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A Quick Message on Podcasting
Podcasting is a great tool to build an audience and do the research to make something great.
If what’s holding you back from doing that is a technical overview for how to make a podcast, here is what you need to do:
1. Buy Quality Equipment
Don’t skimp on sound quality. If you want to make things people want to consume, make sure you make great stuff.
You can find my podcast studio set up tutorial at the page called studio.
If you listened to our podcast, you may have noticed it sounded professional. If you follow the instruction from that page above, you can create a sound exactly like we did for the podcast.
2. Get The Software
- Audacity is Free – Use this to record supplemental segments in studio with or with out a guest.
- Levelator is Free – Run all your .AIFF (.WAV if you use a PC) recorded show elements through here.
- Piezo is $15 – Use this program to create the recordings with Skype (Call Recorder for you Microsoft people).
- ID3 Editor – This one is free for a long time. I think it’s $15 but you’ll save time.
3. Record Interviews/Audible Monologues and Export Audio to .aiff or .wav files
Use Audacity to record your in person interviews and Piezo to record Skype calls. When you’re done with these programs, export the files to a working folder for the next process.
I like to title and name my files as follows:
episode number – Show Name – Guest Name
For Example:
23 – Love Affair Travel – Barack Obama
4. Run Files through Levelator
Levelator is the simplest way to make sure your levels are solid when publishing. There are steps you can take to get a better sounding show, but as we’re doing the quick and effective tutorial here, running your files through Levelator is the best option at this time.
5. Open files in GarageBand and mix them together with music
Once you have your leveled podcast elements, use GarageBand or Audacity to mix them together. This may require a bit of a learning curve, but simplify the process and just organise your elements. When done, click export and export as a 128 kb/s .mp3 file. These are optimal for sharing on the podcast platforms.
6. Use ID3 Editor to Write Categorical Information and Show Art to your audio file
We tag our podcast episodes so that when people are listening on their devices, the branding and the link to your website are visible on the players. If you notice that there is a podcast that show the default image when you download it, that is because the producer is not properly tagging the file. Here is a screen shot of what it looks like when my podcast has been properly tagged in ID3 editor:
7. Install Blubrry Podcasting Plugin on your WordPress website
The core of the podcast distribution system is your podcast RSS feed. This is the Blubrry Podcast Plugin and it works with WordPress.org websites in a way that makes it easier to produce a proper feed. Go ahead and upload it to your website and fill out the information in the menu tab.
8. Upload your audio files to Libsyn and copy the Media URL to the blog post
Now that Blubrry is installed on your computer you will see a podcasting box in each blog post draft. So create a new podcast post to go live on iTunes and import the media URL of your audio show and click “Verify.” Then click Update or Save Draft. Your podcast is loaded up and ready to go to iTunes.
Note: It’s important to publish and make live at least one podcast before moving onto the next step.
9. Submit your Feed to the Top Podcasting Podcast
Now that you’ve created a blog with an audio embed which is connected to your RSS feed, you’re ready to submit your podcast to iTunes and the other podcasting platforms. To do this, we suggest following these guidelines. We update these constantly as new platforms enter the market and old ones become obsolete. Please feel free to follow the submission instructions here.