How Not to Make a Podcast [Journal #4]

Ok folks, it has taken a bit of time to update everyone with this post, “How not to make a podcast.” As we mentioned, this journey is all about learning and developing the concept as we go. With the actual subject completed at University that resulted in this project, Lisa and I are now focused on the next subject(s) of our respective degrees and our own personal lives.  It is now a balance to maintain and continue both the blog and the podcast. 

Lisa is going gangbusters with her E-Learning business so that is her priority. For me, I continue to drive as the country comes out of lockdown. It has become busier in some regards, but it is still a bit of treading water with Taxi drivers back on the road and more ride share drivers as well. Along with this, I am also working out my next move as I need to start thinking about what happens next after I complete the degree in November.

As much as we have slowed up a bit and reflect on our progress, it was also time to take stock of where to go with Live Work Digital.

These are the sort of things we are now assessing at this point of the journey:

• Should we upgrade our WordPress blog site from the free version?
• What is working with our Instagram?
• What is the impact of LinkedIn?
• Do we need to change our feel or branding? 
• Do we need to focus on branding at all?
• How do we promote our podcast further?
• Do we need to continue to reach out to people to get more content?

Currently we are about to launch our 5th episode and still have 2 more in the wings ready to be edited and already have another 2 or 3 potential as well which essentially covers our initial target of having a 10 episode season.

There is also the opportunity for Lisa and myself to use this platform also for our own businesses and opportunity by recording specific content that we could release. This is something that we have kept in mind throughout the journey.

As we move forward with our episodes, we will continue to find our brand and share our experiences. Our focus has been on ensuring the episodes continue on and we are organised with that area.

The purpose of the blog and the posts are to ensure that we are building our SEO presence and we continue to learn more about this area of digital marketing. Testing our presence through my personal browsers and the words Live Work and Digital, we seem to have a reasonable online presence,  especially when the search is on the words with no spaces. (liveworkdigital)

Photo by Edho Pratama on Unsplash

Our images that are tagged on social media appear regularly on searches. This is because we have made the effort to ensure our images are embedded with information through the Alt Text html coding sequence. (Which we learnt from Jason Borg, our SEO Guru)

Presumably the hashtags we use are also having an impact on search results. This is also another area which requires a bit of focus. We are continuing to play around with this aspect of SEO on Instagram and LinkedIn specifically. 

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Also on search results for Live Work Digital, our videos on YouTube  appear. Yes, we have a Live Work Digital YouTube Channel. It’s not a big focus, but it is there. We thought that in the long term it will obviously build our ongoing presence. More to come on that one at a later date.

The whole SEO thing has got me thinking as I have been focused on the Key Words as a starting point. The question I ask myself currently is:

• Who would search for us?
• What questions would be put to Google that would lead people to us?
• What is the more important? The Blog or the Podcast?

As an extension on using Key Words in our blog posts (Which we do sparingly and try not to overdo it!) we want to focus on short statements at the beginning and at the end of the posts which relate to the Blog Post Heading. This is something I learnt on a podcast recently so hopefully this will add to our searchability. Which makes sense as these statements are potentially matching the questions that people potentially be entering on their Google Search for answers. For example, “How not to make a Podcast!”

We want our blog to be a portal of information to the concept of “Living and Working in the Digital World.”  We want to inspire people through our podcasts by listening too and having conversations with ordinary people that are living it and doing it. Maybe we can educate people along the way and encourage them to open doors.

Anyway, My next step is now to check out and analyse how our website ranks on Google and there are some free tools that we can use. I purposefully haven’t looked at these up until this point because I want to see what impact the website has based on the things we have done on the blog. (With no clear knowledge or direction apart from actioning some things that we have learnt along the way). There will of course be a whole blog topic on this area in the future.

It has got me thinking though as to how our domain name impacts on the whole thing. This is the domain name that we started with:

https://liveworkdigital.wordpress.com/

We then captured the domain liveworkdigital.com. At the moment, people can find us on here, but they will be directed to the WordPress domain name. We had to upgrade the site from the free version to the next level so that we were able to map the domain name to WordPress. 

Photo by Stephen Phillips – Hostreviews.co.uk on Unsplash

So I hope to update everyone next time on what impact this has on SEO rankings of the site.  I purchased the domain name from a separate provider not attached to WordPress. My guess is that we may need to transfer the name but who knows!

We are just making this whole thing up as we go along right?!

Then there is the question as to how we promote the Podcast! But you will all need to read the next blog post to find out our progress there. As you follow and watch us, you will inevitably see the subtle changes in what we are creating.

Until next time,

Live Work Digital……..Luki

 

Episode 4 – Rory Callaghan [Integrated Health Professional]

In this week’s instalment of our Live Work Digital Podcast we have Rory Callaghan. Currently he resides in Bali,  living what some may call, the  Dream Digital Lifestyle. He is a qualified Physiotherapist and also has a background in Sports Science. At the age of 25 he suffered burnout working 70+ hour weeks. It was at this time, he realised that something needed to change. So, started his journey to find a solution to live a better and healthier life for himself.

