1 00:00:02,930 --> 00:00:04,880 Brett Johnson: This is a Note To Future Me. 2 00:00:04,880 --> 00:00:09,770 Hi, this is Brett Johnson, your host and the owner of Circle270Media Podcast Consultants. 3 00:00:10,220 --> 00:00:12,620 How do people find your podcast and apps? 4 00:00:12,980 --> 00:00:15,860 Should you put your guests name in your episode title? 5 00:00:16,130 --> 00:00:21,690 Do podcast apps, use your podcast description to help people find new shows? 6 00:00:21,690 --> 00:00:25,400 Which apps search what information you provide in your RSS feed. 7 00:00:25,910 --> 00:00:31,460 In a three week experiment, Mark Steadman from podcast STUDIO ORIGIN, cataloged what 8 00:00:31,460 --> 00:00:38,000 every big podcast app indexes, and how to help listeners find your podcast. 9 00:00:38,360 --> 00:00:42,770 This full article is available on podnews.net. 10 00:00:42,770 --> 00:00:45,460 I have a link to that article in the podcast show notes. 11 00:00:45,740 --> 00:00:51,170 I would advise that you read the article prior to this interview, but you can listen to 12 00:00:51,170 --> 00:00:54,530 the article, listen to the interview and then read the article afterwards. 13 00:00:54,770 --> 00:00:59,720 Either way, you're going to get some great information from Mark about his experiment, 14 00:00:59,720 --> 00:01:08,290 his research project, as it were, about how podcasts apps help people find new podcast 15 00:01:08,300 --> 00:01:09,400 episodes. 16 00:01:09,400 --> 00:01:12,560 New podcasts to listen to, or how they don't. 17 00:01:13,460 --> 00:01:18,170 Mark works with best selling authors, entrepreneurs, artists and celebrities. 18 00:01:18,350 --> 00:01:22,670 His work has been highlighted by the BBC and he presented the Comedy Award at the 19 00:01:22,670 --> 00:01:26,390 Inaugural British Podcast Awards in 2017. 20 00:01:26,390 --> 00:01:30,510 He founded the podcast hosting company, Podiant in 2016. 21 00:01:30,510 --> 00:01:35,480 Coding every line, writing every blog post, and in the beginning replying to every support 22 00:01:35,480 --> 00:01:40,040 email himself. He's helped individuals, organizations and commercial radio stations 23 00:01:40,250 --> 00:01:45,470 launch their audio presences online and has been consistently producing podcasts since 24 00:01:45,470 --> 00:01:50,450 2008. He sold his hosting business in the spring of 2021 and now spends his time 25 00:01:50,450 --> 00:01:54,110 exclusively helping podcasters get results on their own terms. 26 00:01:54,110 --> 00:02:01,490 I'm sure him selling his business has helped him open up some time to do interviews about 27 00:02:01,490 --> 00:02:07,460 this article, so I was very happy when I contacted him that he sent an email back saying, 28 00:02:07,460 --> 00:02:11,840 great, let's talk, get on my calendar, and here we got it done. 29 00:02:11,840 --> 00:02:18,950 This interview really solidified what his research and his experiment did prove and 30 00:02:18,950 --> 00:02:24,200 didn't prove in regards to what podcast apps do for podcasters. 31 00:02:24,500 --> 00:02:29,570 I think the one takeaway that you will realize after reading the article and listening to 32 00:02:29,570 --> 00:02:35,660 this episode is, that the findability piece is all on our shoulders. 33 00:02:35,690 --> 00:02:38,540 We cannot rely on podcast apps. 34 00:02:38,870 --> 00:02:42,200 We cannot rely on social media. 35 00:02:42,350 --> 00:02:44,060 We have to do the work ourselves. 36 00:02:44,060 --> 00:02:50,990 It really does come down to understanding how different mediums search and index, and 37 00:02:50,990 --> 00:02:54,620 give those that are searching that information. 38 00:02:54,860 --> 00:03:00,140 This is a really good article to read about that, and this interview highlights a lot of 39 00:03:00,140 --> 00:03:01,430 great stuff from the article. 40 00:03:01,430 --> 00:03:03,290 I hope you enjoy. I hope you learn a little bit. 41 00:03:03,290 --> 00:03:04,340 I know I did. 42 00:03:04,580 --> 00:03:10,190 I think everything from this article and this interview you can take and start producing 43 00:03:10,190 --> 00:03:14,000 even better podcast's for search your next episode. 44 00:03:20,460 --> 00:03:26,400 Mark, first I want to thank you and James Cridland, editor of Podnews and a radio 45 00:03:26,400 --> 00:03:31,530 futurist, for doing some heavy lifting with your research on podcast app search. 46 00:03:31,920 --> 00:03:36,540 The article you wrote for Podnews is concise and full of great information. 47 00:03:36,780 --> 00:03:40,650 So much so I wanted to contact you to see if you might be willing to be a guest on my 48 00:03:40,650 --> 00:03:45,780 podcast to give some highlights of what you and James discovered and what we as 49 00:03:45,780 --> 00:03:50,250 podcasters should do, starting with our next episode. 50 00:03:50,590 --> 00:03:53,250 Mark, thanks for taking some time to be with me today. 51 00:03:54,030 --> 00:03:54,330 52 00:03:54,360 --> 00:03:55,170 Mark Steadman: It's a real pleasure. Thank you. 53 00:03:56,130 --> 00:03:59,910 Brett Johnson: What stirred your interest in doing this podcast app search experiment? 54 00:04:00,960 --> 00:04:07,740 Mark Steadman: It all started when I was listening to an episode of The Feed, the Libsyn podcast, and 55 00:04:07,770 --> 00:04:14,160 they were talking about the things that appear in search for, I can't remember what it 56 00:04:14,160 --> 00:04:20,370 was. It was a user submitted question, I think for Libsyn, and it was about their content 57 00:04:20,370 --> 00:04:25,500 not appearing when people searched and about descriptions and things like that, and Rob 58 00:04:25,500 --> 00:04:29,100 started talking about the various things that Apple Podcasts indexed. 59 00:04:29,640 --> 00:04:31,830 I realized I hadn't really thought about it. 60 00:04:31,840 --> 00:04:35,130 There were a couple of things that I sort of vaguely think I knew. 61 00:04:35,640 --> 00:04:40,110 With anything that's self taught, there's always going to be gaps in your knowledge. 62 00:04:40,110 --> 00:04:44,790 There's always going to be stuff. It doesn't matter if you could tell yourself as being 63 00:04:44,790 --> 00:04:50,340 any kind of podcast, quote unquote, guru, there's always going to be stuff that you don't 64 00:04:50,340 --> 00:04:56,460 know. I'm certainly not touting myself as a guru, but, I work with other podcasters and 65 00:04:56,460 --> 00:05:04,830 try and help them. I started to think actually, I don't know definitively what Apple 66 00:05:04,830 --> 00:05:06,080 Podcast is indexing. 67 00:05:06,150 --> 00:05:11,100 I've got this information from Robert Libsyn but, okay well that's one directory. 68 00:05:11,100 --> 00:05:16,260 I know we've got all of these apps that are powered by the Apple Podcasts directory and 69 00:05:16,680 --> 00:05:22,200 fewer and fewer now as we see more things like the Podcast Index and Spotify, and other 70 00:05:22,200 --> 00:05:29,250 apps maintain their own indexes, but it started me thinking, presumably different apps 71 00:05:29,250 --> 00:05:32,280 have different rules for what's going to be indexed. 72 00:05:32,280 --> 00:05:36,750 So I thought, well, yeah, this would be a really interesting thing to look at and 73 00:05:36,750 --> 00:05:41,130 actually do a bit of a [INAUDIBLE] and do some research and find out, are all apps 74 00:05:41,670 --> 00:05:43,050 indexing information the same? 75 00:05:43,050 --> 00:05:48,090 What data is being pulled in from our feed, and how is it being utilized? 