In this week's episode, I'm chatting with my friend Sarah McDowell, SEO Manager at Captivate and podcaster!

Sarah has worked in Digital Marketing and SEO for over 10 years now, both in-house for a brand/company and agency side.

Sarah's current podcast is The SEO Mindset Podcast which she co-hosts with Tazmin Suleman. Sarah has hosted 4 podcasts in total over the years!

She is also co-founder (alongside me!) of the West Midlands Podcast Club. A free podcast community for podcasters passionate about podcasting!

You can sign up here!

Sarah tells us what SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is and shares her top 3 tips to optimise our podcasts so that they are more discoverable.

Tip #1 - Keywords

• Use a keyword tool like SEMRUSH, Answer the public or Also Asked.
• use these tools when planning your episodes.
• DO NOT keyword stuff your show notes and titles - it doesn't help anyone!!

Tip#2 - Backlinks

• This is when someone external links back to your website.
• backlinks are very helpful for Google as they help make you a credible source.

Tip#3 - Transcripts

• Using transcripts helps make your podcast more accessible for everyone - including Google.
• Edit your transcript, and remove filler words to make it more accessible.
• Recommended podcast episode about accessibility. How To Make Your Content More Accessible with Anne Mok

Sarah's final thought is, don't be scared by podcast SEO and she recommends giving some of the tips she's given a try!

Thanks Sarah! 😃

If you have any questions or would like some help with your podcast, book a podcast enquiry call.

Can I ask a favour?

If you enjoyed the episode, I'd love it if you could leave me a review.

You can leave one here

Thanks so much!

I'd love to connect with you on social!

You can find me on:

LinkedIn | Website

Want to start a podcast, but not sure where to start? Download my free Podcast Playbook Get clear on your ideas!

Need some extra support? Book a 90-minute Podcast Strategy Session

Struggling with your podcast promotion? Grab my Easy-Peasy Podcast Promotion Checklist here!

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:08

Hi, and welcome to podcasting one on one with Rachel.

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:12

This podcast is for busy female entrepreneurs who run their own

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:15

businesses and want to start a podcast or who may already have a podcast.

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:20

I want to share practical information and tips on how you can get your podcast

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:25

started and managing it along the way.

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:27

I'll also be interviewing other female podcast hosts to give you

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:30

real insight into what it's like.

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:32

Have

Sarah McDowell: 00:00:40

Hi,

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:44

and welcome to this week's episode today.

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:47

I'm very excited to have the lovely Sarah McDowell, my partner in crime

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:51

when it comes to podcast communities coming onto the show and talking

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:55

all things SEO for your podcast.

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:58

So hi, Sarah, thanks so much for coming on and talking

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:00

to me.

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:01

Thank you very much for asking me.

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:03

It's a privilege to be on your podcast and love the fact that you

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:08

see me as your partner in crime when it comes to podcasting communities

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:11

because I see you that way too.

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:14

Yes, yes and we're both very excited for our in person event

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:19

that's coming on the 29th of September.

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:22

And I actually can't remember off the top of my head when this episode is going

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:25

out, so it may have already happened.

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:29

Very professionally sorted out there.

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:31

But anyway, so Sarah is an SEO manager for Captivate, which is

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:35

a podcast hosting platform, if you didn't already know already.

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:38

And she is also the host of the SEO Mindset podcast.

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:42

So Sarah lives, breathes and eats podcasts.

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:47

So just, do you want to just tell us a little bit about yourself and what you

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:50

do and your, and your podcast as well?

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:53

Yes, definitely.

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:54

So I've been working in digital marketing and specializing in

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:00

search engine optimization, SEO, for over 10 years now and yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:07

I think last time I looked, it was around the 12, 13 year mark.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:11

So that's pretty cool.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:13

So, and I've done a mixture of working in house for a brand or a company.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:20

So like I'm doing now for Captivate.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:23

But I've also done agency side as well.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:26

So yeah, and I really enjoy working at Captivate because like you

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:32

say, they are a podcast hosting platform and I'm also a podcaster.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:37

So I'm kind of combining my two passions and my two loves of SEO and podcasting.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:45

And how many podcasts?

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:47

So I've had four podcasts.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:49

So my most recent one is the SEO mindset podcast, which I host with

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:55

my wonderful friend, Tazmin Suleman.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:58

And that podcast is all about.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:03

So what me and Tazmin found was there's lots of wonderful podcasts out there that

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:08

tell Ss, e o professionals or people who want to know about s e o, how to do it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:15

But we found a niche in a podcast that was specifically about giving career.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:22

And like personal development, that kind of like mindset, that kind of thing.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:27

Specifically for the s e O industry.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:29

So we talk about imposter syndrome, anxiety, getting a pay rise time

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:34

management work-life balance.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:36

So, yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:37

It's been going over, it's been running for about a year now.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:41

So I imagine there'll be links in the episode.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:44

Absolutely.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:45

Show notes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:45

There will be . Wonderful.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:47

So, yeah, like you don't necessarily have to be an SS e o to listen to the

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:51

podcast 'cause I have a few friends that get something from it because we're

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:55

talking about topics that are quite transferable across different industries.

Sarah McDowell: 00:04:01

It's just that, yeah,

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:02

I totally agree with that.

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:02

I've listened to it as well and definitely something that resonates with me as well.

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:08

Like for example, your latest one.

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:09

The latest ones talking about the wind jar.

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:11

Which I, which I started and I've done one win, which is really rubbish, but...

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:17

You've still got a win jar.

