8 Things You Should Check in Apple Podcasts Connect
Listen to the full episode here:Apple provides a portal for you to submit and manage your own podcast in Apple Podcasts. It's called Podcasts Connect. Plus, countless other podcast apps and podcasting tools rely on Apple's data through their free API. Whether your podcast has been in Apple Podcasts for years, or you're just starting out, I suggest you check these 8 things right away!
1. Check that you have agreed to Apple's terms of service
Apple usually updates their terms of service when they launch major new features. For example, Apple started generating transcripts for allpodcasts in February, 2024. And that requires your agreement to their terms of service so that they can make those transcripts, which they won't do until you agree.
Apple makes it easy to know whether you've agreed to the latest terms. Simply log into podcastsconnect.apple.com ! If you're let into your account, then you've already agreed to the latest terms. If not, you will be prompted to read and agree to the terms before you're allowed to manage your podcast(s).
And if you're offering a paidsubscription to your audience through Apple Podcasts, check the Business tab to see if there are any actions you need to take. There might be additional new terms you must agree to, or you might need to provide legal or financial information . (This page will also display your invoices and tax information if you have any sales.)
2. Check that your podcast isin yourApple Podcasts Connect account
Many podcasters don't actually control their own catalog listing for their own podcast! This is because they either submitted their podcast before Podcasts Connect existed, or they allowed someone else to submit their podcast for them. This might have been a podcast-hosting provider or someone helping them with their podcast.
But at least the process to reclaim ownership is fairly easy!
• Make sure you've checked allyour possible Apple ID accounts.
• Log into the account you want to hold your podcast(s) and contact Apple through this form and select the “Missing podcast(s)” option (which should already be selected with this link).
• Fill in all the other form fields completely.
• Await and then follow Apple's instructions, which will have you enter a special code somewhere in your podcast RSS feed to verify your ownership or control of that feed.
This is crucial to do with allyour podcasts, especially any duplicate podcast listings you might have (which is probably more likely if you've ever switched podcast-hosting providers).
The rest of these items to check require that you have access to your podcast in your own Apple account.
3. Check that your podcast information is correctly loaded in Apple Podcasts Connect
Click into your podcast(s) and look over your the “Show details” information. This includes your title, cover art, artist, descriptions, and more.
You can't change these details in Podcasts Connect!Instead, you would change these in the podcast-publishing tool that is creating your RSS feed. But viewing these details here lets you confirm that everything is properly loading from your feed into the Apple Podcasts system.
And if you're having trouble, the first thing I suggest doing is validating your podcast RSS feed through allof the following tools:
• Cast Feed Validator
• Podbase Podcast Validator
• TrueFans Podcast Validator
Especially watch for problems with your podcast cover art.
4. Check the optional Apple Podcasts information fields
On this same “Show Information” page are several optional fields that you should populate or verify. Currently, these include:
• Update frequency
• Content rights
• Show contact information (especially important if you've removed your email address from your RSS feed)
This information is proprietary to Apple Podcasts and thus—currently—not pulled from your RSS feed.
5. Check your Apple Podcasts distribution availability (affects other apps)
Switch to the “Availability” page and there are two important options to ensure your podcast can be discovered by as many people as possible:
• Countries or Regions: I recommend setting this to “Make this show available in all countries or regions.” You can click into the Edit view to ensure all 175 countries are selected. Despite this option, some countries still block explicit content, and it seems like communist China blocks almost everything anyway.
• Distribution: I recommend enabling“Make this show available for distribution.” This ensures that the countless other podcast apps and podcasting tools using the catalog API from Apple Podcasts will be able to see yourpodcast.
These arethe default options for podcasts, but I suggest you verify they're set correctly anyway.
But if, for some odd reason, you do notwant your podcast available to as many people as possible, then you can change these options to limit your reach.
6. Switch the transcript default to use yourprovided transcripts