You have a great podcast. You’ve spent hours coming up with topics, recording, and editing different episodes. Now, you want to publish the podcast on the Internet and you want people interested in your topics to be able to find those episodes. The question is: how?
In a recent announcement, Google stated that they are going to start including podcasts in search results. Through the Google Podcasts platform, podcast creators have a place to post their episodes directly or through an RSS feed. It is very important that creators add their podcasts to this platform so that their episodes are included in Google’s search index. Google Podcasts also has the ability to transcribe each episode which will create metadata utilized by search engines to help with the indexing process.
Just like other forms of content, podcast SEO is important. There are a few important, basic tactics to follow when adding each episode online. Following these steps will help ensure that, over time, people will be able to find your content.
Podcast Title
The title of each episode is very important. The title should contain keywords that users may search for when looking for various topics online. These keywords can be a short phrase or a longtail phrase. The title can also assist with click-through-rates. It should entice the listener to click the episode link in order to hear the content.
Podcast Transcript
The transcript function of Google Podcasts is not perfect. It is a good practice to have each episode transcribed so that the search engine can crawl the text for keywords and content. In a sense, transcribing your podcast will act similar to blog content and blogs are a great way to help with SEO.
Podcast Metadata
Metadata is what search engines use to assist in the ranking process of content. With podcasts, there are two types of metadata: description and tags. The podcast description should include keywords along with a summary of the podcast content. Search engines will be able to crawl the description to better link the episode to search terms. Tags should be utilized in order to link the episode content to search terms as well. Tags should include related keywords and phrases that users might be searching for on search engines.
Linking to Social Media
Social media can offer a big boost in both the distribution of the podcast as well as backlinks linking directly from social media posts to each episode. Every episode should be posted on social media with a link for users to click and listen. Boosting posts can also help with reaching a larger audience than just your social media followers. Post engagement campaigns are perfect for reaching this type of audience.
Following these general guidelines when publishing podcast episodes can really help improve the SEO of your podcast in the long run. Leave us a comment below if you have any additional podcast SEO tips. If you need help with podcast production, send us a message and we would be happy to help!