Why you need a podcast-only RSS feed and how to make it – TAP128

Learn about a podcast-only RSS feed, three options for creating one, and how to fix if you already podcast without it.

What is a podcast-only feed?

This is an RSS feed that contains only podcast episodes. No blog posts, pictures, or anything other than downloadable media linked in the enclosure tag of an RSS feed.

Do you need podcast-only feed?

In short, yes.

Everything you publish on a WordPress website—blog posts and podcast episodes—will go into the RSS feed. WordPress defaults to 10 items in your RSS feed (Settings > Reading > Syndication feeds show the most recent …).

If you podcast and blog once each per week for ten weeks, you'll have twenty items: ten blog posts and ten podcast episodes. With a site-wide/all-inclusive feed limited to ten items, your feed would look like this.

1. Blog post
2. Podcast episode
3. Blog post
4. Podcast episode
5. Blog post
6. Podcast episode
7. Blog post
8. Podcast episode
9. Blog post
10. Podcast episode

When a podcast app checks your RSS feed, it will ignore anything that isn't a podcast episode (define by the enclosure tag in the RSS feed). So the app would only see five of your latest episodes because your five blog posts bumped out the other episodes from the feed.

A podcast-only feed would not be affected by the blog posts, so your feed would look like this.

1. Podcast episode
2. Podcast episode
3. Podcast episode
4. Podcast episode
5. Podcast episode
6. Podcast episode
7. Podcast episode
8. Podcast episode
9. Podcast episode
10. Podcast episode

Even if you currently don't have plans to blog on your podcast website, you should still setup a podcast-only feed in the beginning. It won't hurt you, but it will save a lot of frustration if you ever do decide to blog.

What to do with the podcast-only feed

Submit your podcast-only feed to—as you probably guessed—any podcast app or directory. When someone subscribes with iTunes, they will never view your RSS feed in a reader, so they will never need your blog posts. The same applies to nearly every other podcast directory or app.

You don't need a blog-only feed

You may think that because you need a podcast-only feed, you should also have a blog-only feed. Nope!

If someone subscribes to your site-wide feed (blog and podcast) in an RSS reader like Feedly or the late Google Reader, they will be able to read your blog posts, read your podcast shownotes, and even listen to your podcast from their app. To remove the podcast from this feed will prevent your loyal readers from conveniently consuming your podcast episodes.

3 ways to create a podcast-only feed

Whether you're starting out or trying to correct your feed (I'll explain how to do that in a moment), these are the three ways to make your feed, in order of my recommendation.

1. PowerPress feed

PowerPress automatically provides a podcast-only feed. It will us