WOW LISTENERS WITH OUR PODCASTING INSIDER SECRETS

Ever listened to a podcast and thought, “hey, I could do that.”?

Or maybe you’ve heard of others making six figures every month from podcasting.

The good news is that the barrier to entry for starting a podcast is low. Even without technical skills, almost anyone can start a podcast.

However, it’s not easy to make a successful podcast.

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At this point, you probably don’t know exactly what goes into starting a podcast, which is exactly what this guide will tell you.

This is an in-depth guide that will cover:

The cost and effort required to make a podcast.
What equipment you’ll need.
How to pick a topic.
How to record episodes and distribute them.
How to maximize your chances of success.

I’ve included step-by-step instructions for almost every part of the process. By the end, you’ll know whether or not starting a podcast is right for you, and have a solid understanding of the time and resources required.

What is Podcasting and How Does it Work?

The easiest way to grasp podcasting is to think of it as audio blogging.

Each episode is like a blog post, covering a specific topic.

Podcasting has been a mainstream content channel for years now but is still growing.

In Infinite Dial’s 2017 research, they found that 67 million Americans listen to at least one podcast per month.

Additionally, podcast listening rate has been consistently growing 10 to 20% per year.

With new technology like Amazon Alexa and Google Home becoming more popular, it seems reasonable to expect this trend to continue for the foreseeable future.

One final factor to consider is that podcasting is most popular with the middle-aged and young demographic.

podcast-age-demographics — Screenshot from Edison Research

As the population ages as a whole, the number of podcast listeners will increase as well.

Put that all together and there’s a bright future ahead of podcasting, and it’s still a good time to start a podcast now.

A Short History of Podcasting

Radio came before television, much like how podcasting came before YouTube (and other online video sites).

Podcasting and radio are similar in a lot of ways, but podcasting really leverages newer technology.

Audio blogging in any form began back in the 1990s, but it wasn’t until 2000 when MP3 players started to include features to download and store episodic content.

In 2003, podcasting really started to take shape.

Since it required a lot of technical knowledge to create and distribute audio online, it wasn’t long before the services that allowed people to record and upload audio easier appeared.

Most notably at the time was Audioblogger.com, which allowed people to record and automatically upload files to Google’s blogging platform Blogger.

Around the same time, the development of RSS feeds rapidly progressed. This was crucial for tracking new blog content, both text, and audio. (RSS feeds are still a crucial part of podcasting, which we’ll cover later in this guide.)

Also in 2003, Christopher Lydon, who was also a former NPR talk show how and TV news anchor, started recording audio interviews with notable bloggers and politicians. He then published the episodes on his blog, releasing them through an RSS feed.

This isn’t so different from what podcasts look like today.

Shortly after, in 2004, Ben Hammersley coined the name “podcasting” for episodic audio content that could be automatically downloaded and synced.

By 2005, iTunes added podcasts to their store, and podcasting has taken off from there. There are now hundreds of thousands of podcasts and millions of people who listen to them.

How Exactly Does Podcasting Work?

When I first published a podcast years ago, I was overwhelmed at first.

There are quite a few technical steps that you don’t consider when you’re only used to listening to podcasts.

So let’s take a step back and take a look at a high-level overview:

There’s quite a bit of flexibility at each of the 3 main stages of creating a podcast, which is what this guide will cover.

For now, understand that:

You record episodes using equipment and your computer.
Upload those files to a podcasting host.
Then submit those episodes to directories so that listeners can find them.

Within each of those 3 steps, there are a lot of finer details that you likely have questions about:

What equipment do you need?
What software is best?
Where do you get theme music from?
How do you choose a podcast topic?
Which host is best for Podcasts?
Which host is best if you have a WordPress site?
How will you get people to listen to your show?

Don’t worry, I’m going to give you a simple answer all of these questions and more in this post.

Benefits of podcasting for bloggers

You have an idea of how much work will be required now, but keep the benefits in mind as well.

As an audio blogger, your content:

Is easier to consume for your audience.
Can be monetized effectively.
Can be listened to just about anywhere.
Can reach a new audience that doesn’t read blog posts.

