Optimizing Your Podcast for Discoverability: Sarah's Top 3 SEO Tips

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:08

Hi, and welcome to podcasting one on one with Rachel.

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:12

This podcast is for busy female entrepreneurs who run their own

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:15

businesses and want to start a podcast or who may already have a podcast.

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:20

I want to share practical information and tips on how you can get your podcast

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:25

started and managing it along the way.

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:27

I'll also be interviewing other female podcast hosts to give you

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:30

real insight into what it's like.

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:32

Have

Sarah McDowell: 00:00:40

Hi,

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:44

and welcome to this week's episode today.

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:47

I'm very excited to have the lovely Sarah McDowell, my partner in crime

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:51

when it comes to podcast communities coming onto the show and talking

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:55

all things SEO for your podcast.

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:58

So hi, Sarah, thanks so much for coming on and talking

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:00

to me.

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:01

Thank you very much for asking me.

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:03

It's a privilege to be on your podcast and love the fact that you

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:08

see me as your partner in crime when it comes to podcasting communities

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:11

because I see you that way too.

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:14

Yes, yes and we're both very excited for our in person event

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:19

that's coming on the 29th of September.

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:22

And I actually can't remember off the top of my head when this episode is going

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:25

out, so it may have already happened.

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:29

Very professionally sorted out there.

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:31

But anyway, so Sarah is an SEO manager for Captivate, which is

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:35

a podcast hosting platform, if you didn't already know already.

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:38

And she is also the host of the SEO Mindset podcast.

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So Sarah lives, breathes and eats podcasts.

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:47

So just, do you want to just tell us a little bit about yourself and what you

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:50

do and your, and your podcast as well?

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:53

Yes, definitely.

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:54

So I've been working in digital marketing and specializing in

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:00

search engine optimization, SEO, for over 10 years now and yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:07

I think last time I looked, it was around the 12, 13 year mark.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:11

So that's pretty cool.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:13

So, and I've done a mixture of working in house for a brand or a company.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:20

So like I'm doing now for Captivate.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:23

But I've also done agency side as well.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:26

So yeah, and I really enjoy working at Captivate because like you

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:32

say, they are a podcast hosting platform and I'm also a podcaster.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:37

So I'm kind of combining my two passions and my two loves of SEO and podcasting.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:45

And how many podcasts?

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:47

So I've had four podcasts.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:49

So my most recent one is the SEO mindset podcast, which I host with

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:55

my wonderful friend, Tazmin Suleman.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:58

And that podcast is all about.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:03

So what me and Tazmin found was there's lots of wonderful podcasts out there that

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:08

tell Ss, e o professionals or people who want to know about s e o, how to do it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:15

But we found a niche in a podcast that was specifically about giving career.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:22

And like personal development, that kind of like mindset, that kind of thing.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:27

Specifically for the s e O industry.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:29

So we talk about imposter syndrome, anxiety, getting a pay rise time

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:34

management work-life balance.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:36

So, yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:37

It's been going over, it's been running for about a year now.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:41

So I imagine there'll be links in the episode.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:44

Absolutely.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:45

Show notes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:45

There will be . Wonderful.

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:47

So, yeah, like you don't necessarily have to be an SS e o to listen to the

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:51

podcast 'cause I have a few friends that get something from it because we're

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:55

talking about topics that are quite transferable across different industries.

Sarah McDowell: 00:04:01

It's just that, yeah,

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:02

I totally agree with that.

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:02

I've listened to it as well and definitely something that resonates with me as well.

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:08

Like for example, your latest one.

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:09

The latest ones talking about the wind jar.

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:11

Which I, which I started and I've done one win, which is really rubbish, but...

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:17

You've still got a win jar.

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:18

I have still, I have, well it's a win piece of paper on my desk at the moment

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:21

because I couldn't find a jar, but it is totally intentionally be a win jar.

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:26

Because I really, really like that idea because sometimes it

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:29

is really easy to forget that...

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:31

You know, when you get bogged down a little bit of all the

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:34

extra little wins that you get.

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:35

So I really love that.

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:36

I really like the show.

Rachael Botfield: 00:04:38

So I would highly recommend people to go listen to your podcast as well.

Sarah McDowell: 00:04:41

Thank you.

Sarah McDowell: 00:04:41

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:04:42

So that episode celebrating your wins, because like you

Sarah McDowell: 00:04:45

say, you, you forget and you.

Sarah McDowell: 00:04:49

You get a win or you reach a goal or you do an accomplishment and

Sarah McDowell: 00:04:54

then you're neck back, then you're onto the next thing, aren't you?

Sarah McDowell: 00:04:57

Like, okay, what's my next win?

Sarah McDowell: 00:04:58

But yeah, we need to celebrate our win.

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:01

So that was our latest one.

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:03

So yeah, there's lots of wonderful episodes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:05

We just give examples in like the SEO industry, but like I say, we're talking

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:10

about sort of topics that affect us all in our work and even, and even personal life.

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:17

So please do check it out.

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:20

Absolutely.

Rachael Botfield: 00:05:22

So we thought SEO or.

Rachael Botfield: 00:05:24

Search engine optimization is something that we all do think about

Rachael Botfield: 00:05:27

generally for our businesses and for our marketing, but especially

Rachael Botfield: 00:05:31

here in relation to our podcast.

Rachael Botfield: 00:05:34

So Sarah's going to just explain a little bit about what SEO is

Rachael Botfield: 00:05:37

and how that can translate to.

