This new design wouldn’t have come together without the help of some excellent freelancers and handy resources that I want to list here with my endorsement.

Logo/Header Design

I was fortunate to meet and work with Mike Gibson back when I was working on my book. He did the cover design as well as the internal layout.

Since then, not only have we become friends, I’ve also enlisted him on a number of other projects. His work is always top notch and delivered with thoughtful insight. He knows fonts like no one else I know.

If you need design work for print or web, I highly recommend his services.

Photography

Getting photos taken is never a fun proposition. It’s uncomfortable. It’s nerve-wracking. You put all that time and money into it just hoping that they don’t turn out cheesy and that there are at least a couple that you can stand to look at.

Well, I’m very fortunate to have a friend that is very naturally gifted at working with a camera and people. She did an excellent job taking new photos of me after I had literally put it off for years.

You can find her incredible portfolio here.

Blogging Software

It’s no secret I’m a huge fan of WordPress. It’s the platform of choice for launching a new media-ready site fast and inexpensively. As always, this site is run by WordPress. You can download it for free to install on your site here.

Site Layout/Design

Finding a good theme for your WordPress can be tough. There are a lot of horrible designs and poorly coded themes floating around out there. Fortunately I found a premium theme designer whose work I really like. This blog is theme was originally purchased from them and then customized to fit what I wanted.

You can find there themes here.

Web Hosting

My recommended host for beginners is still here.

However, this site is now hosted on a virtual private server (VPS) in order to handle the traffic and other contraints that it needs to. The VPS service that I use (and have been very happy with so far) can be found here.

Their service, features and performance have been top notch. I have been through many, many hosts and so for this has been the best when the time comes that you want to move beyond a shared hosting plan.

—

My hope is that one or more of those recommended resources will help you out in your own online efforts. I’ve put in a lot of time and research to find the tools that I use.  I share them here to save you the time and energy of finding trusted services.

What other questions do you have about the new design and the resources that I used? Share them in the comments below.

I have a lot of new things coming down the pipeline
very soon like new courses and a new podcast. Stay
tuned for more about that.

But there’s something I wanted to share with you
today.

In the past three years there have been two things
that have increased my business income more than
anything.

The FIRST is podcasting.

The SECOND is something I’m making a video about
that I’ll send out either Tuesday or Wednesday.

In the meantime, there’s a video that I just watched
that hints at what the second thing is.

This video is about a guy who that went from being on
food stamps to making a six-figure income in his
business.

Go check out the video now, there’s nothing for sale.

This is an amazing case study…put together by Jeff
Walker, who is awesome at putting out “pure content”
case studies.

This video is COMPLETELY free…but you should
definitely subscribe to the email list on that page
to get the other full-length case studies sent to you.

The really cool thing about these case studies is that
you can learn first-hand how to apply it to YOUR business.

So go watch the video and then subscribe to get the
others,

More soon!

In this interview you’ll find:

• How I became and branded myself as a podcasting expert
• How podcasting helped me become and author
• Why I prefer internet based business for entrepreneurship
• Why I focus so much on training/teaching in my business
• What struggles I have faced and how I overcame them
• How I came to live in Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Top lessons I’ve learned along the way

I had a lot of fun doing the interview so I thought you might enjoy hearing it.

Click here to listen to the interview

To use it you’ll need to enable the Awareness API for your feed. If you use the Feed Count badge on your site, then Awareness is already enabled.

Keep in mind that enabling Awareness opens up your stats to be used by developers in a tools such as this chart of Top 100 podcasts from Podfeed.net. If you don’t want to leave your feed stats open to developer scrutiny, you can temporarily enable Awareness, use the Blog Perfume tool and then disable Awareness again.

To enable Awareness on a FeedBurner feed:

1. Login to your FeedBurner account
2. Click on the name of the feed you want to enable it for
3. Click on the Publicize tab in the nav bar at the top
4. Click on Awareness API in the buttons on the left side
5. Click the Enable button

One creative use for this tool is to analyze the stats of another blog or podcast–perhaps one you want to advertise or partner with. If they have Awareness turned on, you’ll be able to analyze see the history of their stats.

Try it yourself. Let me know if it provides you any particularly interesting insights about your stats.

