Step-by-Step How to Podcast Tutorial

The objective of this podcast tutorial page is to guide you from starting to publishing your very first podcast. The term “podcast” and “podcasting” often scares a lot of people off. These words may sound technical, but if you can follow simple instructions, you can get your podcast up and running in no time.

This podcasting tutorial aims to help you do exactly that.

Businesses of all sizes and independent web publishers with different levels of technical expertise should be able to use this information to get their first podcast up.

If you already know how to make a podcast and have your podcast show and episodes posted online, you might be interested in other topics such as podcast promotion, marketing with podcasts, or podcast advertising.

Feel free to subscribe to the RSS feed of this site to receive regular updates of news and articles. I also publish weekly podcast tips via email. This publication is concise, useful and guaranteed to be spam free.

This how to podcast guide is free. It will use free podcast software and resources to help you start on a shoestring. Podcasters who are seriously into this should consult the podcast equipment page to read more about how to produce quality podcast.

What is a Podcast?

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To keep it simple, a podcast is automation of the process of downloading media files to end users’ desktop or portable media player, to be consumed at their own chosen time and place.

The key lies in 3 important ideas:

1. Automation. This is “the” big idea. Consumption of media files such as audio and video has become common for years on the Internet. But never before that you can program which “channel” you want to consume, monitor the activities of newly available episodes, download selected episodes at a scheduled time, and then sync them to your portable media device if you so choose. The result is revolution in how end users can consume information.
2. Desktop or portable media device. It is often assumed that you need a portable media player to listen to a podcast. Nothing is further from the truth. A podcast show is just a collection of episodes, which are individual files such as audio and video that you can play on your desktop just like any downloaded files. Just that in a podcast, you can take advantage of automation for the download and sync process of the files to your multimedia desktop player’s playlist or portable media device.
3. Time-shifted. The idea of time-shifted is also revolutionary. No longer that media consumers need to sit before their computer every time they want to read, listen or view any multimedia file. They can now take the same file with them and consume it at the place and time that is most convenient to them. Sure, the availability of mobile device has changed people’s habit toward media consumption, but still the process could have been automated in a podcast.

There are a few other terms that you should be aware of. I will explain it as they appear throughout this text.

3+1 Steps to a Successful Podcast

There are 3 steps to getting a podcast ready for consumption. The extra 1 step is there to get the podcast show widely known and consumed.

Here are the steps:

1. Plan. How do you know which path to follow is you have no plan? This part is the answer to identifying the purpose and goal of your podcast.
2. Produce. Producing a podcast file is not as hard as you might think it was. In fact, you can get started using simple equipment and free software.
3. Publish. The publish step is here to make a difference with traditional media publishing. Podcasting involves a custom publishing procedure to make it podcast compatible. It could be made easy and automated too.
4. Promote. There are no use of a podcast without an audience. This step will get your creation to as much end users as possible.

Let’s take a look at each step in more detail.

Planning your podcast for maximum results

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You may heard advices from other podcasters about how easy it is to just sit down and talk to your microphone or recording device. You can get 20-minute podcast ready in exactly the same time.

I am here to tell you that it is a myth that you should avoid at all cost.

Especially if you are new to podcasting, you must plan the podcast. It helps you stay focused, produce a better podcast that gives more results. This could even save you time.

I know a podcaster who regularly spends 4 hours to create 10-minute podcast. She researches all content carefully and listen to the result of the recording to make sure it is great. This is important if quality of the sound is utmost important to your brand.

Preparing an agenda for a meeting lets you hold a more effective meeting that gets more focused outcomes. The same thing applies to podcasting as well. Just because it is free and easy doesn’t mean that you can be careless. Take it as seriously as with a new advertising campaign. You are going to waste a lot of time unless you have a plan.

If this is your first podcast, it is important that you take the time to define the purpose or goal of the podcast. This is the “why” part of producing your own podcast. If you need to get some ideas about how to use a podcast in business, visit the podcast business case page.

