Exploring America - History Curriculum For High School Homeschoolers

Finding a good history curriculum for high school was one of the greatest challenges I faced when I was being homeschooled. It seemed like most of the good history books stop at the Civil War or World War II. What about modern history? It's hard to find a history book from a Christian perspective about modern history. Have you run into this problem, too? This difficulty has been overcome with a high school history curriculum from Notgrass Company. Exploring America by Ray Notgrass is an amazing curriculum that is exciting as well as educational. It begins with Christopher Columbus and ends at the present time. Each day is broken up into short concise lessons.

Sometimes history books seem to make the exciting events sound like nothing more than boring facts, Mr. Notgrass has an engaging writing style that makes the events come to life. There are also daily assignments that encourage the students to dig deeper. Sometimes they will read a document, speech, or hymn from American Voices, which is a 400+ page companion book that comes with the curriculum. Other times they will look up relevant Bible verses and also memorize verses. Writing assignments (including writing a research paper) are also part of the assignments. Students who finish the course will have three credits, one in history, one in English, and one in Bible. How's that for hitting 3 birds with one stone?

This book is essential for every high school student and will give them the tools to take an in-depth look at American history from a Biblical perspective. If you are looking for a really good American history high school curriculum look no further. Exploring America has filled a big gap in the history curriculum for homeschoolers. Exploring America is the best high school curriculum for American history I have ever seen! I wish it had been around when I was in high school.

Exploring America by Ray Notgrass

Reviewed by Amy Puetz

Exploring America - History Curriculum For High School Homeschoolers   Home Spun Schools - Teaching Children at Home What Parents Are Doing and How They Are Doing It   Home Schooling and Learning Communities - A Book Review   

Interior Stair Railings: Best Home Renovation Solution

Commonly, home owners and visitors admire the architecture of indoor railings, especially when the craftsmanship demonstrates expertise. This often leaves individuals debating the perfect method to improve the interior home decorations. Certain safety regulations exist and serve to help homeowners maintain the healthy qualities of decorative rails in the home. Examining different railing systems is also an optimum resolve to determine product quality.

This approach is required to ascertain that the best class of railings was selected. Although individuals focus on finding well-designed railings to decorate the interior bounds, it is fundament to select rails that are efficient in every way. Therefore, if the rails are installed to stairway systems, opting for designs that manage pressure well is the top priority. Moreover, the components used to setup the complete staircase should be depravities of the finest materials and the designs should coordinate well with the home's current furnishings. Nevertheless, safety and security are fundamental characteristics individuals should seriously contemplate, if one's objective is to buy the best interior railing systems. Whichever collection a person decides to choose, it is mandatory to secure products of superior quality. Given that the collections are available in distinctive colors, shapes, sizes, patterns, etc.; it is obligatory to measure the attributes of multiple designs from different manufacturers to select nothing but the best.

Nowadays, the designers of staircase railings even promote preassembled railing systems. These are easier to develop and don't require a high level of expertise to initiate and execute installation. The basics to completing the entire stairway setup require that persons follow the instruction provided by the maker. The preset staircase components are fitting for individuals with an interest to save time, as well as money. The effort needed to install the staircase is nominal, and one's skills should develop with time. The materials to debate usually include metal, wood, metallic, aluminum, vinyl and other suitable ranges. The choice depends on one's requirements, but the metal staircase railings are a better choice, when debating quality, reliability, durability and cost-effectiveness. Choosing a design is never hard, because many options exist, making it stress free to pick the right railings to buy.

The railings possibly require maintenance; therefore, buyers should always think over choosing the right product, by inspecting all the methods well. Determining the best solution is not demanding, when a person's knowledge on railings is vast. The difference with the railings manufacturers products has to do with the material types, strength of the structures, price and installation method. All these require assessment, when one's main prospect is to buy the best railings to enhance the home's interior realm.

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Valuable Long Term Care Planning Details

LTC insurance policies might be quite complicated and complex particularly to those who are not really familiar with its process and to those who are considered as first-timers when it comes to these kinds of policies. This is just one of the many reasons why it is important for an individual, and for their family members as well, to have proper and careful long term care planning.

