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If you’re a blogger, trying to establish a brand, you should definitely launch your own podcast series. If you don’t have one, you’re missing out a large audience. Did you know that around 73 million Americans identify as regular podcast listeners? Even if you’re not a person who writes a lot but love to talk about your passion or field of expertise on and on and if you think that might help people in their life, you can definitely start a podcast series instead of blogging.

I know it’s quite intimidating for the beginners and so here we’re to help you! We’ll be discussing everything from how to start a podcast? and Essential components/ equipment to start a podcast. Then, of course, your audience wants to find you so we’ll be looking into some of the best podcast hosting platforms.

Things to do before starting a podcast:Figuring out the niche:

Keep this in mind, the niche which you’re about to choose must excite you as well as the audience. Think from the audience perspective, do they really need to hear your podcast, if yes, is there a strong why behind it? The topic/ niche should be quite demanding. The easy way to gain an audience by choosing the right niche. For example, if you think a topic has a huge audience and not much competition, go for it.

Deciding the name of your podcast:

The name of the podcast something should be related to your niche. So make sure whether a domain name (should be the name of your podcast) is available or not. Then check for the social media pages as well.

Establishing a style:

The main styles of podcasting:

Solo: In the solo Podcast, you’ll share your thoughts and ideas and won’t have other people/guests in your podcast series.

Having a Guest: Here you’ll be interviewing some great people of your niche to listen and share their perspective to the world.

Essential Equipment for the podcast:

You will be surprised to know that many people give up listening to a podcast series just because of the bad audio quality — fuzzy, too quiet, or even too loud. So you have to make sure the sound quality is good and you have to know some basic audio editing skills (Don’t worry when you have the right software, it’s easy).

This also means you’ll need a decent microphone. You don’t need to afford an expensive mic — especially right at the start. Even most modern microphones can work if you’re a beginner, or you can spend a little on a USB mic that plugs into your computer. Let’s look into these in detail later. Keep reading!

Basic software programs to start a podcast:Software for recording:

For recording, you’ll need software that serves two main purposes:

Recording the audio

Editing it into a proper episode.

Some of the best software programs are:

Skype: Easy to record, there are still people using skype to record their podcast even after they succeeded in their field.

Zoom: A lot of people use Zoom as it’s a free conferencing program, also it’s quick and convenient for the guests to join.

Zencastr: Zencastr is highly recommended, it has both free and paid options. It records each person’s audio on its track which makes it so much easier while editing, and it also exports the audio in studio-standard quality, removing some of the little noises that might happen while recording.

Listnr: Probably the easiest way to start a Podcast, ever. Listnr helps you Start a Podcast just by entering your Script into its Editor and Voila! You have your Podcast in under 5 minutes!

Audacity: No matter if you are windows or mac user, Audacity is cross-platform and is completely free. You can record and edit from there. You can add music, background, can mix 2–3–4 voices whatever channels of voices you have. Also, you can make you sound professional by adding effects to it.

Getting music:

Integrating music into the introduction of each podcast episode helps to set your content apart and adds a bit of flair to it. These are usually short voice-overs with music that are available, that introduces the podcast, the host, or the tagline of your podcast. You can record it yourself or choose any royalty-free music available on the Internet.

Export your MP3:

You need to publish the podcasts on a hosting service in an MP3 format, especially on platforms where they have bandwidth restrictions. Since some podcast hosts charge extra if you are posting a bigger file. Hence, during the export process, you should keep your MP3 files as small as possible without compromising the quality.

After exporting the MP3, you need to tag it with metadata, such as your podcast name, logo, description, and website URL. This will make sure that your audience gets all of the information that they need about your podcast.

Launching and promotion:

Once you have episodes ready to go and have published them on your hosting account, you have to promote your podcast regularly on your social media pages. You do a pre-promotion or post promotion with a teaser or you can even add some behind the scenes to get the audience interested. Post at least once a day, not just promoting your podcast but some other valuable content related to your niche. By this way, you’re letting people know that you are working very hard to help people with your free valuable content.

Submit to directories:

After you publish your podcast, you have to select a podcast directory where listeners discover, listen, and subscribe to your podcasts. You need to post an RSS feed link that you get from the podcast host to the directory of your choice. You can select one or multiple podcast directories depending on your strategy, but make sure to choose them wisely.

Here are some of the best options for directories:

iTunes

Spotify

Google Play Music

Stitcher

Blubrry

SoundCloud

Pocketcasts

Essential Equipment to start a Podcast:

It really depends on your budget when it comes to purchasing all the equipment, but whatever level you’re currently at, be it beginners or professional, here’s a handy list of essential equipment you need to start a podcast.

Microphones:

Don’t go for your computer’s built-in microphone as the audio quality will be bad. The easiest way to get started is to use a USB microphone. To have the option to record top notch sound, you’ll need a different simple or USB amplifier. Most tenderfoot podcasters go for USB mics as it permits them to just fit their amplifier straight into their PC and begin recording. It starts from $100.

Pop Filter:

Another urgent hardware that will assist you with catching extraordinary sounding vocals is a pop channel or windscreen. Its fundamental intention is to limit or forestall “plosives, for example, your P’s and T’s, by retaining those incredible impacts of air before the sound arrives at your receiver. Usually you can get the pop filters for 10 to 50 dollars.

Mic Stand:

However, it is crucial to understand that you can’t host a podcast while holding the microphone in your hands. Even if you are trying, it may add more noise to your audio. To set up your amplifier and pop channel together, you’ll need a solid mic stand. However, that is not by any means the only utilization of a mic stand; it will likewise assist you with situating your mouthpiece appropriately so you don’t need to twist forward or downwards to have the option to talk into the receiver. Mic stands are available from $20.

Shock Mount:

It is designed to protect a microphone from shocks and vibrations. Most mics used in home recording studio setups are overly sensitive to such disturbances. This, in turn, can affect the bass of your sound. Therefore, it is recommended to use one to retain the tone and texture of your voice. It starts from $50.

While some mics come with one, others don’t. The best option is to buy a dedicated option from the mic’s manufacturing company. However, check the mic’s diameter and ensure that it fits perfectly.

Headphones:

Headphones fill in as your sound screen, which is the reason you’ll regularly discover podcasters (and in any event, recording specialists) with Headphones while recording. It could be peculiar hearing your own voice from the outset, however, it’s the most ideal approach to check for any covering clamour and lopsided mic sound levels. And so, you don’t need to do retakes. It ranges from $50 to $150.

Headphone Amplifier:

Each speaker on your show will require an earphone screen, so you’ll require a multi-channel earphone intensifier that can oblige more than one earphone jack and boost the full solid quality capability of every one of your earphones. A headphone amplifier costs around $500.

Audio Interface:

A sound interface fundamentally fills in as the extension that changes over the amplifier’s sound signs into advanced so you can “send” them to your computer for playback, blending, and transfer.

As recently referenced, some USB mouthpieces can be stopped straightforwardly into your PC. Some podcasters like to utilize the wizardry of a sound interface in keeping up the nature of the first sound, rather than depending on the PC’s sound card for the basic sound change.

Mixer:

Like a sound interface, a mixer improves your sound by giving you more power over sound levels, sources of info, yields, and the sky’s the limit from there. Most computerized sound workstations (DAWs) will permit you to mix and ace different sound channels on your PC. However, besides some podcasters’ inclination to do it physically, once in a while there are no decision, particularly when you will have far off (bring in) visitors. A mixer costs around $150.

Cables:

Contingent upon your picked web recording design, there might be occasions when you have to do talks with the outside of the studio. For this situation, we highly suggest that you utilize a dependable, compact sound recorder to catch and spare your sound to a micro SD card.

Sound Proofing Materials:

Similarly, as with a chronicle studio, you’ll have to give your room some acoustic therapy. The degree will rely upon how much reverberation or reverb is available, beside the measure of outer commotion originating from outside the room, assuming any.

In any event, you’ll have to apply acoustic boards on the dividers (and perhaps on the roof). Become familiar with room soundproofing to comprehend what your room needs to change into a soundproof recording studio. Sound proofing materials starts from 100 dollars.

Audio Editing Software (DAW):

Enough about the room and your equipment. Whenever you’ve indicated your outer gear, remember to decide the chronicle programming that you will use on your PC. Your decision relies upon your PC’s working framework; however, you can discover a great deal of free, cross-stage programming programs (like Adobe Audition) that you can use with your PC and Mac.

Before you begin recording, set aside the effort to find the absolute best webcast recording programming and their highlights to discover which one best suits your sound altering needs and expertise level. If you’d like to out source this job, you’ve to pay around 500 dollars per month for weekly shows.

Podcast Host:

The last significant advance of the podcasting work cycle is getting your webcast on iTunes or other facilitating administrations (after you’ve recorded and altered it). This is the place where you will ideally begin getting heard and picking up prevalence, particularly in case you’re intending to bring in some money from your digital broadcasts.

