Your podcast name could be the reason your ideal listeners aren’t finding you. In this episode, we explore how to use keywords, name your audience, and test title changes to improve discoverability. Learn how seasonal listening patterns impact downloads and how to make quick, impactful updates without a full rebrand. Small tweaks can lead to big visibility gains.

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Hello there.

This is Kim Parkinson and you are listening to Podcasting for Spiritual Women.

We are here to help those women entrepreneurs that have a little woo, have a little spirituality to them and help them find their podcasting path, how they are going to bring podcasting into their world and into their business and make it shine to attract clients.

So I'm super excited to be bringing episodes to you two times a week for the summer here.

This is just about done.

We have just one more week of this.

Starting September, we'll be going back to just a normal one weekly episode.

I wanted to have a ton of episodes in the Vault and I really had the time to do that.

So I really wanted to just kind of make sure that you guys had a lot of content to listen to once the busy podcast listening season happens.

And by listening season, I'm talking normally people have a tendency to really get back into a routine in September and they'll have a chance to really find a new podcast or they'll have a chance to really listen to one because they're back into something that they're doing every day.

They're going for the walk every day or they're going to the gym every day.

They're dropping the kids off and they've got some time to listen.

And I really am paying attention to that in also that I wanted to bring very actionable one topic episodes to you.

So each one of my episodes is just about maybe like 15 minutes long or so.

I do have coaching episodes that I have been doing during the summer and those are a little bit longer.

And I actually have a couple of guests lined up as well for the fall and so those will be a little bit longer as well.

But I, I think you'll really find that this, the actionable steps that I have provided in the Vault all summer will be able to just get you through that, that little, that little hump that you might be on for your podcast now for the last four episodes of the summer.

And by summer I'm meeting meteorological.

Meteorological summer, that's a hard word, right?

I'm talking the last four episodes of August.

I am going to be bringing you the just basics on how to update your show.

So this is going to be a little series on different things that you can do to really nail in and get your show seen.

So if you have been hitting a wall in your podcast and maybe you've been really slogging at it all summer long and you're like, you know, my downloads aren't growing, I can't figure out what's going on.

You know, it may not be that there is anything wrong.

It could just be the season that you were in.

Right.

So as I mentioned, I really wanted to have a bunch of episodes in the bank for.

For the summer, for this.

And sometimes people just don't listen as often in the summer.

There are very specific seasons, right?

So September through, say, middle of November, late November, people have a tendency to be really in a routine, and they're listening.

They're listening to episodes on a regular basis.

And then maybe end of November through December, they're super busy.

Right.

The holidays are upon us, and you're like, no, I don't have time.

And so then come January again, they are like, I'm getting back to my routine.

I am going back to the gym, I am going back to whatever it might be.

And those people have a tendency to pick the podcast back up, listen to the previous episodes, and then go forward with the rest of them.

And so from January through the end of May, maybe the middle of June, you have really great downloads again.

But if you are, like, looking at me or you're.

You're listening to this now and you're like, you know what?

I've been putting out episodes all summer, and I hate it.

I hate that my downloads have been stagnant and.

And should I push through this, or is this the universe telling me to change direction?

Or what is going on?

Maybe my podcast needs to take a breath.

Maybe I need to take a breath.

Sometimes it needs a whole new path.

What is.

What's going on here?

And it could just be timing.

It could just be that it is the wrong time.

Right?

So give it a few more minutes.

Or a few more.

Yeah, a few more minutes.

That might not help, but give it a few more months, because starting September, downloads will start to happen again.

And that is.

It's just that time, right?

It's just that time.

Now, you may also be feeling like it's just.

It's been doing this for a while.

Right.

Okay, that's great, Kim.

I'm so glad that you mentioned that during the summer, I'm not going to get super great downloads.

But you know what?

I wasn't getting great downloads January through May or June.

Then maybe it is time to take a look at some of the keywords in your podcast.

So whether or not that keyword is in your actual podcast name, in the description, or just the titles themselves.

So these are the big three.

These are the big three that all of those podcast players will actually crawl and search for if you are spending hours on your show notes, you best be putting those up on your website because they're not going to be crawled on just podcast players.

So how do we fix this?

If you already have a plethora of episodes, you already have everything that you need.

So if you are looking at your episodes, take a look at just some of the keywords.

And here's a key for this.

If you have the transcripts of your last, say, 20, 30 episodes, then I would just mention to you that this is a great time to start using AI.

I know not of people are not big on AI, but you're going to either have to go back and listen to all 20 or 30 episodes and you may not have the time for that, or you are going to just grab those transcriptions, pop them into AI and ask AI to pull out any SEO rich keywords out of those episodes.

That is such a time saver.

I'm going to tell you, I know that so many people are like, I am so opposed to AI.

I do not want to do this, but let me just tell you, there's nothing easier like it is done in minutes rather than weeks.