Just like with how other insurance plans work, LTC policies need a lot of time and patience before one can fully comprehend the benefits, advantages, and other terminologies that come with it. An expert may be hired in order to help those who are willing and interested to avail their own LTC insurance plan. These individuals or LTC authorities may give light and helpful advices to those who seek guidance before they confirm their plan purchase.

Aside from the insurance agents who are usually the ones who help the public with their LTC plans queries, there are also the so-called elder care experts who underwent trainings and other related studies regarding LTC insurance policies. They can give some pertinent tips and information that their clients can consider when availing their own policy.

They can give suggestions on what nursing home or adult day care facility is the best or most suitable to address and treat their health issues. Aside from this, they can also act as liaison officer between the confined insurance owner and their relatives who may be away from them of live far from where they are currently confined.

They can also recommend the most appropriate type of LTC insurance plan that fits his health and LTC needs and his financial allocation as well. This is on of the most important steps in long term care planning because there are several kinds of LTC plans that, although offer almost the same services and facilities, very in amount and have different terms of how they would pay their policyholders' LTC needs.

Below are some beneficial and useful tips on what to consider if an individual is seriously considering of buying an LTC plan:

1. Choose an insurance provider with stable and credible status in the insurance industry. Because of the expensive monthly premiums that one has to pay for, he would not want to invest on a company that cannot assure him of getting all his LTC needs in the future.

2. Ask for LTC policy quotations from different insurance companies so that the individual can choose the most reasonable price but does not necessarily compromise the quality of services and facilities that he can get.

3. Buy an LTC plan as early as possible. This is one of the major ways on how to get cheaper and lower monthly premiums. Other factors that could help a person avail of cheaper policies may be discussed further with his insurance provider.

Insurance agents or hiring an elder care specialist would surely help an individual with his long term care planning by acquiring more important details and factual information rather than getting other data from unreliable resources. Also, they can help them reduce the time of planning, thus giving their clients more chances of getting lower and budget-friendly policy rates.

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Why Opt for LED Under Cabinet Lighting?

We spend a lot of time, effort and money in making sure that our house is well constructed. After that, we also spend our energy on making sure that the bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens and each and every part of our house is well decorated. Besides, we make sure that all the rooms are illuminated with the help of the best lights and bulbs available in the market. The kitchen is one of the most important rooms of our house and we cook and store our food in that room. Usually the cabinets in the room are used to store food and other edible substances.

Because of the fact that the cabinets are used to store items that can directly affect our health, we must ensure that they are kept in the best possible conditions. This is why, people should opt for LED under cabinet lighting so that they can easily keep a watch on the food items kept in the kitchen cabinets, and also keep the area clean at all times. Besides, LED cabinet lighting will offer you many more advantages such as:

Quality- the quality of the light emitted by these lights is way better than that emitted by sodium lamps, traditional fluorescent or incandescent lamps. The LED puck lights will emit warm light that will not only brighten the room but will also help in keeping it warm all the year round.

Pollution- when you opt for LED under cabinet lighting, you are actually helping the environment as these lights do not pollute the environment as much as the traditional lamps. They are eco-friendly and they do not have any harmful effect on your health.

Durability- usually, the LED puck lights last for 10 to 12 years, when used for a period of about 12 hours on a daily basis. Thus, they are highly durable and will act as a long term investment. Other lamps are not as durable as they are, in comparison and so you should opt for LED under cabinet lighting.

Savings- opting for LED under cabinet lighting will help you in saving a lot of money in energy bills as these lights consume only about 20 % of the energy consumed by the traditional sodium based lamps. Thus, you will be saving a lot of money months after months, by opting for LED under cabinet lighting.

Finally, the LED puck lights are easy to maintain and you will only need to keep them clean to ensure that they last long.

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6 Winter Energy Saving Tips You Should Know

According to the EPA, nearly half of a family's yearly energy costs are spent on heating and cooling their home. Many parts of the country are currently reaching for the thermostat and cranking up the heat. The costs associated with chilly weather can skyrocket if you aren't careful. This winter you can be simultaneously kind to your bank account, AC and heating system and the environment by practicing a few of our favorite free or inexpensive wintertime energy-saving techniques.

Invest in a programmable thermostat.

When it comes to energy efficiency, upgrading from your old mercury thermostat to a programmable one can save you the big bucks. When properly used, a newer programmable thermostat is capable of easily saving you anywhere from 10-30% on your energy bill. If you already have one or plan on installing one, have it set your home's temperature 10-15 degrees cooler when you're not at home than when you are for serious savings.

