The following steps will help you add your podcast to Google Podcasts.
Step 1: Create Google Account if You Don’t Have One
You can use a Google account to add your podcast to Google Podcasts.
If you don’t already have a Google account, go to accounts.google.com and create one for free.
Step 2: Make Sure Your Podcast Can Be Found on Google Homepage
Now that you have your podcast hosted, it’s time to add it to Google Podcasts.
First, if you haven’t yet done so, create a Google Webmaster account and a podcast beta testing group account.
You’ll use these accounts later in the process.
Next, go to podcasts.google.com/manage/podcasts and click “Add Podcast” on the top-right corner of the page under “Your Account.”
If you don’t see these options there, click on “Create New” in order for them to appear (it might take up to 24 hours after signing up for your new podcast).
Step 3: Get Your RSS Feed Ready for Submitting
You need to have an RSS feed for your podcast, and each episode of your podcast should have its own feed as well.
An RSS feed is a way to syndicate content across the web, and it’s what Google uses to validate and verify podcasts on its platform.
You can create your own feeds using a service like Podbean or Castos or you can use a podcast hosting service like Podbean which will automatically create these feeds for you once you upload your episodes there (and automatically update them when new episodes are released).
Step 4: Create a Google Webmaster Account
Now that you’ve got your podcast listed on Google Podcasts, it’s time to dive into the world of SEO.
You can use a free tool called Google Search Console (formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools) for this.
It’s a powerful tool that helps you keep track of your site’s performance in the search results and provides access to several useful features:
- Investigation Tools: Check what pages are being crawled by Googlebot, how much traffic they get from Google Search, which keywords are ranking well for those pages, and more.
- Crawl errors: Identify 404 errors or other issues with any page on your site so you can fix them as soon as possible.
- Index status checks: See whether each page has been added to the index yet or not—and if not, find out why!
Step 5: Create a Podcast Beta Testing Group Account
To add your podcast to Google Podcasts, you’ll need to create an account on the platform.
You can use the same account for other services like Google Homepage and Google Search Console.
Step 6: Add Your Podcast to Google Podcasts Manager
Now that you’ve created your podcast, you should add it to Google Podcasts Manager.
Step 7: Add Your RSS Feed to Google Search Console
This is another step you can do at any time, but you’ll want to make sure that you do it before uploading your podcast on iTunes.
Google Search Console is a free tool by Google that allows you to monitor your site’s presence in search results and track things like how many people click through to your site from each result, how long they spend on your page, and more.
You’ll also be able to see if any errors are preventing Google from being able to index certain pages of your website so that they appear in search results.
To add a new RSS feed:
- Click “Add/import” at the top right corner of the page
- Fill out all of the information required by selecting “RSS” as the type of file being imported
Step 8: Provide a Transcript for Your Podcast on Google Search Console
- The transcript should be in the same language as your audio and in the same format (for example, if you use bullets in the audio, then your transcript should also use bullets).
- If you’re using any special characters or symbols, make sure they are included in the transcript.
- If there is a music track or other background noise that’s not super important to understand what’s being said, add “[sound effect]”.
Step 9: Tell Google About Your Episodes to Appear on Google Search and Homepage
Step 9: Tell Google About Your Episodes to Appear on Google Search and Homepage
To appear in Google Search, you need to create a Google Search Console account.
This can be done here. Once you’re signed in, click on “Add a Property” and add your podcast.
Then go back and select “Add a New Property” under the Podcasts section of your dashboard and enter your podcast name, RSS feed URL (from Step 5), episode date range, episode format (audio or video) and file type (mp3/m4a).
If this isn’t already done automatically by Podbean when uploading your episodes, make sure to go through each episode one by one and verify that all the meta tags are correct (the title tag should be unique per episode).
It is also important that these meta tags are consistent across all episodes so if one title is longer than another for example then this will impact how well your podcast ranks in search results because it makes it harder for Google’s algorithms to understand what each individual episode is about without looking at its content itself.
Step 10: Publish “Episode-level” Meta Tags to Appear on Google Search and Homepage
Now that you’ve added your podcast to Google Podcasts, it’s time to publish episode-level meta tags so they appear in search results.
To do this, you’ll need to create new meta tags for each episode of your podcast (or at least the ones you want people to see).
You can create these tags using any text editor or the official Google Tag Manager.
Conclusion
If you follow these steps, then your podcast will be added to Google Podcasts and appear in the search results.
