Podcasting is a great way to establish and build an audience, provide entertainment, or to encourage in-depth discussion on a range of subjects and get your message out to the world.
If you’re new to podcasting, the unknown can make it seem a bit daunting because of the technology, recording studio set-up and let’s be honest, listening to your own voice.
In this article
- Where Can I Publish a Podcast?
- Is it Free to Publish a Podcast?
- The Always-Free Option: Submitting Your Podcast Everywhere Yourself
- The Sometimes-Free Option: Submitting Your Podcast Through a Hosting Platform
- Preparing Your Podcast for Submission
- How to Generate an RSS Feed to Submit to Podcast Platforms
- Step 1 – Decide if you’re going to use a hosting platform or not.
- Step 2 – Follow the prompts given to you depending on your chosen method.
- How to Submit a Podcast to Apple Podcasts
- How to Submit a Podcast to Google Podcasts
- Side Note: How to Transfer Podcasts from Google Play Music to Google Podcasts
- How to Submit a Podcast to Spotify
- Launching Your Podcast
The good news is that getting your podcast to podcast directories like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts is an extremely straightforward, user-friendly process.
This tutorial covers how to you can distribute your podcast, where you can publish a podcast, and the free versus paid options available to you.
Read on for instructions about how to submit a podcast to all the primary distribution platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify. While there are other sites that host and distribute podcasts such as Stitcher, and SoundCloud, we’re going to stick with the three biggest podcast listening platforms.
Jump To:
Where Can I Publish a Podcast?
Is it Free to Publish a Podcast?
Preparing Your Podcast for Submission
How to Submit a Podcast to Apple Podcasts
How to Submit a Podcast to Google Podcasts
How to Submit a Podcast to Spotify
Where Can I Publish a Podcast?
At the time of writing, there are at least 28 directories where you can publish your podcast. However, there are three main directories that will be essential to your podcast’s success:
- Spotify
- Google Podcasts
- Apple Podcasts
The remaining directories are technically used less frequently than the three mentioned above, but while they don’t hold the same market share, they’re still valuable and worth utilizing. Every little bit helps! Making your podcast available in every directory you can will help you gain more exposure.
Is it Free to Publish a Podcast?
The short answer is, yes, it is free to publish a podcast on Spotify, Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts.
There are a couple ways you can publish a podcast. Many are free, some cost money, and they all have pros and cons.
The Always-Free Option: Submitting Your Podcast Everywhere Yourself
You can manually publish your podcast in the big three directories for free, and do the same in the remaining 20 or so as well. You do this by manually going into each and every one and submitting your RSS feed (we’ll get into that later). Luckily, that leg work is a one-time thing since an RSS feed updates automatically every time a new episode is published.
The down side to this method is that when it comes time to measure the performance of your podcast, you’re logging into all of them again and again to gather listenership data and download stats, which requires a lot of your valuable time.
The Sometimes-Free Option: Submitting Your Podcast Through a Hosting Platform
The other way to publish your podcast is to use a hosting site like Buzzsprout or Casted. Platforms like these take so much of the leg work out of the publishing process and provide you with a neat and tidy view of your podcast’s performance from all directories in one place.
In addition to the many free platform options, there are also plenty of affordable possibilities that cost $20 or less per month. Because measuring your podcast’s weekly and monthly performance is a critical element to your ongoing success, it is well worth the investment!
Every hosting platform does essentially the same thing. It helps you generate an RSS feed and makes it easy to get your podcast listed everywhere you need to, according to the platform you choose. The differences between competing platforms will be in the bells and whistles they feature. Some feature a hands-on customer success manager to work with every month while others offer support with podcast episode transcription. Many are even beginning to support their members with more robust analytics. Podcasts are notoriously hard to measure, so many hosting platforms are committed to filling the gaps by giving their members creative ways to track performance on top of providing access to metrics that are IAB approved.
Preparing Your Podcast for Submission
You’ve planned, recorded, and edited your podcast, and now have a trailer or even a couple of episodes ready to be circulated. You’ve ideally also created your podcast cover art, i.e. the artwork that serves the same purpose as a book cover or movie poster to represent the visual identity of your podcast.
Now you need to make those audio files available for listeners through the main podcast services: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.
How to Generate an RSS Feed to Submit to Podcast Platforms
Step 1 – Decide if you’re going to use a hosting platform or not.
