98: How to Get Your Show Ranked on the Podcast Charts, with Luis Diaz

Hey, Kevin here. So I am still out on a cruise in the middle of the ocean and I decided that I wanted to take a little break from creating new episodes of Grow the Show. And so I spent some time digging into the Grow the Show archives and thinking back to the episodes of this podcast that I have recommended the most to listeners who are trying to grow and monetize their podcast. So basically what are the episodes that have been the most valuable and have stuck out as the ones that are worth listening to? This is one of those episodes and it's with my friend Louis Diaz. Funnily enough, as you'll learn in the intro, Louis is a friend of mine here in Miami where I live and we actually played briefly in a kickball league together before I got injured and couldn't finish out the season. But more than that, Louis has spent the past few years methodically studying and demystifying an incredibly mysterious podcasting topic. And that topic is the rankings. So you know, when podcasters say my show is a top 100 show or my show is number five on the Apple entrepreneurship charts, that stuff. Louis has become an expert on how to get ranked in the different apps charts and how to use that ranking to your advantage. So if you want to take the mystery out of podcast rankings, then you've got to stick around to this episode. I'll be back next week with a brand new one, but until then enjoy this episode of Grow the Show with Louis Diaz. What would it mean for you to be able to say that you have a top 100 podcast, meaning that your podcast has cracked the top 100 charts on Apple or chartable? What would that do for you? What might it open up? What should you do if and when that happens? And better, how can you make it happen? In about 45 minutes, you're going to know the answer to those questions. Now, I've been asked by several of the 250 plus clients in the Grow the Show Accelerator program about podcast rankings, and I'm going to be honest, I've never really paid attention to the charts. And I've never worried about trying to get on them. I've always said, yeah, I don't worry about that because I've always assumed that it was impossible for us independent podcasters to hit the charts because we're competing with the likes of Joe Rogan, NPR, barstool, I heart radio, BBC, and all the other massive massive companies with millions of dollars in marketing budget. But then just two months ago, this podcast Grow the Show hit the top 100 charts for entrepreneurship, and it's been hanging out there for a while. And I was like, what, what does this mean? What should I do? Because if I could hit the charts as an independent podcaster without even realizing it, there's probably a way to make it happen faster and with more intention, right? I'd better find that out so I can share it with you. And that's exactly what I'm about to do. It turns out that podcast rankings are pretty scientific and there are tried and true methods you can use to tip them in your favor. And I know this now thanks to today's podcast guest, Lewis Diaz. Lewis is the founder of top 10 podcasts and podcast domination. His company consists of marketers, producers, and strategists who help their clients launch a podcast and land on the podcast charts within 30 days. I met Lewis when I came across one of his Instagram ads. I checked out his stuff and I was like, whoa, this guy knows what he's doing. He reached out to have me on his show to which, of course, I responded, yes, and you got to come on mine. It was perfect timing. It was a blast getting to know each other. And now we're actually teammates on the same kickball team here in Miami, where we both live. How's that for co-opitation? Anyway, as I got to know Lewis, I was instantly blown away by how much he has studied how podcasts are ranked on different platforms. I mean, his whole company is centered around this stuff. That's why Lewis is today's guest on Grow the Show. He has a totally unique take on podcast marketing and podcast ranking that has played a part in the launch and charting of tons of successful shows. And whether or not you've already launched, you're going to be able to use what he's about to share. And you'll be able to say that you are a top 100 podcaster. This is Grow the Show. My name is Kevin Schmidland, and my mission is to help you the independent podcaster to grow your audience and monetize now so that you can have a thriving podcast business. Today, we are going to learn all about the top 100 charts, about how you can hit those top 100 charts, and how being a top 100 podcaster is an opportunity that you can leverage to even bigger and better opportunities in the future. So if you want to learn about why your podcast rank can be an asset to your show, what you can do to improve your rank, and how you can hit the top 100 charts, then stick around for this episode of Grow the Show. My name is Lewis Diaz, and I am the founder of Top 10 Podcasts. While Lewis has built a successful company around helping podcasts rank, he didn't really care about rankings at first. In fact, Lewis' story as a podcaster starts off with failure. I had just come off of a failed podcast at that time. So I was coming off of a podcast that I did for 14 episodes, kind of failed, realized that the production process was way too hard for me as a personal trainer. Spending four or