165: SEO for Podcast Audience Growth - Podcast Marketing Series Pt 2

How Do I Optimize SEO for My Podcast?

How do we grow our podcast audience and get new listeners? How will people find my podcast?

Podcasters need a basic understanding of keywords and SEO (search engine optimization) so our podcasts can be discovered by new listeners.

How can podcasters capitalize on SEO to help new listeners find their podcasts?

Spoiler Alert: There is no magic bullet or SEO

Jennifer Denney, Digital Strategist and Owner of Elevated Marketing Solutions, breaks down what we need to understand about SEO for podcasters.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) isn’t just one thing. It is small incremental tweaks combined to impact your site’s user experience and performance in organic search results.

SEO is a long term strategy. There is no SEO magic bullet. It takes grit, time, energy, and expertise.

What is the Ideal Length for Podcast Show Notes or Blog Posts?

Jennifer does a little myth-busting here. I was under the impression that there was an ideal length for show notes. Turns out, this is not the case.

People are going to Google to get questions answered. Google is looking for you to completely cover the subject from beginning to end and do it better than anyone else.

How does Google determine who has the best answer? It’s all of those hundreds of little tweaks.

Formulating the Right Questions for SEO

Think about how your listeners are phrasing questions when they are going to Google to look for answers. What words are they using? What questions are they asking?

Get out of your own language box and how you say things. Ask your audience how they would search for an answer.

Recommended Tools for Keyword Research

Ubersuggest

SEMrush.com

Keywordtool.io

Keywordseverywhere.com

AnswerThePublic.com

How to Optimize Show Notes and Blog Posts

Optimize your show notes and blog posts because there are still folks that would rather read than listen to podcasts.

Think about having your episode transcribed. This makes it easy to create detailed show notes.

Jennifer has created a search optimization checklist to help optimize blog posts.

Don’t just describe what is in the episode.

If your intention is to share information with your audience, give them the option of how they want to consume it. Listening to a podcast is not an option for everyone.

Use the episode description, blog post, or show notes to give detailed information that actually answers questions.