Website design is essential for any content that appears online. Excepting perhaps a social media presence, but then the website design is still important, and it just becomes the web design of the social media site rather than your own website. 

For ecommerce sites in particular, web design is nearly always factored in as a major component of the budget. Content is important, great products and services are important, a strong brand is important, but they all come to nothing if web design isn’t up to scratch. 

In line with nearly every other form of online content then, web design is also essential for podcasts that are hosted on a website. This might seem like a pretty niche area – especially seeing as many podcast summarizer are often hosted on audio streaming services – but this is not so.

In fact, podcasts which feature their own website are incredibly popular and common, both among devoted podcasters, and those ecommerce sites that feature a podcast as a form of auxiliary content.

Accordingly, there is a whole sub-discipline of website design which is devoted entirely to podcasts. Website design company Azola Creative say that there are some key elements to good podcast web design. Unlike with blogs, where the presentation of the actual content is vital, a podcast’s content is purely audio. Therefore, web design for podcast hosting pages is all about how you present the player and how you arrange everything around it. 

Value of Podcasts for Ecommerce Sites 

Before getting on to some podcast website design tips, it is wise to consider just why podcasts are used for ecommerce and how podcasts work in this context.  A good podcast is a way to draw traffic to an ecommerce site that would not otherwise come. This means those interested in the podcast itself, rather than the products or services being sold. The goal, however, is to turn these visitors into customers before long. 

To realize this, it is important that the podcast is not half an hour of marketing material for the product. There is plenty of opportunity to mention your products and to reinforce your brand while still making the podcast interesting in its own right. The rule of thumb is to ensure that even someone with no interest in the product would still be interested in the podcast. 

For that, you need a great podcast – and great podcast web design. 

Web Design Tips for Podcasts 

So, with that in mind, here follow some top tips for podcast website design:

Present Text Podcast Descriptions Prominently 

Generally, people will read this before they ever click play. Consequently, a strongly visual presentation of the podcast with SEO-optimized descriptive text is important. Even though a podcast is audio, you need to think first about visuals. 

Auxiliary Text Content 

If you have chosen a rich and expansive topic for your podcast, then you can include blog-like content such as FAQs or text interviews to boost the SEO and give listeners more information. This text should be skimmable and attractive, and often reached through a link on the podcast homepage. Podcast transcripts will also serve this purpose well. 

Central Positioning of Player

With podcasts, the play button that starts the audio should be central and prominent. And it should be married with a podcast cover art and your brand alongside it, often integrated into the player itself. Surrounding these central elements should be a generous amount of negative space. 

Podcasts are a great business idea in and of themselves, and they are also a boon for any ecommerce site. However good the podcast is though it still needs to be presented well.