How To Rank Higher And Get Discovered On Apple Podcasts

Send us a text

We break down exactly how Apple's search, charts, and editorial features work. This episode dives deep into podcast SEO, metadata strategy, episode titling, user behavior, and how momentum affects your rankings. You’ll also learn what Apple looks for when featuring shows and how to pitch your podcast for a chance at that front-page spotlight!

• Read How to Rank Higher on Apple Podcasts (Data-Backed Guide)
• For SEO Keywords, try using the Ahrefs Keyword Generator
• Apple Podcasts Marketing Page for Creators
• Apple Podcast's Tips for Getting Featured on Apple Podcasts

Contact Buzzcast

• Send us a text message
• Tweet us at @buzzcastpodcast, @albanbrooke, @kfinn, and @JordanPods

Thanks for listening and Keep Podcasting!

Episode Transcript

Alban (00:00):
So my RODECaster DUO has been resurrected.

Jordan (00:03):
Thank goodness.

Kevin (00:03):
How'd you resurrect it?

Alban (00:05):
I did what you said.
The final thing was unplug itfor over 24 hours.
So I unplugged it on Fridayafter we recorded.
And I did not plug it back inuntil Tuesday morning.
I figured if 24 hours was good,100 hours was even better.

Jordan (00:20):
Oh yeah.

Alban (00:20):
So I plugged it in this morning, hooked it up, had to
reformat the SD cards thatdidn't like the new SD cards.
And then I went up to George'sMusic and got a new XLR cable.
Just, you know,troubleshooting.
I feel like I'm pretty good attroubleshooting, but this
Rodcaster duo has given me a bitof grief.
It's a finicky piece ofhardware.
It is.
But it's also awesome.

(00:41):
And I don't know what's better.
But it's back.
It's just as good as it alwayswas.
And hopefully it keeps goingwell.
And maybe I'll figure out atsome point what the problem was.
I think you know what theproblem is.

Kevin (00:52):
Every couple months, it just needs a 24-hour rest.

Alban (00:55):
Needs a break, a sabbatical.
Yeah.
At Buzzsprout, we believe inall of our employees and also
our RODECaster duos get taking asabbatical once every

Kevin (01:03):
As the intelligence of the machines gets higher, yeah,
they have to take breaks.
Yeah.
Like more human-like.
It's just part of the deal.

Alban (01:11):
They're gonna need breaks.
Chat GPT is like, you know, Ineed some me time right now.

Jordan (01:16):
I need you to uninstall me from your computer.

Alban (01:18):
I just need to relax.

Jordan (01:20):
Yeah.

unknown (01:20):
Here we go.

Jordan (01:26):
Welcome back to Buzzcast, the podcast about all
things podcasting from thepeople at Buzzsprout.
So today we're gonna be talkingabout how to rank higher on
Apple Podcasts, how to improveyour podcast discoverability on
Apple Pod chemist.
I know it's a big one.
The reason why I'm excitedabout this episode is because it
kind of like ties in a lot ofthese threads that we hear from

(01:48):
podcasters, like frequentlyasked questions, you know, like,
what is podcast SEO?
How do I improve my podcastSEO?
How do I rank higher?
How do I get featured?
How do I like climb the chartson these podcast apps?
And so we're answering allthose questions in a way through
this episode.
So it's gonna be a really bigone.

Alban (02:07):
Hopefully we can get it done.
We we got a good rant on uhpodcast SEO, I don't know, a
couple months ago.

Jordan (02:12):
Yeah.

Alban (02:13):
And then it got Jordan and I to think more about all
right, well, if there we knowthat what we think is fake about
podcast SEO and all the stuffthat it really isn't, but what
really is out there?
What can we actually tellpeople that's useful?
And is there anything that'suseful?
And so I wrote up a brief or ablog and it was like, if we can
find enough that we think we canteach something, let's teach it

(02:36):
and try to rank for this sothat we can help people learn
something that's true, not get,you know, pitched by a marketer
who says, I've cracked the code.
And then you have to pay for amastermind to find out that it's
just like, oh, try to make agood show.

unknown (02:50):
Yeah.

Alban (02:51):
So on Buzzcast, you don't have to pay for a mastermind.
This is a totally freemastermind.

Jordan (02:58):
You're welcome.
Yeah, this uh another reasonwhy I was really excited about
this episode is because, Alban,you did lay a lot of the
groundwork doing this like deep,intensive research into the
workings of Apple Podcasts.
And so the episode outline isbasically just a little bit of a
breakdown of your blog.
And it's gonna be more of adiscussion-based version of

(03:18):
that.
So I will have that blog linkedin the show notes if you want
to read through it.
It's great.
But yeah, so on Apple Podcasts,there's pretty much three ways
to be discovered.
So the first is gonna be searchresults.
This is the episodes, and showsare ranked algorithmically
based on listener searchqueries, top charts, these are

(03:39):
also algorithm-based, and thisis like the most popular shows
and episodes.
And then we also have features,which is the editorial
collection of shows, episodes,things like that.
So let's kick things off withunderstanding Apple Podcasts
search.
Alban, do you want to head thisone up?

Alban (03:58):
Sure.
Apple Podcasts has been prettyvaluable since it was added as a
default app to people's phones,the podcasting app in I think
2014.
I've argued before thatprobably Apple making that a
default app on people's phonesis what helps Serial really get
broad appeal.
I think it'd have been muchharder if everyone had to

(04:19):
download an app and thensubscribe to Serial.
Bet Serial has some pretty goodnumbers on this, that a lot of
those plays came through ApplePodcasts, um, especially when it
was kind of taking off.
So search results are just areally important part.
So people type in somethingthey're looking for and then
they're served up a show.
What we've seen, and Kevin andI have seen this whenever we

(04:40):
look at conversion data forBuzzsprout or any of our other
products, is when people aresearching for something, it's
fundamentally different thanwhen they're just served up
something new and it'srecommended to them.

Jordan (04:52):
Yeah.

Alban (04:52):
So we, I think the first time we had this realization was
we were, you know, we wererunning Google ads and we were
also running Facebook ads.
We could not get Facebook adsto work.
And Kevin's like, well,someone's typing in, I want to
start a podcast on Google,they're going to start one.
But if you're finding peoplethat even Facebook thinks might
want to start one and showingthem a Buzzprout ad, it's just

(05:14):
not the same level of intent.
And so intent really matters.
And that's why search resultsreally matter because there's a
lot of intent.
Someone's saying, I want a newepisode, I want a new podcast, I
want to find a podcastingchannel, I want to find an
author, whatever it may be.
I want to find some content andthey tell you what they want.
And if Apple serves up yourshow, there's a good chance that

(05:38):
they are going to click it andreally give it a chance to
listen to it.

Jordan (05:43):
Yeah.
And I think that's one of thethings that a lot of podcasters
really struggle with is thediscoverability aspect.
And it's probably because theyare hoping that these podcast
apps are going to operate morelike Facebook or more like
YouTube, where it's just servingup the content repeatedly
whenever a listener might beinterested in this topic, as

(06:03):
opposed to making sure that theyare like optimizing their
episode titles or something likethat for the listener to search
because it does operate a lotmore like a Google than it does
YouTube or like uh Facebook.

Alban (06:18):
Yeah.
Well, that's, I mean,definitely the search is acting
like Google.
Absolutely.
So for years, all of podcasts,we kind of had guesses for what
Apple was doing.
I remember somebody had, yeah,I don't know, 2016 or something,
had like changed all of theirnames of all their episodes and
were testing different titles.
And so they started rankinghigher.

(06:38):
So we had little like ideas.
And in 2022, Apple publishedthis blog post that was like,
well, here's what we'll teachyou about what goes into this
ranking algorithm.
They're trying to do a lot moretransparency and they're
sharing a lot of this stuff.
And they said there's prettymuch three main factors that go

(06:59):
into what is ranked themetadata.
So that's all the informationabout the show.
Um it's not the actual podcastepisode, it's the title, the
show's name, so the podcastname, the author, and the
channel.
They look at popularity, somore popular shows do better,
and user behavior.

(07:19):
So whether or not somebody isclicking and playing through the
data.
They don't specify exactlywhat's in user data, but those

are the three (07:27):
the metadata of the show, the popularity of the
show, and user behavior.

