Long gone are days when you just create and people will come. Nowadays, you need to promote for people to come to your sites. This applies for podcasts as well.
You may think it is obvious but it isn't always so. Perhaps, people are just lazy. They may have been sabotaging themselves when it comes to anything that is related to the word "promotion," especially self-promotion.
No matter how great a technology is and will be, it will not just work unless we make it work for us and our business.
Podcast promotion is equally critical to the success of the podcast. What can you do to promote your podcast? Here are some ideas to help you get started:
1. Podcast directories
They are free to submit. Although you cannot depend on them to get a lot of listeners, still they can be useful in many ways. Directories usually rank high in search engine listings. Having inbound links from such sites are valuable to your site's search engine popularity.
2. Press release
Press release, if done right, gives more power than paid advertising on newspapers and online media. People value news far better than marketing messages or ads.
Online press release submission will not only bring more exposure but also stronger link popularity and search engine rankings.
3. Publish episode notes and transcripts
As part of leveraging your existing content, you can produce episode notes or even transcriptions of your podcasts. These textual content are very attractive for search engine crawlers as this is the format most search engines recognize.
Episode notes and transcripts also help Web users to get an idea about what your podcast is about before they download or subscribe to the podcast.
4. Basic search engine optimization
To get the most traffic from search engines, you need to know some basic practices. At the minimum, you should know what the keywords you want to target and place those keywords in one or more page.
Put the main keyword once in the title, once in the main headline and sparingly throughout the body content.
Getting inbound links with the primary keyword in the anchor text helps a lot to get your pages at the first page of search engine result pages.
5. Discussion boards
Public discussion boards usually allow a few lines of signature that is attached to the end of every post. You can use this to promote your podcasts.
Don't just post or respond for the sake of responding. Quality post will help build your expert status and prepare their openness to more information before visiting your podcast site.
Just like a web site, you need to promote your podcast to expose it to as many targeted visitors as possible. When they come to your site, it is the job of the site to convert them into regular listeners and subscribers.
The rule of thumb is to see your podcast as a standalone product. There is no "sale" that happens without promotion. The more you promote, the better your product is going to sell.