Seal any leaks.

If you're already aware of any cracks or gaps, caulk or seal them to prevent cold air from seeping in and warm air escaping out. Common places to find air leaks within your home are along doors, windows, in attics and where plumbing, electrical wiring and anything else come through the wall. For obvious reasons, caulk isn't the best choice to seal certain parts of doors and windows. To keep warm air in without trapping yourself inside, apply weather stripping to the parts of your home that need to open and close.

Close off empty or unused rooms.

If nobody's staying in your guest room this winter then don't waste money on keeping it comfortable. Close the vents to unused rooms so that warm air from your heater doesn't go to waste. Keep the windows and doors of the rooms closed as well.

Let the sunshine in!

During the day let the sunlight help in warming your home. Draw back the curtains and blinds when the sun is shining and close them at night to help insulate the room.

Keep your windows and doors closed as much as possible.

Warm air will quickly escape through an open door or window. Don't leave your door ajar when bringing groceries in from the car or hanging Christmas lights. If you can minimize your trips out into the cold, that'll definitely help. If you can't, just don't leave anything open longer than necessary.

Keep your fireplace damper closed.

In fact, unless you want more from your fireplace than the aesthetically pleasing glow and crackle, it's best that you don't use it at all. Fireplaces, by design, draw whatever warm air is in the room up and out of the chimney to stay alight. If you're running your heater and the fireplace at the same time your AC unit will have to work overtime and you'll probably still have trouble maintaining a toasty temperature.

If you're like us and don't want to see your money carried away with the winter winds, be sure to take these energy-saving precautions. For little to no cost you can reduce your energy consumption and save the environment, your wallet and your heating system any undue stress.

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What Does Energy Efficiency Mean?

For most people energy efficiency means putting the lights out when leaving a room, using the car less, or enabling energy saving modes on devices. Generally energy efficiency means to do more with less energy instead of wasting it as useless heat. On a broader scale it is not only a question of how to use electricity but also of how to generate and distribute it. Efficient generation of electricity is crucial to reduce greenhouse gases and fight the negative consequences of climate change especially as the world's energy needs are constantly growing.

Nowadays fossil fuels are still important to maintain a stable energy network. In the US 85 percent of the energy comes from fossil fuels. Therefore energy efficiency in fossil power generation should be fostered. Only about 35 percent of the energy generated by coal power stations results in electric power. Producing electricity at the highest possible efficiencies would reduce CO2 emissions dramatically. Gas turbines and combined cycle power plants contribute to use fossil energy in a more sustainable manner. Short startup times, low startup emissions and little use of water are important. Combined heat and power plants are among the most efficient methods to generate energy.

It is even more important to replace further fossil energy sources by renewable sources: by wind, solar and hydro power. Increased efforts are made to develop efficient wind turbines, photovoltaic and solar plants. Energy efficiency combined with renewable resources could really provide clean energy. Nowadays (2011) about 14.3 percent of the energy produced in the US comes from renewable resources.

Reliable and low-loss transmission of electricity is another aspect. High-voltage direct current (HVDC) is an environment-friendly transmission system. Another one is the so called smart grid.In connection with this intelligent electricity grid, electric cars play a major role. They have not only low emissions but can also be part of the energy system as they are able to store energy and return it to the grid.

Lowering the CO2 emissions of houses is another crucial point. 40 percent of the electricity is consumed by buildings. Buildings can nowadays become prosumers, which means that they produce and consume energy at the same time. It is even more important to reduce emissions and to improve energy efficiency in the industry. Electric drives and motors are responsible for 70 per cent of industrial energy consumption, so there are efforts to make them more energy efficient.

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Create Your Own Show & Let the World Have It - Use These Podcasting Tools!

Podcasting is a means to publish audio and video content to the world via the Internet. Audiences are able to subscribe to their favourite shows and automatically receive the latest episodes in iTunes or a similar client. Creating a podcast of your own is almost as easy as watching or listening to one. All you need is knowledge of tools, we have made it simpler for by creating a list here.

