Creating your own podcast can be complicated.  For beginners, it is probably easier to sign up to a free podcasting website.  These websites are pretty easy to use and they give you a decent amount of space to start off.  If you want more space and bandwidth, you will have to subscribe to their service. The RSS feed is also automatically created after you create an episode and upload your content.

The one site I have used and still currently using is Podomatic - http://www.podomatic.com. Podomatic offers free service of 500 MB space and 15 GB bandwidth. If you want more, there are different packages you can purchase but the free amount of space and bandwidth is good enough to start out with.

Another site you can use is Podbean - www.podbean.com. Podbean offers free service of 100 MB space and 1 GB bandwidth and if you want more space, it is $4.95 a month for 300 MB space and unlimited bandwidth. I think Podomatic is still better but this is another option to chose from.

What is Feedburner?

Feedburner was bought out by Google a while back. Google defines a feed as:

Feeds are a way for websites large and small to distribute their content well beyond just visitors using browsers. Feeds permit subscription to regular updates, delivered automatically via a web portal, news reader, or in some cases good old email. Feeds also make it possible for site content to be packaged into “widgets,” “gadgets,” mobile devices, and other bite-sized technologies that make it possible to display blogs, podcasts, and major news/sports/weather/whatever headlines just about anywhere.

You can read more from this link: http://www.google.com/support/feedburner/bin/answer.py?answer=79408

What Feedburner does, is it provides content distribution for blogs and RSS feeds. Feedburner also tracks your visitors, # of downloads, traffic sources such as type of browser, location etc. Feedburner is a free tool and is very useful. For more info, go to the website: http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/home. If you have a google account, you just need to sign in.

There are several websites where you can submit your podcast to.  Once you have your RSS Feed setup you can submit it to directories.  Listed below are websites you can submit to for free.  You can also use the search engine like www.google.com and search for keywords like “submit podcast“, “add podcast“, “podcast submission“, “submit rss feed.

Your RSS Feed can look something like this: http://www.mysite.com/rssfeed - read my other posting on “Submitting Your Feed to Feedburner.”

List of sites to submit your podcast (no particular order):

http://www.podcastalley.com
http://www.podsubmitter.com
http://www.getapodcast.com
http://dailysplice.com
http://www.podcastzoom.com
http://www.fluctu8.com
http://www.podanza.com
http://www.podcasting-station.com
http://www.podcasters.tv
http://www.goldenfeed.com
http://www.getapodcast.com
http://itunestracks.co.uk
http://www.thepodlounge.com.au
http://www.feedzie.com
http://www.idiotvox.com
http://www.podfeeder.com
http://www.plazoo.com
http://www.rss-network.com
http://www.podcastdirectory.com
http://www.findpodcasts.com
http://www.podanza.com
http://www.podcastblaster.com
http://www.podfeed.net
http://www.castmedium.com
http://palcast.org
http://www.podscope.com
http://www.podblaze.com
http://www.ibizradio.com
http://www.studentaffairs.com
http://podcaster.tumblr.com
http://podcastlinks.com
http://www.podcastpickle.com
http://www.digitalpodcast.com/
http://www.podfeed.net
http://www.podcastpup.com
http://www.podseek.net
http://feedsubmitter.com
http://www.badrss.com
vhttp://www.1800rssfeeds.com

3 Ways to Know If a Podcasting Expert is the Real Deal Before Buying a Podcasting Product or Service
By Leesa Barnes

Many people call themselves podcasting “experts” and it’s no wonder since podcasting is still fairly new and everyone is trying to jump on the podcasting bandwagon to make tons of cash.

Sales letters are written, websites are launched and ebooks are thrown together by internet marketers who want to make a fast buck on a growing trend.

Not everyone who calls themselves an podcasting expert really is and you need to understand the ways to separate the real podcasting experts from those trying to make a fast buck.

Here are some ways to determine whether a podcasting expert is trustworthy and whether you should spend money on their podcasting product or service.

• Ensure that podcasting “expert” isn’t just podcasting for fun. A podcasting hobbyist is only producing his or her own podcast. A podcasting evangelist is producing podcasting solutions for herself, clients and other people. Look for testimonials, case studies or a list of clients that the podcasting expert has helped. Chances are if others are saying great things about this podcasting expert, you can feel confident spending money on his or her solutions.

