Places to find free podcasting

The best place to find anything for free is the internet. By looking for free podcasting in a search engine you can come up with multiple hits to get you started with podcasting at no charge to you. Where you will find free podcasting depends on what you are looking for. If you are only looking to download free podcasts to listen to you can find them on a variety of podcasting directories, the same thing holds true for information on podcasting, such as tips and tricks and how to guides. But no matter the subject or purpose the best place to find free podcasting is on the internet.

With podcasting there are five basic steps to making a podcast. And the best news is that all five of these steps can be done for free with the right tools. Here are some of the free tools you can use to make your podcast.

1. Create your audio file - this can actually be accomplished with the equipment that comes with your computer when you first buy it. Most computers that use Windows for their operating system come with sound recording software built-in, but before deciding on this software you should test it to make sure you like the quality. If you do not like the recording software that your computer came with you can use free open source software recording and editing tool such as Audacity. This can be downloaded from https://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/. But you will also need to download a plug-in to Audacity called Lame so that you can export audio files in MP3 format. It can be downloaded from https://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=install&item=lame-mp3
2. Upload your audio file - now that you have created your audio file you need to transfer it onto a computer that is able to serve up files to other computers over the internet, basically you are going to need to find a server. If you already have your own website you can use that, but if you don't you can use a free service called Internet Archive which can be found at https://archive.org. This site also includes a tuturial on how to upload audio files that you can use. It will inlcude a link to Creative Commons so that you can attach a license to your audio files and you will need to use ccPublisher to actually upload your files to the internet. You can find this free tool at https://creativecommons.org/tools/ccpublisher
3. Create show notes on your website - if you have your own website you can use that to publish any notes about your podcast that you wish to include. But as many of us do not have your own website you can create a free website at Blogger https://blogger.com. Something to keep in mind when creating your website is to make sure that your website shows links, this will allow you to add a link to your podcast on the internet. Also when creating a title for your post keep in mind that the title of your post will be a link to your podcast.
4. Create and publish your RSS feed - this beginning of this step, which is creating an Atom feed is done at Blogger, but since Atom feeds won't work with podcasting you will have to convert the Atom feed into an RSS feed. This can be done using Feedburner which can be found at https://feedburner.com
5. Tell everyone about your podcast - there are numerous free podcast directories where you can list your podcast in the correct catorgory and you can either choose to keep your podcasts private or set them up so anybody can view them. Just remember that in order to get the maximum exposure for your podcast you want to allow as many people as possible to see it.