AP 0449: How Do I Get My Podcast to Rank in iTunes?

AskPat 449 Transcript

Pat Flynn: What's up everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 449 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. We have a great question today from Ray, but before we get to that, I want to mention something.

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Alright. Here's today's question from Ray.

Ray: Hi Pat. It's Ray Wood from Toronto. I've got a podcast for real estate agents called Top Agents Playbook. My question is . . . That's topagentsplaybook.com. My question is, I'm trying to get noticed on iTunes and want to be able to search. My podcast doesn't come up. It's only new. It's only done about 20 episodes. I do them each week. But it doesn't come up. So I'm wondering if you've got any clues or ideas as to how I can first get it to appear on iTunes and perhaps how I can get it to rank better in the long term. Love your show. Thanks so much. Bye.

Pat Flynn: Hey, Ray. Thank you so much for this question. And this question was asked over a month ago, and so I was really curious to see if your name was going to show up on iTunes when I did search for it. And it did. So I looked up Ray Wood and I found you at number one for podcasts for your name, which is great, which is exactly what you wanted to happen.

So I don't know if you changed anything. I'm guessing you didn't. Maybe you were waiting for my answer, but also what tends to happen in iTunes is it's really slow in terms of responding to things that you wanted to do essentially. Now that is not the case when you have a number of people who subscribe, who download and rate at the same time because when you do that, when you pack in all those little things, downloads subscribe, and rate, and leave reviews at the same time in a short chunk of time, you make movement in the rankings.

So that's one tip I have for you Ray, and for everybody else out there who has a podcast. It doesn't even matter if you're starting out. It doesn't matter if you're new and noteworthy. I could do this right now. I can just say, “Hey guys, everybody. I know you haven't done this for a while, but leave a review, subscribe, and download AskPat.” And you'll see a climb in the rankings. You will see just a . . . You can't miss it when you have enough people who do that at the same time.

So here's one trick you can do, and I know I'm getting off-tangent a little bit. But I sort of already . . . You've already answered the question. You're there, and you just have to be patient for that to happen. And I am going to go and dissect your page in iTunes really quick. So stay tuned for that. But what I was saying is no matter what level you're at, no matter how long you've been podcasting, even if you have hundreds of episodes, you can create what I like to consider a mini-event, moving forward, leading up to a particular milestone of an episode or a particular special guest that you have coming on that you can build buzz for.

And essentially when this post goes live, or when the podcast episode goes live, you want to make a huge deal out of it. And make sure that if people are going to choose one moment to leave a review that that's it. If people are going to choose one moment to subscribe, that's the reason. That show is the reason to do it. And make a big deal out of it. You can even run contests and do other things and just make things special for that one. And yes, you want every podcast episode to be great. You want everybody to respond to every single episode. And you want them all to be at the best level they can be. But in order to get the sense of urgency and to create an event out of the whole idea of doing these things, which is subscribe, review, and download your podcast . . . Again, which affects the ratings more than anything in terms of rankings against other shows in your particular category . . . that's the way to do it.

So Ray, hopefully that helps you from this point forward because that's one the things that you're going to notice, that when you come out of new and noteworthy, if you haven't done so already, you're going to see a sudden drop in your download numbers because you will have lost exposure. Well, this is a great way to get it back. Okay. Now I'm here on your iTunes page. So I looked up Ray Woods, or Ray Wood, and there you were, Top Agents Playbook.

Now I'm looking at your page right here, and there's a lot of things that you're doing right. I like how you're naming your podcast episodes. That's one thing that people don't do very well. They actually don't include keywords or special names in the podcast episodes. A lot of people even get to the point where it just says, it literally just says “Episode One, Episode Two.” It doesn't have any sort of description. And the reason it's important to include keywords in there and people's names in there is because people search for those keywords and people search for those peoples' names in iTunes.

iTunes is a giant search engine. I don't know if you know that, but iTunes is a giant search engine. And people are looking for things all the time, and they don't just find podcasts. They find podcast episodes. So if you look up anything that has anything to do with podcasting on iTunes, you'll see that there's . . . It's split into a bunch of categories. You'll the . . . If it's a movie, you'll see the movie section. If it's a podcast, you'll see the podcast and you'll also see books and you'll also see . . . or music or whatever. You'll also see podcast episodes.

And you're doing a great job of naming your podcast episodes. For example, “Tap 14,” which is a top agent's playbook. I like that, “Tap 14.” “Perfecting the Virtual Real Estate Office.” That's great. I know exactly what it's about. I might look up “virtual real estate office” or just “real estate office” and I could potentially find that episode there, which is fantastic, which is good. Now there's a lot of things that you can improve on. For one, the description. I'm going to read the entire description for everybody right now. “Top Agents Playbook is a regular podcast for real estate professionals in Australia, New Zealand, USA, and Canada. We focus on what real estate's top agents are doing to win more business and dominate their market.” That's it.