Here are three posts that I especially recommend.

The Importance of an Insertion Order | by Susan Bratton

Susan talks about the importance of having a document called an insertion order (IO) if you plan to play in the big leagues. I’m admittedly less familiar with this arena since I’ve focused on monetizing my podcasts with alternate means. She explains what an IO is, what it should include and points out that the ADM will take up the task of helping podcasters create and use such documents.

The Challenges of a Global Market | by Duncan Perry

One of the advantages and challenges of internet media is that it reaches a potentially worldwide audience. This introduces a number of interesting questions. This blog post discusses a few of them.

Adages, Ads and Analytics | by John Federico

John defines the problem of measuring audience size and engagement.

What would you like to see discussed on the ADM blog?

Right after I mentioned GigaVox, earlier this year, they closed their beta system to new accounts. I soon discovered that it was because Podango (a company I have consulted for) bought the GigaVox Audio Lite technology. This was great news since I was one person encouraging Podango to integrate this technology into their system. To my surprise they went ahead and bought it.

Now the system is open again to new accounts (still in beta mode). This tool is part of the publishing process I teach in my Professional Podcasting Course. To grab your free Podango Show Builder account, go here.

Paul Colligan and I were rather partial to calling the service Gigadango and tried to make it stick by using that name several times during a panel at the New Media Expo, but the powers-that-be weren’t as hip on the moniker :).

What’s your opinion of Podango acquiring Gigavox?

Q: What kind of course is this?

The course is an eight week in-depth, no holds barred webinar series and coaching program where I’ll personally walk you through the entire system I use to launch and promote successful podcasts for myself and my business clients. It provides you with everything you need to create a professional podcast of your own. This course will shave months and thousands of dollars off of your learning curve.

Every week, for eight weeks, you’ll have access to a live intensive online training session where I walk you through the system, step-by-step. Then you’ll get a recording of the session as well as a weekly Quick Action Guide full of carefully selected links, tools, checklists and suggested tasks to keep you on track. You’ll get everything you need to launch your podcast by the end of the course.

You’ll also get plenty of opportunities to ask questions live, email me, crawl insiide my mind and extract every last secret.

Q: What is professional podcasting?

“Professional podcasting” is the system that I’ve created for anyone who wants to use podcasting to further serious business or personal aspirations. It’s a step-by-step system based on a set of practices that bring maximum return on investment when it comes to things like making money, strengthening a brand, promotion and acquiring valuable business opportunities. The entire system is based on what I currently do for myself as well as my consulting clients including consultants, professionals, activists, startups, educators and corporations.

Q: Who is the course for?

This course is for you if you’re serious about using this cutting-edge medium to:

• Strengthen your brand
• Attract new customers
• Boost profits
• Promote products and services
• Become a media-recognized expert

This course is ideal for:

• Anyone with an existing business (on- or offline, b2b, or consumer)
• Podcasters who want to turn their interests/expertise into a profitable business
• Anyone who wants to develop and promote a personal brand (professionals, consultants, authors, etc.)
• ANYONE who wants to launch their profits, lead-generation and customer retention into the Social Media Age

Q: What will I learn?

I’ve crammed too much into this course to list everything here. I’ll release a detailed outline very soon. In a nutshell, you’ll learn everything you need to launch and run a professional podcast exactly like I do for my business clients and my own podcasts. Here are the titles of the eight modules of the system.

• MODULE 1: Mastering Social Media: RSS, Blogging and Podcasting 101
• MODULE 2: Secrets of Killer Content Creation
• MODULE 3: Choosing Quality Gear and Software on Any Budget
• MODULE 4: Podcast Production: How to Sound Like the Pros
• MODULE 5: Preparing User-Friendly Media for Mass Audience Appeal
• MODULE 6: Instant Podcast Publishing: RSS without the Fuss
• MODULE 7: How to Attract and Interact with Community of Loyal Fans
• MODULE 8: Using Your Podcast to Make More Money, Promote Your Business & Become and Online Celebrity

Q: What if I’m not a technology geek like you? Can I still understand the course material?

