Growing the number of audiences has always been one of the most challenging parts of being a podcaster. While you should focus on quality and not on quantity, you need to ensure you connect with your audience so that they’ll continue watching your next podcast episodes.
As more people turn to informative audio content, the demand for podcasts grows. So if you want to be ahead of the competition, you need to understand how to optimize your podcast.
The SEO Podcast at SEOLeverage is a good information resource for various topics on Search Engine Optimization or SEO. In this post, we’ll give you some useful tips in podcast SEO that can help you rank high on search results.
Table of Contents
1. Have a Specific Goal in Mind
What’s your main goal? Are you trying to compete in a non-branded space or optimize for a general show? Does your goal align with search intent?
Your podcast is unlikely to appear for broad queries like “marketing tips” compared to targeted ones like “top digital marketing podcasts.” So make sure every podcast episode you produce is on a specific topic.
Your main goal to ensure your podcast appear on top of search engine result and that they include your brand name and the word podcast. From there, you can expand your targets to things that don’t have your brand, such as “top podcasts for beginners.”
2. Do Keyword Research
Keyword research is an important part of podcast SEO that can help you dig deeper into your show’s broad positioning and messaging. When you decide on a target keyword or phrase for search engines, ask yourself the following questions:
What are people searching for?
Research around podcast topics like “podcasts for businesses” or “digital marketing podcasts.” Knowing what podcasts people are searching for helps you gauge how saturated a particular topic is. Also, include what phrases or questions people usually click on search results when looking for new podcasts.
For what reason are people searching for this?
You should know what your audience is hoping to gain out a new podcast. Uncovering their real intent and goals can help you align your messaging and positioning.
How competitive is the keyword or search phrase?
Keep in mind that the more search volume, the more competitive it is. Even though queries related to your target will likely be low, that’s perfectly fine. Quality over quantity is more important.
Can the content of your podcast episode compete?
While your podcast won’t have a problem competing in a branded space, this is still important if you want to get aggressive and target broader queries. Do some search on SERPs and see if your podcast is a good fit.
For a deeper SEO keyword research analysis, try out these great tools:
- Ahrefs
- Google Keyword Planner
- Google Trends
- Moz
- SEMrush
- SurferSEO
If you’re new to podcasting, your can start by checking out Google’s free tools mentioned above. But if you have a marketing team, they may already be using one or more of the tools mentioned.
3. Get Indexed By Google
When you search for individual podcast episodes on Google, it’s now embedded directly within search results. It’s a small snippet on page one, and you’ll want to optimize your podcasts to make sure they appear here.
First, you have to get your hosted podcast on Google but remember, podcast hosts may not offer this function. Check with your host whether they’ll pass along your RSS feed. By syncing your feed with Google, you’re able to present your show to a bigger crowd and grow your audience.
What the integration does is feed your show to Google search results and other Google platforms. To troubleshoot and verify the process for podcast SEO, visit this page.
4. Have a Dedicated Home for Podcasts
Although many podcast apps allow you to connect with listeners, the real home of your audio content should be on your website. You can add a new category on your blog for podcast episodes or create a new subdomain if you want to have a branded homepage for your shows.
A dedicated home for podcasts helps with SEO link building. Publishing each episode on your website page is a crucial asset in your podcast SEO strategy. Instead of just targeting head terms, these pages let you rank each episode for longtail keywords.
You should optimize these pages like others and include text descriptions or blog posts on each episode. By doing so, you’re producing unique content that search engines can crawl and index. You can also point your internal links to episode pages to boost their organic search.
5. Win Backlinks
Podcasts are a wonderful content format to get yourself high-quality backlinks. Here are some strategies you can apply:
- Appear as a guest on other podcasts.
- Get an expert to act as a guest on your show.
- Be credible and newsworthy by covering the latest developments in your niche.
- Don’t be afraid to offer unique insights that aren’t available elsewhere.
- Promote to leading sites in your niche to make them aware of your audio content and give them a reason to talk about it.
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Are the tips too overwhelming? Well, SEO is a technical topic that needs years of experience before you can truly have a grasp of it. But don’t fret. It all boils down to understanding the goal of your podcast, your audience, and how you can bridge the gap.