Influential Introvert: Communication Coaching for Professionals with Performance Anxiety - The Truth About New and Noteworthy with Libsyn’s Rob Walch

Episode Date: December 12, 2019

In case you haven’t heard, telling listeners to rate and review your podcast won’t help new people discover your show. And now get ready for some more podcast myth-busting with Rob Walch, Vice President of Podcaster Relations at Libsyn.   Rob joins me on Podcasting Step by Step to answer burning questions, including:  How many episodes should I launch with?  How long should my episodes be? How do I get into New and Noteworthy?  and so much more!   Fun fact: Rob hosted the first podcast about podcasting (Podcast411) and has been podcasting for 15 years.   If you haven’t launched your show yet and are looking for a podcast media host, I recommend Rob’s company, Libsyn. If you’d like to get the rest of this month free AND next month free, you can use my promo code POSTCARD when you sign up.Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

A new and noteworthy sections are gone in the subcategories. So you can't even game it anymore for the subcategories. And even when you could game it for the subcategories, it had absolutely no bearing on lifting your show up. We looked at shows that got featured by trying to game it, and it didn't help them at all. The front page of Apple Podcast, iTunes, that's where it actually matters,

and that's 100% hand-c curated. Have you been wanting to start a podcast for a while now, but something's holding you back? Maybe it's fear of putting yourself out there or confusion about the technology. I'm Sarah Mikital and on podcasting step by step, I'll break down how to podcast with a little loving motivation to give you the skills and the confidence you need to finally launch that show of your dreams. Let's get started.

In the last episode, I busted the myth that ratings and reviews will help people discover your show. They will not. Today is packed with even more myth-busting. my guest is Rob Walsh, VP of Podcast Relations at Libson. If you have ever wondered, how many episodes should I launch with? How long should my episodes be? How do I get into new and noteworthy? This episode is for you. But first, if you haven't launched yet and you are looking for a podcast media host, I highly recommend Rob's company, Libson, that's where the show is hosted. If you would like to get the

rest of this month free and next month free on Libson, You can use my promo code postcard when you sign up. Now into my conversation with Rob. Welcome, Rob. Thank you so much for joining me today. Sarah, thank you for having me on the show. And happy 15 year anniversary to Libson. Thank you very much.

It's fun to think about where we were 15 years ago. And most people, I ask them what they were doing 15 years ago, they have to really stretch to think. Some were like, oh, I was in high school or middle school, and then I'm really filled. Well, you were like the first podcast about podcasting, I believe. What was the name of your first show? Podcast 411, yeah.

So it was the first podcast about podcasting and I interviewed other podcasters and I was in the midst of launching it 15 years ago. What inspired you to get involved in the whole podcasting thing? I had just finished my MBA at Yukon and I was looking for a hobby. And really, that was it. I was just looking for a hobby. I was traveling for work and said, okay, I need something to do to pass a time. I heard about this thing called podcasting.

And I said, oh, yeah, I always wanted to be on the radio. I can do my own show. And then I looked around how do I do this? And there was not a single tutorial out there, really, that explained how you do it. I went to Yukon as well. I didn't know that you were an alum there. That's really exciting that you have been involved since the very beginning. If you could go back until like 2004 version of Rob how podcasting would change over the years,

like what do you think that earlier version of you would be most surprised about what's happening today in the podcasting space? You have to understand how difficult it was to listen to a podcast 15 years ago. So I think the biggest thing is how easy it is to get a podcast today. And, you know, how many people do listen. back 15 years ago, Apple didn't support podcasting. There was no podcasting support on iTunes. There was no smartphones.

