{"id":6675,"date":"2023-05-24T12:10:53","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T09:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/?p=6675"},"modified":"2023-11-09T14:13:45","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T11:13:45","slug":"seo-for-podcasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/seo-for-podcasts\/","title":{"rendered":"SEO for Podcasts in 10 Steps: How to Rank #1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Podcasts have it rough. As a medium, they have to compete with much more popular videos and blogs. Most people don&#8217;t even stumble upon a podcast unless they are deliberately looking for one. Yet the fight goes on, and here are some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzsprout.com\/blog\/podcast-statistics\">2023 podcast statistics<\/a> to prove it: well over a third of the USA population listen to them regularly, and 27% chime in every week. Go podcasts go!<\/p>\n<p>But ultimately, all pieces of content end up duking it out for the top positions on Google in a worldwide battle royale \u2013 podcasts or not. Naturally, being less popular than others is a liability. Fortunately, Google&#8217;s ranking algorithm can work in someone\u2019s favor. With enough effort, anyone can get to the top and sit on the throne.<\/p>\n<p>So let&#8217;s look into SEO for podcasts \u2013 the only way to beat the more popular media at their own game.<\/p>\n\r\n        <p class='button_area'>\r\n            <span>Get 23 tools for your podcast SEO<\/span>\r\n            <a href='\/online-seo-tools.htm?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=blog-post-cta&amp;utm_campaign=blog-podcast-seo' target='_blank' rel='noopener' class='button'>Sign Up Free<\/a>\r\n        <\/p>\r\n    \n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"why_do_podcasts_need_seo\"><\/span>Why do podcasts need SEO?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>How successful your podcast will be depends on two things: <strong>quality and uniqueness<\/strong>. Site optimization comes third, not first and not even second. If your podcasts aren\u2019t good or users have already listened to something similar elsewhere, no amount of SEO is going to help you.<\/p>\n<p>That should make your priorities clear. Worry about SEO only after you have podcasts users will love. Account for everything: audio, visuals (if you have them), spoken content and site features.<\/p>\n<p>Moving on to podcast SEO. It has two primary goals: ranking in Google and ranking on the podcast platforms you are using. Make progress in either (or, better yet, in both), and you can expect an increase in:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Plays<\/li>\n<li>Downloads<\/li>\n<li>Subscribes<\/li>\n<li>Shares<\/li>\n<li>Reviews<\/li>\n<li>Ratings<\/li>\n<li>Conversions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There\u2019s also the side effect of gaining fame in your niche, if you are into that. If your main focus is making money, then conversions are going to be your major point of interest. For that, site optimization is vital.<\/p>\n<p>So where do you start?<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"1_what_every_podcast_should_have\"><\/span>1. What every podcast should have<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Fitting what was said earlier, the first step of podcast SEO will not be related to SEO at all. When you are chasing high rankings, quality is a priority. As with videos on YouTube (which is a popular option for podcast hosting), only high-quality content will get you anywhere.<\/p>\n<p>Other than podcasts with great audio, visuals and material, what does a high-quality podcast site need? Here\u2019s your recipe for perfection.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Smart placement.<\/strong> Place your podcasts <strong>above the fold<\/strong> so users can play them right away. Don\u2019t make your visitors scroll through text and images first. Murphy\u2019s law will kick in, and they won\u2019t scroll at all.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Subscribe button.<\/strong> Here\u2019s another element that should be put where everybody can see it. Subscribers are the single most important ranking factor for podcasts, which makes your subscribe button the most important call-to-action.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Transcript and summary with takeaways.<\/strong> This kills three birds with one stone. First, users can\u2019t always listen to your podcasts when they come to your site, but they can read what it\u2019s about instead. Second, it lets them know your podcast actually has the content they need. And third, that\u2019s where you can put keywords for Google!<\/li>\n<li><strong>Clickable timestamps.<\/strong> You know how you can write the time in a YouTube comment, and then clicking on it will send you to the corresponding moment in the video? Make your timestamps work just like that. It\u2019s a superior user experience compared to manually looking for the time you need.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Related episodes.<\/strong> Place a few of them in the sidebar where users can easily find them.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Outbound links that <u>open in a new tab<\/u>.<\/strong> The underlined part is important! If a link starts loading a new page in the same tab, the exit intent popup will not appear, and you\u2019ll lose your chance to get a new subscriber.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Share buttons.<\/strong> It goes without saying that your podcasts must be sharable in social media. Use a WordPress plugin (or any other means you prefer) to set up the necessary buttons.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Email opt-in form.