065: SEO for Podcasts: Essential Tips to Increase Your Reach

In this episode, Jules White shares how to optimise your podcast for search engines and podcast player apps, so you can attract more listeners with less posting on social media.

Jules explains why podcast SEO is essential for discoverability and authority building, and breaks down quick wins that can help your show get found by the right audience. From optimising your podcast title and episode descriptions to leveraging transcripts and linking back to your website, this episode is packed with actionable insights.

Key Takeaways:

• What is Podcast SEO? Learn how search optimisation works within podcast platforms and how it differs from traditional SEO.
• Optimising Your Show Name & Description: Discover why including descriptive keywords in your podcast title can make all the difference in search visibility.
• The Power of Episode Titles & Descriptions: Find out how to write compelling, keyword-rich episode titles and descriptions that attract more listeners.
• Podcast Artwork That Stands Out: Understand the importance of readable, attention-grabbing podcast cover art for attracting new audiences.
• Bringing Traffic Back to Your Website: Learn why having a dedicated podcast page on your website can improve your domain authority and SEO.

If you're looking to increase your podcast's reach and make your content work harder for you, this episode is a must-listen!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Free SEO for Podcast Checklist – Get the essential steps to optimise your podcast for search.
• SEO for Podcasts Workshop Replay – Learn how to stand out on any platform with a structured SEO strategy.

Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast for more actionable insights on SEO and website success!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Purpose
• 0:44 SEO Strategies for Podcasts
• 2:27 Optimising Podcast Titles and Descriptions
• 9:24 Using Tools for Podcast SEO
• 14:24 Submitting to Podcast Platforms
• 17:08 Leveraging Your Website for Podcast SEO
• 21:55 Conclusion

Transcript

AI-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT - MAY CONTAIN ERRORS

Introduction and Purpose

Good morning. So I thought I'd just pop on this morning because I was trying to write a couple of blog posts, and I always find it much easier to actually, rather than writing, I like to have that initial first start of me actually talking about whatever I am trying to write a blog post about.

And then if I put that into Chat GPT, I get a much better response. It sounds much more like me, and I could just edit it. I definitely prefer doing it that way, actually.

SEO Strategies for Podcasts

So I'm going to talk a little bit about SEO for podcasts.

My podcast has been relying solely on SEO and me talking about it to grow it. As you may know, I had decided not to promote my podcast on social media. It does start here in the Facebook group. So my Friday lives become the podcast that I edit, and then that goes onto my podcast platform. But I have relied on search to make a difference to me actually getting 3,100 downloads.

And I am starting to get coming through as well from search on podcasts. And it's something that if you're creating some amazing content for a podcast, then if you can just optimise some of the parts of it, just the little bits you need to, then it makes a massive difference in terms of that discoverability.

And podcasts are great for discoverability and for growing your authority online. So the thing that I really love is the fact that I'm creating this bank of content that helps to grow the fact that I'm an authority on websites and SEO and all the other things that I talk about here.

So my podcast is on Buzzsprout. Even if it went away, I could take those podcast episodes and host them somewhere else. And it's something that I own. It's something that no algorithm can take that away from me, rather.

So when you're thinking about SEO for your, I love the fact that there's real opportunities to get quick wins. It's something that you can optimise in podcast player apps, and you can start there before you start thinking about how you can bring that back to your own domain and start tying it in with other parts of your SEO.

You can, there's definitely some quick wins that you can get, and that's what I'm going to talk about today. The ways that you can get some quick wins through podcast SEO and how you can then bring that back to your own domain as well.

Optimising Podcast Titles and Descriptions

So, let's start by talking about what specifically podcast SEO is.

Regular SEO is something that you do on your own website, and you optimise your own website for search. Any type of SEO is all about showing up in searches. So when people are out there searching for something you do, some problem that you solve, something you can help them with, that you show up when those people are searching.

And the difference with podcast SEO is we generally are talking about you showing up in the podcast player platforms. So things like Apple Podcasts, Spotify. I listen on Pocket Casts. So whatever podcast player app people would usually listen to their podcasts in, whatever podcast they subscribe to, is optimising for that.