76 00:05:48,100 --> 00:05:49,500 How is it being exposed and such? 77 00:05:50,460 --> 00:05:55,830 Brett Johnson: There's a ton of talk about what to include and what not include, tons of it. 78 00:05:56,200 --> 00:06:02,040 To me, it always seemed as though it might be more of a this is a best practice you never 79 00:06:02,040 --> 00:06:05,550 know when they might start looking at this piece, just include it. 80 00:06:05,550 --> 00:06:08,280 We'll put the field in there, just do it sort of stuff. 81 00:06:08,900 --> 00:06:09,510 Mark Steadman: Definitely. 82 00:06:09,540 --> 00:06:12,690 Brett Johnson: In your experiment, you use the top 14 podcast apps. 83 00:06:12,930 --> 00:06:17,730 When I saw you include Google Podcast, I thought that might be the wild card on the list, 84 00:06:17,730 --> 00:06:20,060 quite frankly. From what you saw it wasn't. 85 00:06:20,060 --> 00:06:25,650 About half, including Google Podcasts, of the podcast app seem to search numerous channel 86 00:06:25,650 --> 00:06:29,490 level tags. That is the podcast RSS feed as the whole. 87 00:06:29,640 --> 00:06:32,910 Did you have some pre experiment thoughts about certain podcast players? 88 00:06:34,830 --> 00:06:39,930 Mark Steadman: I thought Google would be more. 89 00:06:39,930 --> 00:06:41,400 I thought it would be better at search. 90 00:06:42,080 --> 00:06:43,470 It's that simple. 91 00:06:43,620 --> 00:06:47,970 There's quite a few these apps actually I thought would have a better approach to search. 92 00:06:48,240 --> 00:06:52,900 Now, one of the things that we haven't talked about and when I've spoken to people about 93 00:06:52,900 --> 00:06:59,040 this article is, we haven't really touched much on the way search engines work in these 94 00:06:59,040 --> 00:07:05,010 apps. Now, we used made up words, specifically so that we wouldn't have clashes with 95 00:07:05,010 --> 00:07:10,980 other things, and we wouldn't end up - we could be really definitive about worrying about 96 00:07:10,980 --> 00:07:16,000 things like pluralization and potentially being confused with other languages and stuff 97 00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:20,640 like that. I deliberately just kind of mashed the keys and tried to use often alphabet, 98 00:07:21,360 --> 00:07:24,120 tried to use letters from the alphabet that would kind of look like words. 99 00:07:25,530 --> 00:07:32,850 But, a conversation with a couple of people sort of led me down to thinking about one of 100 00:07:32,880 --> 00:07:39,330 the issues we do have in search is, things like pluralization, things like alternative 101 00:07:39,330 --> 00:07:44,040 spellings. For example, if I think about my, one of the shows that I think I mentioned in 102 00:07:44,040 --> 00:07:48,150 the article, which is a show about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, if you search 103 00:07:48,150 --> 00:07:50,190 hitchhiker, you get one type of result. 104 00:07:50,190 --> 00:07:53,490 If you search hitchhikers without an apostrophe, you get another type of result. 105 00:07:53,640 --> 00:07:57,450 If you search hitchhiker's with the apostrophe, you get a different set of results. 106 00:07:57,930 --> 00:07:59,880 That's a problem. 107 00:08:00,210 --> 00:08:06,570 As a former, in a past life as a former sort of Web engineer, I know what that problem 108 00:08:06,570 --> 00:08:14,490 is. But I think I was surprised at the number of apps that were addressing that problem, 109 00:08:14,490 --> 00:08:15,870 which is almost none. 110 00:08:16,330 --> 00:08:21,610 Brett Johnson: Yeah, it is interesting, it's almost just get the product out there to do. 111 00:08:21,610 --> 00:08:27,050 As you mentioned too in the article, were those apps really developed as discoverable, 112 00:08:27,230 --> 00:08:29,650 findable types of play? 113 00:08:29,930 --> 00:08:31,820 They do what they do really well. 114 00:08:32,180 --> 00:08:36,260 They play podcasts, but were they really built to do that? 115 00:08:36,440 --> 00:08:38,270 Maybe we're asking a bit too much of them? 116 00:08:38,870 --> 00:08:39,980 Mark Steadman: Yeah, absolutely. 117 00:08:40,640 --> 00:08:43,880 That's why I was a little bit surprised. 118 00:08:43,880 --> 00:08:49,000 I had a lovely chat with J.J.at GoodPods, because I think there is, with GoodPods 119 00:08:49,010 --> 00:08:52,540 specifically, a real opportunity there. 120 00:08:52,540 --> 00:08:56,510 I think it is much more a discovery engine than it is a player. 121 00:08:57,350 --> 00:09:02,320 I think I would really like to see search play a better role in that. 122 00:09:02,330 --> 00:09:07,100 Now, for anyone who builds these apps and works in this space, I know what a hard problem 123 00:09:07,100 --> 00:09:12,800 it is, especially given episode level surge, which I'm sure we'll talk about, and sort of 124 00:09:12,800 --> 00:09:14,900 how little provision there is for episode wide search. 125 00:09:14,910 --> 00:09:21,020 I know why that is, because if you think this potentially four million podcasts in the 126 00:09:21,020 --> 00:09:25,610 Podcast Index, now think about the number of episodes each one of those has. 127 00:09:25,610 --> 00:09:29,120 You've got to maintain that database yourself in a searchable way that's mental. 128 00:09:29,150 --> 00:09:32,150 I get the problem. 129 00:09:32,870 --> 00:09:36,290 I think I keep giving very long answers to your questions and I'm not entirely sure if 130 00:09:36,290 --> 00:09:37,130 I'm actually answering them. 131 00:09:37,490 --> 00:09:39,680 Brett Johnson: You're good. No, you're going in exactly the right direction. 132 00:09:39,690 --> 00:09:45,290 What I'm thinking too is, it seems though, we're addressing that findability. 133 00:09:45,290 --> 00:09:49,220 I just want to kick that discoverability word off of our lexicon. 134 00:09:49,220 --> 00:09:53,690 Findability, it seems that lots of apps are building themselves around the findability, 135 00:09:53,690 --> 00:09:55,130 but they're not great players. 136 00:09:55,620 --> 00:09:55,740 Mark Steadman: Mm-hmm. 137 00:09:55,740 --> 00:10:01,370 Brett Johnson: We don't have this middle ground, I just want a really good player that I can at least 138 00:10:01,370 --> 00:10:07,790 find some podcasts that are similar to what I'm playing right now. 139 00:10:07,820 --> 00:10:10,780 That doesn't even really exist, honestly. 140 00:10:11,240 --> 00:10:16,640 Mark Steadman: No, I think to be honest, what I want to say is, and I'm not in charge of GoodPods and I'm 141 00:10:16,640 --> 00:10:21,950 not about to tell them what to do, but if I take an app like GoodPods, or if we imagine 142 00:10:21,950 --> 00:10:25,130 Discover Pods has a proper mobile app. 143 00:10:25,850 --> 00:10:30,740 I want my podcast player to be one thing, and I want my discovery engine to be another 144 00:10:30,740 --> 00:10:35,600 thing. I want the two to be separate, but be able to communicate so that I can hit the 145 00:10:35,600 --> 00:10:40,880 plus button and maybe I'll get taken out to, sorry the plus button in Overcast where I'm 146 00:10:40,880 --> 00:10:44,510 comfortable listening. I've got things set up the way I want, but then I want to go and 147 00:10:44,510 --> 00:10:47,860 find new podcasts and I think, okay, I'm going to go off to GoodPods, or I'm going to go 148 00:10:47,870 --> 00:10:52,740 off to Podchaser or somewhere else, and use the player that, just a preview. 149 00:10:52,740 --> 00:10:57,860 Just to get a little sense of, here's what people are listen to, I want to hear this give 150 00:10:57,860 --> 00:11:01,680 it a shot. Then I want to just hit that button to say, okay, take me back to Overcast. 151 00:11:01,730 --> 00:11:02,750 I'm ready to subscribe. 152 00:11:02,960 --> 00:11:04,340 Let me subscribe to it in Overcast. 