In order for your podcast to appear on places like Apple Podcasts or Spotify, a podcast is required to go through a submission process. This is done by Anchor’s automatic distribution, but you can also submit your podcast on your own!
Before submitting your podcast manually to podcast directories, make sure to have your Anchor RSS feed on hand!
Before you submit
Before you self-submit, make sure your email address is set to public in your RSS feed! The publicly displayed email address will be how apps confirm your identity and send correspondence to you about the submission. If you do not wish to have your email public, you can opt into Anchor’s automatic distribution and we’ll use a proxy email in your RSS feed.
- Click 'Settings' in the top right of your Dashboard, and select 'Distribution'
- Under Distribution (and next to your RSS Feed), you can toggle on or off 'Display personal email address publicly in RSS feed'
- Remember to click 'Save' to update this change to your RSS feed
- After approximately 10 minutes, you can check your RSS feed to confirm this change
Avoid duplicate listings
To avoid duplicate listings, make sure that you’ve opted out of Anchor’s automatic distribution. You can do this by selecting “I’ll do this myself (advanced)” at the distribution step of your podcast setup. If you’re not sure if you’ve opted out, you can contact our Support Team to check your distribution status.
Now, on to distributing your podcast!
Distribute to Apple Podcasts
You'll have to submit your Anchor RSS feed directly to Podcasts Connect for your podcast to be approved on Apple Podcasts. Just follow these instructions on your desktop!
- Sign in to https://podcastsconnect.com using your Apple ID info
- Click the '+' in the upper left corner to add a feed
- In the URL box, paste in your Anchor RSS feed (which can always be found under 'Distribution' in your Distribution page on the web)
- Click 'Validate'
- If your feed validates, just click 'Submit'
- Note that your podcast appears as "Submitted for review" - it may take about 5 business for your podcast to update to "Active," but this usually happens much sooner!
*Note: After validating, if you're given an error message you may have to fix some things before you'll be able to resubmit. The error message provided by Apple Podcasts will let you know exactly what needs to be fixed! You can make those edits right from your Anchor account and then follow these steps again to submit the updated feed.
If you don't have an Apple ID, you'll have to create & validate a new account before being able to submit your podcast to Podcasts Connect.
Once your show is approved
Once you've received the link for your show on Apple Podcasts, just put it right into the "Available listening platforms" section so your listeners will know they can subscribe to your show! Navigate to your Distribution page and paste your link into the corresponding Apple Podcasts field.
Still having trouble?
If you have questions about the state of your podcast, you can always contact Apple's Podcast Support team right through the Podcasts Connect portal. For example, if your podcast is rejected you'll want to utilize this resource to help troubleshoot.
- Click "Resources & Help" in the top left dropdown menu
- Click Podcasts
- Scroll all the way down to "Contact Us" on the bottom right
- On the next page, you'll have the option to select a topic and fill in additional info
Best practices on Apple Podcasts
Here are some tips to make sure your podcast is approved by Apple Podcasts:
- Avoid keyword stuffing in your podcast name (any information that describes your podcast should be included in the description)!
- Make sure you have uploaded original artwork
- Fill out all podcast fields with original content (podcast name, podcast description, episode titles)
- Don't include "test" content
...and for more information, check out these guidelines on 'Content requirements' provided by Apple Podcasts.
Distribute to Spotify
To submit your podcast to Spotify, you can head over to their Podcasters Portal and submit your Anchor RSS feed. Follow these steps below to make sure you’re properly submitted!:
- Head to https://podcasters.spotify.com/, click `Get Started`
- Create a Spotify account if you don’t already have one or log into your already existing Spotify account
- Once you’re logged in, head to the bottom right of the screen and click `Add your podcast`
- Copy and paste your Anchor RSS feed into the text field
- From there, you’ll be able to fill in extra details surrounding your podcast details
- Once you’re done, `Submit` your podcast!
- If you run into any issues here, you will want to reach out to podcasters-support@spotify.com
Distributing to Stitcher
To submit your podcast to Stitcher visit https://partners.stitcher.com/join.
- Click "Join Us Today" and paste your Anchor RSS feed into the box that appears
- Confirm that the email address they display is one you have access to
- Click "Got It" and this will send an activation email to your email address
- Click the link in the email to approve your listing
- Once your listing has been approved allow about an hour for your listing to become active on the platform
Distribute to Amazon Music
Anchor does not partner with Amazon for distribution, but you’re certainly welcome to self-submit! To distribute your podcast to Amazon Music, visit this portal.
Distributing to other platforms
There are many places that your podcast can be distributed to in order to get listeners far and wide. For podcasts that are not listed above, we recommend reaching out to the platform itself to get your podcast heard there.
*Note: There are several platforms that automatically “scrape” your Apple Podcasts listing and use that to submit your podcast automatically to their platform, so you may see your podcast on certain places already!