How to Get Your Podcast Noticed

So now you have your podcast up and running but you only have one subscriber, yourself. Don't let the initial lack of attention bother you because all new podcast's run by individuals have to work to get noticed. Since most small podcaster's are individuals on low or nonexistent budgets flyers, mailers, and other mundane advertisement methods aren't necessary. The Internet is the best place to search for and gain new subscribers.

Because the average podcast subscriber is comfortable with the internet, have a high speed connection, and know where to look for podcasts that are going to entertain, or at least, interest them using the internet is the best way to get new listeners. The best place to start is by listing your feed with popular directories like the Podcast Directory or Podcast.net. These submissions can sometimes be tedious but they are well worth the time and effort. The directories specialize in keeping an up to date list of podcasts and their feeds in a user friendly manner that makes it possible for users to select podcasts based on their topic/content. It is important to constantly check for new directories since new ones are popping up each week and many of them reach a large number of potential subscribers from the moment they launch.

Another great way to get new subscribers is to "Ping" sites whenever new content is added to your podcast. A "Ping" is a computer tool that is used to send messages from one IP to another and there are a variety of directories that can be "Pinged". Why use pinging after you've listed your podcast on a directory? Because each time you "Ping" a directory you are telling them of brand new content available while listing with a directory only lets listeners know that you exist but don't often show how much you update your content.

There are two way's to ping directories and services. The first way is by manually going to various sites such as Technorati or Weblogs and giving them the address of your feed to ping. There are also software's available that can be downloaded which will send a ping to multiple sites with one click. The second way to ping a site is by automatically setting up your podcast to ping every time you add content to your site. Pings can be set up with certain programs such as Movable Type, Blogger, and Wordpress. Taking the time to ping your podcast and list it with directories can get you noticed for little, to no cost.