153 00:11:04,670 --> 00:11:09,980 I don't think, I personally think that's the way to do it, is that we keep them 154 00:11:09,980 --> 00:11:14,750 separate, but people wouldn't be able to own as much of the stack as possible, and that's 155 00:11:14,750 --> 00:11:15,380 understandable. 156 00:11:15,500 --> 00:11:21,140 Brett Johnson: That makes sense too, and you describing that scenario is that would be an easy lift. 157 00:11:21,410 --> 00:11:23,390 You have two companies that do something very well. 158 00:11:23,390 --> 00:11:28,070 Why not? Not necessarily merge, but at least work with each other. 159 00:11:28,090 --> 00:11:28,650 Mark Steadman: Just talk to each other. 160 00:11:28,670 --> 00:11:28,760 Brett Johnson: Just talk to each other. 161 00:11:28,760 --> 00:11:36,290 Mark Steadman: Very, very simply, it's code that's already baked into the operating system. 162 00:11:36,470 --> 00:11:40,640 It's very easy to pass information to, from one place to another to say now bring in this 163 00:11:40,640 --> 00:11:41,940 resource and show it on screen. 164 00:11:41,940 --> 00:11:42,710 That's, very simple. 165 00:11:42,730 --> 00:11:48,740 Brett Johnson: First you cover in the article the channel level tags, which again telling the audience 166 00:11:48,920 --> 00:11:52,370 are tags in the podcast RSS feed that relate to the podcast as a whole. 167 00:11:52,370 --> 00:11:58,640 That includes the podcast title, the description, podcast, person, iTunes author, iTunes 168 00:11:58,640 --> 00:12:02,690 subtitle and the iTunes owner and keywords. 169 00:12:02,690 --> 00:12:07,670 I'll let you read the article, as I mentioned before the podcast, about how each of those 170 00:12:07,670 --> 00:12:09,140 play into search. 171 00:12:09,410 --> 00:12:13,000 But, what I wanted to ask you, is to talk more about the person tag. 172 00:12:13,000 --> 00:12:17,480 That info about who contributes to a podcast, and that's not being used by any search 173 00:12:17,480 --> 00:12:22,220 engine you surveyed. You made a comment in the article, that this isn't to suggest the 174 00:12:22,220 --> 00:12:23,330 tag has no value. 175 00:12:23,330 --> 00:12:27,560 Far from it. Just because the names are being surfaced in search results doesn't mean 176 00:12:27,560 --> 00:12:30,860 it's not a great way to link podcasts together. 177 00:12:31,070 --> 00:12:33,710 I'd love to see it influence results for guest-based podcasts. 178 00:12:33,860 --> 00:12:37,670 Still, early days. Talk a little bit more about that, linking podcasts together. 179 00:12:37,670 --> 00:12:39,230 What your thought process was there. 180 00:12:40,070 --> 00:12:49,760 Mark Steadman: Back in, I want to say 2013, I started working on a little project that very naively 181 00:12:50,780 --> 00:12:57,050 I thought would be really fun, is could I create an RSS feed or a playlist of podcast 182 00:12:57,050 --> 00:13:03,290 episodes across any number of podcasts that featured a particular person I like. 183 00:13:03,290 --> 00:13:05,750 Back then I was ten years younger. 184 00:13:05,750 --> 00:13:06,940 I was gullible. 185 00:13:06,940 --> 00:13:13,240 I was whatever age I was, and it was Kevin Smith. 186 00:13:13,240 --> 00:13:19,270 I want to know if Kevin Smith pops up as a guest in a not Kevin Smith podcast, it would be 187 00:13:19,270 --> 00:13:22,150 cool if I could just automatically subscribe to that. 188 00:13:22,150 --> 00:13:27,770 The way I did that, was very naively at the time, was just trying to search through the 189 00:13:28,180 --> 00:13:34,090 Apple back then, as it was called, the iTunes database, and try and find stuff that way 190 00:13:34,090 --> 00:13:38,840 and very quickly hit up against the problem of scale with something like that. 191 00:13:38,870 --> 00:13:45,730 The idea stood, and what I think we're seeing with the likes of Podchaser and to a 192 00:13:45,730 --> 00:13:51,280 degree, the Podcast Taxonomy project is this idea of being able to link information 193 00:13:51,280 --> 00:13:58,450 together now, so we really can go from, you enjoyed this guest on a show, so you've been 194 00:13:58,450 --> 00:14:00,160 subscribed to this particular podcast. 195 00:14:00,160 --> 00:14:03,430 Every week they have a new guest, this guest you really dug on this episode. 196 00:14:03,430 --> 00:14:05,770 You want to know where else can I hear them? 197 00:14:07,060 --> 00:14:08,110 Where else are they cropping up? 198 00:14:08,110 --> 00:14:12,880 To be able to go and follow them because they're listed as a creator in Podchaser is 199 00:14:12,880 --> 00:14:17,470 amazing. A way of being able to do that in the Oodcast Index as well, to uniquely 200 00:14:17,470 --> 00:14:21,700 identify a person, because obviously you can have several John Smiths. 201 00:14:22,510 --> 00:14:27,040 But to be able to know the John Smith you're talking about is this person, and to be able 202 00:14:27,040 --> 00:14:32,890 then to find all the episodes of any podcast that that person has appeared in, to me, as 203 00:14:32,890 --> 00:14:38,880 possibly as a data nerd and an avid podcast listener, that's gold. 204 00:14:38,890 --> 00:14:40,750 There's so much fun you can have with that. 205 00:14:40,750 --> 00:14:42,730 Not just guests of course. 206 00:14:42,730 --> 00:14:46,900 If you loved the music that was on an episode, and you want to know what else that 207 00:14:47,200 --> 00:14:54,250 musician has scored, the sound engineer or whatever, and Podchaser are trying to map out 208 00:14:54,250 --> 00:14:55,800 that information and make it accessible. 209 00:14:56,110 --> 00:15:04,390 One of the things they hit up against a few years ago, was that, we podcasters are a 210 00:15:04,390 --> 00:15:09,700 thirsty bunch. If we find that there is a potential to game the system, to hack the 211 00:15:09,710 --> 00:15:12,960 system, to promote something, we'll do it. 212 00:15:12,960 --> 00:15:15,250 We'll game a system if we can. 213 00:15:15,760 --> 00:15:18,080 They saw that. 214 00:15:18,080 --> 00:15:24,040 The people were just saying, every episode had this X number of guests who were not on the 215 00:15:24,040 --> 00:15:28,120 episode, but were big draws, because there was no vetting. 216 00:15:28,240 --> 00:15:33,670 You could put that information into your RSS feed Podchaser would suck it up and believe 217 00:15:33,670 --> 00:15:38,590 it. It didn't take them very long for them to be like, okay, yeah, maybe not then. 218 00:15:39,020 --> 00:15:45,970 There are ways that we need to police it, and figure out ways that maybe the information 219 00:15:45,970 --> 00:15:51,490 starts at that RSS level, but then we have a way to be able to vet it or to say, if that 220 00:15:51,490 --> 00:15:55,840 information is false, to be able to give it a thumbs down in some kind of system. 221 00:15:55,840 --> 00:15:58,990 Be that Podchaser or the Podcast Index or whatever. 222 00:15:58,990 --> 00:16:04,510 When you've got that sort of taxonomy, when you've got that corpus of data, that you can 223 00:16:04,510 --> 00:16:08,950 then start to navigate around based on people, I think that's phenomenal. 224 00:16:08,950 --> 00:16:11,740 That's what excites me about things like the podcast person tag. 225 00:16:11,740 --> 00:16:13,860 Brett Johnson: I know exactly where you're going with that. 226 00:16:14,290 --> 00:16:21,400 I love audio drama, and the audio drama world, the actors, the performers, even though 227 00:16:21,580 --> 00:16:25,030 there are a lot of them, there are many that are used over and over, because they're 228 00:16:25,030 --> 00:16:31,300 great at it. And I've always wanted to, when I pick someone, I want to see what other 229 00:16:31,300 --> 00:16:33,550 podcasts they've been a part of. 230 00:16:33,550 --> 00:16:40,030 Have acted in, just to hear their different roles, because the good ones, if you listen 231 00:16:40,060 --> 00:16:42,760 well enough, you can kind of go, oh, I know who that is. 232 00:16:42,760 --> 00:16:46,780 They put on a different accent and you want to go, oh my gosh, she is really expanded in 233 00:16:46,780 --> 00:16:48,510 this versus what I listen to. 234 00:16:48,510 --> 00:16:55,600 I don't know if that exists. I was thinking the IMDB was supposed to try to do something 235 00:16:55,600 --> 00:16:57,670 like that, but I agree. 