Having its roots in the blogging world, part of the appeal of podcasting is the ease with which audio content can be created, distributed, and downloaded from the Web. Both professional broadcasters and amateurs are using podcasting as to share opinions and content. The potential audience for these audios is increasing at a fast pace.

Podcasting is therefore becoming an important framework when designing a social media marketing strategy.

We have compiled a structured list of the best tools; these will make it easy for you to create or distributing a podcast.

1. Podcast Hosting, Sharing and Networking

Talkshoe - Create your own live talk show or interactive podcast. Waxxi - Audio shows streamed live, mainly with notable technologists. Once recorded, the live shows are available as podcasts. Feedforall - A tool to that allows users to easily create, edit and publish RSS feeds. This would easily record and edit audio files for podcasts! Evoca - "YouTube for voice recordings": create audio recordings from your computer mic, your phone or Skype, share them with others and embed them on websites. MyPodcast - Podcast hosting solutions offering unlimited storage, bandwidth, and free templates for your podcasts. PodcastPeople - A service that enables you to post text, audio and video materials to your own customized show, and even earn some income from it through sponsors. Hipcast - Create audio, video materials and podcasts and post them to your blog. Libsyn - Liberated Syndication will host your podcasts for a monthly fee. Podbean - Free podcast hosting and publishing. Castpost - Free hosting for audio and video clips.

2. Video podcasting

Video podcast (sometimes shortened to vodcast) is a term used for the online delivery of video on demand video clip content.

Veodia - Create live TV shows and convert them to video podcasts. Blip.tv - A "video podcasting" service. Similar to YouTube, but focusing on independent creators, who get a share of revenue.

3. Mobile Podcasting

Podlinez - Allows listening to podcasts on your phone. Gabcast - Allows recording podcasts straight from your phone. Yodio - Record audio from your phone, add photos and captions.

4. Text to podcasts

If you are tired of reading you might want to know about Text to podcast tools. These tools will help you in listening to the content.

SpokenText - It allows you to record PDF, Word, plain text, PowerPoint files, RSS news feeds, emails and web pages, and converts them to speech automatically. YakiToMe - Convert blogs to audio podcasts. Odiogo - Convert RSS feeds, text articles and blog posts to podcasts. ReadTheWords - Another free web based alternative to convert text into speech.

5. Podcast Directories

PodcastAlley - A podcast directory with over 30,000 podcasts. Podcast.com - A podcast directory that contains tens of thousands of podcasts. Podfeed.net - Host and share your podcast, find podcasts, as well as read and write podcast reviews. Everyzing - Audio and video search engine. Delven - provides a complete online video solution to manage, publish, measure, and monetize high quality video content on the web. PodNova - The best way to find, subscribe to, share, play and download your podcasts.

6. Podcast creation software

Odeo - Perhaps the most popular podcasting platform. It allows recording audio within your browser, embed it anywhere and create your own audio channels. Gcast - Record, mix and broadcast your podcasts. You can record messages by phone and upload MP3 files from your computer. Audacity - Free, open source software for recording and editing audio, works offline. Adobe Soundbooth - Advanced audio editing from Adobe, works offline. Podomatic - This site lets you record video and audio online directly from your browser. You can also receive in line calls from listeners wanting to leave voice comments.

7. Podcast Advertising

Podbridge - Provides podcast metrics and advertising. Podtrac - A service that connects podcasters with advertisers.

How Do You Promote a Podcast and Get More Listeners?   Is a Podcast Difficult to Produce?   School and College Radio   Internet Marketing - Using Podcasts   

Podcasting - What Exactly it Is

Podcasting is an exceptionally new technique of using voice over internet rather than using the conventional methods of addressing the audience i.e. text. It allows the experts and professionals to share their work and experiences with a potentially huge audience over the internet easily and effectively. People from different walks of life are increasingly using the internet to promote their work and achievements and podcasting is an excellent way to accomplish this task without much hassle.

What exactly is Podcasting?

Podcasting, is essentially a communication tool on the internet that allows individuals to distribute their work in the form of audio and video files. The audio and video files, commonly termed as Podcasts are distributed using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and computers. The podcasts can even be streamed directly on internet rather than downloading them as files in the computers. The host or author of a podcast is often called a Podcaster.

