Podcasting Tutorial - Video 5: Setting Up Your Podcast Feed and Publishing Your 1st Episode Video Lecture | Become an Expert at Podcasting - Career Development

hey what's up pat again from smart
passive income and welcome to video 5 of
this podcasting tutorial today we're
going to be talking about feeds no no no
not that type of feed we're going to be
talking about your podcast speed and
again we're going to get a little
technical here today but I'm going to
try to help you out so let's go ahead
and get started ok so going back to the
whiteboard here you may recognize this
diagram from the last video where we
talked about why we need to host our
media files on a host separate from our
web host you our web host serves our
website a media host is where we drop
our mp3 file and whenever someone plays
that mp3 file it's going to play off of
the media host and not on our web hosts
very important to do that and in that
last video I talked about how our
website generates what's called a feed
and it's that feed that we actually give
to places like iTunes stitcher and
Blackberry and Zune all those other
places so let me put directories for now
the thing is if if you give the podcast
directories the feed as it is now from
your site without doing anything
additional to it they're not going to
see the mp3 file in your feed you know
it's it's not properly and closes what
they call it they're not going to see
the mp3 file and they're not going to
know it's a podcast that you're
publishing so it's not even a read as a
podcast and yes we've already tagged the
mp3 file with your episode and your show
information but without adding some
additional information to this specific
feed the directories aren't going to
read it as a podcast they need some sort
of signal some additional code within
the feed that lets them know that a
podcast episode has just been published
and this code is going to include things
like the title the show description
author host summary name email category
copyright and all those sorts of things
now if you're crazy you can create this
file yourself so your RSS feed does
include this information which I know
some people have done in the past
because they want a hundred percent
complete control and they're coders and
they understand that stuff I'm not a
coder I don't understand that stuff and
really the easiest and one of the most
popular ways to do this to add that
information that feed which you need to
add in order to have the directories
read it as a podcast is to use a
wordpress plugin a podcasting plugin you
can install on your site that allow
to enter all the information you need to
enter for your show just one time in the
beginning so that automatically every
time you publish a new podcast episode
on your site it knows to include all
that information about your podcasts in
the feed so that directories can read it
correctly now there's a lot of different
podcasting plugins out there I'm going
to list a bunch of them right now and
then share with you the one that I
recommend there's a lot of popular ones
out there like pod press is a popular
one there's another one called
podcasting plug-in by TSG I believe it
is and then there's one called power
press that's the one that that you want
to go with it's the most robust most
powerful and it has a lot of support
consistent support which is which is
great which is why I actually don't
recommend using feedburner and another
thing with feedburner you know the way
it works is your feed from your site
goes to feed burner and then your feed
burner account gives you a separate feed
that you can then upload to the
directories and what's nice about that
is feed burner gets to keep track of
stats and things like that but power
press will do that for you anyways but
the bad thing is what if feed burner
dies and the thing is there's a lot of
rumors that it's going to do that is it
going to I don't know but if feed burner
dies then there's no connection between
your site and the directories anymore
it's just gone what's nice about power
press is that's run off your own site
and the fee that you get from power
press it's always connected to your site
so you don't worry about that so what
I'm going to do now is actually I'm
going to go to an example website
install power press from scratch go
through the settings with you set it up
correctly get your feed this feed here
and then we're going to publish our
first episode it's going to be fake
episode using some file that I already
have but you know I just want to walk
through the process with you as if you
were doing this for the first time and
then in the next video we still haven't
even submitted to the directories yet
you still want to publish your podcast
episodes first before you do that and
I'll tell you how many to do before you
submit to places like iTunes and
stitcher and Zune and Blackberry that's
what we're going to talk about in the
next video where and how to submit to
those directories and that that'll be it
then you're done so this is probably the
most important section here because you
want to get your feeds correctly because
again these these directories read your
feed in order for that feed to be
structured properly you're going to
powerpress so let's go ahead and do it
let's go to the example site alright so
you're actually looking at the homepage
of one of my niche sites it's a security
guard training industry actually so what
I'm going to do is pretend like I'm
going to set up a totally new podcast
for this site and so what I'm going to
do is actually I'm going to go into my
dashboard and I'm going to install a
plugin like I would install any other
plug-in I would go to the plugins
section here on the left hand side and
click on add new and then I'm a search
for power press and here you'll see
right at the top the blueberry power
press podcasting plug-in that's the one
you want to install am I sure I want
install that yes then you want to go
ahead and activate it and to get to the
