Website Optimization for Podcasters: Expert Advice from Mark Des Cotes

Dave Jackson
00:00:00.240 - 00:00:10.408
Today on the show, we're picking the brain of the man behind podcast Branding Co. And podpage has a way to grow your newsletter even faster.

AI Amanda the Announcer
00:00:10.584 - 00:00:43.480
Welcome to Podcast Website Tips, the ultimate guide for podcasters who want to level up their online presence with no coding required. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just getting started, this show gives you practical, actionable advice to build and optimize your podcast website.

We cover everything from design and content to SEO and monetization. Get ready to attract more listeners and take your website from good to great. Here's your host, Dave Jackson.

Dave Jackson
00:00:44.380 - 00:01:48.650
Hey, I'm Dave Jackson, head of podcasting here at PodPage. Today we're picking the brain of the one and only Mark decote. Who's Mark decote?

Well, he's the man behind podcastbranding Co and the Resourceful Designer Podcast. And he's an award winning graphic and web designer, over 35 years in the design field. I love the fact that he's a podcaster.

He's been doing that since 2013. Worked with over 450 podcasters and designed over 500 pieces of podcast covers, artwork. And I always kind of joke with Mark.

The beautiful thing is he's Canadian, so, you know, he's polite. And as I was talking with Mark, I really wanted to kind of get into the things we should be thinking about when we design our website.

And so when I was talking with Mark, one of the first things you have to figure out is kind of what you're trying to do with your website.

Mark Des Cotes
00:01:48.770 - 00:03:01.392
And this goes not just for podcasting, but any website. People say, like, I want a lot of people to come to my website, but that's never the right answer.

The right answer is you want the right people to come to your website and you have to build it properly. You have to build it with SEO in mind, search engine optimization, in order to attract the right people.

And when it's podcasters, you know, you're putting out a message.

Whatever your podcast is about, you have to have the message on your website that Google and Bing and the other search engines and just people that land there will realize, you know, I'm in the right place. And some people fail at that. Some people, you know, they tend to make a website that's about them.

And your website should be about your visitor and attract your visitor. Even if it's a podcast, you want people to land on your website and right away say, like, what's in it for me? You know, why should I be here?

Why should I care? And if that message. So I Could build a very pretty website. But it's the message that you put on it, and I help with that as well for people.

But that message is all important, almost more important than the website. But then we also get into the whole branding and the look of the website, and all of that plays into a part of all of this.

Dave Jackson
00:03:01.496 - 00:03:05.536
And speaking of the look and feel of this, let's talk about colors.

Mark Des Cotes
00:03:05.648 - 00:04:11.482
Well, colors play a big part. Colors will create a mood. Colors will also help with hierarchy. So we create a color palette.

So if somebody comes to me with a logo, first of all, I'll look at the logo. And if the logo is. The one thing I hate doing is designing a really nice website that has a crappy logo on it.

So if they come to me with a logo, I may offer to redesign a logo or see if they want to do that. But sometimes they don't, and they have a logo.

So I'll look at those colors, and if they don't already have, a lot of people that have a logo also have what's called a style guide or at least an idea. So they may have the colors that they use regularly. I will incorporate those into the website, obviously.

But if they don't, I'll use those colors, and then I'll find other colors. Because I like to build a website with four to five different colors, and that's it.

I'll have two primary colors, and then the other three are complementary, or I save one color. That's only for the call to action. That's the only thing that that color is used for on the entire website.

And you may have buttons all over the place, but whichever one is the most important is going to have a different color on the websites I built. So.

Dave Jackson
00:04:11.586 - 00:04:15.898
And since Mark brought up bad logos, let's talk about those.

Mark Des Cotes
00:04:16.034 - 00:05:05.388
Yeah, so sometimes, you know, you can tell somebody did it themselves or they were proud of it. You know, they're very proud of something they created or somebody that they know created. But there are visual elements that a designer will look.

Look at. You know, the hierarchy, Is it readable? Do the. You know, the proportions, are they right?

Like, sometimes somebody will have, you know, just wording with some sort of icon to go with it.

Well, sometimes, you know, the icon's way too big for the wording or the, you know, some of the wording is, you know, too small or the positioning, the icon's too close to the words. You know, there's not enough breathing room. So there's all sorts of things that, you know, my designer's Eye will look at.

