I’ve now had my own podcast for eight months and, I don’t mean to blow my own horn here, but most episodes have well into double-digit listeners. Before that, I was co-host of a podcast for two years, where I did virtually nothing technical. Naturally, I now regard myself as an expert podcaster and, as is my selfless, heroic way, I shall share that expertise with you in my serious guide on how to make a successful podcast, seriously.

OK, in truth, I’ve done pretty much everything you’re NOT supposed to do when trying to make a successful podcast (and a successful travel blog, come to think of it). So, I’m more of an expert in doing it wrong, which is an indirect way of demonstrating how to do it right, which if you think about it still makes me an expert, so don’t worry about it.

How to make a successful podcast: Choose a theme

The first and most important step is settling on the theme of your podcast, A.K.A. “niche” as we in the successful podcasting arena call it. You can’t just do a podcast on a wide-ranging, general topic like “food” anymore. That ship sailed around 2013. These days the theme of a new podcast should be small or unique enough to attract a decent audience, but not so hyper-niche that only your mother listens to it.

It also helps that you’re already pretty knowledgeable about the niche you choose (but not really, because come on), and preferably enjoy talking about that topic ad nauseam. Only slightly less difficult than starting a successful podcast is changing your podcast’s niche when you get bored of talking about Pokemon, so make certain you have an endless appetite for your topic(s).

Take a niche like travel. According to numbers that I just invented, there are already 103,004 travel podcasts, so welcome to the party. What took you so long? The good news is that 102,893 of those podcasts haven’t published a new episode in six months or more.

So while it may seem that you’re joining an already saturated market, where pretty much every podcast idea has already been claimed, I hereby give you permission to straight up steal the theme from one of these dormant podcasts. There’s a 99% chance that whoever ran that podcast will never notice and if they do, you can refer them to the “Tough Titties” international policy on adopting abandoned podcast themes.

Even if your dream niche is already being done by one or more podcasters, don’t lose hope. You can still salvage the situation by slightly tweaking your theme to be just different enough that there’s no way the other podcasters can raise a stink.

For example, a “long term travel” theme can be altered to “long term travel naked.” Or “eco-travel” can be “eco-travel naked” (which is essentially the same audience). And “naked travel” can be re-imagined as “naked travel with naked celebrities,” which will attract vast numbers of listeners from a certain segment of the internet, despite there being no visuals.

When considering a niche, you also need to take longevity into account. You podcast theme should be something that can, optimistically, endure for 20 years. Examples of themes that probably won’t endure for 20 years include “My Year Abroad,” “Traveling Through Central America with This Woman I Just Met,” and “The Weather Sucked Last Thursday.”

Your podcast’s name

Like with any new media channel, the name you chose may be the most important couple of words you write for the entire life of you podcast. First, take time to research the cliched and the over-used words in your niche and avoid them. Free tip: Rhyming “pod” with “God” for a play-on-words name like “Pod Save Betty White,” has been done to death. Move on. With that out of the way, it’s time to start brainstorming.

While you’re tossing names around, especially when you stumble upon on a particularly exciting, genius/perfect name, you’ll want to do a thorough search to make sure that your genius/perfect name hasn’t already been stumbled upon by someone else. There’s a high likelihood that it has, so keep plenty of fainting couches around for that epic disappointment.

I realize that there are approximately 9,204 podcasts launched each week and all the good names and best/worst puns have already been used, but it behooves you to really reach and find something original. And don’t name the podcast after yourself, you narcissist.

Oh, and this is purely optional, but having the title of your podcast communicate what the podcast is actually about can’t hurt. Only so many podcasts can get away with “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” caliber titles. (I’ve never listened to it and I still don’t know what that podcast is about, but it gets name-checked constantly, so it must be amazing.)

Establish goals

I mean, if you just want to talk about oral hygiene with other people who are passionate about oral hygiene, that counts as a goal. But most people have an endgame, whether it be to promote their book(s), establish themselves as an expert in a certain field, or just make a boat load of money.

How to make a successful podcast: Equipment and tools

Yes, you will definitely need equipment and tools.

Equipment and tools, continued

Oh, you wanted to hear more? Fine.

If you don’t want your podcast to sound like a kindergarten morning project, you’ll be needing, at minimum, a decent laptop, a peripheral microphone, headphones and audio editing software.

The type of “microphone” (short for “very tiny phone”) is going to have the biggest impact on your podcast’s audio. Recording with a laptop’s built in mic tends to sound like a police confession from 2002. Assuming your podcast’s theme isn’t “Shitty alternatives to proper microphones,” you’ll need a cheap mic at the very least.