There are loads of other mainstream digital broadcast stages are available besides iTunes and SoundCloud. While it assists with presenting your show to those with the biggest audience, you’ll have to pick the correct one for your niche to effectively arrive at your ideal segment — so pick admirably! The hosting usually costs around $20/ month.

Best Podcast Hosting Sites:

There are several options to consider when it comes to podcast hosting, below are the best podcast hosting companies.

Spotify:

Spotify is the best music, podcast, and video streaming application available on mobile or tablet. It has free as well as paid options, the free accounts remain available to listeners by invitation to manage the growth. The launch also opened paid subscriptions to everyone. Spotify gives your ability to seamlessly access and controls your favourite music and podcasts. You can even make and share playlists. It is becoming an increasingly important player in the world of podcasting.

Buzzsprout:

Buzzsprout is one of the easy ways of hosting, promoting, tracking your podcast. It helped many people to start their own podcast. You can upload up to two hours of audio per month, but all those episodes are only hosted for 90 days. It is a fantastic platform for a beginner as it offers a simple dashboard that shows your listener data, number of impressions, location demographics — and many others.

Blubrry:

Blubrry is the podcast hosting with WordPress integration using the PowerPress plugin. This platform gives advanced statistics for your podcast and other audio files. Podcast Hosting by Blubrry is highly optimized for those who are using WordPress with PowerPress and it is quite simple to use. You can access your account from your online dashboard from a mobile device. It can also manage advertising deals for organizations.

Spreaker:

Spreaker Studio was the first podcasting application which supported Chrome. It presents a unique listening experience, podcasters can create, analyze, distribute and monetize professional sounding audio. This platform enables anyone to participate in and interact with the community of audio creators and listeners.

Listnr:

Here you’ll find a cool solution to all your podcast issues. Listnr helps users start a Podcast in 50+ voices without recording anything. Yes, it converts your blog posts or any text for Voice-overs or podcasts.

Bonus — Listnr has a Lifetime Deal (till December 1st) where you can get a lifetime deal of Listnr just for $59 and the product will be all yours, you don’t need to pay for a monthly subscription.

If you’re hesitating to buy the whole package for the lifetime, there is a 30 Day Refund policy as well for you to get to know the platform.

These are the features that are available in the Lifetime deal package of Listnr:

45,000 Words Per Month

200 GB Storage

Unlimited Podcast Hosting

Distribute on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts and many more using RSS Feed.

1 User Account

17+ Languages with 70+ Voices (more coming soon)

Unlimited Embeddings

Podbean:

With the help of Podbean, you can create professional podcasts in very less time without any knowledge of programming. This platform tracks your podcast’s performance and understands your audience better. You can record, publish and manage podcasts right from the app. It helps you to earn money with paid subscriptions or fees.

Patreon:

Patreon is a simple Podcast platform that helps you to build a community around your content. This platform helps you by creating RSS feed, exclusively for the users. Patreon allows the user to set several subscriber levels, with other crowdfunding platforms, the more you give, the more you receive from them.

Anchor:

Anchor is known for its free podcast platform. Anchor helps you to create, distribute, and monetize your podcast from any device, for free. Anchor podcast is accessible to everyone, it has no storage limits and no trial period. The platform has a built-in ad platform, which offers easy editing.

Libsyn:

Libsyn is one of the oldest and largest podcast media hosts, it is a Blubrry alternative and it provides podcast hosting to connect with your audience wherever they are. Libsyn podcast hosting plans are flexible, easy to change, transfer, and are packed with trusted features. It also has some cost-effective plans to meet your needs.

Transistor:

It is one of the newest hosting and analytics platforms. It helps you to store your MP3 files, and generates your RSS feed, host your podcast’s website, and helps to distribute your show to the world. It’s user-friendly migration, uploads and directory listing are very simple to use.

Which platform you’re about to use to start your podcast? Let us know in the comments!

With 💗

Nearly 55% people in America listen to podcasts each month, which translates to about 160 million people. This shows us the importance of audio as a content and marketing avenue for makers and marketers. If you’re a blogger, writer or content creator, this might be the perfect article for you. So let’s jump in to the Guide on How to Start a Podcast without recording anything, in this guide we’ll go through the 3 key factors on how to start and podcast with ease -

Step 1 — Choose a topic and theme [Skip if you already have written content/script]

Step 2 — Converting your content into High Quality audio for distribution

Step 3 — Hosting your Podcast

Podcasting is a much less crowded and competitive space than blogging, making now the perfect time to get started.