And let's face it, we don't all have weeks to be doing something like this, right?

So if you haven't been doing it all along, this is just a great way to just get started with AI and just get it to do something that isn't good.

It's a good thing.

This is not using it for nefarious reasons whatsoever.

So put your transcripts into AI and get out the keywords.

Now, I suggest doing this episode by episode or maybe like in chunks of like five episodes at a time or something like that.

Because what we're going to do is we're going to take those keywords and we're going to look at what they are.

Now, you may find that many episodes have the same keywords, and that's great because that means that you are actually aligned with what you're talking about every week.

And that's going to make everything else so much easier.

So the first thing I want you to do, take a look at those keywords.

Take a look at your podcast show name.

Does this name have keywords in it?

That's.

That's the big part.

Does your podcast name the actual name of your podcast, does it have keywords in it?

And by that I also want to know, does it start with a keyword?

So if you are doing the GI Jane show, I don't know what else to say here and Nobody knows what you're talking about in the GI Jane show.

And you know, here's the other thing.

I'm going to also throw this back out there.

If you're seeing consistent downloads of over 500 per episode, then you know what, 500 downloads per episode, Then you know what you need to do a different, A couple of different things.

But maybe the name of your podcast is not the problem.

If you are even seeing consistent over 100 downloads per episode, then again, maybe your episode is not the problem.

Maybe it's.

Maybe it's a few other things, and we'll talk about those too.

But if you are not, if you are seeing like 10 downloads and then sometimes you're seeing 54 downloads, and then maybe sometimes you're seeing, ooh, I almost got there, I'm at like 93.

But then the next one there was only like, you know, 63 or something like that.

This is when it matters.

So you want to start the name of your podcast with one of those keywords of what you talk about in your episodes.

Now, if this is a brand new show, this is maybe going to be a little bit harder.

But here's the thing, you can always change the name of your show.

Always.

So, for instance, you could add keywords to the beginning of your show name, or you can add an extension to the end of your show name.

So if you have a show name and you absolutely have to keep it that way, first of all, if it's working for you, great.

If it's just because that's the name of my program, that's the name of my business, I need to keep it that way.

But if it's not really pulling in the downloads, is it really working?

Maybe your.

Your program's working.

Absolutely.

But if your podcast not getting the listeners, there could be other pieces, right?

And one of them could just be that it's just not named correctly.

It's not named for the keyword.

And also, I would even suggest that you take a look to see if in the name of your podcast, if it actually talks about the person you want to talk to.

So, for instance, my, obviously my name here is Podcasting for Spiritual Women.

Now I can and may change it to Podcast Strategies for Spiritual Women or Podcasting Tips for.

For Spiritual Women.

You know, there's other pieces that I could add, but I kind of left it broad for right now.

But maybe in the future you'll see that it has changed.

Maybe you're listening to it and it already has changed, and you're like, oh, that's interesting.

She has the beginning, and it's never been that name.

I've never seen it as that.

And that's possible.

Absolutely.

So that's just one thing.

You can change it now.

If you do not tell people in your podcast name who your podcast is for, how do you expect to find people for your podcast?

How do you expect to call in the people that you want to call in with it?

This is going to be an uphill battle in newsletters.

This is going to be an uphill battle in social media.

This is going to be an uphill battle of you handing out your business card to every person that you meet and saying, list, podcast.

My podcast name is something, whatever that might be.

It may not say what you talk about.

It may not say who it's for.

And that.

That's a mistake.

That is a mistake.

So my suggestion here is take a look at your podcast name.

If your podcast name starts with a keyword, excellent, could it start with a stronger keyword?

Because if you've already got some episodes in the bank, maybe you're looking at it and you're like, you know what?

I really thought my podcast was going to be about gardening, but now it's really specifically much more about vegetable gardening.

I don't know, I'm just kind of throwing out ideas here, Right?

And maybe you can really hone it in just a little bit more.

And maybe your podcast used to be for, you know, women in their 30s, but now you're in your 40s and you're like, you know what?

I am not talking to those women any longer.

We've all graduated and we're now beyond that.

So I'm really speaking to women that are empty nesters.

So maybe that's something that you need to think about when you change your podcast name.

Just think about the different people that you want to call into your world, that you want in your programs.

Now, I know there are some people out there and they will say to me, I have such a broad audience, I can really help anyone.

And that is true.

But is your podcast for everyone?

Because if you are speaking to everyone, you are speaking to no one.

You know, if you've never heard that before, this has been around for a long time.

And I'm going to tell you, I actually live and walk that walk.

So.

So for years, I actually did not realize I was helping spiritual women.

For years, I was just taking on clients however I could.

And not only that, but I wasn't just taking on podcasting clients.

I was taking on clients and doing website design.

I was taking on clients and doing email funnels.

I was taking on clients and being their obm and I was really like kind of all over the place.

