SEO best practices for Podcasts & Video

In recent years, the consumption of both podcasts and videos as a form of content has grown significantly. The desire to acquire new information and knowledge is escalating at a rapid rate as the world has shifted online in a significant manner to either learn, work, or play.

Think of your own life and how this has changed since 2020 alone. With the unfortunate onset of the pandemic, we were all confined to our screens to be able to interact and function with the rest of the world. And this bump in usability will not be subsiding completely, not anytime soon, or at all.

But how does this impact SEO (Search Engine Optimization), if at all, you may wonder? Well sit back and let’s take a moment to unpack this.

Content creation. Why is this important?

When focusing on SEO best practices for Podcasts & Videos, it would benefit us greatly to take a moment to also understand the importance of content creation and where this fits into content marketing overall. Think of content marketing as a wheel that needs to keep turning and moving forward. The spokes of that wheel to help propel it forward are Paid, Owned, and Earned Media. This is also known as the P-O-E-M strategy, which simply put are the three channels that are commonly used to be able to share your content with the world.

No point in creating great content if nobody will see it right?

We will focus on owned media as a part of content marketing. Something very interesting to note, and that must be highlighted at this point, is that owned media is the key component of inbound marketing, a concept that was officially launched in 2005 by Brian Halligan, the CEO of HubSpot. Let’s zoom out even more for a moment and outline where the likes of podcasts and video content fit into this powerful strategy.

What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing is a strategy crafted around the customer and the journey they take when wanting to reach a purchase decision. This concept that has taken the digital marketing stage by storm has 3 phases. They are listed as attract, engage, and delight. Halligan goes on to teach that owned media can be aligned with each of these three phases in the customer journey, gently nudging the prospect along until they make a purchase.

But the story does not end there, the ability to delight the customer post-purchase, is critical to ensure there is loyalty and referral business provided. Because the digital landscape has created a space that makes it so easy for customers to share information and opinions, both good and bad, what better way than to have a customer that has been delighted by your company, that will stand as your brand ambassador when you are not around to do so.

What this concept has at the very heart of it, is the ability to attract potential customers by getting them to come to you, and not you going to them using outbound, interruptive advertising (paid). This is where the likes of videos and podcasts come in. The content that you create, the content that you have poured hours and hours of labor and love into, is what will draw the user in, attract them towards you, and into the marketing cycle that you lay out. This is inbound marketing.

Hang on a second, you are probably thinking “Why can I not just implement a paid strategy and pay to have my content appear on search result pages?” Well, the short answer is you could. You could keep throwing money at it and promote your content. But think about it, the trust of your audience would be compromised. They can see you have paid to promote your content. And of course, this is not a true inbound marketing approach.

So, if you should not pay to promote, how on earth will people know your content exists? Will all that hard work be in vain? Fear not. SEO to the rescue.

You need to make sure your content has the strong ability to rank organically, you need to make sure that Google rewards your content and sees it as the most trusted and authoritative option to present to your audience. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) steps in at this point to lead the charge. “If you cannot pay for it, you SEO it.”

SEO to the rescue

We took some time earlier to zoom out. We flew high above and had a look at the overall digital marketing landscape. We then descended a bit and saw paid, owned, and earned media (P-O-E-M) within that landscape. And by going just a little lower we saw that within owned media, is where HubSpot’s renowned inbound marketing lives, which is driven by, you guessed it, content. Not forgetting the fact that the content needs to rank organically as a part of the inbound methodology because with this methodology the key is to attract, not interrupt.

Now we are going to swoop right down and zoom deeper into content and SEO.

The SEO anatomy

As a lover of analogies, and when asked about SEO and the complexities thereof, my explanation is always that, simply put, keywords are truly the central nervous system to the SEO anatomy. Without it, we simply cannot move. Keywords are fundamental to any SEO strategy deployed, and this is no different when it comes to creating SEO best practices for Podcasts & Video.

One could argue that keywords should be at the heart of every facet of digital marketing. From paid advertising to social media marketing and everything in between should be built off very carefully selected keywords. Everything else around that is just tactics.

Let’s pause here a moment. Since we know that keywords are what powers all digital marketing efforts, any content that is created, should always use this as the common thread to tie themes together that are relevant in the realms of the content marketing strategy. Lots of big words, but what that means is no matter what type of content is created, whether it is a blog article, newsletter, infographic, press release, or in this case a podcast or video, these keywords need to be incorporated into the development as well as the implementation.

Because keywords, let us not forget, is what users are searching for. What they are typing into the search box in Google, is what should drive the content we produce. We just need to be able to answer their questions with whichever type of content we create.

SEO and keywords

If keywords are the central nervous system to the SEO anatomy, how does this apply to the production and distribution of podcasts and videos you may wonder? Simple. It’s all about the text. (The actual written word, not the messages you send via your mobile phone to friends, family, and colleagues!)

Google has a series of crawlers that march out into the web ethos, finding pages and content and indexing them according to their topics by crawling the words. But there is no text in videos or podcasts you may be thinking. You are correct, there are no written words in podcasts or videos, but there are written words around them. So, then what are some of the SEO best practices for Podcasts & Videos?

Here are some tips on what to do.

