3 Step Guide to Starting a Podcast

Written by bat_man | Published 2020/06/07
Tech Story Tags: podcast | artificial-intelligence | startups | money | monetization | tech-podcasts | podcasting | side-project

TLDR Nearly 55% people in America listen to podcasts each month, which translates to about 160 million people. This shows us the importance of audio as a content and marketing avenue for makers and marketers. In this guide we'll go through the 3 key factors on how to start and podcast with ease - The Guide on How to Start a Podcast without recording anything. The guide also goes through how to convert your written content into High Quality audio for distribution. It's important to choose a good hosting provider for a seamless experience.via the TL;DR App

Nearly 55% people in America listen to podcasts each month, which translates to about 160 million people.
This shows us the importance of audio as a content and marketing avenue for makers and marketers.
If you're a blogger, writer or content creator, this might be the perfect article for you.
So let's jump in to the Guide on How to Start a Podcast without recording anything, in this guide we'll go through the 3 key factors on how to start and podcast with ease -
  • Step 1 - Choose a topic and theme [Skip if you already have written content/script]
  • Step 2 - Converting your content into High Quality audio for distribution
  • Step 3 - Hosting your Podcast
Podcasting is a much less crowded and competitive space than blogging, making now the perfect time to get started.
So let's jump right in:

Step 1 - Choose a topic and theme.

Choosing a Topic

You want your podcast to be of a niche that you're most passionate about.
The niche should be broad enough so that you can write about it for atleast 100 podcat shows.
For example, if you like to talk about Tech, you could talk about Ethereum, The recent Bitcoin Halving or OpenAI. The possibilites end where your imagination does :)
You can expand to more topics once you have a bigger audience.

Choosing a Name + Artwork

Your podcasts Name and Artwork are the 2 most important things.
You need to choose a name that intrigues your listeners and tells them more about what you'll be talking about without actually going into detail.
I'd recommend this Name Generator, incase you're stuck and/or in need of inspiration.

Artwork

Your cover art is the first impression most people will see as they browse through Apple Podcasts or their favorite podcast app.
Buzzsprout has an excellent article about designing cover art, I would definitely recommend you start there.

Choosing Intro/Outro Music

Background music is pretty important to give you an edge in terms of listening experience.
There are a lot of places where you could get Free background music for your podcast.
I would personally recommend Soundstripe and in case you're on a limited budget Free Music Archive would be a good option for you.

Step 2 - Converting your content into High Quality audio for distribution.
Your podcasts audio quality and format are what matter the most -
*Shameless Plug 😅*
Hop on to Listnr for converting your written content into High Quality and Human sounding audio.
Listnr is a good Free option, since they offer upto 5 conversion a month; $10/month afterwards.
Format
If you haven’t used editing software before, even simple actions in GarageBand or Audacity can be quite intimidating.

If that’s the case, then Alitu is a good and easy to use option.
It's probably the least intimidating out of all the Podcast Making tools out there.
Alitu comes with a lot of custom editing features like Voice cleaning, creating Ad segments etc. But the most useful featire Alitu has is - That it lets your directly publish your Podcast without leaving Alitu's portal.

Step 3 - Hosting your Podcast.

Think of Podcast hosting in the same way as your Network/Website hosting. It's important to choose a good hosting provider for a seamless experience.
I would personally recommend Buzzsprout, after trying a bunch of hosting platforms, I found Buzzsprout to be the best.
You could go for other brands like Transistor, or any other platform of your choice like Spotify Podcasts.
I hope you found this article useful! Happy podcasting :)

Bonus

Listnr is giving a Free month to all its early sign ups!
Go to Listnr Co. for more!

Published by HackerNoon on 2020/06/07