So, you know, smartphones have really changed everything. And Apple podcast app being native on the iPhone has really changed it. We're not even fully there yet. Android still doesn't have a native app on smartphones on the Android side. So hopefully five years from now will be even better, but hopefully by then Google will have a native podcasting app and that will have changed things as well. Yeah, I think it's so exciting that podcasting is still so new. And we're only like 15 years on. And I think a lot of people are worried like, oh my gosh, I missed the boat. Like it's too late for me. And then they see all this venture capital and like corporate money flowing into podcasting right now. What do you tell indie podcasters who are worried there might not be a space for them? There's always a space for them. And you're on the level.

playing field with the corporate guys. They come in and I see they spend tons of money and I see indie podcasters beat them out and they don't get it. The corporate folks, they create some really bad content and they create some really good content and the same thing on the indie side. So as long as you create good content, they'll be a place for you. It doesn't matter how big or small you are to start with. Anybody can play in this place, space because it is a level playing field.

You get a Lipson account and you have the same exact tools that HBO has for Bill Marr and and Joe Rogan has. So, yeah, it's, that's the beauty of podcasting. It really is a democratizing of media content. Yeah. And so you work at Lipson. You guys are the biggest podcast media hosts. And so you can see all of this data. I think a lot of newer podcasters or indie podcasters feel like, oh my gosh, like, am I being crowded out by all these big players? But most podcasters are still indie, right? Like, what is the percentage between procaster and indie podcaster? It's like 99. over 99% of the podcasters or indie podcasters. Yeah.

People don't realize that. You know, they go and they read something like Hot Pod or Nick Quas thing, and he covers 0.03% of the space. That's it. You know, he covers a tiny percent. He doesn't even cover 1%. And it was like, 0.3, maybe 0.3% of the space. That's it.

That is not podcasting space overall. The podcasting space overall is the much bigger indie space. And don't read the newsletters. That's the best thing I could say is don't read the newsletters. because they'll just get you discouraged because they're not covering the 99% plus. They only cover the 0.3%. Are there any newsletters that you think are doing a good job covering a broader space? Probably the best one was inside podcasts, inside one with Sky.

Hers is probably the best of all of them by far. All right, Rob, I want to do some myth busting with you because I know that you enjoy doing this. So the big one is a lot of people are told that when they launch their podcast, their goal should be get into new and noteworthy and they've only got eight weeks to do it. So give us the reality, please. Ask for your refund from that webinar because you'll spend money on something that has just been BS from day one. And there isn't even a new and noteworthy sections are gone in the subcategories. So you can't even game it anymore for the subcategories.

And even when you could game it for the subcategories, and even when you could game it for the subcategories, it had absolutely no bearing on lifting your show up. We looked at shows that got featured by trying to game it, and it didn't help them at all. The front page of Apple Podcasts, iTunes, that's where it actually matters, and that's 100% hand curated. It always has been. So, yeah, don't worry about new and noteworthy. New and Noteworthy has no bearing unless you get on that front page where, again, Apple is doing the hand curating. So, yeah, the other bad piece advice people say is launch with 10 shows. Yeah. Yeah, that's usually from the same people. It's one webinar, you know, it's one slide is new and noteworthy. Next slide is launched with 10.

Well, you know, if you look at the shows that launch with one, three, five, and 10 and you look six months out, the shows that launch with 10 do the worst. Most of them aren't even podcasting anymore. Yeah. Talk to me specifically about what you're seeing on the back end. Because that she podcasts live when you were talking to me, you said that you've seen the data and the shows that actually started with one, we're performing better long term. With the best. Yeah, the ones that launch one. Because here's what happens. People that launch with 10, they get 10 shows out the door. And what they've done is there's no listener feedback. So now you've trained your listeners that this is not a show where we're going to have

a listener feedback. So you've made your show very cold and antiseptic. Whereas a show that launches one right away goes from day one saying, hey, give us some feedback. Tell us. us what you think about the show. Here's our call number. Here's our email address. Let it be involved. And in podcasting, it's your audience. It's your audience that grows your show. You have to have good content, but your audience is the one that's going to tell people about it. And when you launch with 10, and you launch with 10 with this no listener feedback at all, you've trained this audience not to be invested emotionally in your show. And maybe the content's good, whatever, but you're not going to go out of your way, you're not going to do anything special, you're not going to send in

