In addition to guest posting on the UpCity blog, TinyFrog Technologies is featured as one of the Top Web Designers in the United States. Check out their profile here.
Podcasts are an effective marketing tool to engage with your customers and position your organization as an expert in your field. Once you’ve started a podcast though, you need to have a strong marketing strategy to retain listeners.
That’s where your WordPress website can help. Whether you are a new or an experienced podcaster, you can leverage WordPress’s built-in features and plugins to promote your podcast and grow your audience.
Using a Podcast Hosting Service
A common misunderstanding is that you need to host your podcast directly on your WordPress website. This isn’t a good idea for a few reasons.
Podcast episodes are typically large audio files, which can overload your web hosting platform if uploaded directly to the site. This can also slow down the speed of your site.
Instead, publish your podcast with a hosting service like Libsyn, Blubrry, Castos, or Buzzsprout. These services will help create an RSS feed that streaming services like Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify, to name a few, can smoothly index each episode.
Highlighting Podcast Episodes on Your Site
There are multiple ways to highlight your podcast on a WordPress website.
One way is to create a dedicated podcast page on your business’ site. This can be a high-quality, custom-designed page that features a summary of the podcast and calls-to-action to subscribe to the podcast. On this dedicated page, you can embed a few of your top episodes or an RSS feed of the entire podcast, as pictured in this example for the Real Retirement podcast.
Some businesses may decide to build an entirely separate website for the podcast. This can be an option if you have a well-established following of subscribers, but there’s a lot more cost and time involved in maintaining a second site.
A second way to highlight your podcast is to utilize a blog or resource area on your existing WordPress site. You can set up a separate area for the podcast where you’d create a new post for each podcast episode, as pictured here for an episode of the Stay Wealth podcast.
This option can also support your business’s content marketing strategy because it adds more content to your site. If you embed the audio player in the blog post, you can add a full transcript of the podcast, which is recommended for businesses seeking an ADA-compliant website.
Utilizing a WordPress Podcast Plugin
Whether you are creating a dedicated page for your podcast or highlighting each episode in a blog post, a WordPress podcast plugin can be a great resource.
When searching for the best plugin, it’s helpful to consult with a WordPress web design team and select a podcast plugin that is compatible with your site and your podcast hosting platform. Below are the three most popular WordPress podcasting plugins and note that some of these require paid services or add-ons.
Hear From Industry Experts
Read the latest tips, research, best practices, and insights from our community of expert B2B service providers.
Seriously Simple Podcasting
The Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin is a perfect option for businesses that are new to podcasting. This free WordPress plugin offers a customizable embeddable media player that is mobile responsive and offers “subscribe” links to major podcast platforms like Google Play, Apple Podcast, and Spotify.
The plugin can also help you feature podcasts in individual blog posts and display custom playlists on the site.
While the plugin is owned by Castos and integrates seamlessly with Castos’ podcast hosting service, you can utilize the plugin with other podcast hosting services.
PowerPress
PowerPress by Blubrry offers both simple and advanced features for podcasters. The integrated media player is also mobile responsive and customizable, and with the plugin, you can set up a sidebar widget that encourages visitors to subscribe to the podcast.
One major benefit to the PowerPress plugin is that it offers ways to improve SEO by automatically indexing your podcast episodes for search engines.
If you are already utilizing Blubrry as your podcast hosting service, the PowerPress plugin for WordPress websites is a hard option to beat.
Fusebox (previously Smart Podcast Player)
Smart Podcast Player, which is now known as Fusebox, is a more advanced, paid WordPress plugin. In addition to offering multiple embedded player options for your site, the plugin has some robust tools for marketing.
One advanced Fusebox feature is that you can entice podcast listeners to also subscribe with their email address so that you can build up an email list. With the plugin, you can also allow visitors to share a podcast episode directly from your site to social media.
While there is a free version of the Fusebox plugin available, most podcasters go with the paid option to gain access to the full suite of Fusebox features.