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Who Else Wants To Set Up Their Own Free Podcast Service?

Guest post by: David Hurley

Article Overview: Making a podcast and posting it on iTunes is a good way to get the word out about your business while providing a free service to people in your target market. Also, it is easy to do, as this article explains.

Who Else Wants To Set Up Their Own Free Podcast Service?

If you have been wondering how you can effectively promote your business on the Internet, you may have already tried some of the most common techniques such as Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click ads, banners and squeeze pages on Traffic Exchanges, article publishing, blogging and so on. These are the techniques that are most commonly discussed on Internet marketing forums.




Occasionally, video marketing via YouTube is also mentioned, but it is not often that someone suggests that you start your own free podcast.

The perception seems to be that it is difficult to do, yet today it has never been easier to set up your own podcast and create a series of 5-15 minute audio recordings that you can post on Itunes and also on your website.



Once you have a podcast on Itunes people will be able to find your programmes, listen to them and if they like them, they will subscribe to your podcast. They will be able to download your podcasts from iTunes each time you produce a new recording. Simply put, making a podcast and posting it on iTunes is a good way to get the word out about your business while providing a free service to people in your target market.

The beauty of it is that it is easy to do!

Here's how to set up your podcast in a few easy steps:



1. Create Your Podcast

Use the sound recording software on your computer to create your podcast content. If you use Windows you can record on Sound Recorder; if you have a Mac you can use Garageband.

Simply choose a topic relating to your business, such as one of your products or services, and talk about the need that it fills or the problem that it solves for your prospective customers, focusing on a specific point in each podcast. If you already write articles to promote your website, then you could simply adapt your articles and create each podcast around an article - just hit the record button and read the article out loud. Add an few introductory and closing comments and mention your website address each time. That's it!



2. Hosting Services For Podcasters

Open an account with a podcast host and you will be able to store your podcasts on it. This makes more sense than hosting your podcasts on your website as audio files require quite a lot of storage space and as your audience grows you will need a lot of bandwidth; podcast hosting sites are specifically designed to handle those issues for you.



Start off with a free or low-cost account and think about upgrading when you start to get a good following for your podcast. Popular podcast hosting services include Libsyn, Podbean, HipCast, GoDaddy, OurMedia, Odeo Studio. Personally, I use Podbean.com and started off with a free account which is easy to set up and use.



3. Get Your Podcast Onto iTunes



After you have recorded a couple of shows and have opened an account with a podcasting host your next step will be to post your show on iTunes. This is also easy to do.

Here's how to do it:



Open iTunes and then click on iTunes Store. When the store opens you will see a bar at the top of the browser with "Podcasts" in the middle of the bar. Click on "Podcasts" and on the new page you will see a "Podcasts - PODCAST QUICK LINKS" menu column on the right hand side. Click on "Submit a Podcast" and you'll be taken to a new page with a field called "Podcast Feed URL".

The podcast feed will be in the admin area of your podcasting host site. If you use Podbean you will find it under "My Profile". Just copy and paste the feed into the "Podcast Feed URL" on iTunes, then click "Continue" to initiate the submission process.

Provided there are no unforeseen hitches iTunes will soon start showing your podcast and you can now consider yourself to be "in business"!

As I said, setting up your own free podcast and getting it onto iTunes is easier than you may have thought.

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Article Tags: free podcast, podcast, start a podcast



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