Hosting or launching a podcast? Make sure it's almost perfect. Here's why

Your podcast should be as close to perfect as possible before you launch it or release a new episode.

Why? Podnews reports that Apple Podcasts removes podcasts from its directory if they have technical problems, violate rules, or manipulate charts.

Apple Podcasts has removed more than 23,460 podcasts in the past 90 days, says podcast analytics and attribution company Chartable - that’s 260 a day.

Podcast keyword stuffing

Another reason for having your podcast removed by Apple is keyword stuffing in your podcast title, episode title, or other text fields. This is a little bit like keyword stuffing a few years back in blog posts and online articles. Google's algorithm changes responded penalized content with too many keywords. Apple is doing a similar thing with podcasts. Episodes will likely be rejected if you engage in this practice.

Next, if you have no episodes or a broken feed, Apple could remove your production. Check your feed regularly with a feed validator.

Has your show been removed or rejected by Apple?

If your podcast show has been removed by Apple and you know what the problem is, fix it and then resubmit the show through Apple's Podcasts Connect. If you don't know what's behind a removal or rejection, use the apple.discussions.com Producing Podcasts community to post a question.

Why should my show be only "almost perfect", and not perfect?

Your podcast should be almost, but not quite, perfect because if, like me, you're a recovered perfectionist and tend to lean in that direction when diving into a new venture, you'll never, ever get your podcast launched!

Do the best you can and, as a former colleague once said, know when your creation is good enough. Seasoned podcasters say new podcasters will get better with each episode. So, who knows? One day your podcast could be perfect!