Updating your content and finding different mediums to reach out to your users is essential for keeping people interested. There’s a good chance a portion of your users enjoy watching videos, while others prefer listening to podcasts or reading articles. Creating a podcast is a tall task, but it’s certainly easier when you use WordPress.
Let’s take a look at how you can quickly do a podcast using WordPress.
Step 1: Setup Your Podcast Site for Success
Podcasting is a little different than just publishing to a regular WordPress site. Yes, you need a nice theme and solid website hosting company, but in addition to these, you also want to find a viable podcast hosting site since podcast audio files are quite large.
Checkout our website hosting guide to keep your site running at all times. Also, search for a theme that displays your podcasts posts in a clear, minimalist format, something like Virality. There are also plenty of premium options that cater directly to podcasters.
Try out SoundCloud or Libsyn to host your podcast media files.
Step 2: Find Equipment for the Best Podcast Sound
A microphone is a must-have when just getting started podcasting. You can slowly purchase other equipment, but an entry-level mic like the Samsung Q2U or ATR2100 is always better than your computer mic.
Other equipment options to think about are shock mounts, mic arms and a headphone. Pop filters are also nice to have around.
Step 3: Download Software for Recording
In order to record your podcast you need a voice recorder app to capture the sound and edit if needed.
Audacity is the go-to solution for beginners since it’s free and offers everything you need.
Simply hit the Record button and get started with your episode. You can always edit-out awkward portions later. When you are done editing, export the file as an MP3 and save it on your computer. Remember to name your files since you are going to create lots of them!
Step 4: Upload Your Podcast Files
Remember when we talked about setting up a media server? Once you have an account on one of these sites, upload the podcast MP3 files. There isn’t much to this step, but remember each media server has different steps for uploading.
You can usually find a prominent Upload button and a list of all your uploads.
Step 5: Publish the New Podcast Episode to Your WordPress Site
To start, some of the media server options include plugins that integrate with WordPress. If not, use the Blubrry Podcasting plugin for the best publication features. You can also use them for your media hosting, but it’s not a requirement.
Sharing your podcast file with the world is just like publishing a post on WordPress. Go to Posts > Add New in your dashboard. Scroll down to the bottom of your post to find a box for your podcast episodes. This is a feature from the Blubrry plugin.
Find your media server URL and paste it in here. After that, you can hit the Publish button in WordPress to share your content with listeners.
Step 6: Don’t Forget Abut iTunes
If you run a podcast, you want to publish it to iTunes since so many people find their podcasting content through this store. Download the most recent version of iTunes and navigate to the Podcasts area. This changes on occasion, but they usually have a clearly shown Submit Podcast button to click on.
Create or login with your iTunes ID, and submit the feed URL for your podcast. This pulls tags that relate to your podcast. You can hit the Submit button and wait for the iTunes submission team to accept your podcast. They should send you an email when it is complete. When you submit on iTunes it’s still a wise idea to keep your current WordPress setup instead of just putting links to iTunes on your site.
That’s it!
Let us know in the comments section if you have any questions about creating a podcast with WordPress. Share your experiences to help out other future podcasters.