Rachael Botfield: 00:05:39

Your podcast.

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:41

Yes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:42

So first things first, what is search engine optimization?

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:47

What is SEO?

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:48

So what we mean by that term is basically where you do tactics

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:56

or strategies to your website.

Sarah McDowell: 00:05:59

To optimize it so that people can find your website and your pages, your

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:05

content, when people search for relevant terms in search engines like Google.

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:12

So it's the idea of, so Google has an algorithm and an algorithm is basically

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:20

a fancy word for a bit of a checklist.

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:22

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:23

So when Google is looking at.

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:26

Websites and pages and deciding, okay, what pages do I rank for this term?

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:31

It has sort of like a checklist, it's algorithm that it's kind of looking at.

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:36

So yeah, as SEOs or if you are doing SEO to your website, it's the

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:41

idea of you optimizing for Google.

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:44

So you are kind of saying, Hey, Google, my website, my pages are

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:49

awesome and relevant, and you should show me for relevant terms

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:52

that people are searching for.

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:54

Does that make sense?

Rachael Botfield: 00:06:55

Yeah, that's a really good way to explain it because I do

Rachael Botfield: 00:06:58

think that sometimes people can hear SEO or search engine optimization thing.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:02

Oh, what's that?

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:03

And, oh, that sounds really complicated.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:05

And I mean, I must say when I first kind of came across it, I did a

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:09

marketing qualifier years ago and like there's a whole book on it separately.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:13

And some, some bits, you know.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:18

I felt like, Oh, this is, this is too much.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:20

I don't, I need to kind of bring it back to basics.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:22

And you have explained it very well.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:24

I was talking to my dad the other day and he was like, what's SEO?

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:27

What's this?

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:27

I don't understand it at all.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:29

I'm in a year 70, but you know, I'm sure he'd explain, understand it,

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:34

listening to your explanation there.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:36

So you did a much better job than me.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:38

What

Sarah McDowell: 00:07:38

is funny is lots of people who aren't in this industry or understand

Sarah McDowell: 00:07:43

just know me as working with computers.

Sarah McDowell: 00:07:46

Yes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:07:46

Like I'm IT support and I'm like, not quite , or, can you fix my printer?

Sarah McDowell: 00:07:53

Not

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:53

really.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:54

Not the same

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:56

. Sarah McDowell: So yeah, so that's SEO.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:58

So that's search engine optimization.

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:00

So when we are talking specifically about podcast, ss e o, so.

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:05

Obviously you've gotta think that people can come across your podcast

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:10

and episodes in lots of different ways.

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:13

So here we're talking about discoverability.

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:15

So the discoverability of your podcast.

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:18

Now, the most traditional way that people can come across your podcast

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:22

and episodes is by going to an app.

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:25

So go into Spotify, go into the app on their phone, like

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:29

Cashbox, I think is what.

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:31

My Android users goes to Amazon music, goes to Apple podcasts, whatever.

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:36

Google,

Rachael Botfield: 00:08:37

Google podcasts is mine for Android.

Sarah McDowell: 00:08:39

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:08:40

We could just sit and list all the different directories,

Sarah McDowell: 00:08:41

but we'll be here forever.

Sarah McDowell: 00:08:43

So whatever someone uses to listen to podcasts, they go, they fire it up.

Sarah McDowell: 00:08:48

And in the search bar, they put in certain terms.

Sarah McDowell: 00:08:52

They might.

Sarah McDowell: 00:08:53

Search for a specific person, or they might search for a specific

Sarah McDowell: 00:08:58

podcast, but that's one way that someone can come across your podcast.

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:03

Another way, and this is, there's lots of other ways, like I'm just giving like a.

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:07

Two examples here, so the most traditional one, but people can come

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:13

across your podcast and episodes when they are searching the web.

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:18

Now I did a little bit of keyword research so basically keyword, that's another

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:24

fancy term for what people use to search.

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:28

The terms or queries people use in Google when they're

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:32

searching for different things.

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:35

So I've got a keyword research tool where I can put in topics and it will

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:41

give me suggestions of keywords and it will give me lots of different data.

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:46

But the, one of the most important things that I'm looking at is, on average,

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:51

how often is this keyword search for?

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:55

So what's the monthly search volume.

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:57

And this is what like keyword research tools do.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:00

There's loads out there, but in this example, I'm using SEMrush or SEMrush.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:05

Now for the keyword.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:08

Best podcast.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:09

So just best podcast.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:11

SEM Rush is saying that on a monthly basis on average.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:17

So this is on average as well.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:18

There's over 30, 000 searches on Google globally a month.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:25

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:26

Wow.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:26

So just get that number into your head.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:28

And that is.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:30

Just the keyword best podcast.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:32

So obviously that could be best music podcast, best podcast about podcasting,

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:37

best podcast about SEO sort of thing.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:40

Right.