• Double check that the podcasting “expert” even has a podcast. A lot of people say they can teach you how to podcast, but don’t even have a podcast of their own. How can you learn the ropes if that person hasn’t done it themselves? A rule of thumb is to see if they’ve produced at least 15 episodes of their own podcast or someone else’s. If they have, then you can heed their advice since that person has probably been through a lot of equipment - and experiences - to advise you on the best course of action.

• Understand what the podcasting “expert” has been doing in the podcasting industry. Aside from selling products or services on podcasting, people whose businesses rely solely on podcasting are speaking at conferences, doing interviews in the media, writing articles on the subject and developing ventures all related to podcasting. One podcasting expert has developed an online expo on podcasting. Another podcasting expert is writing a book filled with podcasting case studies. If over the last 6- to 12-months you find that 70% of the expert’s activities have been focused on podcasting, you can confidently buy their product or service knowing that they are true evangelists. Plug in the expert’s name into a search engine and see what pops up.

(c) 2006 Leesa Barnes. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Leesa Barnes teaches insider tips on how to use podcasts to open doors, generate leads and make more-money. Leesa has helped hundreds of businesses worldwide make money podcasting using her simple seven step process. If you want to learn how to generate an income using a podcast, visit http://www.leesabarnesbooktour.com to download 2 free chapters of Leesa’s book, Podcasting for Profit.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Leesa_Barnes
http://EzineArticles.com/?3-Ways-to-Know-If-a-Podcasting-Expert-is-the-Real-Deal-Before-Buying-a-Podcasting-Product-or-Service&id=203290

Productive Podcasting - 5 Ways to Create More Money In Podcasting
By James Krawder

This article is designed to provide you with five ways to create more money through productive podcasting.

One. If you’re interested in making more money through productive podcasting, you have to make certain that you develop an interesting and entertaining podcast. People want to listen to an informative and interesting podcast.

Two. In this regard, when it comes to producing productive podcasting, you want to make sure that you have the most appropriate equipment that will allow you to make professional podcast.

Three. Productive podcasting also depends in your ability to promote and market the podcasts that you create. It is all well and good to make a podcast. However you must make certain that people get the chance to hear what you have created.

Four. Productive podcasting also depends upon your ability to be original and creative. In regard to productive podcasting, there’s something to be said for the phrase thinking outside the box.

Five. In regard to productive podcasting, you might want to consider engaging the services of a professional to assist you with your productive podcasting efforts. In this day and age, there are a wide array of different types of professionals and experts who can be very helpful to you in your productive podcasting efforts.

With these five ways to create more money through productive podcasting in mind, you’ll be well on your way to enhancing your revenues and profits not only today but well into the future. Now that you have the information, the rest is up to you!

Want to learn more about it? Download the free ebook, Steps to Article Marketing Success.

Do you want to learn how to build a massive list fast? Click here: Email List Building

Want to learn more about driving traffic like I do? Download my free traffic guide here: Traffic Generation

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Krawder
http://EzineArticles.com/?Productive-Podcasting—5-Ways-to-Create-More-Money-In-Podcasting&id=702121

Found this article online about Podcasting Basics written by Scott Clark about “Making Podcasts - The Basics”. He stated: “More than 70% of 2007 model US automobiles will offer iPod integration with GM alone making it available on all 56 of its models” – Greg Joswiak, Apple’s VP of Worldwide iPod Marketing.

Digital entertainment research company Diffusion Group states that the worldwide us podcast audience will grow to 56 million by 2010, and that three-quarters of those owning portable music devices will use them to listen to podcasts up from just 15% today. This growth of Podcast audiences suggests its increasing viability of as a tool for marketing communications in our busy, multitasking world. I’ve had the pleasure of working on some very popular podcasts, and get asked about starting them very often. As with most content production, it is in the creativity and vision of the artist that matters most. With that in mind, wrap your arms around three rudimentary phases of podcast creation – planning, production, and publishing.”

The podcast industry is still pretty small but is continuing to grow. If it is projected to grow to 56 million then you got a huge potential of listeners in the near future.

Now your feed validation is done I suggest you submit your RSS feed to a RSS feed provider. You would do this to generate traffic and there are feed providers that also provide you with the # of subscribers for your podcast and also the amount of hits you receive. Whether you created a RSS feed from scratch or was provided with a RSS feed from a podcast hosting site, you can use a RSS feed provider.

