Much has been written lately about the subject of podcasting. Podcasting is a very powerful small business tool but, some are kept away because it all sounds so technical.

In this article I will attempt to simplify the subject.

Let's start with the Podcast definition from the growing resource Wikipedia: What is a podcast - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast.

The definition provided by Wikipedia is a good place for you to start, but let me just add my take. A podcast is little more than an audio file (usually an mp3) placed on a website and combined with an RSS file that allows people to subscribe and automatically download any new content recordings.

From a technical standpoint, there's nothing really too complicated about podcasting so don't think this is some geeky tech stuff. From a marketing standpoint, I didn't get too excited about the concept until Apple decided to make a podcast directory a primary component of iTunes. When that happened the market for podcasting on any subject imaginable was born.

Podcast Basics

Podcasts are typically published with a blogging tool like Blogger, TypePad, or MovableType. If you already use one of these blog services, creating your podcast is as simple as linking to your audio files and using a service like FeedBurner to automatically convert it into a podcast friendly feed. (More on that in a minute)

Create Content

Most podcasts are formatted much like radio shows. Hosts will interview guests or simply decide to talk about a subject that they feel is of interest to someone. From a business standpoint it can be a very powerful way to produce content that will make your website more interactive.

The plumber that records simple how to fix it podcasts will own the world! (Videocasts are just around the corner too.) There are a couple other very good reasons to host a podcast that may not directly have to do with content per se. Think about interviewing your clients on the benefits of using your service and posting those interviews as a podcast. Think that might make your best client even more loyal?

What about referral partners? What if you identified business owners that also serve your target market and invited them to be guests on your podcast. My guess is that you could instantly build a network of leading businesses with you as the hub. When you publish a podcast, whether you have a local or national audience, you become a member of the media. The tables are suddenly turned when you approach prospects and influential individuals. When you are the publisher of a podcast you have the opportunïty to gain access to the decision makers inside your biggest prospects – by simply requesting an interview. Do you see the potential in that?

Record

As I wrote earlier, a podcast is a digital recording so one of the steps you must complete for each session is to record your podcast. There are many ways to accomplish this task. You can use a portable mp3 recorder, use a service to record a telephone interview, record an interview using any number of VoIP services or create a recording set-up for your computer. (Obviously, you can go into a professional recording studio too.)

This article is not meant to explain in great detail every element of working with digital audio files but there are many ways to accomplish this step when you determine what your podcast needs are.

A great set-up for recording you own voice is to use a professional mic and a frëe software program called Audacity (Audacity has some very useful editing functions as well)

For telephone interviews you can use a service such as Conference Calls Unlimïted. CCU offers a telephone bridge line, recording, editing and hostíng of your mp3 file.

VoIP is a PC to PC or PC to telephone service led by a service called Skype. This is a particularly good option for International calls. A host of add-ons are cropping up to build even greater functionality into Skype.

Evoca
Gabcast
Skype VoIP calling
Conference Calls Unlimïted
Audacity free audio recorder and editor
Skype recording that interfaces with Outlook

Edit

You may find that after you conduct an interview you want to add some music or cut out segments. Again, look no further than Audacity (It's frëe and works very well).

File Host

Once you record your podcast you must upload the file to a server. There are services that offer recording and hosting options but, all you really need is enough space with your current web host to upload your mp3 files. Either way, you will simply link to the mp3 file from a blog post or web page. Below are some other options.

Podblaze
OurMedia
Audioblog
Liberated Syndication

RSS Feed

One of things that makes a podcast something more than an mp3 file is the addition of a podcast format RSS feed. This is simply a file that is updated every time you add an mp3 file so that subscribers through iTunes or some other Podcast service can automatically download your new content.

Podcasts do require a specific kind of RSS feed but, the only thing you need to do is go to a frëe service called FeedBurner and allow them to convert your blog feed or other RSS feed to work for podcasting. They can also set your feed up the way that iTunes and Yahoo Podcast want it set-up.

