Overview
At this point, we are wrapping up our podcasts for the workshop and heading toward the finish line. With our last session looming, you may be curious about next steps. You have a podcast. Now what? Where do you host it? What services are available to publish it? Can I do this myself?
When you listen to your podcast, you’re often using services like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, etc. But these services aren’t always hosting your podcast. Instead, they are displaying podcast information based on a document full of metadata called an RSS feed. The metadata contained in a podcast RSS captures items such as language, copyright license, discoverable keywords, album art, build date, and more. Whenever you see an episode released by your favorite podcast, they are updating their RSS feed to include new metadata associated with the episode. This is what triggers the services – Apple Podcasts, Spotify, et. al. – to update your podcast player and download or stream the episode. These services are crawling through millions of RSS feeds per day to alert users about new episodes and content being released from content creators.
What does this mean?
This article from The Podcast Host does a fantastic job of breaking down the process of getting your podcast hosted and available online. The author discusses how familiar services like Apple Podcasts and Spotify act more like directories than repositories. They point to information, not host it. So you need to find a hosting service where your actual MP3 files will live. You could certainly develop a DIY solution, but many podcasters opt to use a hosting service that streamlines the process of getting your RSS feeds together along with other podcast assets like album art, show notes, metadata, transcripts, and more. The hosting service will then bundle it all up into a single RSS feed that people can subscribe to using one of the podcast directories or even directly if they have the RSS feed’s URL.
What are my hosting options?
There are many, many services that will host your podcast for a cost. Some costs are flat annual fees, others are monthly fees, and even more provide sliding scale fees based on usage and bandwidth needs. We Edit Podcasts, a group that helps people build their podcast viewership, put together a nice list of podcast hosting services that you can check out. Please remember while you’re browsing that these types of “listicles” can often be affiliated with some of these services and earn a small amount by referring new users to their services.
Many popular professional podcasts use free or paid services to host their content. Some of these services are:
- Libsyn: An industry leader in podcast hosting. Plans begin at $5/mo and include 50mb of monthly storage.
- Podbean: Another popular service with a free plan to start.
- Soundcloud: Often associated with music, Soundcloud also provides space for podcasters to upload their content for free. There is a paid plan with additional features available.
- Anchor: A popular podcasting site with free hosting and distribution with monetizing opportunities. While it is incredibly easy to get started on Anchor, we encourage you to consider the opportunity costs of hosting content in this service. For one, Anchor facilitates the process of submitting your show to Apple Podcasts on their behalf which saves some effort on your part. However, this means your show will be listed under Anchor’s account, not your own. You won’t be able to look at your Apple Podcasts analytics, either. Opinion is highly divided on anchor, so we encourage you to read more about the service and whether it is right for your needs.
What should my criteria be?
We can’t endorse a particular service or product, but we can help you consider the types of questions you may want to review before selecting a hosting and publishing platform.
- What is the privacy policy?
- What is in the terms of service?
- Do you plan to monetize?
- How important are listener analytics to you?
- Where will your audience listen to your podcast?
- How much effort do you want to put into directly maintaining the podcast (updating the RSS feed, websites, show notes, monetization options, etc.)?
What if I want to host it myself?
The great thing about being affiliated with UW is that we have access to web publishing options provided by UW-IT. Content can be built in WordPress, Google Sites, Drupal, UW Sites, and more. Unfortunately, you must also consider the longevity and sustainability of your work should you ever become unaffiliated with the university.
Wherever you host your content, you will be uploading your MP3 files, album art, and RSS feed.
- Album art: Free design sites like Canva can help you generate the proper formatting for the cover art image for your podcast. And CC0-licensed images sites such as Unsplash, Pixabay, and Pexels can help you find images for your cover art.
- Metadata and/or an RSS feed: As described above, some hosting sites will help you generate an RSS feed by inputting your metadata into forms when submitting your podcast episode. If you’re really doing this as a DIY project, you will need to generate an RSS feed yourself and host it on your own web space. Consider working from a template and customize it for my own needs. It’s time consuming, but it will help you get a sense of what metadata fields are represented in your podcast and how you might further adjust the way your content appears on a podcast directory. Once your RSS feed is drafted, run it through an RSS feed validator to check for any errors.
- Submit your RSS feed to podcast directories: With a working and valid RSS feed, you then need to actually submit your feed to a directory for it to populate in the search fields and be discoverable. Apple Podcasts has their own submission service called Apple Podcast Connect where you can submit your show’s feed. Google Play requires a Google account to submit a podcast. And Spotify also requires an account to submit your podcast but only requires about 4 steps once logged in.
Once you submit your content, you will have to wait a few days for your podcast to get approved. But once approved, your podcast is ready to go. When you record a new episode, you will update your RSS feed and upload the MP3 file to your hosting site. The podcast directories will make note of the new metadata in your feed’s URL and update your listeners’ feeds accordingly.