Most podcast websites don’t stand out all that much: a logo, an embedded player, an about page, a few recently episodes, and maybe a newsletter sign-up form.
Then I spent nearly an hour walking through Johnnie Ray Kornegay III’s website for Queue Points Podcast and it was a good reminder that a podcast website can be so much more than a place to showcase your RSS feed.
So, what goes into making a podcast website that works? And what does it mean for a podcast website to work?
P.s. read until the end for a discount code on the website builder that we’ll mention a lot throughout this video / write-up.
Dissecting Jay Ray’s Podcast Website
Jay Ray, AKA Johnnie Ray Kornegay III, hosts his website with Beamly
First, what is Queue Points?
Queue Points is the Black Podcasting Award and Ambie Award-nominated music podcast that is dropping the needle on Black Music history and celebrating Black music through meaningful dialogue. The show is hosted by DJ Sir Daniel and Jay Ray.
Now, for the dissection:
I pulled up Jay Ray’s website during our conversation and we clicked through nearly every page, looking not just at what the audience sees, but why each page exists. It felt less like a website tour and more like a case study in building an online home that supports a podcast’s growth and nurtures its fan base.
One thing that immediately stood out is that every episode is treated like a resource instead of a post. Each page includes rich show notes, searchable tags, embedded video, chapter markers, related music, supplemental links, and connections to other episodes. If someone lands there from Google — or increasingly, from an AI search — that potential listener has plenty of context to understand the episode and plenty of reasons to keep exploring.
The site also isn’t just about the podcast itself. It’s where memberships live, where replay videos are hosted, where visitors can browse merch, find upcoming events, read blog posts, and support the show. Everything on the site points back to the same central hub, making it easy for someone to go from first-time visitor to engaged community member.
The biggest takeaway for me, though, was how intentional every decision was. Throughout our conversation, Jay Ray wanted to explore this question:
If someone searches for the topics that our show covers, will they find us?
That question influenced the navigation, the copy, the tags, the blog posts, and even how episodes are categorized. None of those decisions are particularly flashy on their own, but together they create a website that works hard even after an episode is published.
5 Takeaways from Our Podcast Website Walkthrough
These are the big ones define a website that works
Treat every episode like an evergreen resource
Don’t just upload an episode and move on. Sure, you can rely on your hosting provider’s website to populate that episode page. But you can go so much further.
Build out pages that include detailed show notes, links, chapter markers, related content, and context. The more useful the page is, the more opportunities it has to be discovered for a long while after.
Your website should support your entire ecosystem, not just your podcast
One of the smartest things Jay Ray has done with his Beamly website is use the it as the central hub for everything: memberships, replay videos, merch, events, blog posts, and support. Instead of sending people in five different directions, everything points back to one place. And Queue Points gets that good SEO juice and domain authority.
Build for search, not just for existing fans
The goal in having a presence on the internet is to show up when people search for you — whether that search is directly querying your show or searching for things around your topics that point to you. Having a website with rich episode pages, a blog, internal links, and more makes your content highly crawl-able by the SEO spiders searching for compelling and authoritative websites.
Make it easy for people to go deeper
The best podcast websites go beyond an embedded podcast player by answering the next question before a visitor has to even ask. All the extras — related episodes, tags, playlists, bonus resources, and recommendations — all encourage someone to stick around instead of bouncing after one episode. Keep that bounce rate down by offering more!
Build with intention, then iterate
Nothing on the site appeared overnight:
Membership tiers evolved
The navigation menu changed
New sections were added as the audience grew
Get ready to be flexible in your web design. Jay Ray emphasized his love for Beamly, which makes that part of the game very easy to navigate. The best podcast websites don’t stay stagnant, they’re living products that evolve alongside the show.
If you’re thinking about your own podcast website, I’d encourage you to look beyond a simple landing page. If you’re just getting started and that’s what you have time for, totally cool. And Beamly does have the tools to easily set that up too. But if you’re ready to create a central content hub that houses your podcast, blog, memberships, and more, this playbook from Jay Ray for Queue Points is a great one to follow.
Links, Resources, and Other Mentions
Get 10% off any plan on Beamly with code PodcastPlunge
Listen to Jay Ray’s show (and visit the website)
AppSumo for lifetime deals on software
You can use Substack as social media and a search tool without building out your entire content hub
Mixcloud for music integrations
Questions about website building? Ideas for future conversations I should be having?
THANK YOU for reading.
—Arielle