236 00:16:57,670 --> 00:17:02,170 If something can come up with that and whether it's maybe by genre, by category or 237 00:17:02,170 --> 00:17:07,030 something, that's even better because then it fine tunes the John Smiths of the world. 238 00:17:07,300 --> 00:17:12,190 You know that John Smith is a business entrepreneur, that's the category you want to 239 00:17:12,190 --> 00:17:15,310 follow versus John Smith musician sort of thing. 240 00:17:15,310 --> 00:17:17,770 [CROSSTALK] That would be exciting. 241 00:17:17,800 --> 00:17:19,150 That would be exciting. 242 00:17:19,150 --> 00:17:19,570 You're right. 243 00:17:19,570 --> 00:17:22,240 Mark Steadman: That's what Podchaser is trying to do. 244 00:17:22,240 --> 00:17:28,540 No one is yet completely disabused me of this notion, but I do have the sense that 245 00:17:28,540 --> 00:17:32,800 Podchaser is used more by podcasters than it is by listeners. 246 00:17:33,040 --> 00:17:38,530 I feel like that's where it is at the moment because it is aiming to essentially be the 247 00:17:38,530 --> 00:17:39,810 IMDB for podcasters. 248 00:17:39,820 --> 00:17:40,300 Brett Johnson: Right. 249 00:17:40,450 --> 00:17:41,860 Mark Steadman: Or for podcasting. 250 00:17:42,310 --> 00:17:45,670 And it's great, I've got no shame at all. 251 00:17:45,940 --> 00:17:49,570 The team are great and they're doing a great job and they really care about the space. 252 00:17:49,810 --> 00:17:54,760 They've been doing this for a while now, and yet they are a great team and I've enjoyed 253 00:17:54,770 --> 00:17:55,840 working with them. 254 00:17:55,840 --> 00:18:03,490 I think I still feel like, it's mostly the podcaster's that are using this information. 255 00:18:03,490 --> 00:18:08,490 I want to be able to see, like you were talking about, you listen to that audio drama, 256 00:18:08,490 --> 00:18:11,050 you're into this stuff and you go, oh, wow, who was that? 257 00:18:11,050 --> 00:18:12,400 Or you hear the name in the credits. 258 00:18:12,580 --> 00:18:17,320 And you know instantly, if you want to find out more about that person and other 259 00:18:17,320 --> 00:18:21,280 podcasts that they're in, you know straight away that you go to Podchaser and you put 260 00:18:21,280 --> 00:18:23,950 their name in the system. 261 00:18:23,950 --> 00:18:28,610 Or we standardize linking to people's Podchaser creator profile, and we make that a thing 262 00:18:28,610 --> 00:18:32,370 that we do in show notes. 263 00:18:32,370 --> 00:18:37,130 The more that we can do that, the more we open it up to listeners, I think then we create 264 00:18:37,130 --> 00:18:39,350 something that is immensely valuable. 265 00:18:39,470 --> 00:18:44,480 Brett Johnson: Right. The findability scale cranks up versus seeing on a Twitter feed of that artist or 266 00:18:44,480 --> 00:18:50,150 that personality, oh, hey, I'm on this podcast now, and you just accidentally saw the 267 00:18:50,150 --> 00:18:52,310 Twitter feed as one resource. 268 00:18:52,490 --> 00:18:55,840 Maybe that's what Podchaser should do and does well. 269 00:18:55,840 --> 00:18:57,400 If it's just for us, it's just for us. 270 00:18:57,410 --> 00:19:01,060 That's great. Build it and make it bigger and bigger and bigger. 271 00:19:01,070 --> 00:19:03,500 You know, it's got to start somewhere. 272 00:19:03,500 --> 00:19:04,230 Mark Steadman: Yeah, definitely. 273 00:19:04,340 --> 00:19:09,260 Brett Johnson: Next, you cover the item level tags, which the tags that relate to each episode in a 274 00:19:09,260 --> 00:19:15,380 podcast and those being the title description, the content, the subtitle and the author. 275 00:19:15,710 --> 00:19:20,540 I was surprised by what you found, that the Podcast Index, along with Pocket Casts and 276 00:19:20,540 --> 00:19:25,280 Overcast, not servicing episode level titles in search. 277 00:19:25,280 --> 00:19:26,230 That was interesting. 278 00:19:27,530 --> 00:19:36,020 Mark Steadman: Yeah, I think the problem here is largely one of scale, because there is just so much data 279 00:19:36,020 --> 00:19:41,500 to index and it takes so much time to index all of that information. 280 00:19:41,500 --> 00:19:47,600 Especially something like the Podcast Index, which is now the, I'd say possibly the second 281 00:19:47,600 --> 00:19:54,650 definitive directory of podcasts and could well be the definitive in time. 282 00:19:56,700 --> 00:20:02,290 They're a ragtag bunch of misfits. 283 00:20:02,290 --> 00:20:06,330 They're a small operation and they're an independent operation and they're funded by 284 00:20:06,930 --> 00:20:12,390 people like us who care about this and want it to continue, but that funding can only 285 00:20:12,390 --> 00:20:20,820 stretch so far and there are massive storage implications when you start to blow up the 286 00:20:21,060 --> 00:20:28,230 size of the database, 100 times plus over, because now you're storing information about 287 00:20:28,230 --> 00:20:29,670 each individual episode. 288 00:20:30,270 --> 00:20:36,510 Again, if we just imagine four million podcasts, each one of those has seven episodes. 289 00:20:36,510 --> 00:20:41,100 We know that many podcasts have many more. 290 00:20:41,100 --> 00:20:44,280 That already just becomes a huge job. 291 00:20:45,120 --> 00:20:48,900 There's all sorts of other number crunching issues with it. 292 00:20:48,910 --> 00:20:55,520 I sort of wrote the article without being sympathetic to that because, you know, 293 00:20:56,820 --> 00:21:03,930 ultimately to the podcaster and to the person searching that doesn't [INAUDIBLE] in the 294 00:21:03,930 --> 00:21:05,030 world that's not our problem. 295 00:21:05,910 --> 00:21:07,920 But it is a problem that is worth addressing. 296 00:21:07,920 --> 00:21:11,670 It's not a simple one to solve. 297 00:21:11,670 --> 00:21:15,770 I think if we can find ways to make that easier then great. 298 00:21:15,770 --> 00:21:21,570 That might just mean more of us throwing more money and helping Dave and the team at the 299 00:21:21,570 --> 00:21:23,450 Podcast Index make this stuff happen. 300 00:21:23,730 --> 00:21:25,890 Brett Johnson: Right. Well, and I think they want the feedback, too, because-. 301 00:21:25,930 --> 00:21:26,340 Mark Steadman: Yeah- 302 00:21:26,340 --> 00:21:32,850 Brett Johnson: I was looking at a few podcasts that I work with, and found it had multiple listings in 303 00:21:32,850 --> 00:21:33,390 the index-. 304 00:21:33,810 --> 00:21:34,410 Mark Steadman: Mm-hmm- 305 00:21:34,410 --> 00:21:39,840 Brett Johnson: Whether on purpose, by accident or whatever, and contacted them, they took them out. 306 00:21:40,470 --> 00:21:40,590 Mark Steadman: Yeah. 307 00:21:40,590 --> 00:21:44,360 Brett Johnson: They verified that I was the one that should have the only feed of that podcast, and 308 00:21:44,360 --> 00:21:48,150 there were two or three others there. Basically it's a network situation that that feed 309 00:21:48,150 --> 00:21:51,680 is fed into other networks and allowing it and it was there. 310 00:21:51,690 --> 00:21:56,070 I think if we as podcasters take a little time, go to the Podcast Index and take a look 311 00:21:56,070 --> 00:22:01,590 at what you have there in that library, that might help clean it up a little bit too. 312 00:22:01,590 --> 00:22:04,550 Help them do their job, because they were totally responsive. 