Make your visitors comfortable

Yesterday, a friend taught me an important lesson.

I was enjoying your podcast on salt and sugar and wanted to sign up but none of the options look like things I use. I am probably mistaken but thought you would like to know.

When I set up my podcast site giving people the opportunity to subscribe easily was a priority. I didn't launch until iTunes had approved the podcast, and I offered easy links to iTunes, recommended players for phones, an RSS feed: everything. Or so I thought. And so I told my friend. Turns out, I was wrong.

Re RSS, I kind of know what it is, and have occasionally signed up, but god only knows where they actually end up. I never see them! Could just be me but you never know.

I should not have been surprised by that answer. Many things I take completely for granted, others do not. So, quick as winking, I signed up for TinyLetter, which is heavily promoted on a podcast I subscribe to, and which I'd been looking for an excuse to try, and now visitors to my podcast site can sign up to get email when there's a new episode. My friend signed up a few minutes ago, and yet wasn't the first.

All of which is really about how much I hate the term "user" for the people who choose to visit me online, and how I need to relearn not to take my visitors for granted.

p.s. TinyLetter's sign-up procedure is a cool fresh breeze.

p.p.s A while later I moved everything to MailChimp; just as easy.