[FAQ]

G’day,

I’ve got my podcast up and running, and my hosting provider includes a pretty decent little website page with all my episodes. It looks clean and does the job, which is great because I’m doing this on a bit of a shoestring budget.

My question is, is this enough? I see a lot of the big podcasts have their own fancy, custom websites. Is it worth the extra expense and effort to build a separate site on something like Squarespace or WordPress? I’m trying to figure out if that’s a “nice to have” thing or a genuinely essential step for growing my show in the long run.

[Jeff Bullas]

This is a fundamental question about brand ownership.

Short Answer: While a host-provided page is a good start, a dedicated website is a necessary long-term asset for any serious podcaster wanting to build a brand and own their audience relationship.

Think of the host page as a rented apartment and your own website as a house you own.

A dedicated website gives you three crucial advantages. The first is complete control over your brand’s visual format and the user experience, which is something a generic template from a host can never truly offer. The second is the ability to create a central hub for other content formats beyond your audio, such as a blog, transcripts, videos, and merchandise. The third, and most critical, advantage is direct audience ownership; your own website is the best tool for building an email list, which is a communication channel you control completely, independent of any podcast app or social media algorithm. Relying entirely on third-party platforms is a risky strategy because if they change their rules or disappear, you risk losing the connection to the audience you’ve worked so hard to build.

Cheers,
Jeff

[Author]

Posts