Podcasting is supported by RSS 2.0 which allows the content publishers to add the description of new content in an XML based RSS file which includes dates, titles, descriptions and links to MP3 files. Podcasting allows you to automatically receive new shows, discussions and programs when they are broadcasted or podcasted without going to a specific site to download them. You can listen to a variety of programs that are podcasted anytime by using portable players or media players on your computer.

Podcasting is increasingly becoming a popular medium of communication among people to share their knowledge with the huge community and to expand their social circle. Moreover, people are using podcasts to advertise their services including freight shipping, transportation, ticketing services etc

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Podcasting For Reach and Income Growth

Podcasting is one of the most democratic and effective of the new media tools that allows you to get your message or point of view across to a wide audience. The ability to project your message to anyone,anywhere at anytime on the device of their choosing has lead to explosive growth in new media. This is so much so that established media outlets are porting their offerings from TV and radio to the podcast world.

Often thought of as personal broadcasting many podcasters make a healthy income at podcasting either in traditional audio podcasts or in the now popular video podcasts. The market has grown exponentially from the early adopters in the geek world to many of the top marketers in the world. One of the contributing factors to this has been the growth of computer notebooks and personal music players such as the iPod and the Zune. This seismographic shift in the delivery of music from records to cd's and online music aggregators and sellers such as Apple's iTunes. The other major delivery channel is the Smartphone like the iPhone, the Blackberry, Android and HTC products and now the iPad tablet device from Apple.

Professionals, and small businesses are extending their reach into their own community on their areas of expertise. This proliferation allows you to connect by video or voice in a way that has just not been possible in prior years. There are podcasts on gardening, child-rearing, sex, relationships, health and thousands of other niche and microniche subjects.

Education is also possible through the Open University, MIT,Stanford, professional organizations and a host of world class institutions for the taking. The opportunities are unlimited and open to anyone with a microphone, computer, and software program to record,edit and produce podcasts.

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5 Tips For Choosing a Podcast Topic

The first order of business for anyone starting a podcast is to choose a podcast topic. While this may seem like an easy answer, if chosen poorly it can result in a number of problems from a fledgling audience to podfading. So here are 5 tips for choosing a podcast topic that will ensure success and longevity.

What are your interests?

Podcasting about something you have an interest in will help you in a number of ways.

· Your enthusiasm about the subject matter will reach your audience. · You will be motivated to produce content. · In the early stages of your podcast when your audience is growing slowly, podcasting about a topic that enjoy will get you through those weeks when you don't always feel like putting in the time and effort. · If you are not interested in the topic you are podcasting about, why do you think others would be interested in listening to it?

Choose a topic with depth

One pitfall that many first time podcasters fall into is choosing a topic that does offer any true depth of topics. You should be able to quickly think of at least 10 show topics for your podcast in roughly 5 minutes. If you can't, then you have probably chosen a topic for your podcast that either does not have enough material to allow you to produce quality content for an extended period of time. You may be able to remedy this by broadening your topic a little bit.

Example: A podcast topic of reviewing coffee shops in your neighborhood will limit you to the 7 or 8 shops within a 5-mile radius. What if you decided to review all of the coffee shops in your entire city? By widening your category you may find a lot more to draw on when creating content for your podcast.

What is your anticipated release schedule? If you plan on releasing a new podcast each week then you need to make sure that you have enough material within your topic to create new, quality, content every week; and yes it must be quality content every week. If you have work hard to create new content for your podcast episodes, you will find that the time between podcast episodes grows from weekly to monthly or monthly to every 2-3 months and eventually the podcast will drop off altogether.

Does the topic have an audience?

Keep in mind that the goal of any podcaster is to have an audience listening to your podcast. This should definitely be taken into consideration when choosing a topic. There may not be a large audience for a podcast on insect species in South America, if there is an audience for that kind of podcast; how are you going to reach them? Reaching your target audience is something that I talk about in a number of posts under podcast promotion but you should be aware of it even at this early stage in the life of your podcast.

Does your podcast fill a need?

One of the best ways to ensure that you can attract listeners to your podcast is to find a topic or niche that is not already saturated with 10 other podcasts on the same topic. The less competition from established podcasts in the same topic the easier time you will have in growing your audience at a faster rate.

Do a little research, if you think that you have found a good topic then go to the iTunes podcast directory and do a search on your topic. See how many other podcasts are out there using the same keywords. If you find that there are 5-9 other podcasts then click on each of them and look at a few things.

