040 5 Things to Consider When Choosing Your Podcast Host

1. Storage and Bandwidth Restrictions

When looking at storage capabilities, consider the future of your show. As you continue producing content, you will need enough storage space for both your old and new podcast episodes. Bandwidth will affect how much content you can upload or download from your host. This directly influences how many people can access your podcast at one time. As your audience grows, so will your bandwidth needs, so you have to make sure that your host can deliver your content as needed. You also want to know about what’s the scenario is once you have reached 100 or 300 episodes, what happens to that content? Does it get automatically archived or is it removed? In podcasting an episode has a lifetime value of 7 years in terms of business usefulness, but not if you reached 100 episodes and then no one could find that content on the RSS feed anymore.

2. Reliability

Over the last 5 years, as podcasts have begun to really take off, lots of companies have come into this influential space of course. But, not every one of those companies survived. I believe if you’re paying for something, you’re going to get a better service because there is a really effective model for that business. So I would always be looking at the reliability, stability and longevity that a platform has already had.

3. Distribution

If I am creating a podcast, I want my words to reach as many people as possible. I want to make sure that without any extra work for myself or my team, distribution happens seamlessly. That’s one of the reasons why we choose to have a paid host that connects with as many different places as possible at the touch of one button. Some of the free hosting platforms only distribute to one or two platforms. This is limiting because although you’re a podcaster, you aren’t going to be found everywhere, so you’ve got to think how determined are you to make sure that your episodes are found on many different platforms. The more platforms you’re in, the more landscape you have in the digital world. Think about your distribution needs.

4. Statistics

If you’re a hobbyist podcaster you might not need to know exactly where your podcast traffic is coming from or how many people are listening per episode. You might be happy with either the knowledge of just the overall downloads you’ve had in total, or not even having access to that information. As a business owner though, as someone who is podcasting for business, I do think it’s important that you know those statistics, you know where people are tuning in, you get access to where they’re dropping out of listening to your episode. You can then use that information to inform the new episodes that you create. This comes down not only to choosing which platform but also the hosting package. For example, most paid podcasting platforms will have a tiered system that includes not only how much depth in the statistics you get, but also the amount of audio that you’re allowed to upload in a given month.

5. Ease of Interface

Podcast hosting features are useless to you if you don’t know how to use them. So, take time to research the features offered by a podcast hosting site. Why not learn how to use the dashboard so you can better manage your podcast and media files.

Final few questions to ask yourself

How much do you require having smart links?

Does it come with a podcasting website?

Is there an integration for you to embed on your own website?

Is there a way that you can have your social media channels attached alongside your audio?

My Personal Recommendations

Here at Influential Audio- The Podcast Agency, we would strongly recommend Captivate. They offer flexible, no contracts, commitments and every feature is included from day one, with no need to upgrade. The moment that you start your free trial you’ll have access to the entire platform with clear steps, total support and quick, complete tutorials that make it easy to podcast with no confusion! Websites, sponsor kits, private feeds, and more, all included. They offer excellent distribution and you can also access Captivate Growth Labs to help you grow and monetise your podcast.

We have also used Libsyn with many of our clients. As a platform it allows you to diversify your revenue streams through ads and podcast subscriptions or donations. You maintain full control over how you monetise your podcast, but can handle it all through the Libsyn platform. 

In some respects, it doesn’t matter which you choose, as long as you’re making an informed decision, rather than just going with the one that’s cheap, easy and free. If you’re not very technically minded, you do want to make sure that it’s super easy for you.

Are you ready to start a podcast but looking for full support?