five, six hours per episode, doing the show notes, the editing, the posting, the promotion, the clips, the graphics on Canva, you name it. That was doing everything. Adding four to five hours per week, plus doing a job, plus trying to start its online personal training business, which I was doing at the time, was way, way, way too much. And asked the ab guy came along because I quit that podcast the previous one. And I was like, how can I make this simple? And I took the question from Tim Ferris. And he asked, you know, what would this look like if it were easy, or if it were simple, he phrases it. And that question kind of held me start that podcast, asked the ab guy, because I was like, OK, well, if this was easy, I would answer one question that my audience has. That's really, really high value. And I would answer it as best I could, four to five, maybe 10 minutes. And then I'd get off. And there would be no post editing. There'd be very little show notes. There'd be a little promotion. It'd be mostly SEO and kind of search driven. And that's what I did to start. And I literally started sitting on the floor in my grandfather's house in England with a laptop and a mic like this. And looking at research, like looking at subreddits in Google and like Google searches for search traffic, looking at like, you know, what are guys looking for when it comes to more questions they have around burning fat, weight loss, et cetera, et cetera. So that's how that started. There were two big distinctions that made the second show way more successful than the first one. Number one, I was doing it strictly focus on the listener and you know, strictly focus on what questions were they already asking like I wasn't trying to recreate the wheel. I was trying to put out content that was going to be immediately valuable, immediately useful. It's going to cast person's eye who's looking for the stuff already. And I was putting it out three times a week at its peak. So I was doing Monday, Wednesday, Friday show. So I increased the volume, dropped my edit time and dropped in like the complexity of the episodes and made them very, very search driven and very, very focused on the listener what they were already were asking. So those are two big distinctions and that show went from zero to 19,000 downloads a month in a matter of, I won't say seven or eight months. So Lewis had his own successful podcast, but he wasn't really monetizing much. That is until he took a risk and he attended a mastermind event. Nine events are big ticket retreats where groups of people with different high level skill sets within the same field meet and work together to help each other level up. So I spent like five grand for like a three day retreat. There's literally seven other people in the room with me. It was in Tampa, Florida and it's like me, this broke, you know, just out of college kid and like everyone else in the room is doing like seven or eight figures. And there's me and a friend of mine. They were both broke at the time or like everyone else is like has these massive, massive businesses. One of the guys there had a podcast that was dead. It was like sunset, but it was really popular when it was running. So I went up to him and I said, Hey, I'll run your podcast for free. If you mentor me or train me or work with me in some, some capacity, this was a really successful fitness influencer guy. And he's like, yeah, sure, cool. So I took his show and I ran did everything for it like all the editing production, finally I just did all the reach out to the marketing for it. We took that show from dead basically, he was getting 33,000 downloads. So it wasn't a small show by any means, but it was dead sitting there to over 110,000 downloads. And that was my first client, free client and other people in the industry started to do that. And I started to actually reach out via DMs and say other influencers and say, Hey, I helped so and so would love to start your podcast too on Instagram. This turned into a full time job. Today Lewis has a seven finger agency with 140 plus shows and over 14 million downloads total. Plus, he's written a book and tons of other good stuff. But among all that, one of his specialties is helping podcasts get on the charts. But before we can get into how you can get your podcasts on the charts, let's talk about why you should want to do that in the first place. Things can be important if you're maybe looking to get a sponsor. You absolutely don't need to get a sponsor, but it definitely helps. I've also seen people were like, they're trying to get a book deal, having a rank podcast, probably something your editor is going to look at. Are they getting traction downloads and do they have exposure already? So I think goes back to the goal. It can be important, Brandon. I have clients who never ranked and they don't care about ranking whatsoever as well. I've found the majority of people though want to get ranked. It's helpful for getting visibility. You can put it on your website. You can put it on other assets that you have, your email list, your Instagram bio, that you are a top ranked podcaster and that helps credibility authority. Just like, I compare it to getting New York Times bestseller list or Amazon bestseller list, you are now an Amazon bestseller. You are now a top ranked podcaster. That helps with credibility and factor. Now, can we say it's going to help