Tags can be thought of as an “index” to your website. You can even use a widget to display them on your website (if you wish, I don’t). If people were to click on them, they would be shown all the posts that had that word.  Useful? Well, maybe.

However, GOOGLE seems to love tags (based on the image to the left). Google brings eyeballs, which bring ears, which means they can be subscribers to this podcast.

Listener Feedback

We got some feedback from Daniel of Edgy Podcast Reviews on how he enjoy the last few shows, and my openness to share my numbers. If you are looking to get your podcast reviewed head on over to edgypodcastreviews.com

For the record 4 days into circulation show 211 has had 421 downloads. Whoop-dee-doo. I am more interested in influence and how connected I am with the audience instead of how big the audience is (quality vs quantity).

Another Podcast Experiment

I am turning the Weekly Web Tools Podcast (audio) into a Weekly Web Tools podcast that distributes pdf documents instead of mp3 files. Why? Because I can type faster than I talk. Also this makes it easy for readers to click on links to view the different tools. I will be monitoring the downloads to see if this works, along with clicks to see if it grows or reduces the amount of activity from the audience.

I look at it like moving into a house. You can move into a starter house with one bedroom, etc. Then later if your family grows you can move into a bigger house. If you had the chance, and could afford it, wouldn’t rather skip step one? After all moving all your stuff is no fun.

Likewise when you set up a podcast on a free account, in some cases they set up an RSS feed for you (bad) and set up your iTunes listing for you (very bad), and then you are set with limitations (storage, etc). In other words, you get what you pay for.

If you can afford $10 a month for hosting your website (I use Hostgator - affiliate link), and $12 a month at Libsyn.com then that would be the route I would go. In some cases I’ve seen people host both their website and their media on Host Gator. This works, but you will have to struggle to get some stats, and if you get really popular you will be asked to move your media.

The other thing to consider is many free sites go out of business (forcing you to move again). If you can avoid it, I would. People go in with a negative attitude. They say, “What if nobody listens?” To this I ask, “But what if they do?! – you will want a more powerful site with more features.”

Plan to be successful. You’ll be surprised how quickly you can grow an audience with a little promotion.

Podato

The Jeff Outlaw Show

Turtlecast

Can you tell these shows are about online dating? me neither.

To start your own podcast go to http://start.shoolofpodcasting.com

I started a new podcast at www.datesfromhellshow.com and subscribed to other podcasts on online dating. I was surprised as time went on that most of my “competition” wasn’t putting out new episodes. So if I had seen a large number of similar podcasts and decided “there is no room for me” I would’ve been wrong. While there may be numerous podcasts similar to yours, they may not be putting out any new content.

Meet the Members

This week we meet Chaley Hays from www.crossdrivenradio.com and he features with musicians and plays great music. You can find it at www.crossdrivenradio.com Chalrye uses a mac computer with graragband and sound studio for editing, Sterling Audio ST55 microphone, DBA 266XL noise compressor, sound craft compact 4 mixer.

Great Plugin Saves Time – Helps Make Money

This is a pretty cool plugin for wordpress. It’s called Affiliate Elite. You can set up keywaords to link to certain pages. Once you set this up, you just type the words and the links are created. This will save you time, and if you’re trying, make you money.

Last 5 in 5 from Charley of www.crossdrivenradio.com

The Bitterest Pill (Charley is a Premium Member)

Fact or Fiction (iTunes)

KJ52 Podcast

 Stuff You Should Know (iTunes)

Wordcast (Dave Love’s this one too now)

 Charley is using the Thesis theme on his site.

“Thesis also features the most advanced, semantically-correct HTML markup structure on the market. There are lots of situations where using default WordPress settings will result in a sub-optimal markup structure, and Thesis recognizes these situations and issues the proper markup instead. <h1> and <h2> tags are handled to perfection on every page of the theme, and you even have the ability to control nofollows and noindex attributes on an alarming number of theme elements and core pages (tag archive pages, for instance).

Also, Thesis is built for the future of SEO because it contains a ton of microformatted content served up in a meaningful way. In the years to come, search engines are going to use microformats to pull specific pieces of information from sites. In theory, this information is more “rich” because the markup contains additional data about the information, and in my opinion, SEs are going to leverage this in their results. Oh, and even if microformats do not become a meaningful piece of the SEO puzzle, they’re still a HUGE piece of the accessibility puzzle, so you’re going to win on that front no matter what.”

I love the flexibility. If you dig in real deep you are going to need to have a little bit of code knowledge, but their forums are very active with people who can supply the answers you need. If I had one suggestion it would be to take that group of users and get them to put together some sort of wikki manual.

Check it out at diythemes.com

You can find it over at Lord Lifted Me Live and its about 10 minutes.

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The person who thinks they are going to make thousands of dollars next week.

The person who gets into podcast because they hear its cool, but have nothing to say. Ask them what their podcast is going to be about and they will say, “I don’t know.”

I’ve heard no less than four podcasts stating “how to make money in podcasting” and it turns out to be nothing but 40 minutes of talkshoe.com spewing. (nothing against talkshoe.com, but I’ve heard that podcast enough).

If you have a recording from a business meeting back in 1992 and think it would be a great podcast (that is if you can hear the speaker over the air conditioning) – you don’t need to podcast that. You CAN, but the question is should you.

If you got into podcasting because you heard you can do it for free – you don’t need to podcast. There are singers who sing for free. You can hear them at karaokee bars offending ears every Thursday. Spend a few bucks and take your podcast to the next level.

If you are looking to start a Podcast, if you are looking to learn how to podcast, then please let me be your personal podcast coach by joining me at www.schoolofpodcasting.com

Show number #114

Today I answer some questions from the School of Podcasting’s Frequently Asked Podcasting Questions Area at www.schoolofpodcasting.com/help

How do I contact someone for an interview?

Most of my episodes are NOT showing up in iTunes?

How do I make an RSS feed for Each Category? (Full Answer Here – New Window).

Thanks to Danika from http://www.tribshow.net/ and Mark from www.a1artistspotlight.com for the questions.

Are you looking to start your own podcast? Come check out our step by step tutorials RISK FREE at www.schoolofpodcasting.com

Yes you can save $50 by spending $20. Keep in mind that you can sign up and cancel your subscription anytime.

ON TODAY’S SHOW
Bob Packet from “History According to Bob” (www.hostoryaccordingtobob.com ) who has taken his passion for history, and his now profitting from his podcast by selling his old back catalogue as single episodes, as CDs, as CD sets. He is using a shopping cart www.mals-e.com

For more information go to www.historyaccordingtobob.com