6 tips to optimize your podcasts for SEO:

• Keyword-driven script writing: When writing the script for recording, be sure to include the keywords in the copy where possible. If you take a more ad-lib approach, list talking points that include those keywords. Don’t forget, we are trying to answer questions that searchers ask.
• Podcast Metadata: Make sure you take advantage of the podcast metadata available to you. Just like with regular web pages, meta titles, and meta descriptions are available to you to make use of. Meta titles are particularly great to help you rank. You guessed it, use your keywords! Meta descriptions carry less weight to help with rankings, but it does influence click-throughs. If your meta description is lacking, written in a halfhearted way, clear way, the searcher will likely chance to scroll onto the next result and click on your competitor’s listing. Take the time. Write it carefully.
• Verify your podcast: Make sure Google knows that your podcasts do exist. All your efforts will be wasted if you forget this step. Go straight to Google Podcast Manager and verify! Just like with Google Search Console for websites, where you would submit your website’s sitemap to Google to allow them to crawl the site, you need to verify yourself in Google Podcast Manager if you want Google to index your Podcasts.
• Track your performance: Take advantage of what Google has to offer as far as information and insights it can deliver. Because they can. With billions of searches being made every day, their ability to be able to provide insights into what and how people are searching for is becoming more and more accurate. So, dig right into Google’s Podcast Manager. You will receive insights into your audience that will help you plan and produce relevant content, which means, you guessed it, if relevant, your ability to rank will climb in accordance.
• Create transcripts: Yes, write out word for word what is being said in the podcast. It’s that simple. Google is out there searching for the text, so let’s give it to them.
• Get your audience to say nice things: Google loves positive reviews. This is no different when it comes to local Google My Business listings, the more positive reviews you receive, the better your bump will be in SEO. So don’t be shy, ask your listeners for reviews, but make extra sure that you are producing great content for the right people because a negative review can do almost as much harm as a great review can benefit.

7 tips to optimize your videos for SEO:

• Script it, don’t ad-lib it: Just like with podcasts, the script is just as important. So be sure to write this out clearly. And you guessed it, be sure to include your keywords in it. Don’t force it, it needs to flow as naturally as possible.
• Call it a video: You may already know that Google owns YouTube, and YouTube is the second-largest search engine. The hot tip here is to include the word “video” at the end of the title of your video on YouTube. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? But it will help with your video rankings on the search results page, this will help your video to appear as a search result because people tend to use the word “video” in their search queries when this is something they are specifically looking for. So why not take advantage of that?
• Describe the video: The description box gives you 5000 characters. Use them! Too many times content creators upload their videos onto YouTube, they are so excited to share them with the world, and after countless hours of hard work producing this masterpiece, there is a sense of urgency that what often happens, is the optimization piece of the work is left by the wayside. Take the time, you came this far, give your video the chance it deserves to be chosen by Google.
• Show off your website address: Ensure the description displays your website URL in the first 2 lines, so if the user does not scroll down, they can easily click through to your site, driving referral traffic. Great for SEO! And if they do not click for whatever reason and just stay on the video page, make sure your URL is branded. This is just an extra branded impression that you are delivering with very little effort.
• Tags and transcriptions: The two T’s.  Use the tags, use as many tags as possible within the 500-character limit. Include variations of your keywords. Google does say that tags on YouTube play a minimal role in getting your video found, but often what they say and do are two different things. So, if it is there, use them. And then of course your priceless transcriptions. You have 5000 characters available to you in the description box. If Google uses text to crawl, then give them the text. Transcribe your video and pop this into the description box to further drive your SEO efforts.

Never forget the why

It is always very exciting when publishing new content that you have spent so much time and energy producing. The thrill of seeing (or hearing!) it all come together, and then being able to share it with the world. But remember always to tie it back to the very reason you created the content in the first place.

Are you doing it for you? Or are you truly trying to please your audience and encourage them to act?

Google’s E-A-T philosophy, which is very clearly outlined in their guidelines (this is probably the only thing that they are clear on) tells us in no uncertain terms, that whatever content we put out there, they are in search of expertise, authority, and trust. Google’s key driver is to present content, both organic and paid, to the user that best answers their query.

Why? Because they want the user to keep using them as the search engine of choice.

Podcasts & Video SEO Best practices final thoughts

It’s all a hierarchy, or a pyramid if you like. Whatever helps you to visualize the vast digital ecosystem in which we operate as marketers daily, will help you to understand the why, as well as the how.  Zoom out, fly high like an eagle to get a broad view, and then descend and have a closer look and figure out where your content lives on the battlefield known as the market, where we are constantly fighting for the attention of our audience. SEO is one of the strongest tools in your arsenal to get your content to the top.

If we quickly summarize from the bottom up, then we start with the text, which is your priceless keyword, in turn this is at the heart of your content, that SEO then steps in to optimize to that you can rank organically. Why? The content is a part of your owned media, which as we now know is integral to the inbound marketing strategy, where we want to attract our customers, not interrupt them, and build trust and a relationship with them.

So back to the original question, do podcasts and videos boost SEO?

100%.

Or should we be asking ourselves, does SEO boost podcasts and videos?

100%.

One could argue this either way. What do I mean by that? Well, we know that SEO boosts the organic rankings of podcasts, videos, and any other content that you set out to create.

So, when you start planning your next piece of content, make sure to take careful note of the best SEO practices.

Or we can reverse this and say for example you are an SEO Strategist, and you are putting together your plans, including that of content, then ensure the content planning aligns too.

SEO and content are 100% mutually beneficial in nature, one cannot without the other.

Chicken or egg?