AP 0637: How Do I Put My Podcast on My Website?

AskPat 637 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 637 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week.

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We have a podcasting-related question today from Anita so, why don't we just jump right in, here we go.

Anita: Hi Pat, my name is Anita and I have a blog that is about genealogy. It's called simplyspeakinggenealogy.com. I am starting a podcast and watched your video on Libsyn hosting. So my question is, how do I keep my files on Libsyn, but host on my domain name? Thanks!

Pat Flynn: Hey Anita, thanks for your question. You know this reminds me of when I first started podcasting, because I remember how confusing it was, and just a fun fact for all of you: I had actually made an announcement on my blog in December of 2008 that I was gonna start a podcast. I bought all this equipment, ready to get everything setup, and then once I started to set it up and get into the technical aspect of it, I found it to be very confusing, quite difficult, and I didn't come out with my first episode until a year and half later, in July of 2010. Also, it took me a little bit of time just to get over the fear of putting myself out there and man, I just wish I had started sooner and gotten connected with people who could help me figure it out the technical stuff along the way. And now of course since then, I've learned a lot, I've shared a lot of information on PodcastingTutorial.com, which is my free podcasting tutorial for all of you out there who want to start. It's helped thousands of people start their podcasts. It'll walk you technically how this is all set up, and so this question specifically Anita on well, how do you keep files on Libsyn but host on your own domain?

Well, Libsyn is simply the server. So that's where you store all of you files, because you want your files which are the audio files to be stored away from your site because it takes up a lot of bandwidth, and you want these servers that specialize in serving media like audio and video, to house all your files. They just simply get played on your website, so your website with whatever player that you have, whether it's, you know, the default player from Libsyn, or the one from Powerpress that you might be using or even if you upgrade to a higher quality one like the one that I have called Smart Podcast Player, it's SmartPodcastPlayer.com. Those players, when you press play, they request that MP3 file from Libsyn. And Libsyn then sort of, through the intra webs delivers it and shows it on the website. So it's not ever anything that is on your website, so they're not hosting on your website which is the point. And that makes just the whole experience for the listeners much better, and also, it makes sure that everything else that you have going on on your website, when people and traffic come to your website and they're exploring around, that you know you are not slowing down your website.

And so that's why it's really important to have something like Libsyn. There's also other great hosts out there too. There's SoundCloud as well which I've have had experience with. I'm also getting very involved with Buzzsprout so check that out, Buzzsprout.com. And Libsyn or Buzzsprout or even your own website through tools like PowerPress, they're gonna give you your feed. And your feed is what you actually, it's like a long URL, that is the address that pulls your entire library of episodes. And that feed is something that gets updated when you publish a new podcast, or a blog post that has a podcast episode in it. And that feed is what you actually give to iTunes, or Stitcher, or other directories.

And so what's cool about podcasting is that even though it's technically a little bit crazy to setup and yes, this might be over a few people's heads what they've heard already on this particular episode of AskPat, that's why I created podcastingtutorial.com so go there, podcastingtutorial.com if you can, it walks you through step by step, we're just talking about one little step here, but the cool thing is, once you have it all setup, it's really easy. Because everything just happens automatically after that. You just publish an episode on your site and everything kind of happens in the background, because you've set it up before hand. So all those MP3 files that you have for your episodes, once they're all edited, they get uploaded to your host like Libsyn, or Soundcloud, or Buzzsprout like I said. But then iTunes, since they already have that feed that you've used to show them that that's where your show comes from. When a new episode goes up, then it automatically gets updated in those directories. I thought that I had to upload a new MP3 file to iTunes every time, a new episode came out. And then also to Stitcher and any other directories where I wanted it to be known. But that's the power of podcasting, it's this feed that people subscribe to, and when you come up with a new episode it gets pushed out to them, and that's really cool.

So, don't worry about having your files hosted on your website, they're hosted in these media hosts, and your website simply just talks to those hosts and pulls and serves those files to your audience who's there. So, Anita I hope that answers your question. I was a little bit worried about this, because I know that the more I talk about these technical things, the more confusing it is for people. So hopefully I've just nailed it down for you, and if you have any other questions about it, you or anybody else out there listening just again head on over to podcastingtutorial.com. It's been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. It's the number one tutorial for starting your podcast, completely free, no emails required, none of that stuff. And that's what I would recommend all of you go today to start your show. So podcastingtutorial.com.

Anita thanks again for your question, I appreciate it and you and everybody else out there who's asking questions. If you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com. You can ask right there on that page. And thanks again. Now as always I love to end with a quote, and today's quote comes from Eleanor Roosevelt. Oh and by the way Anita we are gonna send you an AskPat t-shirt, of course. Not sure if I mentioned that already but you're gonna get one. Jessica my assistant will reach out to you very soon.

Okay now, here's that quote of the day from Eleanor Roosevelt, she's been feature here a couple of times on the show. “Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

Man that's super powerful. Take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye.