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How To Rank Higher And Get Discovered On Apple Podcasts

• Buzzsprout • Episode 201

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We break down exactly how Apple's search, charts, and editorial features work. This episode dives deep into podcast SEO, metadata strategy, episode titling, user behavior, and how momentum affects your rankings. You’ll also learn what Apple looks for when featuring shows and how to pitch your podcast for a chance at that front-page spotlight!

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Alban:

So my RODECaster DUO has been resurrected.

Jordan:

Thank goodness.

Kevin:

How'd you resurrect it?

Alban:

I did what you said. The final thing was unplug it for over 24 hours. So I unplugged it on Friday after we recorded. And I did not plug it back in until Tuesday morning. I figured if 24 hours was good, 100 hours was even better.

Jordan:

Oh yeah.

Alban:

So I plugged it in this morning, hooked it up, had to reformat the SD cards that didn't like the new SD cards. And then I went up to George's Music and got a new XLR cable. Just, you know, troubleshooting. I feel like I'm pretty good at troubleshooting, but this Rodcaster duo has given me a bit of grief. It's a finicky piece of hardware. It is. But it's also awesome. And I don't know what's better. But it's back. It's just as good as it always was. And hopefully it keeps going well. And maybe I'll figure out at some point what the problem was. I think you know what the problem is.

Kevin:

Every couple months, it just needs a 24-hour rest.

Alban:

Needs a break, a sabbatical. Yeah. At Buzzsprout, we believe in all of our employees and also our RODECaster duos get taking a sabbatical once every

Kevin:

As the intelligence of the machines gets higher, yeah, they have to take breaks. Yeah. Like more human-like. It's just part of the deal.

Alban:

They're gonna need breaks. Chat GPT is like, you know, I need some me time right now.

Jordan:

I need you to uninstall me from your computer.

Alban:

I just need to relax.

Jordan:

Yeah.

unknown:

Here we go.

Jordan:

Welcome back to Buzzcast, the podcast about all things podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout. So today we're gonna be talking about how to rank higher on Apple Podcasts, how to improve your podcast discoverability on Apple Pod chemist. I know it's a big one. The reason why I'm excited about this episode is because it kind of like ties in a lot of these threads that we hear from podcasters, like frequently asked questions, you know, like, what is podcast SEO? How do I improve my podcast SEO? How do I rank higher? How do I get featured? How do I like climb the charts on these podcast apps? And so we're answering all those questions in a way through this episode. So it's gonna be a really big one.

Alban:

Hopefully we can get it done. We we got a good rant on uh podcast SEO, I don't know, a couple months ago.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Alban:

And then it got Jordan and I to think more about all right, well, if there we know that what we think is fake about podcast SEO and all the stuff that it really isn't, but what really is out there? What can we actually tell people that's useful? And is there anything that's useful? And so I wrote up a brief or a blog and it was like, if we can find enough that we think we can teach something, let's teach it and try to rank for this so that we can help people learn something that's true, not get, you know, pitched by a marketer who says, I've cracked the code. And then you have to pay for a mastermind to find out that it's just like, oh, try to make a good show.

unknown:

Yeah.

Alban:

So on Buzzcast, you don't have to pay for a mastermind. This is a totally free mastermind.

Jordan:

You're welcome. Yeah, this uh another reason why I was really excited about this episode is because, Alban, you did lay a lot of the groundwork doing this like deep, intensive research into the workings of Apple Podcasts. And so the episode outline is basically just a little bit of a breakdown of your blog. And it's gonna be more of a discussion-based version of that. So I will have that blog linked in the show notes if you want to read through it. It's great. But yeah, so on Apple Podcasts, there's pretty much three ways to be discovered. So the first is gonna be search results. This is the episodes, and shows are ranked algorithmically based on listener search queries, top charts, these are also algorithm-based, and this is like the most popular shows and episodes. And then we also have features, which is the editorial collection of shows, episodes, things like that. So let's kick things off with understanding Apple Podcasts search. Alban, do you want to head this one up?

Alban:

Sure. Apple Podcasts has been pretty valuable since it was added as a default app to people's phones, the podcasting app in I think 2014. I've argued before that probably Apple making that a default app on people's phones is what helps Serial really get broad appeal. I think it'd have been much harder if everyone had to download an app and then subscribe to Serial. Bet Serial has some pretty good numbers on this, that a lot of those plays came through Apple Podcasts, um, especially when it was kind of taking off. So search results are just a really important part. So people type in something they're looking for and then they're served up a show. What we've seen, and Kevin and I have seen this whenever we look at conversion data for Buzzsprout or any of our other products, is when people are searching for something, it's fundamentally different than when they're just served up something new and it's recommended to them.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Alban:

So we, I think the first time we had this realization was we were, you know, we were running Google ads and we were also running Facebook ads. We could not get Facebook ads to work. And Kevin's like, well, someone's typing in, I want to start a podcast on Google, they're going to start one. But if you're finding people that even Facebook thinks might want to start one and showing them a Buzzprout ad, it's just not the same level of intent. And so intent really matters. And that's why search results really matter because there's a lot of intent. Someone's saying, I want a new episode, I want a new podcast, I want to find a podcasting channel, I want to find an author, whatever it may be. I want to find some content and they tell you what they want. And if Apple serves up your show, there's a good chance that they are going to click it and really give it a chance to listen to it.

Jordan:

Yeah. And I think that's one of the things that a lot of podcasters really struggle with is the discoverability aspect. And it's probably because they are hoping that these podcast apps are going to operate more like Facebook or more like YouTube, where it's just serving up the content repeatedly whenever a listener might be interested in this topic, as opposed to making sure that they are like optimizing their episode titles or something like that for the listener to search because it does operate a lot more like a Google than it does YouTube or like uh Facebook.

Alban:

Yeah. Well, that's, I mean, definitely the search is acting like Google. Absolutely. So for years, all of podcasts, we kind of had guesses for what Apple was doing. I remember somebody had, yeah, I don't know, 2016 or something, had like changed all of their names of all their episodes and were testing different titles. And so they started ranking higher. So we had little like ideas. And in 2022, Apple published this blog post that was like, well, here's what we'll teach you about what goes into this ranking algorithm. They're trying to do a lot more transparency and they're sharing a lot of this stuff. And they said there's pretty much three main factors that go into what is ranked the metadata. So that's all the information about the show. Um it's not the actual podcast episode, it's the title, the show's name, so the podcast name, the author, and the channel. They look at popularity, so more popular shows do better, and user behavior. So whether or not somebody is clicking and playing through the data. They don't specify exactly what's in user data, but those are the three: the metadata of the show, the popularity of the show, and user behavior.

Kevin:

So, Alban, it's this sounds like something that could start to snowball a little bit, right? Like since we have metadata, we have popularity, and we have user behavior, it feels like getting the metadata right could help, maybe not in the exact order you have them, but it could help like with the user behavior thing, right? Right. So if we have good metadata, so our shows or episodes start appearing around keywords that are aligned with our episodes, they're accurate, then that might start driving more people to click on them and then they are happy with their results. So they listen and they follow. If they follow, then it helps build popularity. And it might be a slow process, but it does feel like it's something that could build, right?

