The Website Success Show: SEO & Website Tips For Local & Online Businesses Who Want More Website Traffic & Sales

066: Optimising Your Podcast SEO: Live Audit with Olivia Radcliffe

Jules White Season 1 Episode 66

In this episode, Jules guides Olivia Radcliffe through a podcast SEO audit, identifying key areas she can focus on to help her show, Marketing Like a Mother, attract and nurture the right audience. Olivia shares how her podcast has evolved over time and the steps she’s taking to integrate it more strategically into her business.

Together, they explore practical ways to boost visibility, improve discoverability in podcast apps, and create stronger links between podcast content and a website for long-term growth.

Key Takeaways:

  • Strengthening Podcast SEO: How to optimise your show name, description, and episode titles to improve searchability.
  • Building a Podcast Content Library: The importance of indexing episodes and linking related content to encourage binge-listening.
  • The Power of Website Integration: Why hosting episodes on your own website can boost authority and SEO.
  • Quick SEO Wins for Podcasts: Simple changes you can make today that will have an immediate impact.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

If you’re ready to make your podcast more discoverable and impactful, this episode is packed with actionable tips.

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AI-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT - MAY CONTAIN ERRORS

Introduction to Podcast SEO Audit

Jules White: So hi, today we're diving into a podcast SEO audit for Olivia Radcliffe. By the end of this episode, hopefully we'll have identified one or two key areas that Olivia can focus on to help to reach her goals over the next six months. So welcome, Olivia. It's lovely to have you here.

Olivia Radcliffe: Thank you so much for having me.

Jules White: You're welcome. So before we start.

Olivia's Podcast Journey

Jules White: If we were to meet in six months time, and you were telling me about the amazing things happening in your business, how would your podcast be helping with that?

Olivia Radcliffe: It's a complicated question. And I don't think it's just me that would find that complicated. It's hard to think of your goals and where you want to be with things.

Olivia Radcliffe: Sometimes so a little bit of backstory on the podcast. It was just me and a co-host for the first couple of years of having it. And recently she had to kind of step back because of some family issues. And then I took over the podcast full time. And during our time together doing the podcast, we had it as a really fun hobby, essentially.

Olivia Radcliffe: We just loved doing it. We wanted an excuse to do something together. But we didn't really optimise it too much or pay too much attention to it. So I've had the podcast for a few years now. It's been growing. It has a listenership, but now that it's solely mine, I have to, I've been trying to refocus it and make sure that it is something that actually speaks directly towards my business.

Olivia Radcliffe: And that as much as I love it and as fun as it is. It's not just a hobby because it takes a lot of time and energy and as a busy mum, I do not have a ton of time and energy. Long way to get to the answer is in six months, I would love for the podcast to be providing direct value to my existing audience and helping new people enter my world and get on my list so I can nurture them further from there.

Olivia Radcliffe: I think the nurturing part for both new people and existing clients is pretty big for me.

Jules White: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I love podcasts for that. I think it's so important and it's such a, it's such a simple way to help people to move along that journey, to understanding you, to trusting you, to, to yeah, really getting to know why you're the authority on what you do, I think, really.

Jules White: So that sounds, that sounds good.

Current Podcast and Business Overview

Jules White: So before we start, tell us a little bit about your business and how your podcast currently kind of sits within your other marketing activities.

Olivia Radcliffe: Yeah. So my business is the blue bell group.

Olivia Radcliffe: And on one side of the business, I run a marketing agency, but my main passion and the core of the business is I work with mums with businesses and really help them grow a business and life they love, even if they only have nap time to work in or one episode of Bluey or whatever it is. I still want to help them find that success they're looking for.

Olivia Radcliffe: Now, the podcast I mentioned before, was something I had with my business friend, and then we ended up being business partners and we started a separate business together. And the podcast has always been Marketing Like a Mother, and it's always talked towards directed towards mums and helping them grow their business and marketing in very family friendly ways that prioritise the rest of their lives as well.

Olivia Radcliffe: So that subject has always kind of stuck the same but again, we weren't very purposeful with it originally, so it was just kind of this fun piece that if people happened upon it, and then came into our worlds separately or together from there. It was great. Now I am using the podcast a lot more, um, intentionally, I'm going to say.