<\/strong> No need to hide it behind a button or anything; excessive clicks are nothing but an obstacle before conversions. Put it boldly in plain view to make it clear what you are about: your content in exchange for the users\u2019 emails.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Once you\u2019ve checked everything in this list, you can say your podcast website has the bare minimum that\u2019s needed for the fight. Now, onto SEO.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"2_find_keywords_and_use_them_wisely\"><\/span>2. Find keywords and use them wisely<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>When we talk about optimizing websites for Google, we usually mean placing keywords at strategic spots. Where do podcasts need keywords?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Titles (or episode names for podcasts)<\/li>\n<li>Meta descriptions<\/li>\n<li>Meta keywords (Google ignores this, but some podcast platforms like iTunes rely on it)<\/li>\n<li>H1-H4 headings<\/li>\n<li>Image filenames and ALT attributes<\/li>\n<li>Categories and tags<\/li>\n<li>Transcripts<\/li>\n<li>Timestamps<\/li>\n<li>Episode recaps<\/li>\n<li>Checklists<\/li>\n<li>Notes<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>No doubt you have your own keyword ideas, but they always need to be tested with specialized SEO tools. And if you don&#8217;t have any, that&#8217;s all the more reason to use those tools. Turn to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"\/online-keyword-tool.htm?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=blog-post&amp;utm_campaign=blog-podcasts\" rel=\"noopener\">WebCEO&#8217;s Keyword Suggestions<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/site.wstatic.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/webceo_keyword_research_tool_for_influencer_marketing.png\" alt=\"What kind of keywords do you use in your podcasts?\" width=\"1249\" height=\"651\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Type in your keyword idea and press Search. The tool will display information about your keyword and many others. Not all of the suggestions will be relevant to what you have in mind, so you&#8217;ll need to search through the generated list for the best keywords for your podcast.<\/p>\n<p>How do you know the keywords are good? They\u2019ll have these traits:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Relevant to the podcast&#8217;s topic<\/li>\n<li>Have a high search volume (number of monthly searches)<\/li>\n<li>Clearly reflect user search intent<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can also check the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"\/online-keyword-tool.htm?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=blog-post&amp;utm_campaign=blog-podcasts\" rel=\"noopener\">Keywords from the Google Search Console<\/a> section and find keywords that you aren&#8217;t using yet, but which you are already ranking for in Google. You&#8217;ll be surprised at how often this happens.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/site.wstatic.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/seo-for-podcasts-keywords-1.png\" alt=\"Your podcast site may already be ranking for keywords you aren't even aware of.\" width=\"1193\" height=\"631\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It is advisable to optimize each podcast episode for only one major keyword. That way, you\u2019ll have more room for maneuver when you are recording more episodes on the same or related topics.<\/p>\n\r\n        <p class='button_area'>\r\n            <span>Find keywords for your podcasts<\/span>\r\n            <a href='\/online-keyword-tool.htm?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=blog-post&amp;utm_campaign=blog-post&amp;utm_content=blog-podcast-seo' target='_blank' rel='noopener' class='button'>Sign Up Free<\/a>\r\n        <\/p>\r\n    \n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"3_maximize_your_page_speed\"><\/span>3. Maximize your page speed<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Fast-loading pages are a must for ranking high in Google and making it big on the Internet. With podcasts, they need to be fast-loading for the same reason. Neglecting the user experience has cost many a website dearly &#8211; don&#8217;t let yourself become yet another failure.<\/p>\n<p>What do you need to make your site load quickly?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Good hosting.<\/strong> A powerful server or a content delivery network would qualify for the job.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Optimized images.<\/strong> Smaller files load faster, which is why you should always minimize your images\u2019 file size (without sacrificing their quality, of course). You can do it by reducing their dimensions, saving them in the most optimal format and compressing them.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Optimized page code.<\/strong> Are you skilled with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and other languages that make web pages work? Simplify your site\u2019s code and make it easier to process.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Compression software.<\/strong> Gzip being the most popular, there are compression tools which greatly reduce your site\u2019s elements\u2019 file size.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fewer elements on pages.<\/strong> The less stuff on your site, the less time it takes to load it all. Design your site to provide the user experience you want with as little as possible.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Browser caching.<\/strong> Set the expiry dates for your site\u2019s elements (such as images, CSS and JS files) in its .htaccess file. Doing so will make the users\u2019 browsers host those elements locally for a time and load them faster.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Host your podcasts on external platforms.