us make more money all the time? Absolutely not. There's no guaranteed that I find it's just like getting PR media, how you work it and how you use it is what's more important. Got it. So it's more of a marketing credibility play than it's not like you get ranked tomorrow and suddenly the sponsors are knocking down your door and giving you money. Yeah. So I am a nerd when it comes to the charts and studying it. I've been up at middle of the night studying charts and trends and literally you find someone on the charts. I'll do this. This is a great exercise for people. I think this is helpful. Go to the charts here at chartable.com and find somebody who's new on the charts. They'll say new to the left of their show and you can go and click on that person's show and then you can go and find their social media, their website, their email list. You can go basically reverse engineer exactly how they got on the charts and that's what I actually do with my team and that's what we look at doing. So we find people on the charts and we say, okay, well let's look back two weeks ago. What were they doing on social? What were they doing on their email list? What were they doing on their podcast? Did they get on other shows? So I like to actually just be a student and reverse engineer exactly how they did it by just going and finding podcasts and then looking at their social media and website, email history. And then they'll tell me like, oh, this person did a contest. This person got on six other shows. This person did a blog post or did a cross promo with somebody else, you know, before this. And I forget your, forget me Kevin, I forgot your original question. But I think that was kind of like, that's something I do regularly. That's a little hack for people if you want to figure out how to get ranked. Look at what other people are doing on the charts. So getting your podcast ranked isn't necessarily going to automatically make you a six figure entrepreneur. But what it will do is add a credibility such that when you pitch yourself to potential advertisers, it's going to look good. Rankings also add credibility when you promote your show to potential listeners. It's a tough pill to swallow. But if I were to see a show promoted that has a ranking, I'm probably more likely to click on it than if it didn't have one. This is because the ranking shows me that other people love the show and knowing that other people love the show is almost like insurance that I'm picking a great show, right? And advertisers love that because the ranking signify that you have loyal listeners and an ability to get even more listeners. So how do you actually go about having a show that hits the charts? Well, it depends on the platform. There are tons of platforms so we can't go through all of them. But we'll talk about the biggest one and the factors that are most commonly used. Also with Apple podcasts because that's the way when we focus on that's the biggest player in the space. So from what I know, this is like, no one knows the algorithm for sure. You can't say this is like black and white because they're always changing it and it may change tomorrow. So we don't know as of right now for what I've seen every single time I do this and we launch shows, it seems like Apple, if what I've read online, other mother experts, Apple is looking for what you've done in the last 72 hours. So they're really focused on down, like not so much downloads, but the number of followers. So Apple has that new thing in their back end where you can log in and see how many actual subscribers also known as followers that you can see that you've gotten. So they're looking at the change in your follower count in the last 72 hours. They're looking at the listen time of those episodes, like how much consumption has each episode had, are people listening to 50% of the episode, 100%, what does that look like? And then to a lesser extent from what I've seen, because I've done like add tests and like test a different advertising campaigns and it's if move my rankings up and down, they're looking at downloads to a lesser extent from what I've found. The main two that move the needle from what I've seen and experience are listen time on your episodes and the change in the number of subscribers you've gotten in the last 72 hours roughly. Wow. That's the biggest thing. I'm both surprised and thrilled to hear that they go by listen time, and not just downloads. Yeah. That's what it seems like. And case in point, we had a client launched the number 24 in the charts a couple months ago. I want to say, and this person was a really big influencer. He had a really strong tribe. He didn't get a lot of downloads. I want to say he had about three or four of downloads, you know, his first three days. His listen time was through the roof, because he had a really loyal audience. The people who knew him loved him. And you could tell that those people when he looked at the stats and in Apple, the consumption rate was really, really high. And he got so high and he stayed there. And I was like, well, there's only one factor that we're using there. That's because the downloads aren't high. The subscribers weren't very high, but the listen time was crazy. And there's a way you can get people to stay longer to your episodes, of course, right? So you can also just game in by having shorter episodes. Exactly. I like that people