FeedBurner - Enhance a blog feed
Feed for all - Create a feed

Submit

Just like websites and blogs, podcasting has its own set of directories. You need to make a point of submitting your podcast or podcast feed (the one you formatted with FeedBurner) to the major podcast directories and engines.

ODEO
iTunes
Podcast.net
Singing Fish
Podcast Alley
Podcast News
Yahoo Podcast
Digital Podcast

Apple's Podcasting FAQs
Apple's Podcast technical specifications

Music and Intros

Maybe you want a cool music beat to kick off your show or a big radio voice type intro.

Royalty free music
Professional intros and outros

Listening and Searching

You should subscribe to and listen to podcasts to get a good idea of some of the ways people are using this tool for business. You will need what is sometimes referred to as a podcatcher to subscribe. If you have iTunes you already have one. (Most of the time you can visit a podcast site and simply listen to the mp3 file if you have an mp3 player like Windows Media Player or RealPlayer installed on your computer.)

iTunes
Juice
Doppler

Misc. Podcast Gear
Search audio files

Podcast Tutorials and Forums

Podstrigs
About.com
Podcast Alley
Podcasting News
FeedBurner's Podcast Guide

My Set-Up

Just in case you are curious, here's how I podcast. I use Conference Calls Unlimïted to provide my recording and editing. I hook up with a guest by telephone, conduct the interview and about 24 hours later receive a link to the edited mp3 file to link to from my podcast blog.

My intro was produced my AudioBag.com.

My RSS feed was created and enhanced by FeedBurner.

There are lots of things that you can do to make your podcast even more professional. In this article I've attempted to demystify the major points and get you interested in producing your own podcast.


About The Author
John Jantsch is a veteran marketing coach, award winning blogger and author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide published by Thomas Nelson - due out in the fall of 2006. He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing small business marketing system. You can find more information by visiting http://www.ducttapemarketing.com.

There is always great interest within the search engine marketing community whenever a search engine files for a patent. This is especially true for Google, which just recently released a new patent application - System and method for supporting editorial opinion in the ranking of search results.

However, we must keep in mind that just because a patent has been applied for or granted, the search engines may or may not implement the patent within their primary search results.

Nevertheless, these patents often do give us clues about what the search engines are looking for in a website.

Some of Google's patents have given us insight into the influence of anchor text, fresh content, themes, data history, link popularity, user behavior, and domain-related information.

However, Google's most recent patent application shows a shift from focusing on algorithm-based changes to the integration of a human editorial process.

Ultimately, Google is striving to create the best possible search results for their visitors. This patent proposes one possible method for doing that.

For the most part, search engine algorithms have reached their peak. We've known for quite some time that an algorithm-based search engine can nevër permanently deliver excellent results. Why, you might ask. Simply because there will always be people out there trying to reverse-engineer the system.

Therefore, a cat and mouse game is created.

Out of this problem, a number of solutions have evolved. One of these is social search engines, which rank their results based on the wisdom of crowds. Another solution to arise from this problem is a human editorial process.

And now, Google has proposed in their patent application a hybrid mechanism which combines algorithmic search with a human based editorial process. By integrating editorial opinion, they are looking to enhance the quality of their search results.

The patent describes the process of identifying favored and non-favored sources in order to improve search results.

Favored Sources: Websites that are identified as being useful or containing authoritative content on the desired topic.

Non-Favored Sources: Websites that are identified as sources of misinformation or over-promotion on that particular topic.

Basically, Google is trying to patent a system for identifying good sites and bad sites in order to rank them accordingly in the SERPs.

They have proposed a semi-automatic system for determining favored and non-favored sources.