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:18

I have still, I have, well it's a win piece of paper on my desk at the moment

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:21

because I couldn't find a jar, but it is totally intentionally be a win jar.

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:26

Because I really, really like that idea because sometimes it

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:29

is really easy to forget that...

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:31

You know, when you get bogged down a little bit of all the

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:34

extra little wins that you get.

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:35

So I really love that.

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:36

I really like the show.

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:38

So I would highly recommend people to go listen to your podcast as well.

Sarah McDowell: 00:04:41

Thank you.

Sarah McDowell: 00:04:41

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:04:42

So that episode celebrating your wins, because like you

Sarah McDowell: 00:04:45

say, you, you forget and you.

Sarah McDowell: 00:04:49

You get a win or you reach a goal or you do an accomplishment and

Sarah McDowell: 00:04:54

then you're neck back, then you're onto the next thing, aren't you?

Sarah McDowell: 00:04:57

Like, okay, what's my next win?

Sarah McDowell: 00:04:58

But yeah, we need to celebrate our win.

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:01

So that was our latest one.

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:03

So yeah, there's lots of wonderful episodes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:05

We just give examples in like the SEO industry, but like I say, we're talking

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:10

about sort of topics that affect us all in our work and even, and even personal life.

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:17

So please do check it out.

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:20

Absolutely.

Rachael Botfield: 00:05:22

So we thought SEO or.

Rachael Botfield: 00:05:24

Search engine optimization is something that we all do think about

Rachael Botfield: 00:05:27

generally for our businesses and for our marketing, but especially

Rachael Botfield: 00:05:31

here in relation to our podcast.

Rachael Botfield: 00:05:34

So Sarah's going to just explain a little bit about what SEO is

Rachael Botfield: 00:05:37

and how that can translate to.

Rachael Botfield: 00:05:39

Your podcast.

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:41

Yes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:42

So first things first, what is search engine optimization?

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:47

What is SEO?

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:48

So what we mean by that term is basically where you do tactics

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:56

or strategies to your website.

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:59

To optimize it so that people can find your website and your pages, your

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:05

content, when people search for relevant terms in search engines like Google.

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:12

So it's the idea of, so Google has an algorithm and an algorithm is basically

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:20

a fancy word for a bit of a checklist.

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:22

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:23

So when Google is looking at.

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:26

Websites and pages and deciding, okay, what pages do I rank for this term?

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:31

It has sort of like a checklist, it's algorithm that it's kind of looking at.

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:36

So yeah, as SEOs or if you are doing SEO to your website, it's the

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:41

idea of you optimizing for Google.

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:44

So you are kind of saying, Hey, Google, my website, my pages are

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:49

awesome and relevant, and you should show me for relevant terms

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:52

that people are searching for.

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:54

Does that make sense?

Rachael Botfield: 00:06:55

Yeah, that's a really good way to explain it because I do

Rachael Botfield: 00:06:58

think that sometimes people can hear SEO or search engine optimization thing.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:02

Oh, what's that?

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:03

And, oh, that sounds really complicated.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:05

And I mean, I must say when I first kind of came across it, I did a

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:09

marketing qualifier years ago and like there's a whole book on it separately.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:13

And some, some bits, you know.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:18

I felt like, Oh, this is, this is too much.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:20

I don't, I need to kind of bring it back to basics.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:22

And you have explained it very well.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:24

I was talking to my dad the other day and he was like, what's SEO?

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:27

What's this?

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:27

I don't understand it at all.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:29

I'm in a year 70, but you know, I'm sure he'd explain, understand it,

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:34

listening to your explanation there.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:36

So you did a much better job than me.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:38

What

Sarah McDowell: 00:07:38

is funny is lots of people who aren't in this industry or understand

Sarah McDowell: 00:07:43

just know me as working with computers.

Sarah McDowell: 00:07:46

Yes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:07:46

Like I'm IT support and I'm like, not quite , or, can you fix my printer?

Sarah McDowell: 00:07:53

Not

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:53

really.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:54

Not the same

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:56

. Sarah McDowell: So yeah, so that's SEO.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:58

So that's search engine optimization.

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:00

So when we are talking specifically about podcast, ss e o, so.

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:05

Obviously you've gotta think that people can come across your podcast

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:10

and episodes in lots of different ways.

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:13

So here we're talking about discoverability.

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:15

So the discoverability of your podcast.

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:18

Now, the most traditional way that people can come across your podcast

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:22

and episodes is by going to an app.

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:25

So go into Spotify, go into the app on their phone, like

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:29

Cashbox, I think is what.

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:31

My Android users goes to Amazon music, goes to Apple podcasts, whatever.

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:36

Google,

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:37

Google podcasts is mine for Android.

Sarah McDowell: 00:08:39

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:08:40

We could just sit and list all the different directories,

Sarah McDowell: 00:08:41

but we'll be here forever.

Sarah McDowell: 00:08:43

So whatever someone uses to listen to podcasts, they go, they fire it up.

Sarah McDowell: 00:08:48

And in the search bar, they put in certain terms.

Sarah McDowell: 00:08:52

They might.

Sarah McDowell: 00:08:53

Search for a specific person, or they might search for a specific

Sarah McDowell: 00:08:58

podcast, but that's one way that someone can come across your podcast.

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:03

Another way, and this is, there's lots of other ways, like I'm just giving like a.

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:07

Two examples here, so the most traditional one, but people can come

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:13

across your podcast and episodes when they are searching the web.

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:18

Now I did a little bit of keyword research so basically keyword, that's another

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:24

fancy term for what people use to search.

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:28

The terms or queries people use in Google when they're

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:32

searching for different things.

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:35

So I've got a keyword research tool where I can put in topics and it will

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:41

give me suggestions of keywords and it will give me lots of different data.

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:46

But the, one of the most important things that I'm looking at is, on average,

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:51

how often is this keyword search for?

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:55

So what's the monthly search volume.

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:57

And this is what like keyword research tools do.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:00

There's loads out there, but in this example, I'm using SEMrush or SEMrush.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:05

Now for the keyword.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:08

Best podcast.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:09

So just best podcast.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:11

SEM Rush is saying that on a monthly basis on average.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:17

So this is on average as well.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:18

There's over 30, 000 searches on Google globally a month.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:25

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:26

Wow.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:26

So just get that number into your head.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:28

And that is.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:30

Just the keyword best podcast.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:32

So obviously that could be best music podcast, best podcast about podcasting,

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:37

best podcast about SEO sort of thing.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:40

Right.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:40

So I just wanted to share that to show you the untapped sort of, well,

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:45

not untapped, it's untapped if you're not doing SEO or you're not looking

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:48

into this, but I just wanted to share with you kind of number to show you

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:54

that people are searching and people are going to Google to find podcasts.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:00

So yeah, so we can do SEO strategies.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:05

To our podcast website and our podcast episodes to help us optimize for Google.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:11

And also what you've got to think as well is yes, someone might go to

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:16

Google to specifically search for like podcast recommendations, but also.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:23

They might search for something else that's unrelated to podcasts, but say for

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:27

example, they search for I don't know.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:30

Give me a, give me a topic.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:32

Anything.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:33

Rachel, I know I've put you on the spot here.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:35

Animals, . I mean, that's, that's very broad and very general.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:40

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:40

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:41

I've got one.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:41

I've got one.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:42

Tips on how to train your dog, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:46

Yes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:47

Train your dog for example.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:50

Did put you on the spot there.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:51

I do apologize.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:52

Stop, panic.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:54

So someone searched for that, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:56

You could be a podcast that is all about training animals, training

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:02

pets, and all of that stuff.

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:04

And you could have a podcast episode that is about that topic.

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:09

Right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:10

So you can see where I'm going here.

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:11

So someone has searched for help about how to train their dog, for example.

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:17

And yes, there'll be articles and there'll be pages about that.

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:21

But if you have a podcast episode and you've got a dedicated page, you've

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:26

got a dedicated page for that episode.

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:29

You've got a chance of Google showing that podcast episode to

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:34

someone who's searching in Google.

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:37

Someone who wasn't even like planning on listening to a podcast will might,

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:42

and Google shows your podcast about that keyword, might come on to you and be like,

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:47

Oh, well, I wasn't expecting this, but actually I, I, I like to consume podcasts.

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:53

I like to consume content and educational resources through my ear holes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:57

That's a weird way of saying it, but I like to listen to, to educate myself.

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:02

So you've.

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:04

Like, so that, that's great.

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:06

Right.

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:07

So someone who wasn't even like looking specifically for podcasts or wasn't

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:10

even like thinking about podcasts, because you've optimized your podcast

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:16

episode and that page, Google have shown you and you've got a new listener.

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:20

So does that make sense?

Rachael Botfield: 00:13:22

Yeah, that's a really good way to explain it.

Rachael Botfield: 00:13:24

Yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:13:25

I'd never thought about it in that way, I guess, because

Rachael Botfield: 00:13:28

I'm always thinking about it.

Rachael Botfield: 00:13:29

In terms of my podcast, which is always, which is about podcasting,

Rachael Botfield: 00:13:33

but I think that's a really a really good way to look at it and, and to

Rachael Botfield: 00:13:38

understand how to get your episodes.

Rachael Botfield: 00:13:41

We'll be, hopefully be seen by people if you're optimizing.

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:44

You're just thinking of ways that you can increase the

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:48

discoverability of your podcast, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:50

And there's lots of ways like social media is another one.

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:54

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:54

That's another way that people can come across your podcast, YouTube.

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:58

So you've just got to think of SEO.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:02

Podcast SEO as another way that you are, yeah, it's just another way.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:08

Going to be found by.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:09

That you're going to be found.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:10

Exactly.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:11

Is that exactly.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:12

Yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:13

And obviously we want to be as discoverable as possible.

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:18

Exactly.

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:19

So we can see how these ways in where you become more discoverable

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:23

by optimizing your SEO.

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:25

So I'd love it if you could share your top three tips on things to do to

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:30

get, to be, become more discoverable.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:32

Yes, yes, definitely.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:34

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:34

So tip number one, and I've already spoke about keywords.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:39

So yes, Rachel, what are keywords?

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:42

They

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:44

are the search terms, the thing that people use to search.

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:48

And to find your, in Google for your, for your thing.

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:51

You mentioned the tool SEM rush.

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:53

Is that what you called it?