Alban:

Yeah. Is a good reason why Apple's using popularity, why that's important. Because the popular shows are probably popular because they're pretty good. It's not always the case, but there really is something too. If I was going to recommend a history podcast, hardcore history is going to be in that group. Even if there's some newer shows that are really doing well, the chances that a show I don't know about is going to be as good as hardcore history is pretty low. So what you're saying does make sense. Like one, they show the popularity, but then you're more likely to click on it. So then if people click on it and it's good, then they stick around. So it becomes more popular. And there could be a bit of a feedback mechanism, whether it starts with it being a great show, it starts with metadata, it starts with popularity. Each piece kind of feeds back to the other ones.

Jordan:

Yeah. And as an independent podcaster, it can really feel. I know when I first started my podcasting journey and I didn't understand like the metadata aspect of it. I didn't understand like user behavior, anything like that. To me, it felt like, well, gosh, how do you get on the charts if you're not already popular? Because now all these people, and then they're going to be more popular because more people are finding their podcasts. And it just almost felt like this really unfair advantage that these major podcasts had. And I and I couldn't figure out how someone who is smaller is supposed to even like attempt to break into that.

Alban:

Well, I would say new podcasters, what we're talking about right now, this is the best area to focus your time.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Alban:

You know, we're going to talk about charts in a second. We're going to talk about new and noteworthy in a second. But right now, for search, I think that's your best chance. If you want Apple Podcasts to be a marketing engine for you, this is the area to focus on.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Alban:

So a few years ago, James Cridlin and Mark Steadman were trying to figure out what does each podcasting app index. And what that just means is what are they using for search fields? Are they looking at your entire show notes? Are they transcribing the episodes and using the episode transcriptions? Are they looking at the author tag? Are they looking at the location tag, the titles? And they went in pretty smart study. They put kind of like gibberish in each of these sections of podcast episodes and they published it to everywhere they could. And then they would search the gibberish they knew existed in each field.

Jordan:

Oh.

Alban:

And so if the podcast was returned, they knew, okay, XK15454A. If you search that and my podcast shows up, that field was being indexed. Does that make sense?

Jordan:

Yeah.

Alban:

And people had done similar things like this for Google for many years. But they did this, and when they published the three things that Apple Podcasts was indexing were the episode titles, the podcast titles, and the author tag. So author tag for us would be Buzzsprout. Since then, we know that also channel name is included. And if you were to search, just go search any sort of, you know, Vox Media or something, and the Vox Media channel will show up. And so that really means if you're trying to hit Apple Podcast Search, these are your opportunities. Your podcast title, which we've talked a lot about naming a podcast in the past, but we want to do a really good job there. Author tag and episode tag. And author tag and podcast title, those are static. Channel name is static. You know, you get one shot at it. After that, it's really your episode titles. And so you want your episode titles to be as searchable as possible.

Jordan:

Yeah, and another thing that uh Apple Podcasts index is that is good news for a lot of podcasters is they will actually search through your episode transcripts. So as long as you are like using keywords as you're talking about a topic, then that will help the searchability of your podcast as well, which is good because Apple Podcasts, like a couple of years ago, started transcribing all the episodes on their platform automatically.

Kevin:

Yeah, that's a good point. Whether you provide your own transcripts or not, Apple is creating them. And as Jordan said, they will index some of that stuff. So a couple of things that I would say about that is one, if there's unique keywords that are maybe like hard to spell, could be commonly um mistranscribed or something, that's a really important thing for you to do, then is to provide your own transcripts. Make sure that those words are spelled correctly or those locations or those names or whatever is important if you're going to try to optimize your podcast to be able to be returned if somebody searches for those things. Just be aware. Like if you're talking about plant names or pharmaceutical drug names or something like that, like the Apple transcription engine could mess up, you're gonna want to go correct that. And you do that by providing your own transcript.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Kevin:

The other thing with the transcript stuff is I I don't know that that's as much like something you can optimize for. I think it's really great that Apple Podcasts is doing it because then they're going to be able to return episodes that are relevant to the term that you're searching for. But unless they're just things that you're talking about consistently, in which case I would think it would then be a part of your show title, probably. Like Buzzcast, we want to be returned when somebody searches for like how to start a podcast or you know, how to podcasting or something like that. Well, maybe the transcript's gonna pick up on some of that, but primarily we're gonna get that stuff from our title, like our podcast title are in. I guess they don't use description, but all of our episode titles usually say something about podcasting. So hopefully we'd start showing up there.

Jordan:

Yeah, I think keyword stuffing a script, like an episode script, might be sound kind of weird if you're just like, in this episode, I will teach you how to rank higher an Apple podcast, how to find more discoverability. It just kind of sounds kind of weird.

Kevin:

Yeah, we've all stumbled upon those blog posts that are just keyword stuff blog posts that are garbage. And that's where the other part of these, I don't know, metrics or whatever come into play, like the ranking factors, I think you call them, Alban. It's not just the metadata. It's not just something that that got picked up in the transcript. It also has to do with popularity of the show overall and user behavior. And so if you're just keyword stuffing transcripts to try to get search results, you're not gonna have the other two things. You're only gonna have one of the three pieces of the pie, and it's probably not gonna work for you.

Alban:

Yeah. One of the lessons I would bring in from work we've done on with Google is if you know the keyword someone's searching, uh, even if your page ranks for it, you're gonna get a lot more click-throughs if the title of the page matches the search term. So if someone searches how to make a podcast and your blog post is how to start a podcast, they'd rather click on the one that says how to make. It's just that's what's in their brain. And so when they see it, they go, yes, that's what I was looking for. Even if they're very similar, they're more likely to click the one that matches what they searched. And so it's one of the reasons why let's say we you know we're searching for, I don't know, monarch butterflies. And an episode comes up where we talked about monarch butterflies. The episode that was titled, like, what's special about monarch butterflies or something, if it's in the title of the episode, it's gonna get featured more prominently in that search result. And I think it's more likely you're gonna get a click-through versus if it's just in the transcript. If it's in the transcript, um, at least when we were just searching a minute ago, it looks like they're always a little bit further down, and you get just a little bit of a different treatment because it's trying to show you the quote from the transcript. So if it's the main thing, you know, it's what the episode's about, I'd say try to work it into that title.

Jordan:

I really like this tip because it's something that's really simple that every podcaster can do, and they can go back to their older episodes and kind of look at the episode titles and be like, okay, are these titles something that someone is going to search in Apple Podcasts? Just be thinking about what you want people to take away from your episode and be thinking about what that person might be typing into the search to find the information that you're trying to provide for them. For someone who struggles with finding like what kind of keywords to put in their podcast, maybe they don't really know where to start or they have like a bit of a creative block with that. Do you have any tools that you would recommend they use?

