Seriously Simple Podcasting Settings Overview

Below you'll find any and all settings in the Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin for WordPress.

Jump to: General Settings

Player Settings

Feed Details Settings

Security Settings

Publishing Settings

Hosting Settings

Import

Extensions

General Settings

Podcasting → Settings → General Tab

Podcast Post Types

By default, Seriously Simple Podcasting uses a WordPress Custom Podcast Post Type that creates a post specifically for your episode. Each time you publish a new episode, you'll be able to:

  • add text like a description and show notes in the post content.
  • add an audio file that will display in a player on the post.
  • set the Series if you are working with multiple podcasts.
  • add text as an excerpt, if you don't want to use the excerpt created by your theme from the post content.

However, you have the option to change the post type for your episodes to better fit your needs.


To select a post type other than podcast post type, sign in to your WordPress Admin dashboard and go to Podcasting → Settings → General.


For example, select Posts to publish episodes as a WordPress blog post. This will add the episode information fields to the WordPress post editor. When this option selected, episodes can be published from Posts → Add New and podcast episodes are intermingled with blog posts.


Include podcast in main blog

Select this option if episodes are published as a podcast post type but you'd like to include episodes in your main blog posts.

Note: this option varies depending on your WordPress theme behavior and how it handles the main query.

Enable iTunes fields

Select this optional setting to include Apple Podcasts-specific fields for each episode that is published like season and episode numbers:

Reminder: Before moving on to another settings, be sure to click Save Settings 

Podcasts slug

Customize your secondary podcast archive links. Example:

https://mypodcast.com/shows/bonus-podcast/

Your default podcast archive link will still remain. Example:

https://mypodcast.com/podcast/

Player Settings

Media player location, position, and visibility: By default, the media player will show on Full Content (episode pages) for any post type and above the content of episode description. You can also toggle visibility of the media player to only logged in users.

Show subscribe URLS: Include links to subscribe to your podcast on various podcast directories under the player

By default, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify subscribe links are enabled

Media player style: Choose between a full HTML player with artwork or a minimal compact player

Player mode: Choose between light and dark modes

Show subscribe and share buttons: display a subscribe and share button on the HTML player

Enable Player meta data: Enable player meta data underneath the player (download file, play in new window, episode duration, date recorded/published, etc.).

  • Show download file link
  • Show play in new window link
  • Show duration
  • Show recorded date
  • Show download transcript link (with Seriously Simple Transcripts)

Enable Custom Player Colors: Enable customer media player color settings like including player text and background


Feed Details Settings

Your podcast's RSS feed is the container that carries all of your podcast’s episodes, descriptions, cover art, and other information to distribution channels like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, etc.


There are two levels to your show’s feed — the channel level and the item level. The information entered on the Feed details page will complete the channel level.


Title: This is the title of your podcast. It will be displayed to your listeners and subscribers anywhere your podcast is published.

Subtitle: Your podcast’s subtitle that will appear beneath the title on most (but not all) podcast directories.

Host: This is the name of the podcast author or creator. Their name will be listed alongside the podcast in most podcast readers.

Categories: Select categories that will help listeners find your podcast. 

Sub-categories: Subcategories help to further identify your podcast content — not all categories have subcategories, so if you don’t find your category in the list, you can leave this option blank.  


Description / Summary: The description (or summary) of your podcast will tell listeners what your content is about before they subscribe.

Cover Image: Podcast directories require cover art to stay within very specific guidelines. Without it, they won't list your podcast.

Before uploading, check that your image is:

  • a perfect square
  • between 1400 x 1400px and 3000 x 3000px
  • a file size less than 1MB (500kb is optimal)
  • JPG or PNG format
  • RGB colorspace

Owner name: Podcast platforms require the podcast owner's name. It's not unusual for the Author and the Owner to be the same person.

Owner email address: Podcast platforms will use this email address to verify ownership or to notify you about an issue with your podcast.

Language: Your podcast language is expressed in ISO-639-2 format and defaults to your site's language settings. It is not case-sensitive.

Copyright: This is the copyright tag line that appears alongside your podcast in most podcast readers. It's best to keep this short and to the point.

