Podcasting Sucks! Fuzz & Jeff Talk About Podcast Websites

Jeff Townsend 0:11

Welcome to podcasting sucks, man, I'm here by I mean I'm Jeff Townson. I've even got the Jeff Townsend shirt on today for the media company. Looking looking

Fuzz Martin 0:23

looking good. That looks like a tax write off to me my friend.

Jeff Townsend 0:26

Exactly. I'm gonna Trump this thing. Anyways, my good friend Fuzz Martin is with me from Good Morning Podcasters How are you doing?

Fuzz Martin 0:34

I'm doing well, Jeff, thanks for having Well, thanks for being here. I guess we're all here together. It's our shared thing. So you're not having me and I'm not having you. We're here. And it's great.

Jeff Townsend 0:45

Yeah, it really is. There's a lot going on. I of course, I'm just overwhelmed with stuff as usual. Right, like, just trying to keep up and not drown in podcasting work on top of my other work. So yeah, it's been pretty awesome, man. I'm excited the next few weeks I'm gonna have off work just to get caught up on work. And Oh, nice. Yeah, sounds lame. But yeah, I'm excited. That's,

Fuzz Martin 1:08

that's real good. I'm taking a day off work to go get my daughter from college so she can come home and see your boyfriend. You know, good family stuff. Teenage law. Yeah, yeah. Teenage love.

Jeff Townsend 1:21

Now like sounds like powerful today, man. It's got like a a crisp echo. Like not even just like a

Fuzz Martin 1:31

presence presents.

Jeff Townsend 1:32

Yeah. I don't know.

Fuzz Martin 1:35

I don't know. I didn't change anything the same way. It's been last time. Maybe

Jeff Townsend 1:38

you're just less enthusiastic. You seem really tired. Are you like me? Because dude, I tell you what, I'm exhausted. Like, I don't know how much longer I can go like this. But I'm trying.

Fuzz Martin 1:48

I agree with you. Yes, I I am exhausted. I had. I had some some things go on this week and last with work. Just trying to make stuff happen. And yeah, I think I'm a little tired. You can tell this isn't. This isn't an ad for betterhelp.com. Which all the podcasts are working with? Yeah. But they're pretty good. So yeah. I'll just say kind of as kind of a godsend at this time

Jeff Townsend 2:21

here. Oh, really? I've never used it. I'm not gonna lie. I've heard good things about it too. For sure.

Fuzz Martin 2:25

Yeah. No, no, it's good. It's good. I recommend if you if you need it. It's good. So

Jeff Townsend 2:30

any has an affiliate link?

Fuzz Martin 2:33

I don't. You're looking at extra Bill berish today now that

Jeff Townsend 2:37

Oh, cool. Cool. Yeah, trying. I've been eating unhealthy.

Fuzz Martin 2:43

You played the drums lot. Playing the drums

Jeff Townsend 2:45

a lot, bro. I've been drumming out. I got a little gray go in here.

Fuzz Martin 2:49

Yeah, yeah. I saw Bill Burr. It was probably a month ago now in Madison, Wisconsin. And I went with a really good friend of mine. But we're both you know, 44. It was a Sunday night concert. And they had really bad traffic management. So we got there, like 40 minutes before the show was supposed to start. And we finally got in about 10 minutes before the show was supposed to start and it wound start for an hour and a half after it was supposed to start. So we ended up leaving early because we're older. We knew if we left early, we get out of a parking lot first and you know what? Best part of the night.

Jeff Townsend 3:28

e Chappelle Show in the early: 2000

Fuzz Martin 3:41

I loved the Chappelle Show. And I just was talking about a friend about this today when I was in college at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater, which is, you know, like one of the local offshoots of the university system. Chappelle came to our campus, and I was sitting in the front row for one of his things my freshman year of college, and he made fun of me on stage, and people still talk about it to this day of how he called me a big burly MF er, and that in Wisconsin, our moms don't give birth, we birth ourselves. And then he went through this whole spiel of me giving birth to myself, it was pretty funny. So yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, good memory, good memory hits.