settings you'll scroll down here on the
left hand side and see a new menu
setting for power press so I'll go ahead
and just click on that okay so this is
your basic welcome page with news and
highlights and things like that we don't
need to worry about that we're going to
go ahead and go to basic settings now
and this is for the podcast entry box
and I'll show you what that is in a
second the first thing we want to do is
make sure that these top two boxes are
checked media URL and media file size
and duration and what this is is
actually if I open a new post and I
scroll beneath the edit edit post area
down here you'll see podcast episode
media URL file size and duration those
are the settings we checked all of these
other settings here are just optional
they're basically ways to override
things that automatically happen and you
can look at those and play around with
them if you want but the most important
thing is we want to have the ability to
enter our URL from our media host I use
libsyn again and this will be the file
and URL that ends and dot mp3 and once
you click verify it actually determines
the file size and also the duration
which is important that's what you need
that's it down here you'll see actually
default media URL you can delete that
that's if you had a specific folder and
wanted to make it easy and just give the
episode name instead of the full URL but
since we're going to copy the full URL
where our media is hosted we don't do
worry about that so just leave default
media URL blank and everything else is
ready to go click on Save Changes great
now
services and stats we don't need to
worry about that now you can come and
check that later once you start to get
your podcasts going now let's go to
media appearance this is where you
determine what happens on your site to
play your podcast if you wanted to you
can enable that the media player you
could disable it under here you can have
it show below the page content above the
page content you don't even have to
change anything there and of course you
can always come back and change this and
it's not going to hurt anything you can
mess around and see what works for you
now I do want to explain under media
links really quick these some of these
cool features display player in new
window link that's important because
when people play it it plays in a new
window which is good because then people
can close the original window it's still
surf the web and still be listening to
your show they're not going to
accidentally close the window and then
accidentally stop listening to I
displayed download link that gives
people the option to download your file
to the computer if you want and then
display player embed link that's cool
because people can actually copy a piece
of code from the player put it on their
own site and then have other people
listen to your show from there which is
pretty cool so I'm just going to save
the changes really quick now this is
probably the most important tab here
it's the feeds tab the feed remember is
what we submit to the directories so
this is really important that we get all
this right so I'm going to walk through
all these options one by one it can take
a little bit of time but let's go ahead
and get started
so underneath enhance feeds just make
sure enhance all feeds is clicked on
that's easy
under podcast feeds you'll see that
there's a warning here it says you must
create at least one podcast episode for
your podcast feed to be valid our
podcast feed is this particular link
right here which is a special podcast
only feed and that feed shows only
podcast episodes and that's what we want
to submit to the podcasting directories
your website has its own feed with blog
posts and podcast episodes than anything
else but that has a ton of information
and it's a lot cleaner if you just
submit a podcast only feed this link
here to iTunes and all the other
directories it's much easier for them to
read everything that the thing is this
feed isn't valid until we have our first
episode and I'll show you how to post an
episode in just a second so just keep in
mind this URL this URL is what's going
to be submitted
to all the directories so we'll come
back and validate this in a second okay
scrolling down feed discovery you don't
need to worry about that too much
under feed settings show the most recent
X number of episodes per feed now we'll
feed generally especially in WordPress
it kind of defaults around 10 so if
someone looks at your feet or podcasts
or some sort of directory looks at your
feed
it sees the latest ten things and that's
that's it for a podcast you might want
to think about bumping that up a bit
because for example if you have twelve
episodes out and you only show ten in
your feed the anything that reads the
feed like those directories are only
going to see the latest ten they're not
going to see episode one and two they're
going to see three to twelve so you
might want to bump this up to something
like fifty you know that that's okay and
again when you get to fifty episodes
you're going to want it to come back and
change this to a hundred or something I
have mine at 100 but you know beginning
you could just keep it at fifty or
something now under here it says RSS to
image you want to image for your RSS
feed this is separate than the iTunes
artwork but you know it's still required
and it's it should be the same piece of
artwork actually and it should be about
300 by 300 pixels in size and to upload
a new image here all you have to do is
click on this button then you can click
on choose file I'm just going to grab
one that I just created for fun here for
this particular example and you should
see it a second if you change the feed
language if you wanted to you can change
the copyright the symbol is the you know
the C with a circle in it so you can
just keep that that's just kind of code
for it security are training your
security good training resource 2012
that's fine
location you can make that optional you