feedback. And you need those people that send in the feedback, those advocates, those acolytes to really help grow your show. So people don't launch with 10, the shows tend to be more antiseptic, more standoffish, more like corporate podcasts. Whereas the ones that launch at 1 are very, you tend to be more friendly. Yeah. And then also, I think like a lot of times when people want to launch with 10, they're sort of trying to like hack the system. And I think they don't realize that just because you put out 10 doesn't mean you're going to get 10 downloads from the new subscriber. They're just going to get the latest one. And maybe we'll go back and listen to all the 10, but maybe they won't listen to them at all.

And then you've just wasted all of this content. Right. And you've also launched typically with 10 really bad shows. Because when you get out there, six months, five months, four months out, you look back at what you've initially launched with and you go, oh, that was not very good. A lot of times you'll take it down. I took my first 30 episodes down. So now you're launching with 10, ultimately, you're going to consider yourself bad episodes.

People say, wow, I'm giving them a lot to launch with. You know, I say launch with one or three. One or three, when we looked at people that launch with one and three, they did the best. Three were just a little bit lower than one. But even Apple did this, right? Apple just launched Apple TV. Did they launch with 10 episodes for each of the shows?

No, they launched with three. so even Apple gets it. And they're coming out with their own content now. Right. Right? Podcast content? Well, this post, maybe. No, no, that's another rumor.

There was a rumor that Apple was going to be buying this or that. What Apple probably did was they went out and got a couple quotes somewhere from someone that said, hey, would you do pod? What would it be for you guys to do fan casts that cover our television shows, Apple TV Plus shows? and then someone took that to mean that Apple was going to start doing podcasts. Okay. Interesting. Well, thanks for setting us straight. Yeah, that was just bad reporting out there.

Okay. I want to go back to the charts for a second because people are so fixated on this. So new and noteworthy isn't a thing. You mentioned subcategories. You know, you have business is the category, but then you go down and there's like marketing and there's other subcategories. So subcategories is underneath, there's 19 main categories on Apple Podcasts. Yeah, the new and noteworthy is when you look, it's the main page, and that's all the shows.

But then there's top 200 lists. Each main category has a top 200 list. And to get in the ranking in the top 200 categories and the subcategories, that's based on all based on how many new subscribers you have in the last seven days. So the rankings in Apple Podcasts in those top 200 lists are all based on new subscribers. And if people make it into the list, what are like the long and short term effects of making it? The long term effects on anything are irrelevant. You have to have good content. So long term, the shows that do well are ones that had great content.

Now, short term, might get a kickstart from your show for appearing in a top 200 list because people are going, oh, what's this new show? And that's how they may find out about it. So, you know, when you launch a podcast, the key thing is, one, submit your trailer episode at least 30 days prior to when you want to have your launch date. And then on your launch date, have an organically gathered email list, not when you purchased organically gathered, people that know you. And then let them know and send them the direct link to Apple Podcasts for your show so that they can go in there and click the subscribe button, which is your call to action for them. And if they do that, it doesn't take many to move you up into the top 200 of any category and usually into the top 10 of it. any category. So this could get you a few hundred listens, maybe initially, but it's not going to

keep you anywhere. Right. And at the end of the day, if your content's not any good, it doesn't matter. You can spend marketing money until you're blue in the face. Your audience isn't going to grow. Right. And once you pull away the marketing money, you'll see just plummet. Yes. Related to this. So another myth is, well, not myth, but another thing that people say all the time, and I know this is a peave of yours, is their call to action at the end of the show is give us a rating and review. It really helps people find us. It doesn't. Do you have a call to action at the end of your show? It should be, hey, go take the headliner clip that I put on Twitter and share it, retweet it into your Twitter stream.

