Your podcast RSS feed is the link between you and your podcast audience
If you’ve been researching how to start a podcast you’ve probably come across the term “RSS Feed.”
If you don’t know what it is, don’t worry.
To be a podcaster you don’t need to know how your podcast RSS feed works, you just need to know where to find it and where to submit it so your show can be found by as many people as possible.
What is an RSS feed?
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” or “Rich Site Syndication.”
I prefer the first term because the second one sounds like a bunch of tech mumbo jumbo.
Syndication is just the process of getting your content in front of as many people as possible and an RSS feed is an easy way to do that because it gives anyone who’s subscribed to your feed, access to your latest episodes.
The feed itself looks like a bunch of code to the untrained eye but it makes total sense to feed readers like your podcast app.
When you upload a new episode, podcast directories translate the corresponding letters and numbers in your RSS feed into what you see as a brand new episode sitting there, ready to play in your podcast app.
How do you create an RSS feed?
You don’t need to grab your cyber chisel and whittle one yourself.
Creating an RSS feed for your podcast is as simple as choosing a podcast host.
There are plenty of different hosts out there but once you’ve chosen one that’s right for you all you need to do it create your show, upload a piece of audio (usually a podcast trailer) and they’ll generate an RSS feed for you.
What do you do with your RSS feed?
Once your RSS feed is set up you can submit it to podcast directories.
This is as simple as copying it from inside your podcast host (often in ‘settings’) and pasting it into the submission website for each podcast directory.
Once you’ve submitted your podcast RSS feed and your show has been accepted (there’s no test you need to pass it can just take a bit of time) each subsequent episode you drop will automatically appear in any podcast app it’s been submitted to.
And that’s it!
Got a burning podcasting question you’d like answered? Send me an email.
Want to start your own podcast but need a little help? Download my “How To Start A Podcast” guide or sign up for my online podcasting course, PodSchool.
