← The How To Podcast Series - Podcast Co-Hosts, Practical Podcast Tips, and Podcast Community
The How To Podcast Series - Podcast Co-Hosts, Practical Podcast Tips, and Podcast Community
E603 - What To Do When You Have Too Many Podcast Episodes - A Guide For Established Podcasters
00:37:38
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A
Okay, we're rolling. And welcome back to the how to Podcast series. It's Dave with you. Hope you're doing well. Here's a problem that I didn't anticipate when I first started my podcast. Each of my shows is when you podcast about a certain topic, and you're not doing seasons, so you're not doing, like a bunch of episodes. You take a break, you come back, you do a bunch more episodes, you take a break, but you just. You're not doing seasons. You're just creating content. And when you do, let's say, a weekly podcast, every week, you do a show that's 52 weeks in a year. So there's 52 a year. So every year, you're doing like, you're like 50, 50. It just adds up over time, right? You get more and more episodes. And what happens when you have, like, a lot of episodes? I've heard people who have, like, a thousand episodes, two thousand episodes. This show. Right now, I'm at episode 603. Like, you get this wall of content, and to you, you kind of lose sight of how many episodes you have, and you probably don't even remember what you said back on episode two or 10 or 15 or 38. You don't remember unless. Unless somebody brings it to your attention or you go searching, you've moved on as a creator. You're just creating the next episode, and you're just in this. This cycle of content creation. And that's what's happening for me. This year alone will be 365 episodes of the show. So that's more than people will do in several years, is happening in one year just for the show. So as you create content, you create this library of content. And when somebody new walks in the room for the first time who hasn't been here before, all they see is a wall of content. And it seems insurmountable. It seems like, where do I even start? So some people will come to the show. If this is your first time here, welcome. They'll come to the show, listen to this episode, and then listen into the future. But very rarely does do people go back and listen to everything like the original episodes where the show started. I'm one of those weird people that does that. I will go back and listen to all of your episodes. It keeps me company at work. And I want to. I want to see your journey. I want to see you grow. I want to see you. I want to hear you change your mind about something. I want to hear you. What you were passionate about in that moment and maybe things that you've let go of and how you pivoted, how you've changed. I want to get to know you over a period of time, and I want to go back and listen to your all of your episodes. You're going to get a lot of listens from Dave when I find your show. If I haven't listened to your show, then you need to tell me at howtopodcast ca so I can come listen. I'm always looking for new shows to fall in love with, and I'd love to do that for you. And I listen to every episode in completion, not just the beginning, like some other podcast gurus or other gurus who don't even listen to your show. They're just there to tell you what they think. So that's not me. I'm the guy that listens to every episode all the way to the end, leaves comments in my Spotify because that's where I listen. And I'd love to do that for your show. Let me know. You have this wall of content. Not everybody's like me. They're not going to listen to every episode. They're going to start with where they found you and continue from that point on. But what about all that great content you have? Those great interviews from the past, that great topic you covered two years ago, all this great content.
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B
Right.
