Getting ranking on iTunes
by Scott Davis
on
Feb 8, 2007 at 3:50:42 pm
I see a lot of people are able to track where their ranking is for their podcast on the various iTunes stores. How does one do this? I see the "Top Podcast" on the front page and that is it.
Re: Getting ranking on iTunes by Jonathan Miller on Feb 8, 2007 at 4:14:49 pm
Just go to the different Category sections of the directory accessible along the left sidebar in iTunes.
For instance, my Everest podcast can be found by going to Podcasts>Society & Culture>More Society & Culture>Places & Travel. Along the right "Top Podcasts" list you'll see it ranked #25.
There is no direct way of tracking in iTunes. It's just a lot of checking and re-checking.
Keep in mind, though, that these aren't being ranked according to how many listeners they have. It's according to how many NEW listeners they have. There's a big difference there.
Re: Getting ranking on iTunes by Ron Lindeboom on Feb 8, 2007 at 5:15:22 pm
In addition to Jon's comments, you can also check how shows are doing in different countries around the world. To do this, go to the Apple iTunes Store base home page. At the bottom is a pulldown menu that lets you set the country. Once you change the country, you can then go into the different categories/sub-categories and see how a particular podcast is doing.
Re: Getting ranking on iTunes by Jonathan Miller on Feb 11, 2007 at 5:49:55 pm
Actually, you can click on "Top Podcasts" at the top of the top 25 list and see an expanded list of 100.
The thing is, this ranking gives you NO idea of the number of subscribers you have. In fact, many of the most watched podcasts don't score withing the top 10 even though they may have several HUNDRED THOUSAND subscribers. It's just that their audiences are stable. They're not getting a lot of new subscribers. It's the number of NEW subscribers that drive these lists on iTunes so it's all very misleading.
The only way of telling how many subscribers you have is to either extrapolate by looking at your server logs or to use a service like Feedburner or what I use, LibSyn. These services do very good job at interpreting all the data they collect and make it all very straightforward.
Re: Getting ranking on iTunes by Jonathan Miller on Feb 13, 2007 at 3:55:13 pm
Hi Scott,
I just checked out your page on the iTunes store (thanks for emailling me the link to your podcast) and can see a few ways to improve your listing to get some more attention. Keep in mind that these are just suggestions as I have no concrete proof that they will actually help. It's just my experience!
1. Improve the picture you use for your podcast. While your host's chest is very cut and impressive, Apple is also interested in a logo. If you can redesign the image to incorporate a logo, you will be better prepared to have your podcast featured on the front page of the directory if they like your content.
2. Expand your Podcast description. This help in two ways. First, Apple likes a nice, detailed description (they explicitly say so) and secondly it just provides more keywords to hit on when people search for podcasts. For instance, you mention "strong core" but don't actually use the term "abs" in your description. You say "Swiss Ball" but not "Fit Ball" as well. Flesh it out and put more keywords in there.
3. Make sure you use keywords in your RSS feed in the channel information, as well as the item information. These can be different and will help with searching. For instance, you can have general keywords in the channel section that describe the series, and specific keywords releated to a certain exercise for the episode in the item section.
4. Get reviewed. This is pretty powerful as I see my ranking go up every time I get a new review.
5. If you want to up your subscriptions in iTunes, promote the fact that the podcast is available in iTunes at the beginning or end of the videos. You have a large following on YouTube, but they may not know they could have the videos on their iPods! (I haven't watched many of the epiosdes to see if you've already done this...)
That should be a good place to start. I hope it helps!
