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Last Updated on April 11, 2023 by Work In My Pajamas
When I first decided that I was going to create my very own podcast, I didn’t have the foggiest idea about where to begin to produce a podcast. So I simply turned to one of my best friends, Google.
Record Audio For Your Podcast
My first search led me to “How To Record Voice Podcasts On The Mac” because I have a Macbook Pro. If you don’t have a Mac, this step obviously won’t work for you. Change your search and meet me at the next step.
ChrisWrites.com suggests to use the Mac’s QuickTime Player to record audio. If you can’t find that application on your Mac, simply double-click the “Finder” icon and search for “Quicktime” and open from there.
From the QuickTime File menu, click “New Audio Recording” and click the Red start button to begin recording (it uses your built-in microphone). This is where you start talking! When you’re done, click the button again to stop recording. It’s as simple as that. I couldn’t figure out how to save my recording, so I clicked the red x in the upper right hand column, and then it asked me if I wanted to save it. Yes, I did! If someone knows a better/easier way to do this, I’m all ears.
To save your podcast to your computer (Tatym taught me this), simply hit Command-S or “File” > “Save” in the QuickTime toolbar (boy do I feel stupid for not figuring that out myself).
Upload Podcast to WordPress
First, go to Zamzar.com to convert that m4a file you just saved into an mp3 file (you’ll read why shortly).
Next, install the free “Seriously Simple Podcasting” plug-in for WordPress. It’s easier to install by searching for it under “Add new plugin” in your WordPress admin, but I’m linking to it for your reference. The plug-in will create a new menu item entitled “Podcast” in your left-hand column sidebar.
Click “add new” and upload your new mp3 saved file as the “Audio file” (because the m4a file would’ve been too big; try it if you don’t believe me). The other information I recommend that you fill in are Title, Tags (aka keywords) and Meta Description (for me, that field is under “WordPress SEO by Yoast”.
To save that podcast within a blog post, simply “Add Media” within a post and click on the MP3 “image” (it’s obviously not really an image) you want to add. I added my second podcast below to show you what it looks like. Listen if you’d like.
Submit Podcast to iTunes
Click on “Settings” under “Podcast” in your WordPress Dashboard.
Under the “Feed details” tab, fill out all fields. It says all fields are optional, but recommended to fill in as many as possible, so I suggest filling them all out.
For your podcast cover image, iTunes will only accept an image that is 1400 x 1400 pixels – I used PicMonkey to create and resize a cover image for mine.
Under the “Publishing” tab, you will find your “Complete Feed” which is the feel URL that you’ll submit to iTunes.
To submit to iTunes, click here first, then click on the “submit your RSS podcast feed URL” in step 5. It will actually open up iTunes on your computer (thus why I directed you to a webpage first). After you submit, you will receive an email entitled: “iTunes Store Podcast Created Successfully Notification”.
I received my “iTunes Store Podcast Approved Notification” email for this very website in under 24 hours. Yay!
Do you have a podcast on iTunes? Leave me a comment so I can subscribe and listen!
