The short of it: get yourself the Zoom ZDM-1 Podcast Mic Kit along with the Zoom H4n Pro Digital Recorder and you'll be ready to roll! Purchase an additional mic kit and a headphone splitter and you've got yourself a 2 person podcast setup. BOOM! Thanks to Zoom. 

Companies have wised up and started developing more equipment geared to the ever-growing podcast industry. This is great! I'm loving seeing all of the new gear hitting the market. As this happens, we'll write about how you can use this equipment for your beginner podcast. 

Look at this! Zoom has done themselves a service and created a ​dynamic mic podcast kit to pair with their Zoom H digital recorder product line. So it's an easy setup when you buy the kit that comes with the microphone, stand, XLR cable, and headphones for monitoring. Run that XLR cable into the H4n Pro to record to an SD card  and you're ready to go.

Need more than 2 people on your show? Go for the Zoom H6​, along with the ZDM-1 kits. Read our article "3 Reasons To Buy The Zoom H6 For Podcasting". 

The Zoom H4n is a portable digital recorder that records two individual XLR inputs to separate tracks onto an SD card. Record anywhere since it runs on 4 AA batteries, or an external USB power bank (which I highly recommend). You don't need to haul your laptop around to record your episodes. Simply record to the SD card and upload your tracks to your DAW (digital audio workstation) and edit later. 

If you're going to run two XRL microphones into the H4n Pro, be sure to have a headphone splitter so each person can monitor themselves while recording. 

This kit is really a great deal! If you buy one of the ZDM-1 kits and the Zoom H4n, your cost is around $320 for your beginner podcast equipment. That's not a bad investment, and you'll get high quality audio for your show. Add on another mic kit and you're at $440 for that two-person setup. 

Ready to get your show off the ground? Check out my article "Who Should I Use For Podcast Hosting?" or get started now at Buzzsprout! Sign up and get a $20 Amazon Gift Card after your second invoice is paid. 

You've done all the things - purchased equipment, outlined your show, made your graphics, scheduled your recordings. But now you're asking the question "When I'm ready to launch, who should I use for podcast hosting?" Read on! 

When it boils down to it, there aren't a lot of differences in hosting companies. When you get a paid plan, you're usually getting more features in addition to basic features. 

Most paid plans offer these basic features:

• RSS feed to submit to top podcast players
• Podcast stats and analytics
• HTML code for embedding your podcast to your website or blog

These features aren't going to vary much between podcast hosts. You can assume you're getting these main three no matter who you choose. 

In addition to the basic features, you can expect a few others that may help your show, depending on how you use them: 

1. Customizable embed players - you'll be able to change the embed player colors, sizes, and other things to match the player to your podcast brand when you embed it into your website or blog. 
2. Better analytics - with paid plans, you'll get more data points when tracking who is listening to your show. For some, this is really important to analyze stats and use marketing strategy to reach a bigger audience. 
3. Episode transcription - many podcasters will use the transcription option to create robust show notes and turn podcasts into blog posts for SEO purposes. Unless you're using this strategy to try and rank your podcast website, it may not benefit you as much. 

To answer the big question, here's my answer: 

Use Buzzsprout Podcast hosting. 

You ask why?

Here are the reasons to use Buzzsprout as your podcast host:

Pay by how many hours of audio you upload per month. 
I've used Buzzsprout for my company's podcast and it's a solid, user-friendly interface with paid plans to match your show's upload schedule. By that I mean that you pay for the tier based on how many hours of audio you upload per month. Other hosts will charge you the same rate no matter how much audio you upload. This is a GREAT feature that Buzzsprout offers. 

Buzzsprout gets your show listed on every major podcast platform.
Reach tons of potential listeners by getting your podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and many others. Buzzsprout RSS feeds work with all the top directories, meaning your podcast will appear wherever people are searching for you. 

Easily Monetize
If you get to the point where you have an audience big enough to monetize your show, they have an integrated monetization option. Simply follow their instructions and you're on your way, they make it very easy! They'll help match your show with sponsors, and there's also a way to link sites like Patreon, Podfan, Paypal and others onto your Buzzsprout public webpage.

Get a $20 Amazon Gift Card 
Buzzsprout will send you a $20 Amazon gift card (sent after 2nd paid invoice) when you sign up using this link: SIGN UP FOR BUZZSPROUT 

It really is a competitive market when it comes to podcast hosting, so why not sign up and get a free giftcard? Happy podcasting! 
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So you're asking "What's the catch?". The catch is, these free podcast hosts are hoping that you'll sign up to monetize your show and make a commission off of finding advertisers. If you get to the point where you have enough listeners to monetize with advertisers, kudos to you! You're not hooked into some content ownership contract, you can move your episodes wherever and whenever you want. 

Maybe you're recording your sermons and just need someone to edit the audio and handle the uploading and embedding process, we can do that!

Maybe you haven't even started the process and need to start from scratch on this entire podcast thing, we can help there too. 

Click the CONTACT US button to find out more information and for rates.