Now I think you have like 2000 characters you could potentially use, and every one of those words is a potential find in that search engine that iTunes is. And so I would recommend just making that longer, making it more descriptive, including a lot more keywords in there as well that relate to the world that you're in. Now you've done a little bit of that, “real estate, agents, business.” But that's it. I also want to mention that you start off by saying, “Top Agents Playbook is a regular podcast for real estate professionals.” What does a “regular podcast” mean? Are you actually putting yourself down by doing that, Ray? Why isn't it a spectacular podcast? Or an outstanding podcast? Or a noteworthy podcast for real estate professionals? A standout podcast for real estate professionals? Don't ever call yourself regular. You are not regular. If you are regular, you're doing what everybody else is doing and hopefully, Ray, you're doing more than what everybody else is doing. So that's the first thing.

Secondly, you can actually do some things in the title of your show and also your name. Now there is a line here. You can get to a point where you just keyword stuff these things like crazy. And again I'm talking about the actual title of your show and the name, your author name or the show host name. You can include keywords in there. So yours just says, “Top Agents Playbook.” That's the name of your show. And the person who created the show is you, Ray Wood. That's all it says. Now if I go to mine, for example, Smart Passive Income, the title of my show is “The Smart Passive Income Podcast: online business; blogging; passive income; Pat Flynn.” Now that “Pat Flynn” there was purposefully put in because I wanted to make sure that when people type in “Pat Flynn,” my name would be found.

So if your name isn't found yet, you can potentially put it into the title of your show as well, “by Pat Flynn.” And again underneath that it says, “Pat Flynn: online entrepreneur; business strategist; and blogger.” It describes me a little bit. The first one, the colon and the stuff after it, describes what the show is about and it gives a little bit more information. “Top Agents Podcast.” I'm not exactly sure what that means. Now maybe if I'm in the real estate world it would. And yes, I can see how it makes sense now, but use a few strategic words after that to make it more descriptive and more compelling for people to click on.

I love the artwork, by the way. I love the yellow and the black and your face there. That's great. I wouldn't change the logo. I think it stands out amongst all the other real estate podcasts that are out there. It's great. But you could work on the title like I had just mentioned. So if, for example, you do this and . . . Let me type in “online business” in iTunes here. So if you type is “online business,” you'll see that Smart Passive Income is the number one podcast for online business in iTunes. If you type up, at least in the US space, if you type in “blogging,” Smart Passive Income is the number one podcast for blogging above Darren Rowse from ProBlogger.net, which is . . . He's a huge idol of mine, and it's really cool that I'm outranking for blogging on iTunes. But his podcast just started, so he'll probably overtake me at some point.

But those are the things that are in my title: “Online business, blogging, passive income.” I'm pretty sure if I type in “passive income” I'll be number one for that too. And again, this is all about the fact that your show could be found in other ways beyond just “New and Noteworthy.” So use and utilize the search engine capabilities of iTunes by making sure that the description is something that is keyword-filled but also makes sense for humans. People read that and you can add a lot more in there, a lot more compelling information to make sure that the people who are potentially going to listen. And you know what, they've already clicked your face. They've already clicked your icon at this point. They are in the middle of that transaction with you, and you stop them right in their tracks because you haven't given them enough information to make them click through to listen to an episode. So work on that description. You can also include a few keywords in the title of your show and along with your host's name as well.

So Ray, I hope that helps answer some questions that you have and hopefully give you some more . . . I'm trying to predict the questions that you might have right now based off of you already having found yourself in iTunes, which is great. And I know . . . A lot of people have asked me the same question in the past, which is why I wanted to share this question here. Sometimes you just have to be patient but, like I said, there's some things that you could do to make sure you get found as well. So Ray, thank you so much for this question. I really appreciate it. I want to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. So you'll hear from my assistant, Jessica, in the next couple of weeks to make sure we collect your information so we can send that to you free of charge. And thank you again for the question. And thanks to everybody also out there who asks questions because this show wouldn't exist without your questions. And if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show just head on over to AskPat.com. And you can ask right there on that page, thanks to the widget from SpeakPipe.com.

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Thank you again so much for your time and attention today. I really appreciate it, and to finish off, here's a quote from Doug Kessler. He said, “Traditional marketing talks at people. Content marketing talks with them.”

So hopefully you're focusing on your content marketing, not the traditional marketing that all of us grew up with. Cheers. Take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye.