Podcast SEO: How To Optimize Your Podcast To Rank On Google?
What is podcast SEO and why does it matter for all beginner podcasters? Let’s fill in the gap between search engine optimization and podcasting to turn strangers into your listeners!
By Niall Mackay
You got 3 random letters attached to one another that can help your show appear quicker on search?! WHAT IS THIS? MAGIC?!
No, it is better than that.
You don’t have to be born with magical powers to do this, you just have to have some logical thinking and you’re good to go.
Podcast SEO is still new in the podcasters community and I’m here to fill in this gap between SEO and podcasting.
Little did you know that these small tweaks can help your podcast show rank higher on search engines and turn random visitors into your listeners. Let’s dive into what podcast SEO is and how to do justice for your podcast show whether or not you have a website.
What is Podcast SEO?
What is podcast SEO exactly? Let’s break this down. SEO stands for search engine optimization. Search engines, such as Google, help users get the most relevant search result for a given keyword. Podcast SEO then refers to a subcategory of SEO where you can rank your podcast show on the search result page.
Here is an example of high ranking podcasts for the term “SEO podcasts”
Now Google also ranks audio on its search result pages which makes podcasts even more searchable! It wasn’t always this way.
Partially podcast networks started because podcasts weren’t searchable up until 2019.
Therefore podcast SEO is still considered a new feature so let’s leverage this quicker than your competition.
Why is Podcast SEO Important?
Are you still having doubts about podcast SEO? Perhaps, you find this too techy and hard to deal with but podcast SEO has a ton of benefits that your show can leverage!
1.Podcast SEO helps search engines show your podcast show on search results
Even though podcasting is booming, it wasn’t always the case because it wasn’t searchable on the web. Now that search engines like Google ranks audios, if your podcast show is shown on the first page, your listenership will skyrocket!
2. Podcast SEO helps users instantly understand what your show is about
To optimize your podcast show for better search results, you will have to be straightforward and include the most concise description on your show notes, podcast description, and episode titles. As a result, identify your podcast niche as soon as anyone lands on your page.
You can think of it this way: Google is a robot. It does not understand language as humans do but it can relate terms to each other. The more repetition and correlation it “sees” or crawls through the better it understands your show’s content.
If you can make a robot understand what the show is about, then humans have a dead easy time catching up on your podcast. – And since the human attention span is limited to a few seconds on the internet, the quicker you convince, the better you are.
3. Podcast SEO keeps your podcast planning on track
To execute a proper podcast SEO for your podcast show, you have to learn basic keyword research and build each episode around each keyword topic.
Once you found a handful or even dozens of keywords that are related to your podcast show, planning an episode will be a lot easier because you know what to talk about.
How To Do Podcast SEO?
Let’s get into the juicy details on how to actually execute podcast SEO and help your podcast gain more clarity and traffic on the internet.
First, to optimize your podcast show for Google, we have to distinguish between two major situations – whether you have a website or not.
Podcast SEO When You Have A Website
If you have a website already set up, GREAT! Having an existing website is the best for podcast SEO practices and also takes the most of your time.
When you have a website you should have a dedicated web page per episode and either rewrite the episodes as an SEO optimized blog post or create a full episode overview page and include the following things:
- Show name
- Show notes that have all the relevant links mentioned in the episode
- Your own call-to-action
- Video or Audio link of the podcast episode
- Episode Summary
- Key points learned from the episode
- Short information about the guest (if any)
Write SEO Optimized Blog Posts For Podcasts
Another great way to boost traffic to your website is to turn your podcast audio episodes into skimmable blog posts.
Use the center theme of your episode as the main keyword and the content of the conversation to write a cohesive blog article.
As a result, you have well-written content on your website and also links back to your podcast show, which then helps both website and podcast SEO.
Does this sound confusing? Let me break this down for you.
Suppose your podcast show is about pets and you got an episode where you’ve invited a guest to talk about training dogs.
Your podcast episode probably lasted for at least 30 minutes, talking about the background of the guest and the importance of training dogs when they are puppies.
To rank this piece of audio file on your website, you have to turn this audio conversation into a blog post like a regular blogger. – You’ll need a title, introduction, subheadings, and a powerful call-to-action.
Podcast SEO When You Don’t Have A Website
For those folks who haven’t set up a website yet, do not worry. Generally, if you don’t have a website, you can still optimize your podcast for SEO in the episode title, show notes, and podcast description. Follow these simple tips to get the best out of podcast SEO.
Optimize Podcast Episode Titles
Generally, an optimized SEO title does not exceed 60 characters. Therefore, drop the season numbers and episode numbers – they take away precious character space.
Instead, create a meaningful title that can create curiosity and of course, includes the main keyword of your show.
For example, instead of writing this:
S9E12: John Pupp’s Story of a Dog Trainer
An SEO optimized title would be something like:
How to Train Puppies: John Pupp Professional Dog Trainer #12
Put all the relevant keywords in the podcast show notes
You don’t have to be Shakespeare to write good podcast show notes. The purpose of a podcast note is to provide an easily skimmable and simple description of your episode, so the reader can decide whether they want to tune in to your show or not.
This being said write simple sentences with the most relevant keywords. Don’t feel hesitant to use bullet points, as a listener we never expect large paragraphs – that’s for school books!
Consider shorter episodes
When you are trying to rank for better search results, consider cutting your episodes shorter. If you did 50-60-minute episodes, try to break down those 60 minutes into 3 separate informative pieces of audio content.
The main reason why short and concise is a great way to boost podcast SEO is that those short content can be linked to each other. Therefore search engines understand the main podcast niche you’re in.
At the end of the day, search engines like linked content and they don’t always have to be thousand words or hour-long audio.
Plus, when you create 15-minute episodes, they’re probably concise enough to answer one key problem. From an SEO perspective, if you answer a search query faster, the better your show rank, and listeners have an easy time tuning in “just for 15 minutes” rather than listening to hour-long audio.
Start Podcast SEO Today
Take advantage of podcast SEO with these tips! After three years of podcasting, I realized that these small tweaks can accumulate to huge wins and made my podcasting journey a lot clearer.
If you are a small business and getting started with your podcasting journey or podcasting website, make sure you book a free consultation with me and guide you through this process.