Don’t let some audio nerd convince you that you need a studio quality microphone. Decent mics are surprisingly inexpensive. More importantly, 97% of all podcasts are listened to through cheap ear buds and/or with the accompanying rattle of a moving vehicle. In those listening conditions, a $90 recording set-up will be indistinguishable from a $1,000 set-up. Save that money to buy food while you wait two years for your podcast to get any real traction.

Headphones are even less important. The most basic, utilitarian headphones will do. All you need is to hear yourself and your guest(s), while eliminating the echo and feedback from your laptop speakers. Grab some $9.99 earbuds from Target. Alternatively, go for a walk in a popular nightlife area at 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning and choose from the dozens you’ll find on the ground.

How to make a successful podcast: Keep the conversation on track

Some podcasts can get away with lots and lots (and lots) of idle chit chat, but yours probably can’t. Even if you’re interviewing your best friend of 30 years, try to keep the personal asides and talking about the latest excitement in your garden to a minimum. Unless it’s a podcast about gardening, in which case you still shouldn’t do that.

Sorry about the tough love, but unless you’re a key personality in a reality TV show about housewives, child beauty pageants or a pawn shop owner with a sketchy past, no one cares about your personal life. We don’t need to know how your week went or if your sciatica is acting up. But don’t make it weird. Take the time to briefly exchange pleasantries with your guest(s), then get on with the topic that the title of your podcast promised.

How to make a successful podcast: Choosing cover art

Keep in mind that most people are only going to see a teensy thumbnail of whatever cover art you go with, so don’t get too preoccupied with design quality. A bold color helps to stand out in one’s podcast player list, but other than that, and maybe your podcast’s name, you don’t have to sweat this detail too much.

If anyone tries to convince you that you should hire a professional designer for your cover art, grab their phone, pull up whatever podcast listening app they’re using, hold it three feet from their faces and challenge them to describe in detail a random assortment of thumbnail cover art. When the best description they can provide is “mostly orange,” you can confidently and rightly tell them where to shove their professionally designed cover art.

Editing: Keep it tight

This is just a reminder from the part above, which you carefully read and definitely didn’t skim, about not filling your podcast with vacuous banter. On occasion you’ll realize that you and your guest have been babbling off topic for 20 minutes about something that no sane person cares about, like beer. That’s what editing is for.

I’ve lost count of how many podcasts I’ve dumped because the hosts routinely went on yawning tangents, talked about how important they are in their field, humble-bragged which celebrities they’ve met and casually unloaded major spoilers for movies and TV shows that have been out for less than a week. Those people suck. I mean, they’re doing just fine. There’s an audience for everyone, no matter their copious failings, but yeah, those people suck.

Theme song

This is entirely up to you. If you held a gun to my head, I don’t think I could tell you which podcasts that I listen to have an opening/closing song. Perhaps I’m just not paying close enough attention, but theme songs, when they exist at all, are just fluff.

Sometimes the music is so terrible that it’s a distraction. Don’t shoehorn terrible, copyright-free music you found on Purple Planet in there because some idiot even less qualified than I am writes “A serious guide on how to make a successful podcast, seriously” blog post featuring actual practical tips.

If anything, I’d respect you more if you sung your own theme song, while playing percussion on an upside down coffee can.

Record a few practice episodes – or don’t, whatever, I don’t care

You may have spent the past six months in deep thought about how you want your podcast to sound, but none of that is going to prepare you for actual recording. Those first few episodes are frequently accompanied by some hard truths you hadn’t anticipated.

Maybe you don’t ad lib on a hot mic as well as you hoped. Maybe you say “um” twice a sentence. Maybe your forced “podcasting voice” sounds like you recently choked on a chicken bone. All of this will be painfully on display during your first few episodes. Go ahead and publish them if you like, but brace yourself for honest feedback, assuming you haven’t surrounded yourself with useless sycophants, in which case good luck!

But if you want to come out of the gate sounding awesome, record a few throwaway episodes. You can even grab a few show topics from your presumably long list of show ideas and call it a trial run for when you record them for real. It’s worth the time.

Or just publish those suckers, so there’ll be ample roasting material for your podcast’s 10th anniversary party, where your editor, who secretly hates you, plays those cringe episodes from start to finish.

DISCLAIMER: All of the stats in this post were completely made up, but they’re probably mostly, if not perfectly accurate, so don’t worry about it.