This is a presentation I gave at the Long Beach Podcast Meetup on Feb 17, 2010

In this episode of Podcast Cookbook, I show you how to get web hosting for your show. I provide specific web hosting companies that I use and show you how to sign up.

In this episode of Podcast Cookbook, I show you how to get a domain name for your show.

In this video, I discuss how important picking the right topic is for the success of your show and go through the key factors for picking the right topic.

iTunes is one of the most important podcast directories and it’s not always easy to figure out how to publish your podcast up to iTunes so it gets included in the iTunes podcast directory.

Here’s a video about how to make this work.

I recommend that anyone who wants to set up a podcast consider using Wordpress as your podcast publishing tool. It has built in podcasting support and is really easy to use. It’s also free. Just install Wordpress and enable the Podpress plugin and you will have full podcast support for your podcast. You enter your title, show notes, and provide the address of your podcast files. Hit the publish button and Wordpress will post your podcast and automatically set up your podcast RSS feed.

If you set up your hosting at Dreamhost(aff) then you can use their one click install to get your Wordpress set up fast and easy. Here’s a video of setting up Wordpress using the one click install process and how to change the look of the site.

And here’s a video of how to set up your Wordpress to support podcasts. Note: you don’t have to upload the Podpress plugin as it was included in your one click install.

Selecting a podcast host is one of the most important elements of getting started. Podcasts use up a lot of bandwidth so you will want a hosting plan that gives you lots of room to grow. I use Dreamhost(aff) because the give you lots of bandwidth and lots of storage. Their basic account comes with 5 terabytes of bandwidth and 500 gigabytes of storage.

I have set up a special deal with Dreamhost(aff) that saves you $30. Just use the promo code COOKBOOK.

Here’s a video of how to set up your domain name at GoDaddy and then get your hosting set up at Dreamhost(aff).

One of the most important things you can have for your podcast is the name of your show and the domain that you get for your podcast. There are two considerations that you should balance in selecting the name for your show, branding and searchability.

I think having a unique brand is important, but if it’s unrelated to the topic your talking about it can come at the expense of natural search rankings. The more you can integrate your keywords into your brand the better your natural search results will be for people who may not know you, but want to learn about your topic.

Click here to check out your keyword search volumes in this free tool.

Some good examples of podcast names that convey their topic well include Grape Radio, This Week in Tech and Let’s Knit 2gether.

To find out about whether a domain name is available you can go to a domain registrar and search for the name. If you’re in the US try to get a name that ends in .com as it will rank higher on the search engines. I also like to buy the .net and .org names if they are available. Also, think about singular and plural versions of the name. When I got digitalpodcast.com, I didn’t register digitalpodcasts.com at the same time. Fortunately, I was able to buy it later but it cost me ten times more.

A good domain name provider is GoDaddy
. They have very reasonable rates and the site is relatively easy to use.