Olivia Radcliffe: And I use it very much as a way to provide value. And so I'm trying very hard to kind of index the episodes and figure out where I talk about what so that I actually can use the episodes as a tool, uh, to help answer questions and provide value, to existing clients. And then I'm starting to promote the podcast more to new people, trying to get new people into the world that way.

Jules White: That sounds that sounds really good. You mentioned about creating a database and creating a sort of somewhere where you can understand your different episodes and understand what you've talked about. I think that's a really good point because I have that issue with myself actually working out.

Jules White: Okay. When have I talked about something and I I'm using a Google Doc for mine and I find that's helping me. Have you got a particular thing that you're doing to help with that? Or because obviously you've got, you've got a lot more episodes than I have. Have you got a, a, a sort of a way that you can think about the topics that you talk about and when you've talked about those before, so you can link your content together.

Olivia Radcliffe: Yeah, I have about a couple hundred episodes at this point. And while I can remember who I've talked to and kind of what we talked about, I do not remember if it was last week, two years ago, what, whatever. I couldn't tell you the episode to number title in order to actually share it productively with anyone.

Olivia Radcliffe: So what I did do is I started, like you said, with a Google Doc and I've started just indexing everything with the episode number, the title of it, the guest, and then I'm, in the process of adding in, the show notes. And maybe a transcript as well. And so, the, the ultimate goal I've kind of built out a GPT for myself where I'm uploading the transcripts and all this information, and it's kind of creating behind the scenes, this big Rolodex database of my episodes, and it can get, It can be very high level of here's the title and person, or it can get granular and really get into the transcripts and pull out specific key phrases and words and such and search that way.

Olivia Radcliffe: So it's been a process that it's taken a minute. But

Jules White: It certainly does, isn't it? But that's a really good idea to do it that way.

SEO Strategies for Podcast Episodes

Jules White: I think one of the big benefits of doing that from an SEO point of view is the fact that you can then link your content together. So if you know you've already talked about a related topic or talked about this topic in a different way or talked about it, you've gone into it like as a high level view and you want to dive into that deeper, then linking those episodes together.

Jules White: Whether you do that in your podcast player app and you actually link them in the show notes. I think that's a really good idea to do that because then hopefully it encourages people then to binge your content and to then find other episodes that are also, um, are useful for them. But I'm going to start sharing my screen actually.

Jules White: Share screen. It's this one.

Olivia Radcliffe: That made me very nervous. What are you going to see?

Jules White: Well, a lot of people say that with these audits. If I invite people on, they're like, Oh, I'm not sure I want you to examine my stuff. But actually, I, all I want to do is find some potential quick wins. And I love it with podcast SEO, because there is so much potential for quick wins.

Jules White: Whereas with Google, we have to wait for Google to recall our website and understand what we've done. And there are things we can do to speed that up. But with a podcast SEO, we can go in, we can make changes in our podcast player apps and those changes can happen and straight away, you know, so we can, we can make changes and it literally has an effect straight away.

Jules White: So when I'm looking at podcasts, there are kind of two areas that we can focus on with podcast SEO. So there's the podcast SEO within our podcast player apps. And then there's the podcast SEO that links back to our website as well. And a lot of podcast SEO does link to our own website really.

Jules White: This is something that you don't have your podcast episodes on your own domain at the moment, do you?

Olivia Radcliffe: Yeah, we switched, uh, we switched hosts a lot of different times during the lifetime of the podcast. And because we had two separate businesses and then our joint business, we never put it on our specific websites.

Olivia Radcliffe: We linked it as in like, here, go listen to it. But we didn't have anything, um, on our, on our direct websites related to show notes or episodes or anything.

Jules White: Yeah.

Website Integration and Domain Authority

Jules White: I mean, there are ways that you can build that link up between them, but having those episodes on your own website and having that, content specifically there on your website can be really helpful to build up the authority of your own domain and I'm all about building up our own domain authority and building up content that we own first. This is one of the things I love about podcast is that we do own them so you can do that if you decide you want to change hosts, then you can.

Jules White: Get those episodes and you can move them somewhere else, which you can't do with social media content. You can't do that, you know, with YouTube, unfortunately, that content exists and you own it. But actually having those URLs on your own website could be helpful, but it depends. It entirely depends on what your strategy is.

