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The Ultimate Guide to Starting a Podcast with WordPress in 2024

As a seasoned digital marketer with over 15 years of experience in the online world, I’ve witnessed firsthand the rise of podcasting and its immense power to connect with audiences, build loyal communities, and even generate substantial revenue. If you’re thinking about starting a podcast, you’ve come to the right place. This comprehensive guide will walk you through every step, from choosing your niche to launching your show on platforms like iTunes, ensuring you have the knowledge and tools to make your podcast a success.

In today’s crowded digital landscape, starting a podcast can be a fantastic way to stand out. The beauty of podcasting lies in its ability to reach audiences on the go, offering a more intimate and engaging experience than traditional media. You can connect with listeners during their commutes, workouts, or while they’re simply relaxing at home.

But don’t be fooled by the simplicity of listening. Behind every successful podcast is a lot of planning, strategy, and technical know-how. Fear not, as I’m here to guide you through the entire process, making it as easy as possible to launch your very own podcast.

What is a Podcast? And How Do Podcasts Work?

A podcast is essentially a series of audio files, organized into episodes, that listeners can subscribe to, download, and enjoy at their convenience. Think of it as a digital radio show, but with greater flexibility and control. You can create content about any topic that interests you, from technology and business to personal development, cooking, or even niche hobbies.

The magic of a podcast lies in its RSS feed. This is a special type of feed that allows listeners to subscribe to your show and receive automatic updates whenever new episodes are released. It’s like an email subscription but for audio content.

Finding Podcast Topics and Niches

In the world of podcasting, a good niche is your golden ticket to success. It’s about finding your unique space in the audio landscape and attracting a targeted audience. Here’s how to discover your ideal podcast topic:

Follow Your Passion: Don’t try to force a topic that doesn’t excite you. Your enthusiasm will shine through in your content, making your podcast more captivating and authentic.
Choose a Direction: Instead of covering everything under the sun, focus on a specific area of interest. This helps you develop expertise, build authority, and attract a dedicated audience. This also makes it easier to monetize your podcast later on.
Think Like Your Audience: Create a persona of your ideal listener. Who are they? What do they like? What problems are they facing? This will help you identify topics relevant to their needs and interests.
Research Your Competition: See what other podcasters in your niche are doing. What are they talking about? What gaps can you fill with your unique perspective?
Select Your Podcast Format: Are you drawn to interviews, solo episodes, or something else? Choose a format that aligns with your topic and your strengths.

Things You Need to Set Up Your Podcast

To create a professional podcast, you’ll need a few key ingredients: a website or blog, recording equipment, and the right tools to publish your show online. Let’s explore each step in detail.

Step 1. Website Setup: WordPress Hosting and Domain Name

The cornerstone of your podcasting journey is a website or blog. This is where your listeners can find more information about you and your show, access your podcast feed, and engage with your content.

For setting up a podcast website, I strongly recommend using WordPress.org (also known as self-hosted WordPress). Here’s why:

Open Source: WordPress gives you full control over your podcast content. You’re not limited by the restrictions of other platforms.
Plugins: Thousands of plugins act like apps for your website, allowing you to integrate with any third-party tools, services, or payment gateways you need.
Beginner-Friendly: Setting up a WordPress website is relatively simple, even if you don’t have coding experience. You can easily customize your site without hiring a developer.

Setting Up WordPress

To get started, you need a domain name and a website hosting account.

Domain Name: This is your website’s address on the internet, like google.com or wpbeginner.com. It’s what people type into their browser to visit your site.
Web Hosting: This is the home of your website on the internet. It’s where all your files and images are stored. Every website needs web hosting.

Typically, web hosting costs around $7.99 per month, and a domain name costs about $14.99 per year. That can seem like a lot if you’re just starting out. Thankfully, Bluehost has agreed to offer our readers a free domain name and up to 61% off their web hosting.

This means you can launch your podcast website for as low as $2.75 per month!

→ Click here to claim this exclusive Bluehost offer ←

I recommend Bluehost because they’re one of the officially recommended hosting providers by WordPress, and one of the largest web hosting companies in the world. Other hosting companies I recommend include Hostinger (starting at $2.69/month, free domain included) and SiteGround (starting at $2.99/month, free domain included).

For more hosting recommendations, check out our guide on choosing the best WordPress hosting.

Once you sign up for your WordPress hosting, you can follow the instructions in our complete step-by-step WordPress installation guide to get started.

Choosing a Podcast WordPress Theme

After installing WordPress, your website will use a default WordPress theme. It’s pretty basic, and you’ll likely want to change it.

Themes control the look and feel of your website’s front-end for visitors. Fortunately, there are thousands of WordPress themes to choose from. But not all of them are designed specifically for a podcast website. Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.

My team has curated a hand-picked list of WordPress themes for podcasters.

