What is Podcasting and Why Should You Care?

Posted on April 28th, 2008

Previously we learned some Tips For Writing Articles, Recommended Plugins Your WordPress blog and Audio Books. Those Audio Books can be loaded onto an MP3 player, which is pretty much what an iPod does.

But the iPod does more than just play MP3 files. It can connect to the Internet to get more music and audio files, such as those you can record your blog articles in. You are keeping up with your blog and writing articles, right?

So you have the articles posted weekly and should be getting some traffic from them. Now you want to expand into more markets to reach a larger audience. Have you thought about how much more people are listening than reading?

A recent study has shown that an increasing number of people are downloading audio files and listening to them instead of reading the vast amount of information online. You will still be getting people to read your blog, but recording your articles and making them available online will broaden your audience.

That is known as podcasting. The term was coined when the iPod became popular. When you write an article, you can also record it and have the MP3 player shown above or below the article, so that your visitors have a choice: They can listen to it online, or download it to their iPod or other MP3 player and take it with them.

If your articles are generating interest, then your visitors will want to keep up with what you are writing about by taking you with them.

There is a plugin for WordPress called podPress. It has a whole host of options to personalize your podcast player. You can get a link to the plugin from the Blogging Secrets page on Affiliate Referral Sources. Download and install it, then go through the options.

Along with that, you will need a program to record the MP3 files. I use and recommend Audacity. It is easy to use and make smaller MP3 files than other recorders do.

Get Audacity at SourceForge.net

Once you write the article and record it, look below the editing box in WordPress for the MP3 upload button. Upload your file and when you publish the article, the recording will be there too.

Start broadening your reach with your visitors and do not worry about how you sound. People just want to hear a friendly voice. It will keep them coming back for more.

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Jim Hutchinson
Affiliate Referral Sources
A Division of Website Managers, LLC

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Copyright © 2008 Website Managers, LLC. You may reprint this article providing that this copyright notice and resource links all remain intact.

Tags: Audacity, Audio Books, iPod, MP3, podcasting, podPress
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Recommended Plugins For Your WordPress Blog

Posted on April 21st, 2008

When running your blog, you spend most of your time posting articles to generate traffic. That is the most important part. Another important part is making sure the blog is aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Having a site that looks good makes reading the content easier and keeps the visitors there longer. To test various designs, I like to periodically change the theme. Then I check the logs to see if people tend to stay on the site longer and if they can navigate to the other pages easier.

Another thing I like to do is keep watch for plugins that make the visitors interact. That can be things like sending the page to a friend, or adding it to their favorite social bookmarking site. Even putting audio in the articles allows the visitors to listen while they read or look around.

The audio files are known as podcasts and can be downloaded to iPods or other MP3 players. With iPods though, they can sign up for the news feed, much like the other visitors do, so they can get notifications of new articles when they are published.

Recently while on NetProfitsToday.com, one of my favorite discussion forums, the topic of WordPress plugins came up. The list that grew really captured my attention. I knew that there are hundreds, maybe thousands or plugins, but did not know which ones were worthwhile, until I saw the list that others are using.

Whether you have a blog or not, I invite you to look at the list. I added it to my marketing site and looked up the links to each of the plugins so you can get them for your own blog.

To see a list of some recommended WordPress plugins, visit
Affiliate Referral Sources Blogging Secrets

Jim Hutchinson
Affiliate Referral Sources
A Division of Website Managers, LLC
Now in Our 10th Year of Website hosting
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Copyright © 2008 Website Managers, LLC. You may reprint this article providing that this copyright notice and resource links all remain intact.

Tags: Blogging, plug-ins, plugins, WordPress
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