And there are different things that you can do within when you're creating your podcast that can really help. So one of the things is making sure that when you create your podcast that you give them, give it a show name and description that actually incorporates your keywords. So keywords are the things that people are typing into a search to look for solving their problems or look for whatever topic they're trying to find something on about.

So if it was say for a beauty business, then having your podcast name as the beauty business show or something like that. If it's, if it's beauty business.

So my own podcast is called the Website Success Show. That's what I call the podcast if I'm talking about it, but the actual whole name of my podcast is The Website Success Show: SEO, And Website Tips For Local And Online Businesses Who Want More Traffic And Sales.

So that's a bit of a mouthful, and I would never say that out loud if I was describing my show to somebody. It is called the Website Success Show. But by having that extension in the title. So it's like the website success show and then a colon and then the rest that I just said. Having that in there makes a massive difference to me.

Actually, then showing up when people are typing into podcast player apps, things like more traffic to your website, website tips, those kinds of things, then that will help my show to then be recognised as something that should show up. And that has happened. People have told me they've found my show. I had someone in Australia tell me that she found my show through typing, increase website traffic, improve website traffic.

Um, somebody else said that they had found me, from typing in website and SEO tips. So it was that combination there. So if you can be quite specific within your show name, then that can make a big difference in terms of that searchability. And one of the things I like about podcasts is, is you can do a bit of a rebrand.

So if you've called your show something and you think, oh, it's really not working for me, I'm not keen, then there's two ways you can approach it. You can just change the name of the show, especially if you haven't got a domain name that then ties into that as well. That makes it a lot less complicated to change the show name, and you can do it as a rebrand.

Or you can just change that title description. And I think I've changed my title description about three or four times, and I probably will change it again realistically. That's something that you can then just tweak and try different things. And people won't even notice, to be honest with you, like people wouldn't notice that I've changed that, that description, but it might just help.

As you're refining your message and refining your audience, it might just help you to actually then show up.

So, start with your show name, having those descriptive keywords in there of people, how people would be searching for businesses like yours or solutions to your problem, or the specific person you help, you could even incorporate that into your show name.

And then within the show art as well. So when you create art for your show, which is the little thumbnail that you see, and if you look at it on your phone, so if you're creating it, you might be creating it in Canva on your desktop, and it's a nice big screen, and you kind of think, oh yeah, that looks nice.

Look at it on your phone, and look at when they've got that tiny window, especially when people are searching in the podcast player apps. It's a teeny tiny window, so you're really trying to grab their attention there, and it should be the words that stand out. So this is where you want to have a nice bold font, something that is really easy to read.

And that is sort of the star of the show, because that's what will attract people. If you're, yes, if you're a big name and people are looking for your face, then that, could be a bit more having, having you as the star of the show. But even still, people want to know what's in it for them.

And if you're trying to attract a new audience, especially, then it's the words that's going to encourage people to actually click on that little thumbnail and see what your show is all about. So I would think about having a look at your show up, make sure the words are really eligible and then really legible.

Really eligible, really legible. And then have maybe a small picture of you if you want to then have your face on there. Then actually just a smaller picture of you. If you can get those keywords into your show art as well, then that's gonna really grab people's attention and make it more likely that they're actually gonna click through and start listening to your show and optimising your titles and descriptions, so as well as the show are and the.

And the show name, you would also do the same thing with your show description. So the show description shows up on every episode, make sure that that is also very descriptive. So you could put some things in there like common questions that people are asking and.

Make sure the description contains those keywords. Anything that would help people to actually see why this is the show for them. Then put that into your main description for your show. You can make sure you've got your name in there as well. 'Cause that helps them to build your authority, whether it is your brand name or if you are a personal brand and making sure that your brand is in there.

Making sure that you've got links to your website, your domain, that actually show up in that, in that part as well. Like anything important that people should do as a next step for your business, have that in that main show description. And then each individual show has its own potential for SEO as well.