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:40

So I just wanted to share that to show you the untapped sort of, well,

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:45

not untapped, it's untapped if you're not doing SEO or you're not looking

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:48

into this, but I just wanted to share with you kind of number to show you

Sarah McDowell: 00:10:54

that people are searching and people are going to Google to find podcasts.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:00

So yeah, so we can do SEO strategies.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:05

To our podcast website and our podcast episodes to help us optimize for Google.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:11

And also what you've got to think as well is yes, someone might go to

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:16

Google to specifically search for like podcast recommendations, but also.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:23

They might search for something else that's unrelated to podcasts, but say for

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:27

example, they search for I don't know.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:30

Give me a, give me a topic.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:32

Anything.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:33

Rachel, I know I've put you on the spot here.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:35

Animals, . I mean, that's, that's very broad and very general.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:40

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:40

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:41

I've got one.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:41

I've got one.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:42

Tips on how to train your dog, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:46

Yes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:47

Train your dog for example.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:50

Did put you on the spot there.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:51

I do apologize.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:52

Stop, panic.

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:54

So someone searched for that, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:11:56

You could be a podcast that is all about training animals, training

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:02

pets, and all of that stuff.

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:04

And you could have a podcast episode that is about that topic.

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:09

Right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:10

So you can see where I'm going here.

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:11

So someone has searched for help about how to train their dog, for example.

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:17

And yes, there'll be articles and there'll be pages about that.

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:21

But if you have a podcast episode and you've got a dedicated page, you've

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:26

got a dedicated page for that episode.

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:29

You've got a chance of Google showing that podcast episode to

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:34

someone who's searching in Google.

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:37

Someone who wasn't even like planning on listening to a podcast will might,

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:42

and Google shows your podcast about that keyword, might come on to you and be like,

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:47

Oh, well, I wasn't expecting this, but actually I, I, I like to consume podcasts.

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:53

I like to consume content and educational resources through my ear holes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:57

That's a weird way of saying it, but I like to listen to, to educate myself.

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:02

So you've.

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:04

Like, so that, that's great.

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:06

Right.

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:07

So someone who wasn't even like looking specifically for podcasts or wasn't

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:10

even like thinking about podcasts, because you've optimized your podcast

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:16

episode and that page, Google have shown you and you've got a new listener.

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:20

So does that make sense?

Rachael Botfield: 00:13:22

Yeah, that's a really good way to explain it.

Rachael Botfield: 00:13:24

Yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:13:25

I'd never thought about it in that way, I guess, because

Rachael Botfield: 00:13:28

I'm always thinking about it.

Rachael Botfield: 00:13:29

In terms of my podcast, which is always, which is about podcasting,

Rachael Botfield: 00:13:33

but I think that's a really a really good way to look at it and, and to

Rachael Botfield: 00:13:38

understand how to get your episodes.

Rachael Botfield: 00:13:41

We'll be, hopefully be seen by people if you're optimizing.

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:44

You're just thinking of ways that you can increase the

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:48

discoverability of your podcast, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:50

And there's lots of ways like social media is another one.

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:54

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:54

That's another way that people can come across your podcast, YouTube.

Sarah McDowell: 00:13:58

So you've just got to think of SEO.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:02

Podcast SEO as another way that you are, yeah, it's just another way.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:08

Going to be found by.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:09

That you're going to be found.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:10

Exactly.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:11

Is that exactly.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:12

Yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:13

And obviously we want to be as discoverable as possible.

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:18

Exactly.

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:19

So we can see how these ways in where you become more discoverable

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:23

by optimizing your SEO.

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:25

So I'd love it if you could share your top three tips on things to do to

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:30

get, to be, become more discoverable.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:32

Yes, yes, definitely.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:34

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:34

So tip number one, and I've already spoke about keywords.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:39

So yes, Rachel, what are keywords?

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:42

They

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:44

are the search terms, the thing that people use to search.

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:48

And to find your, in Google for your, for your thing.

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:51

You mentioned the tool SEM rush.

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:53

Is that what you called it?

Rachael Botfield: 00:14:54

Cause I've used something like answer the public as

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:57

well.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:57

Yes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:14:57

So there's lots, there's lots of, lots of different tools out there.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:01

So obviously, so my first, my first tip is keywords and you will need to

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:07

use some sort of keyword research tool.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:10

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:11

Now there's lots out there.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:13

There's lots out there and they range from being free and paid for.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:21

Basically the, like the ones that you pay for, the more expensive ones,

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:27

you just get more features or more added bits that you can do, but.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:32

For, like, just starting out or for what we need it for in this

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:37

example, you'll be fine with a free tool or a cheaper paid for tool.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:43

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:44

Yeah, I

Rachael Botfield: 00:15:44

was going to ask that whether or not it's worth investing

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:46

in.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:46

Yeah, I use, I use SEMrush because I use that.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:50

At work in the professional math, in the, yeah, in the professional

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:54

way, but there's loads of tools out there that you can use for free.

Sarah McDowell: 00:15:58

Answer the public is a great one.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:00

There's also, also asked, so the difference between also

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:06

asked and answer the public.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:08

Answer the public gets its data from, so, you know, when you're typing

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:12

in Google and Google auto suggests.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:16

That's where the data comes from with answer the public.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:19

Cause they're very.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:20

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:21

So they're what we call long tail.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:23

So you have keywords that are short, which are normally

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:28

like three to five characters.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:30

No, three to five words, sorry.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:33

Or you have your more long tail keywords.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:35

So your long tail keywords are like your longer phrases or where someone's gone to

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:40

ask a question, for example, on Google.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:41

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:42

Yeah,

Rachael Botfield: 00:16:44

I, I, yeah, I do.

Rachael Botfield: 00:16:45

Cause then I've also used answer the public to help me with some

Rachael Botfield: 00:16:47

topics sometimes or frequently asked

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:49

questions.

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:51

Answer the public gets its data from, you know, when you're like searching

Sarah McDowell: 00:16:55

the web and it comes up with a little box that say people also ask.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:00

Yes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:01

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:02

That's where also ask gets their data from.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:04

Ah, okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:05

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:05

So they're both really valuable and both also ask and it's been a while since

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:12

I've used answer the public, but I think they both offer sort of free options.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:16

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:16

You can have, I

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:17

think it's like one or.

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:20

It might be up to three, so I haven't used the other one, but answer the public.

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:24

I think it's like either one or three searches a day for free.

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:27

So, you know, if you wanted to do, and then you can export it as an CSV.

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:33

Like a spreadsheet.

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:34

Yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:34

So you know, if you've got a couple of different topics or ways you want

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:37

to ask, you can get a couple of, I mean, that should be enough for one

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:40

day to go through that kind of data and figure some of those things out.

Rachael Botfield: 00:17:44

Oh, a hundred

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:44

percent.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:44

They're really, really great tools, but there's other ones out there as well.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:48

So yeah, SEM.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:50

There's also like Chrome extensions that you can have, just go to

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:55

Google and type Google keywords.

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:59

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:00

Google keyword.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:00

There we go.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:01

So go to Google and search best free keyword research tools or

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:06

best keyword research tools.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:08

And there'll be loads of people that have like reviewed them for you.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:11

So you can like sort of see what you get and stuff, but you

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:15

don't need anything too fancy.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:17

I, you just need the basics for this, for what we need it for.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:23

So yeah, so we talked about keyword research tools.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:26

So when you are planning your episodes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:29

Like use a keyword research tool.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:32

So using your also also ask or your answer the public to help

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:36

you plan your episodes, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:39

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:40

'cause you know that these are the terms that are being

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:43

used and surfaced in Google.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:45

So you need to be using keyword, whether it's a shorter

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:50

phrase or a long tail keyword.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:52

You need to make sure that you're using that in your episode title.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:58

You also want to be using it in your episode show notes as well.

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:04

So yeah, so whatever keyword research tool you, you decide to use, just have

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:10

it so the next time that you're planning your episodes or you're planning your

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:14

season or you're planning your next.

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:16

Three, four, five episodes put in your topic and not only will, you know,

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:22

what people are searching for around that topic, but it also might come

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:26

up with other suggestions that you might've not even been aware of, or

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:30

that you've not even thought about.

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:31

So that.

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:33

So you could go into more detail or you could split it

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:36

up as like part one, part two.

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:37

So it's a really great way of planning your episodes and making sure that you're

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:44

talking about stuff that people want to learn about, if that makes sense.

Rachael Botfield: 00:19:49

Yeah, absolutely.

Rachael Botfield: 00:19:50

You want to make sure that it's relevant.

Rachael Botfield: 00:19:51

That's I think that's the, the biggest key thing that you can do

Rachael Botfield: 00:19:56

when you're creating your content is to making sure that it's relevant.

Rachael Botfield: 00:19:58

And if you're looking at those keywords, those are the most relevant thing that

Rachael Botfield: 00:20:02

people are asking for your particular

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:04

subject.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:05

100%.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:07

Now the difference between like your SEMrush and your hrefs is those tools

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:12

will give you on average, like the monthly search volume, whereas with

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:18

also ask and answer the public, it doesn't because it's different data.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:22

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:22

So just, yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:23

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:23

It just gives you the terms, doesn't it?

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:25

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:25

You still, you can still use both of them.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:27

And just a word of warning about keyword stuffing.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:31

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:32

So like Google don't like this.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:36

Podcast directories and apps don't like this and your listeners,

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:39

your audience won't like this.

Sarah McDowell: 00:20:41

So this is where, like, you might've seen it, but where...

Rachael Botfield: 00:20:46

Websites back in the day used to just stuff us with keywords.

Rachael Botfield: 00:20:50

As they said on the website page.

Rachael Botfield: 00:20:52

Oh my gosh, in one of my old jobs, I used to work in events.

Rachael Botfield: 00:20:55

And I, there's the amount of pages I used to come across just looking

Rachael Botfield: 00:20:58

at like event companies and people that hide out event equipment.

Rachael Botfield: 00:21:02

Literally the pages would just be.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:07

So that is not helpful for anyone, is it?

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:10

It's not, it's not helpful for users.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:12

It's not helpful for Google.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:14

So that's why Google's cracking down on stuff like that, because SEO's

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:18

been around now for a while, so it's got a bit more sophisticated.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:22

So back in the day, you could do those kind of tactics to kind of.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:26

Play the system kind of thing.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:28

But yeah, so when you are looking at episode titles, don't just list

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:33

a load of keywords or synonyms.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:35

So synonyms always hate saying that word because it's so hard to say , but synonyms

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:40

are like related keywords that like mean the same thing but said in different ways.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:45

Right, right.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:46

So don't just like stuff your show notes full of them stuff,

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:50

your episode title full of them because it's just not gonna work.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:55

Like, do you know what I mean?