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:54

Cause I've used something like answer the public as

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:57

well.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:57

Yes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:57

So there's lots, there's lots of, lots of different tools out there.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:01

So obviously, so my first, my first tip is keywords and you will need to

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:07

use some sort of keyword research tool.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:10

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:11

Now there's lots out there.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:13

There's lots out there and they range from being free and paid for.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:21

Basically the, like the ones that you pay for, the more expensive ones,

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:27

you just get more features or more added bits that you can do, but.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:32

For, like, just starting out or for what we need it for in this

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:37

example, you'll be fine with a free tool or a cheaper paid for tool.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:43

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:44

Yeah, I

Rachael Botfield: 00:15:44

was going to ask that whether or not it's worth investing

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:46

in.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:46

Yeah, I use, I use SEMrush because I use that.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:50

At work in the professional math, in the, yeah, in the professional

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:54

way, but there's loads of tools out there that you can use for free.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:58

Answer the public is a great one.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:00

There's also, also asked, so the difference between also

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:06

asked and answer the public.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:08

Answer the public gets its data from, so, you know, when you're typing

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:12

in Google and Google auto suggests.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:16

That's where the data comes from with answer the public.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:19

Cause they're very.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:20

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:21

So they're what we call long tail.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:23

So you have keywords that are short, which are normally

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:28

like three to five characters.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:30

No, three to five words, sorry.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:33

Or you have your more long tail keywords.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:35

So your long tail keywords are like your longer phrases or where someone's gone to

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:40

ask a question, for example, on Google.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:41

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:42

Yeah,

Rachael Botfield: 00:16:44

I, I, yeah, I do.

Rachael Botfield: 00:16:45

Cause then I've also used answer the public to help me with some

Rachael Botfield: 00:16:47

topics sometimes or frequently asked

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:49

questions.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:51

Answer the public gets its data from, you know, when you're like searching

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:55

the web and it comes up with a little box that say people also ask.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:00

Yes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:01

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:02

That's where also ask gets their data from.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:04

Ah, okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:05

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:05

So they're both really valuable and both also ask and it's been a while since

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:12

I've used answer the public, but I think they both offer sort of free options.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:16

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:16

You can have, I

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:17

think it's like one or.

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:20

It might be up to three, so I haven't used the other one, but answer the public.

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:24

I think it's like either one or three searches a day for free.

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:27

So, you know, if you wanted to do, and then you can export it as an CSV.

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:33

Like a spreadsheet.

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:34

Yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:34

So you know, if you've got a couple of different topics or ways you want

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:37

to ask, you can get a couple of, I mean, that should be enough for one

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:40

day to go through that kind of data and figure some of those things out.

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:44

Oh, a hundred

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:44

percent.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:44

They're really, really great tools, but there's other ones out there as well.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:48

So yeah, SEM.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:50

There's also like Chrome extensions that you can have, just go to

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:55

Google and type Google keywords.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:59

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:00

Google keyword.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:00

There we go.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:01

So go to Google and search best free keyword research tools or

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:06

best keyword research tools.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:08

And there'll be loads of people that have like reviewed them for you.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:11

So you can like sort of see what you get and stuff, but you

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:15

don't need anything too fancy.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:17

I, you just need the basics for this, for what we need it for.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:23

So yeah, so we talked about keyword research tools.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:26

So when you are planning your episodes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:29

Like use a keyword research tool.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:32

So using your also also ask or your answer the public to help

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:36

you plan your episodes, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:39

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:40

'cause you know that these are the terms that are being

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:43

used and surfaced in Google.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:45

So you need to be using keyword, whether it's a shorter

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:50

phrase or a long tail keyword.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:52

You need to make sure that you're using that in your episode title.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:58

You also want to be using it in your episode show notes as well.

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:04

So yeah, so whatever keyword research tool you, you decide to use, just have

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:10

it so the next time that you're planning your episodes or you're planning your

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:14

season or you're planning your next.

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:16

Three, four, five episodes put in your topic and not only will, you know,

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:22

what people are searching for around that topic, but it also might come

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:26

up with other suggestions that you might've not even been aware of, or

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:30

that you've not even thought about.

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:31

So that.

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:33

So you could go into more detail or you could split it

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:36

up as like part one, part two.

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:37

So it's a really great way of planning your episodes and making sure that you're

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:44

talking about stuff that people want to learn about, if that makes sense.

Rachael Botfield: 00:19:49

Yeah, absolutely.

Rachael Botfield: 00:19:50

You want to make sure that it's relevant.

Rachael Botfield: 00:19:51

That's I think that's the, the biggest key thing that you can do

Rachael Botfield: 00:19:56

when you're creating your content is to making sure that it's relevant.

Rachael Botfield: 00:19:58

And if you're looking at those keywords, those are the most relevant thing that

Rachael Botfield: 00:20:02

people are asking for your particular

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:04

subject.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:05

100%.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:07

Now the difference between like your SEMrush and your hrefs is those tools

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:12

will give you on average, like the monthly search volume, whereas with

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:18

also ask and answer the public, it doesn't because it's different data.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:22

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:22

So just, yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:23

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:23

It just gives you the terms, doesn't it?

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:25

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:25

You still, you can still use both of them.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:27

And just a word of warning about keyword stuffing.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:31

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:32

So like Google don't like this.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:36

Podcast directories and apps don't like this and your listeners,

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:39

your audience won't like this.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:41

So this is where, like, you might've seen it, but where...

Rachael Botfield: 00:20:46

Websites back in the day used to just stuff us with keywords.

Rachael Botfield: 00:20:50

As they said on the website page.

Rachael Botfield: 00:20:52

Oh my gosh, in one of my old jobs, I used to work in events.

Rachael Botfield: 00:20:55

And I, there's the amount of pages I used to come across just looking

Rachael Botfield: 00:20:58

at like event companies and people that hide out event equipment.

Rachael Botfield: 00:21:02

Literally the pages would just be.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:07

So that is not helpful for anyone, is it?

