How to make sure your audience can find your show
Listeners access podcasts via directories like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify.
And since growing your audience is high on the list of priorities as a podcaster, you want to make sure your show is available wherever potential listeners might want to listen to it.
So, what podcast directories should you submit your show to so it’s available to as many people as possible?
Why do you need to submit your podcast to podcast directories?
So they know your show exists!
Podcasts don’t automatically appear in podcast apps just because you’ve uploaded audio into your podcast host.
For a podcast app to know your show exists you need to tell them.
This is a simple process that involves copying and pasting the RSS feed from inside your podcast host into the submissions website for each of the directories.
It’s an essential step if you want your show to be in all the places people might want to listen to it…
Do you have to submit to all the directories?
You don’t need to submit your show to every directory that was ever created.
In fact, a lot of them will automatically pull your show from other directories like Apple Podcasts so you’ll sometimes see your show in places you didn’t submit to (which is a good thing…the more the merrier).
I’d advise submitting to as many directories as you can (here’s an exhaustive list care of Podnews) but at the very least you need your show to be in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify.
These are the three major listening apps and having your show in all three means it’ll be available on iPhone AND Android (which is essential).
But ideally, you want it in all the other places as well.
What about SoundCloud?
You can upload episodes to SoundCloud but I find they don’t get a huge amount of listens because most podcast listeners consume content in podcast apps.
The platform is also not set up as a podcast host so there are better options out there for hosting your show.
Where I think SoundCloud is really useful is for sharing show promos.
For my interview series, You’ve Gotta Start Somewhere, I would cut up a bunch of short snippets from each show and share them on social media.
This way people can get a taste of what they’ll hear if they listen to your show and hopefully that entices them to listen to the full podcast and follow or subscribe.
Remember…
Submitting to podcast directories is something you only need to do once when you launch your show and upload your first piece of audio, which is usually your show trailer.
Once each directory has registered your podcast and knows it exists, all new episodes after that will update automatically without you having to do anything.
How easy is that?!
The main thing you want to ensure is that people can find and listen to your show no matter what app they like or what device they’re on because every listen counts!
Got a burning podcasting question you’d like answered? Send me an email.
Want to start your own podcast but need a little help? Download my “How To Start A Podcast” guide or sign up for my online podcasting course, PodSchool.
Got some time on your hands? Read the full episode transcript
Hello and welcome to the final show of 2019. How the hell did we get here this quickly? I don't mean to sound like my father, who is constantly talking about time passing, but geez, Louise, I feel like this year didn't even exist. So in honour of that, I thought I would dip back and actually finish the year with an update of an earlier episode. You might have already seen this in the feed, but a lot has changed in podcasting this year. And when I recorded this episode earlier this year, things like Spotify for podcasters and Google podcasts did not exist. Can you imagine there was ever a time? So I wanted to make sure I had a fresh version of this topic in the feed, because i's a very, very important part of podcasting.
The first step in getting your show listened to by people other than your mum and dad, is to get it into podcast directories. By that I mean things like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Pocket costs. There are a bunch of different ones out there and you can just google a list and submit and to your heart's content. Or you can submit to a few and you'll find your show will be on a lot you didn't submit to because often podcast apps will pull the feed from iTunes.
So which directories should you submit your show to? The first is obviously Apple Podcasts, which used to be iTunes, which is still the majority of listeners. Podcasting used to be a very iPhone heavy practice, but since Google Podcasts stepped in, that's opened up the listenership in Android. Ditto with Spotify because Spotify is platform agnostic. Unfortunately, for a long time, even though Android users are a huge portion of the worldwide population, they were often forgotten about in the podcasting space. Since things have changed Apple listeners have definitely gone down as a percentage of overall listeners but they are still a huge player and it's essential you have your show on Apple Podcasts.
In terms of submitting to directories, I will put a link in the description of this episode to an article I've got that shows you how to do that. It's a simple process of just copying the RSS feed, which is just a URL in the back end of your podcast host. Then you submit it to different directories and it only needs to be done once when you first put audio into your feed, then it'll automatically update every time you release a new episode.
Google Podcasts is the second place you need to submit your podcast but Google likes to do things a little differently. They don't accept submissions like other platforms do. Google likes to crawl the website to find your podcast. Since it does things that way, you want to make sure everything is set up correctly for Google to find it. If you're using one of the major podcast hosts, it should be set up fine. I'll drop a link in the show notes to a page where you can test if your RSS feed is showing up in Google Podcasts. Sometimes this can take a couple of weeks so you need to have patience and if it's not showing up after that you can get in touch with your podcast host and see if they can help.
The other platform that is now essential to be on is Spotify. They have stepped into the podcasting space in a major way and they're doing a lot for podcast discoverability which is the process of getting new shows in front of new ears. If you're a Spotify user, you'll have noticed a podcast tab right next to the music tab. You'd also notice something they've introduced recently which is a daily podcast playlist that is very similar to other suggested playlists that they have, like Your Release Radar where they throw into the mix shows that you might not have heard. They'll also throw up some new episodes of shows that you've listened to before, but they also tap into their magical little algorithm and give you some suggestions for podcast episodes that are similar to other shows that you've listened to, but you might not have checked out before. This is a game changer in terms of getting shows in front of ears that might not have found them before. So you want to make sure that your show is on Spotify so that it can be a part of that mix and you can have listeners find your show there as well.
The other place you can have your show is on SoundCloud. I've never really experienced a huge amount of downloads from SoundCloud, so I tend to not bother about uploading purely because I'm trying to simplify the process of podcasting, so another place to upload audio is a bit of a punish. You have to pay an increased subscription on top of that if you want to house a certain amount of audio but there are people that use SoundCloud as well as a platform to get listeners on their show. I tend to think that SoundCloud is better as a promotional platform, so I'll often upload snippets from my show and I will share them out on social media. It's great because those snippets will play directly in Twitter so people don't have to click out anywhere. I find SoundCloud really good as a promotional platform, but not necessarily as a place to house your podcast. It's much more important to have it in directories like Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts but by all means, if you love SoundCloud and you don't mind uploading audio there and you're happy to pay an upgraded subscription, go for it.
There are some other platforms that are great to drop your show into...TuneIn, Pocket Casts. I will link to a bunch of other directories in the show notes of this episode and if you got time on your hands, you can copy and paste until your heart's content. But you don't really need to be in every single podcast directory that was ever created. What you do need to ensure is that your show can be listened to by people on both Android and iPhone. So Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify at a bare minimum.
The other thing you want to make sure is that you are always sharing your show using a universal link and that is a link that will work on all phones. So if you send out a link to your show in Apple Podcasts, if somebody is on an Android phone and they click on that, they will go to Internet purgatory, which is no fun. I have another episode that you can find in this feed on universal links where I take you through the ways that you can share your show with one link.
So, go forth, copy that RSS feed and shove it into as many directories as you want. And hopefully, the listeners will flood (or more likely trickle) in. But remember, podcasting is a marathon, not a sprint. So a trickle is just fine.
I hope you have a wonderful break over the holidays. I will be taking a break for a couple of weeks and I will be back early in January 2020 with more tips on the PodSchool Podcast. Thank you so much for listening and if you want more help creating your podcast, please check out my online podcasting course PodSchool that you can find at PodSchool.com.au. I'll see you, not next week but next year. Holy heck. And until then, happy podcasting.