And if you hate writing, you’ll likely find talking much easier than writing blog posts.

You can create a podcast as its own business, or use it as an additional marketing channel to complement your existing website.

Look at Karen Erickson, Darren Rowse, Tim Ferris and Pat Flynn for examples of bloggers who have utilized podcasting to build their businesses.

Don’t expect overnight success, but one day you might be able to join the list as well. While we’re at it, LiquidWeb is a great hosting provider if you have intentions of podcasting. They’re not only resource-rich but offer a 100% Uptime Guarantee.

What Equipment do I need to start a podcast?

Everyone wants to know about equipment and tools, so let’s get that out of the way right now.

Professional podcasting setups can get quite complicated, but we’ll focus on the essentials and keep it as simple as possible.

How much will the equipment itself cost?

You can get a satisfactory setup up and running for $100-200. It will have pretty good audio quality and be reliable.

A professional setup will cost around $1,000 minimum, although it can go much higher.

It mainly comes down to your budget and goals with your podcast. It’s fine to start small and upgrade later.

I’ll go over options for all budgets in this section.

Microphone (required)

Your laptop microphone is not going to cut it.

Neither are most cheap headset microphones.

These microphones produce too much background noise and low sound quality in general.

This is the one thing you must buy if you don’t already have a quality microphone.

So which one should you buy?

First, you need to decide which type of microphone to get.

USB vs analog (XLR): These are the 2 major types of microphones. USB microphones are cheaper in general and can be plugged into your computer’s USB port, which is convenient. Analog microphones tend to have better quality, but more expensive, and you’ll need extra equipment.

If you want to start on a budget, get a USB microphone.

If you’re planning on podcasting for the long-term, invest in a good analog microphone. There are still some budget analog microphones that aren’t much more expensive than USB options.

There are tons of microphones out there, but here are some of the most popular ones recommended by most top audio bloggers, from cheapest to most expensive.

Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB Cardioid Dynamic USB/XLR Microphone (USB and analog): One of the few microphones with both a USB digital output and XLR analog output. You can get this microphone for well under $100, and for the sound quality it produces, it’s a great value. It’s a dynamic microphone that doesn’t pick up much background noise. The one caveat is that you need to be very close to it for it to work well, so set it up on a microphone stand for comfort.

Blue Yeti USB Microphone (USB): This is a mid-range USB microphone that is often recommended for podcasting beginners. It’s not too expensive and produces relatively high-quality sound output. It can pick up room echo and background noise, but if you know that you’ll be recording in a generally quiet area, it can do a good job. You’ll want a pop filter for this microphone.

Shure BETA 87A Supercardioid Condenser Microphone (Analog): For an analog microphone, this one has a reasonably low price at a few hundred dollars. It’s as good or better than what the majority of podcasters use, minus the ones with truly professional setups. It won’t pick up much background noise or room echo and is pretty small and practical.

Beyond these, there are more expensive, higher quality microphones, but they’re overkill for most podcasters. If you get serious traction, you can upgrade later.

Audio Interface (If you buy an analog microphone)

An audio interface connects microphones to computers.

If you buy a USB microphone, you don’t need an audio interface, since you can plug into your computer directly.

But an analog microphone has XLR connectors, which can’t be plugged in directly. Instead, you plug them into an audio interface, which can then send the audio data to your computer.

Audio interfaces can cost anything from $100 to the $1,000 range. For podcasters, the low-end interfaces will be more than sufficient in most cases.

Here are a few popular recommendations.

Tascam US-2×2 USB Audio Interface: This is a budget audio interface with 2 XLR input slots. It’s compatible with both Mac OSX and Windows. It’s also designed to be simple to use, which is why it’s great for most podcasters.

Mackie Onyx Producer 2-2 2×2 USB Audio Interface With MIDI: This is another budget audio interface in the same price range, also with 2 XLR input slots. There’s no huge difference from the Tascam audio interface, it’s just another solid alternative.