"In an implementation consistent with the present invention, the set of favored and non-favored sources may be automatically determined. To accomplish this, exemplary queries in the query theme may be classified into a set of topics (e.g., an online topic hierarchy, such as Yahoo!, Open Directory, or Google) using the approach for classification described above. Web hosts that appear in the URLs associated with the best matching topics to the query theme may be taken to be favored sources. For example, if the query theme is "sites that help in finding accommodation," then web hosts listed under the Open Directory category "http://dmoz.org/Recreation/Travel/Lodging" can be taken as favored sources."

In addition, they have also combined with this a new system of relevancy and theme-based queries to improve their results.

"For example, for the query theme "sites that provide frëe downloads," web sites that actually provide frëe software downloads would be considered "favored sources" and web sites that mislead search engines with words such as "free" and "download" (popularly known as "spam techniques"), but do notin fact provide access to frëe downloads, would be considered "non-favored sources."

The patent application infers that "resource" sites have a brighter future in the search engines, especially Google. Therefore, don't be afraid to link out to other sites. The more value you provide to your visitor, the more you will be rewarded in the end. Your ultimate goal is to become an authority in your particular topic.

As an online marketer, you should also put more thought into the quality of the pages your site delivers as a whole. This is one of the very few patents that refers to a site as a whole rather than individual pages.

Conclusion:

For the smart SEO, this should not change your methods. As always, quality content is the key. If you are providing your visitors with relevant, quality content, then the search engines will reward you.

A number of interesting ideas were brought up in this patent. It appears that relevancy and quality content play a major role. However, there is still the question of which factors will be considered in determining favored sites. Will inclusion in DMOZ or Yahoo! be a requirement? If so, many webmasters may take a dim view of this approach.

Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how Google changes over the next few years. Algorithm based search results will continue to be problematic because there will always be those who try to beat the system. Implementing some sort of human editorial opinion into the ranking process seems inevitable.

In the end, this is true for all of the major search engines. Yahoo, Google, MSN, and AskJeeves must all provide quality search results to compete within this industry. To be truly successful, they will have to go beyond algorithm-based results to deliver the most value for their visitors.


Did You Find This Article Useful? Then Digg It.

About The Author
Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews and SEO-News newsletters. You can also find additional tips and news on webmaster and SEO topics by Kim at the SiteProNews blog. Kim's email is: kim @ seo-news.com

Automation is an odd creature. It usually seems, at first glance, that automating a process can make things easier, simpler and faster. But oftentimes, once an automated process is in place, trouble spots pop up. This is sometimes the case when looking at the copywriting aspect of Google's dynamic keyword insertion tool.

In case you're unfamiliar with dynamic keyword insertion (DKI), it's a feature of Google's AdWords program. It is often used for large campaigns in order to automatically insert the keyword into the headline of an ad. Truly, it's a lifesaver for many pay-per-click (PPC) ad managers who have to stay on top of thousands of ads every day. It's all done with a simple syntax command: {keyword:_______}.

From a timesaving standpoint, this is a wonder tool that has rescued PPC managers from the mind-numbing chore of typing the same keywords over and over. From an economic point-of-view, DKI *can* (not always) perform well enough to make it a viable option for largër campaigns. But what happens with regard to copywriting and eye tracking?

See It and Clíck It

The human eye is normally drawn to things that are unusual. Things that look out of place or different get noticed far more than things that blend in. For instance, on a page full of black text and black & white photographs, a small red square in the bottom corner will get focused on almost immediately. Why? Because it is completely different than everything else around it.

This same principle applies when considering your copywriting strategy for AdWords. When using DKI, you'll want to keep your eye on the results pages. Why? We've all heard that using the keyphrase in the headline pulls better. It does. Most of the time. There is an exception, however. This exception is what you'll be watching.

In fact, a study done last year by Enquiro, Did-It and Eyetools tracked users' interactions with the Google search results page. It found that surfers normally reviewed the page in an F formation. They would scan vertically down the left side of the page and then over to the right (where paid ads are) *IF* something caught their attention. That's the point we'll explore in this article.

In order to get clicks, you first have to get seen. If your ad looks and reads like all the rest, you've completely lost your originality advantage.

