I truly believe that WordPress is fully capable of running some high quality websites with a wide variety of features and functionality. And one of the great qualities of WordPress is its ability to have a variety of feeds and even podcast from WordPress instead of having to use a library. One of the best hosting companies to use if you are using WordPress and want to host your own podcast via podPress or even PowerPress or even Feedburner is Hostgator.
In this post, I am going to assume that you already have a WordPress blog and that you have already installed PodPress (but if you haven't simply go to Plugins > Add New, search for "Podpress" and select Install by PodPress and then Install Now, then Activate it). So how do you move your podcast and blog from LibSyn 3 to WordPress with podPress. This process requires proper setup of Podpress, the setup of Feedburner, and the adjustments in LibSyn.
1. Get your iTunes Feed ID & insert it into PodPress
Once the plugin has been activated, go to the PodPress > Feed/iTunes Settings, insert your iTunes Feed ID (http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=FEEDID). Then after you fill in everything else, click Update Options at the bottom.
You can ping your iTunes Feed ID here to see what the current feed is by filling out the form below (opens in a new tab). Upon submission it will tell you where iTunes is currently drawing your feed.
2. Setup
The reason that we need a Feedburner account, it makes transitions moving back and forth from different platforms while maintaining a good solid RSS. So while I am tinkering with my WordPress feed and setting up my podPress feed, the feed for my podcast is secure. Then when I am ready, I can adjust my feed in feedburner without having to hit iTunes with their XML new-feed tag. So you'll want to setup a Feedburner feed for your podcasts. To do this, go to Feedburner and create a podcast feed. If you have a Gmail or a Google account, log in using that. If you don't, create one because you will definitely need it. Then under "Burn a feed right this instant. Type your blog or feed address here:" enter you LibSyn.com RSS feed, which will be something like: http://yourusername.libsyn.com/rss. Then click on "I'm a podcaster" which will bring up Smartcast for you, which will have all the elements needed for iTunes. Then click NEXT. Fill in the Title and Feed Address. Then click NEXT twice. Under Smartcast, fill in the information just like you have in PodPress, and click NEXT. Then select whether you want the additional statistics and click NEXT, and you're done!
3. Export Your LibSyn Blog
Then go to your LibSyn RSS feed. You can go to libsyn.com and log into your account. Then at the bottom click on the RSS link under RSS Syndication of your podcast. When that appears, right click and View Source or "View Page Source" in Firefox. Then save the document to your desktop as whatever.xml. Then go back to your WordPress.org blog and go to Tools > Import (wp-admin/import.php). Select RSS, and then import that newly saved XML file. This will import all your recent blogs from LibSyn.
4. Setup/Adjust LibSyn
Now you want to go back into the back end of your LibSyn account. You can do this by either hitting the back button from yourlibsynusername.libsyn.com/rss or simply logging back into your account. Navigate to Settings and then click on Advanced. Under "opt in" slightly above the RSS feed, enter your feedburner feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/yourfeedburnerfeed) and select "Redirect yourlibsynusername.libsyn.com/rss to this URL." This will make the transition easier whenever you are ready. Then click SAVE CHANGES at the bottom.
5. Finally Make the Switch
To make the transition happen there is something you have to do within LibSyn. When you are ready to move your feed completely, go back to your LibSyn account, login, go to Settings > Advanced. At the bottom, you want to add the following code in the bottom box labeled "Additional Tags."
[code]<itunes:new-feed-url>http://feeds.feedburner.com/yourfeedburnerfeed</itunes:new-feed-url>[/code]
If you do not wish to use Feedburner, your code will be something like this:
[code]<itunes:new-feed-url>http://newlocation.com/example.rss</itunes:new-feed-url>[/code]
If you use a manual feed and do not want to use Feedburner, WordPress or whatever, you can simply add this code to your old feed anywhere after the 'channel' tag and before the first 'item' tag (obviously not within any other tag). This will replace the URL in iTunes. (See Apple's Docs, Change Podcast Feed Forum, Podcast Forum)
Then click SAVE CHANGES. While I am not sure how long it takes for LibSyn, podPress and iTunes to sync and update, it did it for me in less than an hour with this method; however, Apple and iTunes suggests that you allow 24-48 hours.
Now, if for some reason that your RSS feed does not change, there are some other options and things that you can do. First, you can try the forums above. Second, and I suggest as a last resort, you can contact Apple. If you want to contact Apple, do not make them have to do any work or contact you for any further details. So be as specific and detailed as possible. Always include your Feed ID and URLs involved for their information, even if the problem doesn't relate to a specific feed URL. If the problem is with a podcast that is already in the iTunes Store, include the link to the podcast in the Store (if you don't have it, right-click on the podcast's cover art and choose "Copy iTunes Store URL"). Now you are ready to contact Apple about your podcasts here.