will listen to the whole thing, right? Exactly. That's a tactic you can use. This makes a lot of sense. While Grotha Show has been consistently growing, we haven't had many random, huge spikes in our download numbers. However, we've recently been going way up in the chartable rankings. According to what Lewis just said, this is probably because we've started to release shorter, quick hit episodes. Because these episodes are 10 minutes long instead of 20, 30, 40, 50 minutes long, they have super high retention rates. More people listen to the entire episode because it's shorter and because it's more focused. But not everybody can have 10 minute long episodes. So what can you do to better set up your podcast for success when it comes to ranking on the charts? It turns out you can start even before you launch your show. Two weeks out before the podcast is launched, I want the client or the person to start dripping questions on social media. Maybe even longer if they have the bandwidth. But two weeks out, generally, start asking questions on Instagram stories, hey, who are some of your favorite podcasters? What are some topics that have never been covered on podcasts? So I want them to start poking and probing their audience to warm them up that, hey, a podcast is coming on on whatever channels they're active on. So if they're on email, they have an email list and Instagram, we're going to tackle those two channels a couple of times a week, two or three times a week. And I've found you have to kind of pull your audience on when they listen to podcasts. So if you don't know, like, let's just say, if you're targeting stay-at-home moms, they may have more time on Saturday than they do on Tuesday. So launching your podcast on Saturday makes more sense for that audience. If you're targeting middle-aged millennials who drive to work 30 minutes into the city, then you probably want to catch someone on their commute. So you have to know when it comes to launching, like when to launch your podcast, when does your audience listen to shows? Comes down to some of that, a little bit more of that research that you're doing in the beginning, when you're asking your audience those questions, you absolutely should be doing TDE. You absolutely should be in on your comments and just engaging with people all day, all day, regularly, you know, and building that reciprocity with people. So I think men, like the clients that we have that follow TDE and the clients that do that are the ones that get the most engagement. Even I see more, for me, I see more engagement with my podcasts when I start to engage with our client group. You know, they start losing the podcast, they start like, oh, like, are you doing this though? So like, yeah, even though it's just a matter of making the effort though. Now while Lewis is an expert at launching shows on the charts, all of this stuff is stuff that you can do, even if you have a show that's already launched, you can and should be asking your listeners questions about what they love, about the podcast they listen to, and what they want to hear from your show. And of course, TDE, targeted daily engagement, is something that you can do at any time during your podcast journey. Listen to episode eight of Grow the Show to learn more about TDE if that's new to you. Now there's something we haven't told you yet. There is a bit of a shortcut that can actually help your podcast get ranked faster. But before you do the shortcut that Lewis is about to share, you really need to make sure that you're doing all the other stuff first. The other stuff is foundational, and it's going to help you grow an amazing podcast. So after you've made it a part of your routine to regularly engage with your audience, and even before that, to have a really specific idea of who your audience is, you can do this to give yourself a boost in the rankings. Some kind of incentivize, give away or contests. Those for me, those words are used interchangeably, like, you need to give away contests pretty much the same thing. And some people hearing this will probably think this is gimmicky, but I think it's about how you use it and what you're doing specifically, like, the devils and the details. So for me, we've tested this on existing shows where we've had people literally take our, like, what we tell them, and then they go and do a contest with their audience, and they'll shoot up the ranking as like a hundred spots, like, it's insane. Whoa. Will you stay there? No. Like, because again, it's me looking at a 72 hour range, looking at it. So if you can continually do these, and I tell people, like, do the contest once quarter, or do it for, like, certain holidays, like, example, we have shows that are rammed by some really, really powerful women. So like, and their mothers, so like, Mother's Day is like a great time to do a contest. Or any other holidays that makes sense for your audience. So the contests and giveaways, those are the biggest thing. They also allow you to give you a chance to build your email list, which you know as a business owner, that's super important. So the contests are huge. What I found that really makes them really, really pop off is if you have a contest where you can bring in a partner. For example, you have a podcast around podcasting. It would be smart for you to do a contest where you're giving away, let's just say, you know, a Riverside or