Jeff Townsend 4:22

So those are moments that will last forever. What do you have on the agenda for today? First, of course, I'm not going to

Fuzz Martin 4:27

talk about websites. I want to talk about websites we talked about, you know, so podcasting sucks to talk about the things that go into podcasting that are sometimes hard to do and add extra time and it's sometimes you wonder, is it worth it at all? And I want to talk today about websites and what are you doing for your podcast website? Maybe some ways to make it easier, and things that you can do to tighten up your workflow. Hmm, sounds good.

Jeff Townsend 4:59

Sounds sexy. Let's do it.

Fuzz Martin 5:01

Sexy, sexy. So, you know, we've talked about ways to tighten up your process in a way that will help, you know, cut out some of the fat so that you're, you know, podcasting can be hard, it can suck, if you will, and you gotta prioritize. And when it comes to websites, there's a whole bunch of different ways that you can do a website for podcast, and some of them are completely hands off. And some of them are really hands on. Yeah. And some of the hands on stuff can lead to really big SEO and different kind of opportunities for monetization. And some of the hands off stuff can lead to you not burning out. And so it's kind of a balance of where things go. Right. So. So I want to ask for your websites, what typically are you doing for your podcast websites?

Jeff Townsend 6:00

As of late, I have been going with a little bit more of a, because I have so much going on, I've really gone with a hands off approach. So I've partnered with POD page. And now actually, I've been working on podcastpage.io. Yeah, that's the route I've been going because I also do have so many different sites and things going on. So that's actually been a big relief for me. Like you said, it's a very timely thing to go on with, like what I'm sure you're doing, like a WordPress or something. I don't know that. But that's very timely. And I'll get into like, what I because obviously talk to a lot of other podcasters. Like some of the things I get with that. But for me, it's more of that hands off approach. It's still it's still a website. Obviously, there's still some not so bad on the SEO and I don't I don't I don't think is it gets the rap for. That's a whole other discussion of its own. Sure. No, that's what I'm doing. I'm getting I'm using my RSS feed basically, to it kind of automates and sets it up. And then you just modify it basically. But podcastpage.io, you have like, even a little bit more of customizing, you can do then on pod page when I used it. So cool drag and drop features and stuff makes it simple.

Fuzz Martin 7:14

So I use for the three different podcasts that I'm actively on. I use three different types of websites. So I'm using podcastpage.io for 15 minutes with fuzz. And I'll talk about some of the benefits of that. I'm using WordPress for my wife site, which gets pretty deep and intricate. But it's also pretty easy to update and familiar to update. And then for Good Morning Podcasters. I'm using Squarespace, which I got an okay deal on. But I kind of have buyer's remorse at this point. So, yeah, let's talk about podcastpage.io. Sincere you you're working with that? I am a big fan of that. Because what what podcast page.io? And what pod page.com? Is it right, Poppy? Yep, correct. Those both of those different sites are there different brands, but both of those will pull your RSS feed in and they will create a website page or a separate web page based on every single episode of your show. So a new show updates, it pulls it from the RSS feed takes your show notes, take some of the other features from that and populates a web page on your domain. Yeah, so that, for instance, if you go to fifteenwithfuzz.com for my hyperlocal show, every single episode has its own page that is automatically generated by the RSS feed the things that I love about podcast page that Iowa's it will automatically take my transcripts if I've got an in Captivate, so Captivate has a transcript area, some of the other hosts have that as well. It will automatically take that and post that it will take my dynamic shownotes post those things it gives me a separate URL for every single page and you can go in and edit it pretty easily so

Jeff Townsend 9:19

you can make it what you were Yeah, exactly.

Fuzz Martin 9:22

ial graphic that's, it's like: 1200

Jeff Townsend: 10:16

we actually talked about this podcast and Power Hour, don't two weeks ago, not sure if you read their first the show notes thing is a big topic. And it's pretty irrelevant. For a podcast app, for example, you're not like your show notes are aren't worth worth much value, if I'm on Apple podcasts looking for a podcast, for example. But to counter that, when you are on putting them on a website, that's a little bit more of a game changer in regards to discoverability. So you're not gonna get the discoverability from a podcast player necessarily, like you will the same as the web, per se.

