This Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp incident on October 4, 2021 was more than a mild inconvenience. Or as Facebook internally called it "a snow day."

As a podcaster, we hope you now see the urgency in creating a standalone website entirely separate from social media. If this downtime were to happen to Spotify or Apple, far too many podcasters would end up losing listeners.

And even worse, revenue.

My guest is Laura Oldham, founder of Starburst Media. I have known Laura since 2017, as she was the first guest on the TriVillage Chamber Partnership podcast Business Inspires. We've worked together over the years on a few projects.

I wanted to get her insight on how important a website is for podcasters.

Her focus with Starburst Media is mainly on building websites in WordPress, Shopify and Squarespace and giving her clients the tools to make their own changes so they don’t necessarily need to depend upon Starburst Media (or another firm) to keep their websites up to date.

If you haven't built a podcast website, now is the time. And by podcast website, we mean a standalone website not through your hosting platform. This Facebook incident on October 4, 2021 won't be the last time social media will go down.

And if you completely rely on social media to promote your podcast, to promote your business, you're building your "castle on sand," as the saying goes.

As she states...

If there's ever been a time, it was made clear why you shouldn't have one company controlling such a big chunk of your communications. Where people in countries weren't able to communicate with family members. And businesses weren't able to do basic commerce that rely upon Facebook.

Laura covers some do's and don'ts when creating a website. Her main advice is just don't overthink it.

...enough that someone can find you and get a feel for what it is that you're trying to share with them, sell them, whatever it is. But even the most basic Wix website or Squarespace website can be really easy to throw together as long as you just don't overthink what should go on the website.

Is WordPress the best route to go? If you blog and podcast, yes. WordPress was made for this. If you are looking at adding very little blog content to your website over time, Squarespace and Wix are good, easy options.

When the time comes to build, or update, your website, you may want to consider outside help like Starburst Media offers. Laura offers some advice on what questions you should ask.

Plus, notice what questions are asked of you from the perspective of a web designer. You need to know this person is on your team. Not only to build your website, but to help you maintain the best website you can. For today, and for the future.

Podcasts added to your website have shown to help with your website SEO. Laura has been helping her clients with this as well.

I think that's fantastic when people do take the time to make sure that their podcast is on the right services so they can easily embed each podcast.

Contact Laura about your podcast website questions. Her email address is laura@starburstcolumbus.com.

Let’s talk about what podcasting can do for your business in the next 12-months. Whether you’re B2C or B2B, we can create a content marketing strategy that will work for you.

Connect with me if you would like to talk more about this. My calendar is available on my Circle270Media Podcast Consultants business website at circle270media.com

Subscribe to my free daily Open The Mic Newsletter. It’s chock full of podcast news you may have missed, as well as social media, sales, and audio production tips, and insights on how to grow your business podcast.

Recorded in conjunction with Channel 511, in the Brewery District, downtown Columbus, OH.

Brett Johnson is the owner and lead consultant at Circle270Media Podcast Consultants. With over 35+ years of experience in Marketing, Content Creation, Audio Production/Recording and Broadcasting, the podcast consultants at Circle270Media strategically bring these strengths together for their business Podcast clients.

Email us at podcasts@circle270media.com to set up time to talk more about your new or established business podcast.

This is a note to feature me.

Hi, this is Brett Johnson, your host and

the owner of Circle 270 Media podcast Consultants.

If you survived Facebook and Instagram

and what's that being down in October, this is going to be the episode for you.

I talk with Laura Oldham.

She is the owner of Starburst Media.

She uses array of her skills gained

through various web and design firms in Chicago, lives in Columbus, and over the

past, Deck has own Starburst Media and helping hundreds of clients

take advantage of WordPress Squarespace Shopify website building.

And if Facebook and Instagram and what's

that being down is not enough for you to realize that you need a

website, I hope this episode will help you figure that out.

She goes over some really good

meet on the bone advice about what to look for when building a website, why you

should be building a website or revising the website that you have.

If that is the hurdle that stops you

from really focusing and promoting your website just because you don't like it,

now is the time to be taking a look at that and revising it.

If you haven't built a website, I mean a

standalone website not based on a website that you have on your hosting platform.

I'm talking a dot com with your podcast name in front of that.

Com.

Now is the time to really be thinking about doing that and moving forward

because this won't be the last time social media will go down.

And if you rely on social media totally on

promoting your podcast, promoting your business, you're building your Castle on

sand, as they say, this is a fantastic interview with Laura.

I hope you enjoyed. I hope you get a couple of tidbits from it

and it energizes you to build a website for your podcast.

Well, Laura, timing can be better to talk about websites with Facebook with the

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp instant that happened now?

Just a couple of days ago.

By the time we published this.

But back in October, if you're listening yes, months from now, I think it was more

than a mild inconvenience or what they called it internally a snow day.