There are audio interfaces that produce higher sound quality and accept more inputs, but they’re more aimed at musicians than podcasters. Unless you have a unique podcasting setup, either of the above 2 audio interfaces is simple options that will do a great job.

Pop Filter (optional)

A pop filter is put over the front of microphones to reduce or eliminate popping sounds from your speech (like the unavoidable sound at the end of “pop”).

It can also keep saliva off your microphone, which will increase its longevity.

A pop filter isn’t always needed, it depends a lot on the specific microphone and recording setting.

However, they’re cheap (typically $10 or less), and it’s a good idea to test one out if you’re new to podcasting.

There’s not a huge difference in pop filter quality, so just find one that rated well on your preferred store.

Headphones (optional…but not really)

You technically don’t need to wear headphones while recording a podcast, but I highly recommend it.

There are a few main reasons:

You’ll hear yourself clearly, making it easier to maintain a consistent, ideal tone.
You’ll also immediately hear if the microphone is picking up background noise.
If you’re interviewing someone, it makes it easier to hear them clearly by reducing background noise.

Simple earbud headphones are okay, but ideally, you have headphones that meet the following conditions:

Comfortable for long periods of time – For obvious reasons, podcasts can be long, and editing can take a long time as well.
“Neutral” – You don’t want headphones that are treble-focused or sound unique. Neutral headphones ensure that when you edit your shows, they’ll sound good to everybody, not just users with particular types of headphones.
Isolation – It’s a good idea to use closed-back headphones (the ones that go around your ear) so that sound doesn’t leak out and potentially get recorded as background noise.

Many headphones fit this bill, usually costing around $100-200.

If you’d like a budget recommendation, try the Sony MDR-7506 Professional Large Diaphragm Headphones. They are an affordable, relatively high-quality headphone option that fulfills those 3 main criteria.

Editing software

This is the last main piece of “equipment you’ll need.

Recording software is more straightforward, with fewer options, and I’ll cover that later on in the guide.

But all good podcasts need editing, and there are many editing software tools to choose from.

Here are the most popular options.

For Mac or PC

Audacity (free) – By far the most popular free audio editor, it’s the one I’ll use in examples later on in this guide. It has many “advanced” features that can be useful for podcasts, like normalizing and noise reduction effects.
Hindenburg Journalist (paid) – Hindenburg has multiple audio editing tools, but Journalist is the cheapest and most appropriate one for podcasters. A license costs $95 and is a one-time fee. If you need a higher production value, it’s a good option, but not needed for most podcasters.
Adobe Audition (paid) – It has a monthly fee of $20/month, but is a solid audio editing tool for podcasters. In general, I’d recommend Audacity over it, but if you’re familiar with Adobe products you might find it easier to use.

For Macs

GarageBand (free) – GarageBand is included on Macs for free, and is simple to use. It’s a really good option if you have a Mac, as it has a lower learning curve than most. It still has all the main features that most podcasts need.

With equipment out of the way, let’s go over the 6 main steps of starting a podcast.

Step 1: Choose a Niche for Your Podcast

Just like with blogging, you need to find a niche for your podcast to fill. Something people desire to learn about that doesn’t exist.

There are 2 main situations that you can find yourself in.

The first is that you’re thinking of starting a podcast to bring in additional traffic (and customers) for your business.

This means that your general category is essentially chosen for you. It should be highly related to your business.

The second situation is that you want to start a podcast as a business, hoping to make money with it directly over time. Your category is more open-ended at his point.

But before you choose a category, consider that podcast listeners typically look to podcasts for expert advice.

Unlike blogging, where you can try to present a unique perspective as a beginner to a topic, most people motivated enough to seek out a podcast want expert advice.

So I ask you: “What are you skilled at, or an expert at?”

The alternative is to have connections to many experts that you can interview on a podcast, but few people have these. Be warned that it’s tough to get good guests if you don’t already know them, as people ask them for things all the time.

How to Validate Your Podcast Idea

You don’t want to go through all the work of making a podcast and it turns out that no one cares about your niche.

That’s why you need to validate demand.

