Speaker 1: You're all excited about your brand new podcast and can't wait to share your message and content with your audience, but then you are met with the reality that there are many moving parts to making a podcast, and one of those is choosing a web host. A web host is a place on the web where you upload the audio files of your podcast and other relevant assets like your podcast cover art, name, and description. It's also the main hub for the distribution of your podcast, making it accessible to your listeners on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast players. Through your web host, you also have access to data so you can track useful information about your audience, which is very important. Now, many of these hosting services are available in the market and they all offer different features, which can make this whole process very overwhelming. So, in this video, first I'll share my top three paid and free recommendations for podcast hosting, and these are the three options I give my clients and students to choose from. Second, I'll take a close look at their best features and things that you should consider before signing up. And third, I will give you my expert advice on how to get the perfect hosting and distribution strategy for your podcast. Hey there, I'm Veronica and I work with clients and students helping them launch their podcast. This is something that I help them do. Find the right podcast host and decide on their behalf on their best option depending on their situation and goals. And hey, if you're a business owner and want to launch a podcast to turn listeners into paying clients and also learn the different ways you can generate ROI from your podcast, I'll invite you to sign up to my free mini course, Idea to Podcast Simplified. For this, go to podcastingsmart.com or find the link in the description and sign up for free. So, option number one, and we're starting with the free option, Spotify for Podcasters, formerly known as Anchor. Spotify for Podcasters is a free podcast hosting service. There are no limitations when it comes to how many episodes you can upload to the platform. Spotify for Podcasters also supports video. You can upload your video podcast to the platform so people can watch your video podcast on Spotify. In fact, the only way that you can have a video podcast on Spotify is by hosting the video podcast on Spotify for Podcasters. We host our video podcast, Content Jefe, on Spotify for Podcasters because we want our video podcast to be on the platform. Spotify introduced this feature for podcast creators in 2022. We were eager to try it because platforms often favor content that utilizes their latest features. Spotify for Podcasters has an easy-to-use interface where you can just drag and drop your audio files and add the title and descriptions for your episodes and either publish your episodes right there or schedule them for later. And I made a video showing you the process of uploading your podcast to Spotify and you can find the link to that video in the description. Additionally, you can set up distribution to Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Radio Public, and other podcast players from your Spotify for Podcasters account. You also have access to basic analytics to get insights about the performance of your episodes and insights about your audience like where they are listening from, which app they are using to listen to your podcast, whether they listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, their age and their gender, all very useful information that you can use to refine and improve your podcast. You also get a profile page, which is like a landing page where people can scroll through your catalog of episodes and listen from the web browser. Now let's talk about the downside of hosting your podcast on Spotify for Podcasters. The big one and the most concerning one is that Spotify is known for making major changes on the platform, which can be very scary. For instance, they are removing their recording and editing features from the browser and the app, and these are features a good majority of Spotify podcast creators have been using for years to make their podcast. You don't have a lot of control of your content on a platform that hosts your podcast for free, and its main business model is music streaming. Spotify may decide tomorrow that being a free hosting platform is not a good business model for them and shut the whole thing down. And of course, they may give you alternatives and resources to make the transition to another podcast host, but you never know. Another downside to a free hosting service is the limited monetization features offered to creators. At the time I'm making this video, the only two available options they offer are subscriptions and donations. They also have a way to make money by running ads on your show, which is currently in beta and available by invitation only. In order for you to start making decent money from your podcast with subscriptions and donations, you need to have a big audience, and if you're just starting out, growing an audience will take you some time and you will be making pennies at first. So Spotify for podcasters, although a free option, comes at the cost of uncertainty and also fewer features and flexibility when it comes to monetizing your audience. And before we move on to my second option, do me a favor and give this video a thumbs up if you're finding this information useful. Let's move on to option number two and one of my favorite podcast hosts, Buzzsprout. Buzzsprout is a paid subscription podcast hosting service, but you can sign up without a credit card and upload up to two hours of audio for free. Now, the features that I'm about to share with you are available when you sign up for the paid tiers that start at $12 a month, depending on how many hours of audio you will upload per month. Buzzsprout is one of my top choices because it has all the main features that we've talked about, like hosting, distribution to the podcast players, and comprehensive analytics. But in addition, it has three of my favorite