Alban:

Yeah, we use hrefs for a lot of our SEO work at Buzz Brout. And Hrefs has a really nice keyword generator. So we can link that in the description. But if you just search Hrefs, A H R E F S keyword generator, what you'll do is you type in a couple keywords and then they will say, here's all the related keywords. And so if you typed in Major League Baseball, you would also get one that's like baseball, baseball teams, baseball near me, what are the rules of baseball? And you just start seeing all these keywords. If you know the topic area, all of the keywords that pop up will make sense to you.

Jordan:

Okay.

Alban:

But it's kind of nice to get them loaded into your mind as you're talking about an episode, just so you're naturally remembering all the various pieces. But if you're someone who struggles, something I found during my research, I just thought was funny. Uh, this was another blog post that was in Pod News, and somebody noted that Parcast, who is acquired by Spotify and they make podcasts, they just name their shows after the number one keyword. Like they figure out what keyword people are searching, and then they just make a show. So they have a show. These are all the names of their shows. In the true crime section, they have serial killers in history. They have conspiracy theories. In true crime again, they have ghost stories. They have a show called Cults, they have unsolved murders, unexplained mysteries, so supernatural. Like they're just using the keyword and they just make that the name of the show. Um, I think other people, including myself, would be like, I wouldn't want to call it serial killers. Even if it was a show about serial killers, I'd be like, unraveling the mind of the worst people with Alban Brooke. And I'd make it something like that, and no one would ever know what the show is about. But if you typed in, I want a show about serial killers, and there's a show called serial killers, you're just gonna go, that's that's it. Messed up podcast for me.

Jordan:

That's what I'm looking for. It's so funny because I've seen all of these pop up around like Halloween or something like that. I'll do like the like unexplained mysteries, or if I'm trying to remember a podcast about unexplained mysteries that someone recommended to me and I couldn't remember exactly what it was, I would search unexplained mysteries and then that would pop up first, even though I was looking for a different podcast.

Alban:

Yeah.

Jordan:

It's genius.

Alban:

The big minds. It is genius. It's kind of one of those like, it's so dumb, it's genius ideas. Like you just don't want to overthink it. We had a period where it was really funny to us that we would take what we thought was the funniest little comment from our whole Buzzcast episode and we'd make that the title. Yeah. And we'd all go, oh, that's the title. Let's put it in there. And eventually, when we started kind of seeing this trend that if you search something, you pop up in search results, we went, Really, we should not be coming up with cutesy titles. Yeah. One of them I remember, we made a comment about a show we were all looking at the artwork of, and we were like, you know, it's got that kind of like 1990s televangelist aesthetic.

Jordan:

Yes.

Alban:

Like kind of that 700 club aesthetic.

Jordan:

I remember that.

Alban:

And that became the title of the episode.

Jordan:

Yep.

Alban:

And it had nothing to do with what the episode was about. So it was funny to us, but it didn't really land a relevant keyword. So what I would say is try to structure your episodes around a single topic and then name your episode that topic so that it's very easy for people to search you and find it and go, that's the podcast for me. Let me jump in. Hot take. Yeah, I feel like I have to say this.

Kevin:

Some of this stuff is so good for really helping your show grow to reach more people. I mean, we are talking about search engine optimization, like optimizing for the tools that are out there that people use to find podcasts. I get it. Good idea generally, if your goals, if you're like, why podcasting aligns with because I want to reach a bunch of people or I want to have a business purpose behind this or all that other kind of stuff. It can also sometimes be, I don't know, a little soul sucking or joy robbing. Like it was fun for us to come up with crazy show titles or challenge Jordan to like, I can't wait to see what show title you come up with. That is fun. But ultimately, we do have a business purpose behind this podcast that we do. We enjoy it, but when we were realizing that we were gamifying something too much, we were kind of putting personal pleasures ahead of the business purpose behind the show. And and that just for this particular show is not smart to do, right? We are a business, we have to make money so that we can all get paid so that we can all keep doing this. And so we have to sometimes do things that are a little bit less fun. If your podcast is something that you're just doing for fun and you like coming up with crazy show titles because they add more fun to the experience for you, then please do that. Like, don't let any of the tips that we're giving rob you of the joy and the fun that you're having of podcasting. The quirky, weird, inside joke titles is something that's been around in podcasting for years and years and years. And I just I don't want you to take the advice that we're giving as that's a bad way to do it, or you shouldn't do that, or you're a bad podcaster if you're doing that. We're not saying any of that. We're just giving you some tips that if you do that, it might not help your show grow, but it might help you enjoy podcasting more. So if that's if that's your goal, then please keep doing it however you want to do it. Great advice.

Alban:

Whenever we're thinking about how to market the show and how to try to grow it, you always want to remember if like, don't go so far down the optimization path that you've just like taken all the enjoyment out of it and all the fun out of it. You've got to make sure you're enjoying this too. Yeah.

Jordan:

Yeah. And it's not going to apply to all podcasts. So, I mean, if you have like a narrative fiction podcast or something like that, you're probably going to have more creative titles that aren't going to be as optimized. So all right.

Alban:

Now I gotta say, uh oh. Talking about narrative fiction, Jordan. I think one of the examples of a podcast that does this very well is this show called Dreamful that you make, and you've got episodes called Aesops Fables, Heidi, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, The Red Room. These are all episodes that are named after famous stories that it's not unlikely that somebody would search it and then find your episode and pop up.

Jordan:

That's true. And you know what? When my podcast first started, it was just called Dreamful. Cause I was like, that is so pretty. It's so lovely. I love it. And I had it as just dreamful for probably like six months. It wasn't really growing. And then I changed my title to Dreamful Bedtime Stories, and then it took off because I changed my title to literally just say dreamful bedtime stories. Like it's just very obvious. I could have taken it a step further and said dreamful bedtime stories for kids and adults alike, accompanied with music for sleep. I could have just gone crazy with the title, but um, just that little improvement on my podcast actually made it grow exponentially.

Alban:

All right. That reminds me, this is last anecdote for this section.

Jordan:

Okay.

Alban:

When streaming music became a big thing, especially after TikTok and short form video became a way for people to discover music, you started seeing old songs get renamed. And you'd see like a song title that could be totally different from what the lyrics were. And then they'd start adding in parentheses the lyrics. And the first example of this I saw was Old Town Road, uh, little Nas X song, where the clip that went viral on I think TikTok or wherever it was first, it was Horses in the Back, was the like lyric. He renamed the song instantly, so Horses in the Back in parentheses, so that it would show up in searches when people were like, What's that song? I like it. And I think this also recently happened with Blue.

Jordan:

David, yeah.

Alban:

Yeah.

Jordan:

I remember that, yeah.

Alban:

And there's just multiple songs that I've started noticing this, especially when I play them on YouTube music, that they've got the parentheses with a the main lyric in there. And I think it's just because people want to rank their songs, and so they put that main lyric that people are probably searching. So it's good to it's good to lean into the search terms a bit.