can put that in there if you want
episode frequently you can do that if
you want to you know bi-weekly some
directory directories will display this
information you know San Diego it's up
to you and that's it for your feeds tab
so let's go ahead and click Save Changes
and if I scroll down I can preview that
image there I'll click on preview see
there it is Sgt HQ podcasts alright I'm
just going to close that now we're going
to head over to the iTunes tab this
one's very important as well because
this is where we set our show
information all the stuff that's going
to be found in iTunes and remember I
toons is a search engine it's a huge
search engine you know we don't normally
think of iTunes is a search engine so
all the stuff we put in here for the
show title your host name the
description is all really important so
we're going to go ahead and go through
each of these one by one as well so this
first line here says iTunes subscription
URL this is actually the link to your
show on iTunes but of course we don't
have a show on iTunes yet so you're just
going to leave this blank but just for
future reference once you get approved
by iTunes after you submit your feed
you're going to get approved within you
know 48 hours probably you're going to
go to your show on iTunes like this
you're going to right click on your
title click copy link and then paste
that in here that's the easy way to get
the correct link here with your podcast
name and ID number and stuff as you can
see there that's not this particular
link isn't this particular podcast so
I'm going to delete that and leave it
blank for now which is what you should
do at this point now down here you're
going to see a reiteration of the feed
to submit to iTunes again this is your
podcast only feed here now you can
notice something interesting here under
iTunes feed settings you'll see the
subtitle your summary which is the
description and all this stuff shows up
in iTunes but where is your where's your
podcast title it's not here it's
actually that the title matches the
title of your blog so to set that
actually you're going to actually go to
settings in general and it the title of
your podcast is the site title here so
mine would be security or training your
security guard training resource that's
what would be in the podcast title but
going back to iTunes here what if you
want your podcast title to be different
from your blog title which is the case
which is the case for many you know it
is for me in smart passive income I have
the smart passive income blog and then I
have the smart passive income podcast
those are two different titles if you
want two different titles you have to do
an extra step so follow me closely it's
pretty easy actually
you go to your welcome page and you see
these Advanced Options down here click
on custom podcast channels and click
Save Changes and what that does is it
creates this little podcast channels
link underneath power press now if you
don't see that sometimes it doesn't show
up right away you can always click on
this
figure podcast channels link on the
right hand side of that advanced option
you just click so I'm going to click
this right now and show you what it
what's up here you could actually add
new podcasting channels in addition to
our default podcast channel here you
could see some of the example usages
usages under here but we're actually
going to edit this podcast only feed to
change the title so I'm going to click
on edit underneath podcast and as you
can see here it has a lot of the same
settings as before you know the feed
settings with the image and things like
that
it has iTunes settings and everything
for this feed we can that this basically
overrides anything so anything we change
here it'll override the default settings
we just set so all we want to do really
here
so we don't double our work is just add
the feed title this is where we're going
to override the feed title which is
normally the blog titles you can see if
we leave it blank here it's just going
to be the blog title but I'm going to
add its own title it's going to be the
ultimate security guard training podcast
and that that's that's all I'm going to
change here and you can you can override
other things if you want but we're going
to mess with these settings or we have
already messed with these settings
anyway so like most recent X episodes
and things like that so I'm just going
to click on Save Changes and that's it
now our podcast feed has its own title
separate from our blog posts or excuse
me our blog title so I'm actually going
to go back into settings and go back
into iTunes and we're going to go over
each of these each of the rest of the
stuff on the iTunes page because again
this is what iTunes is going to read on
our feet so we talked about the iTunes
subscription URL you're going to get
that after you submit your podcast feed
to iTunes which I'll show you in the
next video
under iTunes feed settings the iTunes
programs subtitle is sort of a short
description of what your podcast is
about and I honestly don't know where
iTunes uses this sort of subtitle I have
yet to find out exactly but you know
it's still important just in case so I'm
just going to add a quick little
description in there to maybe you know
200 characters long make sure to include
a few keywords that relate to your
particular industry try to think of
keywords that people might type in to
look for your show that's really
important
now for the I Tunes program summary if I
go actually into iTunes this is what the
description is so it's what's shown
underneath your podcast title and that's
very important especially when it comes
to keywords so I'm just going to paste a
little something there no HTML it you
can have up to 4,000 characters I think
this description here is only about I
don't know a few hundred so you have a
lot of room to work with in a lot of
space in there to include some keywords
you know don't just keyword stuff and
randomly add keywords comma after comma
