How To Build a Wordpress Site for your Podcast

Creating a website for your podcast is highly recommended and has lots of benefits. By building a podcast website, you can increase the chances of people finding your show, provide your audience with useful extra content, and promote products and services to your listeners.

If that sounds appealing, this complete step-by-step guide for creating a podcast website will help you get your site online.

Before we start though, let's look at the benefits of setting up a website for your podcast.

Benefits of Creating a Podcast Website

Although some people will find your show through their podcast app, if you want to reach a wider audience, creating a website will definitely help. Publishing a new page on your website each time you release an episode, complete with show notes and a transcript, makes it possible for anyone searching Google for the topics you’ve covered or the guests you’ve featured to discover your podcast.

Furthermore, in the show notes, you have the option of publishing links to recommend reading, embedding relevant videos, and providing other information that will enhance the experience of your listeners. If you do have a product or service to promote, you can easily mention this on your podcast website.

Another benefit of having a podcast website is having the ability to publish sign up forms for your email list. Starting an email list gives you another way to connect with your audience and send them notifications each time you publish a new show or have an announcement to make. Using your podcast website to promoting your social media profiles is another effective way to forge a strong bond with your listeners.

Finally, using free software like Google Analytics on your website can give you a better understanding of your audience, including where they’re from, what content they interact with most on your site, and other insights that can help you refine your podcast so that it’s even more appealing.

In this complete step-by-step guide for creating a podcast website, we explore some of the best options available for building your site. This includes free services you might already have access to, third-party website builders that are surprisingly easy to use, and the powerful WordPress software including the many ways it can help you create a unique and effective site for your podcast.

Important Features of a Good Podcast Website

Before we get to the best options for creating a podcast website, here are some features to consider when deciding which one to choose:

• Integrated audio player or ability to easily embed a media player into your site.
• Podcast Subscribe buttons and links to your show on popular podcast platforms.
• Good support for RSS feeds and the ability to automatically sync content between your site and podcast host.
• Easy way to add extra pages to your site, such as an about the hosts page, contact details, etc.
• Interactive features like comments on the show notes, suggestion forms, surveys, and email marketing opt-ins.
• Good blogging functionality for running a blog alongside your podcast.
• Intuitive user interface and content organization so visitors can navigate your site.
• Support for third-party add-ons to enhance your website with more features and tools.
• Ability to publish an unlimited number of episodes and multiple shows.
• Easy access to visitor data including user analytics and audience insights.
• Good range of customization options to help you create a site you’re happy with.

Not every podcast website will need all the above features, but hopefully, this list gives you an idea of what’s possible to help you decide what’s important for your site.

If you want to know of one option that will let you do all of the above and more on your podcast website, it’s WordPress.

In the next section of our guide, we look at some of the reasons to consider WordPress, as well as show you the process for creating a WordPress podcast site, to help you decide if it’s the right option for your project.

Should You Use WordPress for Your Podcast Website?

WordPress is the most popular website builder available today, powering 43.2% of all websites. As well as being suitable for blogs, business websites, and e-commerce stores, WordPress is also ideal for creating podcast websites.

Here are some of the reasons why you might want to consider using WordPress for your podcast website.

Create a unique website

One of the reasons why WordPress is so popular is that you get a huge amount of control over how your website looks and functions. The latest versions of the WordPress software include a totally updated content editor and an improved website customizer.

Thanks to this, no two WordPress websites need ever look alike.

Easy to use

Despite the highly flexible nature of WordPress, the platform is pretty easy to use.  Once you’re familiar with the interface, you should have no trouble setting your site up how you want, publishing content, and keeping everything running smoothly.

Furthermore, due to the massive user base, there are countless resources available that explain how to do pretty much anything and everything with WordPress.

Highly extensible

Perhaps the best thing of all about WordPress is its huge library of third party themes and plugins that allow you to transform the design of your website and add a wealth of extra features. Due to the availability of these themes and plugins, creating the perfect website for your project shouldn’t require any coding knowledge.

This is especially true when creating a podcast website with WordPress, thanks to the impressive selection of purpose-built podcast themes and plugins out there.

However, if you do want to put your coding skills to use, WordPress is also very developer friendly, giving you the option of customizing the themes and plugins you install or creating your own custom scripts.

How to Create a Podcast Website with WordPress

There are actually two widely available versions of WordPress.

One is the hosted solution available at WordPress.com while the other is the self-hosted alternative from WordPress.org.

WordPress.com or WordPress.org?

While the WordPress.com version is great for blogs, for this guide on creating a podcast website, we’re focusing on the self-hosted option from WordPress.org.

If you want to know more, this guide on the differences between WordPress.org and WordPress.com will get you up to speed. But to summarize, the self-hosted (which is referred to as .org) version we recommend is much more suitable for creating podcast websites due to the increased amount of control you get over your site and the greater number of themes and plugins available. Additionally, the hosted (.com) version also won’t allow the use of 3rd party plugins and themes unless you use the pricier “Business Plan”.

WordPress Podcast Website Setup Guide

Creating a new website with the software from WordPress.org is slightly more involved than it is with the service from WordPress.com. However, if you’re prepared to invest a bit of extra time, effort, and money up front, you’ll reap the rewards for years to come.

For example, when creating your own WordPress website, you will need a few things:

• A domain name such as YourPodcastWebsite.com.
• Some web hosting from a company like SiteGround, Bluehost or DreamHost.
• A WordPress theme.
• Some WordPress plugins.
• Dedicated podcast hosting.

Thankfully, putting a WordPress website together is pretty straightforward and the rest of our guide will show you exactly what to do.

Choose and register a domain name

First up, your new podcast website will need a domain name that will be its address on the internet. If you’ve already started your podcast, then using the name of your show in the domain name is a good idea.

