How to Add Audio Files to Your WordPress Site with InMotion Hosting
InMotion Hosting is a popular web host among bloggers and small businesses because of its ease of use and affordability. The hosting platform offers a one-click install for WordPress, which makes it simple for users to get started.
WordPress is a popular content management system (CMS) that’s ideal for bloggers and small businesses who want to build a good-quality online presence. The CMS is simple to use and requires less tech-savvy users to have a good experience. Plus, WordPress is frequently updated and always kept secure through the use of the latest security plugins.
If you’ve been thinking about adding an audio podcast to your website, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll teach you how to do just that with WordPress and InMotion Hosting.
The Biggest Obstacle to Adding Audio Files to Your WordPress Site
If you’re not familiar, the biggest obstacle to adding an audio file to your WordPress site is the limited options for podcast player software. While WordPress itself comes with pretty standard podcast support out of the box, third-party solutions require a bit of a coding effort and can be more expensive than the cost of the software alone. Plus, not all WordPress users have the time or inclination to build elaborate podcasting features into their site. They just want to write their blog posts and earn money.
The issue is that WordPress doesn’t offer a simple method for including audio files in your posts. For that matter, the CMS doesn’t offer a whole lot of options for styling the audio files that you do include in your posts. If you’re looking to add some polish to the audio files on your site with basic design templates that come with WordPress, it can be difficult to find a suitable solution. And once you do find one, it can be difficult to implement because there are so many settings that you need to modify to make it fit within the WordPress theme.
The Good And The Bad Of Using WordPress For Audio
Taking podcast software out of the equation, there are a lot of advantages to using WordPress for your audio files. Here are some of them.
- It’s Free
- It’s Easy To Use
- It Has A Huge Community Of Developers And Supportive People
- It’s Already Set Up For You To Use
- It Has A Variety Of Premium Features
On the flip side, here are some drawbacks to using WordPress for audio.
- The Gallery Is Too Limited
- The Coding Effort Is Excessive
- You Need To Custom Build Your Audio Player
- You Need To Find The Right Font For Your Headline And Sub-headline
- You Cannot Experiment With Color
Ultimately, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer as to whether you should use WordPress or another platform to power your audio files. It all depends on your personal preferences and the type of content that you want to distribute using audio. If you’re looking for a free solution to host and distribute your audio files, WordPress is the clear choice. If you want to have a bit more control over the design and functionality of your audio files and/or want to distribute editorial-style content, look into another platform.
Step 1: Install WordPress On Your Server
Like any other CMS, WordPress can be downloaded and installed directly from the hosting server. To get started, simply visit this link and click on the Install Now button to proceed to the WordPress installation page. You’ll need to choose a theme for your site, and we recommend using one of the free themes from WordPress.org. Otherwise, you’ll have to pay a bit more for a premium theme.
Once you’ve downloaded and installed WordPress on your server, navigate to the dash board and click on the Apps icon to view your apps. If you don’t see the Apps icon, you can also find it in the left-hand menu bar under the WordPress name. From the Apps page, click on the Add New App button to install the Audio player app. Now click on the Manage App button to configure the app.
Step 2: Select A Podcasting Theme For Your Site
The next step is to select a podcasting theme for your site. While WordPress comes with standard podcast support out of the box, additional features and designs can be found in themes and plugins. Finding a suitable solution isn’t as difficult as you might think because there are so many options to choose from. In this step, we’ll use the Genesis framework, which is a free and open-source WordPress framework that builds on the success of the popular CMS. However, feel free to use another solution if you’re not feeling comfortable with the choice.
Once you’ve installed WordPress and set up your site with a basic configuration, navigate to the App dashboard and click on the Browse button next to the Audio icon. From the list of available plugins, select the Audio Galley plugin by Jura Productions. Now click on the Install button to install the Audio Galley plugin on your site.
Step 3: Configure The Audio Galley Plugin
The next step is to configure the Audio Galley plugin. To do this, click on the Settings tab in the admin panel. Next, click on the Update button to make the necessary settings active. Then, click on the Get Podcasts button to start collecting your podcasts.
The plugin comes with a lot of options. From the settings page, you can choose to have your audio files play instantly on page load or wait for the user to click a play button. You can also choose to autoplay on page load or give users the option to opt out of audio playback. You can use the Settings page to choose the kind of lightbox image (if any) to use for the collection of podcasts. Finally, from the Settings page, you can control whether to show episode titles above podcasts or not. If you’re new to this, take some time to investigate the various settings and see how the plugin works. You can always find more information by visiting the plugin’s GitHub page.
Step 4: Add Audio To Your Posts
To add audio to one of your posts, navigate to the Dashboard and click on the Posts icon. From here, you can add new posts, edit existing posts, or manage your entire blog through a workflow interface. For now, we’ll use the Posts icon to add a new post.
When adding new content to your WordPress site, you have two options: you can either use the visual editor or you can type in your post. For this particular post, we’ll opt for the latter option. Begin by entering a title for your post. Next, paste the audio file into the text box and click the Publish button.
Back at the Dashboard, you’ll see that your post has been published successfully. If you followed the instructions above, the audio file will play automatically as soon as the post is loaded.
Step 5: Add More Audio Files To Your Site
If you have more than one audio file that you want to add to your site, the process is pretty much the same. Begin by adding the first audio file to your post. Once that’s done, click on the audio file title to open up the media library. From here, you can add additional files to your post via the visual editor or by dragging and dropping them into the text box. You can also change the order of your files in your post via the visual editor.
As you can see, adding audio files to your WordPress site is made very easy through the use of the Audio Galley plugin. The plugin handles all the heavy lifting, allowing you to focus on writing your content and earning money. To top it off, the plugin also provides you with stats on your podcasts’ performance, including how many people have listened to each episode.