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:10

It's not, it's not helpful for users.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:12

It's not helpful for Google.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:14

So that's why Google's cracking down on stuff like that, because SEO's

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:18

been around now for a while, so it's got a bit more sophisticated.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:22

So back in the day, you could do those kind of tactics to kind of.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:26

Play the system kind of thing.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:28

But yeah, so when you are looking at episode titles, don't just list

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:33

a load of keywords or synonyms.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:35

So synonyms always hate saying that word because it's so hard to say , but synonyms

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:40

are like related keywords that like mean the same thing but said in different ways.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:45

Right, right.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:46

So don't just like stuff your show notes full of them stuff,

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:50

your episode title full of them because it's just not gonna work.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:55

Like, do you know what I mean?

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:56

Google cracks down on it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:57

Apple, yeah, they've cracked down on that because people are trying it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:02

It's not going to be helpful to your listeners, so just don't do it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:07

Just don't do it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:08

You've been warned.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:08

Yes, yes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:10

So that's keywords.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:11

podcast

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:15

SEO is something called backlinks.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:18

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:19

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:19

So backlinks is where you have someone that links to your

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:26

website, that's external from you.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:29

So for example, a backlink would be, so I have a podcast, Rachel has a podcast.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:35

If Rachel decides to link to one of my episodes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:39

On her podcast website, that is what we call a backlink.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:43

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:44

So it's an external to your domain.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:47

So yeah, backlinks are important because what you've got to see

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:52

backlinks is, is a vote to Google.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:55

So earlier on, I talked about Google's algorithm and Google's checklist.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:00

One of the things that it looks at is backlinks.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:02

So are people linking to this?

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:06

Podcast website or this podcast episode, because it's kind of like,

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:10

it helps Google trust that podcast

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:15

episode or that page.

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:15

Because other people are endorsing it effectively.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:18

They're endorsing your, yeah, I endorse this message.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:21

I

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:25

instantly just thought of LinkedIn when people were endorsing you all the time.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:29

I endorse you.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:33

Anyway so yeah, so they're important.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:35

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:36

And so get yourself some backlinks and you've got to be proactive.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:42

So me and Rachel were actually talking about this, weren't we?

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:44

We were, weren't

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:45

we?

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:45

Because.

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:46

Yeah, we'd had in our podcast group as well, our West Midlands Podcast

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:50

Club, we had a lady, Sylvia, came in and talked about backlinks

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:55

and the importance of them.

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:56

And we were all all the people in the group, we were trying to get,

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:59

we were going to write a blog.

Rachael Botfield: 00:24:01

And include backlinks in them.

Rachael Botfield: 00:24:03

And I had written a blog for my website, but I was linking

Rachael Botfield: 00:24:05

to another page in my website.

Rachael Botfield: 00:24:07

So that wasn't quite the same as doing a backlink.

Rachael Botfield: 00:24:11

That was an internal link

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:12

that we, yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:13

Still important, but like we can, you can just invite me back

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:17

and I can talk about more stuff.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:20

Definitely more, definitely more.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:21

More SEO goodness.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:24

But yeah so yeah, so they're very important and we've got to be

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:27

proactive in, in getting them.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:29

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:30

So for example, something that I did earlier this year now, I think

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:36

but I decided to do some research.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:39

On articles or pages that review the best SEO podcast.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:43

Cause I have an SEO podcast, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:45

So all I did was you could use a keyword research tool, but you

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:49

could just open up Google as well.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:51

And I typed in best SEO podcast.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:56

Now what Google showed me was a load of.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:59

Articles where people were reviewing the best SEO podcasts out there, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:07

So I needed to be on there because that's one, a backlink for Google, but

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:13

also these articles are being read.

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:15

So when people are searching, what I said earlier for like some inspiration

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:20

that's improving my discoverability.

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:23

Yeah, so link back to my earlier point.

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:26

I'm a professional, I, I know what I'm doing here.

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:31

. So yeah, so what I did was I looked at who was ranking on page one and

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:36

two and if it was like a listicle, so like articles where they say

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:41

10 of the best SEO podcasts.

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:44

And I wasn't being mentioned, so I found out who the author.

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:50

Of that blog article was, try to find how to contact them, whether that

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:57

was on social media, email, whatever.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:01

And then I reached out to them and I said, great article.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:04

Just want to let you know about my podcast.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:08

This is why it's different.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:09

This is why I.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:10

We think it's really good and really valuable to your audience.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:13

How about you include us?

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:16

So I reached out to a load and it was successful.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:19

Someone reached back to me and they were like, do you know what, Sarah?

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:23

This was at the end of 2022 and they were like, we're actually review.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:29

Cause it was the start of 2023 and they were like, we're actually reviewing.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:33

This article, you need to update it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:35

So you've timed it great.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:37

So yeah, so start thinking for 2024, right.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:42

So start reaching out.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:44

Yeah, yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:45

But there's those other ways that you can like reach out and ask for things.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:48

Just, just a quick question

Rachael Botfield: 00:26:49

about that.

Rachael Botfield: 00:26:50

But I mean, I love that idea.

Rachael Botfield: 00:26:51

It's something that I wouldn't have thought of.

Rachael Botfield: 00:26:53

That's why you're the expert, Sarah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:26:55

But one, my question being is like.

Rachael Botfield: 00:27:00

If your podcast hasn't got a lot of listen, you know, are

Rachael Botfield: 00:27:04

you just do, would it matter?

Rachael Botfield: 00:27:06

Do you, did you put things on about your listens or

Rachael Botfield: 00:27:09

downloads or anything like that?

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:10

Not at all, not at all.

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:11

Like our podcast, The SEO Mindset, we don't have crazy numbers.