Assuming you have a category or general topic in mind at this point, take a look at the top podcasts in either iTunes or Stitcher.

stitcher categories — Screenshot of Stitcher, one of the largest podcast directories.

Click on the most relevant category that you see.

Each of those categories covers a wide variety of topics, for example, business has:

Personal finance
Economics
Entrepreneurship

For the specific topic you have in mind, count up how many podcasts in the top 100 of that category cover that topic.

If there’s only 1 or 2, that’s a signal that there’s low demand. It’s going to be difficult to be successful.

Typically there are 4-5 popular topics in a general category, and you want to pick one of those (because they have significant demand).

Competition is a good thing, you just need to find the right approach to your topic that helps you stand out.

An alternative method – Use search engine keywords. There’s no public data of what people search for in a directory like iTunes or Stitcher, but there is keyword data for Google.

It won’t give you a perfect indicator of interest, but it will tell you if there’s some or none.

Decide on a specific topic you want to have a podcast about, then divide that into potential niches.

For example, if I wanted to make a podcast on entrepreneurship, here are some potential niches:

Affiliate marketing.
Dropshipping.
E-commerce.

Then, plug these into the Adwords Keyword Planner, appending “podcast” to the end.

keyword-volumes — Screenshot via Adwords Keyword Planner

In this case, there’s interest in all those 3 niches, but e-commerce is the most popular one.

Format and Ideation

If someone already has an e-commerce podcast, how can you differentiate yourself from them?

There are 2 main approaches.

First, you can go more specific. For example, make a podcast about e-commerce marketing, or e-commerce product fulfillment.

As long as you can think of 20-30 ideas relatively easily, it can work.

The second approach is to pick a different podcast format.

Successful podcasts exist for all formats:

Solo podcasts.
Interviews.
Multiple hosts.
Case studies.
Storytelling.
Short or long.

Think about the listeners in that niche that aren’t being served. How can you fill that gap?

Step 2: Choose a Name, Theme Music, and Design

There’s a lot of work that needs to be done before you start recording.

Doing the tasks in this section can have a huge effect on your success.

Your Podcast Name

Take a look at what listeners see when they browse a podcast directory:

podcast-directory-info — A list of top-ranked podcasts. Screenshot from Stitcher.

It’s your title and cover art.

If your title sucks, no one will give you a chance.

Don’t try to be too clever, just pick a descriptive name that you think will sound appealing to your audience.

If you are well-known in your industry, you can put your name in the title. For example:

The Dave Ramsey Show.
How I Built This With Guy Raz.
Mad Money With Jim Cramer.

These are all top business podcasts.

Otherwise, pick the main keyword that clearly describes what your podcast is about. For example:

Planet Money.
StartUp Podcast.
Entrepreneurs on Fire.
Side Hustle School.

It’s good if the remaining word(s) gives some imagery about the general approach your podcast takes.

From above, “Entrepreneurs on Fire” gives you the image that it focuses on successful entrepreneurs.

Or, “Side Hustle School” is mainly focused on educational topics.

Your Cover Art

Your cover art might be the most important part of getting the attention of browsers.

Take some time to analyze the top podcasts in your category and see what trends they follow.

Almost all of them will:

Be easy to read, even when small.
Have the name of the podcast.
Have a single focal image related to the topic.
Have a colored background.

I highly suggest you pay someone to make your cover art unless you have those skills yourself.

This is not the place to cut corners.

You can hire someone to produce a reasonably high-quality cover art from Fiverr or Upwork for not much.

If you can afford it, hire an experienced professional artist with experience working with podcasts.

Most directories share the same guidelines. Here are iTunes’ requirements:

A minimum size of 1400 x 1400 pixels.
A maximum size of 3000 x 3000 pixels.
72 dpi.
JPEG or PNG format.
In the RGB color space.

When viewed in a directory, your cover art will typically be somewhere between 50 and 150 px wide.

View your cover art at all sizes to make sure that it’s readable and still looks attractive before finishing.

Your Podcast Description

When someone clicks through to your podcast page, they can see your episodes, plus your podcast description.

