Publishing your podcast will vary slightly depending on which tools you use for blogging and where you host your audio files. At the most basic level you need enough storage space to host the podcast audio file, enough bandwidth to support the subscribers to your podcast, and an RSS 2.0 feed for people to subscribe to. Hosting options become complicated when you reach a large audience of subscribers. Most of the cheap Web hosting services aren’t designed to handle transfer of large files.
Before You Upload Your Podcast
One of the most important things to do prior to uploading your podcast is to edit the ID3 tags in the MP3 file to add identifying information. ID3 tags tell your media player and portable audio player things like artist, title of the track, and genre which listeners use to sort audio files.
Most music players, like Windows Media Player have built in tag editing. I personally like the shell extension AudioShell for editing MP3 files because I can right-click the file and quickly edit the Title, Artist, Album, Genre, Year and add comments about the file.
Some of the managed blog services, like WordPress, offer storage space and could be used for podcasting, but you need to keep an eye on your plan to make sure you’ve got enough file storage. Libsyn offers hosting plans starting at $5 per month. Blubrry is another good option starting at $10 per month.
There are other places that offer podcast hosting, like Spotify and Anchor. While both of these options are also easy to setup, they are less flexible if you decide you’ve outgrown them as your podcast becomes more popular. It is particularly tricky to move your podcast to a new URL link with these services without losing subscribers in the process. If you believe you will be continuing your podcast for some time, I strongly encourage you to take the extra steps of choosing a service that allows you to both grow AND maintain control over your podcast.
Once you’ve chosen the service you want to use for hosting your podcast, the steps to upload are usually pretty straightforward. Just follow the directions provided by your hosting provider and you’ll be all set to publish your podcast and share it with the world.