You upload your RSS file along with the mp3s for your podcast using either an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program or possibly a webpage-based upload feature if you built your website using one of the many software interfaces many hosting companies now provide.
Either way, upload them to your website. Remember: if you decide to place these files in a separate folder on your server like /MyPodcast you will have to include that folder in the full address of your mp3 when you create that information using the <enclosure url= tag.
By the way: CoffeeCup Software offers a very easy and free FTP program called CoffeeCup Free FTP. I use it all the time.
How to Validate or Make Sure Your RSS File is Written Correctly
This is the easiest part of all. If you have written your RSS file correctly, just go to http://rss.scripting.com/ and type in the address of where you uploaded your RSS file. For instance:
http://www.yourwebsite.com/MyPodcast.rss
When you press the VALIDATE button, it will test out your RSS feed and tell you if it works or not. If you get an error message then you have made a mistake possibly in syntax, tags, etc. Go back to your RSS file, open it in Notepad and inspect it to see where you might have made a mistake. One little error – anything that’s off – will screw the whole thing up.
Another RSS Validators is: http://validator.w3.org/
Once your podcast has been validated, all you have to do now is provide the address of your RSS file to anyone who wants to subscriber to your podcast.
In our example it would be:
http://www.yourwebsite.com/MyPodcast.rss
For people to receive your podcast, there are many free software programs designed specifically for this purpose.
A list can be found here.
Don’t forget to get your podcast listed in the many directories available on the Internet so people know it’s available and can subscriber. See locations in the link boxes on this page.
