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You don’t have to look too hard online to find a podcast about whatever interests you. There are podcasts for traveling, dog grooming, video gaming, exercising, politics, pretty much anything you can think of.

This should give you a hint that making your own podcast isn’t too hard, and if you get enough listeners, it can be used as a spectacular marketing platform.

Almost anyone can make a podcast, but in order to do one well, you need to keep these simple things in mind:

• Produce a high quality recording
• Tailor your content to your target audience
• Market your podcast successfully
• Take into consideration criticism and feedback

Now that you know the general idea let’s take it step by step and see how to create your first podcast.

1. Production

The first step in creating a podcast that people will want to listen to is making sure that your recording sounds good. Someone who wants to hear what you have to say likely will not stick around through the first podcast, let alone come back for subsequent ones, if the sound quality is terrible.

While a laptop’s microphone can work if you have absolutely no other options, even a cheap $20-$30 microphone can make a world of difference in both keeping out background noise, and making you sound better. A nicer microphone would get even better results.

The people who have tens of thousands of podcast listeners usually have a fairly nice setup, something akin to what you would see in a recording studio.

2. Content

How you sound does not matter at all if you talk about things that do not interest anyone. Ideally, you should have a website to direct people to your podcast, and your content should reflect what your site is about.

Stick to your site’s content and expand on it. Chances are that your listeners are there because they came from your site, or because someone heard it on your site and referred a friend.

It is important to keep your content at an easy to comprehend level of detail. You want your audience to take something away from your podcast other than how you drone on about highly technical aspects of the subject matter.

You want to resonate with a wide audience in order to get the most listeners. This can be hard if people get bored with what you have to say.

You should have enough content in your podcast to make it worth downloading, but not so much that listeners will have to shut it off too soon. [Tweet “A podcast around half an hour long is something that most commuters can get in on their way to work”] Or they can give it a listen when they have just a little bit of down time.

Going any longer than an hour risks having people turn you off before getting to a product pitch or another important part of your podcast.

3. Marketing

Any podcast creator will tell you that the hardest part, at least in the beginning was getting people to actually listen to the podcast. This may not be an issue if you are one of the very few people who already have a built-in, captive audience by way of a large opinion site or message board.

For the other 99.95% of website owners and marketers, you need to actively promote your podcast as much as you can.

One of the best ways to do this is by creating a YouTube video set to your podcast. It doesn’t even have to be a flashy video by any means, even slides highlighting the main points would work. What you are doing when you put something on YouTube is exposing it to a much larger audience than either your website, or iTunes could give you.

Anybody searching YouTube for content related to your podcast may very well run across it. You can get the same result with Google searches since [Tweet “YouTube videos usually show up high in the SERPs if you have a good description for it.”]

With your website, you can always remind people to check out your podcast after any content you post with a link leading to it.

You can make it prominent on your front page, have a dedicated section in any emails or newsletters you send out. And don’t forget to use your social media accounts to get more people to discover your podcast.

4. Feedback

Listening to your audience is essential if you want to hold their attention for more than just a couple of downloads. This is especially important during your early podcasting days so you don’t miss out on giving people exactly what they want.

You’re never going to be able to appeal to everyone, not even within your niche, but you can appeal to the majority of people if you tailor your content around what they want to hear. If you run a podcast that offers your opinions, that might be easier said than done.

By talking about current events, products, or anything factual, you can make it a lot easier on yourself to switch subject matter, or change up your podcasting plan, depending on what the audience wants.

You can even work requesting feedback into the last part of every podcast. Ask that listeners with any comments or concerns email you directly, or fill out a form on your website. If anyone is willing to take the time to contact you, and the request or comment isn’t too outlandish, there is a good chance that other people are thinking the exact same thing.

[Tweet “It’s the silent crowd who you need to be worried about”] because they will always vastly outnumber the people who actually get in touch with you.

The fewer comments you get relative to the number of people listening to your podcast, the better of a chance that your audience enjoys what they are hearing.

If you produce a podcast that will get people talking, and coming back to hear more, you’re going to be able to efficiently market to a bigger and bigger crowd as time goes on. These people will be coming for you to hear your opinion on things, or to learn from you, which makes you an authority figure in their eyes.