The link in bio for podcasters

The listener who already has a podcast app knows how to find you in it. The one who does not is the one you are trying to convert, and handing them a menu of apps they do not have is the worst possible first move.

The fix is to let them press play where they are standing, and put the app choice underneath for the people who want it.

These are the blocks link2l.ink offers podcasters first, in the order it offers them. The editor puts this set in front of you when you pick your line of work, so the page below is what you get rather than a template you have to assemble.

1. 1Music block

   The newest episode, playing in the page

   Press play beats choose an app. Someone who hears ninety seconds is a different person from someone who saw a list of buttons.

2. 2Video block

   A clip, the video version, or the guest’s best two minutes

   Clips travel. The clip is often how they found you, so having it on the page confirms they are in the right place.

3. 3Email capture block

   The show newsletter, described by what is in it

   Podcast platforms tell you almost nothing about your audience and give you no way to reach them. The list is the only channel you control.

4. 4Link block

   Every app, in one group, below the fold

   Nobody needs this above the player. The people who want Overcast will scroll for Overcast.

Why the order is the whole argument

Almost nobody in this category is missing a block. The tour dates, the newsletter, the booking link: they are on the page. They are just below three things that get fewer clicks, and every visitor pays for that. Ordering is the cheapest improvement available to most pages and the one nobody makes, because making it by hand means noticing something changed.

Podcast traffic arrives in two distinct shapes: a burst around each episode, and a slow trickle from search and back catalogue. They want different things, and a static page can only be tuned for one of them.

The burst wants the new episode. The trickle is more likely to want the newsletter or the back catalogue, because those people found you through a topic rather than through you. Ordering from real clicks handles both without you maintaining two pages.

The most useful thing it tends to surface for podcasters is unglamorous: the sponsor or affiliate link that gets far more clicks than its position suggests, sitting at the bottom because that is where sponsor links go by convention.

The mechanics are the same for everybody and are written up in full on the adaptive link in bio page: recent clicks count more than old ones, a rate measured on a handful of views is pulled hard toward the average so a single tap cannot rearrange anything, and nothing reorders at all until there is enough traffic for the ordering to mean something.

• Opening with the app buttons. It is the single most common podcast page layout and it asks for a decision before it has earned one. Player first, apps second.
• Linking the show rather than the episode. Someone who arrived from a clip about one specific thing wants that specific thing. A link to the show homepage makes them go hunting.
• No way to reach the audience directly. If your podcast host went down tomorrow you would have no way of telling your listeners. That is worth one email block.

If you want the general version of this rather than the one for podcasters, how many links covers the pruning question and why nobody is clicking works through the diagnosis in order.