after comma but you don't let it make
sense but you know you you know be wise
to like for example here I have security
guard training of course security guard
industry classes information education
protect protection services career
unarmed guard armed security guard those
are all keywords that I know that are
used in that industry that are highly
searched for in Google I and so I'm
going to include them in the iTunes
program summary here as well now don't
click this up to optimize iTunes summary
that what that does is it just changes a
few things that that you don't need
right now or that aren't even enabled
anymore
go to iTunes program keywords just put
in about 12 keywords separated by commas
again probably a lot of the same
keywords that you would have mentioned
in your summary and a few in your
program subtitle as well your iTunes
category that's very important as well
that's the category that it's going to
be that your podcast is going to be
shown up in and is there's a number to
select from if I go into iTunes right
now you see my category is business and
then marketing and management but this
is the sub category within business and
if I go to podcasts here you'll see
there's a whole number of different ones
you could choose from from education
games kids and so on and so forth if you
just click on here to scroll down I'm
just going to look at education
uh education and then I'm gonna select
category two education training category
number three and you could pick up the
three categories I'm just going to
select I don't know government and
organizational organizations I don't
know I probably spend a little bit more
time thinking of what the categories are
I would actually look in iTunes see what
you're up against see which shows may be
the right for you or nearer to what your
show is about so that other listeners
can listen to yours too you can get what
happens is people can find your show by
listening to other shows that other
people listen to for example here
underneath my show you can see Tim
Conley's you can see certainly in Jays
here Chris Ducker Copyblogger
Dan Andrews underneath mine that's how a
lot of people find other people's
podcast is through what other people
listen to so what I would do is actually
for example if you're in the business
section I would go through each of these
and try to look for ones that are
similar to yours
you know if sometimes it's obvious like
if you have an investing podcast well
you want to be in the investing section
so just use your common sense and choose
three categories make sure to use three
to get the most bang for your buck
iTunes explicit that means if you have
any like swear words or you talked about
things that you know kids well I
shouldn't listen to you know you want to
put yes explicit content you want to be
really upfront with that you can get
your podcast kicked off of iTunes if you
are not transparent with that again
we're going to add our itunes image here
this is a 1400 by 1400 pixel image this
is going to be the same image that you
have in your default feed setting but
it's going to be much larger again this
is because of the new devices that are
coming out which are you know they have
Retina display and all that stuff so
what I'm going to do is actually click
on upload new image choose file and this
one you'll see here I wonder if if I can
preview it from here no not yet I'll
have to save first but I'll show you
that in a second iTunes talent name this
is you so what I'm going to do is
actually input Patrick Flynn which is me
but I'm show you a little bit of a small
secret here you'll see if I go back to
my podcast here on iTunes you'll see
that the talent name or the host name
is Pat Flynn but I also add a colon and
a few keywords to help me be found in
iTunes a little bit more because again
iTunes is searching so if I if for
instance if I type in online
entreprenuer you'll see that my podcast
should come up number one there you go
that's because I mean it's in the name
is there and I also mention it in the
description as well now again don't go
crazy this looks somewhat natural you
know Pat Flynn online entrepreneur
business strategist and blogger I mean
that makes sense but if you put like a
hundred keywords in there I
there's a percent there's potential that
you won't be submitted into iTunes when
you submit your podcast so just be you
know use common sense there but be smart
and use a few keywords that describe who
you are
so I'm going to put for example again
I'm not going to actually submit this
podcast but I'll show you how to do it
Patrick Flynn a security guard training
expert I can even do unarmed and armed
security guard training expert that's
just for example now my email Pat Flynn
excuse me Pat Flynn at security guard
training HQ comm and then this iTunes
new feed URL you would use that if you
are changing your feed URL from
something else to this one that you have
now since this is the first time you're
setting up you don't need to do anything
and after that you can just click on
Save Changes and boom you're all set and
ready to go at this point you can post
your first podcast episode on your blog
and I'm going to walk you through how to
do that right now so I'm going to set up
my first podcast episode here on the
site so to do that it's just like you're
writing a new blog post go to posts and
click on add new and then now we have to
name our show now there's some tips for
naming your show you might want to
include the show number so people know
which particular episode that is I like
to go for instance security guard
training HQ a zero zero one I like to
add multiple zeros in case I get into
the triple digits it'll still be in
order
and then : or - or whatever and then the
name of the show so welcome
oops that's totally wrong welcome - ah
the security guard Wow
training podcast so this will be episode
one of course I haven't recorded this
actual episode yeah I'm gonna use a
sample file here but as far as what goes