To have a clean, validated submission, you’ll need an RSS feed that includes all of your podcast’s metadata. You can make one for yourself, or you can use a hosting platform—or even better, if you’ve built your podcast its own site, you can use a platform that has created a plugin that works with your CMS.
Many hosting platforms offer plugins for WordPress, since the CMS is reported to be used by almost 40% of all websites.
Seriously Simple Podcasting is a plugin made by Castos, a podcast hosting and analytics software company much like Buzzsprout and Casted mentioned above (who, you guessed it, also have WordPress plugins). Whether you’re just getting into podcasting or are a veteran podcaster, this tool helps you create and manage your podcast directly from the WordPress dashboard you already know and love.
Step 2 – Follow the prompts given to you depending on your chosen method.
Whether you choose to use a hosting platform or not, your RSS feed needs to be submitted once to all podcast directories. The difference is that many hosting platforms give you the list of directories and the easiest way to connect to them as well. Doing it yourself is definitely possible, it just takes a bit more digging to find the lists of directories and figure out how to submit your podcast to each platform.
Either way, once you have your RSS feed, you’ll be ready to submit your podcast to various distribution channels.
How to Submit a Podcast to Apple Podcasts
Logging into Podcasts Connect is straightforward. Just click the + symbol in the top left-hand corner.
- To register your podcast with Apple Podcasts, you’ll need to submit your RSS feed to the service. You’ll then be prompted to preview the feed.
- To verify that you are the owner of the podcast RSS feed that has been submitted, you’ll be sent a verification code to enter on iTunes. Once you do that, you’ll be able to view the layout of your podcast episode lineup in Apple Podcasts.
How to Submit a Podcast to Google Podcasts
- Sign in to your Google Account.
- Visit the Podcasts Manager.
- Click “Add show.”
- Once you verify your ownership, your podcast will be submitted to Google’s podcast index.
Side Note: How to Transfer Podcasts from Google Play Music to Google Podcasts
Why would you want to do this? Google decommissioned Google Play Music in August 2020. This migration situation applies to podcasters who once had a show on the decommissioned platform and need to transfer it to the current platform—Google Podcasts. Luckily this process is as simple as it gets:
- Log in to your Google Account.
- Visit Google Play Music.
- Navigate to the Google Play Music Podcast submission page.
- Click “Transfer.”
You’ll receive a message confirming that your podcast has been successfully transferred to Google Podcast Manager.
How to Submit a Podcast to Spotify
Wondering how to get your podcast on Spotify? It’s easy. Just follow these steps.
- Visit Spotify for Podcasters.
- Log in, or sign up if you don’t already have a Spotify account. Signing up for a Spotify account is super easy because they have a 1-click registration by re-using your Facebook login or Apple ID login details.
- Navigate to the Catalog here.
- Click “Add Your Podcast.”
- Paste the link to your podcast’s RSS feed.
- Add podcast info like the category, language, and country.
- Review the details and submit.
Next, you’re going to have to verify that you own the podcast.
Spotify states the benefits of adding your podcast to their service include ensuring that your podcast will be on Spotify, and that future episodes will appear automatically. There’s no need to upload anything. Plus, you get stats that are updated daily. Once your podcast is on Spotify, see how it’s performing and learn more about who’s listening, and from where.
Launching Your Podcast
The emergence of podcasting has enabled creators around the world to participate in a vital new form of mass communication. Podcasts are virtually free to create, launch, and listen to, so they’re an ideal way to start building your audience and getting your message out there.
Now that you can generate an RSS feed and understand how to submit your podcast to all the main distribution platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify, it’s time to launch your podcast.
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Comments
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Excellent article. I really appreciate the “how to” content. Have you written any articles about how to create a winning podcast? Or about the most successful types of of podcasts? I am enjoying your work. It’s timely relevant and a quality resource. Thank you for writing this.
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Thanks so much for the positive feedback!
We have plenty of articles about podcasting. It sounds like you’d be interested in taking a look at this blog post about how to start a podcast and measure its impact, and we cover some of the most successful podcasts in this chronicle of the history of the medium.
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Great article! I create podcast for my work site (https://www.worktime.com/) and first time I used Spotify for but now I’m planning to send it to others platforms.
Hi Maria. Thanks for sharing and all the best with your podcast.