Decide on a Free or Premium WordPress Podcast Plugin

After you have your WordPress Podcast installation in place you will now need a Podcasting Plugin to create the feed that is needed to submit your podcast to Google Play, Stitcher and iTunes.

Creating a WordPress blog actually creates a feed that people could subscribe to using email or in a feedreader like www.feedly.com.

That will work fine for a blog only, but for a Podcast that feed needs to be converted to something the podcast reader like iTunes can use. This can most effectively be handled by a WordPress Plugin for the way we are setting this up.

Again, there are other ways to setup a Podcast. This, however, is one of the best ways to be able to integrate your Podcast directly into your website if you already have or will choose to have your WordPress Podcast installation also become your main church website.

There are other WordPress Plugin options available, but we recommend the free Blubrry plugin or a specific paid premium sermon podcasting plugin that offers many more features than the free option. We will look the pros and cons of each below.

FREE: Blubrry Podcasting WordPress Plugin

The primary advantage of the Blubrry plugin is that there is no cost. You can completely setup your Church Podcast without a cost for the plugin. You will still have website and podcast file hosting costs, but you will not pay for the WordPress plugin with Blubrry.

The downside of the free plugin is that every podcast episode will be contained in an individual blog post. So even though it appears in iTunes correctly, on your site every single sermon will be a blog post.

Even though people should be able to use a search feature to find a sermon and you can put them in blog style categories by topic and series, people will still have to scroll through blog posts to find older sermons. And, there is NOT a built in sermon player with Blubrry where people can listen easily and have access to all of the messages on the Podcast.

LINK >> Blubrry Podcasting Plugin

PREMIUM PAID: Series Engine Podcasting WordPress Premium Plugin

Series Engine - Best Sermon Podcasting Plugin for WordPress

The only real downside to this premium WordPress podcast plugin is the price. There is a small cost. It is not outrageous for the value that it gives to your site, but if you are not used to paying for WordPress plugins it may seem high.

Since the company can change the price I will not list that here. Click the link below and check out all of the details on their plugin site.

The main advantages to using this specific paid premium plugin are these…

  • You get a great looking sermon player that plays BOTH Video and Audio.
  • It connects each sermon inside the player to the Audio plus a YouTube or Vimeo video version and any sermon notes documents that you want to connect to a sermon.
  • You can connect sermons inside the player by Series, Speaker or Topic so people can easily find the content they are searching for.
  • You can place a single sermon, single series or full player almost anywhere on your website. So if you want to have a sermon about water baptism on your baptism page it is easy to do.
  • It is extremely easy for a Staff Member or Volunteer to use after it is setup.
  • AND of course it creates the Podcast feed and setup needed for iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play.

Either one of the above plugin options will work. The premium option has a lot more functionality and usability for your church attenders and potential visitors, but if money is an issue you still have the free option.