So when you're thinking about titles and descriptions for the individual episodes, make sure that you've got those keywords in there as well. Try and front load them if you can. So put the keywords towards the front of the descriptions and the titles not always. Black and white and it's not always as easy as doing that.

Sometimes we actually, we can't do that because it just doesn't sound human. It sounds like it's keyword stuffing and it just doesn't sound natural. So as much as we would try and do that, if it doesn't sound natural, I would always say go with something that sounds natural anyway.

You still want those keywords to be in there so that if somebody is searching, then your show, that particular episode is likely to pop up. But make sure that it sounds like it's written for humans, by humans, that's probably the key thing really with any of this really. A couple of examples of sort of good versus bad episode names if it was episode 12 tips for self-care, if this was for a beauty brand, and a better version of that could be episode five proven self-care tips to reduce stress and glow from within.

Something like that show name is going to help to be compelling for people to actually click on that episode and see what that's all about.

Using Tools for Podcast SEO

You can use Chat GPT or Google Gemini. I generally tend to do with these kind of episodes when I'm creating a podcast is I will upload it into Descript. I'll grab the transcript from there. It does, Descript does all of that for me. It's amazing. I'll grab the transcript. I'll pop it into ChatGBT. I tend to do Google Gemini as well.

I use both of them when I'm creating my podcasts. Just purely, I get some better results with, Chat GPT, I get some better results with Google Gemini, particularly in terms of cleaning up the transcript. I find that Google Gemini does a much better job of that. So that's why I tend to use both, and it doesn't take any more time.

It's literally just copy and paste into each and I will pop that in there and I've got a particular prompt that I use it said something like this is my a transcript from my latest podcast episode. Please create a description and then I have in that this is an example of a description from a previous episode and I put in there the exact layout I have for for my episode.

So it gives me a pretty standard episode description each time, and I will actually put that in there and then after I've done that and it's created a show description for me then I'll ask it what should we call this episode. And it will come up with a few examples and if you've got a particular keyword that you're trying to target that episode for, you can tell Google Gemini or ChatGPT, this is the keyword I want to, I want to target for in this episode.

Please create a show name. Based on that, and if you've got any ideas for that particular show name, you could ask it, what do you think of this? So this is something that you don't always have to go with what it says. And quite often I'll see some ideas in ChatGPT and then think, that's not quite right.

Let me tweak that a little bit. And actually it's just a jumping off point really. So it does help. So that's how you can just make some tweaks to the show names and show descriptions for each individual episode that makes a difference and and the show description is sometimes called the show notes so it depends what your platform calls it i use buzzsprout and that calls it description and you can then make those as expansive or as short as you want, but if you can make sure that you cover the main things.

So if I'm looking at one of my episodes, I always make sure that I have a little intro. So it usually says in this episode of the Website Success Show host Jules White, like this is a very old episode, but this is like demystifies the world of search engine optimisation SEO. And so I have a little intro.

A little bit about what people are going to learn and what the episode is about. I always put key takeaways in there as well, and that's quite a good place to put in if people are searching for something particular on like how to get more website traffic on there. Podcast player apps, if I've got that as one of the key takeaways, and I've got that as a snippet it can understand, then that's really helpful.

I also then make sure that I always link out to something on my own website. I'm usually, it's a freebie, or it might be one of my online courses, or it might be a link to book a discovery call, but I'll always make sure that I have at least one link out to my own website. It tends to be more. I usually also link to other episodes as well, and that also helps with that discoverability.

And with people, not so much for search, but with people just binging your content and understanding more about content. If you can let them know which episode is another good one to listen to, then that can be really helpful as well. Um, making sure that call to action that it's actually asking people to go back to your own domain.

That helps to bring more traffic through to your own domain, and that helps with your website SEO. So it helps Google and, or anywhere else where people are searching. So whether that is in ChatGBT or, or, Or perplexity or wherever people are searching or Bing, you know, all the different search engines, it helps them to understand your authority.

It helps them to understand that your website does get traffic and people like to spend time there. And it is, it's important for that to build that trust with Google and build your authority of your own domain. And that's one of the main things I would say in terms of how you're optimising for the podcast player apps is making sure you're doing that.

So that's the main thing is making sure your show name, your show description, your episode names, episode descriptions, and your show art is all optimised, and it doesn't, this doesn't have to take a long time. This part of the podcast production for me is a really quick part, but mostly because ChatGPT does most of it for me or Google Gemini, and then that just gets copied and pasted into into. Started adding the chapters into my podcasts as well. And that maybe takes, I don't know, three or four minutes to do that, and this is something else that Descript does for me, so it will add the chapters in for me, but you could use ChatGPT or Gemini to do that for you, but that part of it, then all of those little chapters within your podcast, can then also be showing up in searches as well.

It's just helping all of those amazing topics that you're talking about in your podcast. It's then helping to increase the chance of those actually showing up in searches as well. Then.

Submitting to Podcast Platforms

Making sure that your podcast is available on all the podcast player apps is really important.

This is a lesson that I learned very early on in my first month of podcasting is forgot to actually submit it the, to the podcast player apps. So I think I had about 10 episodes before I started really talking about it.

So I think I really quickly released maybe up to about five or six episodes. And then I was starting to tell a few people around it or about it rather. And then I got up to 10 episodes and I was networking and somebody said to me, so can we find your podcast?

We were talking about it and they, we couldn't find it on Apple Podcasts. I was like, oh yeah, I'll have to have a look at that. And then I came back, looked at Buzzsprout and realised I hadn't submitted it to the podcast player apps. And it's important to do that, but it's important to do it to pretty much all of them if you can.

So depending on what podcast hosting platform you're using, normally you go in and you just push it out to all the platforms. Some of them you have to go in and add an account or you have to like, I think with Apple, I think I had to create an Apple for Creators account and then just make sure that just connects it all up.

But it was really simple to do, really easy to do. And it was something that once I'd done it, I could literally just do all of them. And it means that my show then shows up within those platforms, and I think if you don't do that, if you can kind of just focus on the main ones, then you are missing out on a lot of opportunities.

I've had it before where I've looked for podcasts and they've only had Apple Podcasts and Spotify as available in there and then maybe they've had their RSS feed. So then I, I've had to then go into Pocket Casts and paste that in there and had to try different ways to find their podcast.

And for me, that's not so bad. I am techie. So doing that is it's not difficult, but it is a hassle. And you have to remember that anything, any kind of barrier to people actually hitting play and being able to get you right there where they listen to their podcast is going to make a difference to your download numbers.

So making sure that you do that actually is across all of the places. And that's where having it back on your own website with a link for people who are serious about being able to find your show. There's different places so that they can listen in the place that they want to. So I would definitely recommend doing that.

That was the difference between the first month I had 18 downloads and then. I can't even remember how many I got in the second one, maybe like 350, something like that, but it was literally, you know, as soon as it went into the apps, I started getting people finding, finding it organically through search, which is really great.

So then the last big thing I want to sort of talk about in terms of.

Leveraging Your Website for Podcast SEO

Podcast SEO is making sure that everything you're doing is bringing everything back to your own domain. So I would love if you've got a fantastic podcast that you're creating and it's amazing content out there. I would love it if that was also supporting your own website domain.

So I have dedicated podcast pages on my website. I have a blog on there and I also have podcast pages and I've had to find ways just to do it messy, really. So do it imperfectly. Making sure that I've got those episodes on there, even if at the right now I have episodes on there that are just literally it's a page for each episode and it's the transcript on there.

So I do edit my transcript a little bit with using Google Gemini, so it breaks it up into paragraphs. It's not just one long great paragraph. Big wall of text. It breaks it up into paragraphs. It, it changes it to UK English. It does correct any sort of like, if I'm repeating words or any major spelling mistakes, those kinds of things that often come through on transcripts.