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A
What do you do with it? How do you navigate a wall of content when you've been podcasting for a while? It's a great problem to have, but if you don't address it, it's not going to get any better. So we need to talk about this. Glad you're here. So, I'm not. I don't work for any podcast hosting sites, so I don't have firsthand knowledge of this from that perspective. So as you listen to this, please inform me if I'm on the wrong path here, but I'm going by what I see in other podcasts. I'm going by what I hear from podcasting experts who've been in podcasting since day one. And there's this conversation about, like, how what to do with a large catalog of episodes. Most major podcast apps will display at your catalog. And sometimes we have like hundreds of episodes or more. And your RSS feed includes all of them. There's really no current hard cap. Like, only 300 episodes of your show will be displayed at any given time, and any new episode would bounce an old episode out to replace with the new one. It's There was historically some limitations to how many episodes could be shown on your player app of choice where you listen. But it seems like that's kind of changing or adapting, being a little, little bit less rigid of a, Of a hard, fixed number of episodes. It seems to be opening a little bit more because there are podcasts that have had thousands of episodes. So that's interesting. Your hosting site, your RSS feed, is able to hold a vast amount of content, which is great. So there's no limitation at that point. Really, what could limit your amount of episodes showing on any app is there could be a setting in your hosting site, wherever you host your podcast, as far as any limits. So you can, depending on your hosting site, there might be a way for you to turn only certain episodes, make them live, or you can impose your own limits to what you want to host on your hosting site. So just keep that in mind. The one thing I think historically was when there was a lot of episodes, the apps would struggle to load them all to make them available to you. Now, if you think of it from a logical perspective, if you've been listening to a podcast for a while and you've marked episodes as complete or listened to the end of the episode and automatically marked it as complete, really the podcast doesn't. The app doesn't need to show you that episode again because you already listened to it. It's there if you want to. I know for me, using Spotify, as I complete an episode, it's marked complete, and I can just add a filter to whatever podcast I'm listening to and I just say, show me what's not listened to. Show me what I haven't heard yet, that kind of thing. And it filters out all the things I've already listened to because I don't need to listen to it again unless I want to want to go back. I just want to focus on what I haven't heard. So that's a setting within my app. Most other apps are going to do the same. So do apps cap the episode display? Like, how many episodes are available for your show? Is there a cap? So from what I'm seeing, Apple podcasts previously had a maximum episode daily display limit, and it was something around 300 roughly. But that limit has been removed as far as I can see. And you can now set the total number of episodes to any number in your feed. Some listening apps give listeners their own episode limit settings, like keep only the last 10 or the last 30 days, that kind of setting, which could affect what they see and what is downloaded, but those are kind of user preferences not set by the app itself. So not really a cap on your catalog. Many hosts default the RSS feed to smaller numbers, often around 100 episodes, and require you to to raise the limit so all back episodes are exposed to the apps. So from a technical side, you generally don't need to remove or put episodes like behind a paywall, for example, just to keep your podcast visible on the apps. As far as a cap to the number of episodes, one of the things I was considering doing, I have been considering doing for Living the Next Chapter. My author podcast, it said 730 episodes at the time of recording this show and that podcast. Again, it's a wall of content. So I was thinking about maybe putting the first 200 episodes so episode one all the way episode 200 or episode 300, like the first two to 300 episodes, putting them behind a paywall, like five bucks a month or something and you have access to the archived older episodes of the show. And then it would start at episode 301 would be episode one for a new person. So you'd still have from episode 301 to episode 730, still a ton of content. You know, I could move that up to episode from 0 to 500 would be behind a paywall. It's a way to generate some money for the show. Yes, but my only problem with this is these are guest focused interviews. The guest has shared the link on their website or their blog or whatever, and the moment I put it behind a paywall, that means that link to that episode where the guest was a guest two years ago, three years ago, would no longer work. It would show as a paywall and do I want to do that to my guests? So I'm wrestling with that. There is a workaround in that the YouTube version of the podcast, whether it's video or audio, because my podcast is connected to YouTube through my RSS feed, which I would encourage you to do. You could still go to YouTube and get around the paywall by going there. That's one way. But if they've shared the audio link, that would go to Audible, Spotify, Apple, fill in the blank. That link would be behind a paywall. And I believe from what I've been playing with in the past, if I, if I make an episode under a paywall through my podcasting host and that hosting site is now connected to my YouTube, there's an impact as well to what shows on YouTube where that episode could I have to play with this again could be impacted by that paywall setting. So, yeah, so I'm wrestling with this. Do I do it? Do I not do it? Part of it is to limit the amount of content so somebody new is not overwhelmed by the sheer