All the themes on this list are specifically designed for podcasting websites or are well-suited for podcasting.

Need help setting up your theme? Our tutorial explains how to install a WordPress theme.

Step 2. Setting Up a Media Hosting Service

Next, you need a good media hosting service.

Podcast episodes are large audio files. If you host them on your web host, they consume a lot of server resources, making your website slow and often unresponsive. For the best user experience, I recommend using a podcast-specific media hosting platform like Blubrry.

Most savvy podcasters use a separate podcast hosting service to deliver their podcast files. This is the smartest and most efficient way to run a podcast. Here’s why I recommend Blubrry:

Optimized for WordPress Podcasting: Blubrry offers a powerful plugin called Blubrry PowerPress, making it super easy to manage your podcast from your WordPress website.
Large User Community: Blubrry has a large user community of successful podcasters. If you need help, join their forums to learn from others who have been podcasting for a long time.
Great Tools: Blubrry provides excellent tools like ID3 tagging, iTunes optimization, automatic media template management, and more.
Top-Notch CDN: They have a top-notch Content Delivery Network (CDN), ensuring your content is delivered faster and more reliably.

Step 3. Choosing Proper Podcasting Equipment

As your podcast grows, you’ll want to invest in new tools to produce higher-quality podcasts. The most important tool you need as a beginner is a good microphone.

Please don’t use the built-in microphone on your computer to record your podcast. Your listeners will immediately notice the poor sound quality.

There are two main types: XLR and USB microphones.

XLR Microphones: Think of these like professional cameras. They produce high audio quality but require an audio interface or mixer to connect them to your computer. This can be a bit complicated for beginners.
USB Microphones: These are like point-and-shoot cameras. They’re easy to use, simply plug them into your computer and start recording. They’re ideal for beginners. However, the sound quality might not be as good as XLR microphones.

I recommend choosing a USB microphone. They’re beginner-friendly and require less technical knowledge to operate. However, if you’re willing to spend more time and money for better sound quality, you should choose an XLR microphone. This is what most professional podcasters use.

Here are three popular microphones for podcasters:

Samson C01U (USB) – A great beginner microphone.
Røde Podmic (USB) – The best USB microphone.
Heil PR-40 (XLR connection, not USB) – This is what the pros use. You’ll also need to buy an audio mixer.

Here are some other pieces of equipment you’ll likely want to buy: a microphone arm, a shock mount, and a pop filter.

For WPBeginner’s audio/video setup, we use the Rode Podcaster Kit with a microphone arm and a shock mount.

You’ll also need a good pair of headphones. We use the Sony MDR7506.

Once you have the right podcasting equipment, you’re ready for the next step: planning and recording your first podcast episode.

Step 4. Plan Your First Few Podcast Episodes

Before you jump into recording, you need to plan your podcast episodes. There are several key decisions you need to make.

Episode Content: What will be the topics for your first few episodes? You can plan your content in an orderly way, create an outline, and then delve into the details.
Episode Length: Podcasts can range from 20 minutes to over an hour. The duration of your episodes will depend on your content and your audience.

There are no hard and fast rules for the ideal length of a good podcast episode. However, episodes between 20 and 40 minutes are generally best suited. Don’t cut your good content short just to fit a desired length. Also, don’t stretch out the content too much just to fill a desired episode length.

Supporting Media: Think about intro music, background music, or other sounds you want to add to your podcast for dramatic effect.

Here are some places where you can find royalty-free music and soundtracks to use in your podcast episodes or as your theme music. Be sure to carefully review the licensing terms before using a track in your podcast.

Free Music Archive
YouTube Audio Library
Free Stock Music

Storyboarding and Scripting: You can sit down and jot down a rough outline of your ideas. However, this might give your listeners the impression you haven’t done your homework.

You need to actually sit down and write out the script. This helps you stay focused and makes you sound more professional and better prepared. You can always deviate from the script during recording, but having a proper script keeps you on track and results in better content quality.

After spending some time planning your episodes and giving more thought to your content, it’s time to record your first podcast.

Step 5. Recording Your First Podcast

To record your podcast, you need audio recording software. This software allows you to record and edit your audio files. The best podcast recording software used by most podcasters is Audacity. It’s a free, cross-platform, and open-source software that can be used to record professional studio-quality podcasts.

After installing Audacity, you need to open the program and create a new project from the File menu.

To record your voice, simply click the Record button.

Now you can record your podcast. Don’t worry about any awkward pauses, interruptions, coughs, or other mistakes you might make while speaking. You can edit the recording as many times as you like.

You can also import music files using File “ Import and set them as background music.

Audacity is a very powerful tool, and it’s impossible to cover even the basics in this article. However, the Audacity team has a comprehensive wiki with detailed instructions. I encourage you to go through these instructions. It will take some time to become familiar with the software, but it’s well worth your time and effort.

