Marvin writes, “I have an IIS website that streams audio (.asf files currently). With a ‘standard’ IIS website hosting on Windows, what would be the steps needed to begin podcasting. We would like to offer the audio we currently stream to the podcast market as well. We can convert the audio to any (even multiple) formats, but we don’t quite understand what needs to be set up on our web server to provide the support for podcasting.
Articles seem to cover in detail making the audio file. We have the audio file, but need to set up the rest of the support.”
One of the primary (and often incorrect) assumptions most podcasting tutorials make is that you already have a blog or that you want a blog. With the content management solutions used in blogging come the primary tools required for creating the podcast feed listeners subscribe to. In most cases, this publishing is done automatically without user intervention. While this is perfect for the individual who never had a Website in the first place, it doesn’t always fit with corporate (or non-profit) organizational Web hosting. The good news is, you do not need a blog or blog content management solutions to publish a podcast. Several software applications are designed to handle creating and updating the RSS feed which is the key element of podcast publishing. The key is using a solution that makes managing your feed painless.
What makes a podcast a podcast?
From your question, it sounds like you’ve already got a Windows server that is hosting a website. It also sounds like you are generating some streaming audio. What you are missing is a structured way to share those audio files using a subscription that updates each time you add a new audio recording.
At the most basic level, you need a valid RSS feed for this purpose. The RSS feed, which is an XML file, will contain individual items for each audio recording you want to share. Various podcast subscriptions apps, like Overcast and Apple’s Podcast app can subscribe to this feed and automatically update susbcribers when you add something new.
Creating an RSS feed to host on IIS
You have a few of options for creating an RSS feed that’s hosted by IIS on your Windows Server.
- Create a template for an existing content management system installed on your server
- Add a solution that lets you create individual entries to an RSS feed
- Install a content management system like WordPress on your IIS server in order to manage all the content for your podcast
Using existing Content Management software
It would be difficult for me to cover every possible content management option here, but this would definitely be the easiest option for anyone with an existing content management solution already installed as part of their IIS environment.
The basic idea is that you would set up a template that generates the RSS feed from content published through the CMS. If you need specifics on the structure of an RSS feed, the Media RSS spec is a great reference.
Creating a standalone RSS feed
If you don’t have a content management system installed, another option is to manually generate the RSS feed. If you go this route, it’s probably worth building a web form with each of the required elements and then having that web form append each new entry to the RSS feed. This will help make sure you don’t end up breaking your RSS feed each time you make changes.
Installing WordPress on IIS
A third option, which may be the best option if you don’t already have a content management system, is to install WordPress on IIS. This does require adding support for PHP and MySQL to your Windows Server.
WordPress is available via the Windows Package Manager winget, which is the standard command line interface for installing most Windows Server applications. You can also find mySQL via winget. Microsoft has an official page for supporting PHP on IIS.
Once you are up and running with WordPress, I recommend using the PowerPress plugin to handle all the nuances of generating your individual podcast episodes.