See For Yoursëlf

Copywriting using DKI is a balancing act. You have to consider several factors, including the character count of your longest keyphrase, your ability to add text to the keyword-rich headline and how the ad looks on the page.

Take a look at some examples below. Remember that AdWords results show differently at various points throughout the day (and in relation to individual account parameters), so you may not see exactly what I saw when doing this research. I'm sure it will be close enough for you to get the idea.

Go to Google and type in the phrase "cruise vacation center" (without using the quote marks). See how all the ads look different? They don't all have the same words bolded. They don't all use the same copy. The bold words stand out because they are different. In this case, your eye will usually go first to the ads with bolded words in the headline.

You see ads offering a 6-night cruise for $xx.xx and other ads promoting X% off on a cruise vacation, etc. There is diversity and that's a good thing.

Now, what if you type in "home improvement"? (Again, without the quotes.) If your results page looks like mine, practically every ad has the exact same headline: home improvement. Not only do most of the ads look the same, the headlines read the same. Your eye doesn't know where to go because everything seems identical. But wait! About four or five ads down, something catches your eye. It's an ad that has no bold in the headline. That stands out because it's different! As you scroll further down the page, more ads with no bold in the headlines pop out at you. In this case, because everyone else has opted for the DKI feature, their headlines are all very similar, making them less noticeable. But the ones who wrote custom headlines won out, thanks to diversity.

Tips for Writing With DKI

If you want or need to write using the DKI option, consider these tips:

1. Use a descriptive word along with your keyphrase. Instead of just inserting the phrase "airline tickets," place the word "discount" or "cheap" before your keyphrase to help it stand out.
2. For keyphrases that will take the entire 25-character limit, consider using one word of the keyphrase in the headline, instead of the entire phrase. Rather than "home improvement," try inserting just "home" or "improvement" along with other text you write yourself.

3. Keep it applicable. Your headline still has to convey a strong message about what the customer can expect at your site.

4. Test & Track! Everything in advertising is subject to change. Smart marketers always test and track to get the best results.

With a little forethought, you can develop a combination of DKI and custom-written AdWords ads that drive qualified visitors to your site.


About The Author
Copy not getting results? Learn to write SEO and online copywriting that impresses the engines and your visitors at http://www.copywritingcourse.com. Be sure to also chëck out Karon's report How To Increase Keyword Saturation (Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy).

RSS is changing the way we consume information online. Instead of being overloaded with mounds of information in our inbox, we can pick and choose exactly which content providers we want to hear from.

On the other side of the story are the publishers. Not only is RSS changing the way visitors view information, but it is also opening up vast opportunities for publishers wanting to syndicate their content across the Internet.

RSS is turning into one of the most popular distribution channels for webmasters, publishers, article writers and news syndicators. With RSS, you have the opportuníty to have a continual digital conversation with your readers. You can use RSS to syndicate a wide variety of media formats including text, video, and audio.

No longer is the Web all about text. You can use RSS to syndicate your very own talk show, weekly podcast, or a collection of video tutorials.

With over 100 RSS and blog search engines available online, it's time that you started integrating RSS into your marketing mix. This article will outline how you can combine the power of RSS with your current marketing activities.

To begin, let's start with email marketing. Some people have predicted that RSS will one day overtake email as the top communication model. However, this is not likely to happen considering the differences between these two technologies. Instead, the two should be combined to form a powerful marketing duo.

Email Marketing and RSS Intertwine

You can complement your email marketing campaigns with one or more RSS feeds. By providing your readers with alternatives, you will reach a much largër number of subscribers.

There are a number of ways that you can integrate RSS into your current email marketing campaign.

1. Use RSS to announce each new issue of your ezine. Announce your e-zine in your RSS feed as a single RSS content item. When your subscribers click-through, they can access your newsletter in full on your website, drawing additional visitors to your content.

2. If you are currently using email autoresponders, provide those very same autoresponders as RSS feeds. You can do this at http://www.zookoda.com .