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:16

Not like, what we did was because our podcast is so different

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:21

to what is out there, that was the angle that I went with.

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:25

And I think I also shared a review that someone gave about my podcast

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:30

or where they reached out and stuff.

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:31

In

Rachael Botfield: 00:27:32

when you pitched, when you, when you wrote to

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:34

you pitched.

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:35

So, and what, and what you got to think is you're, you're helping them with.

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:41

Their work, because normally they'd have to go out and do their, do

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:45

the research, search podcasts

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:50

and all of that.

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:50

So and you're giving them the reasons like this is the title, this is the host, this

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:55

is why we started, this is our favorite episode, this is what people are saying

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:01

about it, make it hard for them Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:06

Do you know what I mean?

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:07

Like, but it doesn't always have to be, I, I didn't mention once my download numbers

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:12

because yeah, it didn't, it didn't matter.

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:16

Yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:17

Yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:17

That's a really, really good way to look at it.

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:19

And I do, you know, we've talked about podcast numbers and, and things

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:23

before, and that doesn't have to be your only measure of success or like.

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:28

as well for your podcast because I love that you're and early this year you got a

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:32

really cool sponsor as well, haven't you?

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:34

And that, which I think is really awesome for your podcast.

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:36

But I think that, you know, showing your communities out there, your

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:41

people are there, they're your podcast.

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:42

I think that's probably in my personal opinion, that's probably the best.

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:46

thing that you can show for your podcast is that the impact that

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:48

you're having on your community.

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:51

A hundred percent, because they want to showcase the

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:54

podcasts that are actually making a difference at the end of the day.

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:57

Exactly.

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:57

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:57

And that's not

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:58

necessarily to do with numbers, as we all know, it's

Rachael Botfield: 00:29:01

fair to have a small engaged audience.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:03

Then they'll have a lunch.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:03

Yeah, exactly.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:04

Like, it's like the small engaged audience that actually do stuff

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:08

when the hosts say things, right.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:11

Do you know what I mean?

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:12

I'm a big believer in a successful podcast isn't just about the number of downloads.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:18

Because like, yeah, it's not.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:21

It's not.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:21

Success comes in lots of different ways.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:24

So that's Backlink.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:25

So that's one example of how you can do it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:27

Another example is you could have a look at the topics your

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:32

podcast episodes have covered.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:35

Again, fire up Google, do some searching in there, see what

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:40

articles and content are coming up.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:42

And then.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:44

If they're relevant to your podcast episode, find the author.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:47

Find a way to contact them and be like, Hey, great article.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:51

Really build the person up.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:53

Like say how awesome and what you learned from it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:55

But what you could say is, we did a whole podcast episode that might

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:00

be an additional great resource.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:01

So that's another way that you could get some backlink.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:04

So there's different ways, and when you start sort of thinking of ways that

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:08

you can get to link, Podcasting your episode then yeah, you'll, you'll start

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:14

thinking, Oh, there's another idea.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:16

Oh, there's another idea.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:16

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:17

Yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:30:18

These are awesome, Sarah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:30:19

Thank you.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:20

And then my last tip is podcast transcriptions.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:24

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:25

So transcriptions, they are the text version of your audio file.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:32

So we should be doing podcast transcriptions from an accessibility

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:36

point of view anyway, because obviously not everyone can.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:39

Listen and hear podcasts, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:42

So we need to be given the text.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:44

So what'd you call it?

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:45

Like the script or the transcript, the transcript of that audio to make

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:49

it accessible to everyone so that everyone can consume your content.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:53

So we should be doing that anyway, but it also helps Google, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:58

So obviously you got to think that so there's a debate whether Google are

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:04

automatically transcribing audio, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:08

But even if they are, they are a tool, they're a robot or AI or whatever,

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:15

yeah, they're going to get stuff wrong.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:17

Right.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:17

So they might not a hundred percent correctly automatically transcribe it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:23

So having the text version, Google can understand words and texts on a page.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:28

Do you know what I mean?

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:29

Like that's, that's what it's, that's what it does well.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:32

And it's been doing for years.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:34

So making sure that you have a transcript helps with discoverability.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:38

And also when Google's.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:40

Deciding what to rank for certain terms.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:43

It has to understand what your podcast and what your episode is about.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:47

So as you can imagine, if you've just got individual podcast pages with

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:53

just your web player for example, that's quite thin content and

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:57

there's not much for Google to go on.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:59

So this is where your show notes come in handy.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:02

Mm-hmm.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:03

other content on the page.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:05

Your transcript, make sure that you tidy up your transcript as well, because

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:09

obviously I was going to ask about that.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:10

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:11

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:11

It needs to be error free again for accessibility reasons, but

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:15

also from a Google point of view.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:16

So remove the filler words because you want to make it as easy as

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:21

possible for Google to understand what that podcast episode is about.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:25

So then when someone is searching, going back to my earlier example

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:29

of dog training tips, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:33

Like when someone searches that and you've given Google as much information in a

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:40

text format to make them really easily understand what your, what your podcast

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:46

is about, you've got a higher chance of.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:49

Being surfaced, right, and, and stuff.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:51

So yeah, but just make sure because transcription tools are amazing,

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:56

but they always get stuff wrong.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:57

They get names wrong, they get places wrong, they get whole chunks wrong.

Sarah McDowell: 00:33:02

Like I've used a tool and they've said something very different and I'm like,

Sarah McDowell: 00:33:08

does it even sound like that tool?

Sarah McDowell: 00:33:10

Are you drunk?

Sarah McDowell: 00:33:11

What's going on?