Jules White: I would maybe think about starting that with the most important episodes, actually getting some URLs. So this is, this is your website, getting some URLs on there that relate to the podcast. Have you actually got. Do you have a URL here that ends in Marketing Like a Mother podcast?

Olivia Radcliffe: I do not. We were using a separate marketinglikeamother.com URL specifically for the podcast.

Jules White: Okay.

Olivia Radcliffe: So, and I have not reconnected that to anything since we made the move to Substack.

Jules White: Do you still own that domain?

Olivia Radcliffe: I do. Yes, I do.

Jules White: Keep hold of that.

Olivia Radcliffe: It's on my list to do something with at some point.

Jules White: Do you know what? All I would do with it is literally

Jules White: just create some kind of basic podcast page for your own website and then just redirect the whole URL from the marketinglikeamother.com URL. Just redirect that to that page on your website. And that will help Google to understand.

Jules White: And you could, do you have Google Search Console set up for the old domain for Marketing Like a Mother podcast?

Olivia Radcliffe: Not from Marketing Like a Mother. I don't think, I don't think we ever went through that process for that one.

Jules White: You could potentially do that. And I mean, it depends how, how long has that URL been like, not live, not had anything content on there?

Olivia Radcliffe: Um, at least six months, probably more than that.

Jules White: I mean, it would be worth knowing how much traffic you had going there. Six months is probably a little bit long, but what you could potentially do, say if you'd done that last week and you had traffic that was going there, you could then tell Google that you're, you were moving, that domain was moving to this domain.

Jules White: And it might be worth it for the sake of it. It doesn't take a lot to do that.

Jules White: Yeah. You could do that in Google Search Console. It's a little bit more sort of technical doing that. But it's, it's, it's certainly something to consider if you're letting go of an old domain name, then, and when it's that kind of thing where it's very specific to the name of the show, I wouldn't let that go, but I would just redirect that to your website because then it, it just all helps.

Jules White: It helps Google to understand that the Bluebell Group is linked to Marketing Like a Mother podcast.

Olivia Radcliffe: Yeah. Yeah.

Jules White: I would definitely do that. And then what you could do is your most important episodes, so the ones that are most key to your like core topics, the pillar things that you talk about, create some URLs on your own website around that.

Jules White: So I have that where I do that with my podcast and I create individual URLs for each episode. And I do them as kind of like blog cast really. So I writing blogs is not my biggest strength. I'm much better getting on a live recording me talking about something. And then, you know, that's a much better way of me communicating, but.

Jules White: What I've started doing now for each episode, I create a, it's like a blog, but it's essentially just a URL on my website where that episode exists, and I put in there, I normally just slightly tweak the show notes from, from that particular episode. And put the transcript in there.

Jules White: I normally put in their key takeaways, the most notable quote from that episode, other quotes from the episode. You like, you can build it out with some content from that particular episode. I normally have at least one place on that page where it links back to Buzzsprout, which is where my podcast is hosted.

Jules White: And so you're just creating those links between your website and your podcast host. Like website that builds up that authority on your own domain and you could just build that content out a little bit more so you've got this of simple page and you said about the getting confused with your own content really and whether other people could be confused with your show art and things like that.

Jules White: You could make this a lot more of an easier place for people to come in and find the type of podcast episodes that they want to listen to. And as I say, start with those most important topics first and make sure that your, your sort of cornerstone pieces of content, the bits that are most important for people to understand and also for, Google to understand that you are an authority on these particular topics.

Jules White: Get those ones on here first, and then people can come in and have a little look on your own website. They can come in and have a little look at your podcast page. And that's probably one of the things that doesn't necessarily need to take a lot of time and effort to do that, but that could be really helpful.

Jules White: That's kind of come back to more of your website SEO, but it all links together.

Olivia Radcliffe: Yeah.

Olivia Radcliffe: I'm thinking through whether it needs to be a, I create a separate page or if I should re-engage my actual blog for the website and start putting them as kind of entries to the blog because currently my blog is not live.