or go into the Overcast app and find your favorite 30 second segment of today's episode and tweet it out and share it on social media and Instagram with your followers. That should be your call to action. Your call to action should not be about rating and review. Your call to action should be for their audience to reach out to their followers and ask them to listen to your show. Aside from social proof, what are the benefits of rating and reviews? Like none. Nobody, here's the funny thing. If you get a one-star review and a five-star review, they have the same value inside Apple

podcasts. And there's like one place, like the what's hot is part of the small part of the algorithm on what's hot. And if someone gives you a one-star or five-star review, you get the same amount of bump in that. And even there, it's not a big one. So it's kind of like YouTube where even if people thumbs down you, it still counts as engagements.

Engage, yeah. They just care if someone, cares. Yeah. If they care enough to put one star, wow, then you've touched a chord. People get all upset to the, oh, I can't believe I've got these one star reviews. How do I get rid of them? Everybody has one star reviews. Joe Rogan's got a ton of one star reviews. They don't worry about it. Yeah. It stinks, though, Rob. You must admit that it can sting. For your first few, it could totally, if you do not have a one star review on your podcast, you don't have an audience. You have not. done anything. You haven't pushed a boundary. You haven't done something good because you have to do

something to get an emotion out of somebody that they're willing to go and put a one-star review. Because most, if your show is just milked toast and people aren't even willing to put a one-star review, it's not going to grow. It's a good way to think about it. That's definitely true. I agree. And if you can get someone to write a review, a one-star review of your show where they actually take the time to put a review, then you really know you're on to something. Yeah. To ban us with you, I'm like so frustrated with ratings and reviews in general these days for everything because they're just so easily scammed and people can purchase good and bad reviews. So I'm like, ugh. And nobody reads reviews for podcasts. Nobody except the podcaster. That's true. Podcasters read different reviews.

If you someone, if I said to you, go listen to the Revolutions podcast by Mike Duncan. You wouldn't go into iTunes and see what the reviews also say. You just go and listen because you don't have to pay anything. It's free. It's not like you're buying an air fryer. If I said, hey, go buy this air fryer. It's interesting. I was thinking about an air friar. Let me go see what the people on Amazon had to say that bothered it.

That's different because you're making a commitment. But a podcast, you're like, oh, someone recommended it. Okay, I'll subscribe. And if it's, if I like it, I like it. It's just like when someone tells you, hey, you know, go see, you know, Deadpool. You aren't going to go, oh, well, let's go see what Siskel and Ebert had to. say you had a friend they told you to go see the movie you go watch the movie you're going to go watch it well and that's how people discover podcasts the most right is word of mouth yeah word of mouth

from their friends friends and acquaintances that's why ratings and reviews are meaningless however if we do want to get featured on apple podcasts there are some special things that we need to do if we want to get featured on the front page can you walk us through what those things would be? Well, first, you have to have a podcast. It has to be live. You can't ask Apple to feature you before you submit. You have to have a trailer episode because they need an Apple ID to even consider you.

Second, you have to have a reason for Apple to feature you. I think this is the biggest mistake. Wanting to be featured is not a reason to be featured. Everybody wants to be featured. That doesn't make you special. You need to have a reason about why you should be featured. It could be something where you're timely. You've got a podcast about vampires and it's coming up on Halloween and you can request, you know, to be featured around Halloween.