And sometimes I've tweaked a logo. Like somebody will give me something and I'll ask them permission to make minor adjustments to it to improve it. And I've done that.

Dave Jackson
00:05:05.524 - 00:05:21.394
And of course, you know, if needed, Mark will work with whatever you have. But as we kind of think about the website and we start to work from the top down, I used to call it above the fold.

It's hard to figure out what's going to be at the top because you've got to grab people's attention.

Mark Des Cotes
00:05:21.522 - 00:06:32.118
But a lot of times above the fold will be what we call a hero section. It's a big section with an image, with some text. And usually, or not usually, sometimes it's a call to action.

In the case of a podcast, it might be a player of the most recent podcast episode and then, you know, have the other episode somewhere else, but just that most recent one would be there. And the whole purpose of that is again, to capture somebody's attention as soon as they land on the website.

There's two things they, they should know as soon as they land on the website. First of all, if they knew where they were going, they know instantly that they're in the right spot. So this is the proper website.

And if not, if they come across it through a Google link or a shared link, that somebody. The other thing that's important is again, they have to know what's in this for me.

So if it's a description of your podcast, it should be there front and center. And usually what I like to do is I'll have a very short, a one sentence description of the podcast.

And then maybe a little bit down, maybe just below the fold, then I may have a fuller description.

Dave Jackson
00:06:32.214 - 00:06:42.902
And a great example of this is a show I love to listen to. Jen Briney, Congressional Dish. You can find it@contouncdish.com and that is a website that Mark designed.

Mark Des Cotes
00:06:42.966 - 00:07:15.998
When you land on her website, you know, right at the top, you see her logo and then it says the podcast exposing what Congress does with our money and in our names. You go down a little bit and then it's what is Congressional Dish? And then there's a bigger paragraph that just describes it in better detail.

But just that one line is enough for people to go, oh, you know, that interests me. You know, what's Congress doing with our money in our names? That interests me. I'm in the right spot. You know, this is for me. Now let me explore more.

And that's the whole thing you want People to keep exploring.

Dave Jackson
00:07:16.174 - 00:07:34.632
And so exactly. You want to keep them on your page.

And one of the things I've heard is a lot of people like to put their social links near the top of the page, which can grab their attention, and then do the direct opposite of what you want. You wanted them to come to your page, and the first thing you do is send them away.

Mark Des Cotes
00:07:34.736 - 00:08:13.014
I mean, most of the time, I'm not a fan of having the socials at the top or anywhere there. And if they are there, I always set them up so that they click into a new tab or a new window because of that exact reason.

You don't want to drive people away. You don't want people to land on your website, and then all of a sudden click on something and they're not on your website anymore.

So there's two ways you can make a link. You can make a link that opens in the same window, or you can make a link that opens up in a new window or a new tab.

Any link that takes you away from the website, I'll always have it open up in a new tab, because the last thing I want anybody to do is to accidentally leave the website.

Dave Jackson
00:08:13.182 - 00:08:19.860
Yeah, that would be a mistake. And so I asked Mark what are some other mistakes that he sees with websites.

Mark Des Cotes
00:08:19.940 - 00:09:48.012
Well, one of the big ones, and I know you've talked about this before on the show, is not having a way to contact somebody again. I'm just gonna talk about podcast websites here.

You know, you're in people's ears, and whether you like it or not, you're creating a relationship with people. And some of those people may want to reach out to you for some reason, maybe to, you know, just to compliment you.

They may want to reach out because you said something, and they have a difference of opinion. They may want to reach out, you know, whatever the reason, you. You need to make it easy for them.

And whether that's a form on your website or just an email address that they can click on and get to. There's so many websites that I see when. When people ask me, you know, here I have a website. What would I do to improve it?

Or, you know, they asked me to design a website based on something they have. And one of the things I mentioned is you don't have any way to contact you.

And it's like, oh, I don't want all the spam, or I don't want, you know, people bothering me. But that deters your audience. You're creating a relationship. You have to be open.

If you're starting a podcast, you have to be open that people might want to get ahold of you. And more often than not. And you know how it is, Dave. Most of the correspondence you'll get, like, 99% of it is positive.

And I know over the years, some of the message I've got from my podcast, it's like I have a folder I keep those emails in because. Wow. Like, some of them, they're just, you know, they just make you feel good.