Once you’ve recorded your podcast, you need to export it.

Most podcasters export their audio files in the MP3 format because it allows for smaller file sizes with good quality.

You also need to be smart about naming your podcast files. Remember, podcasts are episodic series, so it’s best to use naming that includes an episode or series number in the filename.

Some suggestions would be WPB001.mp3 or WPBep001.mp3.

Then, you need to save the final version of your podcast file to a separate folder on your computer.

Step 6. Publishing Your Podcast With WordPress

After you’ve created a few episodes and are happy with their quality, it’s time to learn how to publish your podcast with WordPress.

You need to log in to the admin area of your WordPress website.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Blubrry PowerPress Podcasting plugin. For more details, check out our step-by-step guide on installing a WordPress plugin.

After activation, you’ll see a PowerPress menu item in your WordPress admin menu. Click on it to access the plugin’s settings page.

If you’re using Blubrry to host your podcast files, you need to click the “Let’s Connect” button to configure the Blubrry stats and hosting services.

This will bring up a pop-up window asking you to log in to your Blubrry account and grant the plugin permission to access your account.

Next, you need to fill in the rest of the information on the settings page.

First, enter a title for your feed on the “Feeds” tab.

After that, you can upload artwork by going to the “Podcast Artwork” tab. This is the square thumbnail image that will be displayed next to your podcast in podcast listening apps. Make sure it represents your podcast branding.

The rest of the plugin settings are pretty self-explanatory, and the default options will be enough for most users. We’ll come back to Apple iTunes settings later in this article.

Don’t forget to click the “Save Changes” button to save your settings. Your WordPress website is now ready to publish your podcast.

Step 7. Upload Media Files to Blubrry

Before you can publish a podcast episode with WordPress, you need to first upload the podcast file to your media hosting service, Blubrry.

On the next screen, choose “I already have a website.” Below that, you need to enter the URL of your WordPress website.

Click on the “Save” button to save your changes. Then go to the “Episodes” “ New Publish page. Here, simply enter a title and description for your podcast episode.

Next, click on the “Upload Episode File” button to upload your previously recorded podcast episode. Below that, you can set the publishing date and time. This allows you to schedule the publishing of episodes for a desired time. If you don’t choose any date and time, your episode will be available immediately.

You can optionally provide a transcript for your episode if you have one.

Once you’re done, click the “Publish” button to save your changes.

Step 8. Adding Your First Podcast in WordPress

Now everything is in place, and you can add your first podcast to WordPress.

To publish your first podcast, you need to go to the “Posts” “ Add New page.

It’s highly recommended to create a dedicated category for your podcast episodes. This will keep your podcast episodes separate from your other content. It will also make it easier to promote your podcast feed later on.

After that, you need to scroll down to the bottom of the page where you’ll see a “Podcast Episode” field.

Click on the “Choose File” button to select the file you uploaded to Blubrry.

If your podcast media file isn’t hosted on Blubrry, you can simply paste the media file URL here. Then you need to click on the “Verify” button to make sure you entered the correct URL.

Now, you need to scroll back up to the post editor. Give your blog post a relevant title and add a description for this podcast episode.

Next, you need to add the PowerPress Player block to the content area where you want to display the podcast player.

That’s it. You can now publish your blog post and preview it, and you’ll see your podcast episode live in a beautiful player.

Congratulations, your WordPress podcasting site is ready for live operation.

Step 9. Previewing Your Podcast With iTunes

Now that you have your podcast website set up with WordPress, it’s time to submit your podcast to iTunes and gain more subscribers. Before submitting to iTunes, you should check how your podcast looks in iTunes. To do this, start iTunes, go to File “ Subscribe to Podcast and enter your feed URL. Your feed URL will look like this:

http://www.example.com/feed/podcast

Don’t forget to replace example.com with your own domain name.

Once you enter the URL in iTunes, it will fetch the feed and display it. As you can see in the screenshot below, the image, description, subtitle, and more are fetched.

If everything looks good, it means you can submit your podcast to iTunes.

Step 10. Submitting Your Podcast to iTunes

To submit your podcast to iTunes, you need to download and install the latest version of iTunes on your computer. Then start iTunes and click on the “iTunes Store” button in the top right corner of the screen.

iTunes will now open the iTunes Store. Click on the “Podcasts” menu and then scroll a little to find the “Podcasts Quick Links” section. There you’ll find a “Submit a Podcast” link.

This will open the podcast submission process. You need an Apple ID to submit your podcast to the iTunes directory. If you’re not logged in, iTunes will ask you to log in.

The first thing you need is your podcast feed URL. Your podcast feed URL will look like this:

http://example.com/feed/podcast

Don’t forget to replace example.com with your own domain name.

Since you’re using PowerPress, your feed already includes the tags required by the iTunes Store for podcasts.