Kevin (07:33):
So, Alban, it's this sounds like something that could
start to snowball a little bit,right?
Like since we have metadata, wehave popularity, and we have
user behavior, it feels likegetting the metadata right could
help, maybe not in the exactorder you have them, but it
could help like with the userbehavior thing, right?
Right.
So if we have good metadata, soour shows or episodes start

(07:54):
appearing around keywords thatare aligned with our episodes,
they're accurate, then thatmight start driving more people
to click on them and then theyare happy with their results.
So they listen and they follow.
If they follow, then it helpsbuild popularity.
And it might be a slow process,but it does feel like it's
something that could build,right?

Alban (08:11):
Yeah.
Is a good reason why Apple'susing popularity, why that's
important.
Because the popular shows areprobably popular because they're
pretty good.
It's not always the case, butthere really is something too.
If I was going to recommend ahistory podcast, hardcore
history is going to be in thatgroup.
Even if there's some newershows that are really doing

(08:33):
well, the chances that a show Idon't know about is going to be
as good as hardcore history ispretty low.
So what you're saying does makesense.
Like one, they show thepopularity, but then you're more
likely to click on it.
So then if people click on itand it's good, then they stick
around.
So it becomes more popular.
And there could be a bit of afeedback mechanism, whether it
starts with it being a greatshow, it starts with metadata,

(08:56):
it starts with popularity.
Each piece kind of feeds backto the other ones.

Jordan (09:01):
Yeah.
And as an independentpodcaster, it can really feel.
I know when I first started mypodcasting journey and I didn't
understand like the metadataaspect of it.
I didn't understand like userbehavior, anything like that.
To me, it felt like, well,gosh, how do you get on the
charts if you're not alreadypopular?
Because now all these people,and then they're going to be
more popular because more peopleare finding their podcasts.

(09:23):
And it just almost felt likethis really unfair advantage
that these major podcasts had.
And I and I couldn't figure outhow someone who is smaller is
supposed to even like attempt tobreak into that.

Alban (09:36):
Well, I would say new podcasters, what we're talking
about right now, this is thebest area to focus your time.

Jordan (09:42):
Yeah.

Alban (09:43):
You know, we're going to talk about charts in a second.
We're going to talk about newand noteworthy in a second.
But right now, for search, Ithink that's your best chance.
If you want Apple Podcasts tobe a marketing engine for you,
this is the area to focus on.

Jordan (09:56):
Yeah.

Alban (09:57):
So a few years ago, James Cridlin and Mark Steadman were
trying to figure out what doeseach podcasting app index.
And what that just means iswhat are they using for search
fields?
Are they looking at your entireshow notes?
Are they transcribing theepisodes and using the episode
transcriptions?

(10:17):
Are they looking at the authortag?
Are they looking at thelocation tag, the titles?
And they went in pretty smartstudy.
They put kind of like gibberishin each of these sections of
podcast episodes and theypublished it to everywhere they
could.
And then they would search thegibberish they knew existed in
each field.

Jordan (10:38):
Oh.

Alban (10:38):
And so if the podcast was returned, they knew, okay,
XK15454A.
If you search that and mypodcast shows up, that field was
being indexed.
Does that make sense?

Jordan (10:51):
Yeah.

Alban (10:52):
And people had done similar things like this for
Google for many years.
But they did this, and whenthey published the three things
that Apple Podcasts was indexingwere the episode titles, the
podcast titles, and the authortag.
So author tag for us would beBuzzsprout.
Since then, we know that alsochannel name is included.

(11:15):
And if you were to search, justgo search any sort of, you
know, Vox Media or something,and the Vox Media channel will
show up.
And so that really means ifyou're trying to hit Apple
Podcast Search, these are youropportunities.
Your podcast title, which we'vetalked a lot about naming a
podcast in the past, but we wantto do a really good job there.
Author tag and episode tag.

(11:37):
And author tag and podcasttitle, those are static.
Channel name is static.
You know, you get one shot atit.
After that, it's really yourepisode titles.
And so you want your episodetitles to be as searchable as
possible.

Jordan (11:54):
Yeah, and another thing that uh Apple Podcasts index is
that is good news for a lot ofpodcasters is they will actually
search through your episodetranscripts.
So as long as you are likeusing keywords as you're talking
about a topic, then that willhelp the searchability of your
podcast as well, which is goodbecause Apple Podcasts, like a

(12:15):
couple of years ago, startedtranscribing all the episodes on
their platform automatically.

Kevin (12:21):
Yeah, that's a good point.
Whether you provide your owntranscripts or not, Apple is
creating them.
And as Jordan said, they willindex some of that stuff.
So a couple of things that Iwould say about that is one, if
there's unique keywords that aremaybe like hard to spell, could
be commonly um mistranscribedor something, that's a really

(12:42):
important thing for you to do,then is to provide your own
transcripts.
Make sure that those words arespelled correctly or those
locations or those names orwhatever is important if you're
going to try to optimize yourpodcast to be able to be
returned if somebody searchesfor those things.
Just be aware.
Like if you're talking aboutplant names or pharmaceutical
drug names or something likethat, like the Apple
transcription engine could messup, you're gonna want to go

(13:04):
correct that.
And you do that by providingyour own transcript.

Jordan (13:06):
Yeah.

Kevin (13:06):
The other thing with the transcript stuff is I I don't
know that that's as much likesomething you can optimize for.
I think it's really great thatApple Podcasts is doing it
because then they're going to beable to return episodes that
are relevant to the term thatyou're searching for.
But unless they're just thingsthat you're talking about
consistently, in which case Iwould think it would then be a
part of your show title,probably.

(13:27):
Like Buzzcast, we want to bereturned when somebody searches
for like how to start a podcastor you know, how to podcasting
or something like that.
Well, maybe the transcript'sgonna pick up on some of that,
but primarily we're gonna getthat stuff from our title, like
our podcast title are in.
I guess they don't usedescription, but all of our
episode titles usually saysomething about podcasting.
So hopefully we'd start showingup there.

Jordan (13:48):
Yeah, I think keyword stuffing a script, like an
episode script, might be soundkind of weird if you're just
like, in this episode, I willteach you how to rank higher an
Apple podcast, how to find morediscoverability.
It just kind of sounds kind ofweird.

Kevin (14:03):
Yeah, we've all stumbled upon those blog posts that are
just keyword stuff blog poststhat are garbage.
And that's where the other partof these, I don't know, metrics
or whatever come into play,like the ranking factors, I
think you call them, Alban.
It's not just the metadata.
It's not just something thatthat got picked up in the
transcript.
It also has to do withpopularity of the show overall

(14:24):
and user behavior.
And so if you're just keywordstuffing transcripts to try to
get search results, you're notgonna have the other two things.
You're only gonna have one ofthe three pieces of the pie, and
it's probably not gonna workfor you.

Alban (14:34):
Yeah.
One of the lessons I wouldbring in from work we've done on
with Google is if you know thekeyword someone's searching, uh,
even if your page ranks for it,you're gonna get a lot more
click-throughs if the title ofthe page matches the search
term.
So if someone searches how tomake a podcast and your blog

(14:55):
post is how to start a podcast,they'd rather click on the one
that says how to make.
It's just that's what's intheir brain.
And so when they see it, theygo, yes, that's what I was
looking for.
Even if they're very similar,they're more likely to click the
one that matches what theysearched.
And so it's one of the reasonswhy let's say we you know we're
searching for, I don't know,monarch butterflies.

(15:16):
And an episode comes up wherewe talked about monarch
butterflies.
The episode that was titled,like, what's special about
monarch butterflies orsomething, if it's in the title
of the episode, it's gonna getfeatured more prominently in
that search result.
And I think it's more likelyyou're gonna get a click-through
versus if it's just in thetranscript.

(15:36):
If it's in the transcript, um,at least when we were just
searching a minute ago, it lookslike they're always a little
bit further down, and you getjust a little bit of a different
treatment because it's tryingto show you the quote from the
transcript.
So if it's the main thing, youknow, it's what the episode's
about, I'd say try to work itinto that title.

Jordan (15:57):
I really like this tip because it's something that's
really simple that everypodcaster can do, and they can
go back to their older episodesand kind of look at the episode
titles and be like, okay, arethese titles something that
someone is going to search inApple Podcasts?
Just be thinking about what youwant people to take away from
your episode and be thinkingabout what that person might be

(16:20):
typing into the search to findthe information that you're
trying to provide for them.
For someone who struggles withfinding like what kind of
keywords to put in theirpodcast, maybe they don't really
know where to start or theyhave like a bit of a creative
block with that.
Do you have any tools that youwould recommend they use?