So it's something you should be striving for is to get message from your listeners.

Dave Jackson
00:09:48.156 - 00:09:59.612
I know, I've seen that. And it's always frustrating when the only way I can contact somebody is on a social platform that I'm not on. What's another mistake?

Mark Des Cotes
00:09:59.676 - 00:12:21.312
If you have a podcast and you have a website, please make a way for people to listen to your podcast on your website. It bugs me when people say, yeah, I have a podcast.

And I'll ask them, like, sometimes, because I design artwork, I don't always design the websites for them, but I'll ask them where the podcast is going to be hosted. Not hosted like the web host, but what website is it going to be on?

Because sometimes in designing the artwork, I may go look at the website and say, okay, how's the website design? Do I incorporate any of that in the artwork?

Again, for people to know, if they look at the artwork and then they land on the website, you don't want, you know, your artwork to be, you know, green and orange, and then you land on a blue and purple website. You want your artwork to match the website. So I'll often ask people, like, where is it going to be?

And they'll tell me what the URL is and I'll go visit the website. And some of them will already have a podcast, and I'm just updating artwork for them. And I'll look and I'll.

I'll say, like, okay, where's the podcast? It's here. But there's no way for you to listen to the podcast. Oh, well, I've got links to Spotify and to Apple and all that. But.

Yeah, but now you're creating additional steps. You're making it harder for people. So even if it's just one episode, I mean, I encourage you to have all the episodes.

I mean, for SEO, for Google, for Bing, for just search engines in general, you want them to. You want people to be able to find it. You want that stuff to be indexed by the search engines.

So you should have, you know, you've Talked about it before. Every podcast episode is like a blog post on your website. It helps you with your SEO, but there's a lot of people that don't bother.

They think, all I need is the links to Spotify. And it's funny. Most of them, that's it. It's not links to I heart or to Amazon or to Apple. Most of them think, oh, I have a link to Spotify, I'm good.

And so that's a big mistake. And I usually, I try to encourage them if I'm not building the website to do something and add.

And as I said, even if it's just something that has your most recent episode and it updates whenever you release a new episode. But it's best to have all the episodes and not one of those. I don't even know the terminology because I don't use them.

But one of those embed players that kind of has everything in it. It's like a little jukebox that's useless. It's an iframe in there and it's useless. It doesn't help your website at all.

Dave Jackson
00:12:21.416 - 00:12:47.226
Yes, absolutely. 0seo for the set it and forget it player. It's handy. You know, you might want to put it on a page and call it binge and let them sit there and listen.

But one thing that I hate is when people turn off the ability to download the episode from their player. But Mark brought up a different point of view on that, and I was like, you know what? That kind of makes sense.

Mark Des Cotes
00:12:47.338 - 00:13:34.816
If you listen to a podcast on a website, you're on that page for a while. Google thinks that if somebody lands on a page and they're on the page for several minutes, that page must have some really good information.

So if you download the episode and then listen to it elsewhere, you've already closed that website. They didn't get any of that benefit.

But if you listen, and usually the players, if you need to, if you're one of those people that, you know, listens at, you know, one and a half, 2x or 3x whatever, you can usually do that on the website as well.

But the amount of time it takes for you to listen to an episode, even if it's just partial episode, that time benefits the whoever the website belongs to. It benefits them. Because in the eyes of the search engines, that page must have some value.

Dave Jackson
00:13:34.968 - 00:13:39.920
I never thought of it in terms of SEO. That's a great point. Any other mistakes?

Mark Des Cotes
00:13:40.080 - 00:15:51.122
Well, it's not necessarily a mistake, but one of the things that I know when I build A website, I include it and I see a lot of podcast episodes that don't or podcast websites that don't have. And that is not just a way to contact you, but information about supporting the show.

And both if, whether you take contributions to the show, but also for anybody who wants to sponsor the show, if somebody wants to advertise on your show, if you know anything like that, make it easy for these people. Now you can have a contact, even if you make it a contact form and it has a dropdown like why are you contacting us?

And it says I want to contact because I want to talk to the host. I have something to say about an episode.

But include in that dropdown, I want to contact you because I want to sponsor an episode or I want to sponsor the podcast or I would like you to be a guest on my show because you talk on a certain topic and that. So create a, create a way for people to reach out for that.

