TPU72 – Podcast SEO – What do you need to know about it?

Did you know that about 20% of new audience to any podcast comes from searches?

Yes, people do search online for podcasts and click over to become new listeners for a podcast.

But how do you rank on search engines?

Podcast SEO is the answer to it and in this episode, we will be discussing more about podcast SEO and what you need to know about it.

Search engines, especially Google is a very important part of everything online.

In fact, everything that we do online primarily starts with a search. The act of searching, today is called Googling.

No wonder, every website, video, and audio wants to be on the first page of Google.

But wait.

Can audio be on the first page of Google?

That is exactly what we will be talking about in this episode.

Let us first start by understanding how search works for audio.

Search engines today have the capability of only searching through written text.

They aren’t capable enough to search through videos and audio.

But search engines like Google still rank videos and recently they have also started ranking audio though not to the same extent as that of videos.

So how do they do it?

It is simple.

They do it by converting video into textual form.

That’s right!

By transcribing the audio in a video using automatic transcription, they have a textual format which they can then rank.

In addition to it, they also look for specific words that the video is optimized for.

How do they know that?

Again it is simple.

They check for specific words that are included in the accompanying texts in these videos – like the video title, the description, the tags, etc.

It is this exact same methodology that search engines follow in podcasting as well.

That explanation should be good to understand how search works.

Before we get into more details about Podcast SEO, let us also understand how can search help rank audio content or, podcasts.

Understanding Search Engine Rankings in Podcasting

Now there are 4 ways in which search engine rankings can help your podcast get found –

Firstly, search engines rank podcast directories on their search results.

Let us take an example of my show – The Podcasting University.

If you search for the name of the show, you will find that the search results show my website as the first one followed by my podcast link from Gaana.

Then you will find the Apple Podcast link and then the audible link.

3 of those links are from podcast directories.

So that’s the first way your podcast can show up on Google search results.

Secondly, your website can show up in search results.

Taking the same example, you will notice that the first search result was my website.

But then there are a few other podcasting-related search terms as well for which I have optimized my website, and for which my website shows up on search results.

Thirdly, Google podcasts show your podcast on the search results page, if your podcast is on Google Podcasts.

There are some very high search podcasting-related terms for which my show – the podcasting university on Google podcasts shows up as the first result.

While we are understanding how the search engine rankings, it is also important to understand another important aspect.

In addition to your podcast being ranked on Google searches, your individual episodes can also get ranked on the search results page on all three fronts – podcast directories, website, and Google Podcasts.

Now, what does that tell us?

It tells us a very important point – It is not only important to optimize our show, but it is also important to optimize every single podcast episode.

At this point, there is another very important thing that you might want to note.

YouTube is going big with Podcasting. In fact, they have already started rolling out a dedicated podcast page.

And YouTube is a search engine in itself where people search with keywords to find content. So it becomes important that –

1. Your podcast is on YouTube
2. You optimize your podcast for relevant YouTube Search terms.

Now let us understand a little more about SEO in general, Podcast SEO in specific and the role keywords play in SEO.

Podcast SEO and How SEO works

SEO or, search engine optimization sounds like rocket science but it isn’t.

In layman’s terms, SEO involves adding signals to your content that make it appear important enough to be ranked on Google by Google.

Now what are these signals and how will Google know about it?

These signals are nothing but texts that appear throughout the content. Google sends a bot to skim through the textual content and when it finds a specific text at important places in the content, it considers that piece of content as something that is relevant to that specific text.

For example, if you write a piece of content, an article about podcasting microphones, and that specific term appears multiple times throughout the article, then Google will know that the article is about podcasting microphones. So when somebody searches for that term, Google will prefer to show those articles in their search results.

So what is SEO or, search engine optimization?

SEO is about 2 things –

1. identifying those specific terms
2. Adding them to the “important places” that I just spoke about

..and that’s it.

That’s the simplest explanation of search engine optimization.

That was specific to textual content.

So how does Podcast SEO work and is it any different?

Absolutely not!

Podcast SEO is exactly the same thing.

The only difference is that we will be attaching a textual piece to our audio/podcast which will then be crawled by the bots.

Podcast SEO follows the exact same principles.

So, the 2 steps in Podcast SEO will be –

1. Finding the right keywords
2. Adding these keywords at those important places, which I will discuss in a few minutes.

Finding the Right Keywords

This is probably the most important and slightly difficult step.

What do you mean by right keywords and how do you find them?

There are 3 things that you need to keep in mind in order to find the right keywords –

1. It should be something that your audience might be searching for
2. It should have a decent search volume, meaning there should be some people who are searching for it.
3. It should have low competition

So how do you find them?

There are a lot of online tools that you can use to find these keywords. One of the simplest, easiest, and also FREE tool is Ubersuggest.

All you need to do is enter a primary keyword in it and it will show you a list of keywords derived from it or, related to it along with the search volume and the competition.

Pick the ones that suit you the most or, meet the above criteria. That’s it!

You can do a simple competition check by going to podcast directories like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc., and also going to Google and searching for that specific keyword.

Check how many podcasts are showing up and how are they using those terms in their show names, episode names, etc.

It will all serve as guidance and will help you in optimizing your podcast for that specific term.

Now that we have understood how Podcast SEO and search engine optimization in general work, let us move on to the next step which is optimizing your show for search engines, which is something we will do in the next step.

Resources recommended in Podcasting

Though podcasting is a low investment, there are some essential tools and resources that you need in order to simplify the many activities and help you succeed.

The resources below are the ones that I use and hence recommend.

Here is the keyword research tool that I spoke about in this episode –

• Ubersuggest

Below are the tools that I recommend for podcasting –

• Acast Podcast hosting – Acast is my recommended podcast host because of multiple reasons. I simply love their support, simplicity, and their monetization feature. You can start for FREE!
• Behringer Audio Interface – You will need an audio interface if you are using an XLR microphone. This is my recommended audio interface.
• Zencastr – Zencastr is the easiest option to record interviews, both audio-only and audio+video. This is a must for an interview podcast.
• Audacity – This is the best and the most feature-rich free audio editing software. It gives you a lot of options while editing your interviews.
• Blue Yeti USB Microphone – My recommended microphone
• Tidycal – My recommended calendar and booking solutions

Thank you for joining in

Thank you for joining me on this episode.

I hope you enjoyed the information that I shared in this episode.

If you did, then you will like the earlier episodes as well. And just so that you do not miss out on the next episode, do subscribe to the show.

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If you are new to podcasting, then you can subscribe to the 10-day e-course on “how to start a podcast”.

And if you have any questions about podcasting, you can drop them in the comments below and I will respond to them here.