Topic and content

Marketers who want to use a podcast as a marketing channel for their business should think about content from the start. Do you want to feature experts in a series of interviews to support your product or service? Can you possibly keep up with the industry happening and keep your audience updated via podcasts? Or do you plan to re-purpose existing content?

Media publishers who start an independent publishing venture — not as a marketing methodology to support a business as in above — should look into which niche and topic they should concentrate in.

As in using a podcast as a marketing tool, media publishers should also plan for the type of content they are going to publish.

Content ideas may come later and probably you are going to mix several types of content to produce more interesting podcast. But at least provide a clue of some sorts about which content your podcast should start with.

Podcast format

Aside from the format of the podcast file, you also want to define the content format up front. For the former, the most common file format for audio podcast is MP3. Unless you are targeting a very specific audience, you should stick with that file format.

What does it mean by podcast format?

Podcast format involves different aspects of the podcast show and episodes:

• The podcaster. Is it going to be a solo podcast or will you have other hosts at the same time?
• The length of the podcast. How long will your podcast episode be? To answer this, you need to figure out listeners’ preference and time. If they are most likely to consume the podcast while commuting, and average commute time is 20 minutes, then you should limit the podcast length to that.
• Podcast segments. To keep the interest high and far from boring, you need to plan several different segments for a single podcast episode. Will it include news, tips, reviews, questions and answers, etc?
• The intro and outro music. Will you be talking right after the podcast started, or will there be an intro and outro music to lead and close the podcast?

Producing your podcast

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The second step to creating your own podcast is producing. How can you produce a podcast? Simply put, podcast producing involves recording the podcast and then editing the file to make it production ready.

You will need a set of podcasting equipment to get your voice recorded. In the computer, you must be running podcasting software to capture the voice into digital format.

There are several things you want to consider in this step.

Podcast equipment or gear

Podcast gear could be as simple as an analog or digital recording equipment. If you plan to record directly to your computer, a microphone plugged into the port / jack on the sound card is more than enough to get you ready.

As your podcast grows, you may want to build a more professional recording studio. The page about podcast equipment explains how to build one from scratch based on your budget.

Professional podcasters should have more complex options such as a mixer board to connect a few input devices such as two microphones at a same time, music equipment, etc. — for recording live interview sessions and/or music.

It is recommended that you start simple and then build a computer-based recording studio for professional audio recording as you see fit. Don’t make your setup too complex too soon because you can get discouraged with every problem that appears.

Podcast gears are available that plugged directly into USB port. Depends on how you use it, this option could be suitable for you. A USB microphone enables the user with a laptop to record without the need for a mic preamps, regular microphone cables or other hardware.

Podcast recording software

Any audio recording and editing software can be used to capture the bits on the sound card to digital format. If the software supports converting to MP3 file format — most software support that feature now — you can save some time in preparing the podcast file prior to publishing.

Free podcast recording software are available to perform simple recording and editing functions.

As with the podcasting equipment, you want to start as simple as you possible could, especially if you don’t want to spend time learning how to use complex software. More advanced audio recording and editing software let you perform different functions such as removing pops and noise, normalize the level of voices, etc.

You may want to consider investing on such software after you are ready to get very serious into podcasting. In most cases, I find that free audio software is more than enough to suit new podcaster’s need.

After you have done recording and editing the audio, create an MP3 file out of it in a location you can easily find for the next step. Don’t forget to save the original recording if you want to use it later because MP3 literally compress data so that the resulted file is smaller.

Visit the podcast software page for further information about audio recording and editing software (plus several useful tools) for podcasting.

Publish your podcast

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Once you have created your recording, there is still an additional step to take to turn it into a podcast. No, it doesn’t involve modifying the audio file. A podcast audio is exactly the same audio file you play on your computer.

The difference lies in building a podcast feed to include metadata that refers to the audio file so podcatching software (the software clients use to get podcasts) can identify the location, size and type of the media file. Again, this podcast RSS feed is entirely an independent file. It doesn’t modify the media file itself.