Jules White: So I have both actually, I have a podcast page and I have a blog page on my website and I have both links from my navigation menu. And the ones that I have developed into more of full blog posts, I have those on the blog page. I'm preferring creating those podcast episodes really so I think it definitely helps people depending on which way they like to digest content and you don't want those pages from competing against each other.

Jules White: So because you are creating so much new content, and the podcasts coming out regularly. I would be more inclined to develop that podcast page. And then if any of those episodes are ones where you think actually this really does need to be a written blog, then create blogs around it.

Jules White: And then you could create links to those pages. And you could even then mark one of those pages as canonical for that particular keyword that you're trying to, you know, create. To rank that page for so then you're telling Google, actually, if somebody's type is somebody's look searching for this particular keyword, this is the page you need to show.

Jules White: So I would be inclined to do that really but if you've got those podcast episodes there if it's if that content is there and ready to go you've already got the descriptions you've already got the transcript. I'd be more inclined to do that first really.

Olivia Radcliffe: Okay. Okay.

Jules White: And even, even just having, you know, even if you focused on your most popular episodes and got those on there.

Jules White: It's just all building that content on your own website, really.

Olivia Radcliffe: Yeah, I like that prioritizing your domain.

Jules White: Yeah. Yeah. I'm all about that. I've created quite a few episodes around why it's so important to create content that we own first and rather than just keep feeding the algorithm with stuff that doesn't then raise our authority, doesn't raise our credibility.

Jules White: And this is becoming even more important with AI searches is that we need to be that authority on the topics that we talk about really.

Optimising Show Descriptions and Titles

Jules White: So if we were looking at, you know, podcast specifically. So if we were looking at specific things that you can do within your podcast descriptions and the show notes and everything, one of the things I would say, let me come into, so I listen to podcasts in Pocket Casts, so that's why I've got that here.

Jules White: Um, there's, there's a few key places that we can make changes within our podcast player apps. I. Buzzsprout to host my podcast. So I would go into Buzzsprout and make some changes to my show description, my name, and that's where you can kind of make those changes and they show up straight away. One of the most important places where we can actually try and get those keywords and try and connect with people who are searching for what we talk about on our podcast is in the show name.

Jules White: And it's not something that you would want to change the show name, but what you could do is add on a name extension. So my actual, my podcast name, I call it the Website Success Show. If I'm talking about it, it will be the Website Success Show. But the actual name is currently, because I do change it every now and again, just to see if that,

Jules White: makes a difference to what's showing up in searches. But mine is actually The Website Success Show: SEO and website tips for local and online businesses who want more website traffic and sales. So I had to scroll to see it was, and I couldn't, I couldn't remember that. I wouldn't be able to just like reel that off off the top of my head.

Jules White: But having that in there, you would still call the show Marketing Like a Mother, but adding that something in there, That can really help. Yeah. It can make a massive difference. The show name and the show description is the one of the sort of key places where you can optimise your podcast really to show up in searches.

Jules White: And when we're talking about podcast searches, we're talking about people looking in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, wherever they're looking, trying to find, find shows like yours or trying to find answers to. A particular problem or a solution or trying to find, you know, trying to connect with content like yours really.

Jules White: So that's something you could think about adding something in there just to increase that that visibility with the show name. It's definitely something where all of these things I would be using ChatGPT or Google Gemini to help me. I actually did a little ChatGPT thing before we came on.

Jules White: So looking at your show description. So I put into ChatGPT, little prompt of how can we improve the podcast show description for the Marketing Like a Mother podcast. And then I pasted the description you've got in there already, the show name and description in there. And then I put. in there. So this is something I like to add on to the descriptions is I put maybe if you're asking questions like dot, dot, dot.

Jules White: So telling ChatGPT that that's the kind of thing that I'm looking for it. And it said, here's a refined version of the podcast description that keeps engaging, relatable, and clear whilst highlighting the podcast unique value for mum entrepreneurs. And then it's come up with the start of it is kind of the same A podcast for mum entrepreneurs who want to grow a thriving business whilst navigating the beautiful chaos of motherhood.

Jules White: Whether you're squeezing in work during a nap time or stealing a few moments of focus while Bluey entertains, this show is here to help you build a business and life you love without sacrificing your sanity. Each episode features step by step strategies, actionable tips and inspiring guest interviews to help market smarter, not harder.