Choosing a Topic You want your podcast to be of a niche that you’re most passionate about. The niche should be broad enough so that you can write about it for at least 100 podcast shows. For example, if you like to talk about Tech, you could talk about Ethereum

, The recent Bitcoin Halving or OpenAI

. The possibilities end where your imagination does :)You can expand to more topics once you have a bigger audience. Choosing a Name + Artwork Your podcasts Name and Artwork are the 2 most important things. You need to choose a name that intrigues your listeners and tells them more about what you’ll be talking about without actually going into detail. I’d recommend this

Name Generator

, incase you’re stuck and/or in need of inspiration. Artwork Your cover art is the first impression most people will see as they browse through Apple Podcasts or their favorite podcast app.

Buzzsprout has an excellent article about

designing cover art

, I would definitely recommend you start there. Choosing Intro/Outro Music Background music is pretty important to give you an edge in terms of listening experience. There are a lot of places where you could get Free background music for your podcast. I would personally recommend

Soundstripe

and in case you’re on a limited budget

Free Music Archive

would be a good option for you. Step 2 — Converting your content into High Quality audio for distribution. Your podcasts audio quality and format are what matter the most -*Shameless Plug 😅* Hop on to

Listnr

for converting your written content into High Quality and Human sounding audio. Listnr is a good Free option, since they offer up to 5 conversion a month; $15/month afterwards. Format If you haven’t used editing software before, even simple actions in GarageBand or Audacity can be quite intimidating. If that’s the case, then

Alitu

is a good and easy to use option. It’s probably the least intimidating out of all the Podcast Making tools out there. Alitu comes with a lot of custom editing features like Voice cleaning, creating Ad segments etc. But the most useful feature Alitu has is — That it lets your directly publish your Podcast without leaving Alitu’s portal. Step 3 — Hosting your Podcast. Think of Podcast hosting in the same way as your Network/Website hosting. It’s important to choose a good hosting provider for a seamless experience. I would personally recommend

Buzzsprout

, after trying a bunch of hosting platforms, I found Buzzsprout to be the best. You could go for other brands like

Transistor

, or any other platform of your choice like

Spotify Podcasts

.I hope you found this article useful! Happy podcasting :)Bonus -Listnr is giving a Free month to all its early sign ups! Go to

Listnr Co.

Problems faced in a traditional blog

Most bloggers eventually face the same problem: the sea of customers steadily starts to dry up and the traffic winds down. Bloggers devote their time to making content on what they are passionate about, maybe even try to make a living out of it and create a professional network, just to see everything come to a halt at some point.

The brutal truth is that it’s getting harder to move traffic because there’s just so much noise. Interestingly, the way to cut through all the distortion and draw more people to your blog is by creating some serious “noise” — converting posts to audio.

“Change is the only constant and no better time to make the shift to audio blogs”

Consumer Behavior is changing

You might have not heard, but audio is reviving and possibly enjoying a second youth. Almost all age group people use some type of audio content in different contexts and across different platforms and distribution channels. In the United States, one-third of the population listens to podcasts on a regular basis, comprising 90 million listeners each month. Two-thirds of the populace listen to online audio, spending an average of approximately 17 hours a week.

Relatively similar numbers are observed beyond the anglosphere as people around the world spend more time listening. In an attempt to enhance the user experience, bloggers are studying the everyday behavior of their loyal readers and have started experimenting with audio, concentrating on podcasts and audio content for smart speakers. Advertisers are following suit, and have started increasing their investments in digital audio.

“With both bloggers and advertisers switching to audio, it is imperative you keep up with the trend”

The Power of Audio Blogs

One would say that the simplest and most straightforward way to get the message through would be through people’s ears. It’s pretty simple, people do actually listen, even if the audio is playing in the background while they are involved in some other activity. People want audio, and it doesn’t get more straightforward than getting inside someone’s brain, doesn’t it? It’s hard to beat such an intimate, one-to-one source of connection.

Btw, here’s a simple guide on how to Start an Audio Blog.

“Audio blogs’ audience pull is enormous!”

So how is one going to be joining the audio revolution and leverage this evocative medium?

Well for starters, It really doesn’t take a lot to convert an article to audio. While the technology used to be very costly, technically difficult, and slow, the whole process of translating text into life-like speech takes just a few minutes. Now through Voices by Listnr you can easily convert your text into audio in the most user-friendly way and get an option to choose from 50 different voices in more than 70 different languages.