I’ll go through every step in everyday terms. You won’t need a geek-speak dictionary to follow along. But don’t just take my word for it:

“As of today I have not found more concise and well written instructions on podcasting for beginners.” Stanley Dalnekoff, New Haven, CT

“Since I don’t use computers in my work anymore, I have fallen behind in my technological skills and knowledge. I would never have felt confident enough to even consider creating my own podcast if I hadn’t found your site. Now I’m not intimidated…” Diane, Keane, NH

Q: Can’t all the info from this course be found in books?

There are numerous podcasting books available. I’ve read pretty much every one. Some are better than others. But they all the same problems when it comes to teaching you how to podcast.

• Podcasting is progressing so quickly that as soon as a book hits the shelf, it’s out of date. Did you know that one of the most popular “how to podcast” books is already two years old and doesn’t even talk about iTunes!

• A book can’t SHOW you what to do. Many aspects of podcasting you have to see to understand. This course will give you the opportunity to “look over my shoulder” and watch exactly how I do things. That way you’ll learn in a fraction of the time.

• Many podcasting books neglect to talk about critical ingredients of podcasting. They give plenty of advice on gear and recording, but leave out vital practices that will cost you listeners if neglected.

• Some books were written by people who are no longer podcasting. To really master this medium, you need to learn from someone who is currently active in the industry. I’ve been actively involved in podcasting for over two years now and have helped dozens of people start podcasts in a variety of fields.

Q: How much time will it take to go through the course and launch my podcast?

This is in-depth course and coaching program lasts for eight weeks. Each week there’s an online training session that will last about an hour or two. The time it takes you to implement the steps I present will vary, but you’ll have my direct guidance to help you do so.

Throughout the course I’ll outline tips for streamlining the workflow. I’ll show you how to outsource and automate as much as possible.

During the eight-week program you can easily get your own podcast up and running.

The time savings is just the beginning of the benefits that GigaVox Audio Lite offers. This post is the first of at least a couple articles outlining how I use the service and how it can help you with your podcast as well.

Let me start by painting a picture of how I recorded and published Podcasting Underground BEFORE using GigaVox.

1. I record the segments that change each episode: episode ID (e.g. “This is podcasting Underground episode #X), main body segment and announcements
2. The clips are normalized to make sure levels are consistent across the board
3. I do a bit of post-processing on the audio (i.e. EQ and compression)
4. I pay an audio engineer to edit these segments together with the pieces that stay the same each episode: intro, transition music and outro
5. The audio engineer exports the MP3 file and adds the ID3 tags
6. The episode is published to the blog and feed

Steps 2, 4 and 5 are automated with Gigavox Audio Lite. The work flow now takes half the time and looks like this.

1. Record segments that change each episode
2. Post-processing
3. Upload WAV files to Gigavox
4. Gigavox does the following: normalize, stitch together segments that change with the fixed segments, convert to MP3 and add ID3 tags
5. Publish to blog/feed

Cutting publishing time in half is significant to any podcaster and critical to a business podcaster when time is money. I still pay an assistant to do some of the work, but since it takes him less time it saves me money.

I should make it clear that Gigavox is not a podcast host. You still use your own podcast hosting, but Gigavox aids in the process of editing and creating your MP3 file. In the next article I’ll go over exactly ow GigaVox Audio Lite does this.

Anyone else using Gigavox to publish? What kind of time savings are you experiencing?

FeedBurner announced this week that their PRO stats are now free (another benefit from the acquisition by Google). But you need to activate the feature first to get the benefit. Here’s how.

1. Log in to your FeedBurner account

2. Click on the name of the feed that you want to upgrade

3. On the left-hand side, click on Item Use

4. Click on Upgrade to TotalStats now

5. On the next page, check the stats features that you want to enable then click the Save button

FeedBurner’s PRO TotalStats offer three additional metrics including:

• Reach: the number of people who have viewed or clicked the content in your feed
• Aggregate Item Use: an overview and history of total item use across your feed
• Single Item Use: views and clicks of a single item over time

Reach is a very interesting engagement-type metric. It’s particularly useful for seeing how many people are viewing the show notes and clicking through to the site. From the FeedBurner blog, here’s an excellent explanation of “Reach.”

While the subscriber number is a measure of how many people have opted in to receive a feed, “Reach” is the total number of people who have taken action

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