It’s a short blurb that explains what your podcast is about, and why someone should listen to it.

This matters for 2 reasons.

First, people will click on your cover art or title, but not decide whether or not to give your podcast a try until reading the description.

An interesting description will get you more listens.

Second, your podcast page (with the description) can show up in search results (in directories themselves or in Google). You should include your main keyword, and any other relevant keywords to increase how often your podcast shows up as a suggestion.

Theme Music

My favorite podcasts coincidentally have a really catchy intro and outro songs.

It’s the first thing that listeners associate with your show, and they hear it every episode, so make it good!

If you’re really on a budget, you can search for free music on Free Music Archive.

Again, I’d recommend paying a small amount for professional-grade theme music. Audio Jungle has hundreds of thousands of tracks that can be cut down to use as theme music.

They typically cost under $20.

Most will say “No broadcast use”, which just means you can’t play the whole music clip, which you wouldn’t want to. As stated in the FAQ, it’s fine to take a clip from the file and use it.

If you have a higher budget you can hire a professional, who will also usually give you a voice over for your intro as well. Tim Paige is well known, but there are others as well. Expect to pay a few hundred dollars for an experienced professional.

Step 3: Pick Your Podcast Hosting Provider

If you don’t pick a reliable, good quality host, listeners might have trouble downloading or streaming your podcast episodes. This is a good way to lose listeners.

That’s why you must go with a podcast host at the very least. That’s different than a website host like Bluehost or HostGator.

Podcast hosting services are built on media servers that are designed to store large media files (your episodes) and support the high bandwidth needed for listeners to download or stream episodes.

Each podcast host has their own strengths and weaknesses.

There are 4 main things that you should consider:

Price – How much can you afford? Generally, the more you pay, the more space you’ll get. It makes sense to start off with an introductory package and then upgrade later as you record more shows.
Simplicity – Some podcast hosts are easier to use than others. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, go for simplicity over power.
RSS Feed support – The hosts I recommend below all automatically create an RSS feed for you, but if you go with a different host, make sure they do as well.
Embeddable players – How easy is it to embed a player with an episode somewhere else (do you even need this feature?). Do you like what it looks like?
Sitebuilder – Some podcast hosts give you a site builder so you can build a complete website that can easily integrate your episodes. This may be useful or completely unnecessary for you. Others simply give you a basic podcast pagethat lists your episodes.

I’ve created a comparison chart below for the 5 most popular podcast hosting services:

Host	Lowest plan price	Difficulty to use	RSS support	Embeddable player?	Sitebuilder?
SoundCloud	$7/month	Easy	Yes	Yes	No
Podbean	$3/month	Easy	Yes	Yes	Yes
Podomatic	$9.99/month	Medium	Yes	Yes	Yes (A basic one)
Libsyn	$5/month	Medium	Yes	Yes	Yes (A basic one)
Fireside	$19/month	Easy	Yes	Yes	Yes

None of them is a bad choice. Try to find the one that has the combination of pricing, user-friendliness, and style that fits you best.

If you’d like a more in-depth breakdown of podcast hosting options, here’s a review of the best podcast hosting options.

Step 4: Record Your Podcast

You can finally start creating your podcast episodes.

Start by setting up your microphone.

If you just have a USB microphone, plug it into your computer and it should be recognized automatically.

If you went with an analog microphone, follow the instructions that your audio interface came from.

I’ll outline the basics of recording, and your options, for 3 main podcasting scenarios:

Solo podcasting (just you).
Podcasting with multiple people locally.
Podcasting with multiple people in multiple locations (like a Skype interview).

Option #1 (solo podcast) – Record with Audacity

A solo podcast is the simplest type of podcast to make.

All of the audio software I went over in the equipment section has an option to record from a microphone.

The exact details will depend on the software you chose, but in Audacity, you pick your microphone device from the drop-down menu on the top toolbar:

With you microphone selected, you can press the circle “record” button to start recording the audio input to the microphone.

Press the square “stop” button to end the recording.

