Hello, and welcome to the Pod Sound School channel the place to be for all things podcasting.
In today's video, I want to show you the most common podcast SEO mistakes and share a few
tips on avoiding them.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s a free marketing strategy you can use
to make your podcast appear on the first page of Google when users search for your specific
topic. As we know, Google is one of the most popular search engines in the world.
The good news for us podcasters is that last year Google started indexing podcasts. This
means that Google is crawling spoken words along with titles and meta descriptions to
populate results into our SERPs or Search Engine Results Pages.
As of today, Google users have to add the word podcast to the search to bring up audio
content (like podcast). But this is expected to change soon.
Now more than ever, we need to have our SEO game figured out.
So, if you want to know if you're making any of these SEO mistakes and how you can start
improving or developing an SEO strategy, keep on watching.
But before we move on, don't forget to hit
the subscribe button and the bell button so you can be notified of our video releases.
Okay, let's get to it.
Why is SEO important for your podcast?
SEO ensures your podcast is discoverable, maximizing its visibility. You want your podcast
to be high on search results in Google. You want it to get a high traffic search volume.
The more traffic your podcast gets, the more likely new people will discover it and engage
with it. Remember that there are still a lot of people who are not familiar with podcasting.
These people may be doing searches on Google and come across your podcast.
This way, we convert them into podcast listeners.
Mistake Number One: Not Using Keywords in Your Episode Titles, Metadata, and Content.
I see this mistake a lot. People either create
episodes with highly searchable content, but don't use the right keywords on their titles
or metadata missing out on the opportunity to rank higher on Google searches.
Even worse, they create episodes about content nobody is searching for, so it’s almost
impossible to rank on Google.
But what are keywords, and how can you find them?
Keywords are words and phrases that users enter into Google or other search engines.
Our goal is to find those keywords our niche audience is searching the most and create
content around them. Knowing what people are searching for and
creating content that answers their questions will increase your SEO.
But don't stop there. For this strategy to work, you need to add those keywords in your
metadata (titles and descriptions) and episode content.
You can find keywords using different tools like keyword surfer or Ubersuggest. So make
a list of your keywords and start using them in your episodes.
We cover SEO strategy and other marketing
strategies, audio production, content planning and strategy, and social media promotion in
our comprehensive program Smart & Sexy Podcast Launch.
We'll be opening the doors to the program soon.
Make sure you sign up for the waitlist in the meantime. You can find the link in the
description below.
Mistake Number Two: Not Having a Website
Not having a website for your podcast is a very common mistake among podcasters.
A web host can only do so much for your SEO. If you have a website, you can add more content
around your episodes in addition to the episode description and summary you'll create for
your web host.
With a website, you can repurpose your episodes into blog posts and embed your podcast player
in the article. Another thing you can do is to add main points or the episode transcript
to the episode page on your website. This will give your episodes more SEO. You
can also treat your blog content as any other regular blog post adding keywords to the titles,
linking other episodes or articles, to keep your audience engaged and on your site for
longer.
Mistake Number Three: Not Placing Keywords in Strategic Places or Overusing Keywords
I've seen many podcast episodes with no description,
only one sentence, or a series of words that don't make any sense to the reader. What they're
doing is adding a list of keywords without any context.
This practice will hurt your SEO and turn users away. I've also seen podcasts adding
keywords only to the episode's title and not to the episode description. When we talk
about optimization for Google, we usually mean placing keywords at strategic spots.
These strategic spots are titles, subtitles, and in the article or podcast episode itself.
Another way is to place your keywords in the titles or metadata inside your web host. Use
your keywords stylistically and coherently. Don't compromise the quality of your copy
to add keywords. Find the balance between adding as many keywords as possible while
making your content engaging and fun to read.
Mistake Number Four: Not Having Engaging or
Relevant Content
If people find your website, episodes, and articles and move quickly to another site,
this tells Google that your content is not good quality affecting your SEO.
Having content that is not relevant to the keywords you're using, low quality, or repetitive
can increase the bounce rate. If this happens frequently, Google will stop suggesting your
content to other users. I've seen many blog articles with only one
paragraph very poorly explaining a concept to be able to use the keyword.
This is not a good practice and will quickly hurt your SEO.
To avoid this, always write articles that provide answers to your audience's questions.
If writing articles for each podcast episode is not something you have time for in your
production schedule, you can use a transcription service like Descript to transcribe your episodes
and turn them into written content quickly. And if you're interested to learn how to use
Descript we have this quick tutorial teaching you how to transcribe your episodes.
Mistake Number Four: Not Leveraging your Social Media to Send Traffic to your Site
Posting your episodes and articles without
doing any promotion will not help you grow. SEO is a combined effort between using the
right strategy and boosting your traffic by sending people to your site. Driving traffic
to your episodes and blog articles from your social media should be something you do regularly.
I recommend checking your website and web host analytics to find out which are the episodes
or articles that are performing best and keep promoting them on your social media. The more
people will listen and read these high traffic articles and episodes, the more momentum they'll
gain. The more momentum they gain, the more Google
will suggest them. Create lots of traffic to your episodes and
articles by posting on your social media channels and directing traffic to those links.
Mistake Number Five: Not Researching Your Competitors
If your content is repetitive and does not
add anything new to the subject, you will be directly competing with their content. This
is why it is important to find out what your competitors are doing and add your analysis,
personality, in-depth research, or a different point of view.
For this, you can just run a Google search and skim through the various content you find.
Don't feel that you have to reinvent the wheel for this or come up with new theories or information.
The substance of your content can change by merely changing the angle of approach.
Mistake Number Six: Not Citing or Crediting
your Sources
This hurts your SEO and is also a very dishonest practice that can lead to a copyright claim.
When you cite authoritative sources on your website or podcast episodes, you're growing
your authority and boosting your SEO. Another benefit of crediting your sources is that
you can track the author or publication and let them know you're using their articles.
You can even extend an invitation for them to be guests on your show, which is a very
effective networking practice.
Okay podskis, start working on your SEO today. Join our community of podcasters on Facebook,
Podcasting for Bosses at www.podsoundschool.com/community