You can have a podcast that has to do with dating advice or how to handle Valentine's Day when you're single, something like that. You can request to be featured around Valentine's Day. Something that Apple is going to think the average person is going to want. Now it can also be where you have a celebrity. You're interviewing Tom Selleck or you're interviewing Tom Clancy. some sort of celebrity that the average everyday person knows who they are. But if you're doing a podcast on butterfly collecting, and this guy by the name of Tom Cup is the major butterfly collector in the world,

and everybody in the butterfly collecting world knows who Tom is, and you've gotten this interview with him, but the average everyday person doesn't know who that is. Apple won't feature you. So having a celebrity in your niche is not going to be something that Apple's going to get excited about. What they're going to get excited about is if it was Tom Salick, who was a butterfly collector, ooh, and you got them on your show to talk about butterfly collecting,

then Apple would be like, ooh, yeah, well, absolutely, we'll think about getting them featured. That's what Apple's looking for. They want people to click on those features. So you have to have some sort of pitch to Apple about why you think the average, everyday person outside of your niche would be interested in that show in that episode. And then we also have to be Apple-friendly on our social media and websites, right? Yeah, Apple will ask. They ask what your social media is.

And if they go to your social media stream, which they will, and you haven't said, hey, listen to my podcast on Apple Podcasts. And you haven't shared your Apple Podcast link. And you haven't promoted that your shows on Apple Podcast. You're not likely to get promoted on Apple. It's a quid pro quo. They're going to look at you. Are you promoting them?

Why should they promote you if you're not promoting them? And don't blame them, right? Well, why should Apple promote you? You have to ask that question. What have you done for them? Because if they promote you, it'll do a lot for you. So they want to see that you've committed to them. That's one thing.

Next, you have to have artwork. You have to have special artwork that you create PSD format. So you have to have that as well. And there's certain specs and it has to meet all the specs. So there's certain things you have to do. And then you have to request it at least a month out. You can't ask for a feature next week. It's not going to happen.

You just land to the interview with a big guest, and you're going to put it up live in three days, and you want to get featured. Nope, too late. You got to wait. And if you are a Libson customer, and you do want to get featured, then we contact you,

and you send us the special instructions, right? Email me, Rob, R-O-B-Lipson.com, and I will send you all of the information you need. to get featured. But again, at the end of the day, there has to be a reason. You have to have it. And I will go back to some people and I'll say, I don't see it. This isn't it. This is not, you don't want me to present this to Apple. So, so, you know, I'll hearless feedback. Okay. Yeah, I will give some feedback. I'll do that. And some people will argue and I'm like, I'm telling you, you're not going to get featured with this. I've had other people that will send

it to me every week, every episode they think is the one to get featured. No, that's, that, that doesn't happen. After about the six or seventh week in a row, I just put you on my block list. Okay. Noted. All right. So we already talked about a few different myths, like trying to get into new and noteworthy and you have to launch with 10 episodes. Another thing that people think they need to do is put out a show that's targeted at like 22 minutes. Like that's the magical time. What do you say to this? Stop listening to those people that used to work in radio. There is no magical amount of time that your podcast needs to be. Although if you look at the most popular podcasts, they are longer. When we looked at Lipson, everything over 100,000 downloads per episode, 84% or 51 minutes or longer.

And if you go into Apple Podcasts and you look at the top 200 lists for overall, and the last time I did this a couple months ago, it was like 65 minutes was the average and 55 minutes was the median. for the shows that were in the top. And 75% were 41 minutes or 40 minutes or longer. So, yeah, it was less than 6% were 22 minutes or shorter for the episode length that were in the top 200. Podcast listeners like long content. They like long-form content.

They can hit play and pause, but they don't like to hit play and pause when they're driving the car. And they don't like to look for something else when they're driving the car. So if you don't have content, that's going to last longer than their commute. then your content is likely going to get passed over for something is going to last the whole commute. So this 22 minutes is something that like at one point in radio, they said, this is how long a commute is.

So let's just make it everything around this. Yeah. Yeah. Someone said, oh, you know, it needs to be 20 minutes, this, no. It's not radio. And people need to remember that the listeners and podcasts can pause. and start again. So you don't have to worry about it.

