Believe it or not, you don’t have to be a radio host or even a technology geek in order to record and publish your own podcast. In fact, podcasts are becoming more and more popular not only for radio hosts and DJs but also underground band/musicians, students, teachers, bloggers, writers, politicians, business owners, and so much more.

What you need

Recording your own podcast may sound intimidating at first, but it’s actually surprisingly easy if you have the right technology and recording equipment.

In order to record a podcast file on your computer you will need to have a microphone which may or may not be built in to your laptop already, but if you are recording on a PC it may be a good idea to download Audacity for free by visiting http://audacity.sourceforge.net. Audacity is extremely easy to use and allows you to record multiple tracks, and you can also export your recording as a wav and mp3 file as well. (But if you’re hoping to export your file as an mp3 you will need to download the addition lame codec which can be found on Audacity’s website.

Skype is also a great program to use for recording a podcast, especially if you’re hoping to do Skype interviews or record more than one person at a time. Their free levelator allows you to record your voice audio and export it as a wav file, however, because Skype doesn’t have a recorder you will need to download Powergramo by visiting www.powergramo.com and then after you’re done recording an interview use the Levelator to even out the volumes for the different voices.

Another option is downloading Call Graph by clicking here, which is fairly simple to use and exports all your call recordings as mp3 files.

Publishing your podcast

Once you’ve finished recording your podcast you will need to find somewhere to publish it online. Some popular and cheap options include PodBean, Blogtakradio, and PodOmatic, a site which allows you to have 500MB of storage and 15GB of bandwidth per month (but you can also upgrade to the Pro version for more features at $10 per month). Another cheap option is Libsyn, for which you will have to pay a monthly storage amount, but you can also archive your podcast so it will be saved as a web address which is a bonus.

And last but certainly not least, it may be a good idea to make sure your podcast is copyrighted before you publish it by writing “Copyright 2011 by (your name and/or company)” which will protect your rights and intellectual/creative property if someone tries to steal a portion of your podcast.

Author Bio: Alexis Bonari is currently a resident blogger at College Scholarships, where recently she’s been researching both Fortune 500 Company scholarships as well as foster child scholarships. Whenever she gets some free time, she enjoys watching a funny movie or curling up with a good book.