5 Ways to Get Your First 1,000 Podcast Downloads in 2026

Congratulations, you've launched your podcast, and now the easy part. You sit back and you wait for the downloads to roll in, right? Launching a podcast is like Field of Dreams, right? Where if you build it, they will come. Wrong. You need a plan for growing your podcast. So, in today's video, I'm going to tell you how to get those first thousand downloads of your podcast. Hey, everybody. My name's Joe Casabona. I'm the evangelist and video creator here at rss. com. I've also been podcasting for a very long time, 15 years by my count, and I have been through it all. Launching popular shows, launching shows to crickets, and everything in between. And I've thought about the best ways that you can really build momentum and get those downloads. So, today I'm going to go over five ways where you can get the first thousand downloads of your podcast. Okay, so when you first launch your show, it could kind of feel like the fish that escaped from that dentist in Finding Nemo. They roll into the ocean in those plastic bags, and they're like, "Now what? " Launching your show feels like launching it into a big ocean, where you're not really sure what

to do next. So, I want to give you the plan. The first thing that you should focus on is podcast SEO. SEO stands for search engine optimization, and the reason that you want to do this is because you want people to be able to find your podcast when they are searching for relevant terms related to your podcast. And there are a few places where you can do this. So, here is my podcast on rss. com, and there are a few places here where you can optimize your show to be found using keywords. Like the title, the description, the categories, even the author field. So, my show is called Streamlines Podcaster. I want to rank for terms like save time podcasting and systems for podcasters and automations for podcasters. Those are terms that I determined will rank well because there's not a lot of competition. Most podcasts about podcasting talk about how to launch and grow a podcast. So, I have optimized my title. You can see it's not just called Streamlines Podcaster. It's called Streamlines Podcaster: with systems and automations. If you look at the description, you'll see that I have terms like good podcast systems right in the description, as well as podcast workflow and other terms, better podcast systems, podcast without burnout. If we scroll down to the name field, I also have solopreneur systems coach, right? This is another place where the text in the field will show up in search boxes in Spotify and Apple Podcasts and YouTube and possibly Google. You want to make sure that the terms that people are searching for that are relevant to your show are in your show's text. So, that's kind of the pre-work that you should do before you launch your show, but you can also optimize after you launch your show. You focused a lot on getting the show out the door, and you now have some time to optimize exactly what you're doing with your show and what your show is about and all of the terms that you should be ranking with your show. So, that's podcast SEO. Number two is be everywhere. I've seen a pretty wild strategy from supposed podcast consultants saying that you should only launch to Apple and Spotify for the first month, which is bananas, right? Because that's like saying, "I am only open on Sunday mornings between 6:00 and 8:00 a. m. " So, you want to make sure your podcast is everywhere because not everybody is on Apple and Spotify. There are people who are on YouTube or Pocket Casts or Overcast or a bunch of other podcast apps. So, you want to make sure

that your show is everywhere on day one so that people can listen to it. And again, if we go over to rss. com and you go to the distribution tab, we have guided distribution for every major platform. You can submit your show, we'll do our best to do the submission for you where we can, and when we can't, we will give you step-by-step instructions on how to do it. And if you're on one of our paid plans, you can also convert your audio episodes into video and publish them on YouTube at no additional cost so that you're also on YouTube. So, you want to make sure that your podcast is being distributed everywhere. Be everywhere because you want to make it as easy as possible for people to listen to your show. Number three is tell people about it. Now, this might seem like an obvious one, but I promise you, it's not too many people. You need to email your mailing list, put it on social, create like useful clips, right? Those value clips to show people what your podcast is actually about. Email your friends and family, put it in the footer of your email or the signature of your email. Let people know that your show exists because if you're not telling anybody about it, then it's going to be really hard to find. So, go out there, email your list, tell your friends and family, put it in your email signature, post useful clips to social media, cuz that is how people are going to really find your show. It's going to be the podcast SEO, being everywhere, but also it's going to be a grassroots

campaign where word of mouth for a while. Number four is podcast guesting and podcast swaps. So, you want to find look-alike audiences for your podcast. You want to do podcasts because you know that people listening to a podcast where you're guesting or doing a swap on listen to podcasts. And so, it's really easy for them to then find your show in whatever app they're listening to and subscribe right then and there. So, when you do podcast guesting, you want to reach out to a podcast, let them know you've launched a new show about this, you think it would be very helpful to their audience. You always want to make it so that it is helpful to the person's audience. Don't just talk about how great you are. Don't just say, "Oh, you know, help me. " Tell them the value you will bring to their audience, and make sure they actually do interviews. There's nothing more off-putting to me than someone who pitches me on a show where I don't have interviews because it means that they didn't even remotely try to figure out what the show is about. So, make sure they do interviews. And the other thing that you can try here are podcast swaps. So, you can reach out to similar podcasts, and instead of pitching yourself as a guest, say, "Hey, I was wondering if you'd like to do a trailer swap with me. " Or an episode swap, where you give them an episode to publish on their feed, and they give you an episode to publish on your feed. That might be a little harder when you're just starting out, but it's always worth asking. Now, there are a

few places where you can go to find podcasts to do swaps and be a part of. There's a ton of resources out there, a bunch of communities on Reddit, over at rss. com, we also have a few resources. All of our shows get published to a community directory, but if you are on a paid plan, we also have the RSS space where you can connect with other rss. com users, and we have a whole area for podcast swaps and promotions. So, if you are on a paid rss. com plan, you get access to this community as part of your plan, and you can connect with other podcasters and do swaps or just celebrate the

launch of your show. So, this is another great place where you can go tell people about your show, do podcast swaps, and possibly do podcast guesting, right? We have an interview section, too, where if people are looking for guests or looking to be guests, they can post it right in the community. So, podcast swaps and podcast guesting, you're getting in front of look-alike audiences. I guess something I should mention here is when you do guest on a show, and people say, "Where can they find you? " Mention your podcast. Uh you know, I just launched a podcast that talks about this. You can find it at rss. com/name of show or wherever you listen to podcasts. And finally, ratings and reviews. I know that there's like a stock call to action at the end of every episode where it's like, "Make sure to rate us and review us. " But the truth is, at least with Apple Podcasts, ratings and reviews go into the calculus of how often it's going to show a podcast, where it's going to recommend the podcast, and be on the charts. It also provides social proof to new listeners that the show is worth investing their time in. And if you're

not sure what to say, here's a call to action you can use. "If this helped you, please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcast. It helps get this show in front of new people. " So, again, it provides that social proof, it signals to Apple that people actually want to listen to it, so it could end up on the top 200 chart, and it will place it in recommended areas or people also listen to areas. So, so that's it. Those are the five ways that you can get to 1,000 downloads with your show. Make sure to practice podcast SEO, be everywhere on day one, actually tell people about it, do podcast guesting or podcast swaps, and ask for ratings and reviews in Apple Podcasts. That's it for this video. If you have any questions about how to grow your show, or you want me to go deeper into any of these topics, let me know in a comment below. And if you need to start your podcast, you can do so completely for free over at RSS. com. Thanks so much for watching, and until next time, I'll see you out there.