Podcast funding (Value4Value): Add a link to where listeners can go to donate to your podcast directly or pay for access. More info

Explicit: If your podcast contains explicit language, select this option. If only a few of your episodes are explicit then you can leave this option unselected and specify the explicit option on the individual episodes.

Complete: Mark the podcast as Complete when no more episodes will be added.

Locked: prevent other podcast hosting platforms from importing your podcast's RSS feed. By default, the RSS feed is locked.

Source for publish date: Display either the date each episode was published or the date each episode was recorded.

Show Type: Determines the order episodes will appear by selecting either episodic or serial show type.

  • Episodic: Episodes displayed newest-to-oldest by publish date
  • Serial: Episodes displayed oldest-to-newest

Serial-ordered podcasts need episode numbers. From Apple's Podcasters' Guide to RSS:

Apple Podcasts will present the oldest episodes first and display the episode numbers (required) of each episode. If organized into seasons, the newest season will be presented first and episode numbers must be given for each episode. For new subscribers, Apple Podcasts adds the first episode to their Library, or the entire current season if using seasons.

Note: Some podcast directories do not support the serial podcast order type.

Media File Prefix: Add a media file prefix in WordPress for Podtrac, Chartable, and other analytics or tracking services.

Episode description: Use the excerpt or post content in the description tag for episodes.

Turbocharge podcast feed: Adding episode transcripts or displaying a large quantity of episodes can overload the RSS feed and make it difficult for podcast platforms to read and process. By turbocharging the RSS feed unnecessary information will be removed from older episodes.

Redirect this feed to a new URL and New podcast feed URL: When migrating the podcast from Castos to a new hosting service, check the box and enter the RSS feed URL generated by the new hosting service.

Podping: Podping speeds up global notifications for podcast updates, helping hosting platforms quickly inform changes, making podcast apps more efficient in delivering new content. Read more here.

Set Podcast to Private: When managing your podcast in WordPress using SSP you can make any Podcast private, whether it be the default podcast or an additional Series.

Subscribe button links: Add subscribe button links to your site by entering a link to your show on each platform. Links will be displayed below the Seriously Simple Podcasting player.

Want to add more subscribe links to other directories? Go to Podcasting → Options → select the podcast listening platform you'd like to add → Save Options. Return to the Feed Details tab and insert the subscribe link URL.

Security Settings

Password protect your Podcast RSS feeds by enabling our Security feature. When your RSS feed page is viewed in a browser, the visitor will be prompted for a username and password.


  1. Select the checkbox to enable password protection
  2. Enter a username (this can be any name)
  3. Enter a password
  4. You can choose to use our default no access message, or you can customize it with your own

Note: The option to Password protect your feed will limit your podcast distribution options as all listener platforms require access to RSS feeds. This will essentially make your podcast feed private. That said, there are more ways to create a private podcast.


Publishing Settings

  • External feed URL: If you are syndicating your podcast using a third-party service (like Feedburner) you can insert the URL here, otherwise this must be left blank.
  • Complete feed: To distribute your podcast, submit this RSS feed URL to podcast listening platforms like Apple Podcasts.

Do you have more more episodes than are showing in your RSS feed? Adjust the number of episodes shown from Settings → Reading

  • Feed for a specific additional podcast: use this format as a template to retrieve the RSS feed for an additional podcast.
  • Podcast page: the public facing page of your website where your podcast episodes can be found.

Hosting Settings


Import

Import an External Podcast RSS feed into WordPress using our Importer.

Initiate an import

  1. Paste in your RSS feed
  2. Select which post type to create podcast episodes (if additional post types have been enabled)
  3. Select the podcast to which you want to import the episodes

Note: The importer shows any secondary podcast as an option. Create an additional podcast from Podcasting → All Podcasts → Add New Podcast.

  1. Click Begin Import Now then click OK to confirm the import

Important: Leave the browser tab open while the import is in progress. This typically takes only a few minutes, depending on feed size. Also note that episode images and podcast artwork may not be imported automatically. In such cases, you will need to upload the images manually.

  1. To complete the sync of your podcast to your Castos account, navigate to the Hosting tab

Extensions

Enhance the functionality of your podcast with these extensions to Seriously Simple Podcasting.


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