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:56

Google cracks down on it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:21:57

Apple, yeah, they've cracked down on that because people are trying it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:02

It's not going to be helpful to your listeners, so just don't do it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:07

Just don't do it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:08

You've been warned.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:08

Yes, yes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:10

So that's keywords.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:11

podcast

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:15

SEO is something called backlinks.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:18

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:19

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:19

So backlinks is where you have someone that links to your

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:26

website, that's external from you.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:29

So for example, a backlink would be, so I have a podcast, Rachel has a podcast.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:35

If Rachel decides to link to one of my episodes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:39

On her podcast website, that is what we call a backlink.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:43

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:44

So it's an external to your domain.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:47

So yeah, backlinks are important because what you've got to see

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:52

backlinks is, is a vote to Google.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:55

So earlier on, I talked about Google's algorithm and Google's checklist.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:00

One of the things that it looks at is backlinks.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:02

So are people linking to this?

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:06

Podcast website or this podcast episode, because it's kind of like,

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:10

it helps Google trust that podcast

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:15

episode or that page.

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:15

Because other people are endorsing it effectively.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:18

They're endorsing your, yeah, I endorse this message.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:21

I

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:25

instantly just thought of LinkedIn when people were endorsing you all the time.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:29

I endorse you.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:33

Anyway so yeah, so they're important.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:35

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:36

And so get yourself some backlinks and you've got to be proactive.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:42

So me and Rachel were actually talking about this, weren't we?

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:44

We were, weren't

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:45

we?

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:45

Because.

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:46

Yeah, we'd had in our podcast group as well, our West Midlands Podcast

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:50

Club, we had a lady, Sylvia, came in and talked about backlinks

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:55

and the importance of them.

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:56

And we were all all the people in the group, we were trying to get,

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:59

we were going to write a blog.

Rachael Botfield: 00:24:01

And include backlinks in them.

Rachael Botfield: 00:24:03

And I had written a blog for my website, but I was linking

Rachael Botfield: 00:24:05

to another page in my website.

Rachael Botfield: 00:24:07

So that wasn't quite the same as doing a backlink.

Rachael Botfield: 00:24:11

That was an internal link

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:12

that we, yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:13

Still important, but like we can, you can just invite me back

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:17

and I can talk about more stuff.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:20

Definitely more, definitely more.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:21

More SEO goodness.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:24

But yeah so yeah, so they're very important and we've got to be

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:27

proactive in, in getting them.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:29

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:30

So for example, something that I did earlier this year now, I think

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:36

but I decided to do some research.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:39

On articles or pages that review the best SEO podcast.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:43

Cause I have an SEO podcast, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:45

So all I did was you could use a keyword research tool, but you

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:49

could just open up Google as well.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:51

And I typed in best SEO podcast.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:56

Now what Google showed me was a load of.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:59

Articles where people were reviewing the best SEO podcasts out there, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:07

So I needed to be on there because that's one, a backlink for Google, but

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:13

also these articles are being read.

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:15

So when people are searching, what I said earlier for like some inspiration

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:20

that's improving my discoverability.

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:23

Yeah, so link back to my earlier point.

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:26

I'm a professional, I, I know what I'm doing here.

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:31

. So yeah, so what I did was I looked at who was ranking on page one and

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:36

two and if it was like a listicle, so like articles where they say

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:41

10 of the best SEO podcasts.

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:44

And I wasn't being mentioned, so I found out who the author.

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:50

Of that blog article was, try to find how to contact them, whether that

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:57

was on social media, email, whatever.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:01

And then I reached out to them and I said, great article.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:04

Just want to let you know about my podcast.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:08

This is why it's different.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:09

This is why I.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:10

We think it's really good and really valuable to your audience.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:13

How about you include us?

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:16

So I reached out to a load and it was successful.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:19

Someone reached back to me and they were like, do you know what, Sarah?

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:23

This was at the end of 2022 and they were like, we're actually review.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:29

Cause it was the start of 2023 and they were like, we're actually reviewing.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:33

This article, you need to update it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:35

So you've timed it great.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:37

So yeah, so start thinking for 2024, right.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:42

So start reaching out.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:44

Yeah, yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:45

But there's those other ways that you can like reach out and ask for things.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:48

Just, just a quick question

Rachael Botfield: 00:26:49

about that.

Rachael Botfield: 00:26:50

But I mean, I love that idea.

Rachael Botfield: 00:26:51

It's something that I wouldn't have thought of.

Rachael Botfield: 00:26:53

That's why you're the expert, Sarah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:26:55

But one, my question being is like.

Rachael Botfield: 00:27:00

If your podcast hasn't got a lot of listen, you know, are

Rachael Botfield: 00:27:04

you just do, would it matter?

Rachael Botfield: 00:27:06

Do you, did you put things on about your listens or

Rachael Botfield: 00:27:09

downloads or anything like that?

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:10

Not at all, not at all.

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:11

Like our podcast, The SEO Mindset, we don't have crazy numbers.

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:16

Not like, what we did was because our podcast is so different

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:21

to what is out there, that was the angle that I went with.

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:25

And I think I also shared a review that someone gave about my podcast

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:30

or where they reached out and stuff.

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:31

In

Rachael Botfield: 00:27:32

when you pitched, when you, when you wrote to

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:34

you pitched.

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:35

So, and what, and what you got to think is you're, you're helping them with.

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:41

Their work, because normally they'd have to go out and do their, do

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:45

the research, search podcasts

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:50

and all of that.

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:50

So and you're giving them the reasons like this is the title, this is the host, this

Sarah McDowell: 00:27:55

is why we started, this is our favorite episode, this is what people are saying

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:01

about it, make it hard for them Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:06

Do you know what I mean?