Fuzz Martin: 10:57

The cool thing also with podcastpage.io, and pod page.com, is it automatically drops the player in there. So you when that episode goes live, there's a player there, all of your links to subscribe, are there all those things are included in every single page, and you don't have to go and create anything really so. But when it comes to WordPress, WordPress is super easy to use. If Have you ever had a WordPress site, Jeff?

Jeff Townsend: 11:25

Yeah, I would not say it's easier than what we're using what we just talked about the

Fuzz Martin: 11:30

No, it's not easier to use than what we're talking about No, then then the those pages now what it does allow is extreme customization. So you can go in and customize the site to look how you want it to fit into your brand, those kinds of things. When it comes time to post, it's pretty easy, you just click on a new post, and you can put it all in there. But it's really that setup part portion of it, that is, the hard part is getting your template, right getting things set up in that regard. And then building that out. Now when you go to create a post, you're gonna have to paste in. Likely, unless you've got a plug in, you're gonna have to paste in a player embed from Captivate or we know whatever host you're using. Every single one of the hosts has one of those, you'll have to put paste that in or use a plug in like pod press from blueberry or something like that. And then you've write your post, and you're gonna have to add in images and those kinds of things. But it's not. Once it's up and running, it's not so hard. The price depends on who your host is because the software's free itself. But the hosting is what costs money. Yeah. What is podcastpage.io? Cost? Like? nine or eight or nine bucks a month, I think are 10 bucks. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. I should probably look that up.

Jeff Townsend: 12:58

Yeah, I'll be honest, I don't I don't pay for it.

Fuzz Martin: 13:01

Well, I'm trying to pay for it. Yeah. page.io pricing.

Jeff Townsend: 13:08

Let's see, what do we got? That's where the hype man thing comes into play for us.

Fuzz Martin: 13:12

I know, man, I'm into the hype me up. Yeah, so a podcasters $12 A month billed annually. So 144 a month, or 144 a year, if you bill it annually. Monthly, it's at 15 bucks a month. So whatever 144 plus 36 is. So, you know, it's it's not free, but that's gonna cost you it's, it's probably as cheap as you're gonna

Jeff Townsend: 13:40

get. Yeah. Because to me, WordPress is not really, I wouldn't call it easy. Unless you spend money on plugins, I think that's a win. For me, it's easier, because without that it's not quite the same, then you're paying for that. So I mean, you can in the end, the price is probably pretty comparable. I don't know how many plugins that you rock and roll with, but a lot of people have several that can take their monthly cost up beyond what we're discussing with podcast page or, or pod page.

Fuzz Martin: 14:15

Yeah, it does jack that up somewhat. And I would say that it's kind of a hidden cost because you pay like 59 bucks for one and it's, you know, the annual fee and you don't think about you just pay that you know, 59 bucks at one time and then you know, so like my wife has a directory for educational technology on our site. So we updated it makes it like, easy to search and all this stuff, but it costs Yeah, it costs like 26 bucks from one plugin and then 60 bucks for the other those kind of things. Those add up and they help. Yeah, they totally help. They totally help but it's just what you put into it. Now. If you're gonna go real simple, I would just say like, you could get away with nothing if you have the right host like this Again, I'm always talking about Captivate just because I use Captivate, but like, Captivate, like, their websites are really good that they are on there, and they're super customizable. They come with the hosting program, you don't need to buy anything else. They're not as customizable as podcast page that page.io. And they're definitely none of those aren't as customizable as WordPress, but they're going to if you want to put minimal effort into it, and still have a look good, and still have shareable links for every different episode, then, you know, your your hosts website option might be good. And you could still use a custom domain name. Yeah, it was kind of things that could be worth it, if you go check out g mp.fm. That will show you an example of a Captivate site. That's that for the Good Morning Podcasters site, this episode will be on there, if you go and check that out. I use it for the short links for you know, like GM p.fm/news. And those kinds of things like you can go to those lengths and it'll give you bring it to different places. But if you just go to gmp.fm/news, it'll take you to my Captivate site