Alban (16:36):
Yeah, we use hrefs for a lot of our SEO work at Buzz
Brout.
And Hrefs has a really nicekeyword generator.
So we can link that in thedescription.
But if you just search Hrefs, AH R E F S keyword generator,
what you'll do is you type in acouple keywords and then they
will say, here's all the relatedkeywords.

(16:59):
And so if you typed in MajorLeague Baseball, you would also
get one that's like baseball,baseball teams, baseball near
me, what are the rules ofbaseball?
And you just start seeing allthese keywords.
If you know the topic area, allof the keywords that pop up
will make sense to you.

Jordan (17:15):
Okay.

Alban (17:16):
But it's kind of nice to get them loaded into your mind
as you're talking about anepisode, just so you're
naturally remembering all thevarious pieces.
But if you're someone whostruggles, something I found
during my research, I justthought was funny.
Uh, this was another blog postthat was in Pod News, and
somebody noted that Parcast, whois acquired by Spotify and they

(17:39):
make podcasts, they just nametheir shows after the number one
keyword.
Like they figure out whatkeyword people are searching,
and then they just make a show.
So they have a show.
These are all the names oftheir shows.
In the true crime section, theyhave serial killers in history.
They have conspiracy theories.
In true crime again, they haveghost stories.

(18:01):
They have a show called Cults,they have unsolved murders,
unexplained mysteries, sosupernatural.
Like they're just using thekeyword and they just make that
the name of the show.
Um, I think other people,including myself, would be like,
I wouldn't want to call itserial killers.
Even if it was a show aboutserial killers, I'd be like,

(18:21):
unraveling the mind of the worstpeople with Alban Brooke.
And I'd make it something likethat, and no one would ever know
what the show is about.
But if you typed in, I want ashow about serial killers, and
there's a show called serialkillers, you're just gonna go,
that's that's it.
Messed up podcast for me.

Jordan (18:38):
That's what I'm looking for.
It's so funny because I've seenall of these pop up around like
Halloween or something likethat.
I'll do like the likeunexplained mysteries, or if I'm
trying to remember a podcastabout unexplained mysteries that
someone recommended to me and Icouldn't remember exactly what
it was, I would searchunexplained mysteries and then
that would pop up first, eventhough I was looking for a

(18:59):
different podcast.

Alban (19:00):
Yeah.

Jordan (19:01):
It's genius.

Alban (19:02):
The big minds.
It is genius.
It's kind of one of those like,it's so dumb, it's genius
ideas.
Like you just don't want tooverthink it.
We had a period where it wasreally funny to us that we would
take what we thought was thefunniest little comment from our
whole Buzzcast episode and we'dmake that the title.
Yeah.
And we'd all go, oh, that's thetitle.

(19:22):
Let's put it in there.
And eventually, when we startedkind of seeing this trend that
if you search something, you popup in search results, we went,
Really, we should not be comingup with cutesy titles.
Yeah.
One of them I remember, we madea comment about a show we were
all looking at the artwork of,and we were like, you know, it's
got that kind of like 1990stelevangelist aesthetic.

Jordan (19:44):
Yes.

Alban (19:44):
Like kind of that 700 club aesthetic.

Jordan (19:46):
I remember that.

Alban (19:47):
And that became the title of the episode.

Jordan (19:49):
Yep.

Alban (19:50):
And it had nothing to do with what the episode was about.
So it was funny to us, but itdidn't really land a relevant
keyword.
So what I would say is try tostructure your episodes around a
single topic and then name yourepisode that topic so that it's
very easy for people to searchyou and find it and go, that's

(20:10):
the podcast for me.
Let me jump in.
Hot take.
Yeah, I feel like I have to saythis.

Kevin (20:15):
Some of this stuff is so good for really helping your
show grow to reach more people.
I mean, we are talking aboutsearch engine optimization, like
optimizing for the tools thatare out there that people use to
find podcasts.
I get it.
Good idea generally, if yourgoals, if you're like, why
podcasting aligns with because Iwant to reach a bunch of people
or I want to have a businesspurpose behind this or all that

(20:36):
other kind of stuff.
It can also sometimes be, Idon't know, a little soul
sucking or joy robbing.
Like it was fun for us to comeup with crazy show titles or
challenge Jordan to like, Ican't wait to see what show
title you come up with.
That is fun.
But ultimately, we do have abusiness purpose behind this
podcast that we do.
We enjoy it, but when we wererealizing that we were gamifying

(20:57):
something too much, we werekind of putting personal
pleasures ahead of the businesspurpose behind the show.
And and that just for thisparticular show is not smart to
do, right?
We are a business, we have tomake money so that we can all
get paid so that we can all keepdoing this.
And so we have to sometimes dothings that are a little bit
less fun.
If your podcast is somethingthat you're just doing for fun
and you like coming up withcrazy show titles because they

(21:18):
add more fun to the experiencefor you, then please do that.
Like, don't let any of the tipsthat we're giving rob you of
the joy and the fun that you'rehaving of podcasting.
The quirky, weird, inside joketitles is something that's been
around in podcasting for yearsand years and years.
And I just I don't want you totake the advice that we're
giving as that's a bad way to doit, or you shouldn't do that,

(21:38):
or you're a bad podcaster ifyou're doing that.
We're not saying any of that.
We're just giving you some tipsthat if you do that, it might
not help your show grow, but itmight help you enjoy podcasting
more.
So if that's if that's yourgoal, then please keep doing it
however you want to do it.
Great advice.

Alban (21:53):
Whenever we're thinking about how to market the show and
how to try to grow it, youalways want to remember if like,
don't go so far down theoptimization path that you've
just like taken all theenjoyment out of it and all the
fun out of it.
You've got to make sure you'reenjoying this too.
Yeah.

Jordan (22:08):
Yeah.
And it's not going to apply toall podcasts.
So, I mean, if you have like anarrative fiction podcast or
something like that, you'reprobably going to have more
creative titles that aren'tgoing to be as optimized.
So all right.

Alban (22:18):
Now I gotta say, uh oh.
Talking about narrativefiction, Jordan.
I think one of the examples ofa podcast that does this very
well is this show calledDreamful that you make, and
you've got episodes calledAesops Fables, Heidi, Peter Pan,
Pinocchio, The Red Room.
These are all episodes that arenamed after famous stories that

(22:40):
it's not unlikely that somebodywould search it and then find
your episode and pop up.

Jordan (22:46):
That's true.
And you know what?
When my podcast first started,it was just called Dreamful.
Cause I was like, that is sopretty.
It's so lovely.
I love it.
And I had it as just dreamfulfor probably like six months.
It wasn't really growing.
And then I changed my title toDreamful Bedtime Stories, and
then it took off because Ichanged my title to literally

(23:07):
just say dreamful bedtimestories.
Like it's just very obvious.
I could have taken it a stepfurther and said dreamful
bedtime stories for kids andadults alike, accompanied with
music for sleep.
I could have just gone crazywith the title, but um, just
that little improvement on mypodcast actually made it grow
exponentially.

Alban (23:24):
All right.
That reminds me, this is lastanecdote for this section.

Jordan (23:27):
Okay.

Alban (23:28):
When streaming music became a big thing, especially
after TikTok and short formvideo became a way for people to
discover music, you startedseeing old songs get renamed.
And you'd see like a song titlethat could be totally different
from what the lyrics were.
And then they'd start adding inparentheses the lyrics.

(23:50):
And the first example of this Isaw was Old Town Road, uh,
little Nas X song, where theclip that went viral on I think
TikTok or wherever it was first,it was Horses in the Back, was
the like lyric.
He renamed the song instantly,so Horses in the Back in
parentheses, so that it wouldshow up in searches when people

(24:12):
were like, What's that song?
I like it.
And I think this also recentlyhappened with Blue.

Jordan (24:19):
David, yeah.

Alban (24:20):
Yeah.

Jordan (24:21):
I remember that, yeah.

