Video Transcript
Hi, everyone. Welcome. In this lesson, I’m going to show you how to create and how to add podcast episodes to your sites. Let me share my screen, so you can see what I’m doing. And OK. Here it is. So this is our site. And podcast episodes on WordPress.com sites are posts effectively.
So every time we want to create or publish a new episode, we need to create a new post. And posts are created here – and there are site posts on the left side of our dashboard – by clicking the Add the new post button. This will take you to our WordPress editor.
And well, I’m going to start in the beginning. But you can do this in, well, whichever order you prefer. So I’m going to start by adding a title. And title on this post – so on our podcast episodes is very important, because it’s the title that will appear in the podcast directories. So for all the listeners that are following your podcast, this is the title that they will see.
So it’s important to make it descriptive enough, so that people know or can kind of guess what your episode is about. So in our case, this is the first episode. And we’re going to name it What is this podcast about? OK. So people know that in this episode, we’re going to kind of make an introduction to the podcast, explain what we’re talking about, et cetera.
And now very important, very important here on the right side bar, you’ll notice that there’s an area here called Categories. And our podcast categories here. It’s. Very important to check and select this category for our posts if we forget to do this – well, if we forget, we can come back and do it later.
But if we don’t set this category, our podcast – our episode will not appear in our feed. And if it does not appear in our feed, it will not appear in the directory. So effectively, it won’t be – well, it would be published on the site. But it won’t appear anywhere else, and that’s not what we want. We want our followers to be able to listen to our newest episodes. And well, we do need to set this category here.
So let’s check the rest of the options we have here on the right. So categories – it said – you can choose other categories if you want as well. But we’re going to leave it with podcasts. Then we have tags. So tags, although they’re not really used by the podcast directories, they will be used by search engines. And they will be used by, for instance, the WordPress.com reader.
So it’s sort of a way to let search engines understand what’s this posts or in this case, this podcast episode is about. It’s usually good to have not more than 15. But if you have around 3, 5, it’s already good enough. So in our case, this is going to be a sustainable living. So we’re going to say sustainability.
We’re going to add podcasts. Well, we’re going to add introduction, about, and then a couple of topics we know we’ll talk about the recycling, upcycling. And here you can – well, you can go from very broad tags, for instance, podcast or sustainability, to very, very, very specific ones if you want.
And basically yeah. The tags will help search engines and for instance, the reader to understand what this episode is about. And it will then use those to show your podcasts in searches from other people who are looking for this kind of content. So it’s quite important to add this information to your episodes.
And then we have featured image. You don’t really need to set this. And it will not be used on the podcast directories but it will be used on your site. So for instance, I created some images here. But you can add anything you want or nothing if you don’t want to add anything here.
So excerpt – excerpt is what – it’s the description of your episode. It’s what the podcast directories will show. When they show your episode, there is a small description there. And they will pick it up from the excerpt. If the excerpt is not set, then it will pick up the first information or the first text it will find here on the content. But we are going to set up an excerpt here something like this. OK.
So it’s a very short description. We’re going to add more information in the content area. But it’s good enough for the excerpt. You can start closing all this. And we’re done with the post’s main settings.
And. Now we’re ready to write the content. So the most important part probably of the content is your audio file so the recording you already made of your episode – this is where it goes. So you can click the plus button. And then you will select the audio block here.
And if you have it in your computer, you can click Upload button and upload the file. In my case, I already added it to the media library. So I just need to click media and choose the episode I’m adding. OK. So it shows a player. And we can add a caption or not.
And then we have what we call the show notes. And show notes are basically – it’ll be kind of a summary of what was of the topics that you covered on your episode. And it will have other information. Let me show you an example of what I could write.
So right after the audio, I aired a couple of paragraphs going a bit more in detail of what the episode is about. It’s still not like very, very, very detailed. But it’s a bit more information that we can find on the excerpts. And after we have – let me set this as a heading – the transcript. And the transcript is really important.
As you can see here, so it kind of starts in the second 0, I start talking. Then on the 15, I say something else. And well, it would be a transcript of everything that was said, and well, talked about on this podcast episode. Why is this transcript so important?
Well, first of all, it’s highly used by search engines, because they have no way of listening to your episode and understanding what your episode is about. So this is where they are going to get all the information and all the keywords to then show your episode and your site in search results.
The second reason why it’s so important is because of hearing impaired people. So if there’s someone who has some kind of impairment in their hearing, this is the way they have of following you, of knowing what you’re talking about, and kind of interacting with you. This transcript is really important for these both these reasons.
And then right after the transcript, there’s something you can add or you may not want to add or might not even make sense depending on the podcast you’re creating. But this is the credit area. So this area – and of course you can move this up and down and kind of change the order if you want. But these are kind of very important sections you should have on your show notes.
The credits is the area where you will for instance, thank – if you had like a guest on your podcast, this is a very good place to thank them to market their site or their podcast if they also have a podcast or their business or project. And depending on your podcast, you can mark different things. But kind of market your guests here.
And then everything you used that wasn’t created by you, you should credit it. For instance, if you’re using music on your podcast, it’s a good place to credit here. If you’re using material from another website or from a book, it’s always a good idea to put that information here.
And even better for instance, if you’re using information from a website or from a blog, it’s usually a good idea to just get in touch with whoever created that content and kind of tell them, look, I read your content. It’s pretty cool. I would like to use it. Do you mind if I do?
Because well, copyright is not – it’s still kind of a gray area in lots of places. But it’s not something you want to be concerned about. So it’s usually, well, better safe than sorry. And here in the credits is a good place to put all that information – who you got, who came to your podcast, who your sources are or inspirations are, et cetera. OK.
Just one note about the transcript. So obviously, doing this manually, it’s very time consuming. But there are online services that will do this for you. Now there are many online services that do this. Some are cheaper. Some are a bit more expensive. Some will take more time, which is why many times why they are cheaper. And some do work with some sense of urgency if you want. But well, then you’ll have to pay more for that.
We will add a list of online services or online websites where you can find these sort of services. Well, so you can investigate yourself and find which one is the best for you. OK. And I think we’re done. We have our podcast category – very important. We have our title. We have our audio file. We have our show notes with the transcript and credits.
And we have tags, featured image, which is not mandatory, excerpt which is also not mandatory, but it’s a podcast episode discussion that will appear in the directories. And I think we’re ready. We can just go ahead, click the Publish button.
And once this post/episode is published, all the information that we added here is added to the podcast feeds and will be shown and edits to the podcast directories you submitted your podcast. OK. That is it. Thank you.
Resources
WordPress.com Support Pages
- Audio Block – WordPress.com – Remember that:
- You’ll need a paid plan to upload audio directly to your site.
- Audio embeds from Soundcloud and Audiomack should not be used, since Apple Podcasts is unable to download the audio file from those services.
- Categories – WordPress.com
- Tags – WordPress.com
- WordPress.com Reader
- Categories & Tags in the WordPress.com Reader – Use a maximum of 15 relevant tags and categories (total) if you want your posts to appear in the Reader
- Excerpts – WordPress.com
- Featured image – WordPress.com
Transcription Services
There are many transcription services to choose from; we’ve included a few below. WordPress.com does not endorse or recommend any specific transcription service. We suggest you do your own research and pick the service that best suits your needs.
Learning Action
- Create a post for your first episode, and add an audio block with your podcast audio file.
- Assign the post to your podcast category and optionally, add tags, a featured image, and an excerpt.
- Publish the post or save it as a draft for now if it’s not yet ready to go live.
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