Jeff Townsend: 16:08

yet, when we talked about, I don't want to go off on it. I could talk all day about Captivate, Captivate, just like you. But we went through this process of talking about workflow importance and all that. And that's something like a Captivate is really continues to be innovative in that regard, integrations, things like that. So that's absolutely critical. But from what I experienced, I talked to a lot of like, really like brand new podcasters, let's say brand new. And in this, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get political here, in this country, this website design and stuff is not taught in the at the youth level. So a lot of people are not comfortable with it at all. It's definitely something I think that's kind of been, I don't see you need to co even, I'm just saying like WordPress knowledge is still really low. And I think that's something that's a cap, but because of that it's intimidating to them, and you just open up the webpage. I mean, you wouldn't know what WordPress, I'm saying, Sorry, you would know what to do, right? You just be lost. But there's YouTube videos and stuff these days as well. But it's not as commonly taught as I think it probably should be. But that intimidates people really bad. And it's probably a good thing when you first start that that's not the first thing you're worrying about to be honest.

Fuzz Martin: 17:29

I only know WordPress, and I take it, I take it for granted how much people don't know about it, because I it was 2002 when I was working at the radio station, they did not have a website. And so I learned how to I learned WordPress and learned PHP coding at the time because he needed to know how to do PHP coding. And I built the first website for the radio station I worked for. And I also created, I actually created my blog first at that point, in order to kind of do proof of concept. So I was like, I don't know, 24 was like doing that on the side to make that happen. So I I appreciate that. It takes a lot to learn that and get that up and running. And there they make it a lot easier. Now with builders like Elementor, which is a plugin which goes into WordPress, you still have to learn how to do that there's so there's not a ton of like actual hand coding anymore. But it's still it can be intimidating if you're not familiar with it. So which brings me to why I tried Squarespace is I had done I wanted to spin up a website quick when I was actually when I was running for office locally here and instead of going through all the customizing a WordPress site, I got a Squarespace site, I was able to get that up and running quickly. And then I thought, Okay, well when I'm doing GMP, and you know, while you were involved with the, the whole, like getting that up and running and all the I just wanted it to happen quickly. Right. So I started a Squarespace site. And there is so much more involved even though like there's not as much on the front end of getting like the design ready because I've got templates that are they look pretty good. Exactly. But man, every single time I post an episode, it's the amount of steps I have to go through in order to make that happen are tough. So I kind of wish I would have went with podcastpage.io. But I got a sweet deal. So I paid for the year and I'm like 250 bucks in and now I'm like well feel bad. You know, if I were to switch but kind of comes down to that sunk cost fallacy, right? So is it better for me Need to just eat the cost? And do it quickly with something like podcast page that IO? Or is it better to keep putting all the time? You know, is it worth it more to put all the time that I'm putting into updating a Squarespace site every week, or, you know, four times a week with three episodes? Good Morning, Podcasters, in this episode of podcasting sucks, you know which one is more worth it?

Jeff Townsend: 20:23

There's kind of a flip side to this, too, that this conversation should probably go to because the reality of this is it happens to people. Some people might rely on something like social media, to house all of their content to be the home of all their content. What's give YouTube as an example. You never know when that's gone? Yep. What are you going to do next? So I think you really have to have something to it. Let's say if YouTube decided and this does happen, FAS, you get hacked, for example, my buddy Chris Van Fleet, he's got hundreds of millions of views, right? He got hacked last that account for a week, he got it back. There's people that just break the rules of conditions accidentally, right. And they just lose everything. They monetize their whole life off of YouTube. And just like that is gone. So there's another part to this, that's pretty significant. That doesn't get thought about as much I think Twitter goes down, or that one day was down, like half a day, everybody was freaking freaking out. How am I gonna get a hold of all these people? Well, you should be able to go to the website. And let me give you a cool example. That fuzz EVO, Tara has reached out to me on the website, right? He deleted his Twitter. So he randomly he goes on my contact page, boom, he knows how to get ahold of me, right? Yep. And I don't have each other's phone numbers. Yet, maybe one day, but no, my point is that he goes a website, he finds me, that's how he contacts me. So when you if something were to happen one day, to your content, or whatever that platform is, you could be in trouble if you didn't have yourself covered.