Audio friendly Blogs will soon become the norm

All of them combined, these factors make it reasonably easy and painless to attract and engage viewers with audio material. In other words, adding it to your blog means addressing the changing needs of an increasing community of listeners.

via GIPHY

But don’t just take someone’s word for it. As a matter of fact, Google is delving deeper into the audio realm, by incorporating playable podcasts directly to the search results based on the company’s interpretation of what is being talked about on a podcast. There’s more, evidently, users won’t need to use search for a particular podcast or even use the word ‘podcast’ to see episodes in the search results, but rather have them displayed as any other content when a topic is searched for.

“The future belongs to audio blogs, It’s time for bloggers to put the pedal to the metal”

Wrapping Up

Other than being an easy-to-interact channel, audio unlocks a whole new level of opportunities for bloggers, especially one without any audio legacy, to easily attract and relate to new audiences. In particular, the numerous forms of audio and the plethora of ways to access it creates new opportunities to better understand and monetize them. Audio has an acute sense of familiarity, making it almost addictive in terms of content consumption. ‍

Two things to watch out for!

To make a grand entry into the podcast space, there are two things that matter the most. Firstly, your content needs to be crispy and fresh, and Secondly and probably even more important is how you are reaching your target audience.

“Dish out your fresh content to your target audience”

Get the word out!

When one starts a podcast, they need to make sure that their show is available on all platforms where regular listeners are frequent customers, which means that it needs to be in the main podcast directories.

For apps like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify to recognize your offering to podcast space, it is kind of a given that you make these channels aware of your presence.

“No better time than the present to promote yourself to the big leagues”

Steps to distribute your content to major Podcast Directories —

Here are the steps for submitting your podcast to Apple Podcasts:

Step #1: Create a new Apple ID

One would require an Apple ID to make use of the Apple Podcast Connect. Also, it is generally recommended to not use your personal Apple account for the same.

It is preferable to create a new Apple ID that you will be mainly using for podcasting. One more thing to be kept in mind is that you verify your newly created Apple ID. This could be done via logging into the iTunes store either from your desktop or phone before you log in to Podcast Connect.

Step #2: Sign up for podcast hosting

Hosting a podcast is distinct from hosting a website because it provides unique tools targeted for maximizing the experience of the subscriber.

It is important for you to choose a tried and tested podcast hosting platform as this will help you increase your audience faster and make it easier to manage your podcast files.

Popular podcast hosting services include - Podbean, Buzzsprout, Transistor, Listnr, and many more.

Step #3: Publish at least one episode

It is recommended that you go ahead and record at least one episode and upload it to your preferred podcast hosting service before heading to publish on Apple Podcast Connect.

Step #4: Log in to Apple Podcast Connect

After successfully logging in to Apple Podcast Connect with your newly created Apple ID, Now login into your host account and copy and paste your RSS feed URL.

Copy your podcast’s RSS Feed URL to Apple podcast Connect and Click Validate.

Step #5: Podcast Validation

Apple will provide you with a preview of your podcast’s information, including any content you have in the feed. The validation process takes around 5–8 days and occurs only once.

How to submit your Podcasts to Spotify:

The very first thing that you need to do is to head over to Spotify for Podcasters. Now log in to your Spotify account, or create one if you don’t already have one. You can select “Log In” or “Get Started” to proceed.

Login to Spotify with your preferred email account.

After you have logged in, select “Get Started” on the “Add your podcast” page.

If prompted, read through the terms and conditions of the Podcast License Agreement, check the box, enter your legal name and then click on “Continue.”

Enter your podcasts’ RSS feed URL into the provided box and select “Next.” If an error pops up after filling out the RSS Feed URL, there will be a prompt below the RSS feed box notifying you of the issue.

On the “Add podcast info” page, select your country, language, category, and hosting provider and press “Next.”

Review your podcast details and finally click on “Submit.”

How to submit your podcast to Google Podcasts

Head over to the Google Podcast Manager portal and click on Start Now.

Add your podcasts RSS feed and click on “Next Step”Preview the Feed (changes can be made in ‘Show Settings’ in your Simplecast dashboard)

Preview the Feed

Send Verification Code (if the email address in the RSS Feed is different than the email used in Google Podcasts Manager)

Verify Ownership

Click Submit

Ownership Verified

Click Get Started

Publish your podcast and wait for approval. This could take a couple of days, as someone has to manually approve your feed

Wrapping up

Once you have narrowed down the list on which leading directories you will be sharing your newly launched podcast, the next big thing would be to carve up a promotion strategy to engage more and more audiences and jump on the podcasting bandwagon.