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Podcasting is one of the best ways to reach a large and engaged audience. In fact, There are 464.7 million podcast listeners globally as of 2023. This number is predicted to reach 504.9 million by 2024. (Source)
You can leverage this marketing strategy even more by building a website for your podcast. It will improve your listeners’ experience, help you reach a new audience, and attract collaborators and sponsors.
Whether you already have a podcast up and running or planning to create one from scratch, in this guide, we’ll show you how to create a WordPress website for your podcast.
The 7 Benefits of Having a WordPress Podcast Website
Some podcasting providers like Buzzsprout let you create a small podcast website.
This is better than nothing, but by creating your website in WordPress, you’ll get many benefits.
- Branding: You can buy a personalized domain, choose the template you want, and adapt it to your liking. Your podcast will look more professional and will stand out from the crowd.
- Search engine optimization: You can optimize the episodes for the search engines or create a blog to complement the podcast.
- Engagement: Each episode can have its own comments area so that the discussion is not spread across different platforms.
- Affiliate conversions: If you promote affiliate products you’ll be able to link to them in a more user-friendly way (e.g. yourpodcast.com/link) Easy to remember, easy to visit!
- Attract sponsors and collaborators: You can create a page where you share your statistics so sponsors and collaborators can see your potential as a podcaster.
- Growth potential: If you decide to expand and create additional podcasts you’ll be able to do it from the same place.
- New revenue opportunities: Tools like SureMembers will allow you to create private episodes, allowing you to monetize your content easily.
Overall, creating a WordPress website for your podcast will give you much more control and flexibility over your content.
So let’s get into it!
How to Create a Podcast Website With WordPress
To build a website for your podcast you’ll need:
- A WordPress installation that shapes the structure of the website.
- Web hosting to host the website and podcast episodes.
- A fast theme that gives a professional look to your online presence.
- A good audio player so your audience can listen to the content.
- And a domain that will be used to access all of the above.
These elements are very affordable. Some of them are even free.
So besides being simple, you won’t have to invest too much money to get everything up and running.
Note: If you already have a WordPress site, go directly to step 4 to learn how to integrate your podcast episodes into it.
Step #1 – Good Hosting and a Domain Name
We’ll use SiteGround as a provider as it lets you buy hosting and domain within the same platform. It also provides a WordPress auto-installer that makes setting up much easier.
You can use any other company you like.
Choose the most affordable plan to start with, you can easily upgrade in the future.
Within the next step, you’ll be able to buy the domain or transfer it if you have previously purchased one.
Take your time choosing a domain name and try to reflect your personality, business, brand, or topic within that name.
Finish the purchase and you’re ready to go to the next step!
Step #2 – Set Up WordPress
The vast majority of hosting providers you’ll find today will let you install WordPress with just a couple of clicks.
With SiteGround, after purchasing the hosting and domain you can decide what to do with it.
In our case:
- Start a new site.
- Choose WordPress.
- Set up your login credentials.
Click Continue to let the host install and configure almost everything for you.
As you can see, you don’t need any technical knowledge!
Read this guide on how to create a WordPress website if you want to learn in more detail about the process.
WordPress is very easy to set up and use but be aware of these common WordPress errors and how to fix them.
Step #3 – Choose the Best WordPress Podcast Theme
After a few minutes, your website will be ready.
You can access the administration area from yourdomain.com/wp-admin using the credentials you set in the previous step.
You want to create a podcast website that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing.
So now is the time to pick a great theme to get a more professional look.
Here’s our recommendation.
Choose a good template that is specially designed for podcasting, such as the Creative Podcaster template from Starter Templates.
Starter Templates is a WordPress plugin that will allow you to choose from hundreds of free and premium templates that you can configure with just a couple of clicks.
After that, you should have an elegant website that you could modify to your liking.
Select the WordPress admin panel > Appearance > Customize.
You’ll need to modify the content from the different pages that have been automatically created during installation.
Open the appropriate page and use the Customizer, Windows block editor, or page builder to customize anything you like.
