How To Start A Podcast The Definitive Guide

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How To Start A Podcast The Definitive Guide
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How To Start A Podcast The Definitive Guide
Introduction The most common obstacle to
starting up a podcast is not knowing what to do,
how to do it, or where to start. This guide will
help you get past all the guesswork so you can
smoothly launch into podcasting and take to the
air! Whether you are a freelancer, a passionate
hobbyist, an activist, a business owner, or the
marketing manager for a business or product,
podcasting provides you with a current and
potentially regular way to communicate with
subscribers, customers and your target audience,
to promote your specialty, create brand awareness
and encourage potential sales. It can help you to
establish or expand authority in your field, and
to disseminate information, by providing valuable
and/or entertaining content to your listeners.
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Itll help boost your search ratings with Google,
making your enterprise more readily discoverable
on the internet. Its also a useful alternative
to publishing written material on the internet,
because people can listen to audio while they are
driving or doing other things, so there is an
efficiency for listeners who might be otherwise
pressed for time. The following guide covers the
main, step-by-step points on how to go about it
all. Weve simplified and taken out the guesswork
so you can get right to it. This is also
available as a podcast and blog with the first
part to be found HERE  The most common barrier
to podcasting is
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• What is the purpose of your podcast?
• You first have to ask yourself why you want to
  make a podcast. What purpose will it be serving?
• You might be using it as a vehicle to create an
  online presence, so people can connect with the
  thoughts and information you have to share. Or,
  to establish your own credentials as an authority
  on a topic. Maybe you want to gather a
  groundswell of opinion? Perhaps you want to
  promote a hobby, like remote control car racing
  for instance, or drum up interest in, or
  education about, a product or service you offer.
• Podcasts work to gather a network of followers or
  subscribers. Doing them regularly could lead you
  to monetizing your shows and/or gaining
  sponsorships.
• With the live and personal audience connection
  podcasting offers, you can potentially engender
  goodwill in the marketplace, share information,
  or keep your listeners up to date on subjects of
  interest.
• Narrow it down so you are aware of your own
  reasons for podcasting.
• Identifying what is my purpose? is the place to
  start. Its a critical element to hold in mind to
  keep you focused and motivated, especially on
  those days when youre finding it hard to choose
  your subject or put a show together. Specifying
  what you want to achieve helps you to know it
  when you actually do achieve it!

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• Who is your podcast targeting?
• This is a vital key element, second only to why
  youre doing it. If you dont know exactly who
  youre aiming your show at, youll only have a
  small or random chance of growing an audience or
  sustaining its interest over a time.
• This is a vital key element, second only to why
  youre doing it. If you dont know exactly who
  youre aiming your show at, youll only have a
  small or random chance of growing an audience or
  sustaining its interest over a time.
• If youre coming at it from a business point of
  view, for example, if youre a dietician who
  wants to make a healthy diet podcast, then your
  target audience might be people who are
  interested in healthy eating, weight loss,
  gaining more energy, etc. You might even narrow
  it down to a specific age group, if that is a
  relevant factor for you.

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If youre creating a hobby show around your love
of remote-control cars, then your target audience
would be those with the same passion. They might
attend RC racing events and want to know about
the latest cars and equipment. So, try and
create a notional profile of your ideal customer.
Sketch out exactly why it is that this type of
person would like to listen to your content. Keep
that persona in mind every time you plan an
episode. Ask yourself Would Steve, our target
listener persona, like this? Is this focused on
what he likes, what hes interested
in? Remember, the profile of your listener
persona is basically that of your ideal
customer/listener. Asking those questions will
help you to keep your show focused and on track,
which will make for more engaging content
overall. Now that you have an idea of who you
want to reach, you have to ask  how do I reach
them?
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There needs to be a reason why people would
listen. Revisit whether your intention is to
entertain your listeners, to make them laugh, or
think, or to educate them, or provide them with
useful tips and information to make their life or
work easier, or some other purpose. If you know
what need you are seeking to fulfil for
listeners, it makes it a lot easier to cater to
that need. Creating content that will hit the
spot for your target audience means they will get
something out of listening to your podcast and
hopefully be interested enough to subscribe,
share the content and/or come back for more.
Whether youre the dietician providing
information that will help someone to lose weight
and gain more energy, or youre doing a really
entertaining interview with a friend or customer
at the RC race track, if listeners feel a
benefit, then not only are you giving them a
reason to listen, youre giving them a reason to
return again and again. Its important to think
about this in the early planning stages. As a
start, write down five or six potential podcast
episodes you think your target audience would
love to hear. Topics that would pique their
interest or get their attention. If youre stuck
for ideas, consider repurposing existing videos
or blogs youve made, to present old and new
material in a fresh format.
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• Keyword research
• Keywords are those words most commonly used when
  people search online for something. Your aim
  should be to make your podcast, description, or
  website words match and include the keywords
  people use when looking for what you have to
  offer. Keyword research identifies the most
  common words people use when theyre searching
  for your type of product, service or topic.

Using well-chosen keywords will help your website
to be more readily found on search engines like
Google, when folks are looking for what you are
offering. Carefully selected keywords can be
seeded in your written content in the podcast
description information and in words written in
your website pages. Those words can then get
picked up in a search by a potential listener or
customer. With the wonders of technology, Google
is now also going through the audio content in
podcasts and delivering front page search results
at the exact moment the search term appears
audibly in the podcast. So, remember to also
include your keywords in the actual words and
phrases spoken or played in your podcast.
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