After submitting, your podcast feed will be sent to the iTunes review queue. Once approved by iTunes reviewers, it will be added to the iTunes directory, and you’ll be notified via email.

Podcasting Resources to Help You Grow

Congratulations on launching your podcast with WordPress! If you want to make your podcast a success, I recommend joining:

The Podcasters Paradise by John Lee Dumas

John is a good friend of mine, and he’s an inspiration to most new podcasters. In just a few years, he took his podcast from $0 to a 7-figure annual income. If you’re thinking about starting a podcast, you should learn from him.

I’ve also compiled some practical tips to boost traffic to your new WordPress website.

Plugin Recommendations to Grow Your Podcast

I recommend installing some must-have plugins on your WordPress website to extend its functionality and grow your podcast. Here are the top plugins I recommend you install right away:

All in One SEO for WordPress – The best WordPress SEO plugin on the market. It allows you to optimize your podcast website for SEO to get more free traffic from search engines.
RafflePress – The best WordPress giveaway plugin, allowing you to run viral giveaways in exchange for a podcast subscription, joining your email newsletter, or following on social media.
MonsterInsights – Once you start getting listeners to your website, you’ll want to know which episodes they’re listening to or downloading and where they’re coming from. MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin, allowing you to track all this data.

Making Money From Your Podcast

To make your podcast a success, you need to put in a lot of time and commitment. To make it sustainable long term, you need to find ways to monetize your podcast.

I have a comprehensive guide on how to make money online with your WordPress blog. All the points discussed there can also be used for your podcasting website.

Here are some of the best ways to make money with a podcast:

Sponsorships: If you think a business would benefit from sponsoring your podcast, feel free to reach out to them as a sponsor. You’ll be surprised how often this would pay off for you.
Affiliate Marketing: Recommend third-party products and services to your audience.
Sell Your Own Products and Services: Set up an online store on your website.
Donations: Ask your subscribers to support your podcast with donations. You can simply set up a payment form on your website where subscribers can make a small donation.
Make Older Episodes Member-Exclusive: Check out our guide on how to create a membership website with WordPress.

Conclusion

Podcasting is a fantastic way to connect with audiences, share your expertise, and even build a thriving business. This guide has equipped you with the essential tools and knowledge to start your own podcast and navigate the exciting world of audio content.

Remember, consistency is key. Create high-quality episodes regularly, engage with your listeners, and don’t be afraid to experiment with different formats and ideas. The more you put into your podcast, the more you’ll get out of it.

Good luck with your podcasting journey. If you’re interested in learning more about tech news, feel free to visit my website: www.naveedahmed.me.

FAQs

What is a CDN?

A CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a network of servers strategically located around the world. It helps deliver your podcast files faster and more efficiently to listeners regardless of their location. It reduces latency and improves the overall user experience by ensuring audio files load quickly.

What are ID3 tags?

ID3 tags are metadata embedded within your podcast files. They include information like the title, description, artist, album art, and other details. These tags make it easy for podcast listening apps to display information about your podcast.

What is a podcast theme?

A podcast theme is a specialized WordPress theme designed for podcast websites. It’s visually appealing, user-friendly, and optimized for displaying podcast episodes, integrating with media hosting services, and providing a great user experience for listeners.

What is a podcast player?

A podcast player is a software or application that allows listeners to play and manage podcast episodes. Popular examples include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and many more.

How do I choose a podcast host?

Selecting a good podcast host is crucial for podcast success. Look for hosts with reliable uptime, user-friendly interfaces, robust analytics, and features like automatic podcast feed creation, iTunes submission tools, and integrations with popular podcast platforms.

How do I get more listeners for my podcast?

Promoting your podcast is vital to attracting listeners. Utilize social media platforms, engage with relevant online communities, cross-promote on other podcasts, collaborate with influencers, and consider running targeted ads to reach a wider audience.

How much does it cost to start a podcast?

The cost of starting a podcast can vary depending on your equipment choices, hosting plans, and marketing efforts. You can start with a budget-friendly approach by using free audio recording software, a basic microphone, and a shared hosting plan. As your podcast grows, you can invest in more professional equipment and tools.

How do I monetize my podcast?

There are multiple ways to monetize your podcast, from sponsorships and affiliate marketing to selling your own products and services. Identify your audience’s needs and preferences and tailor your monetization strategies accordingly.

How often should I publish new podcast episodes?

The frequency of your podcast releases depends on your niche, content strategy, and audience expectations. A consistent schedule is essential. Aim for weekly or bi-weekly releases for optimal engagement and listener retention.

How do I measure the success of my podcast?

Track metrics like downloads, listener engagement (playtime), social media shares, website traffic, and subscriber growth. These insights help you understand your audience’s preferences and refine your content strategy for improved podcast performance.

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step by step guide how to start a podcast with wordpress