two or three Riverside licenses, and then you have Riverside promote your contest to their audience, because you guys have the same audiences, right? Some audiences, you're giving something away for free as theirs. So they obviously want to get more of their product and more people's hands. So it makes sense for them to share on their social and you share it on your social. And that's what I found. And doing that with multiple companies, it's huge. It'll help you grow and find new audiences really, really fast. Yeah. Incredible. And you start some relationships that become sponsors down the line, Bingo. Is there any other like, oh, you should probably know this for a podcast or is listening to this? And they're like, okay, I'm going to do that next week. So there's two ways I run contests. Number one is one email focused giveaway where we have a landing page and we say, hey, number one, go to the landing page, enter your name and email. Number two, go and subscribe to the podcast because we're going to be letting, announcing the winners on the podcast. And then number three, share this. Take a screenshot of your review or see our screenshot of the podcast and share this on social media on your Instagram stories. Those are generally the three things. Those can change here and there a little bit, being on the platform. If you're big on Facebook and whatnot, or maybe LinkedIn. But those are generally the three ways to run like three steps for a email landing page focused giveaway. The other one is like, let's just say you have an influencer who is, they don't have an email list, but their audience is mainly on social media. We've had clients do this too, where it's like, hey, number one, you'll drop like an Instagram post for this, go and subscribe to the podcast, take a screenshot and then share it on your stories and then comment on the posts. That's the third thing. Comment on this post to say you've done it. And that's like strictly social media focused. If you have an influencer who has no email list and they don't want to mess around with a landing page and they're like, hey, I just want to post it where my audience is at and then get them to go to the podcast. So those are kind of the two general ways we run in contests, depending on the person. Because I got to remember like if I'm trying to like, all my audiences over here on Instagram, why would I try to get them to give me their email? Yeah. It's kind of a new thing and most millennials are younger, younger crowd. They don't care for email. Yeah. So it's going to be catered to the clients and the, we'll be audiences. Now there are some pitfalls that Lewis says he commonly sees when podcasters have on guests who are running contests. Anything or it's not valuable like free coaching calls. Like if you are not getting a ton of coaching calls and people knocking down your door to get on the call with you already, it's probably not going to work. So giving something of actual value has to be in place. If the offer is not good, people are not going to take the time to subscribe and share and do the other things you ask them. So you have to, from a conscious perspective, I wanted to go run this next week. I have to figure out what's the alignment? Like what can I give away that's free or that's high value to my audience that's going to get them to stop and do the things I ask them to do? If that's not in place, the whole thing will not work. So with the figure, I'll do some thinking and some diving into like what exactly is going to make my audience really, really excited about sharing my podcast and listening to it all the way to the end. Well, right now you're thinking, but Kevin Lewis, how can I even get guests who have stuff to give away on to my podcast? Well, it might seem like a really difficult thing to do, but it turns out it's not. All you have to do is a little bit of research beforehand. I think it's about timing. So if they have a book coming out, maybe you get some of their books and give it over free. Maybe they have a charity they support. Maybe they have really affected by the whole rush of Ukraine war and like they want to talk about that and you say, like I'm super passionate about that too, would love to have you on talk about that and that's their yes. So, you know, the deal comes from the timing, you had to look at the timing of the interview, which can get hairy. Don't get me wrong. Like the six time, but I look at like it could be your, you just ask them like straight up like, hey, can you promote this episode totally okay if not, but like I just want to know if you're going to help promote the deal could literally just be Kevin getting them to verbally commit or just check a box on your intake form that says happy to promote the show if you send me the assets. I could be it, but it's got to be some kind of agreement that like you're going to help me share this thing if that's what you want to. It could be buying books, it could be supporting a charity, it could be promoting their, their next album or whatever it is they have coming out on the podcast the next couple of episodes. So the deal can be anything it does not have to be monetary, you can get creative with this. Remember, your podcast is a platform. So if maybe they have some coming out and say, hey, if you promote this, I'll make sure I share about your upcoming book to my email list, you know, when it comes