New information about Podbean, including new features, updates, podcast events and promotions.

New Release: Effector 2.0 Podcast Theme

New! Autopost from Podbean to Your Wordpress Site

Podbean has a new feature, to make it easier than ever to share your podcasts on the web! You can now connect your Wordpress site to your Podbean account so that new podcast episodes will automatically be posted on your Wordpress site.

It is super easy to set up and start saving time! Go to Settings->Social Share and click on the “Connect to Wordpress” button. You will need to input your Wordpress login url, username and password and choose "self-hosted" or "Wordpress.com". Then, hit “submit” and you should see a success message at the top of your screen.

You can also customize your posting options. Click on the “edit” pencil icon for your connected Wordpress account to get the dropdown menu of options. Categories allows you to set it up so that the episodes automatically post in one (or more) categories within your Wordpress site (for example, your news or blog section). If you wish to post to more than one category, simply separate the names of the categories here with commas. You can also customize options for the look and feel on your self-hosted Wordpress site, such as player color, whether the download and share buttons are displayed, if the episode auto plays, and the video size (for video episodes). *Wordpress.com sites do not support the embeddable player, so they will display a simple play logo which links to a new page to play the episode.

Tips: Optimizing Your Podcast for Search and iTunes

Keywords are important to help potential listeners find your podcast. Think about keywords that you may want to include in your podcast title and description. What are the main subjects of your podcast? What key topics do you cover?

When you go to your account “settings” under “general options” you can choose your channel title, keywords and a brief description. For your title, a good format is Podcast Name: 2-3 key words describing what your podcast is about. So, for example if my podcast, Marketing Mania, is about blogging and social media, my title might be: “Marketing Mania: Blogging | Social Media”. Keywords listed for this podcast might include blogging, social media, digital marketing, content creation, social media marketing. The description should be in sentence form, but include those important key words also (example: “Marketing Mania covers everything you need to know about blogging and social media. Featuring digital marketing tips.”).

For each episode, use primary key words in the title and description (i.e. What is the focus of this episode?). With Podbean, you can modify the permalink for each episode, which is also great for SEO purposes.

If you hit “more options” when publishing a podcast episode in Podbean, you can also modify the information for iTunes such as subtitle, summary and keywords. This can help optimize your podcast for iTunes so that it’s easy for iTunes users to find you. If these are not modified, Podbean uses certain default information (such as the first 25 characters of your post text as the subtitle for iTunes); scroll over the (?) by each for more information.

Using keywords is a great way to help new listeners find your podcast. Incorporate these tips to help your podcast stand out!

More Customization for Your Podcast Site

New Feature: Display Your Podcast Player Above Your Episode Description

Podbean offers different display options to make your site look just the way you like. We’ve added a new feature allowing you to choose where to display the podcast player for your episodes. 

Currently, the podcast player displays below any show notes/text description. But, some users prefer the podcast player to be the first thing users see in the episode. Now, with one quick step, you can opt to have your podcast player display above the episode text.

To make this change, go to Settings->Display->Episodes. Find “Display player before episode description” and click on it to activate this setting. Make sure to save by clicking on the blue “Update Options” button at the bottom.

Now, the podcast player will be featured right after your title for each episode, with any description or show notes following. We hope you enjoy this new feature! If you have any questions, visit support.podbean.com.

More Customization for Your Podcast Player

Podbean has added even more customization options for your embeddable podcast player. Now, you can choose from a wide range of colors for your podcast player, to better match with the look and feel of your website.

In your dashboard, go to Settings->Player. For the embeddable multimedia player, click on “More Options” to see the colors available. Choose the color you desire and click “Preview & Get Code” for the corresponding coding to paste in to your site. 

You can also change the color on the podcast player on your site. When you click on “audio player on site” or “video player on site”, you will see the range of colors. Click on the desired color and “save” to make the change on your site.

The Podbean interface helps you easily make your podcast look great! We welcome your feedback and questions at support@podbean.com and we hope you enjoy this new option.

Podcast Stats Upgrade: Detailed Data Available for Export

Podcasters occasionally wish to view detailed information about their episode plays. For example, you may see something that seems unusual, such as a big increase or decrease in plays for a particular episode, and want to more closely analyze the data. With Podbean’s latest statistics upgrade, Business Plan users* now have this data right at their fingertips.

In your dashboard, go to Statistics->Trending and scroll down to “Episode Plays”. On the right side, you will see a button, “Export Full Data”; click to choose the month you desire (from the last three months) and the data will be exported to an Excel file. You can now see the details (file, country, IP, client/platform) of each episode play.

Podbean’s enhanced statistics help your podcast succeed and grow! We welcome your feedback and questions at support@podbean.com.

*Full data export feature is only available for Business and Enterprise plans. To view plans/upgrade, visit www.podbean.com/podcast-hosting-pricing.

Podbean Releases New Podcast Layout Options

Podbean is excited to announce two great new layouts for our podcasters. Vivid 1.0 is a video podcast layout. It puts your videos front and center, with an attractive, graphic representation that shows off your video content. Pride 2.0 was designed with creative professionals in mind. Pride minimizes clutter through a simple, intuitive organization with a customizable podcast profile landing page.

Podbean offers diverse layouts to make your podcast shine, highlighting your style and brand. Go to “layout” in your account dashboard to preview the different templates. With Podbean, podcasters don’t have to learn complex programming or spend a lot of time or money to make their sites look great.

You can also check out a video demo of how to change layouts in Podbean’s Support Center.

Five Key Statistics to Understand Your Podcast Audience

Statistics help you understand your podcast audience and guage how your podcast is performing. But, what do these stats mean? How can you use them to improve your podcast, grow your audience, and build your brand?

Here are five key statistics and the secrets they have to share with you. Podbean’s enhanced statistics platform, free with all paid accounts, shows you all of this data in an easy-to-read format.

1. Total plays 
  This is the “big picture” of the popularity of your podcast, as well as how it is growing or trending over time.

2. Feed hits
Combined with play stats, feed hits give you a better idea of the size and interest of your listening audience. Podcasts are different than static web pages since users may click to play a podcast but then not listen to the episode and may fetch your feed in different ways. Feed hits and total plays together give you the most realistic picture. These are numbers that potential sponsors will want to know as well.

3. Most popular episodes
Check out your top episodes for ideas about the type of content your listeners prefer. You can get new show ideas from this and offer similar content to potentially grow your podcast.

4. Geography
It helps to know where your listeners are located. This can help you to include relevant information as it applies to those listeners, and build a sense of community by including/thanking listeners from different parts of the globe. Sponsors also need to know geo data to find out if your podcast is a good fit for who they wish to target (same goes for other potential enterprises you might do in relation to your podcast/brand).

5. Client software/platform
As you make decisions about your podcast and ensure it is usable for the majority of your listeners, it helps to know what software and platforms they are using. If technical issues come up, you’ll have a better idea of who it’s affecting. Sponsors also sometimes want this information...if for example, they want to target iphone or Mac users only. If you podcast about technology, this is of course vital information as well.

Simple is Best: Podcasting Account Updates

In our continued efforts to make Podbean the easiest, most functional podcasting platform for you, we’ve streamlined some more account features. We have removed the “users” menu. You can now find features such as admin, authors in the “my account” page and the “private members”page, if you’ve set up the private podcast, located under “account” in the upper right hand corner when you log in to Podbean.

We’re always working to make Podbean the best podcasting tool for you. Your feedback helps us improve. We’d love to hear what you think! Email us with your comments.