When it comes to choosing a domain name extension -- such as .com or .net – your options might be limited, depending on how many other people have already registered similar domains. However, where possible, opt for a common domain extension, such as .com, but if that's not available a lot of podcasters are putting their websites on .fm or .show extensions.

When it comes to registering a domain, Namecheap is a good value registrar that makes it easy to find a suitable address for your website. There are countless of registrars out there so pick your preferred one.

Find a good web host

You’ll also need to sign up with a web host who will store your website and its files on their servers, making them publicly available on the internet. This is similar to what Buzzsprout does for your podcast.

Purchasing web hosting will probably be your biggest expense when creating your podcast website, and unfortunately, it’s something you can’t do without. However, even the best web hosts offer large discounts to new customers so getting a good deal is possible.

Wordpress recommends a handful of sites like SiteGround and Bluehost that both offer good deals for new members. If you want something more robust, check out a Wordpress hosting comparison to better understand the unique advantages and disadvantages for each platform.

Choosing a Podcast-Friendly WordPress Theme

As mentioned, one of the best reasons to create a podcast website with WordPress is the massive amount of themes that you can use to control how your site will look. Whatever the vision for your site, you’re sure to find a theme that’s a close match.

However, while you could use any WordPress theme for your podcast website, there are a number of good reasons to choose a theme created specifically for building podcasting websites.

The best dedicated podcast WordPress themes not only look great but also have lots of useful podcast-related features and support, including integrated audio and video players that make it easy for your visitors to consume episodes on your website. These themes also have a strong focus on helping you organize your podcast content so your visitors can quickly find the latest episodes, browse the archives, and search for specific content.

Examples of WordPress podcast themes

To give you an idea of the type of podcasting website you could create with WordPress, here are a few examples of some podcast-focused themes.

Tusant

Tusant is one of the WordPress themes we've built at SecondLine Themes.

It's an example of a feature-rich WordPress theme built specifically for creating podcast sites. Whether you’re publishing audio-only episodes or video content, such as vlogs, Tusant makes it easy to embed episodes into your website. Everything about the theme, including the video and audio players, is mobile friendly so your audience can conveniently consume your content on any device.

Each time you publish new content you can choose from a range of layout templates or use the slideshow builder to promote your featured episodes. There’s also an interactive filtering tool that should help your visitors find the content they’re most interested in.

The distinctive design of Tusant should enable your podcast website to stand out from the crowd. However, Tusant is very easy to customize. Therefore, however you want to your site to look, you should be able to make the necessary changes through the customization controls and the integrated drag-and-drop page builder.

Although not as exciting as the design and publishing-related features, Tusant has a good focus on content organization. So whether you’re publishing one podcast or multiple shows, this theme makes it easy to present episodes in a way that your audience can make sense of. Tusant also has good support for publishing one-off recordings, such as songs, music videos, and other content that falls outside the traditional podcasting format.

Other back-end features of Tusant include compatibility with all the leading podcast plugins for WordPress including Buzzsprout. Tusant also supports audio files uploaded directly into WordPress – although using a dedicated podcast hosting service is the recommended option.

With an eye-catching design and lots of useful features, Tusant demonstrates the benefits of choosing a dedicated podcast theme.

Audonic

Audonic is another option to consider for your podcast website. The choice between the light and dark color schemes and podcast player designs help you add some contrast to the appearance of your site, while the integration options ensure no matter where you host your podcasts, you can easily publish them on your website.

Podcast Theme

If you’re not ready to invest in a paid theme for your website, the free Podcast Theme might be a good solution.

Designed for YouTubers, vloggers, and podcasters, this theme comes with seven pre-defined color schemes for you to choose from.

Although it doesn’t have the features to match the best premium podcasting themes, this option will help you getting started freely and create a podcast website to increase the chances of your target audience discovering your content.

Alternatives to a Wordpress Theme for your Podcast Website

While WordPress is the most widely used website builder it’s not the only option. Other platforms can also be helpful for creating a podcast website, and we’ll review those options below.

Buzzsprout Podcast Websites

One alternative to WordPress is using the websites that are automatically generated if you host your podcast with Buzzsprout. Once your website has been created, you can customize some of its display properties, such as adding your own background images for a more personalized look.  

As you can with a WordPress website, it’s possible to give your Buzzsprout site its own domain name and URL. While you don’t get the creative freedom that you do with WordPress, this is a great way to launch a podcast website quickly.

Squarespace

Squarespace is a popular all-purpose website builder. It’s a service that should be familiar to podcast listeners as Squarespace sponsors a lot of podcasts.  After signing up with Squarespace, and choosing to pay either monthly or yearly, you can select a template for your website from the growing library. While all of the Squarespace templates support podcast publishing, WordPress users get a much larger selection to choose from.

Wix

Wix is another paid website builder with its own podcast player that integrates with popular hosting services via its RSS feed support. While you can customize your Wix website to some degree, the flexibility of the platform doesn’t compare favorably with WordPress.

Google Sites

The free Google Sites services lets you create a basic website on your Google account. The tight integration with Google Drive could make this a good option for anyone already using the Google ecosystem for file storage and content creation. However, as we’ve just seen, there are much better options out there for building podcast websites.

Conclusion

For new and established podcasts alike, creating a website for your show has many benefits.

As we’ve just covered, launching an online presence for your podcast increases your chances of being found by your target audience, helps you connect more deeply with your listeners, and makes it easy to provide your fans with more content, while also giving you a way to promote your events, products, services, and more.

If you’re serious about creating an effective podcast website, WordPress is the obvious choice, and can certainly allow you the most flexibility and freedom running your own podcast website. However, as we’ve just seen there are other options out there that will help you get the job done.