It sorts that bit out a little, a little bit, so it makes it more readable. And definitely my goal is to go back in and make all of those into blog posts. But I've just had to be okay with the fact that actually having that on my website, even if it is just the transcript and the podcast player, the little embed.

So people can listen to it right there, or they can go and listen to it in their podcast player apps, or they can read the transcript. So that's something I would say, if you can then have at least, even if you don't do that, even if you don't have the capacity to create individual pages for each episode, making sure that you've got one page for your podcast on your website.

And that page then helps people to understand about the podcast, helps people to find episodes that can help them. So if you're not, if you're not creating lots of pages on your site, so it looks almost like a blog for your podcast. You've got all the episodes there. These are the most popular ones. These are the ones you really need to listen to.

Ideally, if you get to a point where you create playlists, so people, if somebody's, for example, for my work, my business, if somebody's coming in and they want to learn about podcasts. Or podcast SEO, having a playlist that relates to all the episodes on that. And I haven't got that many episodes around podcast SEO, but certainly I could do that for like local SEO, creating a playlist that links to all the episodes that are about local SEO.

And that really helps within your own domain. If you think about that for your core topics, and I talked about core topics, I think it was back in episode nine I'll link to that anyway, but. Actually, what working out your core topics and just focusing on that, if you've got episodes of your podcast that are specifically specifically around those core topics, creating a few pages on your own domain around those topics, and creating them as good blog posts.

So people can either read it or they can listen to the podcast. If you've got YouTube as well, then actually having a link to your YouTube video in there as well. So if people want to watch it, video isn't it. It's big, big, big. And if you, if you can do anything to help your business, then creating videos can make a massive difference.

Then. Having that in there and having that as dedicated pages on your website just for those core episodes can make a massive difference. It helps to build up your authority around those core topics and helps people to then be able to come in and discover more about that and learn more from you and then hopefully go along that journey to then becoming either subscribers or becoming customers and you can have all that built out within those pages on your own.

Domain, but you are also then linking back to those pages. If you're sending out any emails promoting the podcast or just promoting, like talking about the topic that you're talking about on that particular episode, bringing that back to your own domain, it is all bringing more traffic into your website, which then encourages Google to understand that people are visiting this website.

This is a good website. People are spending time there and it just all helps to build up your authority online. So everything else you're doing, whether you're doing social media or YouTube or your podcast, it all comes back to that main hub that you own, which is your own domain and your own website.

So if you're doing that and you're building out those podcast pages on your website, really important to make sure that your keywords that you're trying to target for that particular page are in your page titles and descriptions. You should naturally be mentioning it throughout the content, because that is the topic of the.

Episode. And that's why it makes it so much easier. This, when I turn this into a blog post, it will naturally have me mentioning podcasts, mentioning SEO. And so that naturally is there throughout the content, which is the best way to, for our content to be discoverable really. And for us to optimise our content is making sure that we are mentioning it and mentioning it in a natural way throughout, right.

Rather than trying to keyword stuff things.

Conclusion and Additional Resources

So I hope that's helpful. So the main points are definitely remember to optimise your show name and description, your titles for each episode and the descriptions for each episode, your show art. And then getting it pushed out across all of the podcast player apps.

And then building up at least one main page on your website, which is your podcast page, and essentially is like the hub on your website of your podcast. So that sounds like a lot of things to do, but if you're creating podcasts anyway, these are just a few extra steps that you can put into your process that can make all the difference, and help people just to discover you organically.

And that's, that's what we want, right? Is we want people to actually find us when they're searching for a solution to their problem and we are that solution, then we want them to find us organically if we can. So I hope you've enjoyed this. I've got a couple of things you can then do if you want to find out more.

I've got a free SEO for podcast checklist. You can find that on my website and I'll link to that as well. And if you want to just learn a bit more about this and learn how to do this a bit more for yourself, then you can take my SEO for podcast. Workshop replay, which is also on my website. And that can help you just to learn more about how to stand out on any platform as well.

So I hope you have a good day and I'll see you soon.