Why should any business podcast? Probably not, unless of course they realize how much they are losing if they do not podcast. After all, there are so many benefits that businesses stand to gain from podcasts.

1. The 1st reason and most important reason why any business should podcast is of course to increase traffic to their website. And we all know that traffic is the lifeblood of any online business.

The reason podcast can increase traffic and bring more visitors to your web site is because podcast uses RSS, a technology for content syndication on the Internet.

You don't need to go into technical complexities to understand RSS or to enjoy the benefits of podcast. The reason is because most of the time, the process of syndication is done in the background and in a way is 'transparent' to the user.

Furthermore, there are many free services that automates the creation of Podcast such as AudioBlogger.com or AudioBlog.com. The difference is that the first is free, whereas AudioBlog.com is a paid service and has more features useful for podcasting.

2. Increase Market Share, Gain New Subscribers and New Buyers.

The second reason why any business should podcast is because they can increase their market share and gain new subscribers and buyers.

This is related to the reason number 1. With more traffic to your site, naturally you'll be able
to reach out to people you normally would not have access to.

Many podcsters have reported an increase in web site traffic once they started podcasting.

Personally I myself have experienced increased subscribers and sales through the simple use of my voice with podcasts.

3. Thirdly, you can brand yourself quickly and easily. Ever watch the TV show hosted by Donald Trump "The Apprentice"? Behind all that glitz, suspense, glamour is an ingenious way of branding the "Trump" name.

It's the same with Podcasting. Through podcasts, you can easily build a brand name around your services or products. This will help you gain brand recognition and build market share.

4. Advertise To Millions For Free With Podcasts

You can submit your Podcast to iTunes. If you didn't know, iTunes is used by millions of iPod and other mp3 device owners for managing their mp3 or music sound files.

By submitting your Podcast to iTunes, you stand to gain from this huge and hungry market. There are millions of people with mp3 players who would happily download podcasts to listen. Even if you only capture 0.1% of this amount, we're talking about potentially thousands of new visitors and customers for your products or services. Imagine the huge market you have at your fingertips.

Besides, iTunes, did you also know that Yahoo has came
up with their own Audio search?

Probably not many people know about this yet, but you can also submit your Podcast to Yahoo. With Yahoo in the picture, will Google follow suit? After all, they already have a Blog search. You can see the trend here.

5. Money Making Opportunities.

Podcasts open up a whole new world and new ways of making money.

As the technology and concept is relatively new, there is little competition in this area, which means you stand to gain a lot if you embrace this technology early.

When the Internet was first used as a marketing tool, ebooks were most popular with these groups of internet marketers. As time and technology evolved, the marketing effort soon focused on 'niche marketing' or select groups of people searching for solutions to their problems in niche areas such as 'athritis cure', 'grow tropical fish', 'dieting tips' and so on.

With Podcasts, you can offer more than just the usual 'boring' ebooks to the people in your chosen niche markets. You can create what I term 'niche podcasts'.

There are many ways that you can monetize your niche podcasts. For example, you can charge a fee for listeners who want to subscribe and download your podcast, especially if you have some specialized skill or knowledge that others don't. If you're an expert at options trading, you can create your own 'options podcast' giving tips on what to buy
when to buy, what to sell, and charge your listeners a fee for subscribing.

They will be willing to pay you if you can prove you have a track record of winning and making money at options trading. This is only one example of how you can make money from your niche podcasts.

These are just some of the many examples how podcast and podcasting can help your online business.

With such a big potential and the technology being in it's early unsaturated stage, this is truly the best time to leverage on podcasting technology to grow and multiply your online business.

Now, are you convinced how much money you are leaving on the table if you DON'T start your own podcast?