Now, here's your host.
Alright guys, welcome back.
I am Andy Lehmann, your host, and here's what I do.
I help you start and grow your podcast, answering any podcasting questions along the way.
If you have questions about podcasting, I would love to answer them.
Send an email to hello@podcastanswers.com with your question and I will try to answer
that directly to you or on an upcoming episode of the podcast answers.
Last episode, we talked about recording live, recording your episode live.
If you've not heard that episode yet, go back and listen to it.
It was an amazing episode.
I'm doing this episode live both on the new podcast apps as well as YouTube.
If you've not listened to that, go ahead and listen.
This week, we are going to be talking about getting your podcast listed in all of the
directories.
Let's go.
All right.
So, podcast directories, what are they and why do they matter?
And a podcast directory is basically a way for you to find a podcast.
And that's very simply, but just think of Google, right?
The internet is vast and there's so many websites out there.
And we need to find a website for learning how to do mowing the yard.
Let's just say you need to find an episode or a website about how to mow your yard.
What do you do?
You go out to Google and you type in how to mow your yard and websites come up, right?
Same thing with podcast directories.
There are so many different podcasts, but how do we know how to find them?
How do we know where they're at?
So that's what a directory is.
And a lot of times podcast apps will pull from specific directories, maybe Apple podcasts
or things like that, or Google Podcast or Spotify, Amazon Music,
Podcast Index, et cetera.
But you need to not just expect that you're going to be in these
directories, you have to actually put your podcast episode, your
podcast into these directories.
So in order to do that, though, you have to have an episode or a
trailer in your RSS feed.
So that's what I recommend coming up with a trailer.
If you're just starting out with podcasting, go ahead and create yourself a trailer episode.
And the reason you do that is because, for one, it helps people know what they're getting
into when they're going to be listening to your podcast.
But it also allows you to submit your show to directories because without that, they
don't, they won't index you.
You have to have an episode or trailer in order to be indexed.
So submitting to your directories, many hosts have a quick way to get listed in the directories
in their interface.
While this works, I like going to the directory and submitting myself, just because I like
owning my own stuff.
If I leave that host, my directory may be tied to the host, my directory entry may be
tied to the host, and I don't want to do that.
So I like to be separate.
I like to take my own information,
take my own podcasts and submit them to all of the directories
that I'm gonna need to be involved in to get my podcast in.
So Apple Podcast is gonna be the main podcast app
directory that I would get in first.
And the reason I say that is because Apple provides an API
which is an application programming interface
that allows other apps to search its directory.
So lots of apps actually get their listing from Apple Podcast.
So you may have your favorite niche little podcast app,
and it may not be Apple Podcasts,
but it may be using the Apple Podcast directory
in order to get its listings for the different podcasts.
So how do you get listed in an Apple Podcast?
Well, you go to podcastsconnect.apple.com.
So it's a plural podcasts connect at apple.com.
You have to have an Apple ID,
but you can create one there and get it verified
and go ahead and use it.
But if you have an Apple ID perfect,
you just sign in with that.
You click the plus button.
It'll ask you to choose the type of show.
And it's gonna say add a show with RSS
or add a show without an RSS feed.
Without an RSS feed,
you're just gonna be listed in Apple Podcast.
And so we don't wanna do that.
We wanna create one with an RSS feed.
So you're going to take your RSS feed from your podcast host, submit it to that.
Now, Apple podcast is a fairly manual process of getting submitted.
I mean, as far as that goes, they do look at a lot of them.
It's human reviewed, or at least it was.
It may use AI now a little bit, but it is reviewed.
So it's not instantaneous.
So allow yourself time to get listed.
So don't expect that as soon as you hit submit, people are going to be able to find you an
Apple podcast.
So if you're planning to launch on a certain day, get your trailer episode out, go ahead
and get yourself listed in Apple podcast.
And then people, when the day comes when you release your episode, we'll be able to find
your episode.
The next place that I would go is podcast index.
And it's a fairly new index within the last several years.
I think two or three years it's been around.
But it essentially is another index that allows people to be in.
And the reason it's important is because lots of people were using Apple podcasts as their
directory.
And some people were afraid that the Apple podcast could go away.
They're being really benevolent with their podcast listing and allowing people to be
in the podcast directory for free.
And so, some people started podcasting, podcast index, and you can go to podcastindex.org,
click add in the upper right-hand corner, put your RSS feed in, that gets verified and
entered.
And then a lot of newer apps are starting to use the podcast index actually as their
index defined podcasts too.
So you do that, it's great.
Then Spotify is the next one.
Their only, the only thing that's pulling off of that is the Spotify app.
So it is important because there's a lot of people that do listen in Spotify.
So we definitely want to be able to do that.
So you go to podcasters.spotify.com, you click your profile picture in the left-hand corner
and then add or claim your podcast.
And then Spotify is the one app that I would submit to your podcast host because of Pastor.
If you can do that, I know I don't know what earlier I said, claim it on your own, but
use your host if you can, because a lot of hosts have the ability to do pass through
with Spotify.
So do that.
And then Google podcast is podcast, podcast manager.google.com.
Sign in with your Google account, click at a show.
So you can do that there.
And then obviously in YouTube, Google is a little bit unsure of what they're doing with
podcasts right now. And so they're starting to do a lot of podcasts through YouTube. So
go ahead and go into YouTube. And especially if you have a video of your show, go ahead
and create a playlist and call that a podcast. And then it shows up in in Apple or YouTube
music as a podcast. Now there are many other apps that you can and many other apps and
many other directories that you can add your show to. But these are my top ones. And so
These are ones where you're going to be able to get a majority of listeners from.
And again, I would submit to any of the directors you can.
Directors are free to be listed in.
And so if you find any directory, go ahead and list yourself in there because the more
places you are, the more likely people are actually going to find you.
And then there may be waiting times, like I said, to have your show approved.
So you may want to go ahead and submit it early.
So if you know that you're going to be launching on the 3rd of July, you're definitely going
to want to make sure that you're in podcast directories before that time is ready to go
live so that people can actually find you.
Now in a bonus episode for today's podcast for our people who support us and we thank
you so much because we were able to get a ROGECaster Pro based on the generous donations
of some of our listeners. But in a bonus episode for today's podcast, I'm going to be talking
about how to use some podcast directories to get your extra things like stats, how to
publish bonus content in Apple Podcasts, and how to get that bonus in Apple Podcasts. Or
if you have a supporter, you like Buy Me a Coffee, you can do that, which is what we actually do.
So if you'd like to support our show, you can go to buy me a coffee.
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And until next time, stay safe guys and keep podcasting.
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