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:07

Like, but it doesn't always have to be, I, I didn't mention once my download numbers

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:12

because yeah, it didn't, it didn't matter.

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:16

Yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:17

Yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:17

That's a really, really good way to look at it.

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:19

And I do, you know, we've talked about podcast numbers and, and things

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:23

before, and that doesn't have to be your only measure of success or like.

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:28

as well for your podcast because I love that you're and early this year you got a

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:32

really cool sponsor as well, haven't you?

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:34

And that, which I think is really awesome for your podcast.

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:36

But I think that, you know, showing your communities out there, your

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:41

people are there, they're your podcast.

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:42

I think that's probably in my personal opinion, that's probably the best.

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:46

thing that you can show for your podcast is that the impact that

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:48

you're having on your community.

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:51

A hundred percent, because they want to showcase the

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:54

podcasts that are actually making a difference at the end of the day.

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:57

Exactly.

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:57

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:57

And that's not

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:58

necessarily to do with numbers, as we all know, it's

Rachael Botfield: 00:29:01

fair to have a small engaged audience.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:03

Then they'll have a lunch.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:03

Yeah, exactly.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:04

Like, it's like the small engaged audience that actually do stuff

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:08

when the hosts say things, right.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:11

Do you know what I mean?

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:12

I'm a big believer in a successful podcast isn't just about the number of downloads.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:18

Because like, yeah, it's not.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:21

It's not.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:21

Success comes in lots of different ways.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:24

So that's Backlink.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:25

So that's one example of how you can do it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:27

Another example is you could have a look at the topics your

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:32

podcast episodes have covered.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:35

Again, fire up Google, do some searching in there, see what

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:40

articles and content are coming up.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:42

And then.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:44

If they're relevant to your podcast episode, find the author.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:47

Find a way to contact them and be like, Hey, great article.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:51

Really build the person up.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:53

Like say how awesome and what you learned from it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:55

But what you could say is, we did a whole podcast episode that might

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:00

be an additional great resource.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:01

So that's another way that you could get some backlink.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:04

So there's different ways, and when you start sort of thinking of ways that

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:08

you can get to link, Podcasting your episode then yeah, you'll, you'll start

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:14

thinking, Oh, there's another idea.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:16

Oh, there's another idea.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:16

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:17

Yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:30:18

These are awesome, Sarah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:30:19

Thank you.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:20

And then my last tip is podcast transcriptions.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:24

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:25

So transcriptions, they are the text version of your audio file.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:32

So we should be doing podcast transcriptions from an accessibility

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:36

point of view anyway, because obviously not everyone can.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:39

Listen and hear podcasts, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:42

So we need to be given the text.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:44

So what'd you call it?

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:45

Like the script or the transcript, the transcript of that audio to make

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:49

it accessible to everyone so that everyone can consume your content.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:53

So we should be doing that anyway, but it also helps Google, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:58

So obviously you got to think that so there's a debate whether Google are

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:04

automatically transcribing audio, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:08

But even if they are, they are a tool, they're a robot or AI or whatever,

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:15

yeah, they're going to get stuff wrong.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:17

Right.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:17

So they might not a hundred percent correctly automatically transcribe it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:23

So having the text version, Google can understand words and texts on a page.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:28

Do you know what I mean?

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:29

Like that's, that's what it's, that's what it does well.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:32

And it's been doing for years.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:34

So making sure that you have a transcript helps with discoverability.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:38

And also when Google's.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:40

Deciding what to rank for certain terms.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:43

It has to understand what your podcast and what your episode is about.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:47

So as you can imagine, if you've just got individual podcast pages with

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:53

just your web player for example, that's quite thin content and

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:57

there's not much for Google to go on.

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:59

So this is where your show notes come in handy.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:02

Mm-hmm.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:03

other content on the page.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:05

Your transcript, make sure that you tidy up your transcript as well, because

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:09

obviously I was going to ask about that.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:10

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:11

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:11

It needs to be error free again for accessibility reasons, but

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:15

also from a Google point of view.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:16

So remove the filler words because you want to make it as easy as

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:21

possible for Google to understand what that podcast episode is about.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:25

So then when someone is searching, going back to my earlier example

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:29

of dog training tips, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:33

Like when someone searches that and you've given Google as much information in a

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:40

text format to make them really easily understand what your, what your podcast

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:46

is about, you've got a higher chance of.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:49

Being surfaced, right, and, and stuff.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:51

So yeah, but just make sure because transcription tools are amazing,

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:56

but they always get stuff wrong.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:57

They get names wrong, they get places wrong, they get whole chunks wrong.

Sarah McDowell: 00:33:02

Like I've used a tool and they've said something very different and I'm like,

Sarah McDowell: 00:33:08

does it even sound like that tool?

Sarah McDowell: 00:33:10

Are you drunk?

Sarah McDowell: 00:33:11

What's going on?

Sarah McDowell: 00:33:12

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:33:12

So

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:13

yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:13

I must say.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:14

This is probably a bad confession for a podcaster.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:17

I don't often go over my transcripts.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:20

I used a script and I take out the filler words.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:23

And, but I should probably, I didn't think about.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:29

Also a question, sidetracking slightly.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:32

How does it find, how does it find, how do the Google robots find your transcript?

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:37

So I'll use my podcast for an example.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:38

So I have I do, I use Captivate and I upload my transcript into

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:43

Captivate when I publish my episode.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:46

But when I pr and then I also so I have my Captivate, so you can access my

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:51

podcast through my Captivate website page.

