Set Up Your Podcast

While having the recordings of your sermons on your website is a great localized place to host all of your audio files, it might not necessarily be where people think of to go to listen to your church's past messages.

Cue in podcasts! Because podcasts have their own dedicated app and most people have one major podcast apps already downloaded on their mobile devices, they can see a new episode show up on their phone from your church's podcast anytime you add an episode in your Nucleus Sermons.

Put simply, distributing your sermons to various podcast platforms makes it a more convenient way for people to listen to your church's messages. And because Nucleus Sermons provides you with your own unique RSS feed, you can add that to all the podcast platforms you'd like, and your sermons will show up there (and in people's pockets 📱)

In this guide, we'll cover the following topics. Click on any one to jump ahead.

Coming From Nucleus 1 Sermons?

Hello Nucleus 1 Sermon users! If you aren't a Nucleus 1 user, then you can skip this section. For those of you who are Nucleus 1 Web or Sermon Users and are ready to switch to Nucleus 2 Sermons, you're in the right spot.

There a few things that you'll need to have done before switching to Nucleus 2 Sermons:

  • Have an active Nucleus 2 subscription. If you haven't done that yet, you can contact Customer Success here for help.
  • Though not required, it is recommended that you have Nucleus 2 Web as your active website. Sermons 2 is not a separate app, like it was in N1, but apart of Nucleus 2 Web. Meaning you'll need an active Nucleus 2 Website to take advantage of Sermons, the Sermon Hub and Podcasts.
  • When switching to Nucleus 2 Sermons you'll have a decision to make. Start your new Sermon Hub from scratch, or migrate your sermons and podcast from N1 to N2. If you want to migrate your Sermons from N1 to N2 you can find all the information you need here. If you choose to start from scratch you can continue reading.

Do You Have A Pre-Existing Podcast Created?

While Nucleus provides you with all the tools to host audio files and create episodes and provides you with the RSS feed, you need to have accounts set up with the various podcast platforms you want your podcast to be featured on. Not to put the cart in front of the horse, as it's not necessary to do that at this stage of the game (if you don't already have a pre-existing one), you will eventually need to create an account with a podcast platform of your choosing. So just keep in mind that this is something you'll need to eventually do if you haven't done so already. You can find more information about that here.

Nucleus offers an RSS feed that feeds all audio content uploaded to Nucleus Sermons to whatever podcast platform of your choosing.

Add Your Podcast Information

To begin editing your Podcast Information, click Podcasts, then Edit Podcast Info to reveal all of the pieces of information that are necessary in order for your RSS feed to be accepted by various podcast platforms.

Let's start off by adding your Basic Info.

Most of this is pretty straight forward. You'll need:

  • Channel Title: This is the official name of your podcast as you want it to display in podcast listings and people's podcast players.
  • Channel Description: Whatever you write here will be the official description of your podcast and will display for all podcast directories and players. A good simple description can look something like this; "Weekly sermons from Reality Bible Church located in the heart of Melrose, MT."
  • Channel Author: This is the name of the podcast's main creator. It answers the question, "who is this podcast by?" Many churches put the church name or the name of their speaking pastor or a combination. Whichever author name you input, it will be shown in podcast players, generally under the show title.
  • Channel Artwork: This is the main artwork that will display for your podcast. The recommended size is 3000px x 3000px, up to 15MB.

Note: This is just for your podcast in general. To edit the description and image that will be shown for each episode is handled while editing each individual sermon here (link to a create sermons article).

You'll next want to set up your Localization.

Localization consists of two parts:

  • Spoken Language: You'll need to choose whatever language your podcast is in.
  • Publishing Time Zone: You'll want to select the same Time Zone your church is located in.

The last of the Settings you'll need to add is your Categories. Choose the most accurate primary category for your podcast. This will be indexed by Apple Podcasts and other directories. The secondary category is only used by some directories like Google and Spotify.

If you are a church posting your sermons to your podcast, then selecting, "Religion & Spirituality: Christianity"

Once you're happy with your selections, scroll back up to the top and click Publish!

Adjust Your Advanced Podcast Settings

Podcasts gives you the ability to edit Advance Settings. These settings aren't necessary, but might be helpful to at least peruse just in case.

Note: This is not necessary to submit your RSS feed to podcast platforms, but does help with additional context for when people are searching and viewing your podcast

To edit your Advance Settings, click Advance in column on the left hand side.

Your first Advance Settings section to edit is your Website & Copyright Info.

Under the Website section; This URL will be listed in Apple Podcasts and other players as the "Podcast Website." This is typically your church website.

For the Copyright info, we recommend not changing this info. Apple Podcasts and other platforms look for this, so we recommend not touching it.

Scrolling down to the next section you'll see Keywords.

We've added a few Keywords for you. Adding or changing these will have little effect on your podcast, but it's here for you if you choose to edit them. Only a small group of podcast directories still use keywords for ranking. But they are still sometimes used for podcast verification.

Continuing down the page you'll come to the next section, Channel Owner.

We recommend adding your senior pastor here, or the person who is in charge of updating your podcast. Owner Information is publicly displayed in your RSS Feed and is generally used for ownership verification and communication.

After setting up your Channel owner, you'll need to quickly look at Podcast Type.

We have pre Selected Episodic (default) as your Podcast Type. Most churches use this setting. Only change to Serial if you're sure. Episodic is when you want your episodes presented and recommended with the latest episode first, which is the most common podcast format. This option also supports seasons, with the newest episode at the top. If you're sure you want a Serial podcast type, then you can click the Toggle button beside Serial (not common)

Only choose Serial if you want your episodes presented and recommended oldest to newest. This option is best for unique narratives, storytelling, thematic and multiple seasons that most churches do not use.

Your next step is to set up your RSS Feed.

Here you can configure various technical settings for your RSS feed. Most churches won't need to adjust anything here, as these are advanced settings. Only adjust these if necessary, but we'll go through each step to make sure you know what to do incase you want to adjust any of these settings.

Episode Limit

Limit the number of episodes that show up in your RSS Feed to a certain number of the latest episodes. Leave this field blank to load all episodes (the most common option for churches)

Feed Verification Code

Below is a text field you can use to include a verification code in Nucleus Podcast RSS Feed. This can be helpful when claiming your Podcast in Apple Podcasts or other podcasting platforms, services or other directories. Some podcast directories require this step to set up your podcast, so now you know where it is 🙂

Make This RSS Feed Unlisted

If you don't want this podcast to be discoverable (only viewable by those you give the feed URL to) click the checkbox for this option. Doing this will override your distribution settings, so your podcast remains "hidden".

Lock this Podcast

Your podcast will be locked by default, but you can unlock it if required. Unlocking your podcast will remove a protective tag from your RSS Feed that helps prevent your podcast from being imported by someone else to another podcast hosting platform without your permission.

Almost done! You have two more options to set up!

You can choose to mark your podcast as explicit. For most churches you won't need to check this off. But if the content of your podcast is adult in nature, then you'll want to check this off.

You can also mark your podcast as complete for Apple Podcasts. If you're posting your sermons weekly then you won't need to check this off, but if your podcast is story based, and you "complete" your podcast, then you'll need to check this.

What Next?

Now that you've set up the necessary information for your podcast (this is kind of a one-and-done task 🙌), you can begin adding episodes to your podcast! Click below to learn more:

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