313 00:22:04,550 --> 00:22:07,380 Within a day I got an email back saying, hey, thank you for the heads up. 314 00:22:07,890 --> 00:22:09,720 We'll clean that up, get it out there. 315 00:22:09,720 --> 00:22:11,100 I think they appreciated that. 316 00:22:11,770 --> 00:22:12,570 Mark Steadman: Yeah, definitely. 317 00:22:12,570 --> 00:22:13,740 Brett Johnson: If nothing else for the total numbers. 318 00:22:13,800 --> 00:22:14,070 Yeah. 319 00:22:14,760 --> 00:22:20,250 Mark Steadman: To be clear, the Podcast Index are one of the companies that are surfacing stuff with the 320 00:22:20,250 --> 00:22:25,410 title, but I think it's very few that are doing anything other than that. 321 00:22:26,610 --> 00:22:26,880 322 00:22:28,350 --> 00:22:30,150 Brett Johnson: Yeah, and that's not to poke them in the eye at all. 323 00:22:30,190 --> 00:22:30,440 Mark Steadman: No, no, no. 324 00:22:30,440 --> 00:22:32,550 Brett Johnson: You're right. It is. I agree. 325 00:22:32,550 --> 00:22:36,660 I think they're going to become the de facto when it comes down to it. 326 00:22:36,660 --> 00:22:42,940 They're setting their selves up to be when Apple decides to, we're done with you guys. 327 00:22:42,940 --> 00:22:46,200 We're now making money and we don't have to do this with you anymore. 328 00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:49,580 Thanks for the ride, but, we're done. 329 00:22:49,580 --> 00:22:57,000 Exactly. You also found that potentially, if the content, the episode show notes is 330 00:22:57,000 --> 00:23:01,200 present, aggregators ingest this information instead of the description. 331 00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:04,950 To me, and I want your thought too, do you think that makes episode show notes a bit more 332 00:23:04,950 --> 00:23:06,600 of a priority when publishing an episode? 333 00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:14,790 Mark Steadman: First off, I'll acknowledge James really help me out with this one and clarified, because 334 00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:19,590 I get mixed up on this sometimes as well in terms of I always just default to content 335 00:23:19,590 --> 00:23:21,190 encoded. 336 00:23:21,190 --> 00:23:27,450 Which is a tag in your RSS feed for each episode that allows you to have rich show notes. 337 00:23:27,450 --> 00:23:33,420 It has its roots in blogging and it's used a lot in WordPress things as well. 338 00:23:33,420 --> 00:23:41,640 A feed item in a blog post listed in your RSS feed can have as much html as you want, and 339 00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:43,230 it's expected to be in there. 340 00:23:43,230 --> 00:23:50,260 Whereas the description tag, we're all a little bit fuzzy about whether we want html in 341 00:23:50,260 --> 00:23:56,790 there, and so not all of the apps agree about what is allowed in there or not. 342 00:23:56,840 --> 00:24:02,790 I haven't gone back and read the spec to figure out what is the correct answer. 343 00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:06,250 It doesn't really matter because none of us can agree, and none of the apps can agree in 344 00:24:06,250 --> 00:24:16,050 directories. I think, good rich show notes should always be in your episode, 345 00:24:16,350 --> 00:24:24,180 in your RSS feed, regardless of the search ability aspect of it, because it makes your 346 00:24:24,360 --> 00:24:26,090 podcast better. It's that simple. 347 00:24:26,100 --> 00:24:31,620 Even if it's just a chronological list of the things you talked about and links to those 348 00:24:31,620 --> 00:24:34,320 things, which is what a lot of podcasts do. 349 00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:38,880 You maybe have a quick description of what was in the episode of maybe a guest that's in 350 00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:44,610 there. If you're talking about books or articles or TED talks or videos or whatever, just 351 00:24:44,610 --> 00:24:47,280 list them and link them in chronological order. 352 00:24:47,460 --> 00:24:51,930 If you're doing that in your show notes, then you're doing your listener a great 353 00:24:51,930 --> 00:24:56,280 service. I think you should do that regardless of whether it makes the stuff more 354 00:24:56,280 --> 00:24:57,390 searchable or not. 355 00:24:57,400 --> 00:25:01,080 Brett Johnson: Right. I always look at it, too, if you're going to create something, how many times can 356 00:25:01,080 --> 00:25:01,590 you use it? 357 00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:02,080 Mark Steadman: Oh, yeah. 358 00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:09,630 Brett Johnson: If you're creating great episode show notes, why not turn that into the blog that has the 359 00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:12,450 player to it? You've done two things with it. 360 00:25:12,900 --> 00:25:14,340 It doesn't matter if that replicates. 361 00:25:14,340 --> 00:25:15,360 It's two different mediums. 362 00:25:15,360 --> 00:25:18,540 You're letting people read it versus listening people [CROSSTALK] would sometimes rather 363 00:25:18,540 --> 00:25:20,070 read it. 364 00:25:20,070 --> 00:25:24,840 Mark Steadman: To me, being an old school RSS guy and an old school blog guy, they are the same thing. 365 00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:33,300 They're not different things. All a podcast feed is, it's a blog feed with one extra line 366 00:25:33,300 --> 00:25:36,510 of code in it effectively that says here's an MP3 file. 367 00:25:36,690 --> 00:25:39,720 It's still a blog post that has a date, a title and a URL. 368 00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:41,800 The URL is not your MP3. 369 00:25:42,180 --> 00:25:47,040 The URL is the Web page for that episode, and the Web page for that episode should have 370 00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:50,040 your episode title, and the player and those show notes. 371 00:25:50,340 --> 00:25:53,250 It should always come from the same place. 372 00:25:54,300 --> 00:25:58,170 At the moment I'm in between a couple of different systems for one of my podcasts and I'm 373 00:25:58,170 --> 00:26:01,260 having to copy and paste show notes from one system to another. 374 00:26:01,290 --> 00:26:02,700 You should never have to do that. 375 00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:07,290 You should always be able to just put them in one place, and then they go out to your 376 00:26:07,290 --> 00:26:09,930 feed and on your website as well. 377 00:26:10,770 --> 00:26:16,980 If you're having to copy and paste notes between different platforms, then it's worth 378 00:26:16,980 --> 00:26:22,500 looking about your hosting provider or your CNS and find out whether you can make your 379 00:26:22,500 --> 00:26:23,790 life a little bit simpler. 380 00:26:23,790 --> 00:26:27,310 In reality, it's all the same thing. 381 00:26:27,330 --> 00:26:31,200 Brett Johnson: Right, exactly. I've always been an advocate of building your castle on your own property 382 00:26:31,350 --> 00:26:32,460 in your podcast website. 383 00:26:32,460 --> 00:26:39,180 Even if it's as simple as activating a, getting a Google My Business page and activating 384 00:26:39,180 --> 00:26:42,150 that page with feeds, it's something. 385 00:26:42,270 --> 00:26:43,530 It's kind of your own. 386 00:26:43,530 --> 00:26:48,780 Most hosts now have the opportunity to create a podcast page, at least through the 387 00:26:48,780 --> 00:26:54,630 hosting platform. So at least do that to control a little bit for the search aspect and 388 00:26:54,630 --> 00:26:59,670 such too. What would you suggest podcast producers consider and do with your experiment 389 00:26:59,670 --> 00:27:00,150 findings? 