Glad they can make light of it.

I think a lot more people were freaking

out than they were podcasters and business owners as well may now see the urgency and

creating a standalone website entirely separate from social media.

If this were to happen to Spotify or

Apple, far too many would have ended up losing listeners and revenue.

You lived through yesterday too.

What are your thoughts about looking back at it going, yeah.

Did you have those? I told you so moments.

Maybe to an extent, it's been funny because when I first

started my business about twelve years ago, it was largely social media based,

and my first five years or so was telling clients they needed to be on social media

in addition to their website and the last six or seven years has been not to worry

so much about social media, because truthfully, I mean, any number of things

are going to take Facebook slash Instagram down because anti trust.

If there's ever been a time, what it was made clear why you shouldn't have one

company controlling such a big chunk of communications for the entire world.

It was yesterday where people in countries

were able to communicate with family members and businesses

weren't able to do basic commerce that they rely upon Facebook for.

So it just kind of was like, Well, this is why I've been telling people for years

that having even the most simple website is really important because you do not

know what's going to happen to Facebook, Instagram or any number of these over the

next few years as regulators start to break them up, or

if the EU somehow manages to completely destroy Mark Zuckerberg, who knows?

But it's always better to have control

over your own assets instead of depending upon Facebook servers being working.

Yeah, well, and the social media, Facebook

in particular has made it really enticing to build your business on.

I mean, they give you the tools are pretty simple to tools to use on the back end

that you're living on that social media platform more than you realize.

And they've really slipped themselves into

the business realm to make it look like they're your partner in it.

And I think again,

them being down for most of a day, really open your eyes to it.

And maybe it's now a realization of, okay,

let's look at this platform, Facebook Instagram.

What's that? Twitter.

It could be any of them for what it is.

It's a communication tool.

That's it.

You can't build your house on sand, quite frankly.

And I think those have the website, I

would think, and you may have gotten calls yesterday, too.

Kind of going, thank goodness we got a website.

I think that we're living on what we build.

Yeah, I one of the conversations that I

had yesterday was one of a client or not a client.

I'm sorry. A campaign that I'm a part of were like,

thank God we have such a robust playing in place for wit drops and mailers and

everything else, because if a campaign was granted, it was half a day.

But that can be a lot for some of these local campaigns, especially.

Thank goodness we have so many other pieces in place to communicate with people

effectively outside of just depending upon Facebook.

And you know, another thing that yesterday

is sort of underlined to me for years with Facebook, they've been

making all their money by saying, Well, if you don't pay for your post, 10% of your

audience will see it or whatever it is right now based upon the algorithm.

So it's always been based upon paying.

So even when it's working as well as it

should, you're still what you think you're getting for free or not.

It costs money to get in front of even the

people that already chose to see your post.

So yes, everything does have something

outside of just depending upon Facebook and let's dive into it a little bit to it.

So I know we've been preaching and I've

been talking about it while you have your whole career as well to create a website.

And I think some of the hurdle and

creating a website is that where do you start and you read the Google that topic.

You'll be reading pages and pages and pages and pages.

And I think it's good to talk to people

that have been in it a while that have gotten the bruises for their clients and

such and learned as they go because that ever changing industry.

So can we go over maybe a few dos and

don'ts when creating a website? I mean, it's one of those where do you start some

do's and don'ts when creating a website? Well, it comes to mind.

Sure. So my biggest thing would be to say and

this is a lot easier to say than to do, but just don't overthink it.

I think a lot of times

a lot of the people I talk to have gotten more just in their own heads about it.

Well, how do I want to say who I am?

What my background is if you start simple and go from there.

Even a simple, small, simple something is

better than having the landing page coming soon,

rather than having just even the tiniest bit about yourself, as far as making sure,

depending upon the business or the podcast or whatever.

But just enough that someone can find you and get a feel for what it is that you're

trying to share with them, sell them whatever it is.

But even the most basic Wix website or

square space website could be really easy to throw together as long as you just

don't overthink what should go on the website.

And I think to me that was assembling

block as well when I put mine together homemade as it were.

But it's one of those.

How do I tell people what I do

and sell and help and such without making it a home?

You work with Squarespace WordPress Shopify's while 2 may be a little bit off

the beaten path for podcast, but it is monetary opportunity.

Is WordPress the best route to go?

What are the pros and cons that working with WordPress?

I mean, everybody seems to know about WordPress.

They're familiar with it, but they also

see the square spaces and the Wix opportunities too.

And go how this is a lot easier to go into.

What do you think about that?

It depends upon the project and what the person involved once.

Right.

How I describe WordPress.

Wordpress is fantastic.

If you want control down to the Pixel

where it is very important to you to have X designed just like how it is in your

head or you have a very specific brand and you need the different elements.

Wordpress gives you in my mind a lot more

control, at least easier without a lot of custom code.