volume of how many episodes. But I don't want to punish my past guests where their content is not visible anymore. I think it would be a hit to their SEO. I think it would be a hit to their content library. It's their episode, and I want to honor them. So being that there's not these hard limits to how many episodes I can have, I might just leave it alone. But it's something I'm thinking about. So my question to you, if you have a lot of episodes for your show, is kind of, are you concerned? Are you. Are you thinking about making some kind of change to your podcast to. To limit the amount of visible podcast episodes to a new person? Does this matter to you? I'm thinking about it. I'm wrestling with it. So maybe someone else's as well. I'd love to hear your thoughts at how to Podcast Ca. Another part of this that I'm concerned about when you get a lot of episodes behind you in content is how to keep your show welcoming for new people. So if you've been here for a long time, thank you for being part of the how to Podcast family. I appreciate you so much. My attention turns to somebody brand new who comes in. This is their first episode. Again, welcome. What can we do to reduce the overwhelm for first timers without hiding your best evergreen interviews and content? Like, how do we. How do we not intimidate somebody who comes in and goes 603 episodes? Oh, my gosh. You expect me to go back and listen to 602 other episodes after this one? Really? What can we do to be more welcoming to new people who are just coming here for the first time? I think as often as podcasters, we forget about the new people. We focus on the community we have, not the community that's coming through the door for the first time. So we need to be sensitive to this. We need to have a plan. That's my encouragement for you. Whatever you decide to do, have a plan. So what can we do? There's three things that I'm contemplating and wrestling with. Maybe you're thinking of these as well. Create like a start here or new to the show type feature trailer, episode or content. That would be something that people could find and tie into something easily shared. I do love the idea of updating your trailer on a pretty Regular basis. The trailer you recorded three years ago is probably out of date. You're a different podcaster now, and your show has evolved over time. So it might be a good idea to go back and refresh that. All you're doing is swapping out the audio. Don't delete the original trailer episode with all the listens attached to it. Don't do that. And upload a brand new one. You don't need to do that. Go to that trailer episode from the past after you've recorded your new one and just replace. Swap out the audio. Just upload a new file over top of the old audio file and just leave it. All your stats remain in place. Trailer still marked as a trailer in your podcast hosting site, you're done. It's just an updated version, so that'd be a good thing. A starter link. And I do love the idea that a trailer lives at the top of the list. So no matter how many episodes you have on most apps, it's going to show at the top of the screen. It's kind of like a start here button, which is great for somebody new and easy for your audience to share with somebody else as well. So that's a good starting point. Keep that in mind. How about using series? That's why I call this show the how to Podcast series. That word is in there for a reason, by the way. Use series. Use seasons if seasons is your thing. Or tags depending on your host to group your content together. So, like, maybe part of your content is like a foundational level. The next level would be more advanced. So you can earmark and say, these episodes are kind of like this. These episodes are more like that. That might help or by topic. So I have author podcasts, I have fiction authors, nonfiction authors. Then I can go deeper than that. I have business authors and I have children's authors and I have, you know, science fiction authors. I have Hollywood actors, I have people in the military, people who serve people like in law, judges and lawyers. I can go all different directions. So just tagging your content and trying to group them together, that's one thing I'm doing right now on YouTube. If you go to livingthenextchapter.com and head over to my YouTube channel, I'm creating playlists, sub playlists, in addition to the podcast as a whole, where I break out, like, authors into groups so that I can feature them and build up that audience for that specific groups. So if you like science fiction, great. If you like horror authors, awesome. If you love mindset if you love business books, if you love Hollywood actors who are now writing novels, awesome. I got you covered. Different Playlists Grouping liked audience liked content together is a way to help people to have a way to dip their toe in the pool before just jumping in the deep end with a lot of content. So try grouping your stuff together. Another thing you could do is curate a best of or an essential episodes list and it's and you can put that on your website. Would be a great starting point. Regularly point to them in your intro and your show notes and in your website so people get a guided path instead of a wall of choice. That's a great starting point. So keep that in mind. Make your show welcoming to new listeners right through the door for the first time so they don't feel overwhelmed. Might come down to just simple organization. What can you do to keep your older evergreen episodes relevant without paywalling your your content? Because guest interviews benefit from that long discoverable and shareable nature of evergreen content, it usually works better to keep them free and improve their visibility rather than hide them behind a paywall. Simple things like going back and look re looking at your titles for your past episodes. It's been a long time since you titled that episode. It might need some sprucing up a little bit. Maybe how you titled them before didn't work. Maybe you can do it a different way. You know things now, you've had feedback, you've tried things. Maybe