Once you have created and polished a new podcast it is time to release it to the general public. Just placing the podcast on a personal web site will not likely draw many visitors so what most amateur broadcasters will do is sign up at several podcast aggregator web sites. Some sites allow you to upload and host your podcast on their server. Others require you to host it elsewhere and provide a link to the podcast’s RSS feed. The nice thing is that most of these options are free for beginners and relatively easy to set up.
Podcast Hosting
Podcasts tend to be fairly large files, and as a result a locally stored podcast can easily consume a site’s monthly bandwidth quota very quickly if it becomes popular. For this reason many amateurs upload their podcasts to a service such as libsyn.com that provides visitors a way to download your podcast without charging you for the bandwidth. Many podcasters will store their recordings on a service but still maintain a web site of their own, pointing any download links to the remote server. There are other options as well, but for beginners hosting a podcast on a remote server is often the best way to start.
Getting The Word Out About Your Podcast:
Once the recorders are hosted on a server, it is a good idea to go around to many of the different podcast aggregator web sites and register your podcast in their directory. Sites such as Podcast Ready and others provide large directories of podcasts on hundreds of different topics. Visitors can browse through the listings to find podcasts on topics that they find interesting.
When using these services be sure to register your podcast in the most relevant categories and use very descriptive language to tell people what the theme of your show is. In most cases to register a podcast you will have to have the address of the RSS feed for your podcast provided by your hosting service. This RSS link automatically updates itself each time you upload a new episode to the hosting service. Once everything is set up properly people can begin to subscribe to your production and receive new episodes as soon as you release them.
