Podcasting is the one the best ways to disseminate information on the web. It has the advantage of not requiring a screen reader for your audience if any of them are on a lower-end browser or are visually impaired. Moreover, it has the SEO benefit of being associated with and XML file, where you can list the title, description, and even ID tags to allow spiders to index the content of your voice or music. Perhaps the biggest advantage is that users can subscribe to your podcast, and if it is any good at all likely will set up a link to your podcast site, thereby increasing your inbound links. Generally those who listen to your podcasts are those who have blogs or web sites that are relevant to your content, and thus the inbound link will have some element of relevancy to boot.

Who can listen to your podcast? Any person with an MP3 player can choose from a huge number of podcasts to listen. If you have good content, and an interesting or controversial topic, you will likely get listeners quickly.

Setting up a Podcast is not nearly as difficult as you may think. The biggest issue is simply procuring the correct equipment. You will need a good microphone, and sound editing software. One good solution you can download for free is http://audacity.sourceforge.net . Once you have your equipment and your script ready to go, you can easily produce and save your podcast. Then comes the SEO aspect of the podcast, you will need to create an RSS feed. However, if you are using blogging software such as Word Press, the software will create the RSS file for you automatically as soon as you upload your podcast to your server and link the file to a posting. The final step which is of course the most important is to announce and then market your podcast.

There are many channels to publicize your podcast. The first and most obvious way to do this is though a blurb on your web site or blog with a link to the Podcast URL and a link to the RSS feed to those who want to subscribe. You will also want to send out a mass email to anyone in your address book. As you now have an RSS feed, you should endeavor to ping the RSS aggregators who list podcasts. You can do that at http://audio.weblogs.com/, and http://www.pingoat.com/. You can also submit your podcast into http://www.itunes.com/.

I hope this short tutorial on setting up and promoting your podcast has inspired or at least started you on a path to the world of audio media on the web.