Fuzz Martin: 22:02

Yeah, absolutely. And it's, you know, when you have your own domain that you're hosting somewhere, like you own that, I mean, the Yeah, the domain host or whatever could, you know, go away, but it's easy to back those things up. Twitter. I mean, just as we're recording this episode, there were like six really big figures who had their accounts, accounts pulled today, and you know, that was kind of their, their big thing. And that could have been anybody. And as you're playing with YouTube, you know, you maybe you're using a music bed that isn't licensed from somewhere, or you didn't know it wasn't licensed, or you know, accidentally or whatever, you get a strike and you're out. And then what, you know, so are you backing up all your content? Whereas, but mostly, once that rug is pulled out from underneath you, how do you how do you reestablish yourself, so it's tough hosting your own stuff. But it is important that I think that you have your own space. That does go to say, though, that like places like podcasts page that IO and pod page.com You know, I'm not expecting I hope nothing happens ever with them. But you look at like, sounder.fm where they're like, Okay, well, this isn't working. So we're, we're calling it a day or what was the the one the newsletter place that just went reveal? Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah, review, you know, so those go away, and you got to start from scratch, right. So, you know, having your own place. And that's where I guess I think WordPress shines a bit. Squarespace I don't think it's going anywhere, because Squarespace is huge. And on my square and on. But yeah, it's and the other part of it all too, that we need to talk about is SEO and that is an important part of people being able to find your show. Having a domain name that people you know, that you can use for your calls to action and that people are going to find on your site, you know, find your site easily and and also making sure your content is optimized so that when people are searching for the things that you're looking for that they're going to find it so

Jeff Townsend: 24:22

I apologize the way it turned on the washing machine here behind me. The Townson studio has the laundry room behind it. somebody's out there. whipping up some laundry. Well,

Fuzz Martin: 24:34

I hope I hope they're getting clean. But you know what? I? You might hear it but I don't hear it at all through the microphone. So

Jeff Townsend: 24:40

sounds like a damn bazooka going off. Anyway, no, I think my big worry fuzz, especially with people that are doing really well on YouTube, there's still podcasters that actually get more views than they do downloads. something were to happen there. And you didn't have somewhere where people could go and That is really rough. I realized that everything like the podcast page and all that is also a platform. But if you literally have all your eggs in one basket, which is this has been a big topic with Twitter lately, right? Like, you're you're hustling your butt off to go get on post or whatever. Or mass muscle mass just

Fuzz Martin: 25:20

on Yeah, yes. News in Mm hmm. Yep.

Jeff Townsend: 25:24

But that's a really dangerous thing to be involved in. Aside from all the other just good practices of SEO, everything we're talking about, you got to really consider if something were to happen, what would be a plan? I'm not saying it'd be a doomsday prepper. But it's really probably a good idea and pretty inexpensive. And it goes back to what we said before. Do you want to spend money? It's pretty inexpensive way to have that. There.

Fuzz Martin: 25:50

Yeah. And so build yourself a podcast bunker. In case things go sideways, actually, so that people can still find your stuff? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So a podcast doomsday prepper Jeff townsend.io.

Jeff Townsend: 26:07

And I'll say one of the things that cracks me up, I'll say, Hey, do you have a website? Send me. People want me to listen to podcasts a lot? Yeah. Hey, what's your website? They'll send me Spotify, Apple podcasts link. It's like, okay, but then there's the link tree, right? Yep. And some people legitimately think that's a website. So I think this is important to touch up on before we close up shop here. It doesn't quite work the same as having your own website.