Using RSS, you can syndicate a wide variety of content. One of the most obvious uses of RSS is to deliver content updates to your users. RSS is an excellent communication medium for delivering daily updates of your web site content. You can't expect your visitors to come back to your site every day to chëck for updates, but with an RSS feed they can quickly pick up any changes that interest them.

However, this is just the beginning of what is possible with RSS.

Deliver Content Updates, News, and So Much More...

You can also use RSS feeds to deliver news announcements, forum discussion updates, new product releases, quick tips, quotes, new coupons, job listings, classifieds, and real estate listings.

RSS can even be used to deliver content that is not available on your site. Let's face it, you cannot possibly publish all of the great information that is available on your site's particular topic.

However, you can supply your users with a content aggregation service that directs them to the best content within your industry.

With all of the digital junk that is currently being delivered online, you would be delivering an extremely valuable service simply by syndicating the most important and relevant information within a particular niche.

Keep in mind that relevant information goes beyond whether or not the content relates to your visitors' interests. Relevant information can also speak to each individual user. Just like email marketing, you can use personalization within your RSS feeds to increase your response rate.

Speak Directly to Your Visitors with Personalized RSS Feeds

One of my favorite examples of personalization can be found at Babycenter.com. As soon as you enter the site, you are asked for two pieces of information:

Your due date or your child's birthday and...
Your email address

After you submit your information you start receiving a weekly e-zine that is relevant to your pregnancy stage or the age of your child. If you have a 2-year old, you'll be receiving articles, tips and product recommendations for that age.

Do you see the power in this? By using profiling, webmasters are able to send information that is highly relevant to their readers on a case-by-case basis.

You could use this same idea with your RSS feeds.

Basic personalization might include elements such as the reader's first name, while more advanced personalization might deliver personalized content, product recommendations and so on.

Once you have decided on what type of content you would like to syndicate, you must then start organizing content for your feed. If you want to use RSS to its full potential, then I would highly advise you to create multiple RSS feeds for your users.

Use Multiple RSS Feeds to Increase Your Exposure

You can do this by creating RSS feeds for each category of content you cover. This extends your reach and marketing capability. Do not pack all of your content under one generic RSS feed. This is not beneficial for you or your visitors. By breaking your RSS feeds into categories, your visitors will be able to tap into the exact information that they are looking for.

For example, visitors who only want to keep up with forum updates shouldn't have to sift through articles, news, and other content.

When you begin marketing your RSS feeds, keep in mind that this is still a fairly new technology.

RSS Isn't Quite Mainstream, So Educate Your Visitors

Take your visitors step-by-step through the process of locating, subscribing and reading an RSS feed. By doing this, you are informing your website visitors and helping to promote the use of your own RSS feed.

To see a really good example of this, go to BBC News.

There is one last step to integrating RSS into your overall marketing strategy. This one is often overlooked, but can be extremely powerful when executed properly.

Take Your RSS Marketing to the Next Level with Your Affíliates

Provide your affíliates with an RSS feed of your product catalog. They can then use your feed to syndicate your latest product releases on their own websites. Whenever someone clicks on a headline, they would be directed to your web store. If they decide to make a purchase, the referring affíliate would make a commission on the sale.

Of course, this type of RSS would most likely need to be customizable, allowing the affíliate to carry only the products updates they feel would be a good match for their website.

Amazon.com has implemented this very same technique and it's time that the rest of us do so as well.

RSS is one of many ways to communicate with your customer base. RSS should not be your only communication mechanism, but rather simply a piece of the marketing puzzle. When RSS is combined with other communication models, including email and postcard marketing, your message will finally receive its true potential. When any of these techniques are used alone, they löse much of their marketing power.

Start combining your communication models to see much higher response rates.

Did You Find This Article Useful? Then Digg It.

About The Author
Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews and SEO-News newsletters. You can contact Kim at: kim @ seo-news.com