Step #4 – Organize Your Podcast Content
It’s important that you understand how to organize the content within your WordPress website.
The quickest way would be to add a new category called “podcast” and categorize the blog posts containing episodes as such.
But it would be much better if you create a custom post type for your audio posts.
That would allow you for example to add and show extra information such as:
- The duration of the episode.
- Name of guests.
- Podcast or episode number.
That kind of info would be very useful for your audience.
Step #5 – Embed Your Podcast Into Your WordPress Site
Your website is ready and you now know how you’re going to organize your episodes.
Now you just need to figure out how to embed the audio inside the custom post type you created in the previous step.
The answer is Presto Player.
Presto Player is a free plugin that puts at your disposal a useful audio player that can play any multimedia content you throw at it.
From YouTube or Vimeo videos to audio files, Presto Player does it all.
Once you install it you’ll be able to add the content directly into your posts, pages, or custom post types.
Simply add a new block to the WordPress editor and choose the Presto Audio block.
Upload the audio file and start customizing the elements of the episode:
- The podcast title.
- Autoplay option.
- Chapters (premium feature)
- Appearance.
- Playback speed.
- The podcast feature image.
When you have everything ready click publish and you’re done.
Your podcasting website and its first episode are on the air!
Podcast Website Best Practices
If you want to take your podcasting website to the next level, here are some quick tips that might help.
Go Beyond Podcasting
The website you just created for your podcast is very flexible and can do much more than just distribute your audio episodes.
You can integrate an online store built with WooCommerce to sell merchandise.
Listeners can be very loyal. They would be happy to wear a t-shirt or sticker of their favorite show or podcaster.
Don’t miss the opportunity to broaden the way you distribute your content.
You could create an online school using LearnDash to go into more detail on what you have shared in each podcast episode, or simply share knowledge related to your main topic.
These two options are a great way to monetize your work while still keeping your podcast free and accessible to everyone.
Transcribe the Content
There are people who like to read while listening or who want to save something interesting they have just learned.
Or they don’t understand something because it’s a complex term, a brand name or simply because they’re not consuming the content in their native language.
To improve the experience for these people, we recommend transcribing the content of your podcast, either manually or using the software.
This is also what will help Google to understand your site and show your content in its search results so you can grow your audience.
Use a Sticky Player
You don’t want your listeners to scroll up and down looking for the audio controls to pause the content if they need to.
Making your player always visible is the epitome of a quality podcasting website.
Luckily, Presto Player integrates this functionality natively.
Link to Podcast Directories
Many new listeners will find you through Google, and from then on they will want to follow you on their favorite Podcatcher app.
To make their life easier, remember to always link your podcast to different directories such as Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Host the Audio Files
Another advantage of creating your podcasting website is that your episodes will be in your possession. No third-party platform will be able to remove them.
Remember that you must link to podcast directories, but it’s recommended that the content you display on your website is hosted by you.
Create Essential Pages
To have a great podcasting website don’t forget to create a page where you share some stats about your podcast to attract potential sponsors.
In addition to a contact page to receive new ideas and feedback from your audience, create a page with a search box so your listeners can find your content more easily, or another one where you show your most listened episodes.
Wrapping Up
As you have seen it’s very easy to create a website for your podcast.
All you need to do is buy hosting and domain, install WordPress with a couple of clicks, and customize its appearance using a professional template.
The most important thing in this process is choosing a good player.
Presto Player does a great job for free, that’s why it is our main recommendation.
Have you already created your podcasting website?
Share it with us in the comments below!
If you need help setting up your WordPress website, you can contact our WordPress experts to discuss your project.
About Author
Sujay Pawar is the CEO and Co-Founder of Brainstorm Force, the company behind Astra. He’s passionate about the online space and writes articles to help entrepreneurs and freelancers succeed online. A father, a Youtube addict, and the brain behind numerous world-class products, you can connect with him on Twitter @sujaypawar or drop him a line at [email protected]