<\/strong> If you host them on your own site, they will drastically increase your page load times, which is the last thing you want.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Test your site<\/strong> with <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"\/website-audit.htm?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=blog-post&amp;utm_campaign=blog-podcasts\" rel=\"noopener\">WebCEO\u2019s Page Speed<\/a> tool.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/site.wstatic.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/seo-for-podcasts-site-speed-1.png\" alt=\"Sign up to find keywords for your podcast SEO.\" width=\"1265\" height=\"770\" \/><\/p>\n<p>High page load times are a problem you need to take care of as soon as possible. Test your site at least once a week to be fully informed of your situation; if your speed drops, you\u2019ll need to know why.<\/p>\n\r\n        <p class='button_area'>\r\n            <span>Reach maximum site loading speed<\/span>\r\n            <a href='\/website-audit.htm?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=blog-post&amp;utm_campaign=blog-post&amp;utm_content=blog-podcast-seo' target='_blank' rel='noopener' class='button'>Sign Up Free<\/a>\r\n        <\/p>\r\n    \n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"4_make_your_site_mobile-friendly\"><\/span>4. Make your site mobile-friendly<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>You must\u2019ve heard about Google\u2019s mobile-first index \u2013 it was a hot topic for years long before they actually rolled it out in 2018. As the name suggests, it ranks websites based on the user experience they provide when browsed from mobile devices. Your site may work like a charm on a PC, but if it&#8217;s not as good when viewed on mobile devices, then the majority of Internet users will slip right past you. And that can&#8217;t end well for your podcasts.<\/p>\n<p>How do you optimize your site for mobile?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Page loading speed<\/strong> \u2013 see the above section for tips on improving it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Use of negative space<\/strong>. Cluttering small screens is how you ruin the user experience. Leave some room both between the lines of text and between other individual elements.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Large fonts<\/strong> to make your text easy to read on a small screen, especially above the fold. That\u2019s the space where most of the users decide if they will stay on the page or not.<\/li>\n<li><strong>No intrusive interstitials<\/strong> that will badly affect UX. That includes banners and popups. <strong>What it does not include:<\/strong> age verification popups, disclaimers about the use of cookies, exit intent popups.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Responsive design<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This one is easier than it sounds, but it still requires a detailed explanation. You will need to work on three things to make your site responsive: viewport, images and text.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>To make your viewport responsive, add this line of code in all your pages: <i>&lt;meta name=&#8221;viewport&#8221; content=&#8221;width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0&#8243;&gt;.<\/i><\/li>\n<li>For images, use the <i>max-width<\/i>\u00a0property. Like this: <i>&lt;img src=&#8221;img_girl.jpg&#8221; style=&#8221;max-width:100%;&#8221;&gt;<\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>Text is made responsive by setting its <i>vw<\/i> (\u201cviewport width\u201d) units. For example: <i>&lt;p style=\u201dfont-size:12vw;\u201d&gt;Text&lt;\/p&gt;<\/i>. 1 <i>vw<\/i> is equal to 1% of viewport width.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Additionally, you can use frameworks like Bootstrap to make your web pages responsive.<\/p>\n<p>Check your site\u2019s mobile friendliness with <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"\/website-audit.htm?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=blog-post&amp;utm_campaign=blog-podcasts\" rel=\"noopener\">WebCEO\u2019s Mobile Optimization<\/a> tool.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/site.wstatic.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/seo-for-podcasts-mobile-optimization-1.png\" alt=\"Make your podcast site mobile friendly.\" width=\"1262\" height=\"769\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><\/h3>\n\r\n        <p class='button_area'>\r\n            <span>Make your podcasts play smoothly on mobile<\/span>\r\n            <a href='\/website-audit.htm?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=blog-post&amp;utm_campaign=blog-post&amp;utm_content=blog-podcast-seo' target='_blank' rel='noopener' class='button'>Sign Up Free<\/a>\r\n        <\/p>\r\n    \n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"5_use_internal_links\"><\/span>5. Use internal links<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>When users come to your site, you want them to visit more than one page. This is even truer for podcasts: you want a loyal audience that can&#8217;t get enough of what you have to say. How could anyone turn them down?<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why smart website owners adopt the &#8220;ask and you shall receive&#8221; principle in regard to their users. When they stop by to listen to one of your episodes, always leave a link to another episode somewhere close. Preferably two or three links to related episodes.<\/p>\n<p>Category pages are also a must: it&#8217;s really convenient, both for users and yourself, when all thematically related podcasts are grouped together on one page.