Starting a Podcast

Want to post serialized audio content on your site? Don't know where to start? If you have very special requirements, you may want to contact a service; but, more than likely, you'll be able to get a podcast set up on your own.

Step 1

Record your first audio file, convert it to MP3 format, and post it to your server.

• Audacity (free audio editing software)

Step 2

Code up an RSS file that provides information about the MP3 (where to find it, titles of the podcast and episode, description, keywords, etc.) and post it to your server. You'll add information about additional MP3s to this file each time you post a new "episode."

• Rufus White's Making a Podcast, Pt III: Creating Your XML File
• Rufus White's Making a Podcast, Pt IV: Validating Your XML File
• iTunes Tech Specs

Step 3

Start an account at Feedburner, a free service to help you track stats and manage your podcast. Register your podcast (burn your feed) by submitting the path to your RSS file.

• Feedburner.com

Step 4

Take the feedburner URL they provide (something like: http://feeds.feedburner.com/[yourfeed]) and register it with iTunes and other podcasting sites. You can also post a link to the feed directly from your web site.

• Rufus White's Making a Podcast, Pt V: Adding Your Podcast to the iTunes Directory

Ultimately, your major cost will be for bandwidth used when serving your podcasts. Audio files can be large and, depending on your audience and file sizes, you could start exceeding your monthly transfer allotment pretty quickly. For this reason, you might consider using a separate service (try PureStatic) just to host the media files.

As you'll notice above, I've made heavy reference to Rufus White's blog. You should definitely take a look at his five-part series on podcasting for a much more thorough explanation of the process.