How are you helping new listeners discover your podcast?

When the news dropped that Google Podcasts would be shutting down in early 2024 (RIP), the industry was a-buzz. Google’s upcoming relocation of podcasts to YouTube Music will mean impactful changes for podcast creators, but those changes don’t have to be negative!

Mary breaks down what was great about Google Podcasts and how you can make sure your show’s organic discovery doesn’t suffer in this shift. You’ll want to save this episode for future reference—it’s packed with tons of practical suggestions!

Ready to future-proof your podcast? Mary shares her insights on:

  • The perks that came with Google Podcasts, for creators and listeners
  • Why you’ll want to get your podcast on YouTube if it isn’t already
  • What the stats say—is video killing the podcast star?
  • How to increase your organic discovery, including some SEO insights!

Links worth exploring from the episode:

Connect with Mary!

Podcast cover art by Emily Johnston of Artio Design Co.

Transcript with audio description:

[MUSIC IN // INTRO]

<< Ghosthood Featuring Sara Azriel “Let’s Go” BEGINS >>

MARY: Welcome to the Podcaster’s Guide to a Visible Voice.

<< WOMAN SINGS: Let’s go >>

MARY: Reveal and define your voice to speak your truth through the power of podcasting. And I’m your host, Mary Chan.

<< WOMAN SINGS: So so so so let’s go >>

MARY: Hello, this is episode number sixty-seven, Organic Discovery for Podcasts.

[INTRO MUSIC FADES // NEW MUSIC IN]

Now, if you know me by now, I’m not one to follow trends. I am not a trendy type of person, and I’m not going to follow everyone like a sheep in a herd. What I love to do, though, is observe, watch from the sidelines, see what’s going on with everyone, but also do my own research to figure out, does this work for me and how do I make it my own.

[MUSIC ENDS]

So, when I heard earlier this month in October that, oh, no, Google Podcasts is shutting down by 2024, ahh. Now, okay, you might be thinking, Google Podcasts, what’s that? One of the reasons why they’re going to shut down. Or you also might be thinking, okay, so how does that affect me now as a podcast creator? It’s going to affect you in a big way, but when I reacted that way, it was more because of being a podcast listener. Google Podcasts is my app of choice. And to hear it being shut down, much like Google does to many of their products, they shut down Google Play Music, which was the iteration before Google Podcasts and Google Podcasts started in 2018. And so, they do know what they’re doing, I would hope. Well what this means is that podcasts are switching to YouTube. YouTube, also owned by Google, has finally realized they may need to consolidate things under one umbrella. And you might think, ooh, YouTube awesome, cool. Or oh, I already have my podcast on there, that’s great. Or I don’t have my podcast on there. How do I do that? We’ll break that down later.

However, I want to take a little bit more of a deep dive into the organic discovery of it all. Because the whole point of being on any of these listening apps, whether it is Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or Google Podcasts, or YouTube Music, all of the stuff, what does it really mean? This episode is not about just industry news. I don’t normally talk about industry news anyways, because it changes and shifts so much. But with this big shift in the YouTube strategy for Google, it’ll just be very interesting to see. What do they do with the search portion for podcasts. Let’s get to a little background first.

[MUSIC IN]

Like I said earlier, Google Podcasts started in 2018. It was a standalone app and it was a dedicated podcast app. I loved it because, A, I’m an android user so I didn’t use Apple Podcasts, Spotify wasn’t quite a thing yet for podcasts, and it was streamlined, simple, easy to use. It didn’t have annoying ads, different things in the way. It was just podcasts. I could listen to it on my phone. I could listen to podcasts on my desktop. I can switch seamlessly between those two things. When Google Podcasts had a web version integrated to the app. It didn’t have all these bells and whistles, but that’s why I loved it. I loved its simplicity as a listener, as a podcast creator. It was great too, because they had the Google Podcast Manager where you could submit your feed and it gets crawled by Google so that people could organically discover your podcast.

When people googled, your podcasts came up, and then earlier this year, that changed, it shifted. Podcasts were no longer as easily discoverable on a Google search, so we knew something was going to change. Then a couple of months ago, they announced that podcasts will soon be discovered on YouTube. The industry went wild. They were like, oh, finally, everyone uses YouTube anyways, let’s integrate these two things. We can listen to podcasts on YouTube. We are already adding podcasts to YouTube, so let’s just keep it all in the same ecosystem. But what Google did instead was actually add podcasts to YouTube Music, which is a different app than YouTube. And in some way, I think, you know, that is actually a good thing because there’s just so much junk on YouTube itself that if you were looking for a dedicated podcast app, YouTube is not a great way for that. Because as most shows are still audio only YouTube, if you don’t have the premium subscription at this point, at least, if you turn off your screen, the audio disappears as well. The video stops.