Alban (24:22):
And there's just multiple songs that I've started
noticing this, especially when Iplay them on YouTube music,
that they've got the parentheseswith a the main lyric in there.
And I think it's just becausepeople want to rank their songs,
and so they put that main lyricthat people are probably
searching.
So it's good to it's good tolean into the search terms a
bit.

Jordan (24:42):
Yeah.
Let's move on to popularity.
When we were discussing theranking factors, I think
popularity is a little bit oflike a nebulous concept.
It's like, okay, well, whatexactly makes a podcast popular?

Alban (24:54):
Uh, how many followers you have on Apple Podcasts and
how many plays you have, thoseare the two main things that are
for popularity.
Both of those are indicators ofquality.
And so Apple is prioritizingshows that appear to be quality
shows.
Ratings and reviews arefamously not included.

Jordan (25:14):
Yeah.

Alban (25:15):
So Apple explicitly says they're not there, but follows
and plays are there.

Jordan (25:20):
Which is interesting because you'd think that they
would include ratings andreviews in that algorithm, and
they just don't, which Ipersonally love because we know
I hate ratings and reviews.
So I love that it's just basedon like the followers, the
plays, things like that, insteadof you know how many one-star
or five star reviews you have.

Kevin (25:38):
I can only assume that they are making that choice
because the ratings and reviewsystems are notoriously pretty
easy to game.

Jordan (25:44):
Yeah.

Kevin (25:45):
And they don't want to encourage more gaming of that
system.
Like they probably alreadyfight that enough.
And so if that was a signalthat they were using to generate
search results, just more andmore people would try to do
that, which means they'd have tofight it more and more and
more.

Jordan (25:59):
Yeah.

Kevin (25:59):
I know none of us here are big into conspiracy
theories, but do any of youthink that it's possible that
they just say they don't usethat, but they still might?

Alban (26:07):
Uh, I don't think so.

Jordan (26:09):
No, I hope not.

Alban (26:11):
So have you ever gotten those weird DMs from somebody
who says, like, I'm aprofessional podcast promoter on
Apple Podcasts?

Jordan (26:18):
Yes.

Alban (26:19):
I I've sent a few.
Uh Jack Resider did a wholeepisode about people who were
shooting up the charts.
So we can kind of talk aboutcharts in a second.
But one of the things that helearned was ratings and reviews
were not something the scammersever used.
So they were testingeverything.
And once they figured out whichlevers worked, they did not

(26:42):
pull the ratings and reviewlever at all.
And so I think it's unlikelythat's included.
And I think Kevin's point makesa lot of sense.
They don't want to be dealingwith either podcasts getting a
bunch of fake positive reviewsor just a bunch of people piling
on to a show that they don'tlike and saying, I don't agree
with the politics of the show.
So they're giving it one star,or I don't like the host giving

(27:06):
it one star.
Both ways, it's just going tobe a mess that they have to deal
with.
It's much less likely thatpeople are going to follow the
show, unfollow the show, like dowhatever they need to do to
give it a negative signal.
So I think leaving ratings andreviews out is a probably a
smart decision.

Jordan (27:23):
Okay.
So what are some ways that ourlisteners could improve their
popularity on Apple Podcasts?
Like, is there a way to dothat?

Alban (27:30):
Tell people to follow you on Apple Podcasts, play your
podcast on Apple Podcasts.
So if you've got a show that'son YouTube and on Apple, tell
people follow the show on ApplePodcasts.
That will help you more.
Obviously, if you tell peopleto go watch the whole thing on
YouTube, that would help you onYouTube.
So you can one, just directpeople to the right platform.

(27:52):
Pacific Content had aninteresting study they shared
where they added a smart banner.
So if somebody was on an iPhonein Safari and looked at your
website, they popped up a littlebanner that said subscribe in
Apple Podcasts or follow now onApple Podcasts.
And they found that they weregetting way more click-throughs

(28:14):
and they were getting way morefollows when they did that.

Jordan (28:17):
I didn't know that was something that a podcaster could
do.

Alban (28:19):
Oh, yeah.
Not only is it something apodcaster can do, it's something
that we do on all BuzzProutwebsites.
So it's on your website rightnow.

Jordan (28:27):
Oh, that's so cool.
Okay.
Well, I learned something newabout Buzzsproute today.
That's great.

Alban (28:34):
It's a good way to push people to go and follow the
show.
I will say, are you now thatboth of you are looking at this?

Jordan (28:41):
Yeah.

Alban (28:42):
I think I found the final place that Apple needs to
update the subscribe language tofollow language.
Do you see this?

Jordan (28:50):
Yep.
It's on the banner.

Alban (28:52):
On the smart banner, it says subscribe in Apple Podcasts
to Buzzcast.

Jordan (28:57):
Yep.

Alban (28:57):
But BuzzCast does not have an Apple Podcast
subscription.
Nope.
So it should say follow.
And it's, I think, just thisthis is the language from I
don't know, years and years ago.
And this is one little areathat it snuck through.
So this might be the last placethat still says subscribe in
Apple Podcasts, meaning justlike a typical follow.

Jordan (29:17):
Yeah.

Kevin (29:18):
Jordan, I'm noticing I'm looking at Dreamful and I'm
noticing you are at 4.5 stars.

Jordan (29:23):
I don't look at my reviews.
So I don't know.

Kevin (29:26):
Well, Buzzcast has 4.9 stars.

Jordan (29:29):
Yeah.
So I think I have a lot ofkids.
There's a couple like one starswhere it's a bunch of emojis,
and they're like, no, I don'tlike this.
Yucky.
You know.
So it's probably just a bunchof kids.

Kevin (29:43):
I'm just saying you're right on that borderline where
if you were an Uber driver, Imight cancel the ride.

unknown (29:48):
Oh no.

Kevin (29:50):
4.5, I'm probably still taking the ride.
But if it goes to 4.4, I'mrounding down and I have to
cancel.

Alban (29:56):
I'm looking at all your reviews that uh people are
actually writing something.
I'm I'm seeing all five starsand they're all nice comments.
But there's a few uh one, two,and three stars, at least in the
ratings.
So I wonder where uh wherethose are coming from.
That doesn't make any sense.

Jordan (30:11):
It's it's gotta be kids.
Like it's gotta be kids.

Kevin (30:13):
It's gotta be.
Jordan cannot accept thatsomebody doesn't like her show.

Jordan (30:17):
It there's no way that anyone doesn't like my podcast.

Alban (30:20):
It's gotta be Jordan hates it, but we're doing it.
I'm reading a review.
Real life review rating.
I'm a challenge sleeper, andthis podcast really helps me
drift off to sleep.
Her voice is soothing, thestories are good, and the music
is always so beautiful.
Two stars.

Kevin (30:40):
Let me read let me read a uh a buzzcast review real
quick.

Jordan (30:44):
Oh man.

Kevin (30:45):
Off topic, too much rambling.
Need to stay focused on podcasttopics.
Suggestion.
Keep the chit chat at the end,not at the beginning.
Two stars.

Jordan (30:54):
We talked about this one.
Do you remember?

Kevin (30:56):
Did you leave that review, Kevin?

Alban (30:57):
Because I totally agree.
It's a great point.
Also, perfect time to read thatreview.

Jordan (31:02):
This is yeah, this is the one that we read it, and we
were like, uh, moved on tosomething else.

Kevin (31:08):
Uh noted.
Good review.

Jordan (31:10):
Yeah.
Anyway, okay, enough of ouroff-topic rambling.

Alban (31:14):
All right.
So back to Apple Podcastssearch.
Um, you also want to improveuser behavior.
And all these improve userbehavior are really just metrics
that track with, is this a goodpodcast?

Jordan (31:27):
Yeah.
So this is different thanpopularity, but it sounds
similar to it.

Alban (31:31):
Right.
This is just what behaviors arepeople taking when they see
your show?
Are they clicking play andfollow, engaged listeners?
Maybe playthrough data could beincluded in here.

Jordan (31:46):
Yeah.

Alban (31:46):
And I think what I really would just come back with in
this section is like make thepodcast good.
Do a good show.
And Apple's always going to betweaking the algorithm to point
towards good shows.
You making a good show willmake your listeners happy.
Just try to align with that.
So if we're just to take a fewtakeaways from how to show up in

(32:08):
Apple Podcast Search, whenyou're transcribing episodes,
let's make sure you clean up anymisspellings, especially around
search terms.

Jordan (32:15):
Yeah.