390 00:27:01,470 --> 00:27:04,160 Mark Steadman: That's a really interesting question. 391 00:27:04,170 --> 00:27:05,340 I don't know. 392 00:27:05,970 --> 00:27:14,640 I feel like I would like to see more done on the creator, on the podcast app side. 393 00:27:15,330 --> 00:27:24,090 I kind of felt like this with, for a time a few months ago, Apple Podcasts wasn't showing 394 00:27:24,300 --> 00:27:25,560 show notes properly. 395 00:27:26,550 --> 00:27:30,600 It wasn't showing links properly, and it was making them a garbled mess. 396 00:27:31,590 --> 00:27:36,510 People were talking about and advocating, okay, you should format your show notes in this 397 00:27:36,510 --> 00:27:41,880 way. I sort of sat there and kind of bit my lip, or bit my tongue. 398 00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:44,460 I don't think that's the right approach. 399 00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:50,910 We shouldn't, we as the podcaster, shouldn't be changing the way we're doing things when 400 00:27:50,910 --> 00:27:52,020 we're doing them correctly. 401 00:27:52,020 --> 00:27:57,540 It is incumbent on the apps to read our information that we are providing in the correct 402 00:27:57,540 --> 00:27:59,190 format. They need to read that. 403 00:27:59,190 --> 00:28:02,190 If we're providing in the correct format, it is incumbent on them. 404 00:28:02,190 --> 00:28:08,910 If that temporarily means that some people aren't getting the experience that they 405 00:28:08,910 --> 00:28:12,180 should, that is on the app developer, that is not on you as a podcaster. 406 00:28:12,990 --> 00:28:19,090 If the experience is diminished in your show notes in one app, that is the one app's 407 00:28:19,090 --> 00:28:24,330 fault, and you shouldn't be changing your methodology to appease that one app. 408 00:28:24,360 --> 00:28:26,220 Doesn't matter how big it is because it's on the app. 409 00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:28,710 That's my particular viewpoint. 410 00:28:28,710 --> 00:28:32,340 I think this is the case right now. 411 00:28:32,340 --> 00:28:37,950 It's not that we need to do anything different, because we are providing really good 412 00:28:37,950 --> 00:28:42,000 information. Let's say we're doing the really nice episode title with the name of the 413 00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:45,780 guest. We've got a nice short description of the episode. 414 00:28:45,780 --> 00:28:50,130 Then we've got our full show notes and they've got links and rich information, and we've 415 00:28:50,130 --> 00:28:51,910 got a transcript, let's say. 416 00:28:51,910 --> 00:28:55,110 We're filling in all the person tags, we're doing all of these things. 417 00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:59,670 We're donating all of this information to these systems, to these apps. 418 00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:02,160 It's their job to present that to us. 419 00:29:03,030 --> 00:29:07,960 I think the best thing we can do is just try not to game that system. 420 00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:17,400 Is try not to get into the habit of, hacking things or keyword stuffing and all these 421 00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:19,640 different ideas. 422 00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:22,920 Trying to avoid appeasing one app. 423 00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:27,330 I talked about things like the iTunes keyword tag, which is now deprecated and has been 424 00:29:27,330 --> 00:29:32,530 for some time. There's a couple of apps that surfaced this summer. 425 00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:38,940 I spoke to one of the marketing guy for one of the apps last week, and I won't call him 426 00:29:38,940 --> 00:29:40,130 out by name because it wouldn't be fair. 427 00:29:40,130 --> 00:29:46,380 He was, kind of proud that their app was one of the two that was indexing this. 428 00:29:46,530 --> 00:29:48,600 And I'm like, no, no, no, that's not the point. 429 00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:55,170 We shouldn't be providing that information anymore, and saying that podcasters can just 430 00:29:55,170 --> 00:30:00,630 put a bunch of keywords into their feed in order for their show to be found on your app. 431 00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:02,220 That ain't helping anyone. 432 00:30:03,180 --> 00:30:09,230 This is really much more for, let's understand where we are as an industry at the moment 433 00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:12,690 from the podcaster side and from the developer side. 434 00:30:12,990 --> 00:30:18,030 I think if there's ways that we can help developers say, listen, there's a few things you 435 00:30:18,030 --> 00:30:20,850 could do here, make our lives a lot easier. 436 00:30:20,850 --> 00:30:25,520 If we can get episode level search into the Podcast Index. 437 00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:29,250 I did misspeak earlier in that I said they are indexing the title because I read the 438 00:30:29,250 --> 00:30:30,900 article when I was just reading back. 439 00:30:33,150 --> 00:30:38,890 If we can get the Podcast Index and a couple of other places to start indexing some of 440 00:30:38,890 --> 00:30:42,960 that episode level data, I think that would really blow the doors off things. 441 00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:48,600 Again, to very slowly and verbosely answer a very simple question. 442 00:30:48,810 --> 00:30:53,930 I think it's on the app developers to try and lift this space now. 443 00:30:54,030 --> 00:30:54,490 444 00:30:54,630 --> 00:30:59,550 Brett Johnson: Right. I think you synopsizing what that article is intended to do will help podcast 445 00:30:59,550 --> 00:31:01,480 producers look at it. 446 00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:03,940 I got the same feelings. 447 00:31:03,940 --> 00:31:06,690 Every one of them does something different. 448 00:31:06,690 --> 00:31:09,600 You cannot cater to everyone, the top 14. 449 00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:11,250 You cannot cater to those 14. 450 00:31:11,250 --> 00:31:15,510 Just do the best practices, do what you're supposed to do, do what your podcast host 451 00:31:15,510 --> 00:31:18,300 platform actually is encouraging you to do. 452 00:31:18,420 --> 00:31:19,710 You're probably going to be okay. 453 00:31:20,130 --> 00:31:23,970 That's just one piece of the puzzle anyway. 454 00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:26,760 This is [CROSSTALK] just podcast player app search. 455 00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:32,580 This is small, again, like we talked about earlier, they were not developed to be a 456 00:31:32,580 --> 00:31:33,690 search engine. 457 00:31:33,690 --> 00:31:36,240 They're a player and we're asking a lot of them. 458 00:31:36,390 --> 00:31:38,160 This leads me to my next question. 459 00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:43,320 I think one major disadvantage most podcasters have is the lack of the knowledge about 460 00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:44,350 SEO. 461 00:31:44,350 --> 00:31:46,680 And what search engines are there to do. 462 00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:51,420 We still banter around those terms, as I mentioned earlier, podcast discoverability. 