So with YouTube Music being a music platform, if you turn off your screen, you can still have the music playing in the background. So that’s where podcasts will live. And it seems to make sense. But the question is, does the name YouTube Music give the impression that podcasting isn’t part of that game? Or if people say YouTube music, well, what’s YouTube music? You mean just YouTube, right? Does it create more confusion? One of the reasons why I think Google Podcasts never really solidified its spot in like, the top three aggregator apps, listening apps, is because it wasn’t automatically installed in all Android phones like Apple Podcasts. When you have an iPhone, Apple Podcast is automatically in there. So people know to use it or at least try, because they’re like, oh, what is this app? What does this do? And even with all the power that Google has behind them, google Podcasts did not get that surge that they were hoping for. But like I was saying before, will YouTube Music just fall to the wasteland like Google Play Music before Google Podcasts? And of course, Google Podcasts now ending sometime in the new year in 2024. What are they driving at?

[MUSIC ENDS]

There are more and more stats now where people are saying, oh, yes, YouTube is the top platform. You have to have your podcast on YouTube. Yes, I think you do, because YouTube is a top search engine in the world. So you do need to be on there and it’s easy to get on there without having to create an actual video for YouTube. And I think that’s why they’re integrating YouTube Music into the space, because they see how many podcasts are on YouTube. That is a static image only. And I found some really interesting stats coming out of Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights where in a study from the spring of earlier this year, they realized that, yes, watchable podcasts are growing in popularity. Which I think is funny because early in the podcast days there was video blogs, video podcasts, but it never, ever grew to the same consumption as audio only podcasts. And in some ways, I still feel like that is still going to be the same. Where YouTube, the video portion is not going to overtake the audio version. Much like back in the day, if you’re old enough, you will remember, video killed the radio star, which is a song. When music videos showed up, they were like, oh, this is the end of radio. And it wasn’t because each platform, each medium has their own specialty. And there are certain things that people like about video and there are certain things that works so well for audio only.

And going back to that study from Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights is that even though watchable podcasts are growing in popularity, one in three now say that they prefer actively watching podcasts with video. And you’re like, oh my gosh, one in three, wow. However, that still means around 40% of people prefer audio only without video. They’re saying now in this new report, 25% of those just play the video in the background or minimize their device while they’re listening. So really only 36% of those listeners are actively watching the videos, which isn’t a lot when you actually add in audio only plus plays of videos in the background. That is, well over 60% of listeners prefer not to have video.

And this sort of plays out in what I see of YouTube stats. More videos on YouTube are only watched for less than a minute. People will hit play, they will hit stop, or they’re automatically playing in the background and they actually don’t want to watch it and so they’ll hit stop. And so the stats for YouTube consumption is actually very, very low when compared to audio only consumption. That is still very, very, very high depending on the research that you’re looking at, could be 75% or higher consumption rate. Meaning when someone hits play on a podcast, they will listen to 75% of the audio on average. And if you have a long show, they’re with you for most of the way. You don’t get that same consumption rate on YouTube. So that’s why I’m saying it’ll be interesting to see what Google plans to do with podcast integrations onto YouTube Music. And does that affect the standalone the big player of YouTube itself.

[MUSIC IN]

As the consumer of these products. Is it worth it for me to be on YouTube or YouTube Music? Now with all my podcasting clients, previously I always said it was worth it to be on Google Podcasts and make sure that your podcast was crawled by the Google Podcast manager and I got them all to sign up that way because then you are on Google for organic discovery. It would be the same thing. I would still recommend you to make sure that your podcast is on YouTube Music and as of this recording, in the middle of October, you can add your podcast to YouTube Music and they are planning on integrating the RSS feed into it. So that’s a little complicated right now. If you are interested in figuring out what is this? How can I add this to my show? I would love to have a chat with you. We can chat about it or you can um, look into the YouTube studio which is where you create your YouTube videos and upload them. Same sort of thing. You can add a podcast to your YouTube studio now. So if you know the back end of all of that, make sure that your show is on YouTube and YouTube Music.

[MUSIC ENDS]

So as it is right now, how do you get organic discovery for a podcast? One of the things I always say is to make sure you are being distributed on all the listening apps. So when you sign up to your media hosting platform, most of the time they will provide you with some quick links to upload your RSS feed to be served by these listening apps. Or in the case of Apple Podcasts, most of the time you’ll have to go to Apple Podcast Connect, log in through there and submit your podcast. Spotify is similar and YouTube is similar. But there are many, many other listening destinations. Amazon Music also owns Audible. You can listen to audiobooks and podcasts on Audible now and a lot of companies are trying to do that, trying to streamline things where platforms have an audio first integration, right? They think, oh, if people listen to audiobooks, they must listen to podcasts too. Let’s put those things together. Same thing on Spotify. Spotify was music first, so they’re like, well, people listen to music on the go, they must want to listen to podcasts on the go. So I think that has worked for them. And now Spotify is planning on adding audiobooks as well. So we’ll see where their industry shifts in all of this.

