Podcast branding
The metadata you set on Podcast → Settings is what every directory — Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music — uses to index your show. Some of it (cover art, category) is hard-rule territory and a directory will reject your submission outright if you get it wrong. Walk through the fields once, set them well, and you'll rarely touch them again.
Cover art
Apple's rules are the strictest. Match them and you're safe on every other directory too:
| Rule | Value |
|---|---|
| Format | JPEG or PNG (RGB; no CMYK) |
| Dimensions | Square — between 1400×1400 and 3000×3000 pixels |
| Size | Under 500 KB recommended; 1 MB hard cap |
| Bleed | Keep important elements 10% from each edge — Apple crops a rounded square |
GCM resizes your upload for in-app display but uploads the original to the RSS feed. Don't pre-shrink to 512×512 just because the in-app preview is small — Apple needs the full-size version.
Design for the icon size
Most listeners see your art at the size of a thumbnail on a phone home screen — about 60×60 pixels. Your logo and church name need to be legible at that size. Test by zooming the preview to 5% and squinting.
Category and subcategory
Apple's taxonomy is the canonical one. For a church podcast you'll almost always want:
- Religion & Spirituality
- Subcategory: Christianity (the most common), Spirituality, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, or Religion
Spotify and YouTube Music read the same <itunes:category> tag, so you only set it in one place.
Language
Pick the primary language of your episodes. The RSS spec uses two-letter ISO codes — en, es, fr, pt, ko, zh. If you preach bilingually, set the language to whichever one most episodes are in; per-episode language overrides come from the episode title and description.
The language tag affects:
- Which regional storefront your show appears in by default.
- Which app default-language users see your show in directory search.
- Auto-transcription quality on platforms that offer it (Spotify, YouTube Music).
Explicit flag
A boolean per-show and per-episode. Set the show-level flag to No unless you're confident every episode is clean. If a single episode contains explicit content, override it at the episode level instead — that's a smaller blast radius.
Most church podcasts are clean, but watch out for:
- Quoting song lyrics with strong language.
- Counseling sermons that discuss sexual or violent content frankly.
- Guest interviews where the guest may swear.
When in doubt, flag the episode. Apple is unforgiving with shows that hide explicit content.
Hosting names
Three fields most directories surface visibly:
| Field | What it is | Where it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Title | Your podcast name | Top of the show page |
| Author | Usually your church name | Below the title; in search results |
| Owner email | Contact for the directory, not for listeners | Hidden — only Apple uses it for ownership verification |
The owner email is private (it doesn't appear in the public RSS or on your show page), but if you ever need to claim your show on Apple Podcasts Connect, you'll log in with that address. Make sure it's a mailbox someone at the church actually monitors.
Show description
400-1500 characters. The first sentence is what shows up next to the cover art in search results — it earns the click. The rest fills the show page.
Write it for someone who has never heard of your church. Include where you are, the kind of teaching they'll get, and the cadence ("new sermon every Sunday").
Description vs episode show notes
The description is about the show. Episode show notes are about one episode. Both are formatted with the rich-text editor in GCM and rendered into the RSS feed as HTML.
See Publishing an episode for the per-episode show notes flow.
Next steps
- Publish an episode — actually shipping a sermon.
- RSS and directories — submitting your feed to Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music.
- Set up your podcast — the initial configuration flow.
- Website builder — embedding the podcast on your public site.