 | Your Own Podcast: Hosting to Listing on iTunesposted by Bo Bennett, Group AdministratorSunday, January 31st 2010 @ 12:00 AM  (1 ratings) |
There is something about having your podcast proudly display on iTunes. Not only do you feel "official" but is a badge of success. If your podcast is on iTunes you have successfully created your first episode and completed all the technical work on the back end. By the end of this post, you will have all the information you need to join this exclusive club of "iTunes Listed Podcasters".
There is one of my podcasts - the EVcast show in iTunes! Oh how proud I am.
Part I: Hosting of Your Podcast
Your podcast is a series of MP3 audio files. These files need to be stored on a hard drive that is accessible by the public Internet. Your local computer won't work because it is (hopefully) not accessible by the public, not always on line, most likely changes IP addresses, and for many other reasons. This is where hosting comes in. For our purposes, a host is a server that is publicly accessible to the Internet 24 hours a day and managed by a third party. There are hosts that specialize in all kinds of content including podcasting. For this lesson, I will use a podcasting host in which I am very familiar - iGrOOps.com.
Have a look at some of our "finished products". These are some of our podcasts that we host on the iGrOOps platform and are all listed with iTunes. EVcast.com, Twooting.com, TheToastmastersPodcast.com, and RealMarketingBull.com.
iGrOOps is a considered a social website platform meaning it is part web host, part membership site, and part social network. Not only will it be ideal to host your podcast files, but when you are ready, you can build your listener community around it.
Step 1: Signing up for your free iGrOOp hosting account.
This part is easy -- I made sure of it! Visit the iGrOOps.com homepage and enter the information in the form to register your account. Choose a web address that works with your podcast name. For example, if your podcast is named, "The Gossip Hour", enter something like, "gossiphour" for your web address. Then, follow the on screen instructions to complete your regsitration.
Within seconds, you will receive your welcome e-mail that will contain your login information.
Your new iGrOOp is a powerful tool that is capable of so many great things that are far beyond the scope of this article. Defer to the setup wizard, online videos and tutorials, and iGrOOps support site for full details. Next we will setup your blog where your podcast will "live".
Step 2: Setting up your blog
Before starting this step, you should have your first podcast espisode recorded and ready to go. When starting a new podcast, I like to record a 30 second "coming soon" promo as my first episode, or "pre episode".
Blog? Yes, blog. Blog software that allows for multi-media content is ideal for podcast hosting because it creates dated posts which are ideal for episode content. Unlike other free blog software out there like Wordpress, iGrOOps will host your audio files.
Find and click the link to your "Blogs / Podcasts / Articles" application on your left menu.
Click the "New Blog" tab.
Here is what you need to know:
- You can have multiple categories for different blogs and podcasts. For category, I like to just use "Podcasts", even though there is usually just one podcast in this category.
- Your Blog Title is your podcast title
- Skip the iTunes URL for now - we will fill that in later
- Unless you already have your podcast image, you can skip that for now as well. Your podcast image should be exactly 300px x 300px, and resized here at 200px by 200px (you will need the full 300px version for iTunes later).
- Since we are doing a podcast that we are listing in iTunes, you MUST select the "open to public" option
- Select "Generate RSS feed with full content"
- Select "Show one post per page only"
The other options are based on your preferences and not really that important at this time. Click the "Enter Blog" button to create your blog.
You should get the above message after clicking the submit button. Now click the link in the message to create your first post (episode).
Step 3: Creating your first blog post / podcast episode
Here is what you need to know to create your first episode / blog entry:
- The Subject is the episode title
- The Text Post is the description/summary/show notes of your episode
- The photo/image is only for the web post and will not show in your podcast
- For Video/Audio, this is where you upload your episode MP3
Once again, the other features allow you to do some amazing things, but are optional and beyond the scope of this article. Click the "Enter Blog Entry" button.
You should get the message above. Click the "View your blog post" link.
As you will see, your podcast is uploaded and visitors can listen to your podcast on the web! You are official!
Every podcast needs something called an RSS Feed or RSS Feed URL. You chose to create this when setting up the blog. You will see the RSS feed logo to the left of your blog title (the orange logo with the white sound waves). If you click this logo, you will be taken to your RSS feed URL.
This RSS feed URL is great for most podcast sites that will distribute your podcast, but not for all, including iTunes. So from this, we need to create a more universal feed that iTunes can use.
Part II: Creating a Universal Podcasting Feed Through Feedburner
Feedburner is a free service now owned by Google (what isn't?) that serves as a very important step in the podcasting process. It helps create podcasting feeds from standard RSS feeds that keep up with the almost daily changes in the feed standards, so that your podcast feed can be recognized everywhere.
Step 1: Signup for your free Feedburner account
Simply visit feedburner.com and follow the instructions.
Step 2: Create your feed
Once you login, you will see the above form where you copy and paste your RSS feed url generated by iGrOOps. Be sure to check "I am a podcaster" then click the "Next" button.
Follow the online instructions. They are pretty straightforward. The option to create "iTunes elements" will be checked by default. The one part that is tricky is finding your podcast image URL. If you have created your 300px by 300px podcasting image, you need to upload it through your image manager and get the full URL.
Note: Whether right or wrong, people WILL associate the quality of your podcast image with the quality of your podcast. If you cannot create a decent looking image exactly 300x300px yourself, we suggest hiring a designer to do it for you. Yes, iGrOOps can offer you this service if your click the "Add Services" link in your iGrOOp below the header image.
To access your image library, go back to your blog post and click the "edit post" link. In the HTML editor you will see the icon for the image library 
. Click this icon and your image library will open up. Follow the instructions to upload the image from your local computer to the server's image library. Then, click on the image to insert your image temporarily in your blog post. We are just doing this to get the full URL of your podcast image.
Click on your podcasting image in your blog post, then click on the image icon 
in your editor. The window will pop up with the full URL to your podcasting image. Copy this and paste it in Feedburner where it asks for your podcasting URL.
Once you complete the Feedburner process, look for the "My Feeds" link and click.
Step 3: Copy your new Feedburner link for iTunes registration
Once you click on the "My Feeds" link, you will see your feeds listed. You want to click on the grey RSS logo to the left of your podcast name, then copy the URL in the address bar of your browser.
Part III: Request Listing in iTunes
Notice we say "request" listing in iTunes. iTunes does not have to list your podcast. If they feel it is "not iTunes worthy" in any way, they will just never list it. However, most of the time they will list it and it will show up in iTunes usually within a few days (I waited a week once).
You must have iTunes in order to do this (or at least I know of no other way). Open up iTunes on your desktop, click the iTunes Store from the left menu, and click "Podcasts" in the top menu.
Under the "Quick Links" you will see "Submit a Podcast". Click that link. Follow the online instructions. Remember, for the Podcast Feed URL, use the Feedburner link that you should still have in your clipboard, not your iGrOOps RSS feed.
Now, you wait.
Congratulations! You now completed the steps necessary to be one of the elite podcasters. Your podcast may still suck, but at least it looks good and is listed in iTunes.
* Like all free services, they have limits and offer many paid upgrades.