features to reach your audience in real time, make money directly from your content, and make your production workflow more efficient. Let's talk about the first feature, dynamic content. With dynamic content, you can add pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll to your episodes. And if this is your first time hearing about this, these are audio clips you can insert in your episodes with announcements about events, promotions, ads, or sponsor content. And they are placed either at the beginning, the middle, or at the end of each episode. And why do I like this feature so much? Well, if you have an offer for a product or service that you're really excited to share with your audience, you can record a piece of audio talking about it and use this feature to insert this piece of audio into new episodes you upload or to your entire library of episodes. So the cool thing is that it doesn't matter if they're listening to episode number five or episode number 100 of your podcast, your listeners will get up-to-date information about your events, promotions, and fast offers in real time. When your event, product launch, or sponsor collaboration is done, you can remove your dynamic content from your episode or episodes and replace it with a new one. This is a feature you can use from day one to start making money from your podcast. So if you're thinking about promoting seasonal launches and events, sharing updates with your audience, or working with sponsors, you want to sign up with Bass Proud because of this feature alone. Another monetization feature I've tried is Bass Proud Ads. With this feature, you can allow other podcasts to advertise their shows within your episodes and make money every time an ad plays in your episodes. This is a great way to generate passive income from your podcast. And the good thing is that you have complete control over which shows get to advertise on your show. You don't have to keep track of the duration of the campaign on your podcast because Bass Proud removes the ad automatically when the budget allocated for the campaign runs out. This is also a tool that you can use to advertise your podcast on thousands of podcasts that you share similar audiences with so that you can grow your audience faster. Pretty cool stuff, right? Bass Proud also has a feature called Co-host AI and it's going to blow your mind. I recommend this feature if you're running your podcast solo and don't have a podcast manager or a VA helping you. This feature comes at an additional cost but will save you a lot of time in your production workflow and we all know that time is money. So the way it works is that when you upload your episode, which you can do by drag and dropping your files, then Co-host AI starts automatically creating a transcription for your episode. This can take a few minutes and you will get an email from Bass Proud telling you that the script is ready. Co-host AI gives you five title ideas to choose from and a comprehensive description of your episode right there on the upload screen. This feature also adds chapter markers to your episodes which are incredible for your listeners because they can easily navigate your episodes and find the information they need quickly. This feature will save you a lot of time and will eliminate any workarounds in your posting workflow. Option number three is RSS.com. RSS.com is also a paid podcast hosting service that offers the same basic features that Spotify for Podcasters and Bass Proud offer regarding hosting, distribution, and access to analytics. RSS.com is one of my favorite hosts because they're always innovating and adding new features to the platform to facilitate distribution and monetization. For example, you can receive Bitcoin payments from your listeners besides setting up your podcast to get subscriptions and donations. So if your audience is into value for value payments or Bitcoin, RSS is a great alternative. Another convenient feature is that you can set up the distribution of your episodes directly to YouTube from your dashboard with only a few steps, which if you don't have the time or the bandwidth to go all in to your YouTube strategy, this will at least make your podcast available on YouTube Music, which is another podcast player. Another reason why RSS.com is one of my favorites is because it is the only podcast host offering an interface in two more languages in addition to English, Spanish, and Italian. They also provide resources in Spanish for Spanish-speaking creators on their YouTube channel and blog. Spanish is my first language, so I really appreciate American companies in the content creation space making their services inclusive to Spanish-speaking creators. So at the end of the day, my clients trust me to make this decision for them, so I'm going to help you decide. If you're making an audio-only podcast and you're using your podcast to generate traffic for your offers or events, I will go with Bass Proud because you can use dynamic content. But if you're making a video podcast, what I recommend my clients to do to get the most out of their content is to use Bass Proud to upload the audio-only portion of their podcast and set up the distribution to Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and the other podcast players, but not to Spotify. Then you can create an account with Spotify for Podcasters and upload your video podcast there and set up the distribution only to Spotify. This may seem like more work, but if you plan to spend time making a video podcast, you should post it on Spotify and on YouTube to give your content more reach and exposure on different platforms. This video is part of a series called Let's Launch that Pod. Another video you have to watch is How to Find the Perfect Topic for Your Podcast. It's part of this series too. In this video, I shared the exact framework I use with my clients and students to help them find topics that resonate with their personal interest and professional expertise, appeal to a wide audience, and have strong monetization potential. It's a short video packed with great strategy. Go watch it.