blow your mind.
As of this year, there are 700,000 active podcasts and 29 million episodes to listen to online. Oh, and over half of the people in the United States have listened to at least one of them.
Clearly, podcasts are an incredibly popular form of media.
Which is good news for all budding podcasters out there, right? Well, yes and no.
Yes, because there are millions of potential listeners out there just waiting for the next awesome content to come out. No, because there are thousands of new podcasts coming out each week, all vying for the same pair of ears.
As a result, it can be difficult to get the number of listeners that your podcast deserves. Thankfully, it isn’t impossible. Go about it the right way and you can easily boost your podcast viewership without paying for it. Intrigued?
Keep reading to find out how it’s done!
6 Free Ways to Increase Your Podcast Viewership
It can be hard to attract new listeners to your podcast. But it definitely isn’t impossible. Here are 6 ways to do it without spending any money.
1. Create Awesome Content
Content is king.
This famous marketing slogan should be central to all of your podcasting efforts. Simply, you need your content to be the best it can possibly be. Nail the content, and the rest will follow.
You might read that and think ‘my content is already awesome’. And it may well be! But everything can be made better. Stop to think about how you can improve yours. It usually comes down to providing value.
The best content in the world, no matter what form it takes, provides immense value to a target audience.
Take inspiration from the biggest podcasts on the web. How do they improve the lives of their audience? Are they informative? Do they have great guests? Are they funny? Do they tell a story? Try and emulate their example.
Improving your content will provide the solid foundation your podcast needs to succeed.
2. Understand Your Audience
Great content goes hand in hand with understanding your audience.
You provide the content that a certain type of person wants to listen to. However, it can feel like a catch-22. How can you understand your audience when you don’t have one!?
This is where your imagination comes into play. When creating a concept for a podcast you should create a mental image of who you’re recording it for.
Go into as much detail as possible! Conceptualize their age, where they come from, what their interests are, how they make a living, and even what they look like.
Having this understanding of who your audience is will help you create the perfect content for them.
3. Collaborate
Think about business. Networking and relationships are key to success.
They’re primary ways to spread the message about a product or service and increase sales as a result. Try to take the same approach with your podcast!
Collaborations are an awesome way to do it. Reach out to successful podcasters in your niche and see if they’d be open to some form of collaboration. Do you have some unique skill or insight that might benefit their audience? Offer to be a guest on their show, or see if they’d be willing to come onto yours.
It takes time to earn opportunities like this and you can expect many people to decline (especially if you’re brand new to the scene). However, persevere and both approaches can help bring your show to a wider audience.
4. Get to Grips with SEO
Don’t know what search engine optimization (SEO) is?
Then start by learning all about it. SEO can make or break the success of any online content creator. Optimizing for SEO can bring thousands of new listeners to your show. Check it out: businesses are set to spend $80 billion on their SEO by 2020. That’s how important it is!
In simple terms, SEO is a process of optimizing your content so that it ranks higher in a Google search.
Think about the hundreds of millions of searches that happen every day. If your podcast can rank in the top spot on Google, then you stand to gain a proportion of new listeners! Likewise, SEO can help you rank in iTunes and other podcast directories.
Here are some podcast SEO tips to get you started.
5. Leverage Different Platforms
You need to leverage every opportunity possible to grow your listeners.
Go to the platforms where they hang out!
YouTube can help.
Now, there’s a whole science to being successful on there. After all, millions of videos are produced and uploaded to it every week. However, get it right and you open the door to a whole new audience you never had before.
You could consider doing the same on Facebook. This social media platform has started prioritizing video in recent years. By uploading your video to a Facebook page you have the chance to show up in people’s feeds, accessing new listeners.
6. Start a Blog
Podcasts can feel like a lot of work.
After all, there’s the planning, creation, editing, and publishing to sort out for every episode. The thought of taking on more work can be daunting.
But blog content can provide a major boost to your viewership. You probably already have a website for your podcast. Think about starting a blog to go alongside it.
Remember what we said about SEO? Well, creating optimized SEO articles that show up in search will bring people to your website. Once there, your valuable articles can showcase your podcast.
You turn readers into listeners. It can be worth the extra effort. And if you can afford it, don’t be afraid to outsource some of this work, as it can be overwhelming. There are many affordable options out there if you’re looking for help in SEO, blog writing, website creation, etc. Start with poking around a site like Fiverr.com for inspiration.
Time to Wrap Up
There you have it: 6 ways to boost your podcast viewership without spending a dime.
Podcasts are now an incredibly popular form of media. The internet is awash with millions of episodes for people to choose from. That popularity can mean a massive audience is just around the corner. But the competition can make it hard for a new podcast to stand out and attract the listeners it deserves.
However, with the right approach, it’s far from impossible. Hopefully, the tips above have given you some ideas on how to make it happen.
Did you enjoy this piece? Love podcast and looking for a new one to sink your teeth into? Click here to check out The Podcast of No Return.