Jordan:

Yeah. Let's move on to popularity. When we were discussing the ranking factors, I think popularity is a little bit of like a nebulous concept. It's like, okay, well, what exactly makes a podcast popular?

Alban:

Uh, how many followers you have on Apple Podcasts and how many plays you have, those are the two main things that are for popularity. Both of those are indicators of quality. And so Apple is prioritizing shows that appear to be quality shows. Ratings and reviews are famously not included.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Alban:

So Apple explicitly says they're not there, but follows and plays are there.

Jordan:

Which is interesting because you'd think that they would include ratings and reviews in that algorithm, and they just don't, which I personally love because we know I hate ratings and reviews. So I love that it's just based on like the followers, the plays, things like that, instead of you know how many one-star or five star reviews you have.

Kevin:

I can only assume that they are making that choice because the ratings and review systems are notoriously pretty easy to game.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Kevin:

And they don't want to encourage more gaming of that system. Like they probably already fight that enough. And so if that was a signal that they were using to generate search results, just more and more people would try to do that, which means they'd have to fight it more and more and more.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Kevin:

I know none of us here are big into conspiracy theories, but do any of you think that it's possible that they just say they don't use that, but they still might?

Alban:

Uh, I don't think so.

Jordan:

No, I hope not.

Alban:

So have you ever gotten those weird DMs from somebody who says, like, I'm a professional podcast promoter on Apple Podcasts?

Jordan:

Yes.

Alban:

I I've sent a few. Uh Jack Resider did a whole episode about people who were shooting up the charts. So we can kind of talk about charts in a second. But one of the things that he learned was ratings and reviews were not something the scammers ever used. So they were testing everything. And once they figured out which levers worked, they did not pull the ratings and review lever at all. And so I think it's unlikely that's included. And I think Kevin's point makes a lot of sense. They don't want to be dealing with either podcasts getting a bunch of fake positive reviews or just a bunch of people piling on to a show that they don't like and saying, I don't agree with the politics of the show. So they're giving it one star, or I don't like the host giving it one star. Both ways, it's just going to be a mess that they have to deal with. It's much less likely that people are going to follow the show, unfollow the show, like do whatever they need to do to give it a negative signal. So I think leaving ratings and reviews out is a probably a smart decision.

Jordan:

Okay. So what are some ways that our listeners could improve their popularity on Apple Podcasts? Like, is there a way to do that?

Alban:

Tell people to follow you on Apple Podcasts, play your podcast on Apple Podcasts. So if you've got a show that's on YouTube and on Apple, tell people follow the show on Apple Podcasts. That will help you more. Obviously, if you tell people to go watch the whole thing on YouTube, that would help you on YouTube. So you can one, just direct people to the right platform. Pacific Content had an interesting study they shared where they added a smart banner. So if somebody was on an iPhone in Safari and looked at your website, they popped up a little banner that said subscribe in Apple Podcasts or follow now on Apple Podcasts. And they found that they were getting way more click-throughs and they were getting way more follows when they did that.

Jordan:

I didn't know that was something that a podcaster could do.

Alban:

Oh, yeah. Not only is it something a podcaster can do, it's something that we do on all BuzzProut websites. So it's on your website right now.

Jordan:

Oh, that's so cool. Okay. Well, I learned something new about Buzzsproute today. That's great.

Alban:

It's a good way to push people to go and follow the show. I will say, are you now that both of you are looking at this?

Jordan:

Yeah.

Alban:

I think I found the final place that Apple needs to update the subscribe language to follow language. Do you see this?

Jordan:

Yep. It's on the banner.

Alban:

On the smart banner, it says subscribe in Apple Podcasts to Buzzcast.

Jordan:

Yep.

Alban:

But BuzzCast does not have an Apple Podcast subscription. Nope. So it should say follow. And it's, I think, just this this is the language from I don't know, years and years ago. And this is one little area that it snuck through. So this might be the last place that still says subscribe in Apple Podcasts, meaning just like a typical follow.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Kevin:

Jordan, I'm noticing I'm looking at Dreamful and I'm noticing you are at 4.5 stars.

Jordan:

I don't look at my reviews. So I don't know.

Kevin:

Well, Buzzcast has 4.9 stars.

Jordan:

Yeah. So I think I have a lot of kids. There's a couple like one stars where it's a bunch of emojis, and they're like, no, I don't like this. Yucky. You know. So it's probably just a bunch of kids.

Kevin:

I'm just saying you're right on that borderline where if you were an Uber driver, I might cancel the ride.

unknown:

Oh no.

Kevin:

4.5, I'm probably still taking the ride. But if it goes to 4.4, I'm rounding down and I have to cancel.

Alban:

I'm looking at all your reviews that uh people are actually writing something. I'm I'm seeing all five stars and they're all nice comments. But there's a few uh one, two, and three stars, at least in the ratings. So I wonder where uh where those are coming from. That doesn't make any sense.

Jordan:

It's it's gotta be kids. Like it's gotta be kids.

Kevin:

It's gotta be. Jordan cannot accept that somebody doesn't like her show.

Jordan:

It there's no way that anyone doesn't like my podcast.

Alban:

It's gotta be Jordan hates it, but we're doing it. I'm reading a review. Real life review rating. I'm a challenge sleeper, and this podcast really helps me drift off to sleep. Her voice is soothing, the stories are good, and the music is always so beautiful. Two stars.

Kevin:

Let me read let me read a uh a buzzcast review real quick.

Jordan:

Oh man.

Kevin:

Off topic, too much rambling. Need to stay focused on podcast topics. Suggestion. Keep the chit chat at the end, not at the beginning. Two stars.

Jordan:

We talked about this one. Do you remember?

Kevin:

Did you leave that review, Kevin?

Alban:

Because I totally agree. It's a great point. Also, perfect time to read that review.

Jordan:

This is yeah, this is the one that we read it, and we were like, uh, moved on to something else.

Kevin:

Uh noted. Good review.

Jordan:

Yeah. Anyway, okay, enough of our off-topic rambling.

Alban:

All right. So back to Apple Podcasts search. Um, you also want to improve user behavior. And all these improve user behavior are really just metrics that track with, is this a good podcast?

Jordan:

Yeah. So this is different than popularity, but it sounds similar to it.

Alban:

Right. This is just what behaviors are people taking when they see your show? Are they clicking play and follow, engaged listeners? Maybe playthrough data could be included in here.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Alban:

And I think what I really would just come back with in this section is like make the podcast good. Do a good show. And Apple's always going to be tweaking the algorithm to point towards good shows. You making a good show will make your listeners happy. Just try to align with that. So if we're just to take a few takeaways from how to show up in Apple Podcast Search, when you're transcribing episodes, let's make sure you clean up any misspellings, especially around search terms.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Alban:

Podcast title should probably include some kind of keyword or search term. Your episode titles should probably be around a search term. Your author tag, you know, if you've got an individual person's name, let's put that in the author tag. It doesn't need to be in the podcast title because they you will show up because of that author tag. And uh same with channel. So really we're just trying to orient ourselves towards this podcast episode, might just be around a single topic. And let's make sure that that topic is searchable. And if you need some help figuring out what's the right title, the HREF's keyword generator that we'll link in the show notes, that will be something that I think will really help people just figure out what would be a good title for this podcast.