it's time to go back and relook at old episodes and give them some new life. Just by updating the title again, you're not deleting the episode and uploading a new one. You're just going into the edit feature on your hosting site to that episode, going to the title line, giving it a little bit more. So if you only use three words for your words for an old episode and now you know better, that you want to do a better title description with more search friendly words within the title. Then do that. Go refresh your old titles and your episode descriptions. Give them some more life so that the episode is still relevant and that everything in there will bring more people to the episode, more search friendly and more problem oriented. Right? Answering questions being the result that people are looking for. It might help them to show up better on both the app and on the web search just by working with the titles. And then build a library or episode guide we talked about on a page on your website where you can embed players you that organize past episodes by topic and guests and any level you wish that's going to be helpful as well. It'll help Google to understand your content. One thing I've realized over the years is that Google wants When Google struggles to figure out what your show's about, they don't know where to put you. They don't know who to show you to when it's clear that you're an accounting podcast and you help small businesses. And that's what you do episode to episode every time. Great. Google knows what to do with you. But if you're all over the place like my author podcast, I talk to every type of author and it's very hard for Google to pinpoint what is this show really about. So grouping things together allows the group itself of those grouped episodes to perform better than just a big wall of content. So keep that in mind. You might want to do something to group your stuff together gives Google and other search engines and AI a chance to find your stuff better. And then also make sure you resurface your evergreen episodes in your feed with encore or from the archive episodes, maybe a new little short intro. And republishing your interviews is great. If you don't want to redo the episode completely, then use my trick of going into past content, updating the the release date to yesterday, whatever today is yesterday, which would bring an old episode from deep in the bowels of your content library up to the more recent ones. I do this all the time and it works really, really well. I'm not uploading a new episode, I'm not deleting the old episode, none of that. Just going into the the date range for that episode and just editing the date to yesterday. If I edit it to today or tomorrow, it's going to flag it as a new release, which it's not. But yesterday is fine and it just brings an old episode to the top of the list. Somebody new comes into my my world, they see all my newest numbered episodes current for today, and here's this one or two from the past just sitting there. It's like, oh, I'd be interested in that. It's a great way to bring old episodes back to life. So keep that in mind. Resurface those older episodes. If you still want to experiment with a paywall, then you need to consider a few things we could do. Things like that doesn't really harm or impact our regular content by doing bonus content after shows, extended cuts ad free versions, Q&As one on one with you as the host when you always have a guest something different, right? And this could be this could be paid content and it keeps the original guest interviews free so your guests continue to benefit from the organic discovery of their episode of them being a guest with your show. And you build new content in addition to what your podcast has done in the past. And you do that under a paywall. That's one way to create some income for your show, give your audience more content. If you can commit to this. Signing up to do this and you don't have enough time to do your podcast as it is is going to be a big ask. So only if you have time to do this bonus content might be a great idea. And then you can also maybe bundle your archives for Superfans. So have the extra feed of your stuff in addition to your regular feed. This is why I like Captivate fm because you can have multiple podcast feeds, not just one. You can have multiple Buzzsprout gives you a few now with a higher cost, but Captivate gives you the opportunity to have multiple feeds under one paid account. So you could have your regular podcast and all your regular episodes and you could do a little sub feed, a new feedback in addition to where you just break out the episodes that might work really well for you. Consider that it helps for your audience to self identify and know exactly what they want to listen to without getting buried in all the other stuff that they might not be as interested in. So keep that in mind. So as we head out the door, some practical steps that you should consider. Then check that your host RSS feed settings are correct and if you need to, then raise the episode limit if it is kept so all past episodes are available to your apps. I would also go on different apps and go to your podcast, find your show as a listener would and look at your episodes. Do you see episode one? And then do you see episode 603 when you sort. Usually you can sort by date or by episode number. Do you see them all? Just. Just jump through and see. Do you see episode one? You see episode 30? Episode 40 56, 182. Like do you see them? Good thing to double check, make sure and then publish. Maybe a short start here. Episode I. I would call that my trailer. I really, as I think about it out loud, that would be my trailer and I would just make sure that my every podcast I have has a trailer because again it lives at the top of the feed, doesn't get buried in content. Great thing for everybody to do. Highly recommend you have a trailer. It's not a dead idea. It's a great idea and I'd encourage you to do that and then maybe pick 10 to 20 of your strongest evergreen interviews. If you're an interview podcast or