GCM Docs

Appearance

Set up your podcast ​

Before you submit the feed to any directory, your podcast needs the same metadata every other podcast has — a name, an author, a description, a cover image, a category, and an email address Apple can reach you at. This page walks through each field on the Website → Podcast tab.

Open the podcast settings ​

From the admin app, go to Website Builder, then click the Podcast tab in the top row.

Podcast settings panel

The page is organized into four cards, top to bottom:

  1. Enable feed — the on/off switch.
  2. Podcast identity — title, author, email, description.
  3. Artwork — the cover image.
  4. Category & settings — Apple category, language, explicit flag.

A fifth card, Feed URL, only appears once you've enabled the feed. We cover it in RSS feed & directories.

Enable the feed ​

The feed is off by default. While it's off, hitting the feed URL returns 404 — Podcast feed not enabled, which means you can configure everything in peace before anyone subscribes.

Flip the switch to on once your identity, artwork, and at least one published audio sermon are ready. Apple will reject a submission to an empty feed, so don't submit before you have an episode published.

WARNING

Turning the feed off after submission doesn't remove you from Apple Podcasts. It just means new episodes stop appearing — the existing episodes stay in listeners' apps until Apple's next polling cycle finds the feed dead. Use the explicit flag or archive a sermon if you need to fix something specific.

Podcast identity ​

Podcast title ​

What appears as the show name in podcast apps. Up to 255 characters but keep it short — most apps truncate around 40 characters in list views.

If you leave this blank, the feed falls back to your organization name. Most churches just use that ("Grace Community Church"), but you can also brand it separately ("Grace Sermons", "The Grace Podcast").

Author ​

The person or organization credited as the show creator. Apple displays this prominently. Most churches put the church name here too; some put the senior pastor's name.

Email ​

The contact email Apple uses to send ownership-verification messages and policy notices. This must be a real address you check — if Apple thinks the email is dead, they can pull your show from search results.

Use a shared inbox (podcast@yourchurch.org, info@yourchurch.org) rather than a personal one. When staff turn over, the show doesn't disappear with them.

Description ​

The "what is this podcast about" paragraph. Up to 4000 characters. Apple shows the first ~150 characters in search results and the full description on the show page.

A good description:

  • Says who the church is and where (city, denomination if relevant).
  • Says what listeners get (Sunday sermons, midweek teaching, guest preachers).
  • Names a few signature series or speakers.

A bad description is just "Sermons from our church." — Apple's search ranking weighs description text heavily, so add the keywords your community would search for.

Category & language ​

Category and subcategory ​

Apple Podcasts uses a fixed taxonomy. For most churches the right choice is:

  • Category: Religion & Spirituality
  • Subcategory: Christianity

But the dropdown has the full Apple list, so if you're a Jewish, Islamic, or interfaith community you can pick the matching subcategory instead.

Language ​

The primary spoken language of the show. Defaults to English. Apple uses this to route your show to the right regional search index — set it correctly or your Spanish-language sermons will be lost in the English-language search results.

Explicit content ​

Off for almost every church. Apple's "explicit" flag is meant for podcasts with strong profanity, graphic content, or adult themes. Sunday sermons shouldn't qualify — leave it off.

Save ​

Hit Save in the bottom right. Settings persist to the app_settings table per organization, so changes are scoped to your church only.

TIP

You can change every one of these fields later. Apple re-reads the feed every few hours and updates the show metadata accordingly. The only thing you can't change after submission is the feed URL itself — that's why we use a stable URL pattern instead of letting you customize it.

Next steps ​