In the process of getting his health back he set about working on a solution so that others wouldn’t need to go through what he did. From this point on, he was devoted to the pursuit of recognising and developing this ‘Self Care’ revolution.

He wanted to develop a  holistic community dedicated to the preservation of health and wellness worldwide. For everyone, for mother earth and its oceans, mountains, plains and rivers. So this is what he did.

The essence of his philosophy is based on the need that we all need to work on our own self before we start giving and helping others. If our own cup is empty, how can we be the example for others? We all need to fill our own cups until it is overflowing with all the good stuff. Once it is full to the brim then we can allow the  overflow  to spill over to the people we want to help and share our lives with.

Along the way, through  his journey he made a decision to partner with a Health and Wellness company which took him to Indonesia. From here he realised that Bali was a place which nourished his soul and he literally decided to sell up everything to base himself there for the foreseeable future.

Photo by Niklas Weiss on Unsplash

From the Island of the Gods (Bali) he continues to work on his concepts and ideas. For those that want to know more about his selfcare framework, he has a free download  that is available to anyone via his website.

On our podcast He shares with us some of his journey and some of the hurdles he faced to get to this chapter in his life. He is one amazing guy who simply made a decision that this is the life he wanted, and he set about to achieve it.

He advocates that everyone has the ability to create a new and different chapter in their lives. His message to anyone who is questioning where they are in life,  is that if something doesn’t feel right, then you need to stop and take a breath. We all need to stop and think about we want with our own individual circumstances instead of accepting that this is the way it is. It is only then that we can lean towards a more rounded and healthier life.

He does live a lifestyle which many people may be envious off, and he uses the digital world to get his message across. He does, however,  cautions that it may not be for everyone. There is a lot of hard work still to get to this point, and the journey may be a never ending path. We must admit though, we like his version of working 9 to 5 very much.

His path is not the norm, but it is the exception. His dream is not everyone’s dream but he encourages everyone to be courageous, to be brave and to be bold. If anyone wants to know more about how to get involved, check out our blog or message us through any of our channels and we can connect you to him.

Until next time. Live Work Digital

Lisa & Luki

Special Episode [The Story So Far]

Hi all! Yes we are only a few episodes into this journey and we are doing a special edition episode?

It’s ok, we aren’t getting ahead of ourselves. We are doing this for a few reasons:

• We thought it would be fun to share how much we are having with it and also showing you the warmth and the openness that our interviewees have been. They are all very kind with their time and have so much passion with what they are doing or creating around them.
• Secondly, we wanted to enter the Rode Cast Podcast Competition.  We can win some really cool equipment! In the process we wanted to do a mashup anyway so people can see the fun we are having with it. We also wanted to see that we are just ordinary people doing something pretty fun, mistakes and all.
• Thirdly, did I mention the competition?
• Lastly, as part of our evolution of learning new skills, putting it together and editing the content so it would flow was invaluable.  A sprinkle of everyones voice, leave in some umms and aaahs and add in some extra cringe worthy laughing clips in between the bits takes some doing.

The competition is due to close and up to this point we were about to drop Episode 4. We snuck this one in so we can get the episode locked in and submitted.

With everything going on, we currently have a bit of a backlog, but thats ok as we are fitting it all in around our normal day to day. At this moment in time there are currently 2 more episodes  to edit and write blog posts for.

We also have more people already locked in for interviews. I think we have got a pretty broad cross section of people for our whole season so far. The thing that has been  the constant for everyone is that they all had to navigate their way through the recent epidemic. No matter what industry they are in, it has been affected and they have had to shape their way through it and out of it.

Going through the  raw recordings also jogged the memory banks as to the things we learnt and even showed how we have progressed n the short time we have been doing this. A little more refined each time and the quality of the questions also are bringing some good responses and conversations.

Some of you may ask also who the dog is on our promo pic! Well since Toulouse, our CEO is a little media shy, we have used a Stunt Double for all our associated Memes, Instagram posts and story’s. If you have noticed, we also have used some of his four legged fan pups through our brand building evolution as well. We share the love with pictures of all sorts of dogs. Well mainly Frenchies as he is our CEO after all. Plus he is our boss. (Hmmm maybe we need a profile page for him?)

Anyway, slightly off topic I know, but as we said, we are sharing everything we are doing along the way.   Seriously, the podcast thing is just a cool thing to do. When I originally suggested we do one with Lisa she didn’t hesitate and said yeah that could be awesome. From there, we just kept on going with it. This Special Episode  is indeed a really happy and fun episode to showcase our journey to date.

Live Work Digital to you all. Til next time…….Peace!

Luki & Lisa

How Not to Make a Podcast [Journal #3]

Ok then!

We are continuing to slowly build our  Live Work Digital  Podcast at a nice  pace. Currently we have just launched Episode 3 and at the same time we also just finished  interviewing someone for another future episode.  Lisa and I both got held up a little the past week. We were busy getting in our final assignments for this particular study period and it just was generally a busy week for both of us

One thing is for sure though We are having a heap of fun talking to people and we are so grateful for everyone that is willing to share with us their stories. We have halted the interviews a bit for the moment as we need to catch up and catch our breath. In short, we have up to episode 6 recorded so we are a bit backlogged. We aren’t really worried though as we don’t have a schedule and we are learning a heap of stuff about the process.  As long as we continue to build content and keep moving, we will find our flow and move with the current at our own pace.