your content's evergreen, update the title descriptions for clarity and keywords and re promote them. Try my trick. Move the date and just move it up to the most recent dates, always to the day previous, yesterday, and then bring it up and let people see it. And when you're done after a few months, push it back to where it came from. It's a great little trick to help you resurface old content in all of this. It's not about your ego. The fact that you have 603 episodes, congratulations, that's a lot. But it's really not about that. It's about, is the content that I have in the past worth sharing? Is it still relevant today? If it's not, then you can just leave it where it is and move forward. It's fine. You don't have to go in and delete your old episodes. You're not going to run out of room where your podcast hosting sites can, like, knock on your door and say, hey, you got too many episodes. Get rid of, get rid of 300 episodes right now. So you're not going to have that knock on the door, which is good. But if your content is out of date, let's say, for example, you interviewed somebody who has a website that helps you do the thing, and now that person's gone, they don't have that anymore. That service is not available, and it's like you're sending people to the wrong place and there's nothing there. Does it have value? Can you do something with that episode? Maybe there's something you can do to it. But if you recommended something in the past and now you no longer recommend it, a microphone, a book, a resource, a website, a tool, and it's, it's not available or it doesn't work, or there's something better. Do you leave the episode? Do you put a little disclaimer at the beginning of the episode, hey, this is future Dave. And this episode, episode two, I recorded four years ago. This tool we no longer use, it's no longer available. I don't recommend you buy this tool any longer because it can't buy it. I recommend you use something different. But here's the old episode. If you want to go back in time, something like that, the last thing you want is people buying things and then saying to you, hey, I know 400 episodes ago you mentioned this thing. I went and bought it and it Sucks. You're like, oh, you shouldn't have bought that. Well, you told me to in the episode. Well, that's such old episode. Again, is your content up to date? Is it really evergreen? Is what you said in the past still relevant? It might be worth your time to go through and just double, triple check, go through and see what you talked about in the past. As a podcaster, we have this beautiful thing about having evergreen content and the ability to record it once and it lives out there in the world. It's amazing. It's a great tool. It can be used incorrectly and it can be used correctly. My challenge for you is to understand the content you have, understand your podcast from a new person's point of view, and if it doesn't work for a new person, then make some changes. Do you need to pay while your old content you could. What's the impact to your guest? If you have guests, what's the impact to your audience? Do you need the income to pay wall old episodes? Is it something that will help you podcast longer than maybe, or do you create new content in addition to the content you have and put that out as paid? There's a lot of different options, and if you're overwhelmed by options and you just want to have a conversation, reach out to me at howtopodcast ca. I'd love to chat with you anytime. And let's see what we can come up with together because I'm sure there's an answer that's gonna work best for you. I'll give you my recommendations, but this is all about you. So happy to help anytime. HowToPodcast ca. Thanks for being here and congratulations. You have over 10 episodes. You beat the averages and that's my goal. I want to help you get past 10, so reach out if you need help. Take care.
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B
Thank you so much for listening to the entirety of the episode, including this part.
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A
You know what?
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A lot of people leave right now, so we'll let them leave. Give them a second to go.
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A
Okay, now it's just you and me.
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B
We have our meetups that we do for the how to Podcast series. We do them during the week and we also do them on Saturdays. So twice a week you have the opportunity to meet other podcasters just like you. Some people have just started, some people haven't even released an episode yet. Some have been doing it forever. And we get together and talk podcasting.
- [30:34]
A
We want to help you in community
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B
to continue with your show, to start your show, to grow your show. So come and meet listeners of this show in one space on meetup.com again through howtopodcast ca. You'll see the links. It's completely free to join. Come whenever you have an opportunity to come. There's no commitment. You don't have to sign any waivers. You can just come join us. Come join the conversation. We'd love to have you there because the only thing that's going to make these meetups better is you being there. So I'm hoping you will say yes and you'll say, dave, I'm tired of podcasting by myself. I wish there was people I could connect with that are fellow podcasters and share my frustrations with guests who ghost me. And my editing software is crapping out on me and I'm just having this hard time. I'm just having a hard time coming up with podcasts, episodes and titles and all the things and social media. Wouldn't it be great to get in a room with other podcasters and share best practices and learn? Three of our four Saturdays every month are themed to have a topic. But that last Saturday of every month, it's open question and answer, ask anything. Come meet a podcaster. Come enjoy the podcasting community throughout a podcast ca come to our meetups. Can't wait to see you there.
