A 30 Minute Guide to Starting a Podcast

Good sound quality isn't the only thing you need to be successful in podcasting, but bad audio quality will cost you listeners. It only takes a few minutes to talk to your guest or co-hosts about their recording setup, but it can help you identify and prevent potential audio issues. The good news is that you don't have to spend a lot of money or have an expensive studio to record quality audio. You just need to know a few things about recording audio, and follow the tips and the recording checklist I'm sharing in this episode. This is part 6 of a 7 part series about how to make sure your podcast sounds good. You can listen to the other episodes at podcastingwithaaron.com.

Options for recording remote guests and co-hosts • The pros and cons of recording everyone to a single audio track • The pros and cons of recording an audio track for each person and putting them together later

Last episode I talked about mic technique and how to set gain levels. This week I'm going to talk about how the room you're recording in might affect the quality of your sound. The most important thing is to pay attention to how you sound in your room. The room you're recording in is probably only going to cause problems if there are a lot of hard surfaces that reflect your voice back enough to make it hard to understand what you're saying. If you hear an echo that bothers you, figure out how to address it.

Last week I talked about how to connect your microphone and headphones and make sure you're ready to start recording. This week I'm going to walk you through the basics of microphone technique and how to set the input gain levels (or recording levels) so you can sound good anytime you want to record some audio. Just a heads up: If you're listening to this episode in a podcast app, I'd recommend switching over to the YouTube video, as I believe it's easier to understand mic technique and input gain levels if you can see what I'm doing and talking about.

Last week I talked about the importance of getting good sound for your podcast. I talked about why good sound matters, what it means when something sounds good, and why you should get yourself that nice podcast microphone you've been looking at. This week I want to talk about something that might seem basic to you if you've been podcasting for a while. I want to talk about connecting your microphone and headphones, and making sure you have your microphone (or audio interface) set as the input source for whatever recording software you're using.

Does it really matter how good you sound? What does it mean to sound good? Can you sound good if you don't have money for expensive recording gear? What do you have to do to sound good? Is it possible to sound good even if you don't know all the technical terms that audio engineers use? I'm answering all of these questions and more in this series I'm calling: How to Get Good Sound for Your Podcast.

My goal for this episode is to give you a big picture roadmap for how to start a podcast. You give me 30 minutes of your time, I'll tell you everything I know about starting a podcast. This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive guide that covers everything you’ll need to know (that would take awhile longer and I'd like to keep this pretty short), but my hope is that it gives you enough information to help you start making progress on starting your own podcast.

Q from Chris Barber on Twitter: Can you talk about procrastinating on doing a podcast? Yes, I can! But first: A big thank you to DYork55 for the kind 5 star review on Apple Podcasts. DYork wrote: Big fan, super excited to hear that you’re back. I used to listen to pretty much every episode of the podcast dude, back when I was in the early process of launching my own podcast, The Seatown Funk. Since then, I’ve managed to avoid contracting Covid, but I was definitely stricken by podfading, from which I’m hoping I’ve now finally recovered from. Thanks DYork! Sounds like you've been procrastinating too. Let's talk about it!

If you've been following for more than a couple years, you know I used to host a podcast and YouTube channel called The Podcast Dude. I'm renaming and relaunching that show and calling it Podcasting With Aaron.

Juleyka Lantigua-Williams shares her strategy for audience growth and how it's put her shows on the path to reach 1 million downloads by the end of the year. Here's what I learned in this episode: audience growth isn't something that magically happens once you start publishing episodes. If you want to grow your audience and get more listeners and fans, there's three important questions to ask yourself. These questions are important regardless of how long you've been podcasting. The three questions are: 1. Who is the ideal listener for my show? 2. What needs do they have that I'm trying to address and fulfill with my show? 3. Where is my ideal listener spending their time and attention, and what's my plan for getting their attention?

In this episode, Sean and I discuss his new mobile recording setup, the challenges of the paid membership model for podcasts, Spotify's recent moves in podcasting (Joe Rogan, etc), how to grow an audience for a podcast, the best ways to make money with a podcast, what most podcasters get wrong about podcast promotion on social media and what they should do instead, and so much more.

In this episode, we discuss: When is the right time to start looking for sponsors for a podcast? How does having a niche audience help you with finding sponsors? 3 things you should include in a proposal to a sponsor. Why getting brands excited about sponsoring podcasts needs to be a community effort. Questions to ask yourself before you start looking for sponsors. What Podcorn is, how it works, and more. This episode was recorded and published by Mathew Passy for the Podcast Me Anything show. Shared with his permission.

My guest today is Steph Colbourn, founder of Edit Audio, a podcast consultation and production company whose clients include Harpers Baazar, Stack Overflow, Element AI, Cosmopolitan, If These Ovaries Could Talk, Glossier, Postlight, Tinder, and more. In this episode, we discuss how she got into podcast editing and production, how she connects with clients, her process for working with them and helping them be successful, what she's learned about launching and marketing shows, how she manages money and scheduling, why she's optimistic about the future of podcasting, and much more.