If your content is too long for their commute, that is, they hit pause and they pick it up on the way home or the way to work next day. Dave Jackson often says there's no such thing as too long in podcasting, just too boring. And the two perfect examples I give up this on both ways is Star Wars Episode 1 was too long. It was 15 minutes of content spread out over two hours.

that didn't work. Games of Thrones, season eight, was too short. It was 16 episodes shrunk into six. That didn't work either. So don't make your show too short. Don't make your show too long. Make it the length it needs to be. And then you'll have an audience. Brilliant. So another thing that people freak out about is, does it matter what day and time we publish our podcast? Based on your data, does it matter? Not really. I mean, if you are looking, if you're a business-oriented podcast and you're looking to release on a weekly schedule, release on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, there's less holidays on one day and Friday and people take long weekends. So we actually see the numbers are the highest for downloads, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, because that's when most people work. So if you're doing something towards business folks or you know other people are going to listen to commuting, look at Tuesday or Wednesday. You're going to run into the least a on holidays and you can release weekly that way. If you're releasing something for millennials, then where people are likely to go out to the bar scene, releasing Thursday, Thursday afternoon is a good time because the weekend starts Thursday evening, right? So now you're giving them something to talk about and you can be an icebreaker. Hey, I heard this on a podcast. So your podcast can be

something they talk about with their friends. So know your audience for sure. All right, final myth or I guess just common question. If people want to take a one-month break, but they're worried they're going to lose all their listeners, is that fear grounded? If you have good content, no. Dan Carlin releases a new episode once every four to six months, and it doesn't hurt his numbers.

If you have good content, people come back and you just let them know, go, hey, I'm going to take some time off, or get them trained that you're not going to be a weekly show. You don't have to be releasing every week at the same time, to grow an audience. Joe Rogan doesn't release at the same time. It doesn't hurt him. Dan Carlin doesn't release at the same time. Doesn't hurt him. So just if you have good content, just train your audience of what your expectations are for your next episode. But yeah, what you don't want to do

is just be going along every week and then all of a sudden stop for a month with no warning. I mean, that happens. And sometimes you can't control it. But if that's going to happen, or if you know, like, hey, you've never warned them. Then release a little short episode that goes, hey, life happened. And I'm not going to release another episode for six weeks, but I will be back on January 1st. So enjoy the holidays and have a great Thanksgiving, Christmas. But life happened right now and work is the end of the year. And I've got to get this special project out.

Or there will be no job, no wife, no house, no more podcast, period. And your audience will understand. And they'll come back. Just let them know what's going on. Yeah. Right. Yeah, if you let them know. Yeah.

So moving on to searchability in SEO, for a long time, the only thing that was searchable in Apple Podcasts was show title, episode title, and author. How is search going to change in Apple and with Google podcast as far as their automatic transcription of audio? Or can you just tell us, like, what is happening now and what's planned for the future? Like, what's actually happening right now in terms of all of this? At the show level, when someone's searching at the show level in Apple Podcast, it is still just about the show title and the show author tag. That is it still. At the episode level, Apple is starting to roll out and roll down. I don't want to say roll out, roll down from the top up where they are transcribing episodes and working that into episode search results.

And there's no request of that. It's about the biggest show is getting this. feature first and they're going to work their way down the list. And it's just going to take them time just to work through an index and do all that. Google, podcasts, on the other hand, has already started indexing podcasts at all levels. And they are starting to bring the transcriptions of those episodes into their search results right now, mostly based on when you add the word podcast, but soon, even the word podcast won't be needed and they'll start showing search results for podcasts that covered that in certain episodes. So right now, Apple's just in the top tier podcast and eventually

will roll down, they say eventually we'll roll down to other tiers. And what does this look like exactly? They're transcribing, but are these transcriptions kind of invisible supporting the show notes that we create? They're invisible in the back end and not available for you. Right. So they're invisible in the back end. But what's showing up in search? Is it our show notes? If we've got like our, if we've got like a player. No, what happens in Apple Podcasts, if you search and whenever you do any search in Apple Podcasts, you'll notice you'll get hits in the, if you're searching in there, you'll get hits around podcast shows. So you'll see the shows. But then you'll also see a group for episodes. So you'll see a group of episodes. You see a group of shows. under the episodes, if that search result is based on what was in the transcription, it'll say based on a transcription or something to that effect. So it'll let you know that it actually grabbed that result,