<\/p>\n<p>Internal linking comes with benefits other than the user experience, too: it distributes authority between your pages, helping them rank higher, and allows search engine bots to crawl your site. You might even want to look up the most authoritative pages on your site and make them share some of their juice by linking to the podcast. For that, refer to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"\/internal-link-analysis-tool.htm?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=blog-post&amp;utm_campaign=blog-podcasts\" rel=\"noopener\">WebCEO\u2019s Page Authority Analysis<\/a> tool.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/site.wstatic.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/wordpress-seo-page-authority.png\" alt=\"Boost your podcast SEO by cleverly using page authority.\" width=\"1203\" height=\"768\" \/><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"6_gain_more_backlinks\"><\/span>6. Gain more backlinks<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Podcast sites can get easy dofollow backlinks from podcast hosting platforms, such as iTunes. But if everyone has backlinks from there, that won&#8217;t be anywhere near enough to make you rank high in Google. There&#8217;s a need for good old traditional link building, too.<\/p>\n<p>Building links to your podcasts is pretty similar to doing the same for other sites. There&#8217;s only one real problem: finding websites that will link to you. Fortunately, this problem is easily solved in two steps.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Make a list of other, more successful podcasts in your niche;<\/li>\n<li>Analyze them with <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"\/competitor-backlink-spy.htm?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=blog-post&amp;utm_campaign=blog-podcasts\" rel=\"noopener\">WebCEO&#8217;s Competitor Backlink Spy<\/a> tool.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/site.wstatic.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/seo-for-podcasts-competitor-backlinks-1.png\" alt=\"Your competitors might be getting backlinks from the sites you need.\" width=\"1270\" height=\"729\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Check the sites where your competitors get their backlinks and try building some of your own there.<\/p>\n<p>The problem with podcast link building is, backlinks from high-authority sites will be extremely rare. You&#8217;ll see for yourself that most of the backlinks will be from low-authority sites. That&#8217;s why backlinks from high DA sites will be real game-changers if you manage to build even a few.<\/p>\n\r\n        <p class='button_area'>\r\n            <span>Check where other podcasts get their backlinks<\/span>\r\n            <a href='\/competitor-backlink-spy.htm?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=blog-post&amp;utm_campaign=blog-post&amp;utm_content=blog-podcast-seo' target='_blank' rel='noopener' class='button'>Sign Up Free<\/a>\r\n        <\/p>\r\n    \n<p>And there\u2019s one other, much easier way to get backlinks for your podcast site without any tools for SEO. Simply work together with others. Either do joint podcasts with people who have websites, or be a guest on somebody else\u2019s podcast.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"7_use_social_media\"><\/span>7. Use social media<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>As always, social media is your friend when you want some extra exposure for your content. The tricky part is figuring out how to use it to its full potential. Posting everything you have on your Facebook page isn&#8217;t enough.<\/p>\n<p>What else can you do?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Always share your podcasts in popular social networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, any you can think of. The more of them you involve, the more listeners you&#8217;ll get.<\/li>\n<li>Implement a &#8220;share&#8221; button on your site. It will let your visitors share your podcasts on their pages, which is even better than sharing them on your own.<\/li>\n<li>Use hashtags wherever appropriate.<\/li>\n<li>Create previews and sneak peeks of your podcasts. Share them before uploading the full thing to get your listeners curious.<\/li>\n<li>Record your podcast on Facebook Live and Instagram Live. Streaming services with temporary hosting are powerful tools that play on the audience\u2019s fear of missing out.<\/li>\n<li>Track mentions of your podcasts. For that, you can use free tools like Google Alerts or <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"\/social-metrics.htm?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=blog-post&amp;utm_campaign=blog-podcasts\" rel=\"noopener\">WebCEO\u2019s Web Buzz Monitoring<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Track user engagement on your social media pages. If users start giving you fewer likes, shares and comments, you will need to know when that happens so you can take timely action. Refer to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"\/social-metrics.htm?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=blog-post&amp;utm_campaign=blog-podcasts\" rel=\"noopener\">WebCEO\u2019s Page Metrics<\/a> report for this information.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"8_make_your_podcasts_generate_clicks\"><\/span>8. Make your podcasts generate clicks<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>It&#8217;s not enough to get yourself on Google&#8217;s first page. Once you are there, you need to maintain the momentum and keep getting clicks, or your search results will be pushed further and further down until they are no longer in the top 10.<\/p>\n<p>Some podcasts get more clicks in Google than others. They must have some sort of a secret. Can you do it, too? Certainly.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"1_titles_descriptions_and_urls\"><\/span>1. Titles, descriptions and URLs.