How to Increase Podcast Downloads: 10 Effective Tips

While starting a podcast might seem like a simple task, improving its performance is quite a different story. After launching your podcast, you should now consider promoting it. Along with building your audience, you might as well be wondering how to increase the number of your podcast downloads, which can be quite challenging. It is a key metric for any podcast which shows how interested your listeners are and how they interact with a particular episode of the podcast or the show as a whole.

More podcast downloads mean a more engaged audience since people typically only subscribe to podcasts they access regularly. This increases a podcast's value to sponsors and advertisers and can increase a host's monetization chances eventually. It's also important to remember that downloads are not the same as listens and plays. Listeners can choose to stream an episode rather than download it; therefore, their involvement would only count toward total listens and not the total number of downloads. So, to get a fuller picture of your performance, it's crucial to track both metrics for your podcast.

This post might be helpful to you if recent downloads of your podcast have been continuously falling. We've picked some strategies that can help increase podcast downloads and improve engagement.

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1. Maintain High Quality of Audio

Though this might sound like a basic tip, it's quite essential. Before publishing, create a review process ensuring the perfect quality of your audio; detect unwanted sounds, long pauses, or abrupt transitions. To catch any issues you may have omitted, ask someone else to listen to the entire episode before posting it. Otherwise, if the quality of production fails, even your loyal listeners will leave your podcast.

2. Create a Catchy Title with Search-Ability

Each episode should have a title, and you need to keep it clever. Think of something that will attract the reader, provide them with any information to help them decide to listen and download the episode. Let there be a connection between the title and the content that you are going to present. The title should also help search engines categorize your page, incorporate SEO keywords so that the title helps your website rank higher.

3. Design an Impressive Cover

Having an appealing cover that stands out is essential when your show lines up against thousands of others. The cover of your podcast is the first thing potential new listeners will see when they come across your show. First impressions matter, so it's important to make an impression with a simple, eye-catching design that works on both stamp sizes and the largest desktops.

4. Get Popular Guests

Invite famous guests and set a subtle expectation that they can also help promote the episode. Choosing people that have engaged audiences on social platforms is a great way to achieve success for your episodes. Ask them to promote the episode to their followers. If your guests don't know what to share, provide them with copies, images, audio, and videos to share.

5. Submit to Various Directories

You can increase your downloads by making your show available everywhere possible. Once you've created your podcast inside your media host of choice, you can then submit it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other popular spots, where your audience will be able to discover, subscribe to and download it.

6. Create more episodes

Another simple way to boost the number of podcast downloads is to publish more content. More episodes imply that you can get more downloads from the same number of subscribers. Publishing more content also gives another opportunity: with each new episode, you engage your current fans and attract new listeners. New episodes also have more SEO value for your website.

7. Get Good Ratings and Reviews

The more reviews you collect for your show, the more people will believe that listening to your podcast is worth their time. So, asking your audience to rate and review your podcast is a long-term strategy to get more downloads that you shouldn't ignore. Remind listeners in every episode that they can support your show by rating you and leaving a review.

8. Announce New Episodes via Email

Building an email list of your subscribers and sending them new updates of your podcast is a massive opportunity for your podcast downloads to grow. When you email them regularly, you stay on top of their inbox, which can remind them to listen to the upcoming episode. You can also share extra info like links to your social media, your website, as well as your other work, like your blog or another podcast.

9. Tease Your Audience with The Upcoming Episode

Create some buzz around your next episodes by hinting at them in advance, especially if you're confident about the upcoming content or have good reason to believe your fans will like it. For example, if you're going to interview a guest your listeners asked for, you could definitely tease them to ensure your audience downloads it.

Giving your listeners a little taste of key moments of your show is another way to increase your podcast downloads. Share short soundbites consisting of insights, interesting questions, and much more that will ignite their interest. You could also post some profound quotes and short video clips to your social media profiles, as well as email these to your subscribers.