Alban (32:16):
Podcast title should probably include some kind of
keyword or search term.
Your episode titles shouldprobably be around a search
term.
Your author tag, you know, ifyou've got an individual
person's name, let's put that inthe author tag.
It doesn't need to be in thepodcast title because they you

(32:36):
will show up because of thatauthor tag.
And uh same with channel.
So really we're just trying toorient ourselves towards this
podcast episode, might just bearound a single topic.
And let's make sure that thattopic is searchable.
And if you need some helpfiguring out what's the right
title, the HREF's keywordgenerator that we'll link in the

(32:56):
show notes, that will besomething that I think will
really help people just figureout what would be a good title
for this podcast.

Jordan (33:04):
Awesome.
All right, let's move on toclimbing the top charts.
Apple Podcast charts, it saysthat they're influenced by
performance and momentum.
So they use a mix of listening,follows, and completion rate to
determine what top shows andwhat top podcast episodes are
going to be ranking in thecharts.

Alban (33:24):
One thing to really point out here is that the charts are
much more of a momentum play.
So they will say a hundredfollows that happen in one day
or in two days is much morevaluable than a hundred follows
spread out over a month.
And you can see this in thecharts.
If you go look, it's notuncommon that you'll see an

(33:46):
indie shoot up the charts.
We've seen this happen quite afew times.
And they'll mostly shoot upwhen there's something happening
around that podcast.
Maybe it's a big launch, maybeit's an episode with a big
guest, maybe it's just you'vehit this cultural moment and
it's a podcast about theOlympics, and the Olympics are
coming up, and you justinterviewed Sean White and he

(34:08):
just got the gold medal, youknow, whatever it may be.
But you can see indies reallyshoot up in the charts.
And it's kind of that snowballthat Kevin was talking about.
If you move up the charts andyou've got a good show, then
more people might click on you,and it kind of continues that
momentum.
I think fewer people arefinding shows through the

(34:29):
charts.
Uh the podcast host uh did asurvey where they asked people
which of these areas do you use?
And pretty much everyone saidwe use search and we don't
really use the charts that much.
But it's at least nice as likea proof point that you can share
with advertisers, like, hey, weused to be top 100 show.
We were top five in thetechnology category or whatever

(34:52):
it may be.
So you can kind of watch it,you hit milestones, it's fun to
see your podcasting move up, andit really is a momentum game.
So you you know, schedule likebig releases and big pushes for
your podcast will help more thanjust good marketing techniques
that are spread out.

Kevin (35:09):
Uh so we've thrown a couple of terms around.
One of them is engagedlisteners.
I think I remember, is it 20minutes, Jordan?
And or 40% or something likethat?
Bingo.
Yeah.
Okay.
So when we say engagedlistener, or when Apple says
engaged listeners, what theymean is that somebody has
listened to 20 minutes of yourepisode or 40%.
So if it was a 10-minuteepisode, then four minutes or

(35:30):
more, they would count that asan engaged listener.
And I understand the momentumthing.
Like that certainly makessense.
It doesn't feel good foranybody that every time you go
back to the top charts, it's thesame 10 episodes.
And so Apple wants somemovement around those charts,
right?
They want new podcasts, or ifyou're looking at popular
episodes or something, you wantto see new episodes showing on

(35:50):
those things.
So I get what they're doingwith the momentum thing over
just the most popular podcasts,which are probably that would be
a pretty boring chart to lookat.
The top 10 are pretty muchalways the top 10 for months and
months, if not years and years.
But it also makes me think thatlike it's probably like what
you were saying.
I don't know that a ton ofpeople go there to find new

(36:11):
shows.
Although I have before.
Have you?
Yeah.
I mean, I I certainly have saidlike I want a new podcast, and
so that's just my mindset.
And so I'm like, what are thenew podcasts?
So I'll go to New andNoteworthy, or I'll look at the
charts and I'll find the new hotpodcast, or I'll try to.
I don't think I've discoveredany like long-term fits from
those things.
I've had a couple of, I don'tknow, forays into true crime

(36:33):
podcasts where I get hooked, Ilisten to an episode or
something, and I'm like, I gottalisten to the whole series now.
But for the most part, thelong-term fines that I have
stumbled upon did not comethrough the charts.
So I mean, all that to say isI'm kind of getting back to this
point that I think you guys aremaking as well, is it's it's
sort of like if you doeverything right and you end up
on a chart, hey, that's great,but it doesn't feel like charts

(36:53):
or setting a certain position ona chart like being a long-term
goal, it's probably not ahealthy goal to have because
it's it's a little bit out ofyour control in terms of the
algorithm is kind of workingagainst you in terms of they
kind of want those chartschurning.
And it's really just based onstuff that you can't control
outside of just creating thebest show that you can in the
first place, which is it's it'sreally about engagement, engaged

(37:14):
listeners and followers.
So yeah, there are some thingsthat you can do, like you can
push as much of your followingas you can to a certain platform
and focus on like ApplePodcasts or something instead of
just saying, listen whereveryou get your podcast.
I don't love it, but again,it's a strategy that you're
implementing to try to let theplatform's marketing tools help

(37:35):
you grow your show as much aspossible.

Jordan (37:36):
So yeah, it holds about as much weight as like street
cred or bragging rights does,right?
It can help you gain morelisteners, but realistically,
it's probably not as much.
So with the momentum thing, wewere talking about like engaged
listeners.
If it's 20 minutes or 40% ofthe episode, my favorite stat or

(37:58):
metric to look at is thoseconsumption rates, is the
engagement on the um ApplePodcast dashboard where you go
into the episode and you can seewhere listeners are dropping
off.
You can see where they'rehitting skip.
And if you want to improve yourlistener engagement, if you
want to improve the completionrate of your podcast, definitely
take a look at thoseconsumption rates and the

(38:19):
engagement on those episodesbecause you can see where people
are skipping.
I I've talked about this everytime.
When I have a sponsored ad readat the exact same spot in my
podcast every single time, I canlook at those consumption rates
and it's like my listeners are,you know, hanging out like 90%.
And then there's a big dip forlike 60 seconds where they just

(38:39):
like hit skip skip and then theystart the episode again.
And I can see where they'reskipping.
And so you can kind of adjustyour podcast a little bit.
So if you have 10 minutes ofbanter before you actually get
into the meat of your episode,take a look at those consumption
rates.
See if listeners are droppingoff before you even get into the
episode.
Maybe it's time to cut back onthe chit chat before you get
into it.
So that's something that youcan definitely look at to

(39:02):
improve the engagement.

Alban (39:03):
I mean, this is a pretty well-known strategy in the
YouTube world.
You go in, you look atplaythrough data, you find spots
that there's a big drop-off,and then they will just cut that
segment.
And sometimes just cutting asegment where people are
dropping off drasticallyimproves playthrough for the
whole video and thus improvesthe video's growth.

(39:24):
And so you'll see that acrossreally big YouTubers that will
go in and clip stuff out.
I think for podcasters, this isone of two areas that we have
good playthrough data here andSpotify.
Pay attention to where peopleare dropping off because they're
grabbing their phone out oftheir pocket and then going,
forget this.

Jordan (39:43):
They're drying off their hands from washing dishes.

Alban (39:46):
Yeah, they're they're actively going, like, get this
out of my ears.
So you know, pay attention toit, even a small dip.
It's worth listening to thatsegment.
Yeah.
And just asking yourself, isthere anything I could do better
here?
How could we improve?
You don't have to always followwhat your audience says to do,
but you can look at it and say,Oh, here's maybe a good idea.

(40:09):
It'll give you some hints.

Jordan (40:11):
One thing that you can do for charting is to try to
chart in a less competitivecategory.
So we see a lot of podcastershave their show in a category
that is heavily saturatedbecause it is such a wide net
being cast.
So, for example, society andculture encompasses so many

(40:33):
topics.
Society and culture couldliterally cover any topic you
could possibly think of.
And so there are subcategoriesin there.
So if you make society andculture your number one category
in your podcast settings,that's what you're gonna get
grouped into.
But if you change it to a moreniche down version of that, so
if it's um government.

Alban (40:53):
If you have a podcast in the government section, like
make sure you put it as thecategory government because
that's not very competitive.