You can press the “play” button to listen to the clip you recorded and make sure that it was recording your voice.

Don’t worry if you have to repeat certain things to get them right during your podcast episode, you can always clip out bad parts later.

Option #2 (multiple microphones locally) – Use Audacity Workaround or Audio Interface

If you have 2 or more people recording locally, you’ll want a microphone for each person.

Ideally, you’ll have an audio interface that supports however many inputs you need.

This lets you record and edits multiple channels.

Unfortunately, Audacity only supports one audio input for recording at a time.

There are a few workarounds in this situation.

If you’re on Windows, use a program like VoiceMeeter (free) or Virtual Audio Cable(paid).

Here is a VoiceMeeter tutorial:

While Virtual Audio Cable is paid, it also supports more inputs.

On OSX, you can set up an aggregate device in Utilities to combine multiple inputs to record as one.

Option #3 (multiple people remotely) – Record Over Skype

Interviewing a guest over Skype is the most common podcasting situation by far.

There are 2 main options that you can pick from, both work fine.
Pamela: A free, easy to use a recorder. It has a nice interface for navigating past recordings.

There is a free version, but it only records up to a maximum of 15 minutes.

The professional version is a one-time $25 fee and has no restrictions.

MP3 Skype Recorder: A very simple recording interface with a minimal learning curve.

It also has a free and paid version, but the paid version is cheaper than Pamela.

The free version works great but is not intended for commercial use, which your podcast probably falls under.

Try the free version of both out and see which one you like best.

Step 5: Editing Your Podcast Episodes

Editing audio is a lot like editing video, but simpler.

Still, all audio editing software has a learning curve, and you’ll need to commit time to learn how to use it.

If you want to avoid this, you can use a post-production service like Auphonic. They will take care of volume normalization, hum reduction, and other editing tasks for a reasonably low price.

If you want to DIY, here are the main things you’ll need to do.

Import and Clip Together Your Audio Files

First, you’ll need to import your audio clips into your editing software, like Audacity.

You do this by going to “File > Import > Audio” in the menu:

You may have multiple clips of your episode content, as well as your intro, outro, and any ads.

You can then see the profile of each clip and edit them individually or together.

To move parts around, you can highlight a portion of a clip, and then cut and paste it somewhere else (just like text):

You can also select any single track and apply effects like ‘Noise Reduction’:

Audacity has a nice little beginners tutorial that goes over how to do these.

These take time and effort to learn, but once you have them down it won’t take too long to edit an episode.

Here’s a start to finish example of editing a podcast episode using Audacity:

Export Your Episode as an MP3

If you’re using Audacity, download the installer package for the LAME MP3 encoder.

Then, go to “File > Export Audio” in Audacity to bring up a save menu:

Set the file type to MP3, and bitrate to at least 128kbps.

Your sample rate should be 44.1 kHz by default, but you can always confirm it in “Edit > Preferences > Quality”.

Once you click “Save”, another pop-up will come up that allows you to tag your audio file.

Tags are used to provide information about your file, like who made it, and what its title is.

Some directories will pull this information automatically from your host, but it’s always nice to have here as a backup.

If you’re not sure how to label tags, here’s a trick: Download a podcast you like, then right-click the file, click “properties”, and go to the “details” tab.

You can base your tags on the professionally done ones.

You can access your tags and edit them later in Audacity at any time by going to “File > Open Metadata Editor”.

You don’t necessarily need all the tags, but here are the basic ones that are good to include when possible:

Track – Your episode number, which may be used for sorting.
Title – Your full episode title, which will probably include the episode number.
Artist – The name of the host(s), which is likely you.
Album – The title of your podcast.
Year
Genre – Most people just put “Podcast”.
Comment – A short description of the episode.
URL – The URL for your show notes, or a relevant episode page.

Now you should have a fully polished episode ready to go.

Step 6: After you publish your podcast, how do you promote it?

To publish your episode, upload it to your host provider. This is just a simple file upload, and your host should give you instructions when you sign up.

Now it’s time to try and get listeners.

What you’ll need: Your podcast’s RSS feed (get from your hosting provider).

