For years, Google has prioritized text, images, and video in search results.

Now, Zack Reneau-Wedeen’s Google Podcasts team is working on bringing more audio content into search results, Google Assistant, and other Google properties, when appropriate.

This is a huge deal.

Organizing All The World’s Audio Information

Google’s new podcast strategy is designed to make audio a first-class citizen, alongside the text, image, and video results you are used to seeing.

“Right now Google is really good at giving you text and video related to your search query. With all the amazing work podcasters are publishing each day, there’s no good reason why audio isn’t a first-class citizen in the same way.

“The way that we’re approaching the problem fits really nicely with Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Podcasters are creating so much useful content. We can help make it more accessible by helping people find it when they need it or when they want it, and working to integrate it seamlessly as you live your life.”

There are a lot major implications of podcasts becoming more prominently featured by Google:

There will be a lot of people who click on a link that answers their search query and begin listening to their first podcast ever.

Podcasts that show up based on people’s search could lead to a broader diversity of shows being discovered and listened to.

Search algorithms have the potential to help podcasters find exactly the type of listener that will love their show.

Why does this matter? For new listeners, the current podcast ecosystem isn’t always as friendly or accessible as it could be. Listening happens predominantly inside dedicated podcast apps, and the process can be loaded with friction. It may seem easy once you get the hang of things, but imagine if you’ve never listened to a podcast. Having to download an app, figure out search inside that app, and subscribe to a show before you can start listening might be a lot to ask.

In short, what Google is doing has the potential to supercharge discovery for you.

“Of course, at some point, a large percentage of these people will want to subscribe to shows, download episodes offline, and keep track of what they’ve listened to. We don’t think this should be a gating factor to getting into podcasts, but we know we need to support these more habitual use cases as well. That’s why those features are already a part of our product, and the option is always there to level up and start using them.”

Search Inside a Podcast

In the future, Zack says podcast metadata could allow individual episodes to appear in Google search results. Not only could your podcast show up when people search specifically for your podcast (already available on Android), but your podcast could also show up when people search for topics or people that your podcast covers, as well as sports, movies, tv shows, or virtually anything else.

“In the longer term, integrating with Search means figuring out what each podcast is about and understanding the content of that podcast. This is something Google has done extremely well for text articles, as well as for images and even more structured data such as maps. We can help with audio, too. It has the potential to help people find the best content for them in that moment, better than they can today.

“For example, it’s a grave understatement to say a lot of people are interested in the Kardashian family. If you search Kris Jenner on Google today, you probably get information about her, as well as articles and videos on the web. This is great, but you’ll likely miss the interview she did on Never Before with Janet Mock, where she talks candidly about parenting and some of her life before she became super famous. Exposing that podcast on a place like Google Search, where over a billion people are searching every day for things that already have great audio content — that is a huge opportunity to grow the podcasting industry and connect people to content they’ll love.”

Kris Jenner & Janet Mock on ‘Never Before with Janet Mock’

All this leads to one massive impact: many people who have never listened to a podcast could encounter them in search results or other Google properties.

Audio discovery through search is game-changer, and could be a catalyst for podcast audience growth, particularly on Android devices. New audiences won’t necessarily be using a dedicated podcast app (at least not at first), they won’t need to choose a show to listen to, and they won’t need to download or subscribe to anything. They can simply tap on an audio story and start listening, without ever even needing to know what a podcast is.

“Podcasts can be interleaved with other types of content that surface in places where billions of people are already browsing and searching. That’s where it starts to be millions and millions of new listeners, when you can start to get people who didn’t even know they were searching for a podcast or didn’t even know what a podcast is, but then become fans. You might be researching Watergate for a school paper and stumble on Slow Burn, or maybe you’re toying with starting a company and you discover Sara Blakely’s amazing story of Spanx. This understanding of content, plus connecting people to it at the right moment, is where our team thinks we could go from helping double the industry to potentially helping multiply it by three or four or ten times.”

This is a HUGE deal.

Support For Multiple Business Models

Surfacing podcasts in new ways also opens up new ways to support podcasters.

Zack’s team is conscious that the podcasting industry is still growing and that there are a lot of different players relying on and experimenting with different business models. Advertising will likely remain the most prevalent strategy, but Google’s podcasts team is working to avoid a one-size-fits-all solution, so publishers can customize their user experience on Google to match their business model.

For example, a “Donate” option appears alongside some NPR and Radiotopia podcasts when playing an episode through Google Search on Android. In the future, you could imagine seeing more features integrated, such as Subscribe with Google. Zack says they are committed to working with publishers as new business models arise.