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Imagine you’re looking for a hilarious comedy podcast. You go to the comedy category on Apple Podcasts, click play on the first podcast you see, then suddenly you’re listening to a crime podcast... You wouldn’t be too happy would you! That’s why Apple Podcast categories are ESSENTIAL!

New Apple Podcast Categories

Apple Podcasts have updated their categories list, meaning some mentioned here have been retired in favour of new ones. Keep updated with the latest categories below.

3 (Apple Podcast Categories) Is the Magic Number

In Apple Podcasts, you can categorise your podcast under a grand total of 3 categories. Within each parent Apple Podcast categories you can give it a child category, which is just another way for you to get discovered by more people. It’s important that you get these categories right or else you won’t be targeting the right people.

Think you're funny do you?

Every Category You Should Know

Choosing the right categories for your podcast can be the booster you need to getting discovered and growing your audience. Obviously, there are a lot more categories than the ones listed below, but these are the most popular:

Arts 🎨

  • Design
  • Fashion and beauty
  • Food
  • Literature
  • Performing Arts
  • Visual Arts

Business 💼

  • Business news
  • Careers
  • Investing
  • Management and marketing
  • Shopping

Comedy 🤣

Education 👨🏽‍🎓

  • Educational technology
  • Higher education
  • K-12
  • Language courses
  • Training

Games and Hobbies 🎮

  • Automotive
  • Aviation
  • Hobbies
  • Other Games
  • Video games

Government and Organisations 🏛

  • Local
  • National
  • Non-profit
  • Regional

Health 🏥

  • Alternative health
  • Fitness and nutrition
  • Self-help
  • Sexuality
  • Kids and Family

Music 🎧

News and Politics 📰

Religion and Spirituality 👼🏻

  • Buddhism
  • Christianity
  • Hinduism
  • Islam
  • Judaism
  • Other
  • Spirituality

Science and Medicine 👩🏾‍🔬

  • Medicine
  • Natural sciences
  • Social sciences

Society and Culture 🗺

  • History
  • Personal journals
  • Philosophy
  • Places and Travel

Sports and Recreation ⚽️

  • Amateur
  • College and high school
  • Outdoor
  • Professional
  • TV and Film

Technology 📱

  • Gadgets
  • Podcasting
  • Software how-to
  • Tech news
Fun fact: The most popular categories on Apple Podcasts are christianity, music, and comedy!

Including Multiple Categories in Your RSS Feed

If you’re planning on embedding your podcast on your website, then it’s essential to get it right! To add an Apple Podcasts category with two subcategories to your RSS feed, it would need to look something like this:

<Apple Podcasts:category text="Education">
<Apple Podcasts:category text="Language courses" />
<Apple Podcasts:category text="Training" />
</Apple Podcasts:category>

If you’re unsure how RSS feeds work and need a refresher, then check this out.

It's Not All About Apple Podcast Categories

Although categorising your podcast is a pretty big deal, it’s not the only thing that matters. You need to make sure your downloads, rankings and reviews are optimised for the intrinsic SEO that exists within Apple Podcasts.

Not that many people choose podcasts through browsing Apple Podcasts categories, it’s more common they use the search function. For example, searching for “Comedy Podcast” will bring up shows like The Ricky Gervais Podcast, My Dad Wrote a Porno, and so on. That means your podcast name and episode titles need to be on point otherwise you’ll be going nowhere fast.

Choosing the Perfect Category 

Take into consideration the content of your podcast when choosing a category, your target audience, and what your message is. Your primary category should be the one that most suits your podcast and your sub-categories should be about the more specific content. Your podcast can be removed from Apple Podcasts if you use the wrong category so get it right!

When all is said and done, choosing the best Apple Podcast categories for your show doesn’t mean you’ll hit the big time. It doesn’t matter if they’re super popular or really niche. Instead, being discoverable is the most important thing you can do to grow your podcast.

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