· How many episodes have they released? Is it a new podcast? · How often do they release a new episode? · When was the last time that they released a new episode?

You may find that there are 5 other podcasts with the same topic but they have not released a new episode in a year or two. This could still be a good opportunity to fill a need in a market that has become a little stagnant.

Making Money

If you are starting a podcast with the intent of generating some kind of income related to the podcast then this adds a new level of research to choosing your podcast topic. Obviously some types of podcasts are easier to monetize than others. A podcast reviewing the latest gadgets and gizmos may be easier to monetize through sponsorships and affiliate programs than a podcast in which you interview a different person in your high school class each episode. If making money is your goal with your podcast then make sure that you have a very clear plan of how you are going to monetize your podcast based on the topic you have chosen.

Once you have chosen your podcast topic, the excitement about your podcast begins to grow exponentially, but there is still a ways to go before you publish your first podcast. Http://www.Podcastingtips.com has all the information you will need to get this new podcast topic swirling in your head published and in the iPods and PCs of your listeners. Welcome to the podcasting community!

How Do You Promote a Podcast and Get More Listeners?   Is a Podcast Difficult to Produce?   School and College Radio   Internet Marketing - Using Podcasts   Six Benefits of Podcasting   

Is Your Church Social? Part 18 - Podcasts - Why Should Your Church Podcast?

In my last article we looked at what a podcast is, basically a pre-recorded, online, radio show that is distributed via RSS to all those who subscribe to the feed. OK, so it may sound like a neat concept. I've always wanted to do a radio show, but is this really for churches? Should your church podcast and, if so, why?

Church Resource Podcasting

Podcast For Your Members:

If your church is like my church, you never have perfect attendance from all your church members, except maybe on Christmas and Easter. Sure some members are just lazy or not all that interested, but some, if not most, miss church for legitimate reasons. Maybe they are sick. Maybe they had a family emergency. Maybe they're traveling. Your church also probably has some members physically unable to make it to church each week. For those who are interested, they may very well wish they could have been there and would love to be able to participate in the service or at least listen to the sermon. Podcasting will let them.

Not Just Sermons:

Podcasting can also give you a way to engage your congregation. Sermon podcasting is a great place to start, but you can go beyond sermons to short bible lessons, announcements, a youth group podcast, and others. Podcasting can help make church a 7 day a week activity instead of just a Sunday and possibly Wednesday activity.

Podcast For Your Church's Budget:

You may already provide CD's of sermons for people who miss the service. That's great, but I'd suggest that podcasting has three great advantages over CD's.

1.Podcasts are accessible from anywhere as long as you have a computer and an Internet connection. If a member is traveling, they don't have to wait to listen to the podcast. This is especially nice because usually people have time and would love to listen to something while traveling.

2.Podcasts are free. How much does your church spend on CD's? Now imagine if you can get 25% of the people who get CD's to start using the podcasts instead. That could save your church a couple hundred dollars over a year.

3.Podcasts are quick. If you reproduce CD's, it probably takes a significant amount of time. For most churches each CD burned takes from 2-5 minutes. If you burn 100 CD's, that will take 3-9 hours just for the reproducing. With podcasting you just make a digital copy on your computer and upload it for the podcast. Not including any editing time (which you would have to do for a CD as well) you could be done in a just a couple minutes instead of a couple hours.

Church Marketing Podcasting

Podcast For Other Christians:

Many Christians are looking for additional resources for their spiritual walk. I mentioned in my last post that iTunes allows churches to post their podcasts on iTunes for free. This makes your podcast accessible to anyone, including Christians who do not attend your church. By making your sermons and other podcasts available to everyone, these non-member Christians will be able to listen to your podcasts as part of their daily walk with the Lord. These people may just walk through your church doors one day.

Podcast for Non-Christians:

There are people all over the world going through struggles, searching for an answer. You have that answer. Podcasting on sites like iTunes can let your church minister to these people. You can do this with sermons that deal with specific issue, Bible lessons about certain topics, or Q and A podcasts addressing various questions people may have. Podcasting about coping with marriage issues or addictions can a good way to reach out to the non-believing world desperately wanting answers and help. Podcasting about pop issues and subjects is another way to reach people. Some people aren't looking for help, but are looking for information and opinions about various current events and people.