Whereas once I really started to say, you know what, no, I'm done.

I'm niching down to podcasting, I'm sticking with podcasting.

And then what ends up happening is a lot more people find you because they're like, she is the expert in podcasting.

I want to go talk to her.

Does that mean that I don't take on the occasional website client or help a friend or someone with their, their email funnel?

No, I will.

I have the knowledge, so I might as well help and share.

But it's not my main focus.

I do not advertise this.

This is like word of mouth only type thing.

I don't take on new clients just to do their, to do their websites.

But there is a core group of, of women out there that know, hey, I, I need to do this.

And I.

And I do it for them because, because they've already been in my world.

But I want to be known as the expert in podcasting for spiritual women.

And so that is what I talk about.

That is who I help.

And you know what?

Since I've niched down to this, it's been easier than ever to find these people.

Before, when I was all over the place, I really struggled.

I struggled to know what to talk about when I did social media posts.

I struggled to talk to, you know, do I talk about my OBM strategies?

Do I talk about my email funnels?

Do I talk about how I do website design?

Or do I talk about podcasting?

And I really loved podcasting.

Could be my human design here, right?

So my human design five.

One projector.

I have a.

Is it a. I can never remember.

My.

My throat is colored in.

So I think that means it's closed.

I think that means it's closed.

I've been told by many a coach that when I talk, I just coach myself.

So I think podcasting was just the natural step here.

Let's go back to your podcast name.

Okay?

We're going to focus on just the name.

I want you to take a look at your keywords that you've pulled.

And then what I want you to do is I kind of want you to tell me in your own terms there what it is that your podcast is about and who it is for.

And I want you to grab ahold of those keywords.

Now, again, if you are open to using AI, I think this is A good, another good avenue, another good way to use it.

I want you to take a look at your keywords and who it is that you help, who your avatar is, who those people are, and maybe put those into chatgpt or into Perplexity or into whatever it is that you use.

And I want you to just say to it, can you give me some really great podcast names that use these keywords and are for these women and then ask it to spit out 10 of them and see what it says.

And you know what?

You don't have to use any of them.

Or you can mix and match.

I do that all the time.

If I use AI to help me with naming podcasts for clients or for myself, I always see what options they give me.

I always ask it for at least three options.

I see what options it gives me and then I mix and match because I want it to be my own.

But I also don't want to have to come up with the same terms every time.

Now that you have your podcast name, I want you to add that into your host.

Now, I haven't asked you to redo your cover art, right?

I haven't asked you to do any of that.

I've just asked you to redo the name.

I want you to put that into the host.

Whether or not that's Buzzsprout, Captivate, Libsyn, whoever it is that you use, Acast, any of those, just take that new name.

So it should be start with a keyword, start with an SEO rich keyword, and then also is somewhere inside of that name who the podcast is for.

And I want to take that and I want you to put it into the host and I want you to leave it there for 30 to 60 days.

Rename that podcast for 30 to 60 days.

I still haven't asked you to change your cover art.

You don't have to.

And here's the other thing.

You don't even have to change your intro or your outro or anything like that.

What you're going to do is you are going to see if that name that you, the new name that you have has made a difference in your downloads.

Because here's the thing, it's either going to be a positive direction or it's going to be the exact same, you're already getting direction.

It's not going to go down.

It's just, I mean, unless you, unless you have a very wide different audience that you're really looking for, you may find that it goes down.

But more often than not, if you are still yourself, still talking about what you've always talked about, you are going to find that your downloads are going to increase, which this is our goal here, right?

Because if you have really strong rich keywords and you've also said in the name who this is for, then we're, you're going to find that more, more people, they're looking for those keywords and they find you.

All right, that's my first step.

Okay.

And what I'm going to do is for the next couple of episodes is I'm going to give you some more stuff, steps on some really great ways to update your podcast and make it seen.

So if you have been thinking that, you know, your podcast isn't doing so great, this little series that I'm going to put out here is going to really kind of shine the light on that.

And yeah, I think you're going to really love it.

If you have any questions or you would like to work with me in a different capacity other than just listening to the episodes here, I do have a podcast growth clarity call and I would love to have you on as a coaching client in a podcast episode.

You know, so it's a 20 minute free call and we kind of go over some of the pieces of your podcast, whatever the most painful points of your podcast are, and I walk you through it and make it a lot less painful.

So yeah, I would love to have you join me in that.

You can find that link in the show notes down below and you know, if you are not quite ready for that, there's also a link there to join my newsletter where you learn a lot of great information every week.

We're going to be back on Thursday with how to update your podcast description and what to look for.

All right.

And until next time, where your voice flows, your business grows.

See you soon.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Podcasting for Spiritual Women.

If you would like more strategy and tips and some tricks on how to make your podcast better, I recommend that you join my newsletter list.

You can find that@kpcreativemedia.com Newsletter until next time.