You can start podcasting from your home using your Managed WordPress site. Podcasts are pre-recorded audio episodes that may contain speeches, songs, tutorials, stories, books, or anything audible. These programs can be published or scheduled on a specific day and time or can be played on-demand from your WordPress site.
You can easily start your own podcasting website with Managed WordPress and run audio shows from your home using your smartphone or a podcasting microphone. Making your own website for building and managing a schedule for your online audio episodes is easier than you think. You can set up the website yourself, manage podcasts, host episodes of your audio files, and enable your users to easily subscribe to them from your website or via iTunes or Google Podcasts.
Step-1 Make Your Website
The first step is to register your domain name, then subscribe to Managed WordPress and the automated tour will help you to connect your domain to your website and your website will be up online in minutes.
Step-2 Record Your Episodes
To record your episodes, you may use your smartphone for recording plain audio files and if you want some mixing with background music, audio effects, etc then make use of Audacity, a free GPL licensed software that allows you to record audio with multiple options for cut, copy, splice, and mixing sounds together. You can also add various effects and change the speed or pitch of your recording.
Once your audio files are ready, you can publish them up on your WordPress website. There are many free plugins that offer you easy hosting and publishing of podcasts from within your WordPress website. One such plugin is PowerPress Podcasting, simply install-activate it, and then navigate to the PowerPress menu visible on your WordPress admin panel. This will take you to the plugin’s admin page.
Follow the connection steps mentioned on the page and fill out the necessary information. You may also connect your podcast to Google Podcasts or iTunes, the option is present on the settings page. It provides you specific fields for podcast details such as intro, category, and artwork, etc. These details are used in your podcast’s RSS feed, and the iTunes and Google Podcasts will also use the same information for placing your podcast in their directory. The Podcast RSS URL of your website which you can submit to Google Podcasts and iTunes is yourexample.com/feed/podcast (make sure to replace example.com with your own domain name).
Step-3 Upload Your Audio Files
Files can be uploaded before or at the time of publishing podcasts on your WordPress website. To upload files you simply need to visit your admin area dashboard Media -> Add New page and upload your audio files individually or in bulk. You will need the URL of each file while publishing your new podcast, the URL can be obtained by clicking the uploaded media file and copying the link from the right section showing ‘Copy Link’ field. The same can be done from Add New post page while publishing a new podcast, you simply need to click Add File button and do the same from the Media Library Thickbox.
Step-4 Publish Your Podcasts
Visit your website’s admin area dashboard and navigate to Posts -> Add New (same as you do while publishing any new blog post) just make sure to create a separate category for your podcasts to make navigation easier for yourself and your visitors.
Title your blog post, write a description of your podcast episode, scroll down and you will notice the ‘Podcast Episode’ meta box. Here, you will need to paste your uploaded media file URL and then click the verify button.
Use the shortcode [powerpress] to place the player exactly where you want it into your post content. The plugin also provides you a playlist player shortcode [powerpress_playlist] that includes a playlist of your latest podcast episodes. Finally, publish your post and your podcast episode will go live. Follow the same steps for publishing new audio episodes.