So, we just wanted to talk a little bit about links. When you have an episode published you will normally be given a couples of links. But, what are they - and when should you be using them? Let's get into it. The first link is a Direct Download link. You can easily recognise this one because it has .mp3 at the end. This means that it doesn't link to a website, or app - it just plays the audio straightaway. As I say, it doesn't go to a website, or Apple, Spotify, Google or YouTube - it just plays the podcast without any fuss. When should you be using this kind of link? From our point of view, you should be using Direct Download links in the first 6-12 months of your podcast, when posting about it on social media. Your brand new podcast is really only of interest to you and a couple of close friends within your network - with everyone else, it's one of many podcasts that they could listen to. So - don't put any barrier in the way of them listening to the podcast. One click (on the Direct Download link) and they're listening. You may have heard us say that if you're asking a potential listener to click more than twice before listening to your podcast - then you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Please don't do what we've seen one company do; post about their podcast with a link. Click on the link and it takes you to a webpage where the episodes are all listed (who the guests are, what they're talking about etc) and then instructions as to where we could listen to the podcast - not even a link to the podcasting platform! In all, it was at least 4 clicks, along with loading an app, typing into the Search bar and scrolling down a page, before we were listening to the podcast. The casual listener will get bored way before that... Listen, we understand that many of you are doing a podcast as part of your digital marketing strategy, so you want to send people to a specific website to listen. That's fine - just make sure that it's as easy as possible to do that! Talking of links, that brings onto the next one that is normally included in your email - the embed code. You can tell this by the fact that it looks like a chimpanzee has been banging away at a computer keyboard before giving up after a few lines. The embed code is the one that lives on your website. When the code is put in the correct place, it creates a little podcast player especially for your episode. If you're someone who uses your podcast as a part of your lead generation system, then you'll generally use the embed code. People click on the link to listen to the podcast, which lives on a page of your website with all of your wonderful bells and whistles on it - they get interested whilst listening, enter their email address into the available box and Hey Presto! they're a new client. You don't put your embed code into your social media. The only place that it has any use is on a website. What about the links to Apple, Spotify and Google Podcasts - should you ever use them in your social media posts? As with so much in podcasting, the answer is "It depends..." If you want to get higher in the search results on Apple, Spotify etc - you have to get people to listen to your podcast on those platforms. As we've said in the past, Apple don't care how many downloads your podcast is getting; they only care how many listens you're getting through their platform. The same goes for Spotify, Google and YouTube. So - if you want to become more popular and discoverable on those platforms, you need to use the links to those platforms in your posts. We appreciate that a couple of the links are incredibly long, so it might be worth using a link shortening service before posting. That doesn't count as another click for a potential listener, as they aren't aware that they're being taken to one site, that will then take them to another. In summary, the links that you are using in your posts should change depending on what you're trying to achieve. You should definitely mix them up too. For instance, when we're doing the marketing for a podcast, the majority of the posts (80%) have the Direct Download link on them, 10% point to Apple, the other 10% point to Spotify. Hope this helps! | 
