When most business leaders and marketers think about optimizing their content to boost visibility on the search engines, they focus heavily on blog content and articles. While it’s true that written content is fantastic for search engine optimization, offering endless ways to showcase keywords and leverage links, you shouldn’t underestimate the value of optimizing other forms of content too.
In 2019, Google announced it would be starting “indexing” podcast episodes, meaning they’d be more likely to appear in search results around the world. Combine this with the fact that podcasts come with numerous tools to help increase your visibility, such as descriptions and titles, and it’s easy to see just how valuable they could be for your ranking strategy.
The question is, how do you effectively optimize a podcast?
Here are our top tips for amazing Podcast SEO.
1. Create a Podcast Website or Page
The number one way to increase your ranking potential with a podcast is to design a website for your audio content, or a page on your existing website where you can showcase your latest episodes. When you first launch your podcast and choose a hosting service for it, you should be able to use your hosting provider’s services to publish your podcasts to various directories and channels.
Most solutions will allow you to embed your podcasts directly into your website, where you can accompany them with descriptions, summaries, and other valuable keyword-rich content, designed to boost your rankings. Creating a page or website for your podcast is a great way to grab the attention of search engines, and make it easier for customers to find and keep track of your content.
You could even add a contact form to your podcast website asking customers to sign up for a newsletter subscription to stay informed about new episodes. This gives you a great way to capture some leads for your business.
2. Optimize Descriptions, Images, and Titles
The data that accompanies your podcast on your website, and the channels you publish with has a direct impact on your search engine rankings. Most platforms will allow you to add a title to your podcast, a meta description, and even a summary about what the episode includes.
Optimizing these components with the keywords and phrases your customers are already searching for is a great way to enhance your visibility. Even choosing the right artwork for your podcast episodes could be a great way to get your content in front of customers looking for specific terms in the Google Images section. Make sure you use alt text and the right file descriptions to make your images as search-engine friendly as possible.
Remember, your descriptions, titles and images shouldn’t just be loaded with keywords. They should also provide listeners with useful insights into what your episodes cover, and offer a behind-the-scenes look at your personality. Make your content rich and engaging for both search engines and human customers alike.
3. Get Creative with Podcast Topics
One of the things that makes podcasting so appealing to business owners and marketers right now, is the versatility of the medium. You can create a podcast on virtually anything, and explore a range of different content styles, from interviews, to monologues.
Choosing topics for your podcast episodes carefully can improve your chances of ranking in a range of different ways. First, researching your target audience, their interests, needs, and pain points means you’re more likely to create the content people in your niche are actually searching for. Secondly, doing this research will also give you an opportunity to build episodes around keywords.
If you know the phrases that are trending in your industry right now, you can use them to inspire your content, flesh out your podcast meta data, and even optimize your descriptions and titles. You could even consider creating episode clusters, so you have more opportunities to link to various additional episodes from each podcast page.
4. Transcribe your Podcasts
Transcription can be a handy way to make your podcast more accessible. It ensures even customers with disabilities can still consume the content in your podcast quickly and easily. As an added bonus, it’s a great way to boost your SEO rankings. Although Google’s technology has better natural language processing capabilities today, the crawlers still rely heavily on written words.
Including a transcription of your podcast on your website, and the directories that allow it, can help search engines to better understand your content. It will give you a chance to draw attention to keywords, while also providing consumers with a handy source of extra guidance for each episode.
Just keep in mind, it’s often best to get a human being to transcribe your audio where possible, as most automated solutions can often make mistakes. A podcast VA will be able to handle transcription for you, while also editing your content to remove any “ums” and “ah’s”.
5. Promote Your Podcast
Promotion is something you’ll need to master for any kind of content you produce. While a good SEO ranking can help to draw more attention to your website and business, it’s still important to find other ways to expand your reach. Finding new ways to promote your content can also be a great way to boost your visibility to the search engine crawlers.
For instance, syndicating your podcasts on channels like Google podcasts makes it easier for the Google platform to access and index your content. Sharing links to your podcast on social media is also a fantastic way to show Google that your content is valuable, by driving more potential listeners to your channel.
You can even create tracking links within Google analytics and use solutions like the Meta Ads manager, to see which of your posts are driving the most attention back to your audio. This will help you optimize your advertising budget in the future.
6. Repurpose Your Audio
Creating a compelling podcast isn’t just a great way to draw attention to your company at a time when 73% of Americans say they listen to this form of content regularly. Your recordings can also provide you with the information and resources you need to create other types of content.
Based on your successful podcasts, you can design blog posts, articles, webinars, guides, and even infographics to share on your website. The more content you produce, the more Google can index, boosting your ranking potential. What’s more, because your new pieces will be directly related to your podcast, you’ll be able to link out to your episodes on other platforms too.
If you’ve already transcribed your podcast with the help of your VA, converting sections into new pieces of content should be a piece of cake.
7. Cultivate Reviews
Finally, few things are more important in today’s digital world than social proof. The more people you can convince to rate your podcasts, review your episodes, and comment on your channels, the more likely you are to benefit from improved visibility.
Reviews and testimonials help to direct new audiences to your content, and also let search engines know which pieces of content are the most valuable. Google values reviews and ratings pretty highly, particularly when they come from respected third-party sites.
With this in mind, encourage your listeners to leave feedback or rate your podcasts on various channels if they enjoy your content. Not only will you improve your search rankings, but you might see a boost in your visibility on podcast directories like Apple Podcasts and Spotify too.
Start Optimizing Your Podcasts
Podcasts are a fantastic tool for business leaders and entrepreneurs in today’s evolving digital market. They’re a great way to connect with your audience, build emotional connections with customers, and demonstrate your thought leadership, all at the same time.
However, if you’re not optimizing your podcasts, you could be missing out on another major opportunity to boost your online visibility. Learn how working with a podcast VA can help you to optimize and enhance your podcasts, by contacting Lune Valley VA today.