You should pay attention to several things during publishing:

• Assigning MP3 ID3 tags. As a producer of a podcast, you can set ID3 tags for your MP3 files. These information are stored in the files themselves. If you are consistent in using these tags, software programs such as iTunes and Windows Media Player can help you organize your MP3s by reading information from these files. Media players also use these data to display information regarding the file.
• Choosing the right podcast hosting. What makes podcasting different from proprietary media streaming and distribution application is the fact that it uses existing standards and protocols. You need an open-source web server — or any other typical web server — to host podcast files, exactly like the same way as how you would host your web site files.
• Choosing the right podcast platform. After you have chosen a place to host your podcast, you also want a server space to host the site for the podcast show and episodes. It can reside on the same server as the podcast files. It can reside on the same business or corporate web site server. You can use free hosting services to host these pages. The easiest way to manage podcast show, episode and note pages is by using a blog platform of your choice. A good blog platform will also generate a podcast compatible RSS feed automatically for you.
• Generating podcast feed. As mentioned above, if you use a blog platform, you can tell it to generate a podcast-compatible RSS feed automatically as you publish a new podcast. You only need to define the URL to the podcast media file and the rest is taken care for you. Alternative podcast feed generation software is needed if you choose a different path, or if your blog software doesn’t support generating podcast feed — which is rare nowadays. There are free blog software that include this feature or as a plug-in.
• Writing podcast episode notes. The podcast episode notes are important to get visitors to download and listen to your podcasts. Think of it as an ad for that particular podcast episode. On your site, you should also have a well-written copy for the podcast show to give an idea about what your podcast is about and make visitors interested in subscribing to your podcast feed. Many people will determine if the podcast is worth listening by reading the episode notes — or summary of the podcast. This also functions as a bait for search engine crawlers for better indexing and ranking in the search result pages.

Podcast hosting services are available that integrate some of these functions into a packaged product. Podcasters don’t have to worry about every technical bits and pieces.

If you decide to do it yourself, it really isn’t a very complicated process. Many of the steps are a one-step process that will be done once it is done. For example, if you already have a blog software — installing could take only a few minutes if you know how to do it — then for the rest of podcast publishing, the process is simplified to just uploading media files, writing episode notes, and publish.

The podcast feed, how the pages are managed on the site, all of them are automatically taken care for you.

This is often the only option if you want to host the podcast on your own domain instead of using a sub-domain of the integrated podcast hosting service.

The podcast software page has free and paid options for software programs that can help you record and publish your podcast easily.

Promote your podcast

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How can you find listeners for your podcast?

Now that you have your own podcast show, all you want to do is promote, promote, promote. You want as many targeted listeners as possible for your podcast. As a result, you can become a recognized expert in the topic you are podcasting about.

Just like promoting your business, podcast promotion can be done in many ways. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Press release. Send a press release about the podcast. Nowadays posting press release gives many benefits not limited to more direct exposure from publicity, but also stronger search engine link popularity.
• Podcast directories. Popular podcast directories have many visitors. If you are podcasting in a topic that people are actively searching, chances are they will try your podcast and keep subscribing if it is interesting. The value is also in the inbound links from the directories.
• Interesting title. The first impression people make about your podcast is through the title, be it in the podcast directories or search engine result pages, links from other sites, etc. They may decide if they want to read more information about it just by deciding if the title grabs their attention immediately.
• Text content. This type of content still is the strongest entity on the Internet. Most Internet users still are using text based search engines regularly, read articles, news, visit blogs, post in forums, etc. Until other media formats become as common as text, it is a great idea to also complement existing podcast with relevant text information such as episode notes, transcripts and other attractive content that will attract visitors to your site and help promoting your podcast through other channels.
• Search engine traffic. You can optimize your podcast site or pages to attract visitors from search engines who are searching for specific things using targeted keywords. If podcast is a main marketing tool for your business, you can display it extensively throughout your site so traffic from non-podcast pages will also notice the podcast.
• Email marketing. If you have an in-house list with people who are interested in getting more information from you, then it is easy to get your first group of listeners by announcing the podcast to the list. Mentioning your podcast in regular email newsletter also is one way to leverage content and help your audience get the content in the format they prefer.

Ready for more ideas? Get them at the podcast promotion page.