Jordan (41:00):
Yes, as the number one because it's not competitive.
You are more likely to chart ingovernment than you are in uh
society and culture because it'sjust too many things you're
competing with.
So let's talk about gettingfeatured on Apple Podcasts.
So is there anything that likewe want to talk about when it
comes to being featured in newand noteworthy or other Apple

(41:22):
Podcasts editorial picks?

Alban (41:24):
Yeah, so there's quite a few areas now that are editorial
inside of Apple Podcasts.
And the important thing toremember is these are
editorials.
This is somebody on the ApplePodcast team has decided we want
to feature this show.
And so the best way to do thatis to ask Apple to curate a list

(41:46):
with your show included.
And they've said, you know,there's certain things we're
looking for.
We're looking for greatartwork, we're looking for
quality shows, but we're alsolooking for you to create some
custom artwork for us that wecan use in the app that will
look really good.
And we want you to fill out ourform that they have for you so

(42:08):
you can go and add it to thisform.
Uh we can put a link to that.
The main thing you want to knowhere is you've got to have your
podcast live in Apple Podcastsbefore you submit it.
You want to request it at leasttwo weeks before that go live
date, and then make a strongpitch.
And really that pitch, the mainthing you want to know it or

(42:30):
they want to know is why shouldwe promote your show right now?
What's noteworthy about thisshow?
Is it tied into somethingthat's happening?
Is it relevant right now?
And if the answer is yes, it'sprobably a good time for you to
go and create that podcastartwork that they want, the
special artwork, and do a pitch.

(42:51):
I think it's worthwhile forindies to do this if you have
the time and if this issomething you think you could
land, it's worth going andtaking a stab at it, especially
if something is happeningculturally.
Today, as we record it, it'selection day.
So if you were doing a podcastabout, you know, some of the
upcoming elections, then maybeyou would want to go ahead and

(43:14):
submit because Apple may run aneditorial on election day and
the history of voting in theUnited States.
So it might be a goodopportunity for your show to be
featured.
So just think through.
Is there a reason they wouldhighlight the show?
If the answer is yes, it mightbe worth taking a chance and
asking them to highlight you.

Kevin (43:33):
Is there a way that people can figure out like all
the existing and or upcominglike editorial collections that
Apple is putting together?
Like I just searched real time,as you mentioned, election day.
I did not see a collectionaround election day in the US.
But I did, so it's like, okay,we'll have a Halloween.
And then boom, Halloweencollection popped up as the
first search result.
So if in the past week or two,if anybody was looking for

(43:55):
Halloween-themed podcasts tolisten to, there was a list that
Apple put together.
But how would we as podcastersknow that?

Alban (44:02):
I don't know of any place that they're putting this out.
You know, it would be kind ofinteresting, is just for us to
go look once a week for the nextyear and just be like, okay,
what you know groups are theyputting out there?
And maybe we guess that theykind of hit the same topics, or
at least some of them get hitevery year.
What do you think, Jordan?

Jordan (44:22):
I was thinking that what I imagine happens because it is
a group of people readingthrough these pitches from
podcasters, uh, one of thethings that you need to put in
the request form is contextabout why now is the right time
for a feature.
So if you say, Oh, we've gotthis coming up, or it's national

(44:42):
something or internationalwhatever day, or, you know, a
hundred years ago this happened,and here's why it was such like
a big impact on our culture.
If you can touch on somethingthat is upcoming, then I think
that what they would do is theywould go, you know what?
Actually, this is a really goodtopic and we should build a
feature list around this.

(45:03):
And I imagine that they would,I mean, I don't know how Apple
does it, but I know if I was onthe editorial team and someone
had a really compelling pitchabout why we should have a list
about this specific thing, Iwould go, you know what?
That's actually a really goodidea and kind of pull together
some podcasts around that theme,around that topic, or around an
event that's happening, such asthe Olympics or, you know,

(45:24):
anything like that.

Alban (45:24):
Yeah, I think that's a great point.
Something else I keep seeing,Apple also, I don't know if you
guys know this, one of the topcompanies in the entire world.
And one of the reasons they'reone of the top companies is
because Apple does try to run abusiness.
And the way that they makemoney off podcasts is that they
have Apple Podcast subscriptionswhere people can subscribe and

(45:46):
get premium content in the ApplePodcast app.
And Apple gets a 30% cut ofthat money.
That is not a ton of money forhow much Apple invests in this
app.
And one of the things that Iconsistently saw when I'm
looking through these editorialsis the shows that get featured
often have an Apple Podcastsubscription.

Jordan (46:08):
Yep.

Alban (46:09):
Not always, not 100% of the time, but I think Apple is
definitely looking at that as aconsideration when they're
putting shows into these lists,which makes sense.
You're on the Apple Podcastteam, you're trying to find a
show that looks good and you'relistening and goes, Oh, this
one's good and this one's alsogood.
I've got two options, and oneof them is selling something,

(46:31):
the Apple Podcast app, and issaying, We're going to promote
Apple Podcasts heavily, we'reall in on Apple.
They're probably the ones whoare going to get featured.
So if you have a paid optionfor your podcast, if you have a
premium version of your show, Iwould recommend setting up an
Apple Podcast subscription priorto asking Apple to feature your

(46:53):
show.

Jordan (46:54):
Yeah, they actually prioritize it so much that they
have a chart in their chartspage.
If you go to like top shows,right below top shows is top
subscriber shows.
So it is definitely somethingthat they want to put forward.
What I love about the featuresas opposed to, you know, trying
to improve your ranking ortrying to get on top charts is

(47:18):
that to be featured, like youjust have to be very persuasive.
You don't have to have a bigfollowing.
You don't have to have a ton ofsubscribers.
You don't even have to be fullylaunched yet.
You just need to have a trailerand tell them, hey, I've got
three episodes in the queue andit's ready to go.
It's not so much a popularitycontest as it is you saying, I'm
making great content and here'swhy it deserves the spotlight,

(47:41):
which I love that.

Alban (47:42):
Well, one of the things they say in this submission
process is really going to helpif your show is coming out on
the day we put out the neweditorials.

Jordan (47:51):
Yeah.

Alban (47:52):
Because we want to know the episode is live and we want
you going live to coincide withthe moment we put it on our
editorial page.
So they, I forget the exactday, might be like Tuesday.

Jordan (48:04):
It's Monday.

Alban (48:05):
Monday.
It's in that form.
And I'll just say we highlyrecommend, which probably means
it's a requirement for you toput it to be Monday.

Jordan (48:12):
I don't, I don't know if it's like actually a
requirement, but I think itdefinitely helps.
You might get featured like thefollowing Monday.
Like maybe they'll cue you fora week after you're hoping to be
featured.
Um, so Apple actually providestips on pitching your podcast to
the editorial team.
And they have um four tips thatwill help increase your odds of

(48:32):
getting selected to befeatured.
So the first one is consideringApple's lead time.
So Apple needs two week minimumlead time.
And most updates are publishedon Mondays.
So try to pick a Monday as yourrequested date.
Number two, your marketingplan.
This is interesting.
So a feature should be a smallpart of your big promotional
picture.
So you should share your planswith the Apple team to show

(48:53):
commitment and then also helpthem align their efforts with
yours.
Third is content cadence.
So they're wanting you toconsider the listeners and maybe
publish with a few episodes sothat listeners can binge your
podcast, follow.
It'll help improve yourpodcast's engagement and
popularity.
And then finally, like we weretalking about current events and

(49:13):
relevancy.
So you can either align yourpitch with a trending topic or
position your content ascompelling escape from what
everyone else is talking about.
All that being said, it isactually a very big process.
Just the hero artwork aloneneeds to be a little bit
different from your actualpodcast artwork.
So there's some considerationsto put into that along with your

(49:35):
pitch.
And I think that a lot ofpodcasters have the idea that
being featured and new andnoteworthy or being featured is
going to like catapult them intosuccess.
But really, there's a ton ofpeople online who have written
blogs or articles about gettingfeatured on Apple Podcasts.
And they say, like, yeah, ourpodcast jumped up and we did
really well.
We were charting for like a hotminute and then just went down

(49:58):
as soon as the feature was over.

Alban (49:59):
Yeah.
We have four on our YouTubechannel, four different case
studies, and only one of themstuck around and got long-term
bump and growth.

Jordan (50:07):
Yeah.

