Over the last few years, podcast consumption has rapidly grown in popularity. As a matter of fact, one-third of the American population listens to podcasts regularly. With that in mind, we’re increasingly hearing the question, “Are podcasts helpful for search engine optimization?”
To answer simply, yes, podcasts are helpful for SEO. They also provide many additional benefits beyond your digital footprint, which we dive into below.
Benefits of Podcasting
Earn Backlinks
When you agree to be a guest on a podcast, there is an immediate opportunity for you to gain a backlink to your site. As you may know, backlinks have an immense impact on SEO and your overall rankings within search engine result pages (SERPs). If you happen to land a podcast guest spot, don’t hesitate to ask the host if they would be willing to add a link back to your website in the podcast’s description.
On the flipside, if you host your own podcast, you, too, are in a great position to earn backlinks as guests may link back to the podcast from their websites. In addition, if listeners find your podcast informative and link to it from their sites where relevant, that provides another opportunity for generating backlinks.
Increase Brand Awareness
Podcasts provide an excellent opportunity for increased brand awareness because they allow you to expose your brand to people who may have never heard of it before. From the guest’s perspective, the podcast’s audience – which, hopefully, coincides with your firm or practice’s target audience – offers a brand-new market to tap.
Additionally, as the host, it allows you to increase brand awareness by adding a new avenue through which to be found and, as each guest excitedly promotes their latest podcast guest spot, this snowballing effect continues.
Boost Credibility and Industry Expertise
When you are featured on a podcast, it provides an incredible opportunity for you to position yourself as an industry expert and enhance your credibility with the podcast’s and your own audiences. On the other hand, as a host, you also have the opportunity to share your expertise and build credibility with your listeners.
Build Your Network
When you make the decision to be a guest on a podcast, you open yourself up to building your network and connecting with new people. To the same token, as the host of a podcast, you allow yourself to network and connect with varied perspectives, providing you the opportunity to continuously grow your professional network and learn from others.
Three Ways to Optimize Your Podcast For SEO
There are a variety of ways to optimize podcasts for search and, below, we cover three of these methods.
1. Incorporate Keywords
The best way to optimize your podcast for search engines is to incorporate keywords. Incorporating relevant keywords in all aspects of your podcast can help it rank much higher in search engines.
For example, if you are interviewing a corporate attorney, you’ll want to try and include that keyword throughout your podcast’s text fields – whether that be in the title, description, or elsewhere.
2. Optimize the Podcast Title and Description
Similar to how you would optimize a page on your website, you can optimize the title and description of a podcast to improve the chances of it showing up higher on search result pages. With that said, try incorporating relevant keywords into your title and description.
For example, if the podcast is answering a popular question such as, “What are marketing trends for law firms in 2023?”, you’ll want that to be your title so that – hopefully – your podcast appears when someone searches that question.
3. Write Blog Posts For Each Podcast
Writing a blog article based on the podcast episode is a great way to boost your podcast's visibility on search engines. This can be easily done by utilizing the transcript from the podcast, making small edits so it reads better, and incorporating optimized headings throughout.
So, to answer the original question of whether podcasts are helpful for SEO: the answer is a resounding “YES” — and, if you take the tips provided here into consideration when strategizing around a new episode or guest spot, perhaps your podcast will soon own the top spot for relevant search queries!
