25 Sep 09 Internet Marketing > Podcasting and Podcast Marketing
Podcast Marketing
Podcast marketing is a fairly new online marketing method that offers web business owners a fantastic way to generate more traffic and links into their site. The great news is that any web business owner can start promoting their services or products via podcasting straight away and for free!
The First Podcast
One of the first (and the now longest running) podcasts IT Conversations was made available in 2003 through a concerted effort of a number of people, two of the main ones were Dave Winner (who is also the author of the RSS format) and another is his partner Adam Curry.
UK Podcast Statistics 2009
A recent survey by Ipsos MORI (on behalf of Rajar) showed that 7.8 million had downloaded a podcast in July 2009 as opposed to 7.2 million in October 2008 and 6 million in May 2008. The survey also went on to show that 4.2 million people in the UK listen to podcasts on a weekly basis. An interesting podcast marketing fact is that 59% of respondents said they would download and listen to podcasts containing advertising if it were free.
Creating A Podcast
Creating a podcast today is relatively easy, there are lots of resources, help and tips for podcast beginners, as well as various podcast-software available (a popular free one is Audacity) that will allow a web business owner to create and publish a commercial podcast from their office or home computer. Creating a podcast is a brilliant way to market a website, service or product, generate more traffic and help with higher search engine rankings.
Generating Podcast Traffic
Once you have created your podcast you will then need to place it on your site so that users can download and listen to it – and if it’s interesting enough – they will tell other users about it and your site traffic and downloads will increase. Another great way to start generating traffic from your podcast is to upload it to the various large podcast-platforms such as:
I-Tunes
Archive.org
Podcast Alley.com
Podcast Directory.com
Pod feed.net
Above are only a few of the main online platforms that allow you to upload your latest podcasts and start generating users and website traffic.
Podcast Optimisation (Podcast SEO)
You can optimise your podcast through on-site code optimisation and off-site link optimisation which will add to your overall SEO strategy. There are four main SEO (search engine optimisation) aspects a podcast can be used for:
Visitor Loyalty – Returning visitors directly related to the content of your podcasts
On-Site Keywords – Utilising the podcast software to create optimised files on your site accessible to the search engines.
Off-Site SEO – Ability to create back-links to your website via the major podcast portals.
User Rich Features – Additional on-site content-feature for your users (which can set you apart from the competition that maybe following more traditional online marketing methods).
Podcast Marketing
Podcasting is an ideal way to help market your website, services or products and (if done properly) will increase your website traffic. Podcasting allows users to listen to your podcast while on the move, receive your latest podcasts through subscribing to your podcast RSS feed and because of the one-on-one special relationship a podcast creates between you (the publisher) and the listener a podcast is a fantastic tool for getting your marketing message across.
Podcast Marketing Tip
A useful podcast marketing tip is to create a podcast review section (or podcast-blog) on your site which allows users to upload their own audio/podcast reviews of your products/services (a great way to incentivise users is to create a weekly/monthly competition for the best review – with the winner receiving a prize of some sort – then submit your competition to all the online completion based sites which will help drive even more traffic to your website).
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Tags: Internet Marketing, Podcast Marketing
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