You can really control that.

Wordpress is also great for someone who's been blog.

A lot

is great if you want something quick and you don't want to have to worry about it

with WordPress, there is a lot of hacking involved.

You have to constantly make sure that all

of your themes and plugins and the WordPress version are up to date.

Otherwise you're vulnerable to just more so annoying then you know, big

scale hacking, but even just having an injection of code in your

website can be enough to throw your day off.

But you don't have that with Squarespace.

The Squarespace, it's more you pay through Squarespace for the hosting, the

SSL certificate and maybe even the domain you set up a website.

It can be as simple or as complicated as

you want, and then you don't necessarily need to worry about it getting taken down

or hacked or anything like that and then Shopify.

It's good if you're selling anything because it has all the security in place.

You don't have to worry with WordPress.

There are all these extra plugins and

payment processing pieces and Shopify just makes all of that easy.

You've seen Squarespace and Wix then a

good alternative if you are a blogger has become better blogging tool.

I still definitely prefer WordPress when

it comes to anyone that's win to blog regularly, and that might be more just

subjective is because it's what I'm familiar with,

but there are just so many great tools to WordPress built in for people who are

going to regularly post blog, post, podcast or whatever.

It is ongoing content like that, whereas

with pore space, it's fantastic for someone who's maybe got to post ten blog

posts a year as opposed to regularly updating.

That was my impression too.

And again, I'm not in Squarespace or Wix to know the upgrades and how they're

changing to be more friendly to one sector or another.

I was under that impression

is what were impressed was based on is it built around blogging and such too?

So it's been a natural

go to for podcasters because basically podcast is a blog verbalized and even more

and then top it injecting video very easily.

In saying that, though, are there

alternatives to WordPress that could be considered is really the Squarespace and

with the way to go or is there easier entry ways into WordPress that it's not

such a big Hill to climb once you get into WordPress.

That'S a good question for one person.

Something might seem really complicated and like a lot to handle and for someone

else they might just pick it up right away.

I personally find Wix to be a little hard

to fully understand how they have it set up and that's me being someone that has

worked on dozens of Wix websites over the years, like, I have a pretty good handle

on how it's set up, but still, sometimes it can feel kind of wonky to me.

Squarespace.

They recently came out with a newer version that I think is much more user

friendly than anything they had in the past.

But that being said, there are still some things that in my mind don't necessarily

function as I would expect or want them to.

But in general, when someone when I know

that they're serious about blogging and they want to have ongoing content updates,

WordPress, it's typically going to be the best option.

In my mind.

I see the benefit of working with somebody like you.

Pretty huge building websites. A big lift.

It really is.

It from the beginning stages, I think once

it's built and you're given the tools to at least be able to post, to update, to

know, to go in and update and such like that.

What would be some advice

that you would give in regards to how to interview a website developer?

What are some things that, as a podcast or

a business owner, they should be asking right up front?

That kind of helps sift through people like you doing the services.

They're doing great.

But everybody has their little their Lane they go through to in regards to what they

do with their clients, what they do with building websites?

What are some good questions to ask?

So I would say, up front, everyone works very differently.

And sometimes people want to have their hand held

from every step of the process where they really overwhelmed and uncomfortable.

And they want someone that can help you

with walking through the beginning, the branding, the mission, and all of that

stuff all the way to the end of launching a website.

And so for those people, sometimes interviewing some of the bigger firms that

include people that have a few is the way to go, whereas for

other businesses they might be looking for no, I've already got some of these pieces

in place, but I need help tackling the website part.

And then it might be good to find someone such as myself who is happy to do projects

here and there, as opposed to working with a larger firm that expects, you know, it's

going to be a six month commitment sort of thing.

So it really depends what their personality is and what they

need, because just like anything else, there's going to be good fit to match.

Well. And it sounds as though, too, as you

just stated, there should be some questions coming from someone like you as

well to really filter out what that person that business needs, right?

Yeah. And that's always great.

In my mind.

That would be probably a good advice to give to a business owner if someone

doesn't ask any questions when they reach out.

And a potential web designer developer, just like, yeah, sure.

Well, that might be a bit of a tag, because if it's yes or without knowing if

it's a good fit or not, that's not ideal for me.

I like to know I

don't want to go into any sort of business relationship with a bad fit.

So I like to have conversations with people for a little bit before we would

even start just to make sure that we're on the same page or communication deadlines.

All of that.

But yeah, with anything.

This definitely included communication,

transparency and being honest about what you expect, what you charge, what your

budget is all sides, just honesty and being.

I would think everybody's going to be happy in the long run when the project's

done, or at least to the point where, hey, here are the keys.

That's what you want, or I take care of everything and such, too.

I would think another red flag would be.

The answer is we have to tear it down and

rebuild it unless it's just the worst built website.

