How to Make A Podcast

Want to Learn How to Make a Podcast?

We’ve created more than 500 podcast episodes for more than 20 individual shows over the past 2 years. Many episodes were downloaded more than 100,000 times. We’ve become experts at this. We’ve put it all together into a great process and are offering an overview here.

This blog post is a step-by-step list of what you need to do to make a podcast.

This is an overview and the specifics are left out in the interest of providing a quick overview. If you could use more specific instructions, I’ve created screencast video course which describes every step in a granular way. Anyone could make a world class podcast if they follow this course.

How to Make a Podcast

1. Record: Create recordings with quality recording equipment.
2. Mix: Mix the audio with music and level the recordings.
3. Host: Upload your .mp3 to a hosting provider.
4. Setup: Create a podcast RSS feed.
5. Submit: Submit your podcast RSS feed to iTunes and other podcast platforms.

How to Make a Podcast: Recording

To get a great recording, start with quality recording equipment. This is important. All good podcasts start with quality equipment.

You can get quality recording equipment for less than $350. Here are links to three simple pieces which you can order on Amazon and have in your possession in a day or two:

Mixer | Microphone | Pop Filter

If you want help in how to set up this gear and record your first show using Audacity, please enjoy this free video course.

I own this recording equipment. It works great in almost all environments. I don’t need to find a place with great acoustics in order to make great recordings. The microphone only picks up your voice so if a helicopter flys overhead, your recording won’t be ruined.

After experimenting with a lot of different microphones, I’ve found that this is the best system for the price. You could spend hundreds more on microphones, but the results aren’t going to be much different.

How to Make a Podcast: Mixing

Mixing audio is not overly challenging, but you do need a few tools.

After mixing hundreds of podcasts, we found that the following process is the best for ensuring consistent quality.

1. Polish the audio with Audacity
2. Run the polished .aiff files through Levelator
3. Mix the audio and the music together with GarageBand
   1. Note: Export as a .mp3 at 64kbps
4. Tag the show using ID3 Editor

Each of these steps will require a small amount of learning time. The programs are not overly challenging to understand. You can follow along with me step-by-step in the course to speed your learning curve, or just dive in and learn on your own.

Once you create your finalized podcast file, you’ll be ready to upload your file to hosting.

How to Make a Podcast: Uploading

Uploading your media to trusted hosts is important. With a podcast, the volume of your data will quickly crash most servers. If you don’t use high-quality media hosting, there is a good chance that you won’t be able to serve your show.

Not serving shows means people will be clicking the download button, but the download will either require a huge amount of time, or it will fail. Your listeners will either not listen to the show, or just remember that your show takes too long to download and avoid it next time around.

Here are my recommended podcast hosting services:

• Libsyn
• SoundCloud
• Amazon Web Services

After uploading your podcast .mp3 to media hosting, you’ll be given a media URL. Use the media URL to complete the next step in which you create your podcast RSS feed.

How to Make a Podcast: Podcast RSS Feed Creation

To be exact, a podcast feed is just an RSS feed with audio media URLs written into the XML code.

If that doesn’t help, you’ll want to use a podcast RSS feed generation service. Here are a few options:

1. SoundCloud
2. Libsyn
3. BluBrry WordPress plugin + a WordPress site

We personally like to create our RSS feeds using WordPress websites and the Blubrry plugin.

SoundCloud recently came out with what looks like a great system for creating podcast RSS feeds, but I still like to build everything. It worries me to build important assets on other companies websites. When you own the feed, you own the show.

Your podcast feed will look something like this:

http://www.freedompodcasting.com/podcast/feed

Once you have your podcast feed, you’re ready to submit the feed to podcasting platforms.

How to Make a Podcast: Submitting Your Feed

Most podcast platforms simply read podcast RSS feeds. This means that all you have to do to see your show on their platforms is let them know about your RSS feed.

You can find submission details which are consistently updated on our podcast submission page.

Once you submit your feed, you’re set. To produce more episodes. To add new episodes, just enter the new media URL to your RSS feed.

Boom.

Conclusion

These instructions are abbreviated in the hopes of making the process simple to understand. Sometimes an overview of the process helps when planning the next step.

If you need help from us, you’re welcome to reach out to us to hire us as your producers.

If you’re interested in doing the process yourself, here is a step-by-step course which you can follow along. This is a discounted link so make sure to buy from this page as this discount won’t be available if you go directly to another system.

It took us about 3 years to get these systems set up, but you could produce a professional podcast using instructions from this course. Either do it yourself or get a member of your team to run through it and they can develop a new skill.

Questions on How to Make a Podcast?

Anything unclear? Please feel free to ask down below. I’d love to hear from you in the comments section.