And a lot of people say, well, I already have a contact form on my website, but if you make it easy for them and if you can create two different contact forms, one for, you know, the general listeners to get ahold of you, but something else. And if you are somebody who wants to go on other podcasts, you can have a media kit on your website. So put all that stuff together.

Have like here if you want to sponsor the show or if you want me on your show, here's all the information you need. Make it easy for people.

And that's something that a lot of people, they don't think about whenever they're, they're starting a podcast, they're doing all this stuff. They don't think about what, what happens if I get popular.

You know, maybe somebody is going to want to sponsor my show, you know, some advertiser or maybe some media outlet. Maybe it might just be the local, you know, cable channel here in town.

They may want an expert to talk and they'll reach out to you and say, hey, can you come in at 5:30am for a 30 second soundbite that we'll do on air and the publicity you get. But if you don't have a way or an easy thing or something that shows them that you're available for that sort of thing, they might not consider you.

Dave Jackson
00:15:51.226 - 00:16:11.972
And of course if you don't ask, you don't get. A podpage user Zita Christian does a show called My Spouse has Dementia and she recently got featured on U.S. news & World Report.

How did they find her? Because of her podcast and her transcript. So yes, your website can lead to more opportunities and more gigs.

Mark Des Cotes
00:16:12.116 - 00:17:29.042
The whole thing about a website is it has to be easy for the visitor. So people who think, oh well, I already have a contact form, you know, if they want to, they can reach out to, to me through that.

Yes, that is true, but why don't you just take that extra little step and create something that makes it easy for a sponsor, that makes it easy for somebody in the media who wants to get a hold of you for something and they'll appreciate it. It only takes you a few minutes to create it and then you never have to worry about it again.

But if, if it gets you one, you know, appearance on a media outlet, then all of a sudden you know, you can add to your website as seen on, you know, whatever your local NB affiliate or whatever it is. And that could go a long way just in your credibility and your social proof for your show.

Now somebody lands on the website and they say, well, I'm not sure if this is the show that I want. You have the hero section that has the entrance, the capture phrase, the hook and then you have a description and then you can say as seen on.

And then, oh, this guy must be legit or this girl must be legit. And you know, it can go a long way in just helping to boost your show and your popularity and all.

Dave Jackson
00:17:29.066 - 00:17:48.286
Of that and overall build your brand. And one of the brands that Mark has, of course he has podcast branding co, but he also has a podcast.

In fact, Mark has been podcasting for nine years. He does a show called the Resourceful Designer for other designers and he started way back.

Mark Des Cotes
00:17:48.358 - 00:18:32.184
I got into podcasts as a TV fan podcaster and I was doing one for a TV show that I like. And in the past I used to be able to do two podcasts a week, two different podcasts.

But now with podcast branding co, I've gotten so busy that I take one day to do a podcast. So I put Resourceful Designer on hiatus, but it's coming back in the next week or two. So I have 345 episodes of that out currently.

And it's a podcast geared at graphic and web designers.

And the whole thing is I, I give them advice, I share resources and just help them to start grow and run their home based or freelance graphic or web design business.

Dave Jackson
00:18:32.352 - 00:18:37.876
And Mark has done artwork for me. I know he's done websites for friends of mine. He kind of does.

Mark Des Cotes
00:18:38.048 - 00:19:36.318
Well, no, I do, I do just about everything. I podcast artwork is probably my busiest Thing I do website, second, but I'll create, you know, if you need a lead magnet. We talked about media kits.

If somebody wants, you know, their media kit page, the one sheet, I'll design that for them. I will create social media imagery for the main banners of the website, but I don't create, create like ongoing social media campaigns.

That's just more work than I, than I want to do. So that's one thing I don't do is ongoing. But I will. I've done it for many people when I. And logos, of course, I design logos.

And whenever I design that, some people will ask me, well, can you design, you know, my banner for Facebook, my banner for LinkedIn, you know, the profile photo for Instagram, and whatever other social media they want. So I'll design all those things to go along to match the brand of the podcast and the website.

Dave Jackson
00:19:36.454 - 00:19:51.326
And that is the great thing about working with a designer. They listen to what you want and then give you what you need. For example, Patrick Keller has a podcast called the Big Seance.

Wanted some customization. No problem for Mark.