not based on the author, the title, and that, but based on what's in the content. So we're going to see this showing up in our players. You can see it now in Apple Podcasts, if you happen to do a search and you happen to hit one of those episodes that shows up. I've seen screenshots of it, but it's not rolled out in mass yet, and you have to have the right search result in the right word that you were looking for and show up. But eventually, it's supposed to be there, again, across most shows. We'll see how long that takes.

And when we're Googling something that might be talked about at length in a podcast, is that showing up in search as well? What it'll do is I'll show you search results. So you can just do this, go into Google and just search for iPhone podcast or something like that. And you'll see some research results with play buttons for episodes for podcasts. So we're going to get the play buttons and we can just play right there. It's not going to give us any sort of like article or anything. Right.

Yeah. Yeah, it'll give you the play button. Now it'll also give you regular search results along with that for websites, but there'll be a place for the podcast. Okay. Excellent. Excellent. And then another big question that people have is how do they get into Google Podcasts? It's quite easy to submit to the other directories.

Google Podcast seems to just magically work. So can you just tell us how that works? It's Google Magic. Yeah, it's Google at its best. They're indexing websites. And it's real simple. All you have to do is have the REL alternate tag inside your website, referencing your RSS feed and your RSS feed referencing that website.

So the two have to point at one another. You can't have two rail alternate tags in your website code or then it won't get indexed. So there, that's it. That sounds quite complicated. Yes, it is. Okay. I'm like, whoa, is he being serious? Hopefully soon, Google will have a submit page and then we won't have to deal with this.

But for now, there is no submit page. And he gets even more confusing is people think that Google Play Music and Google Podcasts are the same. They are not. Google Play Music and Google Podcasts are two completely different services, two completely different directories. Google Podcast is what drives Google Home. Google Play Music Directory, which you can actually submit to, does not. But you can only submit to Google Play Music if you're in the U.S. And it's probably going away anyway, right, at some point?

Yes. At some point in time, podcasts should no longer be in Google Play Music. music. And this confusion will go away. In some point in time, there will be a submit page for Google podcasts, and that will clear up confusion. Because I'm dealing with a show right now that has three shows, actually a producer has three shows, and none of them are in Google podcasts, and all of them, their websites look good. So I'm emailing Google going, why are these three non-indexed? So hopefully Google has a submit page sooner rather than later. Yeah, so until that happens is a way around it.

If you're also with Lipson, make sure you use the website. Don't change your website URL. Just use the one that is in your Lipson account. So when you set up your Lipson account, even if you have another website external, just leave your website URL that is the default website URL we put in there for your account until you're indexed and you're found you're showing it in Google. Once it's in Google, it's got an indexed. You can then change that.

But, you know, otherwise, you need to go back to April 2018, and there's a blog post we have on the blog. com. So go to April 2018, and we have a little blog post in there about how you have to optimize your webpage for Google. Yeah, let's just make things easy for ourselves for now and just leave. So how it works is Libson, you guys create a webpage for us when, if we become a customer. And even if we want to create our own website, separate. to start until we get into Google Podcasts. We'll just keep our web address as the one that lives and creates for us. And then when we get into Google Podcasts, we can switch to our own

website. Is that what you're saying? That is correct. Okay. Well, a final question for you, Rob, you are very connected in the podcasting world. So what are your predictions for the next few years in podcasting? Or if you have any insider information you want to share with us, then feel free to I think the next few years, people ask what's going to be different. There's going to be two things that are going to come up. One is Google Podcasts. Eventually, there'll be a native app on Android. I believe that.

