While iTunes and other podcast hosts can do a good job, they are generally hard to rank highly on. Instead, you need to have control of your promotion and search engine ranking. One of the best ways to do this is to have a page on your site to integrate your podcast on. If you operate a WordPress site, there are many solutions. Below is a selection of the best. The challenge is that you then have to create and upload a video to YouTube. While this might sound simple, it is harder than you might imagine. Firstly, most YouTube accounts are limited to uploading a maximum of 15 minutes of video at one time. If you have a longer podcast, you would need to split it up, and this disrupts the user experience, though there are ways around the time restriction. Secondly, the costs of producing a video can be high, and the quality might reduce the impact of your message. The plugin collects the information from an RSS feed you might have on iTunes, Google Play, or another podcast hosting service. It also adds a new podcast and series taxonomy so you can easily manage your episodes and multiple series through your dashboard. However, there seems to be little customization. Also, there are complaints that there isn’t enough support for the WordPress plugin and that some themes might not work. Firstly, it will enable you to post new episodes to your Libsyn account directly from your website. The RSS feed is automatically updated, and the podcast audio files are stored on Libsyn’s servers, so you save space on your server and don’t slow down your website’s speed. This will save you time by allowing podcast episodes to be viewed from iTunes and your site as soon as you publish. In addition, you have the control to create new custom posts on your website to promote your new episodes. Libsyn will just handle the RSS and uploading in the background. The plugin allows your WordPress site to publish MP3 files directly, allowing your site to become a podcast host. The plugin then generates the podcast feed, enabling listeners to subscribe and stay up-to-date with the latest episodes. The plugin supports a number of RSS feeds including RSS2, iTunes, ATOM, and BitTorrent RSS. If you want listeners to enjoy your podcast straight from the website, that is easily managed through their integrated HTML5 Media Player. Finally, you can embed media from YouTube. PowerPress also gives your podcast help with search rankings. It provides useful SEO settings that enable your podcast to be discovered better on Google, Bing, and the iTunes directory. You can use the podcast editing tools to make your podcast episodes sound more professional and use migration tools for moving from other hosts/plugins. Finally, you can see how many people are showing interest in your podcast via their free Blubrry Media Statistics. The player is beautiful and fits seamlessly onto a website page. This can be customized, and because it is a premium plugin, there is considerable support to help. It also supports feeds from many hosts including SoundCloud, LibSyn, and others. For promotion, the display of episode descriptions are professionally displayed, and you can add on a list of current and previous episodes to the sidebar. Fusebox also offers a top-of-the-line user experience. Listeners can stream from your website or download to listen to your podcast later, and new listeners don’t have to subscribe. They can sample your episodes and share them with their social media followers. The advanced options allow you to have a mobile-friendly version, something that is important with Google’s new rules for ranking web pages. Automatic updates are also available. For each episode, a new, unique page is created with a mobile-friendly player inserted. Your full description of the episode is also inserted into your new podcast announcement page. If there are any images in your podcast feed, these are also inserted. This basically means that anytime you publish new episodes, your site will be automatically updated. Therefore, this powerful little plugin will help you save time. Their free plan allows two hours of podcast episode publishing a month, but episodes are deleted after just 90 days. If you want episodes to last forever, then you need to pay a monthly fee. The plugin has a simple migration tool for moving your podcast over from another server and gives powerful insights with their statistics. But there is little to help you use the podcasts on your site other than an HTML5 player. There are also a few neat features for your podcast publishing that include adding chapters and flexible templates to customize your podcast and make it truly unique. This is a full-featured service/software solution for adding your podcasts to your WordPress site. Cincopa can add many formats of media to any website. For WordPress, their plugin gives you a customizable player. While this doesn’t sound full-featured, there is a lot of work that goes on in the background. The service they offer aims to streamline the podcast publishing process giving you peace-of-mind, enabling you to concentrate on what you do best — creating podcast episodes. To publish through their plugin, you pick a pre-designed look for your player, upload your podcast episode file to your account, and then use a generated code to embed it into your WordPress site on a page of your choosing. This plugin, while useful, is probably not for those who frequently podcast but rather produce a podcast as and when they can. However, it also means your SEO for the podcast and your website is completely on your merits, and this can damage your search ranking.
