Create a podcast

A podcast is a series of audio (or video) episodes that people can listen to and follow. In this guide, you will learn how to host your podcast on your WordPress.com site and submit it to major podcasting platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Pocket Casts.

This feature is available on sites with the WordPress.com Personal, Premium, Business, and Commerce plans. For free sites, upgrade your plan to access this feature.

Before you can publish podcast episodes, you need to configure your WordPress.com site for podcasting. The following sections of this guide will show you how to create a category for your episodes, set up your podcast feed, and configure your podcast information.

You will need to create a dedicated category for your site’s podcast episodes. Categories help organize your posts. For podcasts, you’ll use a category to group all your podcast episodes together so they appear in your podcast feed.

To create a dedicated category for your podcast episodes, follow these steps:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Posts → Categories.
3. Under “Add New Category,” add the following details:
   • Name: The name of your podcast category, for example, “Podcast”.
   • Description: Optionally add a description that may appear on your site wherever categories are displayed. The description is not required, as you will create a summary for your podcast in the next step.
4. Click the “Add New Category” button to create the new category.

Learn more about creating and managing categories.

Once you have created a category for your podcast, you can set up your podcast feed. A podcast feed is an automatically updated URL that contains information about your podcast and its episodes. Podcasting platforms use this feed to distribute your episodes to listeners.

Follow these steps to set up the podcast feed:

1. From your site’s dashboard, navigate to Settings → Media.
2. Scroll to the Podcasting section.

3. Choose the post category you created from the “Category to set as feed” drop-down.
4. Click the “Save Changes” button at the bottom of the screen.

Once you save your changes, your podcast feed URL will display below the drop-down. This is the URL you’ll submit to podcasting services.

You will also see additional podcasting settings, including podcast title, talent name, and more.

Once you have selected your podcast category, you can set or modify the following settings for your podcast. These settings control how your podcast appears in podcast apps and help listeners discover your show.

• Title: This title appears in Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast apps.
• Talent name: The host or creator name that appears in Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast apps.
• Summary: Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, and others display this summary when browsing podcasts.
• Copyright: Copyright information is viewable in Apple Podcasts and other podcast apps.
• Explicit content: Mark “yes” here if the podcast contains adult language or themes.
• Podcast image: Select or change an image that appears as the cover art on podcasting platforms. Select an existing image or upload a new image, and click the Continue button to crop it to a square shape (required by podcast platforms).
  • Note: Your image should be between 1400×1400 and 3000×3000 pixels in JPG or PNG format to work on Apple Podcasts.
• Podcast Categories allow your podcast to appear when users browse Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or other podcast apps by category.

Once you configure your podcast settings, click the “Save Settings” button in the bottom left-hand corner of the page to save your changes.

Before submitting to platforms, you will need to publish at least one episode. To create and publish the first episode of your podcast, take the following steps:

1. From your site’s dashboard, navigate to Posts → “Add Post”.
2. Type a post title, which will be used for the episode title in Pocket Casts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast apps.
3. In the Post Settings menu on the right, assign the post to the podcast category you created.

4. Optional: In the same settings menu, add an excerpt (a brief summary) to describe the episode. When there is no excerpt, one will be auto-generated from the post’s main content.

5. Add an Audio block and upload or link to your episode’s audio file here.
6. Once you’re ready for your episode to go live, click the Publish button on your new post.

WordPress.com supports .mp3, .m4a, .ogg, and .wav audio files. However, different podcasting platforms accept different formats:

• .mp3: Works with all platforms (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, and others)
• .m4a: Works with most platforms except Spotify
• .ogg and .wav: Not accepted by Apple Podcasts or Spotify

Note: Upload audio files directly to your WordPress.com site using the Audio block. Do not embed audio from SoundCloud or Audiomack, as Apple Podcasts cannot download files from external hosting services.

If you need to convert your audio files to .mp3 format, you can use free software like Audacity.

This section of the guide applies to sites with our WordPress.com Premium, Business, and Commerce plans. For free sites and sites on the Personal plan, upgrade your plan to access this feature.

You can create video podcasts using the VideoPress block instead of the Audio block. For best results, upload videos directly to your WordPress.com site rather than using YouTube or Vimeo links, as these may not work properly in podcast apps.

You only need to submit your podcast URL to platforms once. When you submit your feed, any future episode published with your designated podcast category will be distributed automatically to your subscribers.

To submit a podcast to Apple, you must have at least one published episode and will need to sign up for an Apple Podcasts Connect account.

1. Copy the podcast feed URL you created earlier.
2. Within Podcasts, click the Add (+) button and select “New Show”.
3. Select “Add existing show (RSS feed)” and enter your podcast feed URL.
4. Select Add.
5. Review your show information. Pay attention to the artwork and your show details, such as title, author name, description, language, and category.
6. If ready, select “Submit For Review“

Apple will validate your podcast and then send it through a review process. Apple will notify you if there are any issues with your podcast.

After the podcast is accepted, you can use Apple’s Link Maker to create links to your podcast.

To submit your podcast to Pocket Casts, take the following steps:

1. Copy the podcast feed URL you created earlier.
2. Open the Pocket Casts submission page.
3. Add the podcast’s feed URL to the URL field.
4. Select whether your podcast should be public or private.
5. Click the “Submit” button.

To submit your podcast to Spotify, take the following steps:

1. Copy the podcast feed URL you created earlier.
2. Submit the feed URL on the Spotify for Podcasters website.

To submit your podcast to Amazon’s Alexa, take the following steps:

1. Copy the podcast feed URL you created earlier.
2. Follow the instructions on this Amazon page to create and submit an Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing Skill. Note: This will require an account on the Amazon Developer Console.

Episodes older than 7 days will be ignored by Amazon.