Start by Listing Your Podcast in Top Directories

When listeners browse directories like iTunes or Stitcher, they only see podcasts that have been added to the directory.

You only have to add your show to a directory once. From there, your RSS feed will update as you add episodes, and the directories will update as well.

Most directories only require you to have a single episode on your RSS feed, but it’s a good idea to have at least 5 or so. If someone listens to an episode of yours, you want them to be able to listen to more to encourage them to subscribe.

The main directories you’ll want to add your show to are:

Most are simple, you just add your RSS feed.

For iTunes, follow these steps:

Open iTunes and go to the iTunes store.
Click “Submit a Podcast” on the right menu.

Log in to iTunes Connect.
Paste in your feed and click ‘Continue’.
Review the information and submit your podcast.

Increase Your Chances of Success With a Launch

If you’ve ever tried blogging, you know that putting up posts and then hoping people find them is a bad idea.

The same goes for podcasts.

It’s possible that you’ll get lucky and end up getting featured in the “New and Noteworthy” section on iTunes (or another directory).

But you’re leaving a lot up to chance.

Instead, you should do everything you can to “launch” your podcast and get several good reviews at the start.

Here are some ideas:

Ask any current email subscribers.
Email friends asking them to check out the show and leave a review.
Join niche communities and share your show if they allow it (be transparent).

Don’t be afraid to spend a lot of 1-on-1 time to get a review at the start, they can be incredibly valuable over time.

You can also encourage reviews over time by thanking people who leave good reviews in your future episodes.

Publish on Your Website With Show Notes (Optional, but Recommended)

There’s one common situation I haven’t addressed too much.

What if you already have a website, or want to start one first before starting the podcast?

The simplest option is a WordPress site.

Many podcasters use the following podcasting configuration:

Blubrry podcast hosting.
PowerPress (a BluBrry WordPress plugin).
WordPress.

PowerPress allows you to input your podcast’s RSS feed in WordPress, and then attach podcast episodes to posts on your websites.

Most podcasts use these posts as “show notes”, where you provide links to things talked about in each episode, and maybe a transcription.

Perhaps the best thing about PowerPress is that you can upload your episodes from your WordPress admin panel, and it will upload it to your hosting automatically.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

When you ask failed podcasters what went wrong, you’ll hear certain things come up often.

1. Not Planning Long-Term

If you do everything in this guide, it will take quite a bit of time and effort. You might spend a month planning your podcast before you even start.

But, you’ll have a single episode up and more importantly, a solid foundation to grow on.

You will not have thousands of downloads per day overnight.

If you’re not prepared to work hard for 6-12 months, knowing that you won’t see a ton of positive results in that time, you’re unlikely to succeed. That’s the harsh truth.

The work in this guide is just a start, and you need to continue to put in the work after.

2. Not Being Consistent

Just like it’s a good idea to blog consistently, it’s a good idea to publish podcast episodes on a consistent schedule.

Your most loyal listeners will expect to see a new episode from you based on whatever publishing schedule you pick. If you randomly miss publishing dates, you’ll find that you’ll lose listeners.

Plan ahead and always have multiple episodes ready to publish in case you can’t record one at some point due to vacation or illness.

3. Not Promoting Your Show

Finally, as mentioned before, promoting your show is the best way to get early traction.

When you have no listeners initially, you have no reviews or downloads, which means that you have no way to get new listeners.

Promoting your show on your blog, email list, social media, or in forums is the best way to get the early listens and reviews that will determine how fast your audience grows.

Summary

Five thousand words later and you should have a good idea of what you’ll need to do to start a successful podcast.

If you’re overwhelmed, just start at step 1 and take it one step at a time.

It’s still a great time to start a podcast, and with some hard work, it could be your sole business or a great marketing channel in a year or so.

Good luck!

Dale Cudmore

Dale has been blogging for personal projects, and as a professional freelance writer since 2013. He’s sold multiple blogs for 5-figures in multiple niches. He gets his writing edited by the toughest, but cutest editors…his 2 cats.