Michael Epps Utley {kind=image/jpg}
Podcasts are a great way to produce a large amount of keyword-rich content for SEO. If you are considering producing a regular podcast for your business, here are some ideas for getting maximum SEO value with some simple planning and forethought.
Develop a Keyword-Rich Title and Description
You are going to use your title and description quite a bit – so include some good keywords that make the content clear to people searching for that content. Clever puns are fun, but the downside can be that your podcast name is cryptic and unclear to people and search engines.
Publish to Your Website
While you may be focused on getting your podcast out to the most popular platforms for consumption, you can also publish each episode to your website. Create a main page for listing your episodes with titles and descriptions. Also, create a page for each episode.
Publish Widely and Include a Link to Your Website
It’s easy to forget the basics. Any link on good quality websites across the Web that is pointed back to your website is a signal to search engines that your domain is valuable (and worthy of high placement in search engines). Don’t forget those links!
Create a Transcript of Each Episode
The content of each of your episodes is likely rich with great keywords and content. Include a transcript of each episode on the landing page for that episode. Using a strong visual at the top of the page, and embedded player of the episode itself, and an out line of the show are all a good way to serve of the content in its podcast form. But the transcript below the embedded player of the episode can all be indexed by search engines to create value for the page.
Be a Guest on Other Podcasts
Podcasters network with each other and appear on each others shows. Being a guest on another podcast gives you two benefits: 1) people who already like podcasts can discover your show, and 2) the show notes on the other site provide another link back to your site.
Use Keyword-Rich Internal Links to Highlight Your Episode Pages
Have a blog or a regularly updated section on your home page? Use those pages and placements to use keyword-rich links to specific episodes and topics in your podcast episodes. These internal links between your pages are great because you control them and can control the specific keywords you use. Buy using your most valuable keywords to link to episodes on topics you cover, you are associating those keywords with the target pages for search engines.
Cover Popular Topics
What do you think your audience wants to hear about? What guests are going to gain an audience for your content? Are you selecting topics that are interesting to enough people to grow an audience? Everything that applies to good podcast production will help your SEO. Keeping your desired keywords list in front of you when you select topics can help guide you to more popular (more searched) topics.
Have fun, and happy podcasting!