Jordan:

Awesome. All right, let's move on to climbing the top charts. Apple Podcast charts, it says that they're influenced by performance and momentum. So they use a mix of listening, follows, and completion rate to determine what top shows and what top podcast episodes are going to be ranking in the charts.

Alban:

One thing to really point out here is that the charts are much more of a momentum play. So they will say a hundred follows that happen in one day or in two days is much more valuable than a hundred follows spread out over a month. And you can see this in the charts. If you go look, it's not uncommon that you'll see an indie shoot up the charts. We've seen this happen quite a few times. And they'll mostly shoot up when there's something happening around that podcast. Maybe it's a big launch, maybe it's an episode with a big guest, maybe it's just you've hit this cultural moment and it's a podcast about the Olympics, and the Olympics are coming up, and you just interviewed Sean White and he just got the gold medal, you know, whatever it may be. But you can see indies really shoot up in the charts. And it's kind of that snowball that Kevin was talking about. If you move up the charts and you've got a good show, then more people might click on you, and it kind of continues that momentum. I think fewer people are finding shows through the charts. Uh the podcast host uh did a survey where they asked people which of these areas do you use? And pretty much everyone said we use search and we don't really use the charts that much. But it's at least nice as like a proof point that you can share with advertisers, like, hey, we used to be top 100 show. We were top five in the technology category or whatever it may be. So you can kind of watch it, you hit milestones, it's fun to see your podcasting move up, and it really is a momentum game. So you you know, schedule like big releases and big pushes for your podcast will help more than just good marketing techniques that are spread out.

Kevin:

Uh so we've thrown a couple of terms around. One of them is engaged listeners. I think I remember, is it 20 minutes, Jordan? And or 40% or something like that? Bingo. Yeah. Okay. So when we say engaged listener, or when Apple says engaged listeners, what they mean is that somebody has listened to 20 minutes of your episode or 40%. So if it was a 10-minute episode, then four minutes or more, they would count that as an engaged listener. And I understand the momentum thing. Like that certainly makes sense. It doesn't feel good for anybody that every time you go back to the top charts, it's the same 10 episodes. And so Apple wants some movement around those charts, right? They want new podcasts, or if you're looking at popular episodes or something, you want to see new episodes showing on those things. So I get what they're doing with the momentum thing over just the most popular podcasts, which are probably that would be a pretty boring chart to look at. The top 10 are pretty much always the top 10 for months and months, if not years and years. But it also makes me think that like it's probably like what you were saying. I don't know that a ton of people go there to find new shows. Although I have before. Have you? Yeah. I mean, I I certainly have said like I want a new podcast, and so that's just my mindset. And so I'm like, what are the new podcasts? So I'll go to New and Noteworthy, or I'll look at the charts and I'll find the new hot podcast, or I'll try to. I don't think I've discovered any like long-term fits from those things. I've had a couple of, I don't know, forays into true crime podcasts where I get hooked, I listen to an episode or something, and I'm like, I gotta listen to the whole series now. But for the most part, the long-term fines that I have stumbled upon did not come through the charts. So I mean, all that to say is I'm kind of getting back to this point that I think you guys are making as well, is it's it's sort of like if you do everything right and you end up on a chart, hey, that's great, but it doesn't feel like charts or setting a certain position on a chart like being a long-term goal, it's probably not a healthy goal to have because it's it's a little bit out of your control in terms of the algorithm is kind of working against you in terms of they kind of want those charts churning. And it's really just based on stuff that you can't control outside of just creating the best show that you can in the first place, which is it's it's really about engagement, engaged listeners and followers. So yeah, there are some things that you can do, like you can push as much of your following as you can to a certain platform and focus on like Apple Podcasts or something instead of just saying, listen wherever you get your podcast. I don't love it, but again, it's a strategy that you're implementing to try to let the platform's marketing tools help you grow your show as much as possible.

Jordan:

So yeah, it holds about as much weight as like street cred or bragging rights does, right? It can help you gain more listeners, but realistically, it's probably not as much. So with the momentum thing, we were talking about like engaged listeners. If it's 20 minutes or 40% of the episode, my favorite stat or metric to look at is those consumption rates, is the engagement on the um Apple Podcast dashboard where you go into the episode and you can see where listeners are dropping off. You can see where they're hitting skip. And if you want to improve your listener engagement, if you want to improve the completion rate of your podcast, definitely take a look at those consumption rates and the engagement on those episodes because you can see where people are skipping. I I've talked about this every time. When I have a sponsored ad read at the exact same spot in my podcast every single time, I can look at those consumption rates and it's like my listeners are, you know, hanging out like 90%. And then there's a big dip for like 60 seconds where they just like hit skip skip and then they start the episode again. And I can see where they're skipping. And so you can kind of adjust your podcast a little bit. So if you have 10 minutes of banter before you actually get into the meat of your episode, take a look at those consumption rates. See if listeners are dropping off before you even get into the episode. Maybe it's time to cut back on the chit chat before you get into it. So that's something that you can definitely look at to improve the engagement.

Alban:

I mean, this is a pretty well-known strategy in the YouTube world. You go in, you look at playthrough data, you find spots that there's a big drop-off, and then they will just cut that segment. And sometimes just cutting a segment where people are dropping off drastically improves playthrough for the whole video and thus improves the video's growth. And so you'll see that across really big YouTubers that will go in and clip stuff out. I think for podcasters, this is one of two areas that we have good playthrough data here and Spotify. Pay attention to where people are dropping off because they're grabbing their phone out of their pocket and then going, forget this.

Jordan:

They're drying off their hands from washing dishes.

Alban:

Yeah, they're they're actively going, like, get this out of my ears. So you know, pay attention to it, even a small dip. It's worth listening to that segment. Yeah. And just asking yourself, is there anything I could do better here? How could we improve? You don't have to always follow what your audience says to do, but you can look at it and say, Oh, here's maybe a good idea. It'll give you some hints.

Jordan:

One thing that you can do for charting is to try to chart in a less competitive category. So we see a lot of podcasters have their show in a category that is heavily saturated because it is such a wide net being cast. So, for example, society and culture encompasses so many topics. Society and culture could literally cover any topic you could possibly think of. And so there are subcategories in there. So if you make society and culture your number one category in your podcast settings, that's what you're gonna get grouped into. But if you change it to a more niche down version of that, so if it's um government.

Alban:

If you have a podcast in the government section, like make sure you put it as the category government because that's not very competitive.

Jordan:

Yes, as the number one because it's not competitive. You are more likely to chart in government than you are in uh society and culture because it's just too many things you're competing with. So let's talk about getting featured on Apple Podcasts. So is there anything that like we want to talk about when it comes to being featured in new and noteworthy or other Apple Podcasts editorial picks?