Help Them Find You:

If you want non-church members to find your podcasts, the first thing you need to do is make your podcast available online through various sources. The two key places you should make your podcast available is your church website and iTunes. Facebook is another good place where your members can let people know about recent podcasts. The second thing you need to do is use titles and descriptions which include words and phrases people search for. That may mean that you need to "de-christianize" the title of a sermon to use words and phrases used by the rest of the world. Regardless, the key is to think about the words and phrases people may use to search about the topic of the podcast and then incorporate those words and phrases into the title. You should also use your Church's name as the author/artist. That way people will see your church's name and, if/when they decide to visit, they will know where to go.

Podcasting can be a great outreach and/or inreach tool for the church. The average American has an 80 minute commute. They want something to help pass the time. Podcasting can also help keep people company (listening to someone speak to them) and start to build a relationship. If you listen to talk radio, as I do, after a while you start to feel as though you know the people you listen to. By podcasting, people can start to form a relationship with your church. That may lead to some of those people visiting and joining your church. Even if they never step foot in your church, you may still have a life changing impact on their lives for Christ. And isn't that what we are trying to do?

How Do You Promote a Podcast and Get More Listeners?   Is a Podcast Difficult to Produce?   School and College Radio   Internet Marketing - Using Podcasts   Six Benefits of Podcasting   

How Do I Create a Podcast That Makes Money?

I'm glad you asked that question!

If you don't approach podcasting with an idea of how you are going to make money from it you just might end up podcasting for peanuts! I'm not saying you should aspire to make millions from podcasting (though I won't discourage you if you want to try) but you need to have a plan.

Podcasting should be an important part of your online marketing strategy.

You don't have to straight sell goods through your podcast to make money with it. There are many indirect methods to build your business, expertise and income with this medium.

Here are some marketing models you'll want to consider as you plan out your program, episodes and guests:

Sell Products - Let's say you sell air conditioners. If you want to host a podcast you're going to have to get creative because nobody wants to download your commercial for air conditioners every time you've got a new show. Instead, you could host a monthly podcast about possible health benefits, tips on how to install air conditioners, interviews from experts and other interesting information potential customers of your air conditioners would be interested in. Then at the end of every episode or during the episode you can remind listeners that the show was sponsored by your company and let them know where they can buy an air conditioner from you.

Sell Services - If you run a service based business a podcast would be a good way to showcase yourself as an expert in your field. Answer all the questions your potential clients might ask by telling them how things are done. For example, a virtual assistant who specializes in audio editing might host shows about podcasting, editing audios, interviewing styles and more. This would be an educational show that gives potential clients everything they need to make an informed decision on who to hire to help them with their audio needs.

Affiliate Marketing - You know how Oprah has her Book of The Month club and every book she recommends gets snapped up in a heartbeat the minute it's on the list? Well you can build your own following with a podcast and make your own recommendations. Then through the technology of affiliate marketing you can earn nice commissions on your recommendations. This is the business model I employ in my own podcast as well as on my blog and throughout a large portion of my business. In order to maintain ethics and reputation it is very important that you are diligent in your research of programs and products that you promote. I myself have a strict rule that I will only promote products I've either a) used myself or b) developed a deep respect for the owner of.

Sell Advertising - You can also make money by developing a successful podcast and then selling advertising. I say the podcast should be successful first because most people won't pay anything for advertising to an audience of none.

So there are a few ways you can make money with a podcast. Of course you won't be making money without listeners so you'll also need to put effort into promotions.

How Do You Promote a Podcast and Get More Listeners?   Is a Podcast Difficult to Produce?   School and College Radio   Internet Marketing - Using Podcasts   

Starting a Podcast - A Viable Venture For Beginner Journalists

So you chickened out did you? You wanted to do videos but after the first one you decided that being in front of the camera wasn't your favorite place to be. Or maybe you started out doing teleseminars and decided that you wanted to do a regular series.

Or maybe you're just starting out and you know you don't want to write and you don't want to be in front of the camera. But you still want to create content and give it away. So how are you going to get out of the situation you're in and still create content to give away?