Mark Des Cotes
00:19:51.398 - 00:20:50.978
And on that one he recommends books. Like on his podcast he'll talk about books. So we created a special page on his website to showcase the books.

And of course, they all have like Amazon links and that. The same thing with Flame Alive Pod, which is a podcast that keep the flame alive. They cover the Olympics.

Well, they often talk about movies or books or stuff that are related to different sports that are Olympic sports. Well, they wanted pages for movies and pages for books to cover those things.

So a lot of time people will have extra pages for extra stuff that their podcast. Depending on the podcast, not every podcast will need this, but that's the sort of thing that you can add to your website.

And it's very easy then to tell somebody on your show, oh, if you're interested in the book, visit the website. You know, there's a list of this book and all the other books we recommend are there and so forth.

So it's another call to action to get people back to your website.

Dave Jackson
00:20:51.124 - 00:21:06.678
And of course, once they're back on their website, then they can sign up for the newsletter, which I mentioned at the beginning of the show. And so I'll have links in the show notes to podcast branding co to resourceful Designer podcast. Mark, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Mark Des Cotes
00:21:06.734 - 00:21:08.250
Thanks a lot for having me, Dave.

Dave Jackson
00:21:11.150 - 00:23:47.000
And I've used Mark for multiple projects. He did the school of podcasting artwork, Ask the podcast coach artwork podcast hot seat artwork, podcast rodeo show artwork really good stuff.

And a couple things I wanted to talk about there. Find Mark, by the way, podcast branding co. He mentioned that one word sentence. Do you have one of those?

If somebody you know sees you in elevator and says, what's your show about? Make sure you have one of those. He said, make sure it's easy to listen. PodPage makes that so easy to do.

And then he talked about having that contact page that might send it to different people. If you're on the Elite plan, you can make categories so you could say, oh, what do you want to talk to? You know the show about?

And you click a dropdown and say advertising. Oh, that goes to Jill. And then this one's like being a guest. Oh, that goes to Jack. That kind of thing. That's on the Elite plan with our contact form.

And then he talked about Patrick having a resource page. One of the great things about podpage is the fact that you can make extra pages. And that's probably one that gets made a lot resources makes sense.

And then you can put your Amazon affiliate links on there and earn some income. But we have new news and he mentioned newsletters. It's a great way if you want to monetize your show, start your newsletter now.

And we now have, if you didn't know, we have a bunch of short links like slash follow takes you to your website where your links to Apple and Spotify and all that's all in there. Slash rate, episode number. So for example, this is episode 21. So if you go to podcast website tips.com2one that'll take you right there.

If you want to leave us a voicemail. It's simple. Podcast websites.com voicemail. We have/ survey. We talked about the survey in last week's episode and now you have slash newsletter.

And this is a feature that's on the Pro plan. And so pro will get you a page where you can easily have your signup form.

And again, what that does is it reinforces your brand by saying your website. And it's easy to remember.

Now, if you're on the Elite plan and you're using Beehive or Substack or Captivate, we can pull in previous editions of your newsletter to that page.

Mark Des Cotes
00:23:47.080 - 00:23:47.720
Pretty cool.

Dave Jackson
00:23:47.800 - 00:25:04.098
Easy way to grow your show. And we'll probably have an episode in the future about newsletters because as much as we go email, ooh, that's old tech.

It outperforms social media, that's for sure. So that's the new news from PodPage.

We've added a newsletter page that you can now say, oh, just go to, you know, my website.com newsletter to sign up and get more info. And yeah, if you want to see one in action. Podcast website tips.com newsletter and I mentioned about future episodes. We are still taking suggestions.

I feel like a musicians. We're taking requests. We are building this show for you. If you go to podcast websitetips.com survey, you'll see a survey there.

And we're like, hey, what would you like to hear in this podcast? And we're always open for more feedback. So that's going to do it for this episode of Podcast Website Tips.

And I always like to remind you before they can listen or watch you, they have to find you. And that's where your website really comes in handy. I'm Dave Jackson, head of podcasting at PodPage and the school of Podcasting.

Thanks for listening.

AI Amanda the Announcer
00:25:04.274 - 00:25:12.250
Your podcast website is part of the Power of Podcasting Network. Find this show and all of Dave's other projects at powerofpodcasting. Com.