One RSS feed provider I found useful is Feedburner.com. Feedburner is a free service that has more than a million feeds submitted to them and was acquired by Google. Their website states “FeedBurner is the leading provider of media distribution and audience engagement services for blogs and RSS feeds. Our Web-based tools help bloggers, podcasters and commercial publishers promote, deliver and profit from their content on the Web.” Feedburner tracks stats such as subscribers to live hits to your feed. Just submit your RSS feed URL path (e.g. http://www.how2startapodcast.com/?feed=rss2) and follow the steps to sign up to an account. Once you are finished, you can start using Feedburner’s RSS feed to promote. Basically, your RSS feed is redirected to Feedburner’s and it does the same function but again you would use theirs to generate not only traffic but also to track it.

Now you can start promoting your podcast, click here for the next section.

Here are 2 ways to create a RSS feed: use software or build it from scratch. If you wish to look for software, you can search on Google for RSS Software. These types of programs will help you generate RSS coding.

Now if you want to build from scratch, the first thing you’ll need is a text editor. Easiest one you can find is notepad which comes with your computer and then save it as an .xml file so you can call it e.g. “podcast.xml”.

The first line in your file must have XML declaration:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>

Next thing we need to do is open up the rss and channel tag:

<rss version=”2.0″>
<channel>

Then we have to put information about the RSS feed. Below is just an example so make sure to follow the date structure like that and change language and timezone if neccessary:

<title>TITLE OF RSS FEED</title>
<link>http://www.SITEGOESHERE.com/</link>
<description>RSS FEED DESCRIPTION</description>
<lastBuildDate>Mon, 20 Sep 2008 18:37:00 GMT</lastBuildDate>
<language>en-us</language>

Next you will have to add items to the RSS feed. Every time you update your podcast you will also have to update your RSS feed if you continue to edit this manually. So basically if you have 5 shows, you should have 5 separate “items” for the code below:

<item>
<title>TITLE</title>
<link>http://WEBSITE.com/item/abc123</link>
<guid>http://WEBSITE.com/item/abc123</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 20 Sep 2008 18:37:00 GMT</pubDate>
<description>DESCRIPTION GOES HERE</description>
</item>

Once done you have to close your RSS feed with the following:

</channel>
</rss>

After you are done, save your work and I suggest validating your RSS feed to make sure it’s okay before going live with it. One site I use is FeedValidator.org but you can use other ones on Google and search for “RSS Feed Validation”. What I have provided here is very basic steps of setting up a RSS Feed from scratch. I suggest doing more research online to enhance your feed.

When your feed is validated you can start promoting it online. But before you do that I will suggest submitting the feed to a rss feed provider to generate more traffic. Click here to read the next section.

Wikipedia defines a RSS Feed as “RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video in a standardized format.[2] An RSS document (which is called a “feed,” “web feed,”[3] or “channel”) includes full or summarized text plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content quickly and automatically. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place. RSS feeds can be read using software called an “RSS reader,” “feed reader,” or an “aggregator,” which can be web-based or desktop-based. A standardized XML file format allows the information to be published once and viewed by many different programs. The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed’s link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The RSS reader checks the user’s subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds.”

If you are a newbie, I do not suggest you creating one from scratch. If you are using a podcast hosting service as explained earlier in my blog then they usually set one up for you automatically. Feeds are usually found through the search engine and when clicked they give listeners the chance to subscribe to the feed through programs such as iTunes. If you are pretty technical then click here for more info on how to create one.

Once you know what your show is going to be about and you have some audio recorded and ready. Now you have to decide what you where you want your podcast show hosted. You can either sign up to podcast hosting sites, which some are free but allow limited storage or you can pay and get more storage and features. As a newbie it is probably better to do go to a podcast hosting website where you can follow step by step instructions on how to create your show and edit your content. One website I have used is Podomatic.com, which is free to sign up and use but they only allow you 500 MB of storage and 15 GB of data transfer which is pretty good amount of space. If you need more space then you can pay for more. Another site I use is Podbean.com, which also allows you to upload content but it only provides you the basics, so if you want more space and features you will have to pay. What I also like about Podbean.com, is you can also submit an RSS feed to it if you have one already. I will explain more about RSS feed later on this site. The good thing about sites like this is there is already a community there for you so once you have your podcast up and running you should be able to get some listens. If you want to try other other podcast hosting sites just go on Google and search for Podcast Hosting.