Can A Podcast Help Your Blog Succeed?

What could be better than reading quality content? How about actually listening to it! Podcasting is still a relatively new phenomenon that has had its ups and downs, and while it might be fairly difficult to monetize a podcast on its own, it could be a valuable asset to your blog. However, be warned, podcasting is not for everyone.

Purpose of a Podcast

Everyone here has probably noticed that Performancing now has a podcast — Perfcast. For those of us (including myself) that are not camera material, it is a great way to connect to your audience that written words just might not allow. Even I have tossed around the idea of doing a podcast for quite awhile, and there are a few good reasons for it:

  • It is another way to connect with readers
  • It can attract people that like to listen to podcasts
  • A podcaster can voice on any topic he or she chooses
  • It can help with public speaking and verbal communication
  • Provides motivation to expand knowledge on the discussed topics
  • It is just plain old fun!

There are many other reasons as well; however, podcasting takes time. Time is valuable to many of us. Not only that, but podcasting can be very expensive — it depends on how much control is desired. It also requires quite a bit of dedication and motivation.

It would be best to attempt podcasting without the added pressure of listeners. The first episode might be the one opportunity to impress current readers, and if it sounds bad the first time around, they might be hard pressed to give it another chance later on. Keep this in mind before you publish anything live.

How to Make it Work

There is one site I would recommend any future podcaster to visit first — I would highly recommend checking out Podcast Alley where there are many helpful members with plenty of podcasting experience. If Google can’t steer someone toward an answer about podcasting, the members of the Podcast Alley forum certainly can.

To gain the skills and experience necessary to be a decent podcaster, it is best to find and listen to other podcasters to observe how it is done. Each podcaster must come up with his or her unique style, but learning from others is never a bad thing. Try to experiment, and be sure to avoid a monotonic voice.

The audience should determine how to approach the podcast. Should the length be 10 minutes or an hour? Should the tone be comedic or serious? Should you have guests? Plan for these things!

To make that voice sounds good, a podcaster will want to have a high quality microphone — there is no bigger turn-off to me than poor audio quality. No matter how good the podcaster actually is, if the quality is not up to par, the podcast will not receive the attention it fully deserves. I would recommend Shure microphones.

WordPress users are in luck as there are a few plugins to make things easier for podcasters, but there are also a great amount of resources that can be found through Google which can guide a new podcaster on how to accomplish this on their own.

Finally, a podcast needs to be hosted somewhere. Depending on the audio quality, amount of control, and number of listeners, this can be from absolutely free to a couple bucks per month.

Either way, podcasting can add be a great addition to any blog, but there are many things to consider before diving in. With the right attitude and motivation, podcasting very well might help your blog succeed. Just be sure to be patient and do it right the first time around.

11 thoughts on “Can A Podcast Help Your Blog Succeed?

  1. I am listening regularly many podcast and experience that as soon as I found posdcast with bad audio qaulity I immediately reject it though it is related to my interest. Secondly as my friend said now podcast should be netcast so that all types of user can get benefits by this web2.0 technolgoy. I like it and stumbling it here http://lindsayhogan.stumbleupon.com/ so that i can share with my SEO group at stumbleupon.

  2. Having recently read the book Gravitational Marketing they talk about positioning youself as an expert, one way to do this is to get free press. My recommendation is when these invites come along you might want to jump on them, they will add value to the brand of you.

  3. Of course this post should have been featured! However, the best is yet to come I’m kidding (about the former, not the latter). Thanks for the link to this article.

  4. Hey Andrew, what podcasts have you participated in? I’d love to take a listen

  5. Way ahead of me Daniel because that is a future post that has already been planned. All of the information you desire was beyond the scope of this article. It is in the pipeline though. I have quite a bit experience with resource articles

    I just have to keep you coming back, you know?

    By the way, Camtasia is great for Windows. iShowU is amazing for the Mac. Have used both applications on occasion, and they are great for demonstrations as well. I’ve seen entire podcasts done using on those applications — e.g. Creative Cow After Effects Podcast.

    It will all be coming soon. It will be a podcasting compendium (I’ve always wanted to use that word)! Interestingly enough, I think that will be the title. Stick around

  6. Right, you can make Camtasia videos into podcasts, and newer versions
    of ipods can play movie clips/movies.

    I was hoping you would have recommended what WP plugin to use to use in conjunction
    with the podcasting sites, and wihch sites to submit podcasts to for traffic.

    That’s be really helpful to know since I have audios I’d like to share, and would
    like to use my audios as content pieces AND as traffic generation tools.

    Thanks,

    Dan

    http://danielmcgonagle.name

  7. People are different. Some understand by reading. Some by listening and seeing. Podcast helps the second group. Podcast may not suit international audience because of accent.

  8. Yeah, podcasts do include video. However, if you want to get technical, it should all be called a “netcast.” We are all wrong, lol. I believe Leo Laporte really tried to urge this adoption, but Apple has made “podcast” the word. Oh well.

    I’ve been asked to join several people on podcasts before. Never said yes…yet. Then again, I was asked to appear on national tv to discuss an article I wronte about Yahoo, and I even rejected that offer. I’m one weird person! Perhaps I will do it in the future. I am hopeful.

    Hopefully everything goes well for you Gerry! Thanks for commenting.

  9. I am about to go to a Meetup on search optimization for Podcasting. My post this morning was on this at SOMReport. Just follow my link. A blog is the perfect landing page for a podcast so is a podcast helpful on a blog. Yes, yes, yes. Podcasts include video by the way.

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