Meanwhile we will continue to update our progress and what we have learnt as much as possible along the way. We have actually over 30 topics headings in draft that we want to write about and we are adding more along the way. It may take a bit to catch up I believe.

At the same time, we are slowly building and shaping our brand. It is interesting to see how our Instagram feed has evolved and changed since we started. We have been focused on our story and are hopefully creating some eye catching content with interesting visual images and music attached to the Story Feed. Throw in a #hashtag or 6, a sprinkle of Gif’s and slowly, we are evolving and spreading our reach outwards.

Our Vibe

Photo by Petr Sevcovic on Unsplash 

We are just learning what works and what people like and I am actually really enjoying building the content.  As we find out our vibe to find our tribe we will eventually find our tempo on the timing for our  posts and stories.

Trying to find what works is a little bit like moving into a shared house and buying a heap of fruit to put in a bowl to place on the kitchen bench, just to find out what is the favourite fruit of the household. Huh? What…… you say?

Well, to see what everyone likes  I will be able to see which fruit disappears first. If only the pears a left in the bowl and start to go rotten, then I know I wont need to buy any more pears. If green apples are the bomb, then I will buy more green apples next time. (You will see throughout this journey that I like my analogies…boom!)

Photo by HOTCHICKSING on Unsplash

I am diligently putting into practice some of the things I had recently learnt from Jason our SEO Guru on Episode 3. I will share this information on a blog later in the week, along with the other things I have learnt through my research. I have also been reading and listening to other blogs and podcasts during the week.

I feel we are starting to deliver a good base of information and content and the only thing stopping us really is that we don’t have enough time in the week to do more on it. The important part though is to ensure we have the content for further episodes. With this base, I hope we are now portraying that we have some substance behind what we are trying to achieve. The next step now is to reach out and connect with other bloggers and other podcasters.

It is not an accident that we chose Anchor.fm for our podcast platform and WordPress as our Blog website. Both of these platforms have vast communities of people just like us doing the same things. Part of a spreadable network is to find as many roads and intersections as possible that we can explore and connect to others. By default we are already part of these communities. WordPress in particular has a vast community of connected bloggers that are in the tens of thousands.

At the end of the day, most blogs don’t have a podcast attached to it and most Podcasts don’t have blogs connected to it either.

The other piece of this puzzle is the traction we are also gaining from our LinkedIn profiles. We commenced testing our reach a couple of weeks ago just by me updating my profile to include the fact that I was finishing my degree later this year and also adding Podcaster on my list of titles. The other thing I did also was started a 30 day free trial of LinkedIn premium. Haven’t really used it much except for looking to see who is looking at my profile. Not sure I will have the time to really test the waters with all the other functionalities of the premium subscription, but will check out further in the next week. The one thing I do know is that on a Friday, there is no point in posting a blog. It barely gets any views. Whether this is because of the lockdown situation time will tell, but that was an easy observation. I will just post a meme of some sort instead.

Ok folks, thats it for the moment, Until next time…..

Love you all,

Live Work Digital

Luki

Episode 3 Jason Borg [SEO Specialist]

For Episode 3 we have a bit of a change in pace. Today we would like to introduce to. You Jason Borg, our new resident SEO expert. Now he probably would say that he isn’t an expert, but in mine and Lisa’s books, he definitely is. For the uninitiated SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. What does it really mean though you ask? Well, listen on and hopefully you can learn a thing or two. Both Lisa and I did.

Jason is also studying at Curtin University and Lisa has crossed paths with him before whilst doing other subjects. Technically, he is a Digital Analyst by trade and he currently works with Beyond Blue in the digital team there.

In short the reason why SEO is so important for your website is that people need to find it. With websites, beacons need to be built which guides traffic through the doors. If you are willing to play the long game, then these traffic lights will always lead people there. Through our interview with him, he attempts to de-mystify the hocus pocus that is SEO and gets us down to the nitty gritty basics without the technical woo hah explanations. Sometimes known as a dark art, SEO  is often left on the too hard basket. At times, it can look like everything is ok on the surface, but are all the pieces of the puzzle connected and linked together? This is the reality of SEO.

Photo by Lester Hine on Unsplash

SEO is a massive concept, but today we will give you the basics of what we have learnt and we hope the information is useful for anyone that listens to the episode. It would take a long time to master this dark art. What we can do however, is learn the basics and continuously improve and learn the mechanics along the way. If you need to know how and where to start, then this is the episode to get you at the starting line.

We will be implementing some of the concepts that we have learnt through Jason’s teachings. Along with other learnings that we have come across. We will document our journey and share it with everyone in up coming blog posts. It is hoped that through this, we will learn and continue on this journey into a Digital Lifestyle.

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

Enough of the introduction. Lisa and I hope you get a lot out of this episode and it provides you with some easy to understand insights on SEO.

Love to you and all as always.

Luki & Lisa