A podcast is a series of audio episodes that people can listen to and follow. Using the steps in this guide, you can host your podcast on your WordPress.com site and make the episodes available for listeners in Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Pocket Casts and other podcasting apps.
In this guide
Are you a visual learner and want to get a head start on setting up your podcast site? Check out our video tutorial showing how to use the Spearhead theme to create your podcast’s website. In twenty minutes, we’ll walk you through setting up your website to host your podcast, from creating an account to capitalizing on your podcast audience.
If you prefer to read the steps, scroll down to the next section.
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- Starting from your dashboard, go to Settings → Podcasting.
- Choose an existing category, or click “Add new category” to enable your podcast channel. In our example, we’ll create a new “Podcast” category. You can give any name you would like to the category.
- After selecting a category, a link to your podcast channel feed will be shown. Under RSS Feed, save the URL by clicking copy – you will need this when submitting the feed to Pocket Casts and Apple Podcasts.
Under the new Manage Details button, you can access your Podcast Settings.
Use the Podcast Settings page to set up or modify the following channel settings:
- Cover image: add, change, or remove an image to be used as the cover art to appear in Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and other podcast apps. Select an existing image or upload a new image, and click Continue to crop it to a square format.
- Note: Your image should be between 1400 x 1400 and 3000 x 3000 pixels in JPG or PNG formats to work on Apple Podcasts.
- Title: This title appears in Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and other podcast apps.
- Subtitle: the subtitle also appears in Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and other podcast apps.
- Podcast topics: these allow your podcast to show up for those browsing Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or other podcast apps by category.
- Explicit content: Mark yes if the podcast contains adult language or themes.
- Host/Artist/Producer: the artist or producer of the work.
- Summary: Pocket Casts and Apple Podcasts display this summary when browsing podcasts.
- Email Address: This email address will be displayed in the feed and is required for some services, such as Google Play.
- Copyright: Copyright information viewable in Apple Podcasts and other podcast apps.
- Keywords: This field is deprecated and provided for reference only. Podcast directories no longer use this information, so you can leave it blank.
Once configured, click the Save Settings button in the bottom left-hand corner of the page.
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For your podcast to be approved by major podcast networks, make sure that the language of your site (Settings → General) matches the language of your podcast.
These instructions refer to the Block Editor. If you are using the Classic Editor click here.
- Starting from your dashboard, click on Posts → Add New Post.
- The post’s title will be used for the episode title in Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and other podcast apps.
- Under the Post Settings menu on the right, assign the post to your Podcast category you created in the previous section of this guide.
- You can also add an Excerpt to describe the episode. When there is no excerpt, one will be auto-generated from the post’s content.
- Add an Audio Block and upload or link to your Podcast audio.
- Once you’re ready for your Podcast episode to go live, Publish your new post.
Podcasting works by uploading audio files in .mp3, .m4a, .ogg, or .wav formats. Apple Podcasts will not accept .ogg or .wav files. Spotify will only accept .mp3 files.
If you have issues uploading .m4a files, you can try re-encoding it again to .m4a format with an audio conversion software.
Audio embeds from Soundcloud and Audiomack should not be used, as Apple Podcasts is unable to download the audio file from those services.
You can embed a video through the same steps, using the Video Block instead of the Audio Block. Videos uploaded to YouTube and Vimeo may not work properly in your podcast. Ideally, the video should be uploaded to your WordPress.com site directly.
You can use the Podcast Player Block to display a listing of recent episodes from a podcast and play them on your website.
Submitting the feed to platforms like Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Pocket Casts, and Spotify only needs to be performed one time. Once it’s done, any post published with your designated podcast category will distribute automatically to your subscribers.
To submit a podcast to Apple, you must have at least one published episode and will need to sign up for an Apple Podcasts Connect account.
- Have your podcast feed URL nearby. It will be available on the Settings → Writing page and/or the Podcasting Settings page depending on whether or not your podcast is configured.
- Within Podcasts, click the Add (+) button and select New Show.
- Select “Add existing show (RSS feed)” and enter your podcast feed URL.
- Select Add.
- Review your show information. Pay attention to the artwork and your show and episode metadata, such as title, author name, description, language, and category.
- If ready, select Submit For Review.
- After the podcast is accepted, you can use Apple’s Link Maker to create links to your podcast.
- Have your podcast feed URL nearby. It will be available on the Settings → Writing page and/or the Podcasting Settings page depending on whether or not your podcast is configured.
- Follow the instructions provided by Google to Add a podcast using a RSS feed.
- Sign in to the Google Play Music Podcast Portal.
- Near the top right, click Add podcast.
- Add your podcast’s RSS feed URL.
- Click Submit RSS feed.
- Verify your email address:
- After you’ve submitted your RSS feed, review the email address used to verify ownership of your podcast. Note: this should match the “email” field in you Podcast Settings page.
- Click Send verification code.
- Check the email account listed for your verification email.
- Visit the link included in the email to complete the verification process.
- Have your podcast feed URL nearby. It will be available on the Settings → Writing page and/or the Podcasting Settings page depending on whether or not your podcast is configured.
- Open the Pocket Casts submission page.
- Add the podcast’s RSS feed URL to the URL field.
- Select whether your podcast should be public or private.
- Click Submit.
- Have your podcast feed URL nearby. It will be available on the Settings → Writing page and/or the Podcasting Settings page depending on whether or not your podcast is configured.
- Use the feed URL to provide the information in this site.
- Have your podcast feed URL nearby. It will be available on the Settings → Writing page and/or the Podcasting Settings page depending on whether or not your podcast is configured.
- Follow the instructions on this page to create and submit an Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing Skill. Note: this will require an account on the Amazon Developer Console.
Episodes older than 7 days will be ignored by Amazon.
By default, your podcast feed will show the latest 10 episodes from your chosen podcast category. Older episodes can be accessed on your site via the category archive, i.e. https://example.wordpress.com/category/podcast/.
- From your dashboard, go to Settings → Writing
- Scroll down to Feed Settings and adjust your number of most recent blog posts to show in your RSS Feeds. This includes your Podcast RSS feed.
- Click Save Settings.