Alban (50:08):
And so it's nice.
All of these are nice.
None of them will ever replacehigh quality content.
And if there's one of thesestrategies for you to implement,
I think it is your podcastepisodes titles.
Take a bit of time, thinkthrough what's the main keyword
that your episode is satisfying.

(50:28):
What's the search term thatyou're satisfying?
So if people want to learnabout monarch butterflies and
your episodes about monarchbutterflies, make sure monarch
butterflies are in that podcastepisode title.
So think through that, try outsome of the tools we mentioned.
And if you have questions oryou want us to take a look at
your show, it might beinteresting to look at a show or

(50:48):
two.
I'd love to hear about that infan mail.

Jordan (50:54):
All right.
So we got some fan mailmessages.
First up, we have Susie fromWander World School.
Susie says, I don't have anApple phone.
How can I leave Apple Podcastreviews?
Even logged into my ApplePodcasts on my computer or web
browser or my phone, and itdoesn't provide this option for
me.
I don't think that there is away.
I I kind of looked into this,and I don't think that there is

(51:16):
a way for you to leave an ApplePodcast review unless you have
an Apple device.
So whether that be a MacBook oran iPhone, um, if you're on
Mac, the web browser version, Idon't believe has Apple reviews.
But if you have the app forApple Podcasts, it will have
that.

Alban (51:33):
Yeah.
I mean, the Mac app podcasts, Ican leave a review here.
Yeah.
Just go to the podcast toscroll to the bottom to read the
ratings for reviews, and then Ican click.
I guess for Buzzcast, I couldclick five stars.
I haven't rated or reviewed it.
So you could leave one.
But yeah, a lot of this stuffwith Apple is going to be mostly
Mac, iPhone centric.

Jordan (51:53):
Yeah.

Kevin (51:54):
I I would tell you the easiest way, if you're
interested in getting a devicethat would allow you to leave
reviews, you can still see yourreviews, right?
Because you can still log intoApple Podcast Connect.

Jordan (52:04):
Yeah.

Kevin (52:04):
Yeah.
You can still log into ApplePodcasts Connect.
You can see your reviews there.
But if you want to leave themfor other people, the easiest
way to get into the Appleecosystem is probably to look on
Facebook Marketplace orCraigslist or something and buy
a used iPad.
So used iPads, they startpretty cheap to begin with.
A general iPad is like $399.
And you can probably pick themup used for, you know, probably
under $200.
One that's one or two yearsold.

(52:26):
And that would probably be thecheapest way to get an Apple
device that would let you createan Apple ID and log in and do
stuff that way.

Jordan (52:34):
Yeah.
So Susie also says, also, whatam I missing is someone without
an iPhone?
I use Pocket Cast and love it,but over half of my listeners
are from Apple Podcasts.
So I'd like to not forget aboutthose listeners.

Kevin (52:47):
So what are you missing?
I well, I don't think you'remissing anything.
You can you can see the ratingsand reviews.
I guess if you're missingsomething, it would be your
ability to contribute to thoseratings and reviews for other
podcasts.
Like you could probably do itfor your own podcast one time,
but that's probably not whatyou're talking about.
You're talking about is theresomething special or unique that
happens in Apple Podcasts whenyou're on Apple iPhone?

(53:07):
And it's really just being ableto leave ratings and reviews
for other podcasts.
So if that's something that'sreally important to you, you
might want to grab an iPad andjump in.
But if that's something thatyou're willing to go without,
Apple team has done a great jobof creating a web player.
So if you want to use that asyour podcast player on your
Android device, you can do thatnow.
But if you're happy withsticking with PocketCasts,
that's fine too.

Alban (53:26):
We got another message from Matt in California, who
wrote us uh just sending in fanmail to thank you guys for the
advice you gave on my listenersurvey question about the call
to action.
Uh, we simplified, we're honestwith our listeners about the
initial lukewarm response rateand got more traction.
Appreciate having an easy wayto connect and hearing you talk
about it on show makes me wantto keep writing in and

(53:47):
connecting more.
Those messages really do keepus going and make our days.
Matt, thank you so much.
I love that you're kind ofhitting it from both sides.
Telling your listeners, hey,the listener response, we didn't
get many responses.
We'd love more.
We'd love to hear from you infan mail.
And also you hearing us talkabout your stuff makes you want
to write into us more.
Uh, love that it's working bothways.

(54:08):
So keep up the great work.
We appreciate it.

Jordan (54:11):
There's really something so powerful about just being
honest and being like, you knowwhat?
No one writes in.
No one said anything.
And then they jump in.
David in Toronto, we'recontinuing this theme of
connection and love a fan mail.
Uh, hey guys, listening to yourepisode about connection right
now.
So I thought I would reallywalk the walk and text you that
I listen often.
I produce a podcast called MathTherapy, and we moved to

(54:32):
Buzzsprout a few years ago, andI've incorporated many of your
tips, including the fan mailrecently.
We've had a handful come in,and even the small numbers
helpful motivation beyond thedownload numbers, which are easy
to obsess over.
Yes.
As I think about it, yourpodcast makes me like using
Buzzsprout even more becauseit's good to know that the team
is on top of developments in theindustry and always working to

(54:53):
make the platform better andthinking deeply about it from
many perspectives.
So keep podcasting and thanksfor helping me do so.
Man, I'm gonna print that andput it up on my wall.
That's a great message.

Alban (55:03):
Print it and put it in Kevin's uh annual review.
Kevin's the one who's writingup all these pitches and leading
the product.
So, Kevin, that's uh that fanmail's for you, baby.

Kevin (55:13):
Yeah, it's wonderful to hear.
Matthew from Girl Dad Nationwrote in the currency of
connection.
What a great episode title, andI loved it.
Thank you, Matt.
That is uh praise straight forJordan.
She came up with that.
It was wonderful.
Uh, he says, I've not gainedany financial supporters yet,
but through my podcast, I havestrengthened my skills, gained
friends, and unlockedopportunities never before
possible.
And these are the things thatkeep me podcasting.

Alban (55:35):
That's great to hear.
Uh, Jordan, I noticed when youput all this fan mail together,
two things you left off becauseI was so excited when they came
in.
And those are some fan mailabout the Buzzboost stingers.
Were you editing our fan mail?
I don't know if this gotcensored, Jordan.
I don't know if this is gettingcensored.

Jordan (55:54):
It didn't get censored.
If you scroll all the way downto the very, very bottom of the
outline, they're there.
I've got two of them, andthey're kind of like smushed
together.
I was hoping they wouldn't getnoticed.

Kevin (56:05):
We're reading them right now.
Uh I know it's a federaloffense to tamper with the mail.
I do think, yeah, to tamperwith the fan mail.

Alban (56:13):
It absolutely carries through to fan mail.
Devin from Kingdom and AmeliaPodcast.
I agree.
Bring back the buzzbooststings.

Jordan (56:22):
At two, Devin.

Alban (56:23):
Jeez.

Jordan (56:26):
Oh no.

Kevin (56:29):
What is that?
What is playing right now?
Alban hit a weird button on theRODECaster.

Jordan (56:37):
I thought it was like an evil laugh.

Alban (56:39):
I thought I had a buzzboost loaded up, so I just
hit my RODECaster, but because Ireset my Buzzcaster, it just
turned me into monster voice.

Jordan (56:50):
See, this is what this is karma.
This is what happened.

Alban (56:52):
Oh, this is this is even more.
And also Jonathan Marsh fromAfterlight Fictions.
I fully support bringing backthe BuzzBoost sound effects,
especially the one said boostyboosty or something like that.
Kevin, you gotta hit us some ofthose buzzboosts.

Kevin (57:08):
You know what time it is.

Jordan (57:11):
It's time for buzzboost.
Boosty boosty.
Boost.

Kevin (57:17):
Buzz Buzz Boost.

Alban (57:22):
These are great.
Well, thank you to everybodywho wrote in.
We appreciate it.

Jordan (57:25):
Yeah.

Alban (57:26):
Jordan, what what's our next big episode about?

Jordan (57:29):
Our next big episode, we're gonna be talking about
choosing the correctmonetization strategy for your
podcast.
So that's like beingintentional about like if you're
thinking about making moneyfrom your podcast, if you just
want to support your hobby, justmaking sure that you're not
spreading yourself too thin andmonetizing a certain way just
because other podcasters aredoing that.

