Anchor.fm is the most popular podcast host. It hosts more than a million different podcasts, and does it all for free for all podcasters. Considering it’s free to host podcasts on Anchor.fm, along with the set of features they offer and the fact they are owned by media-giant Spotify, it really makes it easy for podcasters to kick-start their podcast there.

One highly important thing Anchor.fm is lacking, is a proper way to create full websites or integrate Anchor with WordPress, but luckily we’ve created this article to offer several solutions of creating a website for Anchor.fm podcasts.

Why you should add a podcast to your WordPress website

If you wish to display your podcast episodes from Anchor on your WordPress podcast website, you’ve reached the right spot. There are a few different way to do that and we’ll review all of them here. In case you’re about to start a new podcast or you’ve already been busy publishing episodes, it’s highly recommended that you create a dedicated podcast website to accompany your show and increase engagement with your listeners.

If you’re already using one of our popular WordPress Podcast Themes, you can sit back and enjoy a serious head-start while working on your website, as most of the hard work is already done for you. Our themes can make it a real easy process to import the Anchor podcast episodes and display them beautifully. You can choose to display the episode either with Anchor’s embed player option, or with our custom audio player.

Creating a custom website for your podcast has many benefits, including increasing the chances of your podcast being found organically and giving you more opportunities to connect with your audience.

In this guide on how to create a podcast website with Anchor and WordPress. We’ll walk you through the process of getting up and running with these two platforms. By the end of this guide, you’ll be ready to record your podcast and publish it on your own website.

Let’s begin…

Start Your Podcast with Anchor.fm

If you’ve already started your podcast and are happy with your current process for creating and publishing your episodes, feel free to skip this step.

Anchor.fm is both free and easy to use, so if you’re just getting started, it’s an easy choice. After you created a free Anchor account, you can start recording your first episode right away. If you’re not quite ready to hit the record button, creating a short podcast trailer is a great way to get the ball rolling without the pressure of publishing your inaugural episode.

Thanks to the functionality of Anchor, you can record your episodes right from within your web browser, using your computer’s microphone. There are also free official iOS and Android apps for Anchor that let you record your podcast episodes directly from your smartphone or tablet, using the built-in mic. Chances are you already have everything needed to create your first episode!

Setting up a “Show” profile

Once you’ve created a trailer or produced the first episode, you can start crafting the profile for your podcast that will help your target audience find your content. This profile will appear on various podcasting apps (Spotify, Google Podcasts, etc.).

Anchor has some pretty cool features that can make your podcast more interactive, and hopefully, a hit with your listeners.

One of these features allows listeners to send in voice messages that you can then insert into future episodes, all via the intuitive Anchor interface. Also, if you want to have a co-host for your podcast or feature guests, then you can easily record together via the Anchor website or app, no matter if they’re located on the other side of the world.

Although there are many great podcast hosting services out there, if you do want to switch to Anchor or start using this platform, you’ll get access to the essentials like free podcast hosting, an episode editor with the ability to add sound effects and background music to your shows, one-click distribution to every major podcasting platform such as Apple and Google, and help with finding sponsors that will pay to advertise on your podcast.

As you can see, Anchor.fm is full of features for podcasters, and they even offer a very basic page you can share, but it’s very limited – you cannot use custom domains, add custom pages, or customize more than a few small things on it. That’s why we think WordPress is the best way to create a real website for your podcast, and thanks to our specialized WordPress themes for podcasters, the process is very easy. Let’s review the process of creating a WordPress site for your Anchor.fm podcast –

Create Your WordPress Podcast Website

Once you’ve taken care of recording and publishing your episodes, it’s time to create a website for your podcast. Having your own podcast website can be an invaluable tool when it comes to promoting your podcast, interacting with your listeners, and growing your empire.

While podcast publishing and hosting platforms like Anchor can help you get your episodes out there, they don’t give you that one-to-one connection with your listeners that a good website can.

So if you can direct your listeners to visit your website – maybe by mentioning it on your podcast, publishing your show notes there, or making additional content available on your site – you’ll have an opportunity to forge a stronger connection with your audience.

By letting your listeners leave comments on the episode pages of your website, join your email newsletter, or send you a message via your online forms, you’ll find it easier to keep in touch with your listeners in a world where there are currently +1,500,000 podcasts vying for the attention of your audience.

Choose a WordPress Theme for Your Podcast Website

Although creating a website isn’t quite as easy as recording and publishing a podcast episode, free software like WordPress makes the process pretty straightforward. In fact, if you want to know more about why this software is such a good choice, check out our guide to the benefits of using WordPress for your podcasting site.

So you decided that WordPress is right for you? Now you’ll need to choose a web host who will get your site online. There are a few other steps you’ll need to do, this guide to setting up your podcast website using WordPress to help you get started.

Find a Good Podcast-Friendly WordPress Theme

Once your WordPress website is up and running, it’s time to choose a suitable podcasting theme. Although any good theme should work for a podcast website, choosing a dedicated podcast WordPress theme has many benefits. This includes access to templates for publishing episode guides and show notes, built-in support for the best podcast platforms, and buttons that let your audience quickly subscribe to your show.

One great example of a purpose-built podcast WordPress theme is Tusant. One of a few dedicated podcast themes, Tusant combines a stylish design with a wealth of useful features. Perhaps most useful of all its features – especially for new WordPress users – is the Tusant setup guide. The setup makes it very easy to launch your new podcast website.

With this setup, it only takes a few clicks to start a successful podcast website with Anchor and WordPress. After you’ve imported the demo content and replaced the stock images and text with your own photos and words, all you really have to do is start adding your shows and episodes to the site.

The Tusant theme comes with useful features like an online contact form and social media integrations. Also included are subscribe buttons. They allow your visitors to subscribe on their preferred platform to ensure they never miss another episode.

You can also create a mailing list for your podcast and connect it to the pre-made opt-in forms. This way your listeners can sign up and receive notifications and other content of your choice in their inbox.

Personalize Your New Website

Although you might love the default style and appearance of your chosen podcasting WordPress theme, at the very least you’re probably going to want to replace the logo and possibly make a few changes to the layout and other settings. Thankfully, good podcasting themes like Tusant make this very straightforward, regardless of your website building experience.

Through the WordPress Customizer interface, you can carry out lots of tasks. Changing the site logo, choosing which social media icons to display, and adjusting the appearance of the media player, to name just a few. If you want to get hands-on with the design of your podcast site, then you’re either going to have to delve into the underlying code of the theme or install a WordPress page builder plugin.

However, that’s one less thing for you to worry about if you choose Tusant for your podcast website. Tusant theme includes — and has been built around — the powerful Elementor page builder plugin. So you can easily cange and customize your site.

Integrate Your WordPress Podcast Website with Anchor

Now that your website is up and looks right, you can start publishing your podcasts from Anchor on your site. The best way to do so, is to use the “Podcast Importer” we developed.
The importer plugin is easy and automated – you can use it to import all your previous podcast episodes, but also set it to import new, future podcast episodes automatically. Beyond the scheduled imports, you can also import the native Anchor audio embed player, and use that instead of your theme’s audio player.

If you just want to manually embed an audio player from Anchor, you can easily do that with WordPress as well. Depending on which theme you’ve chosen, one way to do this is to create a new podcast episode in your WordPress Dashboard, and then copy the embed code from Anchor or your chosen podcast platform and paste it into the relevant field in WordPress.

Then when you publish the episode on your website, your visitors should be able to listen via the podcast player.

Bonus: Reviewing the Built-In Anchor & WordPress integration

In 2021, Anchor and WordPress.com decided to make a unique integration so you can create entries for your Anchor podcast episodes. This merely adds the Anchor.fm embed audio player and the description of the episodes in your WordPress posts. Let’s review the pros and cons of this integration –

Pros –

• Easily find the episodes by pasting your URL – no need to copy/paste embed codes.
• Display an embed audio player from Anchor on your website

Cons –

• Only works on WordPress.org – if you’re using the self-hosted, .org version – this integration isn’t going to appear for you.
• Manual work – This isn’t done automatically for every new episode you publish like with our Podcast Importer plugin, so you have to manually create posts or import each episode separately.

This integration isn’t perfect at the moment, so we recommend to use a powerful importer plugin that can import both the episodes and the embed audio player, so you have full control over your website.

Conclusion

As we’ve just seen, there are some powerful, yet easy to use tools and platforms that make it very easy to start your podcast and create a website for your show. The easiest way to add an Anchor podcast to your site is to use one of our WordPress themes.

A free service like Anchor.fm should provide you with everything needed to start your podcast. Creating your own website allows you to connect more deeply with your audience while also providing them with extra content to enhance your episodes.

Whether you’re totally new or an experienced site builder, choosing WordPress and a podcast-focused theme is the way to go.

With a theme like Tusant, everything you’ll need to quickly launch an effective podcast website is included. You can publish show notes and episode guides, and let your visitors listen to your podcast directly on your website. It also includes buttons that allow your audience to subscribe via the main podcast platforms and become a regular listener.

Thanks to this, you’ll be ready to record your first episode and make it available to the world.

If you have any questions about creating a podcast website with Anchor.fm and WordPress, please get in touch.