If you have a podcast, you probably want to boost its visibility and organically start growing your audience! Want to know the secret? Podcast SEO is a really powerful strategy to achieve all of those goals.
When it comes to growing your audience, podcast SEO helps you reach new listeners and generate incredible results.
If you aren’t familiar with SEO, that’s okay! SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s all about helping search engines like Google find your content and share it with the right users.
However, there are lots of other search engines that use SEO, like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. These platforms, in addition to Google, are places you should implement podcast SEO strategies! You’ll need to optimize your content so that people searching for it can find it.
When we’re discussing podcast SEO, there are two areas to focus on: optimizing the podcast itself and individual episodes. Each of those areas matter in helping people find your podcast!
Google Podcasts has updated technology that ‘listens’ to your podcast episodes and identifies what they’re about. If you search for a specific podcast, you won’t just find the website, but also a list of episodes you can play.
These changes make it possible for you to reach more listeners than ever before. It also makes podcast SEO even more important to implement.
Related: 4 Amazing SEO Benefits of Podcast Guesting
First, let’s discuss ways to focus on podcast SEO for your actual podcast (versus specific episodes). This helps people looking for podcasts on a particular topic find your podcast!
You need to select a main, overarching topic keyword for your podcast as a whole. To do this, think about what someone might search for to discover your podcast.
The more saturated your niche is, the more specific you should get when choosing a topic keyword. For example, instead of “fitness,” try “exercise tips for moms.”
When you’re just getting started, you can focus on podcast SEO right off the bat. Your title should be creative, fun, and engaging. But it should also make it super clear what the topic of your podcast is.
This is an opportunity to add your keyword and boost your chances of being found in searches. If you already have a podcast with a creative title, you can always add a subtitle that clarifies your topic!
Your podcast description provides an opportunity to add details and context for search engines. Podcast SEO mainly relies on your description in podcast platform searches. Platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts use your description to help people find your podcast.
That’s why you should make sure to use your chosen keyword in your description at least once. You should also utilize tags!
These strategies will help people discover your podcast more easily.
If you don’t already, make sure to create a website for your podcast. Although that’s a good idea anyway, it’s essential for website SEO, too!
Having a website helps you grow your audience in many ways, like creating an email list. It also improves your podcast SEO. It’s so much easier for Google and other search engines to index your podcast when you create website content related to your niche.
Another excellent podcast SEO strategy is to convert your podcast episode transcriptions into blog posts. Then, link back to the actual episode (or embed the episode itself).
Blogging not only boosts your authority within your niche but also helps Google identify what your podcast is about. There are lots of easy tools to help you do this without a ton of extra effort!
Once your actual podcast is optimized, it’s time to focus on maximizing your efforts. Make sure to optimize individual episodes. Here are some of the best strategies to do just that!
Podcast SEO relies a lot on keywords. Especially since Google will include individual episodes in search results, you need to choose and include specific keywords intentionally.
Choose one focus keyword for each episode you create. Then, make sure to choose different keywords for each episode.
If you do targeted keyword research, you can find effective keywords with high search volume and low competition.
Podcast SEO helps you reach more people!
Remember how important it is to optimize the title and description of your actual podcast? Do the same thing for every episode!
Make sure to add your keyword phrase into the title.
Be as descriptive and straightforward as possible to give interested audiences a better understanding of what you’ll discuss.
When you add your keyword to the episode description, try to include it as close to the beginning as possible. This means people will see it right away and know that your episode is worth listening to!
If you’re ready to implement podcast SEO, make sure actually to say your keyword throughout each episode you record.
On the other hand, avoid keyword stuffing—the practice of adding the keyword as many times as possible.
Adding synonyms and variations of the main keyword is also an effective strategy.
If you haven’t already, add your podcast to Google Podcasts!
This is one of the easiest ways to improve your podcast SEO.
Your episodes will show up as actual audio snippets and Google search results. Plus, you’ll be able to monitor your podcast rankings.
Although social media isn’t often thought of as directly tied to SEO, it is linked!
Your social media engagement boosts your search engine rankings. Here’s how:
The more your social media audience engages with your podcast, the more reputable your podcast becomes in the eyes of search engines. Since all search engines prioritize reputable sources, this is an easy (and unexpected) way to boost podcast SEO!
Podcast SEO doesn’t have to be overwhelming. But it is incredibly impactful for helping more people discover your podcast!
When you leverage podcast SEO, you’ll start to rank on search engines and podcast platforms alike. These actionable, easy tips will help you get started and maximize your podcast’s reach.
If you need assistance with SEO for your podcast, contact me here and we’ll schedule a consult call!
Welcome! My name is Glenneth and I live in beautiful East Tennessee. I wear many hats: CEO of The Visibility Method, SEO & Google Ads Expert, content creator, and more. I love technology, social media, and weight lifting. My favorite place to hang out is the hammock in my backyard. My favorite colors are pink and orange. My favorite team is the Vols. And I LOVE to get email so please drop me a note and say hi!