(57:50):
We want to make sure that youare doing it in a very smart,
strategic way that's gonna makesense for you.
So if you have any questionsabout podcast monetization, or
if you are trying to think abouthow to monetize your podcast
and you're just needing someideas, tap the Texas Show link
in the show notes.
Tell us about your podcast.
Tell us some things that you'rethinking about doing.

(58:12):
Tell us about your audiencesize or how much time you have
to spend on podcastmonetization.
And maybe we can help youbrainstorm some ideas in the
next episode.
So I'm really excited about it.

Alban (58:22):
I am too.
It was a great blog post.
Uh, you did a great job, youand Megan.
And I can't wait to go throughit on the podcast.

Jordan (58:29):
Absolutely.
Until next time, thanks forlistening and keep podcasting.

Alban (58:38):
Is it boring to talk about the weather on a podcast?

Jordan (58:41):
Absolutely not.

Alban (58:42):
I mean, there's entire podcasts are about the weather,
Kevin.
I think we can make it good.
Let's see where we go.

Kevin (58:47):
Well, I I was just wanted to ask you here's the tie-in is
that it is now officiallysweater weather here in Florida.
Jordan, I don't know if youknow this, but we hit the low
70s.
It's terrible.

Jordan (58:59):
Wow.

Kevin (59:00):
Yeah.
So it's chili.

Jordan (59:02):
Uh-huh.

Kevin (59:02):
And my wife happened to be out of town, and because it's
chili and I had to cook for usall weekend on Friday, I decided
to make a monster pot of chili.

Jordan (59:12):
Well, yeah, as you do.
Right.

unknown (59:14):
Yeah.

Alban (59:14):
As one does.
I also made chili after Kevinsent me photos of him making
chili.

Jordan (59:18):
You know what's funny?
I actually made chili thisweekend too.

unknown (59:21):
Did you?
I did.

Kevin (59:23):
Oh, this is working out even better than I expected.
Yeah.
So Alban and I had a workmeeting set for three o'clock on
Friday, and I realized thatafter work, I have all the stuff
to do and I gotta you know runkids around and all this kind of
stuff, and I'm also responsiblefor dinner.
So I asked Alban if we couldmove the meeting, and then I
decided, you know, not move themeeting.
I'm just gonna do the meetingin the kitchen while I'm cooking
the chili.
So Alban and I were meetingwhile I'm cooking chili on

(59:46):
FaceTime.
And then you told me yesterday,Alban, that that inspired you
to create your own chili.
So I wanted to ask you how didthe chili come out?

Alban (59:53):
Chili went really well.
You know what I really love iscooking with Chat GPT.
So I'm throwing in like, here'sthe recipe I Already use, but
like what could I do to makethis better?
And ChatGPT gives like prettygood.
I I crank it all the way up tolike take 15 minutes to think
about this pro level.
And it comes up with likeinteresting ideas.

(01:00:15):
And what I mean, it got stuff.
It was like you put a littlebit, like one bar of dark
chocolate into this giant bowlto add a little bit, you know,
kind of like that savory flavor.

Jordan (01:00:28):
Really?

Kevin (01:00:28):
Oh yeah.
My dad used to do that.
He always put chocolate inthere.
ChatGPT must have found hishidden blog.
Yeah, it was uh it was good.

Jordan (01:00:36):
When we're making chili, what are our like secret
ingredients?
Like this is what you have tohave in your chili.
Because I know people are veryparticular about their chilies.
I personally never make redchili, I only make white chili.

Kevin (01:00:48):
I love white bean chili.
Is that what you're talkingabout?
White bean chick, like whitebean chicken chili.

Jordan (01:00:52):
Yeah, like it and it has to have it's always shallots,
and it's always the fireroasted, scorched green chilies.
Ooh, yeah.
That sounds great.
Yeah, and then I um shredrotisserie chicken for it.

Kevin (01:01:06):
Yeah.

Jordan (01:01:06):
And it is delish.

Kevin (01:01:08):
I would love that.
I can only make one style ofchili, and that's it's all from
memory.
Like Alban was a witness tothis.
I really don't like measuringstuff.
I just like throwing it all inthe pot.
It always comes out good.

Jordan (01:01:20):
I've never had a You measure with your heart.
Yeah.

Kevin (01:01:22):
Yeah, I've never had a bad batch.
Alban was texting me, like theone thing that was really
helpful is I definitely wouldnot have put in enough chili
powder unless Alban had told mehow much I needed.
So that was good.
Because I'm just, I don't know,I'm pretty conservative with
the spices because I'm like, Igotta get it hot and taste it,
and then I can add more ofwhatever.
Yeah.
But I never want to go tooheavy.

Jordan (01:01:42):
You can't take away.

Kevin (01:01:44):
Can't take away.

Jordan (01:01:44):
Yeah.

Kevin (01:01:45):
But yeah, I don't have a recipe.
It's just all from I I juststart with the lean ground beef
and the hot Italian sausage andthen start throwing in from
there.

Alban (01:01:56):
Yeah, uh, same, but I was born in Texas, but I don't
believe in Texas chili whereit's just meat.
I don't I I love beans inthere.
Yeah.
You gotta have beans.

Jordan (01:02:05):
Yeah.

Alban (01:02:05):
So the one I made, two pounds of meat and five cans of
different beans and a coupledifferent types of tomatoes.
So you have like crushedtomatoes, and then I had some
fire roasted tomatoes and alittle bit of tomato paste.
So good.
Yep.
And tons of vegetables, andlike four times as much garlic
as any recipe would everrecommend.
I I think that this is acrossall recipes.

(01:02:30):
Garlic is way, way they'relike, oh, maybe put like one
little piece of garlic in thereif you can find it.
And I'm like, put a whole headof garlic in.
What?
I don't know why we're skimpingon garlic.
It's so good.
It's good for you.
It tastes amazing.
What's what's the problem?

Jordan (01:02:45):
I think sometimes, like, this is a really good point.
Like, it's it's really good tonot always follow recipes
exactly.
Like, you have to measure withyour heart and your head a
little bit.
When we volunteered at theRonald McDonald house, Alban and
I were in the kitchen and wewere cooking up some Merry Me
chicken.
And the recipe called for fivetablespoons of crushed red

(01:03:08):
pepper flakes.
Yes.
Five tablespoons in the sauce.
And I was like, absolutely not.
I did half of a tablespoon, andlike that was spicy enough.
Especially like we're servingthis to kids.

Alban (01:03:23):
Yeah, it was everything felt like they were like, put
like one teaspoon of salt andone teaspoon of oregano.
It was small amounts, and therewas like five tablespoons of
crushed red pepper.
And Jordan's like, that is abad idea for kids.
Like, that's just gonna make itunedible.

Jordan (01:03:41):
Yeah, I wouldn't eat that much.

Alban (01:03:43):
But we did we doubled the we doubled the garlic too.
Yeah, we went and we found moregarlic and we put it in there.
And then we found an onion andwe cut that up real well and we
threw that in on top.

Jordan (01:03:52):
So you know what?
And I bet it was the best batchof Merry Main Chicken they ever
had.

Alban (01:03:56):
If you're listening to this from the Ronald McDonald
house in Tampa, Florida, and youate that meal right into fan
mail.

Jordan (01:04:04):
Let's know how good a cook Salvin and I are.

Kevin (01:04:09):
I like it.
It makes me think that nexttime we get together for a
meetup, we need to have like achili cook-off or something like
that.
I love a chili cook-off.
That'd be great.
Wouldn't that be fun?

Jordan (01:04:18):
Yes.

Alban (01:04:18):
The best part is that you're eating a bunch of
different chilies.
Yeah.
What's down what's the downsidethere?

Jordan (01:04:24):
I think the downside is all of us sitting in a quiet
conference room the next day inmeetings.
Like after a chili cook-off.
We have to do that like thefinal day or something.
We can't do it day one.

Kevin (01:04:36):
Well, I like it.

Alban (01:04:37):
I definitely want to try y'all's chili.

Jordan (01:04:40):
Yeah.

Alban (01:04:40):
I I think Kevin, for your 49th birthday, we should all
bring a bunch of like you shouldjust tell all your friends
like, hey, come, we're playingpickleball, we're getting
together.
No gifts, but bring a giant potof chili.
Yes, like the office where uhKevin Kevin from the office
brings in the monster like 10gallon bucket and then dumps it

(01:05:01):
on the floor.