How to Improve Traffic with Podcasts

A podcast can keep people coming back and also be something that brings in traffic as people tell their friends about it and send them to your website.

You can get a podcast online in about 5 – 10 minutes, and it can instantly go to work increasing the audience for your business. Podcasting is becoming more popular among both bloggers and webmasters who are turning to the inexpensive and flexible medium of internet radio shows to get their message out.

First you have to decide the content of your podcast. What is the message you ant to deliver? Create an outline, and organize the subject you want to discuss. You will need a computer, microphone, webcam (for video pod casts), audio software and hosting for your pod casts.

Next, record the audio for your pod cast. Make sure your audio is of good quality and use a decent microphone. Speak slowly and clearly, with natural inflection. Some background music adds style and interest, but make sure you have the rights to it. If you don’t have the rights to use the song, then you can be sued by individual artists

Save the audio file (in MP3 format) to your computer desktop. Open it in your sound editor and edit out extra background noise You can also add intro/outro music if desired. Bboring, run-on pod casts will lose you subscribers, so make sure each one is informative and entertaining.

Now create your RSS podcast feed. The feed must meet all industry standards, and the easiest way to do this is by using a blog to post your pod cast. You want your RSS podcast feed on the Internet, so follow the following directions: Go to Feedburner, type in the URL of your blog and click “I am a podcaster!”. The next screen lets you configure the elements for your podcast.

Upload your mp3 file to a free media outlet for easy access, and copy the link. Make sure your audio is saved in mp3 format, since some systems don’t support other audio formats. (You can also use the del.icio.us to create and manage the RSS feed for your podcast once you have your mp3 files hosted somewhere on the internet. Just create a bookmark for each one on del.icio.us with a unique tag for your podcast.)

Finally, make the post on your blog/website – the title of the post the title of that episode of the podcast, and the content will be the “Description”. This should be a short blurb about your pod cast. At the end of the post is the link directly to the media file.

Feedburner will automatically add the post to your feed… and there’s your episode! You can submit it to podcast directories to get it shared around. Ping appropriate podcast directories when a new show is updated. Realize that bandwidth consumption can be high, and use a server that can handle periodic spikes if you expect a lot of traffic.

Don’t forget to include appropriate subscription buttons on your website so people can subscribe to the RSS podcast feed. Make sure the RSS podcast feed is valid!