Whether taking a quick walk, diving into an ambitious cooking project or driving in the car, people are listening to podcasts in more places. We redesigned Google Podcasts with this in mind, making it easier to discover and listen to podcasts wherever people are listening. 

Today we’re introducing Google Podcasts Manager, a new tool to help podcasters gain insight into the evolving habits of podcast listeners so they can better understand their audiences and reach them across Google products.

Podcasts Manager also provides anonymized device analytics that show what percentage of your audience listens on phones, tablets, desktop computers and smart speakers. This data can help podcasters better understand and respond to changing listening behavior. For example, you might discover that the majority of your listeners access your show on a smart speaker. This might mean you add shorter form content for listening on-the-go, or develop more family-friendly options for consumption in an open space.

We’ll continue to build on these features to help audio publishers grow sustainable businesses, connect with listeners and create podcasts people love.

Online content and media consumption behaviors are continuously evolving. If you'd like to optimize your online business and help improve your AdSense performance, it's important to follow and adapt to the trends. We'd like to provide some resources to help you successfully navigate in an ever-changing digital environment.

Adapt your content to changing trends

It’s important to understand what’s top of mind for the people you’re aiming to reach in order to make your content interesting and useful to wide audiences. Below are some tools you can use to optimize your content:

Use Google Trends to analyze the popularity of top search queries in Google Search across regions and languages. If you need help with understanding, using and visualizing the data better, you can get Google Trends lessons.  

Stay on top of market trends in a dynamic environment and reflect it on your content to keep it up to date. While doing so, please be mindful of our content policies.

Use Question Hub to create richer content by leveraging unanswered questions online. Review these questions to get inspired and create deeper, more comprehensive content.

Track how your content performs 

Get to know your audience and how they engage with your site through Google Analytics. The earlier you spot changes in your user behavior, the quicker you can address them. You can review the below reports to get the insights: 

• Realtime Content Insights to identify the most popular articles amongst your audience
• Behavior Reports to understand the overall page and content performance of your site
• Acquisition Reports to review the shift in your site traffic and traffic sources. If you see unusual spikes from certain sources, you might want to monitor them. 
• AdSense Overview to see your revenue information once you link your AdSense account to Analytics. 

As an addition to your current content strategy, experiment with different content formats such as video or infographics and track the engagement on your site. If you see an improvement, you can double down on those content formats. Diversifying your content could help you expand your audience, and also improve the engagement of your current ones. 

Optimize your revenue stream

When your content is ready, appealing and easy to reach, you can optimize your AdSense account to maximize your revenue from the content you created. We know that creating content takes time, so we’d like to remind you of some solutions that you can use to get the most out of your content.

You may consider using Auto ads to help you increase your ads revenue. Auto ads are optimized to deliver better performing ads, so that you can spend more time creating the content your audience is searching for. As they work through any AdSense ad code, you can start using Auto ads byturning them on in your account. 

As time spent on mobile increases, it becomes even more important to have a mobile-friendly site with goodpage speed. This will help people to access your content without problems. Make sure your ad units are responsive in order to provide a positive ad experience regardless of which device people use to visit your site. 

Lastly, make sure that your site complies with the AdSense Program policies so that your business can grow sustainably. 

We’re here to support you through the AdSense forums, email and troubleshooters. Learn more about the support options available. 

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted lives around the world. In addition to the lives lost to the virus, as many communities enter the second and third month under stay-at-home orders, there is a rising mental health toll, too. In a national survey released by the American Psychiatric Association in March, 36 percent of respondents said that COVID-19 was seriously impacting their mental health; 48 percent were anxious about getting infected; and 57 percent reported concern that COVID-19 will seriously impact their finances.

As a trained psychiatrist, I know firsthand the importance of bringing out into the open the issue of mental health. While it might be years between the first onset of symptoms and someone seeking help, the internet is often the first place people turn to find out more about mental disorders. To help address the emerging mental health crisis we’re sharing “Be Kind to Your Mind," which includes resources on mental wellbeing from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Whenever people in the U.S. search for information about coping with the pandemic, or on COVID-19 and mental health, we’ll show a public service announcement with tips to cope with stress during COVID-19. To raise awareness of the importance of mental wellbeing during these times, we'll highlight these resources on Google's homepage tomorrow.

With May being Mental Health Awareness Month, we want to highlight a few other resources and tools across Google and YouTube that promote mental wellbeing.

Self-assessment questionnaires for depression and PTSD

When people search on Google for information about mental health conditions we provide panels with information from authoritative sources like Mayo Clinic that detail symptoms, treatments, and provide an overview of the different types of specialists who can help. On the info panels for depression and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), we provide direct access to clinically-validated self-assessment questionnaires that ask some of the same types of questions a mental health professional might ask. Based on a person’s answers, these self-assessment tools provide information on risk, along with links to more resources. Results to these questionnaires are not logged. We hope they can provide insight and help people have a more informed conversation with their doctor. We will add more self-assessment  questionnaires over time to cover more conditions.

Self-care content on YouTube

Over the last few months, YouTube has seen a 35 percent increase in views of meditation videos, and growing popularity of mindfulness and wellbeing content. YouTube is making videos like these and other mental health resources more widely available to anyone around the world, for free, by spotlighting channels and playlists that have wellbeing and mindfulness-focused content. Countless YouTube creators, like Dr. Mike and Kati Morton, educate their communities as they help reduce the stigma associated with mental health. YouTube is also launching relevant YouTube Originals, including a “BookTube” episode featuring top authors like Melinda Gates and Elizabeth Gilbert offering their best book recommendations.

Finding virtual care options, quickly

Because of stay-at-home orders and restrictions that limit in-person interactions, many mental health care providers (including therapists and psychiatrists) are now providing telehealth care, like conducting therapy sessions over video conference. To make these options easier to find, we now allow providers to highlight their virtual care services on their Google Business Profile. So now, when you search for a mental health provider in products like Search and Maps, you may see an “Online care” link that can take you to their virtual care page, or even schedule a virtual appointment.

While the stigma around mental health has lessened in recent years, many people still find it hard to reach out to get help. By providing access to mental health resources, services and information across our products, we hope to make it easier for people to seek help and receive proper care.