But the main thing is, is that podcasting is still a relatively new space. It doesn’t have the same structures as traditional media, meaning the radio, TV, publications like magazines, things like that. There is this new playground that people are in with podcasting. It’s still kind of like the wild, wild west. So that’s why I say if you want that organic discovery, you have to be on all the apps. And if you are in that North American Western sphere, but you really want a global reach, you have to go beyond the Apple Podcasts and Spotify and YouTube. You have to reach out for Gaza, Geosavin, they’re in India or Deezer, which is huge in Europe. You want to be everywhere. So look for all the destinations that you need to go to and sign up for those destinations. I do keep a list on my website handy for usually my clients. But since you’re listening, I usually keep an updated list of all the places that you want to be distributed to on my website. I’ll reveal it in my show notes, so take a look there if you want to make sure that you have a small little checklist of where you want to be.

[MUSIC IN]

The next key thing for organic discovery, and especially if you’ve run your own business, you may have heard this before, SEO, search engine optimization. This is when someone, for example, will plug into Google things that they’re interested in, right? Like those keywords. They’ll type in, like how do you listen to a podcast? And so podcast listening are appropriate keywords, right? So things like that, you want to start thinking about. And for each podcast listening app, those search engine optimized fields are different for each app. That’s also what makes podcasting a little tricky for discovery. Everybody is doing their own thing. However, even though there isn’t a consensus, generally the searchable fields are in the title of the episode, the title of your show, author fields, if you have a website, your image file names, and if you use YouTube keywords.

Now, I’m not saying that you want to keyword stuff everything, so like your title will be a bazillion words long because you want to put in all the fancy words so that people can find your show. No, you don’t want to do that. You still want to keep your titles concise, but have a few keywords in there so that when people are searching for your show, whether it be on a podcast listening app or on Google, or search engine somewhere, they will find what they are looking for. This is why I always say it’s great to include your guest names in the title of the episode. So you would say, the name of the episode, so a few keywords in there and then with, your guest name. That way if anybody is ever searching for the guest that you have, it will pop up in a search and they will listen to the episode. And even on the listening apps, if people are just like, oh, I’m looking for something, they search for it. Your show will pop up, as long as you are putting in the proper keywords in your titles.

[MUSIC ENDS]

I lightly mentioned earlier image file names. Yes, that is a Google thing, because pictures itself can’t be searched. But what you name it can, because those are words. And so an image file name is important. So when you create a website, you add images. That’s where more SEO comes in with organic discovery. So if you haven’t yet, make sure you create a website for your show. Many, many podcasters aren’t doing that aspect because it is a lot of work. Or you might have a website that’s already integrated with your media hosting platform and it comes free. Great. That is a great start. But if you can ever customize a website so that it attracts more organic searches and discovery, you will get more listeners if you have a website.

[MUSIC IN]

The last general tip for organic discovery that a lot of people forget about is that you need to talk about your show. Yeah, you have something, talk about it wherever you are. Whether you’re networking, you are at an in person event, maybe your business card. You know, my podcast is actually on the backside of my business card, so if I hand out a card, they could scan a QR code from the back of my business card and listen to my podcast. Your email signature is another great place. It is always there when you send out an email. So link to your podcast website page. Your socials, make sure that it has a link to listen to your podcast. So it doesn’t have to be like, literal, talk about it wherever you are, but make sure it is there so that people know that you have a podcast to listen to. And you know, thinking back to the previous episode, episode number 66 with Christian Klepp, he’s a B2B marketer and he had some great tips about marketing your show. And so some of those tips do include some organic discovery stuff. So go back and listen to the last episode if you have not yet, episode 66 with Christian Klepp it really is about knowing where your listeners are and engaging with them there because you potentially can gain a new listener when you are talking about your show.

[MUSIC ENDS]

So where are you sharing your podcast? What’s something that you’ve seen, you’ve wanted to do or have done that I haven’t mentioned yet for organic discovery? There are so many ways to share your show and get more ears on it and that doesn’t always have to include social media. So what are your ideas? Are you going to be signing up for YouTube Music? Do you already have your show on YouTube? That would be a good place to start as well. Every year podcast listening grows and it really has become mainstream. I love watching a TV show and they talk about podcasts, or even my daughter reads a book and it’s talking about podcasts in her kids book. It’s so great to see. And so, it really is becoming a thing that the big corporations are looking towards to see how they can leverage this platform, hopefully how to make it better for listeners and users, and to make sure that we are having that connection with everyone. The stories are being told because more and more people are listening.

So with that, thank you for listening to this episode and I’ll chat with you next time.

[MUSIC ENDS // PAUSE A BEAT // OUTRO – SHOW CLOSE]

<< Ghosthood Featuring Sara Azriel “Let’s Go” BEGINS >>

MARY: Thank you so much for listening to the Podcaster’s Guide to a Visible Voice. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d love it if you shared it with a podcasting friend. And to reveal more voicing and podcasting tips, click on over to visiblevoicepodcast.com.

<< WOMAN SINGS: Let’s go >>

[MUSIC ENDS]