I do a lot of work in the Mentorship group at Podiobooks.com and there are some common errors that most beginners make.

1. Bed music is mixed too high. Generally speaking, it needs to be about half as loud as you think.

2. Record an ambient sound level BEFORE you start talking. Record at least 10 seconds worth and use that to fill in when you need a gap. If/when you discover that you need to add a half-second pause for pacing, use that to fill in. Some podcasters make an ambient level floor by making a full track of the ambient sound and just running that under the whole thing.

3. Levelator from the Conversations Network is your friend. It takes the place of a ton of other software and hardware and does a really good job of filling in your wave form so that you get a rich, full bodied sound. Evo Terra, founder of Podiobooks and podcast guru, says "Unless you have a reason not to use it, use Levelator." He's right. It can have some unfortunated side effects, especially if you have a lot of ambient noise, but generally speaking, this is excellent advice.

4. Pop filter. Use it. You can get away without one if you know what you're doing with your mic placement and you're diligent about keeping it up out of your airflow. Most people don't and aren't. This is not optional equipment.

5. ID3 tags. Be consistent in your naming scheme. File name, title, artist, album, artwork all need to be there. I'd put the episode number in the track. Fill in the year. Give it a genre of Podcast. These things are frequently ignored and will infuriate a listener who's trying to get the episodes in order. Keep in mind that - if you're doing it right - you'll get into 3 digits of sequence pretty quickly. One way to avoid that is to use the date in part of the file name. Something like "MyPodCast_20091225.mp3" gives a lot of information, and the year-month-day sequencing keeps your episodes grouped and ordered correctly assuming you keep the ID3 tags clean on the inside. Keep in mind that the ID3 tags will not always override the file naming structure so this all has to work together.

None of these ideas is rocket science. Taken individually, they address some different aspects of the production process which can have a negative effect on the listener's experience. Taken together, they can help your podcast go from punk to pro with very time or effort on your part.

These are very good tips for new podcasters, I have been podcasting for several months doing 2 episodes a week and i can tell you one of the most important things for starting off with a podcast is to have a good mic. I have had to make sure that others on my podcast were able to have one as well because their mics were not so good. So if you are podcasting with a crew over voice on instant messenger make sure that they have a good mic as well or the quality will go down. Basically make sure to invite people on who can record well, don't just bring a friend on because you think they have something to contribute or you like them. You can always have them come over later to record on your mic if you really want them on your show.