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A
You're still here. Awesome. Great. So here's. Here's a question. I got some of you saying, I want an interview based podcast. I want to talk to people, thought leaders, influential people in my space. But I don't think I can commit to doing a weekly episode, which I really want to do, and doing 52 interviews. It's a lot. It's a lot of interviews. What's my options? So my response was, well, let's talk through this first. You could do every second week. You could do two a month instead of one a week. That's one option. Cut your work in half. But they really want this person really wanted to have a weekly podcast. They felt compelled that that's how they wanted to show up. So an alternative was, and I've talked about this on the show in the past, but in case you haven't heard that before, when you record with your guest, record your interview and then when you're done, your guest leaves however you're recording. I use zoom. So they leave my zoom recording and it's just me. I'm still set up. Like my mic is on, my recording software is in front of me. My guest is gone. Thank you for being here. They're gone. And while I'm here in this moment. Instead of shutting everything down, what I'm going to do is just from my memory of what just happened with my guest, I'm going to record my reflection episode on what just happened. And I'm not doing it, like, weeks later and trying to remember. I'm doing it in the moment. So my guest just left, like I. Like a minute ago. I turn on my recording software. I'm using Audacity. I hit return on Audacity. I create a new session in Audacity, and I hit record, and I just talk about the guest I just had, and I just capture my thoughts and reflect on what just happened. Because I. It just happened. It's right there, fresh in my mind, and I just talk about it. It could be like 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and then I kind of share my additional thoughts as well. Maybe I have a different point of view than my guest. Maybe I want to. I want to reinforce something that they said. Because while I'm talking to my guests, I always have a piece of paper with me on a clipboard, and I'm jotting down little notes of, oh, I like that. Those are how I pick my moments to highlight. Instead of giving some AI tool permission to do it for me, I have a pen and piece of paper. I can do that myself. So these moments stand out for me. They said this. They recommended this book. They did that. There's a lot of opportunities for me to then do a reflection episode, a short reflection on the episode I just recorded and what I do then. What a suggestion I gave this person was record your episode, week one. Okay. And then your reflection episode that you recorded the same day in the moment you release the second week. So you have an interview and then a reflection episode where you talk about last week's episode as it would show on your podcast app. So if I show up on your reflection week, you're telling me to go back and listen to the previous episode because you're talking about what happened last week. So it makes me want to go back and listen because you told me about it. So not only do I get the benefit of you and a guest where you're kind of quiet and the guest speaks the majority of the time. That's a good interview, by the way. But then I also have the bonus of you telling me your thoughts, your past guest. So it's week one is interview. Week two, reflection on the interview that happened last week. Next interview and a reflection episode. Next interview, reflection. You just cut your podcast recording time in half. You still are doing a weekly podcast with only half of the guests required to fill out your year, it's a lot easier to find half the amount of guests than it is to find 52 guess. 52 good guess. So do try that. Maybe that would work for you as you're wrestling and if with this whole idea of doing a weekly content. If you're currently doing every second week as a podcaster and you're just doing interviews like I do for living the next chapter, I say just but you know what I mean. Then maybe that off week that you typically don't record could still have an episode because you record it right after. So if you have a 30 minute interview with your guest, add five minutes and make it 35 minutes in your calendar. Record the 30 minute interview. Then record the five minute reflection. You've just recorded two episodes at the same time in the same time frame with a very gentle lift into your calendar to make it happen. So try that if I got lots of ideas about how you can make your podcast better. Some suggestions for you. Always willing to help howtopodcast ca reach out if you need help. I'd love to talk to you. I'd love to meet you anytime we can have a virtual coffee. I'd love to meet you sometime. Take care.