The best WordPress podcasting plugins

In this post we’re going to take a look at some of the best WordPress podcasting plugins available out there, but first let’s start from the basics, what is a podcast. A podcast is sort of a radio show for the digital age. Podcasts resemble traditional talk shows but are built on the premise of anytime, anywhere consumption. You do not need to be near a radio at a certain time to listen to a podcast episode, just download it, or even stream it to your preferred podcast-capable device, such as your phone, tablet, smartwatch etc, put on your earphones and hit play. This flexibility has made them extremely and allowed for rapid growth. There are currently more than 700.000 podcasts with more than 29 million episodes. Podcasts cover almost every niche out there, including comedy, fiction, politics, economics, philosophy, technology and almost everything else, of course WordPress podcasts are also available and are quite popular. The popularity of podcasts makes them a valuable content marketing tool since their consumers tend to be more loyal to the shows and are usually more affluent.

Taking the above into consideration it makes a lot of sense to jump on the podcasting bandwagon if you think you have content that might cover a certain niche. A solid podcast might help you reach more people and better market your services or products. The best thing is that you can do that from the safety of your own WordPress site. To help you get started we have created a list some of the best podcasting WordPress plugins out there.

Without further ado let’s check out the WordPress plugins that will help you jump start your podcasting career.

AudioIgniter

AudioIgniter Pro is a beautiful and very easy to use, both for users and authors, audio player plugin. Easily create beautiful track-lists for all your podcast episodes. The players can be embedded on any page using shortcodes, widgets or elementor blocks, additionally a fixed position player is available. The appearance of the player can be changed through the WordPress Customizer to match the color scheme of the rest of your site. All essential listening tools are available to your listeners, such as playback rate control, and adjustable track skipping functionality. A pop-up textbox along with a cover image can be attached to each podcast episode to include a summary of the episode, announce guests, highlight your sponsors and make it more recognizable. Direct download links can be added to each episode should you choose to provide your users with this functionality. A free version of the AudioIgniter plugin is available on the WordPress plugin repository if you’d like to check it out.

Seriously Simple Podcasting

Seriously Simple Podcasting does what it says on the tin. It makes seriously simple to host multiple podcasts from a single WordPress site. The configuration is simple and streamlined, handled through native WordPress interfaces making it a breeze to get started. The plugin creates configurable RSS feeds which you can submit to all the popular podcasting services, such as iTunes, Google Play and Stitcher. It supports bot audio and video podcasting and allows for easy gathering of listener statistics. Finally it sports a newly redesigned and easily customizable player with cover image support.

Meks Audio Player

Easily enhance your podcast, music, or any audio on your website with Meks Audio Player. The plugin will automatically detect audio in the content and play it in a full-featured sticky audio player. Perfect for personal podcasts, podcasting networks, radio stations, or music websites.

Meks Audio Player features:

• Color options to style the player
• Display or hide the controls: play/pause, skip back, jump forward, etc.
• It automatically detects your existing audio in the content
• Supports WordPress native audio block and audio shortcode
• Works on posts and pages as well as custom post types
• Hooks and filters provided

Smart Podcast Player

Smart Podcast Player provides your users with a very beautiful and functional listening experience. You can create playlists with multiple podcast episodes or showcase important ones with the Smart Track player. The player features track skipping, direct download links and a call to action button that allows you to capture your listeners’ emails for your mailing list.

Simple Podcast Press

SimplePodcastPress is a podcast management plugin for WordPress which focuses on automation. The plugin can be installed and set up in just a few minutes. It can then take the iTunes URL of your podcast, create a unique page for each episode along with a mobile friendly podcast player, a full description and images. Newly published podcasts will appear on your site automatically. The player also features clickable timestamps, playlists, transcripts, customizable buttons and many more.

Podlove Podcast Publisher

Podlove Podcast Publisher is built with WordPress in mind. It not only allows you to create efficient and compatible podcast feeds which you can then submit to services like iTunes, it also includes a very capable podcast player with chapter support giving you an all in one solution of podcast publishing through your WordPress site. Its flexible templating system allows you to access every piece of podcast data in order to create pages for your podcast exactly the way you like them. Powerful analytics are built into the plugin to help you find out which episodes are more popular, how many people listen through your site instead of downloading or using other services, which clients are more popular and more.

Buzzsprout Podcasting

Buzzsprout Podcasting is a powerful podcasting service with an accompanying WordPress plugin. It is a premium service which allows you to host and promote your podcasts, it also has a restricted free tier which is best suited as a trial. Buzzsprout will list your podcast on all the top podcast directories ensuring optimal visibility, it also offers advanced statistics to help you track your progress and growth, total plays over time, applications used, geographic location and more are available. Audio files are automatically optimized and can be published immediately as episodes or scheduled for later release. Of course an embeddable podcast player with chapter functionality is available to facilitate listening to podcasts through your site.

Libsyn Publisher Hub

Libsyn Publisher Hub offers WordPress integration with the very popular libsyn podcast hosting service. You can use the plugin to publish podcast episodes from the WordPress dashboard straight to your libsyn show. The plugin comes with a built in podcast player to facilitate listening on your website, however if you don’t like it you can easily use your libsyn RSS feed to serve your podcast through a different player.

PowerPress Podcasting plugin by Blubrry

PowerPress Podcasting plugin by Blubrry is a plugin ideal for novice and seasoned podcasters alike. The simple and advanced modes available make sure that you can quickly create your first podcast and upload an episode when you are just starting and slowly transition to more advanced stuff when you establish your self and grow your podcast. The plugin offers various audio and video player to make consumption through your site easier, there is full support for the Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn and Blubrry Podcasting directories , you can migrate or import your podcasts, manage multiple podcasts and many more. Perhaps its more intriguing feature, especially for those who are looking to grow their podcast organically, is the Podcast SEO one, which helps improve discoverability of the podcast on search engines and the Apple Podcasts directory.

In conclusion

With the growing popularity of podcasts it was only natural that tools would be created to integrate them with WordPress in some way or another. As we saw from our list above there is a plugin for every type of podcaster. Whether you have your podcast hosting taken care of and are looking for a great player plugin like AudioIgniter Pro or the Smart Podcast player, or you are using a service such as libsyn or Buzzsprout to host them and want to integrate it with your WordPress site, or even if you want to do everything yourself, including hosting, via your site with the Seriously Simple Podcasting, there is a plugin for everyone. Pick the best one and happy podcasting!

Did you like the list? Did we miss your favorite plugin? Let us know in the comments!