out, they're like, oh, I mean, that'd be super helpful. Thank you. I'll definitely promote this podcast episode. Yeah. So the deal is whatever you think it is, whatever is going to be most valuable to them. Like when I reached out to that guy about starting is working with this podcast when it was dead and dormant, that was the deal. I just thought of on the spot, I'm like, it's not cost me time, but not money. And you know, I can definitely deliver. So that is how you can strategize to get yourself ranked on the podcast platforms. Get to know your audience really well. What do they listen to? What kind of questions do they have? Do they commute? When do they listen to podcasts? Are they morning people? Or do they listen to podcasts after dinner walks? Stuff like that. And the way that you find that out is by engaging with your current audience and your target audience. Actually ask them questions. Don't assume. Then think about when to release your show based on the answer to these questions. You need to participate and engage with your clients on social media. And when you've nailed the basics and have a dedicated audience base entice them by running a contest where they can give something away. Lewis has done this multiple times with multiple shows. And if you do it, it's going to work. Speaking though of the fact that Lewis has worked on multiple shows, I wanted to know having helped so many podcasters launch successful shows. What are the different traits and leading indicators that Lewis sees in podcasters who have the best chance of being successful? Somebody who, when they're on the podcast, they're like, you can just tell when you listen to them. They're very conversational. They're very relaxed. I find there's people who have that naturally, like they are, get on the mic and they're happy to share and lay out content. Sometimes they need a little structuring, which is fine. It comes with time. That will typically tell me to get an indicator that that person's going to be really comfortable sharing content, being consistent and doing this regularly. The one that's not is someone who's kind of like, they have a hard time coming with content. And that's okay. I have that too. But you have to figure out ways to overcome that. So someone who's shy or maybe not, they're maybe not like, natural content creators, I think, which is a skill you can develop it. But I find people who generally have that skill coming in are going to be much more successful. And these are all things you can learn. But it's like, either if you don't have it, you got to learn it, being good at sharing content, being good at creating content, having a structure to your episodes, that's for one thing I think is an indicator early on. And the other one's a great idea. Like, is your idea really fun and cool? Like, if someone tells you, hey, Kevin, my show is about XYZ. Do you either say, ah, that's cool or do you say, ah, I've never thought about that. I've never heard about anyone saying anything like that, right? So I think those two things are my big indicators and it comes to a show. There's a lot of more tactical things like the name of the podcast, the artwork, that kind of stuff. But the two bigger indicators off the bat is idea, is your idea exciting and like, make people kind of really think, you know, the concept, the people. And then are you good at sharing content and like it to where you're going to be able to do this regularly without having issues? Really at the end of the day, if you want to make sure that you have the markers of a good podcast, you have to step back and ask yourself, this, how can we make this unique and different? And I mean, huge listener of this show, grow the show podcast, so I am one of your audience members. I think you do a good job. Kevin of really teaching this and laying this out in a really formulaic way that people can grasp and get a lot of value from. So there you have it at the end of the day, having a top 100 podcast isn't going to make a break your show at all. And not having a ranking has nothing to do with whether or not you're a great podcaster. But being ranked can be a really helpful tool when it comes to growing your show. So it's worth giving it a try in order to do that, you have to get to know your listeners really well. You have to strategize about when you release your show and of course, you need to engage with your listeners as much as possible. And once you do that, you can start to plan engagement boosting campaigns like contests and giveaways. If you do all of this, then who knows? Maybe the next time I'm checking the charts, I'll be scrolling past your podcast's name. Now if you enjoyed hearing from Lewis here today, you're going to love his podcast, which is called How to Get Your First 100K Podcast Listeners. His most recent episode actually features me and in that episode, I actually share some tactics and stories that I haven't shared yet on this feed before about podcast growth and about how the production process that we have here at Grow the Show works. So if you're interested in that, the link to check out that episode is in the show notes. This episode of Grow the Show was written and produced by myself and Catherine Nails with post-production by Jeremy Bishop and of course, a very, very special thanks to Lewis Diaz. Before Grow the Show, my name is Kevin Schmidland, I'll see you next time.