Podcasts are an established and effective part of the marketing offering and hence the question of how to get your content in front of more people quickly arises. Below are 12 tricks and tips to get your podcasts pushing up the podcast search rankings.
1. Measure everything – You should use analytics tools like ‘Podcasts Connect’ Apple’s free tool for podcast creators when adding iTunes podcast that provides great analytics insights and of course be sure to tag your site and social to track your promotion work. Find out what works for you and maximise this.
2. Ensure your content is great – Okay let’s get the obvious one out of the way, if you can’t do this then think seriously about committing time and budget to podcasting! There are countless articles online to support you with the type of content and the approaches that get the most engagement so do some research and sort this first and foremost.
3. Choose a search friendly title – Podcast search engines are quite basic in their approach, driven by text search and user reaction. For this reason the naming of your show and the episodes is critical to find-ability. Ensure the titles are descriptive for the content and be sure to use keyword research tools like Google Trends or Answer the Public to determine high traffic keywords.
4. Optimise your show notes – Many Podcast listeners will consume the content on their commute or in the gym, in other words places where they cant quickly or easily note down important points and references. Make things easy for them and get great engagement and conversion by including show notes or the script of the Podcast on your site or blog. Here you can use traditional SEO techniques too of course to generate more new listeners and indicate to Google the connection between your site and the Podcast.
5. A snappy hook – The start or ‘hook’ of the Podcast is the start 30 seconds of the cast that will encourage listeners to continue listening. It’s vital to keep these short, descriptive and enticing. In the first 30 seconds its vital to communicate what the content is about, who is interviewed, who or what you are talking about and most importantly ‘what’s in it for me’ as a listener. People have busy lives and need to know what they are getting from their commitment of time. You might want to include a quick branding intro of music, or announcement so they next time they visit your content is immediately recognised.
6. Push for ratings and reviews – These are a key ranking factor in the podcast search algorithms so be sure to request reviews from your listeners. The start of the Podcast and the end of the Podcast are good places to do this. You could try reading out some of the reviews and naming the people who liked the show as an incentive to encourage others to do the same.
7. Push for subscription – Subscribing takes the effort out of searching for listeners and it also ensures that you new fresh content lands straight on their device, the more subscribers you have the more successful your show will be. Just like ratings and reviews be sure to encourage listeners to subscribe at the start and end of the show.
8. List in directories – This one may seem like an obvious one but there is an advantage to making your podcast available in as many directories as possible to increase audience reach. You should as a minimum be listed in the following; Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, TuneIn, SoundCloud or create an RSS feed.
9. Having a dedicated landing page per show – This is an obvious SEO win, if you create pages optimised for certain podcast related keywords you’ll drive new listeners directly to the page who then can then find out about your show. Be sure to include a subscribe link or even provide an embedded sound file of the show to give them a taste.
10. Add regular content – If you can, publish new content on a regular day in the week or month, this encourages it becoming part of people’s routine. In time these listeners become loyal advocates of the podcast.
11. Promote your podcasts on social – you can push out podcasts on your social channels or an extra advantage could be create a social media profile for podcast itself. Utilising social obviously increases audience opportunity but it is also listed in search engines so there are two advantages. If your show doesn’t need editing then you could try Facebook Live as a great way to generate excitement and interest. Also you can use paid social to boost the posts for your podcast.
12. Harness influencer popularity – Leveraging the celebrity, or popularity of key influencers is a great way to spread the net and drive new listener numbers. Be sure to maximise these opportunities by planning out the interview questions before hand. You can optimise these opportunities by asking listeners to comment on questions they’d like to ask them. Ensure that your podcast has high production values as the more important influencers wont just appear on low quality podcasts.
Interested in making the most out of Podcasts for your brand? Get in touch today to find out more…