And when that happens, that will help on the Android side. So I think there's a lot of growth still available. It's a 4-to-1 ratio iOS to Android downloads today, even though there's five times more Android devices in the world. So there's a lot of potential growth out there. and even the majority of iOS users don't listen to podcasts. So there's still a lot of growth going to happen in this space. Second, I think privacy is going to become a bigger issue in this space.

There's new players that have just gotten into this space in the last couple of years. They don't understand how the space works. They don't understand RSS feeds or they just don't really care about privacy. And they're releasing tools that are very much anti-privacy, that are in many ways, shapes, and forms violating the privacy of listeners. Which ones are concerning you the most right now? I'm not going to name names, but the fact is this.

If someone tells you that they can track your listeners' attribution, you know, if they can track your listeners, they can get attribution on your listeners, that means what they're really saying is they're violating your listeners' privacy, which if you're hosting on Lipson, you don't have to worry, we don't allow that and never will. But there are some other ones out there that do allow that. And if you are not sure, you can always ask them, do they share IP addresses with any third parties? And if any of these services that you're going to get, and they say that, again, they just say that they're going to do attribution of your listeners. That means they're violating your listeners' privacy.

Because in podcasting, there's no place for people to opt in to allow their personal information to be tracked. and by law and GDR, IP addresses are considered personal information. And in California, CCPA as well. So there's legal issues coming up, but there's just people that are entered in the space that either don't care or don't know. So again, it's either malice or incompetence. Either way, it's going to be an issue in this space going forward. Yeah, we don't have to name names, but I want to make this a little bit more concrete for podcasters who are not familiar to any of this. Like, what if I'm a podcaster and all these new opportunities seemingly like new opportunities are coming in from these new players that you're mentioning?

What are some things that we should be saying no to? Maybe we don't know something. Could be doing something with somebody's IP addresses. Like, what are the things that we should stay with? Ask any of these advertising ones. When they mention the word attribution right there, that's the red flag. If they say attribution, we want to track, we're going to do a tracking pixel. we're going to see what your listeners are doing right there.

If you're tracking pixel attribution, that's wrong. Or you need to sign up with this service, and they're going to give us a token to share IP addresses. That's right there. The warning sign, sharing of IP addresses is not allowed. It's not ethical, and legally it's not allowed in certain things. So, again, if you see here the word tracking pixel, attribution, sharing of IP address, tokens to share.

IP addresses, those are things that are red flags and you should be avoided at all costs. Sounds good. Stick to the funny host red ads. Yeah. Yeah. Podcasting is working. The advertising is working and has worked. But some of these people are getting into the space and they want to get rich quick and they're trying to bring in some of this digital attribution that they see in the banner world, which is okay to do when it's on a website and someone, clicks that little yes, you can go ahead and add cookies and track me. When people opt into that, that's fine. But in podcasting, they don't go to your website. They listen on a third party app, and the listeners have no option to ever opt in. And this is what those people either don't get

or don't want you to know. A lot of them don't tell the podcasters what's going on. And when I explain to podcasters, hey, this is what the service is doing. And they're like, what? No. I go, yeah, that's what they're doing. I didn't sign up for that. Well, no, Yes, you did. You just didn't know you signed up for it. All right. Deep stuff, Rob, deep stuff. All right. Do you have any final thoughts before we wrap up anything else that you want to say about podcasting, about Libson, anything? Email me. I make myself real easy. If you have any questions about podcasting or privacy, email me, Rob, R-O-B-R-B-L-Sy-S-Y-N, stand for liberated syndication. and happy to answer any questions you have about lips and or podcasting in general. Thank you very much, Rob.

Sarah, thank you so much for having me on the show. Thank you for listening to podcasting step by step. You are now one step closer to launching that podcast you've been dreaming about, but I want to get you even closer. I created a free guidebook for you with actionable worksheets called Eight Mistakes New Podcasters Make and How to Fix Them. To find that, head on over to Sarah Micahel, com slash fix.

Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarah micotel.com slash blank no more.