<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Being the three major elements of all search results, they share a lot of things in common that affect their ability to get clicks.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Podcast&#8217;s subject:<\/strong> don&#8217;t forget to mention it in all three. If it&#8217;s also a mid- or long-tail keyword, all the better for your rankings.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Readability:<\/strong> they must be comprehensive to users, even the URLs. Especially the often neglected URLs &#8211; it also helps a great deal to make them short and easy to remember.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Character limits:<\/strong> vary this for each of the three, but they will all be cropped if you make them too long. Naturally, ending tags abruptly will make them less attractive to users.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Words that naturally make users click:<\/strong> namely, things that users are greatly interested in. For example, if you release a joint episode with a fellow podcaster, you can easily attract more listeners by including that person&#8217;s name in the episode&#8217;s title. You&#8217;ll get another podcaster&#8217;s fans to visit your site.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Calls-to-action:<\/strong> users will be more likely to visit you and listen to your podcast if you ask them directly in the description.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"2_structured_data\"><\/span>2. Structured data<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Turn your search results into rich snippets, and you&#8217;ll start getting more clicks. This truth applies to all content, including podcasts. Here are some of the extra elements that will make your site more attractive:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Picture<\/li>\n<li>Reviews<\/li>\n<li>Rating stars<\/li>\n<li>Episode length<\/li>\n<li>Links to other episodes<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Use structured data (such as Schema or JSON-LD) to mark up your site pages and give them a different appearance in Google.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"3_the_website_itself\"><\/span>3. The website itself<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Google isn&#8217;t the only place where you want to get clicks. Podcasts themselves badly need some love from users, too.<\/p>\n<p>You want users to interact with your site in various ways: listening to your podcasts (obviously), sharing and commenting, subscribing and even buying if you have something to sell. What\u2019s the decisive factor in all this? Your website\u2019s design.<\/p>\n<p>Ensure your site is <i>made<\/i> to guide users to everything they are meant to click.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Put yourself in your users\u2019 shoes. If you went through your pages as they are now, would you make the necessary clicks? Would it be an easy task for you, or would anything get in your way? If you find a problem, brainstorm the ways to change it for the better.<\/li>\n<li>Make all your \u201cclick me\u201d elements (podcast controls, comment section, share and other kinds of buttons etc.) visible and easy to find.<\/li>\n<li>Have as few distractions as possible. Whatever you want your users to click must be the most noticeable on your pages. Usually, it\u2019s the Subscribe button.<\/li>\n<li>Use a heat map generator (such as CrazyEgg) to see what users do on your pages. Heat maps can show you what users interact with and what they ignore, and you\u2019ll be able to tweak your site\u2019s design appropriately if necessary.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"9_get_an_rss_feed_for_your_podcast\"><\/span>9. Get an RSS feed for your podcast<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>RSS is a great asset to sites that often release new content. Are you worried users might miss your new update? Ask them to subscribe to your RSS feed. Once they do, they\u2019ll have a much easier time catching new episodes on your site.<\/p>\n<p>If you already have an RSS feed, great; but double-check to make sure your podcasts are included in it. Sites with diverse content (such as blogs and forums) can have this problem where only some types of their content appear in the feed instead of all. If this is happening to you, <strong>create a separate RSS feed for your podcasts<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>If you are in need of creating an RSS feed, that\u2019s easy. There are plenty of sites which let you do it for free in only a few steps. It\u2019s usually like this, in no particular order:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Enter the URL of the page for which you want to create a feed;<\/li>\n<li>Create an account;<\/li>\n<li>Give your feed a title and a description;<\/li>\n<li>Copy the generated link to the feed;<\/li>\n<li>Create a button on your site with that link.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Once you\u2019ve done that, users can subscribe to your very own RSS feed. Place the button somewhere visible.<\/p>\n<p>Other than your site, be sure to have RSS feeds on the podcast directories where you host your episodes \u2013 iTunes, Apple and others.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"10_bonus_get_more_subscribers\"><\/span>10. Bonus: get more subscribers<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>While high rankings from doing SEO are great, people who want to listen to podcasts don&#8217;t usually look for them in Google. They may use it as a starting point once or twice, but when they are already familiar with podcasts, they&#8217;ll go straight to podcast directories. It&#8217;s the same as immediately going to Amazon for shopping, skipping Google completely.