463 00:31:51,420 --> 00:31:55,480 We've got to get rid of that, get rid of it, and probably should really be focused on 464 00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:58,970 the term of podcast findability. 465 00:31:58,970 --> 00:32:01,520 Based on what your podcast was about. 466 00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:06,350 Coupled with podcasters wanting everyone or everything else to do the work. 467 00:32:06,350 --> 00:32:08,610 We put it out there somebody else should take care of that. 468 00:32:08,940 --> 00:32:14,520 What advice would you give podcasters on best practices when it comes to SEO and their 469 00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:19,760 podcast? Knowing your background, what you've done, what would be some good things, 470 00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:22,020 here's three things you got to check off the list. 471 00:32:22,020 --> 00:32:24,660 You've got to do this to help yourself. 472 00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:28,770 Mark Steadman: Three things. Number one, get a really good website. 473 00:32:29,100 --> 00:32:30,900 Number two, get a really good website. 474 00:32:31,080 --> 00:32:33,230 Number three, say it with me, get a really good website. 475 00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:34,980 Brett Johnson: Yeah. 476 00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:40,230 Mark Steadman: I work with, there's a podcast [INAUDIBLE] for someone. 477 00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:41,460 I absolutely love the show. 478 00:32:41,460 --> 00:32:45,510 I've got no interest in the topic whatsoever. 479 00:32:45,510 --> 00:32:46,830 Couldn't be further from my interest. 480 00:32:46,980 --> 00:32:51,120 But I love editing them. They do such a great job. 481 00:32:51,120 --> 00:32:55,470 They are a dream to work with because, they research the episode really well. 482 00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:57,030 They give me lovely show notes. 483 00:32:57,270 --> 00:32:59,340 They have this great banter. 484 00:32:59,340 --> 00:33:01,650 It's pre-prepared. They know what they're going to talk about. 485 00:33:01,890 --> 00:33:03,570 They're really informed on their topic. 486 00:33:03,570 --> 00:33:05,300 They've got great chemistry. 487 00:33:05,300 --> 00:33:07,830 When they make a mistake they're really good at pointing it out. 488 00:33:07,830 --> 00:33:13,080 I can just edit that out and we end up with this lovely, bubbly, bright, informative, 489 00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:18,600 engaging episode. They don't have a podcast website and it drives me insane every time. 490 00:33:19,590 --> 00:33:20,790 It's something we're working on. 491 00:33:21,780 --> 00:33:25,630 I'm not just sitting there going well, it sucks to be you. 492 00:33:25,630 --> 00:33:26,740 It is something we're working on. 493 00:33:26,740 --> 00:33:32,430 The reason is, I'll just break it down a little bit. 494 00:33:32,430 --> 00:33:36,540 It's not just about having a place that you can direct people to. 495 00:33:36,540 --> 00:33:39,870 One of the big things is talking about search, going from search. 496 00:33:40,110 --> 00:33:45,270 If you've got a really interesting topic, if you're solving a listener problem, you want 497 00:33:45,270 --> 00:33:48,810 that to be the kind of question, I actually just put out a video on this yesterday. 498 00:33:48,810 --> 00:33:55,260 You want to be able to answer the kind of question that someone might Google, and to be 499 00:33:55,260 --> 00:33:59,070 able to phrase it in a way that meets a particular need that someone's Googling. 500 00:33:59,880 --> 00:34:07,560 If you have got a website that you own, that allows you to optimize it in the way you 501 00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:14,630 want to, that is linked up with your Google Podcasts account, that sets you up in such a 502 00:34:14,630 --> 00:34:21,250 great way, because then you've made your title really Googleable, really easily findable, 503 00:34:21,260 --> 00:34:25,490 you are helping that person get an answer to that question. 504 00:34:26,150 --> 00:34:28,650 They find your search results, they click on it all. 505 00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:32,560 They might just click the play button and hear the episode straight away in Google 506 00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:37,280 Podcast, or they might click through to your website and they will see the space that you 507 00:34:37,280 --> 00:34:39,740 own. They will see your text, they will see the player. 508 00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:42,740 They will see the subscription links to listen to your podcast. 509 00:34:42,740 --> 00:34:46,160 They will see the link to join your mailing list. 510 00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:50,330 If you need the modal pop up dialog box to say, I've got this mailing list, I've got this 511 00:34:50,330 --> 00:34:52,380 great offer, they can see that. 512 00:34:52,380 --> 00:34:58,130 You're not relying on something like Listen Notes or Player.FM To be indexing your episode 513 00:34:58,130 --> 00:34:59,450 for you and showing it on Google. 514 00:34:59,850 --> 00:35:03,590 This is your opportunity to own the space and it doesn't cost a lot of money. 515 00:35:03,590 --> 00:35:09,320 In order to do this, you can run it on Podpay, you can do a simple WordPress site, but 516 00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:16,970 getting the ability for you to own that space and to be able to optimize. 517 00:35:16,970 --> 00:35:23,570 The last point of this is, tangential to all of this is, each episode that you create is 518 00:35:23,570 --> 00:35:24,860 part of your body of work. 519 00:35:25,490 --> 00:35:28,190 It's not just this is the thing we've put out this week. 520 00:35:28,460 --> 00:35:29,630 We go through the cycle. 521 00:35:29,630 --> 00:35:31,220 We put out out Tweet. 522 00:35:31,220 --> 00:35:32,930 We do our Instagram post. 523 00:35:33,740 --> 00:35:36,920 We put it on Facebook and LinkedIn, and then onto the next one. 524 00:35:37,610 --> 00:35:40,760 That's so often how we think about it because we're stuck in that cycle. 525 00:35:41,150 --> 00:35:43,520 With each episode, you're building a body of work. 526 00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:50,730 If you don't have a website where every episode has its own Web page with the title, the 527 00:35:50,730 --> 00:35:54,830 player and full rich show notes describing the episode and potentially the full 528 00:35:54,830 --> 00:36:00,620 transcript. If you don't have that for each individual episode, then yeah, your stuff is 529 00:36:00,620 --> 00:36:02,230 just going to disappear into the ether. 530 00:36:02,930 --> 00:36:11,570 Having a website, crucially with each episode having its own web page, that preserves 531 00:36:11,570 --> 00:36:18,620 your work in a way that would be so much harder otherwise, because all of that good stuff 532 00:36:18,620 --> 00:36:22,130 that you've written, all of those show notes, that transcript, it's all being gobbled up 533 00:36:22,130 --> 00:36:25,550 by Google and it's loving it and it's eating it up and it's indexing it. 534 00:36:25,550 --> 00:36:28,700 Again, it's going to space you own. 535 00:36:28,700 --> 00:36:33,590 It comes down to having a good website. 536 00:36:33,620 --> 00:36:40,550 Brett Johnson: Right. I de-mythed it in my own mind about what Google is to us in regards to well, think 537 00:36:40,550 --> 00:36:41,780 about how you use Google. 538 00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:44,210 You're asking it a question. 