Posted by I enjoy reading!
I could spend hours reading books, blogs, articles, etc. and still won’t bore myself but, there are billions of books and very little time. So, I committed myself to listen to audiobooks and podcasts (not that strong commitment, I still read books).
This transition to consuming content through podcasts has made me an avid listener and I am just one of the 144 Million Americans who listen to podcasts regularly. For marketers, this is a thriving opportunity that can produce impressive results because 54% of these consider buying the product advertised in the podcast.
In this post, you’ll learn EXACTLY how to get started with Podcast SEO and stand out from the 750,000 active podcast channels.
Before we start
Does Google include podcasts in the SERPs?
Yes.
This is how they appear:
Generally, people listen to podcasts when they are travelling, so it is expected that soon Google will resolve a specific voice query by providing timestamps in the podcast. Similar to how the search engine highlights parts from a video that best satisfy the user’s query.
How to get started with Podcast SEO?
Step I: Keyword Research
Keyword research is the backbone of SEO. It is because of keyword research mostly that your site gets ranked in the SERPs. For the same reason, it is also the first step to make your podcast, search engine friendly. So, you must do it right!
You can find numerous keyword research tools online, but Google Keyword Planner is my personal favourite. What better way to find keywords than from Google itself, right?
Using Google Keyword Planner is pretty straightforward:
Step I: Open Google Keyword Planner
Sign in to Google Keyword Planner and follow this trail:
Tools & Settings > Keyword Planner (under Planning)
Step II: Discover New Keywords
When you click ‘Keyword Planner’, you’ll face this window:
Open ‘Discover New Keywords’, which leads you to a page where you must provide the topic you’ve addressed in your podcast. For instance, if your podcast is on ‘how to do onpage SEO?’, you’ll enter relevant terms such as ‘OnPage SEO’, ‘SEO’, etc. When all the relevant terms (you want your podcast to rank for) are added click on ‘Get Results’.
This action trigger opens a window that includes a multitude of keyword ideas along with suggestions to broaden your keyword research. The report also consists of the search volume and competition of every keyword from the list.
You can download the keyword ideas and shortlist the keywords that are relevant to your podcast.
Apart from Google Keyword Planner, you can use Google Trends for keyword research as well.
Step II: Optimize Your Podcast with the Keywords
What must be your next move after identifying the keywords?
Optimizing your podcast with those keywords.
One cannot help but wonder, how can you possibly optimize audio with keywords?
So, let me clear that out for you.
Your podcast has plenty of keyword optimization opportunities that are enough to rank it atop the SERPs.
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Title & Description
Every podcast has a title and a short description as to what it is about. You can place your keywords in these sections. However, keep in mind that the placement is organic and does not seem stuffed; otherwise, it can harm your SEO.
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Transcript of Your Podcast
Including a transcript of your podcast enhances its optimization potential and improves its discoverability. You can include your keywords in the transcript of your podcast episode.
However, keep in mind that the transcript is the written part of your podcast. So, you must plan it in a way that you mention those terms in your podcast.
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Images
Relevant images can be added to your podcast transcript to help the audience with a more straightforward understanding of the subject. You can add keywords to the alt tag of every image to boost its discoverability.
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Notes
When podcasting creating notes is appreciated. You can include the essence of your podcast in those notes with a dash of keywords.
Step III: Provide an Index
Along with each podcast, include an index of the topics that you’ve covered in it with their timestamps. This will allow the listeners to head directly to the part they are interested in. Also, Google will have the freedom to rank specific timestamps from the podcast when responding to a query.
With this, you are done with the on-page optimization of your podcast. Now, let’s focus on the off-page part.
Step IV: Promote Your Podcast
Even though podcasts have crossed into the mainstream, it requires a great promotion and here’s how you can do it:
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Email Outreach
Include podcasts in your newsletters and emails to drive traffic and increase its potential to rank higher in the SERPs. Also, you can reach out to authors that have written articles on your chosen podcast topic and request them for a backlink.
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Social Media
Share your podcasts on all your social handles like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. to boost its engagement.
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Submission On Podcast Directories
A podcast must be shared on the top podcast directories to increase your reach, engagement, and convenience (for the listeners). These directories include:
- Apple Podcasts
- SoundCloud
- Spotify
- Google Podcasts
- Buzzsprout
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Link to Your Guest Posts
Adding your podcast links to your guest posts is equally important. It can help improve the authority of your podcast page. More links from authoritative domains are valuable information for Google; thereby, increasing its potential of ranking higher in the SERPs.
Bonus: Valuable advice to improve your Podcast SEO
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Understand User Intent
When choosing a podcast topic, spend maximum time on identifying the user intent. Once you know about the type of queries a searcher wants to be answered, you can create a podcast based on it.
Let me tell you about the methods which I follow to identify user’s search intent:
Method 1: Google Predictive Search
Enter a query in Google’s search bar.
Did you notice that Google starts making predictions?
These predictions are based on the general queries that searchers are trying to find answers to. You can refer to these predictions to identify users’ intent.
Method 2: People also ask for…
Search your entered query, and on the first SERP, you’ll find a self-explanatory section that helps you understand the users’ intent further.
The suggestions keep on increasing based on the drop-down query on which you click.
Process 3: Searches related to…
Scroll down to the end of the first SERP, and there you’ll find another self-explanatory section. This includes certain queries related to your entered search query.
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Record A Video
Record a video version of your podcasts and post it on YouTube. Following this procedure can help you garner views along with a new source to drive traffic to your domain and engage the YouTube audience.
Conclusion:
This is it.
This is how you can get started with your Podcast SEO. The popularity of this form of content consumption is increasing faster than Usain Bolt finishing a 100-metre sprint (haha!).
After going through the post, can you think of any other way to do podcast SEO? If you do, please mention those in the comments below. I’ll be happy to extend this article with more valuable inputs.
This is a guest post by Sahil Kakkar. Sahil is the CEO and Founder of Rankwatch – a platform, which helps companies and brands stay ahead with their SEO efforts in the ever-growing internet landscape. Sahil likes making creative products that can help in automation of mundane tasks and he can spend endless nights implementing new technologies and ideas. You can connect with him and the Rankwatch team on Facebook or Twitter.
Other posts by Sahil