Have you considered the lowly podcast? Yup, that holdover from the days of talk radio when journalists would don their cans and pull up a microphone. Okay, I'm showing my age again. Stop smiling to yourself. You in the back, giggling is not allowed. It makes you look childish. Not exactly something an upcoming internet marketing magnate wants to project.

But that's basically what a podcast is. It's simply a regular radio show without the radio. Okay, let's make that a talk radio show without the radio. So what does it take to create a podcast?

A microphone, a computer, and enough related topics to make it a podcast and not just an MP3 that's been posted to the web. Of course, a website to post the podcast to would be nice. Which makes it perfect for the budding journalist or internet marketer who doesn't want to write and is afraid of their own image. Okay, so what do you really need in order to create a podcast?

First off, you don't create a podcast. You create a series of podcasts. One is an MP3 or digital recording. A regular series is a podcast. So that's the first thing you need. A series of topics. These will form the subject of each of your podcasts.

The second thing you need to do is determine how long each podcast will be. Ten minutes, fifteen minutes, one minute, one hour? Now go back to your subjects. Can you actually do it in that length of time? Would you be better doing other things? Basically, you need to plan out your podcasting schedule. This may mean arranging for interview subjects or researching or any number of other things.

Now, you need to write each podcast. Actually you only need to design each podcast. You won't actually write anything. Think webinar... but without the slides. You're going to talk for the length of time of your podcast, directly from your notes. Consider practicing at least once. As you get better at talking off the top of your head this step may become a problem. However, when you are starting out practice makes perfect. You'll know when practice takes away from the spontaneity of your presentation.

Now take your microphone. A headset type is best. Adjust the microphone so it sits just below your jaw close to your neck. Now startup your computer. You'll need a recording tool of some type. I use WavePad but there are a number of other free tools available. Once you've finished recording you'll need to save the result into MP3 format.

Of course, if you're like the rest of us, you'll have made mistakes while making your recording. Don't despair. That's what the editing step is for. If you've only made a few errors you can ignore them. If you've got a lot of dead space or mistakes you can always eliminate it by editing out the errors.

Now upload to the web site. Congratulations you've finished your first podcast. Now repeat until the series is ended. Post to the website according to the schedule you developed in your plan.

How Do You Promote a Podcast and Get More Listeners?   Is a Podcast Difficult to Produce?   School and College Radio   Internet Marketing - Using Podcasts   

How to Make a Podcast For a Website

Podcasting has many benefits for a small business.

It is a fantastic way to build expertise and credibility. It is a way to constantly be in front of your market to make relevant and targeted offers. It is also a way to establish relationships with experts in your field that you may never have the opportunity to speak with otherwise.

A podcast is a series of media files that are released in syndication. For an example you might want to open up iTunes and search through the many shows available there.

While you don't necessarily need a website to have a podcast it is a good idea to set up a website for your show as a central base of operations so that you can direct people back to a place where you have control.

Here are some of the advantages of using a website for your central location:

Control - As mentioned already you have the most control by hosting your show on your website. You can control what information you have available about your guests and how to list your information.

Feedback - If you make your show's home a blog then you can also get feedback as episodes are released. You can take questions and find out what your listeners really want to know about so that you can bring it to them in the future.

Branding - By hosting your podcast on your website you are branding yourself and your business.

How to Make a Podcast For a Website

How you create a podcast for your website is going to depend on what kind of website you have and what kind of recording equipment and software you have for recording.

Things to consider when starting your show: - Will you conduct interviews? - How often will your episodes be released? - Do you need a microphone? - Are you willing to invest money in some professional equipment?

Now you will need to record your episodes. A couple of ways to do so include: - Using a microphone and software on your computer - Recording over the telephone using online software

I host my own weekly podcast on my website and find the easiest way to get a good quality show up fast is to call each of my guests over the telephone and use a software program that allows me to record those calls. It's quick, easy and allows me to have an audio recording available in a variety of formats in the end. The program I use also makes syndication available in just a few clicks and adds my podcast to iTunes.

Creating a podcast and then adding it to your website may take some planning and effort. However, it can be well worth the effort when you build a loyal following of subscribers and listeners who respect and take your professional opinions and advice.

How Do You Promote a Podcast and Get More Listeners?   Is a Podcast Difficult to Produce?   School and College Radio   Internet Marketing - Using Podcasts   Six Benefits of Podcasting   The Benefits of Starting a Podcast