Podcast – The Rabbit Habbit

I subscribe to many different forums and newsletters about everything from rabbits to improving your website. I recently received one of my newsletters about a subject called podcasting. Of course, I was familiar with the term, but thought that podcasting was something out of reach. However, as I began to read this newsletter I started to think it might be easier than I thought. So I did a little more research, and gained a little bit of confidence that I might actually be able to create a podcast.

Some people are probably wondering what in the world a podcast is, but I’m sure with the recent craze most people know what an Ipod is. Ipod is actually a brand name MP3 player. MP3 is a format through which you can play music , audio and video files. A podcast is a show that can be in many formats such as a talk show that can be download on to an MP3 player.

I wondered how many podcasts are out there related to raising rabbits. I seached several podcast directories, including itunes. I found two such shows. I listened to both shows. They were ok. Both were by owners of two pet rabbits. You can gain a lot of experience from raising just two rabbits over several years but not much about breeding.

So I decided I would give this thing a try. I went and bought a noise reducing microphone, and downloaded some open source sound recording software. I decided to keep the first podcast episode very simple (audio only, no video) and not really very in depth.

I set up a format of what I would talk about and in what order. I downloaded some free music clips called loops, which are used for musical intro’s, etc. I spent about two hours creating a twenty minute podcast. Not bad for a beginner. I then created the necessary rss file, and uploaded everything to my server. I added the podcast to several directories, including itunes, which has yet to post the podcast.

So you’re thinking, “why create a podcast?” There are a couple of reasons. First it may help with search engine ranking. We want our site to be a very high quality site with information that will be helpful for many people. In order for your site to get visitors you have to rank high on the search engines. We like to compare our ranking with The Nature Trail. Laurie always has her pages optimized well, and often is ranked ahead of us. By the way, she should be ranked ahead of us, as she has been raising rabbits longer, is more experienced than us, and has more information than us. Great, now I’ve just helped her some more by adding her link to this blog. Podcasting, is a way of increasing your sites visibility, and in the long run may help with those rankings. Last year our site had over 10,000 visitors and this year we are on pace for about 20,000.

The second reason I like the podcast, is that not everyone can sit at a computer and read articles. In our going here and there society, everybody has time to listen to something. We either have our radios on listening to the news, or to music. Talk show radio is very popular. Your see teens walking around the mall with their ipods. The ipod has put the how to, topic specific show, unto a very elevated marketing plateau. So the new pet owner wants to know more about raising their rabbit but doesnt have time to look at our site. Easy fix, just listen to a podcast about the subject.

So today we launch The Rabbit Habbit. I tried to add some life to it, but I personally think its in the mediocre range. My girls just love it, but that has nothing to do with content, they just think its cool that this thing actually has their dad’s voice on it. The goal is to have a show every two weeks. You can click here on The Rabbit Habbit, to download the MP3 file and listen to the show on an ipod, or on your computer with Windows Media Player. In the near future we will add subscription buttons for those that subscribe to podcasts.

Please give us your feedback on the show. When your comments are not favorable, use constructive critism. I always tell those I work with to use the sandwhich technique. Sandwhich the bad news inbetween some good stuff! Its a whole lot easier to swallow that way. I hope you enjoy the show.

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