Every podcast needs a website, right? At least, that's what the ten how-to-podcast guides I read before getting started said. Maybe you can get away with something like one of those list-of-links sites, but it's going to get real complicated with all the podcast platforms you're on. Plus, if you're aiming for the big time (which you might as well be, so as to not succeed with the most flair), you'll want more flexibility down the line.

Since you're a newbie podcaster, you probably have no budget. Let's look for some free site options.

There are several, and even some without ads. Get yourself signed up on one of the latter.

You don't have money for a web designer, so you'll have to learn to do it yourself. Figure out how to use the site builder on your web host. How hard could it be?

Oh dear. Well anyway.

Maybe you're more of a technical person? Can you get your nameservers and TXT records configured and the SSL certificate installed? You'll probably want your site to be crawled by Google.

Right. Back to website design then.

Make sure to include all the basic content—a summary of why your show is awesome, your podcast art, where people can listen, a contact form.

Great! Publish that.

Oh. Looks like it's not working.

Well don't look at me. Contact support. Assuming your free site has any.

Okay, so it turns out "Apple" (as in, "Apple Podcasts," something you'd probably like to link to) is a blacklisted, naughty, naughty keyword, and if you use it your entire site will go blerk 403. Presumably this forbidden fruit is abused by fraudsters. You'll probably also end up running into trouble with unimportant things like uploading files, installing plugins, and embedding your podcast's RSS feed. I guess you're going to have to shell out for paid hosting.

Alright, so you've got your design on a dirt-cheap paid account. I'm sure this will cause zero more problems going forward. Done!

Hold on there, bucko. You're still using the free domain name that came with the website account. That means your site address is something like "my-incredible-podcast.spammerparadise.com". If you drop that hot mess into Twitter, it's going to come right back with a "Url is considered malware."

So go ahead and buy yourself a domain name. Don't forget to renew it before it expires next year. And if they start sending you danger-expiring-soon-oh-god emails, even though you renewed months ago and they immediately charged you, better make sure that purchase hasn't been secretly pending. Or else when you email to find out why they keep sending you warnings, they'll tell you your purchase is invalid because the price has gone up in the three months they spent not processing your order.

Stranger things will happen. Stay tuned.