Fuzz Martin: 26:35

Correct. If you have one, that is your own domain name pay for it. Yeah. Where you can say go to, you know, fuzz. martin.com. And it takes it to a link tree. That's not horrible. I mean, it's not, it's still not great. But if you have something where you can say to somebody, like, here's an easy place to go, then I can just tell you, or I can use as a call to action on the show, right? Oh, yeah, for sure. That's, that's a big thing. But if you're, you know, follow me on Spotify, follow me on Apple podcasts, whatever that might be. It is. Sometimes your show isn't gonna show up when you say like, you know, it's true crime, you know, details or something? Okay, well, there's going to be 77 of those, at least when you type them in. So get your own, get your own URL on it took

Jeff Townsend: 27:36

stories to pop up. It did take a few weeks on iTunes, I'd go and search, is it going to come up? Then what started getting downloaded? It did. But you're right. It's not even plug like even if there's not another podcast name that it doesn't pop up. First,

Fuzz Martin: 27:49

when it comes to podcasting, you know, a lot of things suck. And a lot of things are hard. But you need to own your own presence in your own brand. And that means having a website is part of that now whether you want to go in and go the liteway and have it pulling in and off your RSS feed, that's totally okay. You can do that work with PodcastPage. That IO, if you're better with websites, and you want to go to something like Squarespace or WordPress, definitely something you can do. But you need to be there. And you need a home base for your show. That is not one of the pod catchers URLs.

Jeff Townsend: 28:31

Yeah, it's it's for us. It's like that next level thinking as well, right. As far as the process of podcasting, obviously, then you bring in things like website analytics, and you get to see other things, how are my call to actions working and all that. So beyond just the beginning stages of what we've talked about. We won't get into it right now. But really, the website thing can be a whole other level of getting to that next level of the podcast, podcasting skill. I'm not even talking about download skill, right? I'm just talking about how serious you take it and growth and stuff once you understand that you obviously have a little bit more of an advantage or you should

Fuzz Martin: 29:09

Yep, got a place for your you know, to track your analytics and see how things are going. Got a place to promote your newsletter, you got a place for merchandise, you've got all those things got a place for premium subscriptions. And but if you don't have it, it won't come and you know what, then podcasting is gonna suck harder. So

Jeff Townsend: 29:30

it's gonna suck big time, my friend. We're going to try to make it suck less. We're going to try to keep doing this and make it suck less for everybody. That's our goal. We don't want you to get sucks.

Fuzz Martin: 29:40

No, nobody wants us to suck. We want this to be fun. That's what we're doing it right.

Jeff Townsend: 29:44

What exactly.

Fuzz Martin: 29:46

We're doing it because because we love love doing this, this part of it. But talking into a microphone and interacting with your friends is only a part of podcasting. There's a whole lot else that goes into it. That's what we try to cover. So we appreciate you listening to podcasting sucks. This comes out on Saturday mornings. You can find it on the Good Morning. Podcasters feed. And on YouTube, right?

Jeff Townsend: 30:10

Yeah. Oh, yeah, this video now, our faces are everywhere, man.

Fuzz Martin: 30:15

I gotta comb my hair before we get on.

Jeff Townsend: 30:17

I got the hat got I mean, I just wrote to him and it's like, I don't have a nice set of hair like you do. I don't know if it's just stress in my life or what but I'm losing hair at a rapid rate now.

Fuzz Martin: 30:27

Yeah. Why? So I don't have a lot of hats that fit. I guess that's true. Well, I hope that all goes well for you. And I'm, I have a board meeting on Monday night so we'll see if I can make podcasts and Power Hour happen, but if I can't, thanks for

Jeff Townsend: 30:43

all you do. YouTube has almost said man fuzz. I said it together. But there's one thing for sure. Podcasting sucks, but not when you're with us. Thanks, Jose. How's that? How's that?

Fuzz Martin: 30:56

The finger guns made it happen.