Jules White: If you're asking questions like, how do I attract clients without working 24/7? What's the best way to grow my business with limited time? Can I really balance it all without burning out? You're in the right place. Hit play and let's make your dreams doable.

Olivia Radcliffe: I love it. Very good. That's perfect.

Jules White: I'll share that with you afterwards.

Jules White: But it's those kind of things that actually, I often do this if I'm working with somebody on their Google Business Profile, we'll go in and do this for the description there. And it always comes up with something amazing. So I think we're very fortunate that we've got these tools to help us. But you can see how just adding that in and those questions might not necessarily be the ones that would connect with people with your But it's, it's worth thinking about that.

Jules White: You could even go in and then ask ChatGPT, okay. Now the questions aren't quite right. I think about these sort of ones really, but having that in your main show description is really, really helpful. Just expanding on that description a little bit. One thing I did see when I. Look, when I look at mine, if I search for my own one here is that it looks, Oh no, it looks okay on here.

Jules White: I think it was, it was one of them. I maybe went onto it on Spotify or something like that, and it was all squashed up together. So it might not look beautiful, but it's worth doing because that, those, those terms will show up in the searches. And also that will show up in searches on Google as well. So if you've got some questions in there that relate, that relate to what your, the problems that you're solving and what you're talking about, that can then show up if somebody is, is.

Jules White: searching for that kind of term on Google really. And then you can think about the same things with your individual episodes as well. So the episode titles and descriptions as well is something that you can also think about the questions that you've asked or answered within that episode, adding that into the show notes or the, you know, whether you call them show notes or episode descriptions, I know in Buzzsprout it describes it as episode descriptions, but you can add those in there as well.

Jules White: And then Show art is something as well, where that's probably the key areas is your show name description and the show art are the ones that are quite simple to change and can make quite a big difference.

Enhancing Podcast Visibility

Jules White: So I love the fact that, so if we're thinking about show art, we're thinking about people looking at a tiny thumbnail on their phone, which is usually where people will be discovering podcasts.

Jules White: It's the kind of thing that if people are in their podcast player apps, Apple and whichever I keep saying Apple, but whichever podcast player platform they're using, it will be suggesting other podcasts that they may find entertaining or helpful. And if your show art is very visible in terms of the words on there, that's the bit that's going to stand out to people.

Jules White: So I think sometimes people can have a show art where it's a big picture of their face, and then the words are really hard to see. And we're definitely, if you can switch that around and yours, I love the fact that mother sounds out so much, but whether you could then make marketing a bit bigger there.

Jules White: And then if you did have that extension into the show name, having that in there as well. So let's have a look at mine again.

Olivia Radcliffe: So do you have that subtitle in there?

Jules White: I would, I, if you can, I mean, or have something like that. Actually, I'm looking at mine and actually, yeah, there's no way I could have had that whole subtitle in there, but just something in that I changed this recently, actually, so I changed it recently and put my face on there.

Jules White: I didn't have that on there for a while, but yeah, just having, so mine used to be the website success show was bigger. And then the website and SEO tips were smaller. So I thought, well, I'll change it around. And I've had a few people have told me they found me from typing website and SEO tips into the podcast player app.

Jules White: So it's worth having a little tweak around with it, but obviously it depends on whether that then is just a killer having to redo the branding. I only use these. I don't have individual episode show art. So it makes it easier that I just changed that once and it changes it across everything.

Jules White: but yeah, it's certainly worth. Yeah. Having a try with that, you know, seeing, seeing if you can, just get some more visibility from doing that really. And definitely look at it on your phone because it, I think it makes it even more sort of evident when you look at it on your phone of whether you can actually see it or not.

Jules White: Especially if it's people who need to get their glasses out to look at their phone as well.

Olivia Radcliffe: Yes, yes.

Jules White: Same with websites as well, when people use fonts that are too small, don't make people get their glasses out to do business with you really. So, any questions about what we've sort of covered so far or anything that's, that's made like light bulb moments or anything that's kind of made you think,

Olivia Radcliffe: Oh, that, that all makes so much sense. I really love having the questions in the show description because that's, that's such a no brainer for SEO, but also really helps people self identify of, yes, I've absolutely been asking these questions lately and, I think that's brilliant. So

Jules White: yeah, definitely. And if you then create that.

