In the recent years, podcasting has been successful in gaining a good amount of traction among the technically-inclined individuals. Latest addition to the concept is taking full advantage of WordPress blog to start podcasting in the right way. If you too are thinking about podcasting using your WordPress powered website. This is a must-read guide which will allow you to dig deeper into podcasting using WordPress.
Getting started with preparing your WordPress website for podcasting
Since not everyone owns an iPhone, iPad or an iPod, it is recommended to host your podcasts in a platform that is readily available to every media fan. WordPress is one such platform that has enabled effective sharing of content in the form of audio and video.
Now, in order to prepare your WordPress website for podcasting, just follow the below steps:
Step 1- Create a category by logging into your account. For this, simply hover on “Posts”. A sub-menu will appear on the screen. Within this sub-menu, simply click on “Categories” and proceed ahead with adding a new category called “Podcasts”. Here, you may opt for leaving the “Parent” field to none and once you're done, simply click on “Add New Category”.
So, all the podcasts would now be posted under this new category and the links for all such podcasts would be http://yoursitename.com/category/podcasts.
Step 2- Now, upload the audio files
You can choose to upload your audio files in a variety of methods like:
- Using a plugin
- Using the Audio Shortcode
In this tutorial, I'll be using the latter method.
As per the Audio Shortcode method, you can simply add a link from your WP site to a file located at a different site. You can proceed ahead with uploading audio files to your WP blog's Media Library and opt for editing, adding or removing different details of the audio file viz: Title, Artist, Caption and Brief Description. Since you'll be inserting the audio file in a particular post, it is mandatory to select the option “Embed Media Player”, followed by clicking on “Insert into Post” button. Doing this will add the Audio Shortcode to the chosen WordPress post.
Step 3- Embed the podcast on your sidebar
As per this step, simply go to WordPress admin dashboard-> Appearance tab-> Widgets and drag the “Music Player Widget” to the sidebar you want to place it on. Finally, click on the link for uploading or choosing the media associated with the podcast.
Step 4- Publish your podcasts
Now that you're done with uploading the podcasts on your WordPress blog, it's time to publish them by submitting your WordPress site to Feedburnet. For this, you'll need to go to feedburner.com and are also required to have a Gmail account. Just follow the instructions and you'll be able to submit your site to Feedburner.
Step 5- Submit your podcast to iTunes
Since you're already done with publishing your podcast, it's time to use the iTunes platform for letting the masses know about it. Here are the steps associated with submission of a podcast to iTunes for free:
- Go to Apple's instructions section related to testing the feed. Once you've confirmed listening the podcast using iTunes, submit it
- After submission, the podcast would be reviewed by iTunes staff.
- Once your podcast has been accepted, you'll receive a link that would enable you to distribute the podcast via email or direct website linking.
That's it!
Wrapping Up
Podcasting has emerged as a cool option for sharing every type of content. Here's hoping the above post would have allowed you to roll on those efficiently created podcasts using your WordPress website.
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