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:54

And, but then I also embed the episode in a website page and I have,

Rachael Botfield: 00:33:59

and then I put the show notes as an actual blog post on my, on my website.

Rachael Botfield: 00:34:05

But would it find the transcripts or would I need to put the transcripts

Rachael Botfield: 00:34:10

available on my website as well?

Rachael Botfield: 00:34:12

Or will they find it through the fact that it's three captivate?

Rachael Botfield: 00:34:15

So,

Sarah McDowell: 00:34:16

For that, if you're specifically wanting a

Sarah McDowell: 00:34:20

so in your example, you have.

Sarah McDowell: 00:34:24

Separate episode pages on your podcast website, and those are the ones that you

Sarah McDowell: 00:34:29

want to surface for certain terms, right?

Rachael Botfield: 00:34:32

Yeah, so on my main website, I have a blog thing,

Rachael Botfield: 00:34:35

and then I have a separate page.

Rachael Botfield: 00:34:37

So embed each episode into that separate page and put the show notes in physically.

Rachael Botfield: 00:34:41

Okay,

Sarah McDowell: 00:34:42

so as long as so it sounds like you've got quite detailed show notes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:34:47

Which is going to help Google, because that's what I was saying, because you're

Sarah McDowell: 00:34:50

adding text, you're giving content, you're helping Google understand.

Sarah McDowell: 00:34:54

I would also, if you want Google to surface the transcripts as part of

Sarah McDowell: 00:34:59

that page, it has to be accessible and visible on that page as well.

Rachael Botfield: 00:35:04

Right.

Rachael Botfield: 00:35:06

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:07

But if you have like, cause you're, it sounds like you sort of

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:11

convert your episodes into a blog anyway.

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:14

Yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:35:15

So it's, it's as a blog, it's classed as a blog page on my website.

Rachael Botfield: 00:35:20

And then I have a, the title and then I embed the Captivate code.

Rachael Botfield: 00:35:25

So it pulls in.

Rachael Botfield: 00:35:27

So it's got a little player that's from Captivate.

Rachael Botfield: 00:35:29

And then I put a physical.

Rachael Botfield: 00:35:31

Like I, not physical, but you know, like I write a blog

Rachael Botfield: 00:35:34

post, which is the show notes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:36

Yes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:37

Well, I'd still, because your transcripts still going to go

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:39

into a lot more detail, isn't it?

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:41

So I would, I would to be on the safe side.

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:46

Cause when we're optimizing, it's all when we're optimizing for SEO, it's

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:50

all about making it easy for Google to understand index, find the content.

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:55

So.

Sarah McDowell: 00:35:56

Yeah, I would make sure that the transcript was visible on the page.

Rachael Botfield: 00:36:03

So not just put it as a link No, to the transcript.

Rachael Botfield: 00:36:07

Put the physical, you can, yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:09

Obviously a link to this transcript's gonna help, but then mm-hmm.

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:13

That, that link's gonna take them somewhere else and it won't be somewhere

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:16

else associated with that page.

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:18

Right.

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:18

So to be on the safe side.

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:20

'cause how I do it, 'cause I use mm-hmm.

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:23

. I use Captivate websites so basically a click of a button and I upload transcripts

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:29

and because I'm using Captivate websites on my individual episode

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:33

pages, it publishes the transcripts.

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:35

So then Google can easily access.

Rachael Botfield: 00:36:40

But you're directing people to that one, aren't you?

Rachael Botfield: 00:36:42

I mean, I do love my Captivate website.

Rachael Botfield: 00:36:44

I, I have it designed really nicely, but because I also have a

Rachael Botfield: 00:36:48

business as well, I want people to look and see my business as well.

Rachael Botfield: 00:36:52

So I kind of send people to my website and do it that way.

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:56

Which is, which is perfectly reasonable.

Sarah McDowell: 00:36:58

That's yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:36:59

But would, but because I've got the transcripts displayed

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:02

on my Captivate one, does that.

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:05

But I'm, but I would have to promote that link though.

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:07

Wouldn't I'd have to promote that page specifically to get that to come up?

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:10

It all depends

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:11

on what page you are optimizing.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:13

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:14

Okay.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:14

To be shown in in the Google in search engine searches all

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:18

pages when people are searching.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:20

Mm-hmm.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:21

Hmm.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:21

, if it is the cap where the transcript already is, then great.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:25

But if it's, but if it's, if you want, like, it probably makes

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:28

sense in your use case for your business because that's where.

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:33

Yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:33

Yeah.

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:34

So that, that's a great tip.

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:35

I will definitely look into putting that on there.

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:38

So just have that transcript at the bottom of the page after the show

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:42

notes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:43

And with everything in marketing, you should be measuring it, right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:46

So you could, you could do some.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:49

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:50

I mean, I, me too.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:52

Of course

Rachael Botfield: 00:37:52

I am.

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:54

But you can always do a few, let them run for a few

Sarah McDowell: 00:37:57

months and then see if there's been like a positive impact and stuff.

Sarah McDowell: 00:38:02

Yeah, that's a good idea.

Sarah McDowell: 00:38:04

But yeah, like, cause like everything, because I completely understand

Sarah McDowell: 00:38:08

that, we don't have a lot of time and resource on our hands.

Sarah McDowell: 00:38:12

Me with the SEO mindset podcast, it's a, it's a side hustle.