Alban:

Yeah, so there's quite a few areas now that are editorial inside of Apple Podcasts. And the important thing to remember is these are editorials. This is somebody on the Apple Podcast team has decided we want to feature this show. And so the best way to do that is to ask Apple to curate a list with your show included. And they've said, you know, there's certain things we're looking for. We're looking for great artwork, we're looking for quality shows, but we're also looking for you to create some custom artwork for us that we can use in the app that will look really good. And we want you to fill out our form that they have for you so you can go and add it to this form. Uh we can put a link to that. The main thing you want to know here is you've got to have your podcast live in Apple Podcasts before you submit it. You want to request it at least two weeks before that go live date, and then make a strong pitch. And really that pitch, the main thing you want to know it or they want to know is why should we promote your show right now? What's noteworthy about this show? Is it tied into something that's happening? Is it relevant right now? And if the answer is yes, it's probably a good time for you to go and create that podcast artwork that they want, the special artwork, and do a pitch. I think it's worthwhile for indies to do this if you have the time and if this is something you think you could land, it's worth going and taking a stab at it, especially if something is happening culturally. Today, as we record it, it's election day. So if you were doing a podcast about, you know, some of the upcoming elections, then maybe you would want to go ahead and submit because Apple may run an editorial on election day and the history of voting in the United States. So it might be a good opportunity for your show to be featured. So just think through. Is there a reason they would highlight the show? If the answer is yes, it might be worth taking a chance and asking them to highlight you.

Kevin:

Is there a way that people can figure out like all the existing and or upcoming like editorial collections that Apple is putting together? Like I just searched real time, as you mentioned, election day. I did not see a collection around election day in the US. But I did, so it's like, okay, we'll have a Halloween. And then boom, Halloween collection popped up as the first search result. So if in the past week or two, if anybody was looking for Halloween-themed podcasts to listen to, there was a list that Apple put together. But how would we as podcasters know that?

Alban:

I don't know of any place that they're putting this out. You know, it would be kind of interesting, is just for us to go look once a week for the next year and just be like, okay, what you know groups are they putting out there? And maybe we guess that they kind of hit the same topics, or at least some of them get hit every year. What do you think, Jordan?

Jordan:

I was thinking that what I imagine happens because it is a group of people reading through these pitches from podcasters, uh, one of the things that you need to put in the request form is context about why now is the right time for a feature. So if you say, Oh, we've got this coming up, or it's national something or international whatever day, or, you know, a hundred years ago this happened, and here's why it was such like a big impact on our culture. If you can touch on something that is upcoming, then I think that what they would do is they would go, you know what? Actually, this is a really good topic and we should build a feature list around this. And I imagine that they would, I mean, I don't know how Apple does it, but I know if I was on the editorial team and someone had a really compelling pitch about why we should have a list about this specific thing, I would go, you know what? That's actually a really good idea and kind of pull together some podcasts around that theme, around that topic, or around an event that's happening, such as the Olympics or, you know, anything like that.

Alban:

Yeah, I think that's a great point. Something else I keep seeing, Apple also, I don't know if you guys know this, one of the top companies in the entire world. And one of the reasons they're one of the top companies is because Apple does try to run a business. And the way that they make money off podcasts is that they have Apple Podcast subscriptions where people can subscribe and get premium content in the Apple Podcast app. And Apple gets a 30% cut of that money. That is not a ton of money for how much Apple invests in this app. And one of the things that I consistently saw when I'm looking through these editorials is the shows that get featured often have an Apple Podcast subscription.

Jordan:

Yep.

Alban:

Not always, not 100% of the time, but I think Apple is definitely looking at that as a consideration when they're putting shows into these lists, which makes sense. You're on the Apple Podcast team, you're trying to find a show that looks good and you're listening and goes, Oh, this one's good and this one's also good. I've got two options, and one of them is selling something, the Apple Podcast app, and is saying, We're going to promote Apple Podcasts heavily, we're all in on Apple. They're probably the ones who are going to get featured. So if you have a paid option for your podcast, if you have a premium version of your show, I would recommend setting up an Apple Podcast subscription prior to asking Apple to feature your show.

Jordan:

Yeah, they actually prioritize it so much that they have a chart in their charts page. If you go to like top shows, right below top shows is top subscriber shows. So it is definitely something that they want to put forward. What I love about the features as opposed to, you know, trying to improve your ranking or trying to get on top charts is that to be featured, like you just have to be very persuasive. You don't have to have a big following. You don't have to have a ton of subscribers. You don't even have to be fully launched yet. You just need to have a trailer and tell them, hey, I've got three episodes in the queue and it's ready to go. It's not so much a popularity contest as it is you saying, I'm making great content and here's why it deserves the spotlight, which I love that.

Alban:

Well, one of the things they say in this submission process is really going to help if your show is coming out on the day we put out the new editorials.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Alban:

Because we want to know the episode is live and we want you going live to coincide with the moment we put it on our editorial page. So they, I forget the exact day, might be like Tuesday.

Jordan:

It's Monday.

Alban:

Monday. It's in that form. And I'll just say we highly recommend, which probably means it's a requirement for you to put it to be Monday.

Jordan:

I don't, I don't know if it's like actually a requirement, but I think it definitely helps. You might get featured like the following Monday. Like maybe they'll cue you for a week after you're hoping to be featured. Um, so Apple actually provides tips on pitching your podcast to the editorial team. And they have um four tips that will help increase your odds of getting selected to be featured. So the first one is considering Apple's lead time. So Apple needs two week minimum lead time. And most updates are published on Mondays. So try to pick a Monday as your requested date. Number two, your marketing plan. This is interesting. So a feature should be a small part of your big promotional picture. So you should share your plans with the Apple team to show commitment and then also help them align their efforts with yours. Third is content cadence. So they're wanting you to consider the listeners and maybe publish with a few episodes so that listeners can binge your podcast, follow. It'll help improve your podcast's engagement and popularity. And then finally, like we were talking about current events and relevancy. So you can either align your pitch with a trending topic or position your content as compelling escape from what everyone else is talking about. All that being said, it is actually a very big process. Just the hero artwork alone needs to be a little bit different from your actual podcast artwork. So there's some considerations to put into that along with your pitch. And I think that a lot of podcasters have the idea that being featured and new and noteworthy or being featured is going to like catapult them into success. But really, there's a ton of people online who have written blogs or articles about getting featured on Apple Podcasts. And they say, like, yeah, our podcast jumped up and we did really well. We were charting for like a hot minute and then just went down as soon as the feature was over.

Alban:

Yeah. We have four on our YouTube channel, four different case studies, and only one of them stuck around and got long-term bump and growth.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Alban:

And so it's nice. All of these are nice. None of them will ever replace high quality content. And if there's one of these strategies for you to implement, I think it is your podcast episodes titles. Take a bit of time, think through what's the main keyword that your episode is satisfying. What's the search term that you're satisfying? So if people want to learn about monarch butterflies and your episodes about monarch butterflies, make sure monarch butterflies are in that podcast episode title. So think through that, try out some of the tools we mentioned. And if you have questions or you want us to take a look at your show, it might be interesting to look at a show or two. I'd love to hear about that in fan mail.

