Hosting your own podcast is an ambitious pursuit. Whether you’re teaming up with friends, workmates, or going solo, there is a lot to think about if you want to be successful. There are plenty of podcasts out there spanning a wide range of topics, so you need to find a unique voice about a subject you love and go from there. Fortunately, there are some simple ways to improve the quality of your podcasts and bring in more listeners, and here are six of them.
1: Think About Your Environment
While your audience won’t be able to see your workplace, they will be able to hear it. Your environment affects your mood, and that will come through when you are talking. You also want to make sure you find an area that is as quiet as possible.
If you’re serious about quality, then consider investing in quiet, sliding doors, which you can find at evoproducts.com. This way, when someone is coming in or out, there won’t be the banging of the door interrupting your flow.
2: Be Consistent
Consistency is essential if you want to retain listeners. If you are posting twice one week, none the next, and then three a week after that, your audience won’t know when to check in. Make a schedule, and make sure you’re realistic about it. Don’t plan to do three podcasts a week if you can’t commit the time! Even if you only do one a fortnight to begin with, it’s better to be consistent with that than throwing random ones out.
3: Create Something You Would Enjoy Listening To
The best podcasts come from a place of passion. Don’t choose a topic just because it’s trendy or other people seem to do well in it. Think about your own interests and choose a topic based on that. Do you like cars? Are you a huge horror movie buff? Whatever it is, use your passion to create brilliant content, as that is what your audience is looking for.
4: Do Your Research
Even if you think you know everything about your topic, you don’t! Research before you start recording. If you’re going to expect an audience to listen to you talking about a topic, you must have a sufficient amount of knowledge on it. The research never ends, and you should always keep up to date in the area you’re talking about.
5: Be a Brilliant Editor
Podcast editing comes with experience, but you should invest your time and money in some lessons early on. A lot of potentially brilliant podcasts suffer because of shoddy editing, so don’t let yours be one of them! If you have the budget, you could invest in an editor to do it for you.
6: Invest in High-Quality Equipment
OK, you might not want to jump in the deep end and buy expensive equipment right away, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t invest in high-quality mics. You can find some on the lower end of the budget that will do an excellent job for a starter. You want the sound quality to be second-to-none, after all!