Sarah McDowell: 00:33:12

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:33:12

So

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:13

yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:13

I must say.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:14

This is probably a bad confession for a podcaster.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:17

I don't often go over my transcripts.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:20

I used a script and I take out the filler words.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:23

And, but I should probably, I didn't think about.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:29

Also a question, sidetracking slightly.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:32

How does it find, how does it find, how do the Google robots find your transcript?

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:37

So I'll use my podcast for an example.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:38

So I have I do, I use Captivate and I upload my transcript into

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:43

Captivate when I publish my episode.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:46

But when I pr and then I also so I have my Captivate, so you can access my

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:51

podcast through my Captivate website page.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:54

And, but then I also embed the episode in a website page and I have,

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:59

and then I put the show notes as an actual blog post on my, on my website.

Rachael Botfield: 00:34:05

But would it find the transcripts or would I need to put the transcripts

Rachael Botfield: 00:34:10

available on my website as well?

Rachael Botfield: 00:34:12

Or will they find it through the fact that it's three captivate?

Rachael Botfield: 00:34:15

So,

Sarah McDowell: 00:34:16

For that, if you're specifically wanting a

Sarah McDowell: 00:34:20

so in your example, you have.

Sarah McDowell: 00:34:24

Separate episode pages on your podcast website, and those are the ones that you

Sarah McDowell: 00:34:29

want to surface for certain terms, right?

Rachael Botfield: 00:34:32

Yeah, so on my main website, I have a blog thing,

Rachael Botfield: 00:34:35

and then I have a separate page.

Rachael Botfield: 00:34:37

So embed each episode into that separate page and put the show notes in physically.

Rachael Botfield: 00:34:41

Okay,

Sarah McDowell: 00:34:42

so as long as so it sounds like you've got quite detailed show notes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:34:47

Which is going to help Google, because that's what I was saying, because you're

Sarah McDowell: 00:34:50

adding text, you're giving content, you're helping Google understand.

Sarah McDowell: 00:34:54

I would also, if you want Google to surface the transcripts as part of

Sarah McDowell: 00:34:59

that page, it has to be accessible and visible on that page as well.

Rachael Botfield: 00:35:04

Right.

Rachael Botfield: 00:35:06

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:07

But if you have like, cause you're, it sounds like you sort of

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:11

convert your episodes into a blog anyway.

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:14

Yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:35:15

So it's, it's as a blog, it's classed as a blog page on my website.

Rachael Botfield: 00:35:20

And then I have a, the title and then I embed the Captivate code.

Rachael Botfield: 00:35:25

So it pulls in.

Rachael Botfield: 00:35:27

So it's got a little player that's from Captivate.

Rachael Botfield: 00:35:29

And then I put a physical.

Rachael Botfield: 00:35:31

Like I, not physical, but you know, like I write a blog

Rachael Botfield: 00:35:34

post, which is the show notes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:36

Yes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:37

Well, I'd still, because your transcripts still going to go

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:39

into a lot more detail, isn't it?

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:41

So I would, I would to be on the safe side.

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:46

Cause when we're optimizing, it's all when we're optimizing for SEO, it's

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:50

all about making it easy for Google to understand index, find the content.

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:55

So.

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:56

Yeah, I would make sure that the transcript was visible on the page.

Rachael Botfield: 00:36:03

So not just put it as a link No, to the transcript.

Rachael Botfield: 00:36:07

Put the physical, you can, yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:09

Obviously a link to this transcript's gonna help, but then mm-hmm.

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:13

That, that link's gonna take them somewhere else and it won't be somewhere

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:16

else associated with that page.

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:18

Right.

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:18

So to be on the safe side.

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:20

'cause how I do it, 'cause I use mm-hmm.

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:23

. I use Captivate websites so basically a click of a button and I upload transcripts

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:29

and because I'm using Captivate websites on my individual episode

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:33

pages, it publishes the transcripts.

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:35

So then Google can easily access.

Rachael Botfield: 00:36:40

But you're directing people to that one, aren't you?

Rachael Botfield: 00:36:42

I mean, I do love my Captivate website.

Rachael Botfield: 00:36:44

I, I have it designed really nicely, but because I also have a

Rachael Botfield: 00:36:48

business as well, I want people to look and see my business as well.

Rachael Botfield: 00:36:52

So I kind of send people to my website and do it that way.

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:56

Which is, which is perfectly reasonable.

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:58

That's yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:36:59

But would, but because I've got the transcripts displayed

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:02

on my Captivate one, does that.

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:05

But I'm, but I would have to promote that link though.

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:07

Wouldn't I'd have to promote that page specifically to get that to come up?

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:10

It all depends

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:11

on what page you are optimizing.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:13

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:14

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:14

To be shown in in the Google in search engine searches all

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:18

pages when people are searching.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:20

Mm-hmm.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:21

Hmm.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:21

, if it is the cap where the transcript already is, then great.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:25

But if it's, but if it's, if you want, like, it probably makes

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:28

sense in your use case for your business because that's where.

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:33

Yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:33

Yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:34

So that, that's a great tip.

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:35

I will definitely look into putting that on there.

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:38

So just have that transcript at the bottom of the page after the show

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:42

notes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:43

And with everything in marketing, you should be measuring it, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:46

So you could, you could do some.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:49

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:50

I mean, I, me too.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:52

Of course

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:52

I am.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:54

But you can always do a few, let them run for a few

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:57

months and then see if there's been like a positive impact and stuff.

Sarah McDowell: 00:38:02

Yeah, that's a good idea.

