Recording Your First Podcast is Simple and Costs Little

Recording Your First Podcast

When getting started, don’t worry about fancy gadgets. You can purchase the necessary equipment for less than $100. Once your podcast gains traction and popularity, you can opt to upgrade. To create a high-quality sounding podcast, follow these seven simple steps:

1. Buy a USB microphone and plug it into your computer. Jason (Internet Business Mastery) recommends the Snowball from Blue Microphones, which is an affordable, high-quality USB microphone. To learn more and/or purchase the Snowball Microphone, visit EZ.com/snowball or use your mobile device to scan the QR code to the left.

2. Download Audacity or other software to record and edit your audio files. Audacity is a free recording and editing program you can download at Audacity.sourceforge.net. Even with Jason’s success, he still uses Audacity, proving it’s absolutely possible to record high-quality podcasts without dropping an arm and a leg to do so. Once you’ve completed steps 1 and 2, you actually have everything you need to record your first podcast. If you’re the star of the show, click Audacity’s record button, talk into the mic, play some music, and you’re good to go. If you want to take things to the next level, bring on guests and/or co-hosts. Unless they’re in the room with you, though, proceed to Step 3.

3. Use Skype and/or other software to connect with others and record conversations. If you’re going to have guests from around the country and/or the world, you want to be able to connect with them inexpensively. A popular favorite is Skype (Skype.com). Next, you need software to record your conversations. For a PC, Jason recommends Pamela (Pamela.biz/en), SuperTinTin (Supertintin.com) or Vodburner (Vodburner.com); and for a Mac, Call Recorder (Ecamm.com/mac/callrecorder) or Audio Hijack (Rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro). After the conversation is recorded, you’ll need to import the audio into Audacity and edit it, removing delays and other nonessential elements. Getting the hang of this may take a little while; but once you learn how, it’s easy.

4. Condense your audio file by converting it to MP3. When you’re finished editing in Audacity, you’ll have a large .WAV file. You’ll typically want to condense it to a more manageable size. The best way is to convert it to the MP3 format. For example, a 100MB WAV file will shrink to around 10MB as an MP3. Two recommended programs for doing this are WAV To MP3 Converter (WavToMP3Converter.com) and ConverterLite (ConverterLite.com).

5. Create album artwork to represent your brand. Don’t ignore this crucial step. When people listen to your podcast the album artwork and podcast description will be displayed throughout the show, so it really makes an impact.

6. Upload your podcast to an audio hosting site. Jason recommends using Liberated Syndication (LibSyn.com) as your host for two key reasons:
• You can subscribe for as little as $5 per month, which provides up to 250MB of storage.
• LibSyn.com offers upgrade packages to easily handle your bandwidth and upload growth.

7. Get your podcast listed on iTunes, YouTube, and other sites. While iTunes.com and YouTube.com are the most famous directories of podcasts, there are many other sites where you’ll also want your podcast to be listed. Use Google to find directories that are a solid fit for your topic. With these seven steps in place, you’re now in the podcast business.

Internet Prophets: The World's Leading Experts Reveal How to Profit Online by Steve Olsher