<\/p>\n<p>The fun thing about podcast directory optimization is, it&#8217;s <i>miles<\/i> easier than Amazon search optimization or even SEO. Only one thing really determines your rankings in iTunes and Apple: how many people have subscribed to you in the last few days. Therefore, your goal is to maximize that number. How?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>High-quality podcasts<\/strong> to encourage users to subscribe.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Exit-intent popups<\/strong> to catch the leaving users.<\/li>\n<li>A <strong>\u201cthank you\u201d message<\/strong> for users who have just subscribed.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Email outreach<\/strong> to let your subscribers know about new content.<\/li>\n<li>An <strong>Apple smart banner<\/strong>. Create one for your site, and users who click on it will be sent to your show on Apple Podcasts. Simply add <i>&lt;meta name=&#8221;apple-itunes-app&#8221; content=&#8221;app-id=XXXXXXXXXX&#8221;&gt;<\/i> in your site\u2019s <i>&lt;head&gt;<\/i> section, where <i>XXXXXXXXXX<\/i> is your unique numerical ID. You can find your ID at the end of your podcast page\u2019s URL on iTunes or Apple.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"afterword\"><\/span>Afterword<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Now that your site and your podcasts are optimized, you can start watching the fruits of your labor grow. As you get more viewers and subscribers, your rankings will grow, both in the charts and Google.<\/p>\n<p>To track your podcast rankings, you can browse Apple, iTunes and other platforms manually or use a podcast analytics tool. For your Google rankings, check with <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"\/online-rank-checker.htm?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=blog-post&amp;utm_campaign=blog-podcasts\" rel=\"noopener\">WebCEO\u2019s Rank Tracking<\/a> reports. Just feed it the keywords you are using on your site and watch how your ranking positions change over time.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"\/online-rank-checker.htm?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=blog-post&amp;utm_campaign=blog-podcasts-cta\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/site.wstatic.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/seo-for-podcasts-cta.png\" alt=\"Sign up and start tracking your podcast site's rankings!\" width=\"639\" height=\"160\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Podcasts have it rough. As a medium, they have to compete with much more popular videos and blogs. Most people don&#8217;t even stumble upon a podcast unless they are deliberately looking for one. Yet the fight goes on, and here&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":9840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[76,18,21,9],"class_list":["post-6675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seo-tips-tricks","tag-diy-seo","tag-seo-how-to","tag-seo-in-brief-2","tag-seo-tips-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>SEO for Podcasts in 10 Steps: How to Rank #1<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn the most important steps to gain the highest rankings on Google and make your podcast really popular among users!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/seo-for-podcasts\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SEO for Podcasts in 10 Steps: How to Rank #1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Learn the most important steps to gain the highest rankings on Google and make your podcast really popular among users!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/seo-for-podcasts\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SEO tools &amp; Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-05-24T09:10:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-11-09T11:13:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/site.wstatic.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/SEO_for_Podcasts.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1005\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brian Gareth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Brian Gareth\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"17 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/seo-for-podcasts\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/seo-for-podcasts\/\",\"name\":\"SEO for Podcasts in 10 Steps: How to Rank #1\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/seo-for-podcasts\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/seo-for-podcasts\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/site.wstatic.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/SEO_for_Podcasts.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-05-24T09:10:53+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-11-09T11:13:45+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/69e60c6732268cdcf86a66ddf68f4fa7\"},\"description\":\"Learn the most important steps to gain the highest rankings on Google and make your podcast really popular among users!\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/seo-for-podcasts\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/seo-for-podcasts\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/seo-for-podcasts\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/site.wstatic.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/SEO_for_Podcasts.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/site.wstatic.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/SEO_for_Podcasts.png\",\"width\":1920,\"height\":1005,\"caption\":\"SEO for podcasts: how to rank in Google\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/seo-for-podcasts\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"SEO for Podcasts in 10 Steps: How to Rank #1\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"SEO tools &amp; 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