Adding SEO to your Podcast

What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?

SEO is a marketing term that stands for “search engine optimization”. Essentially, the goal of SEO is to make your content easily searchable and show up more visibly on the internet. This is done through using keywords that are associated with your content in order to direct internet traffic to your podcast. For example, this blog post would be search engine optimized if it included the terms “SEO, podcast, website, internet, traffic, visibility”. This is because all of those keywords have something to do with this blog post.

Doesn’t My Host Already Do This?

You may be thinking that where you host your podcast already acts like a search engine. The answer is yes! This is just another reason why you need to consider what keywords you should add to your podcast text in order to be more visible on those platforms as well as other search engines such as Google. Most people don’t scroll past the second page on Google, so it is imperative that your show has SEO.

How to Add SEO to Your Podcast

Step One: Visit your word bank.

Do you remember that word bank that we created for your brand? This is what you want to be using throughout all of your platforms for SEO. This list of words should correlate to your podcast and the theme and energy that it provides.

Step Two: Add these words to your show notes.

Say them! As of 2019, Google now includes audio in SEO. Yes, this means that the content within your show can also be search engine optimized. Make sure that you are promoting your brand through your spoken content as well as the written content that you put out there.

Step Three: Diversify your word bank.

Search for synonyms of your word bank. Do they still fit? The more terms that you use the wider of a net you will be casting to get your podcast to be more visible. A resource for finding out if these keywords are a good pick for you is Google Trends. This is a good way to find other tags that you may want to play around with to drive traffic to your podcast.

Step Four: Transcribe your podcasts.

If you are uploading through Buzzsprout, you can add the transcription file to your episode and help boost your SEO. Youtube also offers free transcription for your videos so that you do not have to transcribe your audio separately. For me, I use Otter AI to transcribe my episodes. This can help you look for keywords that you use verbally more often to be aware of how often you use keywords and if you are missing any that should be in the tags of your podcast online.

So How Can I Tell if All of This Work Worked?

If you're wondering how your SEO is doing, you can go to an SEO search tool and just type in your domain name. These websites will tell you how your SEO is performing, as well as how the user experience is. Make sure that if you have just started a website that it has been up and running for the last two weeks before you run it through these SEO tools.