Jules White: Podcast page on your website. You could have those questions on that page as well. So that could be really helpful. Brilliant. So, yeah, I think, so the, the main things are tying it back to your own domain, even just getting the URL and having that link of Marketing Like a Mother on your own domain, I think could be really helpful. And then just adding in those, the, the show name description and, and the art, have a think about the artwork as well, really. So you've got some specific things that can be helpful to do. And definitely carry on with that database for the podcast episodes as well. I guess.

Olivia Radcliffe: So, yeah. One random question.

Jules White: Yeah.

Olivia Radcliffe: So I've mentioned that the podcast went through several iterations and went through several different brand changes and we changed colours and all this stuff, for the title. And I do have different episode, cover art now where I'm putting in the number of the episode and the name of the guest.

Olivia Radcliffe: How important is it that I go back and kind of make. Make things look the same, feel the same, like you notice I have some of them. I just started numbering the episodes because I was really losing track of where I was with things. How important do you think it is for me to go back and start to kind of, make things a little more cohesive or at least make sure that the branding is the same. If you mentioned the cover art things coming up.

Jules White: yeah. I think, I think it's getting that balance really. I love the idea of adding the numbers. I didn't notice that you didn't have numbers before that. It makes such a difference. In terms of you being able to say, I usually when I'm recording my podcast, I'll name at least two other episodes that people can go and listen to and having the numbers there is just so much easier.

Jules White: And if you're ever doing guest talks or anything like that, you can literally tell people episode one, three, four or whatever then. That I think is, is really important. Is important so what I would potentially do with that is if you is examining your old content and think about the episodes that are most important in relation to those core topics that you talk about start with those ones first so even if you know okay episode 50 is one that I really need to You know, I, I've not talked about that elsewhere.

Jules White: Or it's something that's so important that you need to keep linking back to that episode. Or if it's an episode that's been really popular as well, that that could be the places to start going in and just adding that number in there and updating that show. You know, so, so that, that is all on brand. You could potentially do that.

Jules White: I'm not so sure with the, with the show art, I think it, it does show an evolution of the podcast sometimes, so I wouldn't be too worried about that because the majority of people are gonna see the latest show art. Anyway, in the podcast player apps, that's what you tend to see is whatever's the latest one.

Jules White: So I wouldn't worry so much about that. But in terms of going back and updating other stuff, it really all depends on that episode on how relevant it is to what you still talk about and what you what is relevant in terms of bringing people through that, that customer journey to buying with you. And so.

Jules White: And yeah, what, what, what episodes are, sorry I've just completely lost my train of thought, but yeah, what, what episodes are the ones that you really do need to sort of focus on first, really, I would think about it that way.

Olivia Radcliffe: Okay, perfect.

Final Thoughts and Resources

Jules White: So, before we finish, I would love you to give yourself another little shout out and let everyone know specifically again what you do and more most importantly where they can connect with you and find out more.

Olivia Radcliffe: Well, you should listen to my podcast Marketing Like a Mother. No, in all seriousness, you should, but, I love helping mums find their freedom and growing a business. Oh, that actually suits their life and enhances their life. Not something that. You feel like you have to fit in a life around doing your business where you feel like you're constantly changing your desk and overwhelmed and stressed and just spinning your wheels, trying to catch up every single day.

Olivia Radcliffe: So let's flip that on its head. Let's do that the other way around. So, that's really what I dig into, in the podcast. I have a lot of good resources for that. Free resources on my website, thebluebellgroup.com. Or hit me up on social media. I'm mainly going to be on Instagram, @thebluebellgroup.

Olivia Radcliffe: And, yeah, if you have any questions or want to go learn more deeper about that sort of topic, feel free, shoot me a message and I'll get back with you.

Jules White: I love that. I'll put those links in the show notes as well for this episode. So if this episode has made you think about your podcast SEO and you'd like to explore optimising it a bit more, then you can also visit my website and you can get a free SEO for podcasts checklist.

Jules White: I also offer a mini intensive. Which is a short session where we can actually get your podcast SEO optimised together. So thank you so much for listening and thanks Olivia for being here and I'll see you soon.



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