Podcast SEO: Ranking Beyond Apple & Spotify

Show Notes

Show n excellent tool, short teasers of your main podcast highlights. They contain links and resources your audience needs. These can include targeted keywords that search bots understand, enabling the bots to understand what each episode is about. 

Now you may be wondering, if you add show notes, do you also need transcription? The answers is yet. From a SEO perspective, you need a powerful and attention-grabbing meta description, while working within a limited character count. This means including your targeted keyword with unique call to actions. Show notes are the same.

Show notes should be up to three hundred words, a summary of the episode, highlighting main topics, and including keywords. 

SEO for Podcast Directories

There is a difference between SEO practices for websites and podcasts. Podcasts tend to have more parties involves in the delivering and accessing of content. Rather than putting content on a site that search engines crawl, they are hosted on external platforms that use RSS feeds to communicate with unique directories. 

While someone may use Google to search for a podcast, the majority of listeners are already listening to podcasts. Chances are they are using a podcatcher, which are search engines that require optimised episode titles, show notes, user reviews, and content categorisation.

The Biggest Podcast Directories

While there are many podcast apps, many take the information from larger directories. The three main directories to note include Apple, Google Podcasts, and Spotify. Each of these require good SEO knowledge.

Linking Episodes

If you have read our previous blogs, you know how important inbound and internal links can be for your SEO performance, which is why you should be linking to your episodes. You can do this through a blog post, a separate web page, even a newsletter. The links must be accessible.

Use Your Targeted Keywords

Remember to add your targeted keyword into your podcast titles, though moderation I needed. Apple Podcasts are exceptionally strict and any overstuffing of keywords can have your show completely removed from the direction, along with directories that pull data from the platform.

Choose the Correct Category

Using the correct tags and categories is relatively straightforward, unless you are unsure on what podcast is the best fit. Choose a top few categories that apply, starting with the less competitive, as you have a higher chance of standing out. You can change your category later, experimenting with different categories until you find the correct match.

Google Podcasts

Looking beyond Apple and Spotify, is Google Podcasts, which has been around since 2019. Getting a podcast indexed by Google is a different procedure that submitting it to the app. The first step is to submit the podcast to Google Podcasts, which ensures it is accurately indexed, showing in top level results. 

We recommend including Podcast Series and Podcast Episode schema to your pages. Structured data helps search engines understand the context of your content, helping you appear in search engine results pages.

Conclusion

Podcast SEO is an ongoing process. It is a long-term, time consuming process. It requires ongoing monitoring and optimisation. As your podcast grows and evolves, so will your audience, which is why you need an adaptable strategy, tailored for your business. If you need help with SEO for your podcasts, contact Genie Crawl today.