Podcasting is a popular medium for sharing audio content. Podcasts are an excellent way to reach audiences that prefer listening to reading. They have become widely accepted as a learning tool for both young and old. Due to the increasing acceptance of podcasts in the past few years, a lot of people are using search engines to search for podcasts that relate to their interests. This has necessitated the need to create SEO-friendly podcasts. In order to get your podcast ranked highly in the search engines, you will need to optimize it and make it search-engine friendly.
In case you have questions on how to do this, you are in luck. This post will discuss ways to optimize your podcast and make it SEO-friendly. You will learn how to optimize your topics, keywords, and images so that you can rank higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Let’s get to it. It would be best if you also listened to our SEO Vault Podcast to learn more about creating SEO-friendly podcasts for your audience.
Optimizing The Topics Of Your Podcast
To create an SEO-friendly podcast, the first and most important decision you need to make is the choice of topic. For this, you should consider what the podcast will be used for; it is for interviews, discussions, or any other kind of content. In addition, be sure to consider other factors, such as your target audience and the topic’s popularity. It would help if you also researched what might be popular in your niche or industry.
Don’t be afraid to choose a popular topic amongst blog posts and articles. This is because, unlike blogging, where competition is steep for popular topics, making it difficult to rank, fewer podcasts cover popular topics. Therefore, when you choose a popular blog topic within your niche, you’ll have a higher chance of ranking higher and getting more views.
Another effective strategy for choosing a podcast topic is to come up with a keyword-embedded catchy title. You could use keyword tools to search for relevant keywords that rank high and create your topic around that subject. This will help increase your chances of getting found by potential listeners. However, make sure your topic reflects the content well to avoid anyone from feeling misled.
Choose The Right Keyword For Each episode
You might be familiar with the need for keywords in articles and blog posts; keywords are also essential for your podcasts, especially when creating a series. Well-planned keyword selections will help Google rank each episode of your content. When choosing your keywords or phrases, ensure they’re relevant to your topic and content. Conduct a detailed analysis using keyword tools to simplify your search for relevant keywords. These keyword tools will provide the monthly search numbers for your chosen keywords and even make relevant keyword suggestions for you that you may have yet to consider.
Find The Right Places To Fit Your Keywords
Once you have your keywords and phrases, be sure to include them in audio content; include the keywords naturally and let them flow effortlessly with the rest of your content. Try to avoid overloading your podcast with keywords in a bid to manipulate search results; it would make your work unnatural and even unfriendly to the ears. Apart from including your keywords in your podcast title, ensure to include keywords on other areas of your content, such as;
- The podcast’s URL for each episode
- The subheadings
- Included image file names
- The introduction and conclusion of your content.
When you follow these keyword tips, you’ll have a better chance of getting more listeners on each of your podcasts.
Add Written Content: A Transcript
Search Engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others easily scan through the written text included in the podcast to determine whether or not the content is relevant to searchers. Hence, when you include keyword-optimized written content, you’re doing your audio content a big favor.
If you’re doing a series of episodes related to one topic, endeavor to create separate transcript pages for each episode. This is to make numerous pages on your website rank well on search engines. On each page, include the audio content of your podcast and the written content that will help describe your audio content. To include written content on your podcast, you can write podcast show notes which are brief descriptions of your audio content. You can include charts, links, and images mentioned in the podcast.
Another effective way to include written content on podcasts is by adding podcast audio transcriptions. Podcast transcriptions are word-for-word written forms of your audio content. This way, your website will have both written articles and podcasts of the same content. Your listeners can decide to follow the written content while listening to the audio content.
Use A Clear Voice
Search engines use NLP (natural language processing) to understand written content and audio content of articles, videos, as well as audio. To make it easier for search engines’ NLP bots to read your podcast content, you’ll need to create your podcast with a clear voice.
When you use an audible voice free of incoherent speeches, the keywords and phrases in your audio content will be easy to spot for search engines’ bots. You won’t want to invest your time, money, and effort in creating an SEO-friendly podcast only for it to be unreadable by search engines AI bots; hence be sure to speak clearly and steadily. Clear your throat, train your voice, and get comfy when creating the podcast.
If you make a conscious effort to follow the guidelines for creating SEO-friendly podcasts discussed in this article, you’re on your way to creating podcasts that’ll rank high on search engines.
Importantly, you can also make use of social media to promote your podcast. This could be through paid ads or free posting on your official pages. Whichever option you choose, make sure to be consistent.