539 00:36:44,540 --> 00:36:44,860 Mark Steadman: Yeah. 540 00:36:45,290 --> 00:36:49,790 Brett Johnson: And you want Google to deliver you the best options it can find. 541 00:36:50,600 --> 00:36:52,690 Therefore, that's the game we play. 542 00:36:53,330 --> 00:36:54,760 Mark Steadman: Be one of those options. 543 00:36:54,770 --> 00:36:59,600 Brett Johnson: Be one of those options. Be the best that you can, knowing again, lots of things are 544 00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:01,010 against you to a certain degree. 545 00:37:01,010 --> 00:37:05,720 Algorithm, how long you've been there, how you rank in regards to an authority figure and 546 00:37:05,720 --> 00:37:07,220 such. But, you're there. 547 00:37:07,670 --> 00:37:08,000 Mark Steadman: Yes. 548 00:37:08,150 --> 00:37:11,900 Brett Johnson: You may be page five, but you're there. 549 00:37:11,900 --> 00:37:11,910 Mark Steadman: Yes. 550 00:37:11,910 --> 00:37:14,930 Brett Johnson: Potentially to grow and then build upon that SEO. 551 00:37:14,930 --> 00:37:20,200 There are a lot of people that are just really good at SEO, find them. 552 00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:24,800 Let them help you out, because there are little tricks to this that you just keep it in 553 00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:28,490 your workflow. It's going to help you in the long run. 554 00:37:28,490 --> 00:37:29,930 I just [CROSSTALK] see that. 555 00:37:29,930 --> 00:37:32,770 It's a little bit of work, but it works. 556 00:37:33,070 --> 00:37:33,920 It works. 557 00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:38,960 Mark Steadman: I think it's also, it's a habit you build up as well, like a muscle that you build up, I 558 00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:44,900 should say. The title is so important and it's something I fall down on a lot. 559 00:37:44,900 --> 00:37:50,480 There are really simple free tools that will help you make your title better. 560 00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:54,950 They will analyze the words in your title and say, you know, actually if you use this 561 00:37:54,950 --> 00:37:59,590 kind of language, if you put a personalized kind of word in here, it makes us connect 562 00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:05,290 with it more. If you use a brand, if you use certain words, caution or stop words, they 563 00:38:05,300 --> 00:38:08,280 make us have emotional reactions when they read this article. 564 00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:12,890 Doesn't necessarily mean we're talking about clickbait here, but we are making the title 565 00:38:12,890 --> 00:38:17,180 as enticing as possible and as compelling as possible, and to set up a bit of tension and 566 00:38:17,180 --> 00:38:21,170 suspense of, oh, I've got to know what, setting up an expectation. 567 00:38:21,170 --> 00:38:22,670 I've got to know what is in this. 568 00:38:23,450 --> 00:38:26,630 You can do that stuff actually quite easily and for free. 569 00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:32,150 If you speak someone like [INAUDIBLE], I think he's one of these people who's a believer. 570 00:38:32,150 --> 00:38:37,210 It's one of the most important things you can do for each episode. 571 00:38:37,210 --> 00:38:42,350 Is get that title absolutely bang on, because that's the most important thing that crops 572 00:38:42,350 --> 00:38:44,260 up in search. 573 00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:45,680 Brett Johnson: Yeah, exactly. 574 00:38:45,770 --> 00:38:51,650 Talk about, more projects or experiments coming up as we finish out the episode? 575 00:38:51,650 --> 00:38:53,440 Mark Steadman: Projects certainly. 576 00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:57,890 I'm having a lot of fun at the moment, trying to make videos and write articles that are 577 00:38:57,890 --> 00:39:02,450 going back to the stuff you and your listeners already know about, but going back from 578 00:39:02,450 --> 00:39:07,130 first principles of podcasting all the way up to a much more advanced stuff. 579 00:39:08,060 --> 00:39:12,190 I'm doing videos every week over at podcode.tv. 580 00:39:12,190 --> 00:39:15,410 There's written articles, podcast episodes as well. 581 00:39:15,410 --> 00:39:21,650 There's the newsletter where I try and disseminate the podcast news through my particular 582 00:39:22,820 --> 00:39:28,600 viewpoint. If you're interested, if I have talked your ear off and you want to hear more 583 00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:33,230 of what I've got to say, podcode.tv is where you can find out some of that. 584 00:39:33,230 --> 00:39:38,340 Brett Johnson: Super, and I'll remind everyone too listening, that I'll have all the connections and the 585 00:39:38,390 --> 00:39:41,600 links and his websites and such in the podcast show notes so you don't have to hear a 586 00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:43,210 litany of what did he say? 587 00:39:43,210 --> 00:39:47,420 How do you write that now? Which always drives me insane, that's a great way to end an 588 00:39:47,420 --> 00:39:51,860 episode. [CROSSTALK] Links are in the show notes we'll go that way. 589 00:39:52,370 --> 00:39:55,460 Thank you for spending this time with me talking about this. 590 00:39:55,670 --> 00:39:59,540 This has been enlightening for me, even me reading your article numerous times and 591 00:39:59,540 --> 00:40:00,650 spending a lot of time on it. 592 00:40:00,650 --> 00:40:05,480 It still gives me some insight on why you did it, and what you thought from the results 593 00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:08,060 as well, too. You come from a different angle. 594 00:40:08,270 --> 00:40:13,010 Definitely more of the tech piece of this and the back end of how everything is built. 595 00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:14,570 I think that's something we need to know. 596 00:40:14,570 --> 00:40:19,280 We need to understand where things come from and why they exist the way they do. 597 00:40:19,310 --> 00:40:21,110 Then we can do better with them. 598 00:40:21,110 --> 00:40:24,320 And that's great. I really appreciate your insight and your time this morning Mark. 599 00:40:24,320 --> 00:40:26,570 Mark Steadman: That was absolutely lovely to talk to you. 600 00:40:26,570 --> 00:40:27,170 Thank you, Brett. 601 00:40:33,290 --> 00:40:37,100 Brett Johnson: My thanks again to Mark for spending a little bit of time with me talking about his 602 00:40:37,100 --> 00:40:40,880 experiment. I hope you got as much out of it as I did. 603 00:40:41,060 --> 00:40:45,590 Again, I encourage you to read the full article if you haven't done so already. 604 00:40:45,590 --> 00:40:47,650 It's worth the 10-15 minutes to read it. 605 00:40:47,810 --> 00:40:52,070 If you're looking for more tailored help on your podcast, then be sure to connect with 606 00:40:52,070 --> 00:40:54,880 our dedicated team of podcast professionals. 607 00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:58,550 We'll help your business create a podcast from planning and launching to editing, 608 00:40:58,550 --> 00:41:03,500 presentation skills, promotion and monetization if it's in the game plan. 609 00:41:03,890 --> 00:41:08,600 Interested in speaking with one of our professionals, we put together a questionnaire to 610 00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:12,890 quickly fill out. This is going to help us help you prior to our first information 611 00:41:12,890 --> 00:41:16,490 meeting, which you can schedule when you complete the questionnaire. 612 00:41:16,730 --> 00:41:18,170 The link is in the podcast show notes.