But I going in that the business owner

podcaster would know that, and that would be the first thing I got to rebuild.

I know it's a terrible website, but that, to me, is a red flag as well, too.

Like, maybe not everything has to be rebuilt.

But again, like you said, case by case, who knows, until you get in and take a

look and what are the end goals for what you want that website to do?

Ultimately, absolutely.

And I mean that's just same as anything right with the house.

You can usually find a way to fix it without starting over.

Same with the website, even if it was built ten years ago.

There are ways to make it work without having to ditch what

you already have or when you're building a website.

You should be, I think at least building for the future as well, too.

Add ons of thinking.

Okay, today you're doing this.

But what do you want to do in a few years?

What are some of those common things that you suggest as well as add ons it's like

you're doing this right now, but be thinking about this to me.

It could be as simple as we got to make sure you include your social media icons,

those little things here, or certain things are always top one.

Remember to always add this to websites.

I mean, I guess the big thing that comes

up more often than I would have necessarily expected is sometimes people

will realize down the line that they want to sell, and we're already

on the square space path, for example, which is totally fine.

But if you want a robust

website, a robust selling platform than Shopify, the better choice.

And it's fine.

You can sell with a space you can sell with WordPress.

But if at any point in your business you

think that you're going to want to add a shop online, then it's probably good to

consider Shopify as your first step, as opposed to going too far down the wrong

direction and then finding yourself trying to recreate that website in Shopify,

because all these platforms work a little bit differently, and it's just start with

the right choice for you as opposed to having to like you said.

And that's good advice, because for a podcast or in a business, no matter

what that is, a monetization option is even of a pod.

Counselor wants to sell T shirts without

going through a third party, or it could be through third party.

But you want to make it easy on their

website to sell T shirts or laptop stickers or whatever the case might be.

If that's on the radar to do, then. Yeah.

Say that outlaw to your website designer,

because even if it doesn't come true, at least, you know, in the long run, we'd

love to let's make sure that can happen, or it could be

developing an email newsletter that in itself has sign up options as well, too.

So I think being honest with you is web

developer is crucial in that first step, correct?

Yeah, absolutely.

And that brings up a good point where it's good to have all these conversations at

the very start of getting a better understand.

What is it you hope to us from this website or we want an email list.

Okay.

Let's decide what kind of email lists you want.

Are you going to use mail chimp or do you

want to do something a little simpler to start?

I mean, what do you have in mind and just

kind of being able to talk through and gather all that information as the

foundation before you even get too far into anything.

It's just a good place to start.

I ran across an article just a couple of days ago prior to this interview.

It was posted by At Exchanger dot com.

And it's talking about where Panasonic is using podcasting as a

powerful lead Gen tool or a tool for B to B marketers.

But it really wasn't necessarily the

podcast itself, is that it's giving them more SEO juice because people are staying

on their page longer by listening to a podcast link on their website.

It has that.

Are there other ideas?

I think adding a podcast, the website.

I've seen that more and more people are

talking about that the interaction, the opportunity for somebody to stay on a page

a little bit longer that stickiness that podcasts can have. Are you seeing that a

little bit more in regards to maybe even focus on how the blog is used with a

podcast or these ideas of keeping people on your web page a little bit longer?

Oh, absolutely.

And I think that's fantastic when people do take the time to

make sure that their podcast is on the right services that you can

easily for someone who doesn't even know code easily embed each podcast.

This one post on the website so that they do remain on the website.

And then there are certainly ways.

If you're on WordPress, for example, if

you're website is built on WordPress and you want to optimize the podcast for SEO,

you can use iOS or something similar to make sure that you are including the intro

paragraphs that have the right search keywords and all of that too.

And it's just another way to pull people in.

And then, like you said, to get them to stay on your website as well.

Laura, thanks so much.

This has been very insightful.

Hopefully, listeners get a bit of well, at least it takes away the fear to want to

work with a website designer or at least know that they can go.

And if nothing else, contacts you to at least talk it out.

Kind of going. Hey, I have one built.

I'm kind of happy with it, but I know it can be better.

And I think

price is always scary, but in the time, but I think it's worth it in long on

thinking about these incidents like yesterday.

If you're relying on social media, it doesn't cut it.

You've got to have a better home base.

And if you're not happy with it, make it better.

Otherwise, you don't want to cringe every

time you log in, going, oh, I hate this website.

I wish to fix it.

There are lots of people like Laura. They can do it.

But what's a good contact information to get a hold of you if they just want to

give you a shout to kind of go, hey, let's talk.

Sure. So my website is Starburst Columbus dot.

Com. And then my email is Laura at starburst.

Columbus. Com.

And I am literally always happy to answer questions over email.

If anyone has any super good. Good.

Good. Well, thanks again, Laura.

I appreciate it. Well, thank you so much.