Ever wondered how to get a job as a professional podcast producer? I was checking out some job postings this past weekend and decided to share the most interesting postings I found in a Twitter thread. I got a great question from GR Johnson (@simonephoenix1) in response: “I was looking at some of these in the past couple of days, VERY interested, but if one hasn’t the experience, how does one go about 'snagging' gigs like these? I’m actually in a degree program for audio production, also, not a youngster. Looking to switch up careers.” Good question GR/Simone! I'm optimistic for you (and others like us) because I believe there are far more podcasting jobs than just the ones I linked to above, and a podcast producer can learn everything they need to know and work from almost anywhere (and not just in a big city). So in this episode, I'd like to talk about what you should study and which skills you'll need if you want to land a job producing podcasts.

I wanted to make this episode to explain the basics of podcast RSS feeds: What an RSS feed is, why you need one, and a few other important things you need to know about them. My hope is that I can clear up a lot of the confusion and mystery around them so you can gain a better understanding of the relationship between podcast RSS feeds and the podcast apps and directories.

My guest this week is Sidney Evans, a podcast editor and producer from Durham, NC (recently moved to Atlanta), who found his first client after joining a podcast editor's group on Facebook. He joins me for a discussion about getting started with podcast editing and production, the challenges of working in this new industry, what clients really value and pay for, and more.

My guest this week is professional audio engineer Ryan Monette. Ryan graduated from Berklee College of Music with a degree in Music Production & Engineering. For the last 4.5 years he's been the Post-Production Audio Engineer on staff at Elevation Church, in Charlotte, NC, where he mixes their global TV show, and has many other responsibilities (boom operator, field recorder, sound designer, audio editor, etc.). You may have heard some of his work, as he sound-designed and mixed the opener video for the Circles conference for the past two years. He even had his own podcast for a short while (TheQueuecast.com). I asked Ryan to come on the show to share his journey towards becoming a professional audio engineer (a job that I've always wanted), and to get him to share some tips for anyone interested in working in audio/video professionally.

Reading Cal Newport's Deep Work book is one of the best investments I've ever made. The focus and clarity I got from that book helped me produce two huge online courses this year while working full time as a podcast editor for seanwes, and it also helped me lose twenty pounds and get into the best shape of my life while training for an Ironman triathlon (still haven't done it but I haven't forgotten). This is the second part of my recent interview with Shawn Blanc where we talk about Deep Work and focus. We also discussed pricing your online products (you can charge more than you think you can), how to create a morning routine that will supercharge your daily productivity, the power of choosing a single area of your life to improve on, and more.

Shawn Blanc is a writer, small-business owner, productivity coach, and creative entrepreneur living in Kansas City with his wife and their three sons. Shawn has been teaching and learning about creativity, diligence, and focus for over a decade, and his online courses have helped thousands of people do their best creative work while learning to thrive in the midst of life’s tensions. A while back, Shawn sent an email that caught my attention. He wrote about the importance of creating a customer avatar and developing a content strategy to connect with them and help them achieve their goals. I liked the email so much that I emailed him back and asked him to come on my show to talk about his journey to making a living through writing online and what he’s learned about growing an audience. Shawn also shares my passion for productivity and deep focus; so much so that he’s gathered 12 incredibly smart people for a free 5 day online summit about the power of focused life. In this episode, Shawn shares how he was able to make a full-time living by writing online, and we discuss how you can grow your audience by creating a customer avatar (your ideal listener) and creating content that addresses their needs and desires.

Martine Ellis joins me to share her podcasting journey and how she created a detailed checklist to help streamline her podcast workflow. We discuss how niching down can help you attract a dedicated audience and how to spend less time creating a podcast without sacrificing quality. We also walk through Martine’s 9 step podcast workflow checklist and discuss our favorite podcast tools and tricks.

I’ve been watching an online audio mastering course on Creative Live called DIY Mastering (by Jesse Cannon). In it, he was talking about how he always checks his work on cheap speakers and Apple earbuds, since that’s what most people use to listen to music. It got me thinking about the importance of good headphones, and how much they really matter. Are expensive headphones really necessary for mixing podcasts? Do you really need the best gear to make great work, or are you just procrastinating? My goal for this episode is to encourage you to do more with what you have and not fall into the trap of believing that better gear is the secret to success.

I got a question from a Community member about recording audio away from home, so I grabbed my Zoom H4N and a few mics and headed to a local Starbucks to test out the different mics in a real world setting. If you’d like to invest in an affordable, portable recording setup, this episode will help you get started.

Your podcast description is one of the first things people see when they come across your podcast online or in a podcast app. This is your chance to catch their attention and sell them on your show. It’s your opportunity to convince them to listen. The ideal podcast description answers two questions for your potential listener: 1. Is this show for me? 2. What am I going to get out of listening to this? When a potential audience member comes across your podcast and starts reading your description, they’re wondering, “What’s in it for me?” This is your chance to tell them why they should care about your show. Otherwise, they won’t.

Dan Powell is one half of Dead Signals Production, creator of the popular Archive 81 and Deep Vault found sound, radio drama podcasts. In this episode, we talk about his recording process, how he designs sound, and his editing process. He shares some of the hurdles he overcame while producing podcasts and what advice he’d give to anyone interested in making a modern radio drama.