in the actual blog post you might want
to include things like a quick summary
of what that post is about also some
links that you mentioned on the show one
tip that I like to do is if I forget to
keep track of the links that I mentioned
during the show or sometimes you don't
know what links are going to come up
especially if you have a guest I like to
listen to the show again afterwards at
some times double or quadruple the speed
just so I can make sure I get all the
resources in I I do that using a tool
called VLC player it just allows me to
easily quickly listen to things much
faster so I get all that information
write it down as I go along positive I
need to you know create time just to
write things down as it goes along so I
can come back here get all the links and
things that like that I also like to
include items mentioned in this podcast
I also like to do things like in this
particular episode you will learn and
then I create like a bullet list of
things that are interesting that it'll
make people want to listen item1 item2
etc and things like that and yeah so you
know you eventually you want to include
some subscription links but since we
haven't submitted to iTunes yeah I oh
there there are no subscription links to
use for iTunes but that's it so now the
question is well how do you get the mp3
file in here so that when I push publish
the feed knows it's a podcast and and I
can submit it to iTunes and stuff so
actually the first thing you want to do
is actually add it to a podcasting
category and the reason the main reason
why you want to do that's just so neatly
organize all your podcasts you know
people can come to your blog click on or
find the category podcast category and
see a list of all your podcasts if you
wanted to
that so so I'd make sure to do that but
then really the trick is down here when
you scroll down under where it says
podcast episode default you want to
include the media URL which is the link
for that episode that is stored on a
media host somewhere so for me it's on
libsyn so I'm actually going to go to
libsyn right now live send calm it might
be on Amazon s3 for you we talked about
that in one of the previous videos so if
you don't have that link handy for this
particular episode this is how you go
get it at least from libsyn you can go
to this link here which is view shows
previous posts this will include the
files that you've uploaded even as
standalone files and go to the episode
that you want to go to click on links
and then get the direct download URL
which is that link there you want to
copy the whole thing go back and just
include that file here just paste it
there and click on verify now it's going
to auto detect the size and auto detect
the length which is exactly what we want
and now you can publish this episode
after you have all the information you
want in it again make sure the permalink
is what you want it to be sometimes I
change it to be more SEO friendly
depending on what the topic is so I'm
just going to hit publish and now I'm
going to view this post I'm going to
delete this after this tutorial because
this file is actually for my smart
passive income podcast site it's not
quite time to publish it on my site yet
which is why I'm using it here for
example but as you can see here's this
post the name of the post here summary
links items mentioned in this podcast
item one and two so and so forth and
then here's the player and I'll play it
for you really quick and so that's that
I can play it in a new window there's
the download link there's an embed link
for you there if people want to use that
and that's it so this is our first
episode it's published on the site again
we haven't given our podcast only feed
to any directories yet that's what we're
gonna do in the next video but I want to
show you something really quick about
this feed and sort of what's in it and
just to make sure a sort of test you can
do to make sure that it's valid so if
you go back to
WordPress in your back-end and you click
on power press and if you go to feeds
and then back down here where it says
podcast feeds the ultimate security
returning podcast and click on validate
again that warning disappeared so that's
a good sign I'm going to click on
validate it's going to open something
called feed validator that's feed
validator organ it's going to put our
feed automatically through this tool
which tests and and sees if our feed is
valid and it says whoa congratulations
as feed is valid great you might have an
error too of some things that you know I
don't really know what this means I
wouldn't worry about it down here you'll
see some of the stuff that we've added
remember we changed the title of the
podcast from the name of the blog which
is security guard training headquarters
to this which is the ultimate security
our training podcast again we did that
using the podcast channel setting down
in the backend of WordPress where did I
go here there's a lot of other things we
change are we updated again you can see
the iTunes summary here you can see the
itunes author which includes a couple of
my secure security training keywords
there you can see the email and all the
other things we added there here in this
feed so it's working correctly down here
you're going to see a link to that
particular title in the episode and
everything everything is working
correctly you can see the actual
enclosure for the mp3 file there which
was done again with that space
underneath the episode that their excuse
me underneath the blog post that we set
up and yeah it's all set up and ready to
go so yeah but that's it so that's
that's how you validate your feed to and
make sure it's good now remember in the
next video we're taking this link here
this is our podcast only feed and we're
going to submit this exact URL to all
the different directories we want to
submit it to so I'll see in the next
video congratulations for getting this
far you are almost done awesome job
let's keep going one more video