Sarah McDowell: 00:38:04

But yeah, like, cause like everything, because I completely understand

Sarah McDowell: 00:38:08

that, we don't have a lot of time and resource on our hands.

Sarah McDowell: 00:38:12

Me with the SEO mindset podcast, it's a, it's a side hustle.

Sarah McDowell: 00:38:16

It's not my nine to five, one day, one day, no I'm joking.

Sarah McDowell: 00:38:21

But yeah, like we've got to be,

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:24

yeah, just trying to get, yeah, everything done.

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:26

It is hard to fit it all in, but you definitely made me

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:29

think more about my transcripts.

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:30

And also I have been thinking about accessibility a lot.

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:33

One of my friends, Hannah McCormick, she, Has a showing up solo podcast, but

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:38

she did an episode about accessibility.

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:41

And then she had a lady called Ann Mok come on, who's a blind social influencer.

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:45

And it was just really interesting listening to her talking about

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:48

the alt text and things like that, that I'd not really considered.

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:51

But since, since listening to that podcast episode which I'll link in the

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:55

show notes it's really made me think a lot more about accessibility and putting

Rachael Botfield: 00:39:00

in the alt text and thinking about those things and not just to make it.

Rachael Botfield: 00:39:04

Like surface for people who can,

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:07

you know, I mean, with all these things like it's always

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:10

for accessibility and that's the core reason why we should be doing it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:14

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:14

It's just handy.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:15

Cause it also helps Google.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:17

Yeah, exactly.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:18

But that's also where so link him.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:22

Such a professional, I've already said this, but linking back to like, you

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:26

know, how I said use a keyword research tool when you're planning your episodes

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:31

because you've like, you've done your research and you know, the keywords

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:35

and terms when you're recording.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:37

Your podcast episode, you're going to be naturally saying them.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:41

Remember, no word, no keyword stuffing.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:44

Like it still needs to be natural, like the quality of your audio and like, yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:49

So, but what I'm saying is like, when you say the specific topic or

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:54

something, you'll be using a keyword.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:57

So then when you transcribe it and you've got the text version, you'll have a lovely

Sarah McDowell: 00:40:02

keywords in there that you will then add.

Sarah McDowell: 00:40:04

To your podcast episode page, which will help with you optimizing

Sarah McDowell: 00:40:10

for different search terms.

Sarah McDowell: 00:40:12

Smart.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:13

Absolutely.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:14

Yes.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:16

You have given so much advice, Sarah, and I could actually talk to you so

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:19

much longer about all of this stuff.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:21

You are so knowledgeable and I would.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:22

Love to have you come back on the podcast another time for us

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:26

to talk about all these awesome.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:28

And this is the kind of conversations why we wanted to start our podcast

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:31

community as well, wasn't it?

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:32

So we can have these types of conversations and learn

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:36

new things from each other.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:37

And so I'm really appreciate you coming on and taking time out of your

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:41

evening to come and chat with me.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:43

So what I will do is I will link to Sarah's podcast.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:47

In the show notes, and I would really recommend you go and have a listen.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:51

Is there anything else you'd just like to leave us with?

Sarah McDowell: 00:40:55

Anything, this is where I need to say something really profound.

Sarah McDowell: 00:40:58

Don't I?

Sarah McDowell: 00:40:59

I've just got like nothing going on for me.

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:03

So yeah, don't get scared by podcast SEO.

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:07

Right.

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:07

I know that it can be scary and it can seem like if you don't, if you're

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:12

not familiar and you've not been working with it for a while, it can

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:16

seem a bit like, oh my gosh, a bit overwhelming, but just try stuff.

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:21

Right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:22

Like take a couple of my tips that I've done today, a couple of

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:28

my tips that I've said today and just try it, have a go, have a go.

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:31

And what, what have you got to lose at the end of the day?

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:34

Because it's all about increasing your discoverability and podcast SEO.

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:41

The tips that I've shared is all geared around helping you do that.

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:46

So yeah, like definitely come and join the West Midlands podcasting

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:50

club This is where we have more conversations like this.

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:54

I'm also on Twitter.

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:55

I'm guessing you'll, you link to my social as well.

Rachael Botfield: 00:41:59

Yeah, link to, link to Twitter and yeah,

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:02

and the podcasts and everything.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:04

So we can carry on and the West Midlands podcast club as well.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:07

If you'd like to join we'll pop a link there.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:10

So we have virtual meetups every second Thursday and then well, we've

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:15

got, like I said before whether it's.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:18

Happened or not by the time this podcast episode comes out, but we

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:21

are looking to do in person events.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:23

So if you are local to us, which is in Worcestershire area, Birmingham,

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:27

the West Midlands area, then we'd love for you to come and join and

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:31

meet face to face and talk nerd more

Sarah McDowell: 00:42:33

out about podcasts.

Sarah McDowell: 00:42:35

Yes, and I don't just talk about SEO, just as a, that's not all, all all

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:41

things.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:42

Well, thanks again, Sarah, and thanks everybody for listening,

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:46

and we'll speak to you soon.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:47

Bye.

Sarah McDowell: 00:42:48

Bye.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:52

Thanks for listening to the show.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:53

If you'd like to connect with me or get in touch, then head on over to my website.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:57

If you liked the episode, then I'd love it if you could leave me a

Rachael Botfield: 00:43:00

review in your chosen podcast app.

Rachael Botfield: 00:43:01

Your feedback is much appreciated.

Rachael Botfield: 00:43:04

See you next

Sarah McDowell: 00:43:04

time.