Jordan:

All right. So we got some fan mail messages. First up, we have Susie from Wander World School. Susie says, I don't have an Apple phone. How can I leave Apple Podcast reviews? Even logged into my Apple Podcasts on my computer or web browser or my phone, and it doesn't provide this option for me. I don't think that there is a way. I I kind of looked into this, and I don't think that there is a way for you to leave an Apple Podcast review unless you have an Apple device. So whether that be a MacBook or an iPhone, um, if you're on Mac, the web browser version, I don't believe has Apple reviews. But if you have the app for Apple Podcasts, it will have that.

Alban:

Yeah. I mean, the Mac app podcasts, I can leave a review here. Yeah. Just go to the podcast to scroll to the bottom to read the ratings for reviews, and then I can click. I guess for Buzzcast, I could click five stars. I haven't rated or reviewed it. So you could leave one. But yeah, a lot of this stuff with Apple is going to be mostly Mac, iPhone centric.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Kevin:

I I would tell you the easiest way, if you're interested in getting a device that would allow you to leave reviews, you can still see your reviews, right? Because you can still log into Apple Podcast Connect.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Kevin:

Yeah. You can still log into Apple Podcasts Connect. You can see your reviews there. But if you want to leave them for other people, the easiest way to get into the Apple ecosystem is probably to look on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist or something and buy a used iPad. So used iPads, they start pretty cheap to begin with. A general iPad is like $399. And you can probably pick them up used for, you know, probably under $200. One that's one or two years old. And that would probably be the cheapest way to get an Apple device that would let you create an Apple ID and log in and do stuff that way.

Jordan:

Yeah. So Susie also says, also, what am I missing is someone without an iPhone? I use Pocket Cast and love it, but over half of my listeners are from Apple Podcasts. So I'd like to not forget about those listeners.

Kevin:

So what are you missing? I well, I don't think you're missing anything. You can you can see the ratings and reviews. I guess if you're missing something, it would be your ability to contribute to those ratings and reviews for other podcasts. Like you could probably do it for your own podcast one time, but that's probably not what you're talking about. You're talking about is there something special or unique that happens in Apple Podcasts when you're on Apple iPhone? And it's really just being able to leave ratings and reviews for other podcasts. So if that's something that's really important to you, you might want to grab an iPad and jump in. But if that's something that you're willing to go without, Apple team has done a great job of creating a web player. So if you want to use that as your podcast player on your Android device, you can do that now. But if you're happy with sticking with PocketCasts, that's fine too.

Alban:

We got another message from Matt in California, who wrote us uh just sending in fan mail to thank you guys for the advice you gave on my listener survey question about the call to action. Uh, we simplified, we're honest with our listeners about the initial lukewarm response rate and got more traction. Appreciate having an easy way to connect and hearing you talk about it on show makes me want to keep writing in and connecting more. Those messages really do keep us going and make our days. Matt, thank you so much. I love that you're kind of hitting it from both sides. Telling your listeners, hey, the listener response, we didn't get many responses. We'd love more. We'd love to hear from you in fan mail. And also you hearing us talk about your stuff makes you want to write into us more. Uh, love that it's working both ways. So keep up the great work. We appreciate it.

Jordan:

There's really something so powerful about just being honest and being like, you know what? No one writes in. No one said anything. And then they jump in. David in Toronto, we're continuing this theme of connection and love a fan mail. Uh, hey guys, listening to your episode about connection right now. So I thought I would really walk the walk and text you that I listen often. I produce a podcast called Math Therapy, and we moved to Buzzsprout a few years ago, and I've incorporated many of your tips, including the fan mail recently. We've had a handful come in, and even the small numbers helpful motivation beyond the download numbers, which are easy to obsess over. Yes. As I think about it, your podcast makes me like using Buzzsprout even more because it's good to know that the team is on top of developments in the industry and always working to make the platform better and thinking deeply about it from many perspectives. So keep podcasting and thanks for helping me do so. Man, I'm gonna print that and put it up on my wall. That's a great message.

Alban:

Print it and put it in Kevin's uh annual review. Kevin's the one who's writing up all these pitches and leading the product. So, Kevin, that's uh that fan mail's for you, baby.

Kevin:

Yeah, it's wonderful to hear. Matthew from Girl Dad Nation wrote in the currency of connection. What a great episode title, and I loved it. Thank you, Matt. That is uh praise straight for Jordan. She came up with that. It was wonderful. Uh, he says, I've not gained any financial supporters yet, but through my podcast, I have strengthened my skills, gained friends, and unlocked opportunities never before possible. And these are the things that keep me podcasting.

Alban:

That's great to hear. Uh, Jordan, I noticed when you put all this fan mail together, two things you left off because I was so excited when they came in. And those are some fan mail about the Buzzboost stingers. Were you editing our fan mail? I don't know if this got censored, Jordan. I don't know if this is getting censored.

Jordan:

It didn't get censored. If you scroll all the way down to the very, very bottom of the outline, they're there. I've got two of them, and they're kind of like smushed together. I was hoping they wouldn't get noticed.

Kevin:

We're reading them right now. Uh I know it's a federal offense to tamper with the mail. I do think, yeah, to tamper with the fan mail.

Alban:

It absolutely carries through to fan mail. Devin from Kingdom and Amelia Podcast. I agree. Bring back the buzzboost stings.

Jordan:

At two, Devin.

Alban:

Jeez.

Jordan:

Oh no.

Kevin:

What is that? What is playing right now? Alban hit a weird button on the RODECaster.

Jordan:

I thought it was like an evil laugh.

Alban:

I thought I had a buzzboost loaded up, so I just hit my RODECaster, but because I reset my Buzzcaster, it just turned me into monster voice.

Jordan:

See, this is what this is karma. This is what happened.

Alban:

Oh, this is this is even more. And also Jonathan Marsh from Afterlight Fictions. I fully support bringing back the BuzzBoost sound effects, especially the one said boosty boosty or something like that. Kevin, you gotta hit us some of those buzzboosts.

Kevin:

You know what time it is.

Jordan:

It's time for buzzboost. Boosty boosty. Boost.

Kevin:

Buzz Buzz Boost.

Alban:

These are great. Well, thank you to everybody who wrote in. We appreciate it.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Alban:

Jordan, what what's our next big episode about?

Jordan:

Our next big episode, we're gonna be talking about choosing the correct monetization strategy for your podcast. So that's like being intentional about like if you're thinking about making money from your podcast, if you just want to support your hobby, just making sure that you're not spreading yourself too thin and monetizing a certain way just because other podcasters are doing that. We want to make sure that you are doing it in a very smart, strategic way that's gonna make sense for you. So if you have any questions about podcast monetization, or if you are trying to think about how to monetize your podcast and you're just needing some ideas, tap the Texas Show link in the show notes. Tell us about your podcast. Tell us some things that you're thinking about doing. Tell us about your audience size or how much time you have to spend on podcast monetization. And maybe we can help you brainstorm some ideas in the next episode. So I'm really excited about it.

