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For those that do not know me, I’ve been podcasting since 2005 and made every single mistake in the book. I’ve also worked in support for a podcast company for 10 years (as of next month). I think I might know what I’m talking about, at least about these topics.
- Know that Podcasting is PULL technology. All apps, subscribers, and directories PULL your RSS feed from wherever it lives. That means when you publish your podcast, there will be a delay between publishing and when that episode makes it to the directories. Your subscribers (in *most* apps) will get it as soon as their local app PULLS your feed.
- Know what your RSS feed address is and know how to check it. CastFeedValidator.com and Podba.se/validate are the only 2 validators that are podcast specific. Any other validator is not meant for podcasting and will tell you something is wrong when it’s not.
- Know that RSS is important and if you generate it via your website, you can not move to another website without redirecting the feed to the new feed. I’ve spent a lot of time explaining to podcasters why they lost all their listeners because they decided to move their feed without letting anyone know. A 301 redirect is needed no matter what anyone else tells you. If you want to move to a different website or a different podcast host, please contact your current host to let you know what steps are needed to not lose your listeners. Your only link to them in the RSS feed.
- Know that Ratings and Reviews in Apple Podcasts (NO IT’S NOT CALLED iTunes ANYMORE) do NOTHING for your ranking in Apple Podcasts. They are great to have and are great social proof, but your ranking or findability have nothing to do with them.
- Trying to game the system by stuffing keywords everywhere in Titles, Author tags and other places will get you delisted from Apple. Believe it or not.
- What hosting company you put your MP3’s on will do nothing to improve your success. As long as the host can deliver the files fast and reliably, you are good to go.
There are a lot of other things I could write here, but these are the top 6 I wish people would learn. IF you are going to podcast, you REALLY need to spend a little time learning the basics.
Here is a little form you should print out and fill out for your podcast for your information: PodcastInfo.pdf
Apple sent a letter to podcasters today (It was a bulk email NOT just to you). The big takeaway is that you need to remove episode numbers from your titles. I have a way of doing that and keeping them in your blog titles (as you can see above) and Keep Apple happy.
Is all Podcast advice applicable to your goals in podcasting? Be careful about who you are getting your advice from. Do they have an agenda? (most do) Do they match YOUR goals in podcasting? Not everyone wants advertisers. A lot of advice given on the Facebook groups is not applicable to the person sitting next to the water heater in a basement studio.
Paul Colligan is a Podcast Pioneer, Marketing guy, Podcaster, Author and Speaker who was around in the early days of Podcasting. Paul sat down with me and we talked about, you guessed it, Podcasting (duh!).
What does this accusition mean to the average independent Podcaster? Not much is my guess.
Elise Escobar stopped by the Podcast Help Desk a while back and we had a great conversation about podcasting (what else?) and what she is doing in podcasting.
My Alexa Skill (in the news brief area) is now 3 days a week. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Other days when there is breaking news.
Do you want to separate your blog posts from your podcast posts on your website? It might be a bad idea.
1. Never Promote something you do not own. Send people to your website and then give them all the choices you can reasonably.