Sarah McDowell: 00:38:16

It's not my nine to five, one day, one day, no I'm joking.

Sarah McDowell: 00:38:21

But yeah, like we've got to be,

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:24

yeah, just trying to get, yeah, everything done.

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:26

It is hard to fit it all in, but you definitely made me

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:29

think more about my transcripts.

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:30

And also I have been thinking about accessibility a lot.

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:33

One of my friends, Hannah McCormick, she, Has a showing up solo podcast, but

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:38

she did an episode about accessibility.

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:41

And then she had a lady called Ann Mok come on, who's a blind social influencer.

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:45

And it was just really interesting listening to her talking about

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:48

the alt text and things like that, that I'd not really considered.

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:51

But since, since listening to that podcast episode which I'll link in the

Rachael Botfield: 00:38:55

show notes it's really made me think a lot more about accessibility and putting

Rachael Botfield: 00:39:00

in the alt text and thinking about those things and not just to make it.

Rachael Botfield: 00:39:04

Like surface for people who can,

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:07

you know, I mean, with all these things like it's always

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:10

for accessibility and that's the core reason why we should be doing it.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:14

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:14

It's just handy.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:15

Cause it also helps Google.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:17

Yeah, exactly.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:18

But that's also where so link him.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:22

Such a professional, I've already said this, but linking back to like, you

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:26

know, how I said use a keyword research tool when you're planning your episodes

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:31

because you've like, you've done your research and you know, the keywords

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:35

and terms when you're recording.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:37

Your podcast episode, you're going to be naturally saying them.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:41

Remember, no word, no keyword stuffing.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:44

Like it still needs to be natural, like the quality of your audio and like, yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:49

So, but what I'm saying is like, when you say the specific topic or

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:54

something, you'll be using a keyword.

Sarah McDowell: 00:39:57

So then when you transcribe it and you've got the text version, you'll have a lovely

Sarah McDowell: 00:40:02

keywords in there that you will then add.

Sarah McDowell: 00:40:04

To your podcast episode page, which will help with you optimizing

Sarah McDowell: 00:40:10

for different search terms.

Sarah McDowell: 00:40:12

Smart.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:13

Absolutely.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:14

Yes.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:16

You have given so much advice, Sarah, and I could actually talk to you so

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:19

much longer about all of this stuff.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:21

You are so knowledgeable and I would.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:22

Love to have you come back on the podcast another time for us

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:26

to talk about all these awesome.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:28

And this is the kind of conversations why we wanted to start our podcast

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:31

community as well, wasn't it?

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:32

So we can have these types of conversations and learn

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:36

new things from each other.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:37

And so I'm really appreciate you coming on and taking time out of your

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:41

evening to come and chat with me.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:43

So what I will do is I will link to Sarah's podcast.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:47

In the show notes, and I would really recommend you go and have a listen.

Rachael Botfield: 00:40:51

Is there anything else you'd just like to leave us with?

Sarah McDowell: 00:40:55

Anything, this is where I need to say something really profound.

Sarah McDowell: 00:40:58

Don't I?

Sarah McDowell: 00:40:59

I've just got like nothing going on for me.

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:03

So yeah, don't get scared by podcast SEO.

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:07

Right.

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:07

I know that it can be scary and it can seem like if you don't, if you're

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:12

not familiar and you've not been working with it for a while, it can

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:16

seem a bit like, oh my gosh, a bit overwhelming, but just try stuff.

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:21

Right?

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:22

Like take a couple of my tips that I've done today, a couple of

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:28

my tips that I've said today and just try it, have a go, have a go.

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:31

And what, what have you got to lose at the end of the day?

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:34

Because it's all about increasing your discoverability and podcast SEO.

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:41

The tips that I've shared is all geared around helping you do that.

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:46

So yeah, like definitely come and join the West Midlands podcasting

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:50

club This is where we have more conversations like this.

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:54

I'm also on Twitter.

Sarah McDowell: 00:41:55

I'm guessing you'll, you link to my social as well.

Rachael Botfield: 00:41:59

Yeah, link to, link to Twitter and yeah,

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:02

and the podcasts and everything.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:04

So we can carry on and the West Midlands podcast club as well.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:07

If you'd like to join we'll pop a link there.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:10

So we have virtual meetups every second Thursday and then well, we've

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:15

got, like I said before whether it's.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:18

Happened or not by the time this podcast episode comes out, but we

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:21

are looking to do in person events.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:23

So if you are local to us, which is in Worcestershire area, Birmingham,

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:27

the West Midlands area, then we'd love for you to come and join and

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:31

meet face to face and talk nerd more

Sarah McDowell: 00:42:33

out about podcasts.

Sarah McDowell: 00:42:35

Yes, and I don't just talk about SEO, just as a, that's not all, all all

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:41

things.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:42

Well, thanks again, Sarah, and thanks everybody for listening,

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:46

and we'll speak to you soon.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:47

Bye.

Sarah McDowell: 00:42:48

Bye.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:52

Thanks for listening to the show.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:53

If you'd like to connect with me or get in touch, then head on over to my website.

Rachael Botfield: 00:42:57

If you liked the episode, then I'd love it if you could leave me a

Rachael Botfield: 00:43:00

review in your chosen podcast app.

Rachael Botfield: 00:43:01

Your feedback is much appreciated.

Rachael Botfield: 00:43:04

See you next

Sarah McDowell: 00:43:04

time.