Alban:

I am too. It was a great blog post. Uh, you did a great job, you and Megan. And I can't wait to go through it on the podcast.

Jordan:

Absolutely. Until next time, thanks for listening and keep podcasting.

Alban:

Is it boring to talk about the weather on a podcast?

Jordan:

Absolutely not.

Alban:

I mean, there's entire podcasts are about the weather, Kevin. I think we can make it good. Let's see where we go.

Kevin:

Well, I I was just wanted to ask you here's the tie-in is that it is now officially sweater weather here in Florida. Jordan, I don't know if you know this, but we hit the low 70s. It's terrible.

Jordan:

Wow.

Kevin:

Yeah. So it's chili.

Jordan:

Uh-huh.

Kevin:

And my wife happened to be out of town, and because it's chili and I had to cook for us all weekend on Friday, I decided to make a monster pot of chili.

Jordan:

Well, yeah, as you do. Right.

unknown:

Yeah.

Alban:

As one does. I also made chili after Kevin sent me photos of him making chili.

Jordan:

You know what's funny? I actually made chili this weekend too.

unknown:

Did you? I did.

Kevin:

Oh, this is working out even better than I expected. Yeah. So Alban and I had a work meeting set for three o'clock on Friday, and I realized that after work, I have all the stuff to do and I gotta you know run kids around and all this kind of stuff, and I'm also responsible for dinner. So I asked Alban if we could move the meeting, and then I decided, you know, not move the meeting. I'm just gonna do the meeting in the kitchen while I'm cooking the chili. So Alban and I were meeting while I'm cooking chili on FaceTime. And then you told me yesterday, Alban, that that inspired you to create your own chili. So I wanted to ask you how did the chili come out?

Alban:

Chili went really well. You know what I really love is cooking with Chat GPT. So I'm throwing in like, here's the recipe I Already use, but like what could I do to make this better? And ChatGPT gives like pretty good. I I crank it all the way up to like take 15 minutes to think about this pro level. And it comes up with like interesting ideas. And what I mean, it got stuff. It was like you put a little bit, like one bar of dark chocolate into this giant bowl to add a little bit, you know, kind of like that savory flavor.

Jordan:

Really?

Kevin:

Oh yeah. My dad used to do that. He always put chocolate in there. ChatGPT must have found his hidden blog. Yeah, it was uh it was good.

Jordan:

When we're making chili, what are our like secret ingredients? Like this is what you have to have in your chili. Because I know people are very particular about their chilies. I personally never make red chili, I only make white chili.

Kevin:

I love white bean chili. Is that what you're talking about? White bean chick, like white bean chicken chili.

Jordan:

Yeah, like it and it has to have it's always shallots, and it's always the fire roasted, scorched green chilies. Ooh, yeah. That sounds great. Yeah, and then I um shred rotisserie chicken for it.

Kevin:

Yeah.

Jordan:

And it is delish.

Kevin:

I would love that. I can only make one style of chili, and that's it's all from memory. Like Alban was a witness to this. I really don't like measuring stuff. I just like throwing it all in the pot. It always comes out good.

Jordan:

I've never had a You measure with your heart. Yeah.

Kevin:

Yeah, I've never had a bad batch. Alban was texting me, like the one thing that was really helpful is I definitely would not have put in enough chili powder unless Alban had told me how much I needed. So that was good. Because I'm just, I don't know, I'm pretty conservative with the spices because I'm like, I gotta get it hot and taste it, and then I can add more of whatever. Yeah. But I never want to go too heavy.

Jordan:

You can't take away.

Kevin:

Can't take away.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Kevin:

But yeah, I don't have a recipe. It's just all from I I just start with the lean ground beef and the hot Italian sausage and then start throwing in from there.

Alban:

Yeah, uh, same, but I was born in Texas, but I don't believe in Texas chili where it's just meat. I don't I I love beans in there. Yeah. You gotta have beans.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Alban:

So the one I made, two pounds of meat and five cans of different beans and a couple different types of tomatoes. So you have like crushed tomatoes, and then I had some fire roasted tomatoes and a little bit of tomato paste. So good. Yep. And tons of vegetables, and like four times as much garlic as any recipe would ever recommend. I I think that this is across all recipes. Garlic is way, way they're like, oh, maybe put like one little piece of garlic in there if you can find it. And I'm like, put a whole head of garlic in. What? I don't know why we're skimping on garlic. It's so good. It's good for you. It tastes amazing. What's what's the problem?

Jordan:

I think sometimes, like, this is a really good point. Like, it's it's really good to not always follow recipes exactly. Like, you have to measure with your heart and your head a little bit. When we volunteered at the Ronald McDonald house, Alban and I were in the kitchen and we were cooking up some Merry Me chicken. And the recipe called for five tablespoons of crushed red pepper flakes. Yes. Five tablespoons in the sauce. And I was like, absolutely not. I did half of a tablespoon, and like that was spicy enough. Especially like we're serving this to kids.

Alban:

Yeah, it was everything felt like they were like, put like one teaspoon of salt and one teaspoon of oregano. It was small amounts, and there was like five tablespoons of crushed red pepper. And Jordan's like, that is a bad idea for kids. Like, that's just gonna make it unedible.

Jordan:

Yeah, I wouldn't eat that much.

Alban:

But we did we doubled the we doubled the garlic too. Yeah, we went and we found more garlic and we put it in there. And then we found an onion and we cut that up real well and we threw that in on top.

Jordan:

So you know what? And I bet it was the best batch of Merry Main Chicken they ever had.

Alban:

If you're listening to this from the Ronald McDonald house in Tampa, Florida, and you ate that meal right into fan mail.

Jordan:

Let's know how good a cook Salvin and I are.

Kevin:

I like it. It makes me think that next time we get together for a meetup, we need to have like a chili cook-off or something like that. I love a chili cook-off. That'd be great. Wouldn't that be fun?

Jordan:

Yes.

Alban:

The best part is that you're eating a bunch of different chilies. Yeah. What's down what's the downside there?

Jordan:

I think the downside is all of us sitting in a quiet conference room the next day in meetings. Like after a chili cook-off. We have to do that like the final day or something. We can't do it day one.

Kevin:

Well, I like it.

Alban:

I definitely want to try y'all's chili.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Alban:

I I think Kevin, for your 49th birthday, we should all bring a bunch of like you should just tell all your friends like, hey, come, we're playing pickleball, we're getting together. No gifts, but bring a giant pot of chili. Yes, like the office where uh Kevin Kevin from the office brings in the monster like 10 gallon bucket and then dumps it on the floor.

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Alban Brooke

Host
Head Shot

Jordan Blair

Host
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Kevin Finn

Host

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