A Podcast How-To

For as little as $150 (or less) to get a quality digital voice recorder (or just use your smartphone’s voice recorder), 10 minutes to make a list of a dozen or so questions and a half-hour max per session, you can start adding new content that won’t get left on the back burner. Once you have the podcast, you would be crazy not to add the text to your site (even if that means editing out parts you don’t like), so take the time to transcribe your podcasts as well. (If you don’t like transcribing recordings, there are transcription services to do this for you.)

If you want to do an interview with someone not local to you, you can use your telephone as a recording device. There is an easy option for conference call recording at Freeconferencecalling.com, which is a service that allows multiple users to call in and for the conference to be recorded in MP3 format. The quality is reasonable, given that phone calls are low-quality, audio-wise, to start with. The service itself is free and the call-in number is a standard US phone number, so no charges beyond the usual cost of a phone call apply.

As a backup, many people use GoToMeeting for online demos and tech support, and that service has a recording feature as well. The resulting audio is slightly lower in quality than what you get with Freeconferencecalling.com and may have some connectivity issues, but it’s something to fall back on in a pinch.

Doesn’t that sound easy?

Considering that Google checks for fresh content (updated pages, new pages, growing site size, and changes in text and images) and that people love getting something for free, you really have no excuse for not doing at least a monthly podcast and posting the transcription. For some people, it’s easier than writing an in-depth article, but it could eventually give you plenty of ideas for articles if you do decide to sit down and do some writing.

Photo credit: theunabonger / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA