005: AUDIT Podcast SEO Audit for a recently launched podcast; with Stephanie Smith of Newlight Financial Solutions

 Boost Your Podcast's Visibility with Organic Search

In this episode of The Website Success Show, host Jules White sits down with Stephanie Smith, the creator of a new podcast called "Getting to the Bottom Line."

Stephanie aims to help business owners improve their revenue, profit, and cash flow by highlighting the often overlooked aspects that impact their bottom line.

Jules and Stephanie discuss key strategies for boosting the podcast's visibility through organic search, including:

• Optimizing the podcast title and description: Incorporating relevant keywords and phrases that listeners might search for in podcast player apps.
• Crafting compelling show art: Designing eye-catching visuals with clear text and incorporating keywords for better discoverability.
• Choosing the right podcast category: Selecting relevant categories and subcategories to increase visibility among target listeners.
• Utilizing transcripts and show notes: Adding transcripts and detailed show notes with relevant keywords to improve SEO and provide additional value to listeners.
• Creating individual pages for each episode on your website: Enhancing your website's authority and improving its search engine ranking by providing fresh, relevant content.

By implementing these strategies, podcasters can significantly increase their show's organic reach and attract a larger audience. Tune in to this episode for actionable tips and insights on optimizing your podcast for organic search and driving more traffic to your website.

Find Stephanie Smith:

• Website: https://newlightfs.com

Get your free website SEO report here at The Website Success Hub and start making changes for a more sustainable marketing strategy!

Transcript

Jules White: 0:26

Hi, So I'm here today with Stephanie Smith and today is the first podcast audit episode. So I'm really excited to talk to Stephanie about how we can help her to Try and promote her podcast using organic search. So helping it to show up in the podcast player apps and helping it to drive more traffic to her website as well. So welcome, Stephanie. It's lovely to have you here.

Stephanie Smith: 0:49

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk to you about this.

Jules White: 0:53

So let's start with some goals. So say if it was six months time and everything had gone really well with your podcast, your business is going well, website is doing well. How would that be? What, what sort of, what would that look like for you?

Stephanie Smith: 1:07

Oh man, put me on the spot with some goals. I mean, ideally, so backstory for my podcast, I just started it. So a brand new podcast. Um, I have been in business for a couple of years, so ideally I would have a podcast that has lots of traffic, right? Um, or at least. More than what I have now as it's growing and then hopefully people will come and learn more about me and what I do and and as well as the guests that I have on my podcast So I don't have specific numbers to give you because I don't I don't really know I've never done this before. Like, I don't know what my goal should be. Is that bad?

Jules White: 1:46

No, not at all. I think that's it. That sounded like a good goal of actually having growth for the podcast. So getting the show launched, having growth. And I think, you know, we can have certain, goals that we, that we go after. if you can get to the point where you like maybe have a first goal of getting 100 downloads per episode. And I think even that within six months time, ideally, we would be going for more than that. But that doesn't sound like an unreasonable thing to go after, but because it's a new show. We haven't got that, that data to go from that actually, let's, let's see, but I think, I think it's good to have a more general goal of growth for the, for the start. So the podcast growing, how often are you planning on releasing episodes?

Stephanie Smith: 2:28

Right now. My goal is every other week. I know it probably should do more than that, but I know monthly is probably not enough. So every other week is, is my goal at this point.

Jules White: 2:39

Yeah, I think it's good. I think it's good to have a realistic goal. And I think it's good to also have a, you know, those expectations that actually, okay. At some point, I wouldn't mind doing more, but for now, you know, once, once every, every fortnight is, I think it's okay. And I think. The consistency is more important as well. So yeah, ideally, you know, the reason that once a week is good is because then you are showing up where people expect to see that in their podcast player apps. But as long as you are consistent, then I think that's, that's the most important thing for now as well, really. So tell me a little bit about the show, um, what it's called, who it's for and. All of that jazz. Yeah. So

Stephanie Smith: 3:19

my podcast is called getting to the bottom line. It is made for business owners who are looking to improve their revenue profit or cashflow. Um, so what I do for my business, I offer outsource CFO services and we focus on drivers of revenue profit and cashflow. So my goal for the podcast is really to talk to other business owners that provide services. to businesses that maybe people don't think necessarily have an impact to their revenue, profit or cash flow to give to give people a new perspective, because I think it's quite interesting how many things impact a business that you would just not necessarily think Think about and we as business owners, we're just busy, right? Like we have too much going on. And we just think that some things are just necessary, necessary evils or whatever it is. And, and there's so much that goes into making money with your business that, I just want to have conversations with different, different industries to show that there's a lot that goes into it.

Jules White: 4:20

Yeah, absolutely. That sounds, that sounds great actually. So the podcast title one of the most important places in, podcast SEO is show name. So, um, One thing I would maybe suggest is thinking how you can incorporate who the show is for into the title itself. So maybe having, rather than actually changing the name of the show, but having something like a subtitle, but as part of the actual show. podcast title. So it's good to have in there of who it's for and maybe some keywords in there as well. So a good way to do it is maybe to, especially if it is a guest type show, conversations on. So get into the bottom line and then, you know, colon conversations on. Marketing or growing, growing your business or the, have you done any keyword research or anything around?

Stephanie Smith: 5:16

I have not. So I, and you're just getting me thing. I like, I like that conversations. cause what I like to say is that we help business owners generate more cash in their business, but, conversations about growing, I don't know, I'd have to think about it.

Jules White: 5:31

Yeah, it's definitely something to sort of have a think about, but in terms of, so thinking about it in terms of what would, what would people be asking, This is primarily, this isn't necessarily to help so much with Google, your podcast showing up on Google, this is in those podcast player apps, so when people go into the podcast player apps, they are typing into the search bar a particular term, so whether that is sales or would it be cash, you know, what are the kind of things that people are likely to type in. That your kind of show would show up for really. So that's where I would be thinking about it in terms of what are people actually searching for? What are those businesses going to be looking for that ties into to your show?

Stephanie Smith: 6:10

So can I ask you a question? How can I, can I research like what keywords people are searching? Is that, is that something I can do? Is that possible?

Jules White: 6:19

Yeah, so there's a couple of ways you can do it. So you can, you can go into the podcast player apps yourself, go into Apple podcasts, Spotify, and it's worth doing it on a few different platforms if you can. And, um, Look at what, what's in there. What other shows are in there? What are they called? What, what kind of things have they got? The ones that are showing up are the ones that then have done some kind of optimization around that, around those terms. So that would be the first place I would think about it. actually, before I even got to that point, I would, you know, sit down and think about the main, uh, have you done any sort of plan on, on what you're going to be talking about and your content pillars and those kinds of things for the, the podcast. That's a good thing to do. Just, it doesn't, everything's going to feel like, Oh my God, there's so much to do. But even that can be a case of getting a sheet of paper and thinking, okay, what are the three main things I need to talk about? So for me, with my, with my podcast, it's, I need to talk about websites. I need to talk about podcasts. I need to talk about conversion rates. So those are the kind of things. Oh, and SEO as well as part of that. But, um, those are the things where I'm thinking that's the broad topic of what I'm, I'm talking about, but probably that wouldn't necessarily be what people are thinking about. So people would be typing into like grow your podcast or make more sales or get more traffic to your website. Those are the kind of terms that people are more likely to be sort of typing into the searches. So I would be thinking about it from both sides. So, so what are the other podcasts who are maybe approaching it more from the, the podcaster? point of view. And also what are the ones that have kind of thought more about what the, what people are likely to be searching for. So putting yourself I guess in your, in your, your listeners, shoes and what would they be thinking about? So I would definitely do that. See what shows up. Just, just get some ideas. You could also use, chat GPT to, to give you some ideas around this as well. So, um, explain what your podcast about, what you're trying to achieve with it and ask, Ask for some ideas in terms of some good keywords to go after. And then you could do the same thing on Google as well because So, people will search slightly differently in a podcast player app than they will, because if they're looking specifically for a podcast, but I would also then look at what's happening in terms of search volume on Google, this can be really helpful when I'm working with clients is just working out if there's a particular term. So, say you've got two similar terms. For what you do, one has got double the amount of people looking for it every month. And you know, okay, maybe that's a better one to go after than, than the first one. So, you know, the example of sales versus selling, if you look at those on, on Google and, and there can be a lot involved in why there's more people looking for sales than selling or vice versa. but thinking about that as well. So I think using tools in, in Google to actually help you to, to understand. the general amount of people that are looking around your, the topics you talk about really.

Stephanie Smith: 9:08

Are, is there a tool you would recommend to

Jules White: 9:11

So there's a couple. Yeah, what, probably the, the, actually the first place I would go would be to do a Google search around what you do. And see if there's, and you could even do a Google search and add podcasts onto that and see what else is out there. Because just, and, and this is definitely a thing to maybe set yourself a timer. Yeah. Don't get into comparisonitis and don't let it put you off what you're doing. This is all about just getting some ideas around the things people are searching for that you could then optimize for as well. So go to a Google search page and see what is coming up on there really. And then you can use Google's keyword planner, which is Not the most user friendly. It's free, but there are a few other tools. There's one called KW Finder, which I quite like that one. you get, I think, three searches a day, uh, on there. And it also gives you the difficulty of a keyword as well, which is quite a good one to sort of understand. And that would then bring that back to having your Podcast on your website. So, so once you, if you've kind of worked out for your show name, these are the terms, these are the keywords I need to have in that show name. That will then help you when you bring your podcast back to your website and you create your podcast website. That's going to help that to then show up on Google as well. So. So I would try and do that. So that's probably the, one of the most important things with the podcast is having that extra thing of, so getting to the bottom line and then conversations on, and then having, trying to have a couple of keywords in there, is really helpful. And you would still, your show would still be called getting to the bottom line. You wouldn't then introduce it as getting to the bottom line, blah, blah, blah. So that all, all the. All that does is in the podcast player. So in your hosting platform, you would, where you've got your title of getting to the bottom line, you would literally have the semicolon, the colon and add your, add the extension after that, really. And the only, that's the only time other than your show up, that's the only time realistically you would ever use that. so it's not something that you would use when you're talking about your podcasts or anything.

Stephanie Smith: 11:04

That makes sense. Yeah, man, a lot to think about.

Jules White: 11:07

the other thing with this is it's not set in stone. So you could do something, you could get some basic, a basic thing in place, and then you might decide, actually, no, that's not quite working. Or you see something better and you think, actually, that would work better. And you can try it, you can change it and your podcast hosting platform will allow you to change that anyway. So don't get too hung up on, you know, It's got to be the perfect name. It's just get, getting something in there that's going to help people to find you. So when, when they type that term into their podcast player apps, you're the one that shows up in the results, basically.

Stephanie Smith: 11:38

Well, me just getting started, it makes sense to do whatever I can to help boost visibility, right? So

Jules White: 11:44

yeah, absolutely. And even for shows that have been live for a long time, they may not want to change the name of the show entirely, but actually just adding on that little subtitle onto the, onto the show name can make a big difference really. So definitely that would be a first tip is the, the show title and then the show description is the other thing as well. That's the next place to think about. Have you, crafted a description already for your show. So in your, in your hosting podcast, hosting platform, if you,

Stephanie Smith: 12:12

I do have a description and I did ask chat GBT to help me write it. So, yeah. Oh yes, I do have one.

Jules White: 12:19

So I would be thinking about how I can get my keywords in there as well. So have that list of keywords. These are the things you're talking about and have, make sure that that is in the general podcast description. And then with each episode, make sure that have a, have a kind of focus of what that episode is going to be about and have the keywords in there as well. So, so that then your overall show will show up for those podcasts, for those keywords that you've got in your overall description. And then the, the, the, the, Episodes themselves can also then show up for the keywords in there as well.

Stephanie Smith: 12:52

I'm thinking I can ask chat GVT to rewrite my description, including these keywords. Right. It would do that for me.

Jules White: 12:59

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. And I think it's just, again, it's something that you can tweak and change over time and see what performs best. better than others. I would definitely think about the people that you, who are your audience, so talk to some of your existing clients, talk to the people that you think are going to be listening, the people that you would like to listen, and ask them what would they type into a podcast player app. So that's the thing, if they were looking for a podcast, what would you be typing in, If you were looking for a podcast like mine, you know, so, and obviously that's not always easy when people haven't already listened, but I think certainly in terms of, you know, just getting some ideas and, and having that in your description as well, really. And then underneath that. When you're doing your searches in Google and you can see lots of questions in there, so that if you type a keyword into Google, you might see people also ask section. Those are the kind of questions that you can add in underneath your podcast description, having those questions in there saying, if you're asking these sort of questions or people who ask these questions might enjoy this podcast and then have a list of some of those questions there. And you have to have the answers there as well, but actually that will then help you with in terms of showing up on Google around those, those keywords in those questions as well, really. So that can be really helpful and really a valuable way to just add those keywords in really, because it's all about keywords with the organic discoverability. It's all around keywords really.

Stephanie Smith: 14:19

That's interesting. I never thought about that, but I definitely see those questions all the time when I'm searching on Google. So

Jules White: 14:24

yeah, yeah. And they're really valuable actually, because that is literally what Google associates with that particular search term as well. And so that, yeah, there's, there's also the related searches as well. So the things that maybe aren't the same kind of questions that As people are asking, but they're things that Google know is, Oh, if you like this topic, you might like this topic as well. So it's definitely, um, it's, it's worth paying attention to that, really. And I think that's where people can get started with SEO without it being this massive, overwhelming thing that actually just using those tools just finding out what people are already searching for. Scattering that through is not a bad place to start in terms of just doing the basics for SEO, really.

Stephanie Smith: 15:02

I feel like I need to go spend a day on Google.

Jules White: 15:04

Yeah, absolutely. I, or not even that, give yourself, you know, an hour or something. And definitely I would say before you even think about doing that, get the ideas out of your head first. Cause I always find I sit down at my desk to do that kind of thing. And then my brain just departs. Whereas actually I get the ideas when I'm driving or when I'm walking or something like that. So maybe even that, just having a pen and notepad. Walk along and either have a recording into your phone or something like that of the ideas of what you're, what you actually want to be talking about, really. So, so the other thing is the category, picking the right category for your podcast as well. So that's something that again, looking at what categories are available, looking at what's the most relevant to your business. And then it's kind of making a decision then on whether you go with something That's got more searches or got more competition so that would be looking at what else is showing up in those categories and you do want it to be aligned with your with the right category but thinking about what which one is, going to be the most sort of relevant really so and the most and you know if it's one where There's a crossover. You could be in two categories. If there's not as much competition in the other category, then you could think about doing that. But then there's probably likely to be less people searching for it as well. I feel like my

Stephanie Smith: 16:13

category ends up being business,

Jules White: 16:16

which is like

Stephanie Smith: 16:17

all the, all the people is business, right? So I don't know.

Jules White: 16:21

But sometimes there are, in some podcast player apps, there are subcategories within that as well. So I guess that would be the right ones there really around marketing and sales and those kind of things really. But yeah, it's just working out what's going to be sort of the most relevant to you really. And then the third thing in terms of what you can do for organic content. discoverability on the podcast player apps is your show art. And this is really important. This is something that a lot of people do not quite get right. I think really, um, in terms of, we have a big picture of ourselves and then the writing is in our fantasy script font or something like that. And actually when just thinking about when people are actually going to be looking at those. But the people that ideally we want as listeners when they're going to be looking at those pictures is in their phone. So it's going to be a tiny picture amongst a sea of other tiny pictures. So we want that to stand out. And again, this is where the keywords come into play. So ideally you want. To first and foremost, think about what, the words are that you're going to have on that show art. So put your, put your show name on, on there firstly and add in that subtitle as well so that you get your keywords into the show art. So I would say to focus on those keywords as well, make sure that they pop out at you. So ideally you don't want a busy background on this. this image, you want it to have a, some kind of plain background if you can, and have the, have the word standing out. So a font that looks, that's quite bold and quite big, you know, those kinds of fonts, rather than it being necessarily the same as our branding. If we've got very, you know, especially if we've got very feminine branding and it's lots of scripty type fonts, then they're just not going to, you know, it needs to again, immediately catch people's eye and be, you know, immediately clear on, what it actually is all about really. So just avoiding any confusion in there.

Stephanie Smith: 18:15

Your advice, picture or no picture on your

Jules White: 18:21

So I would definitely say to have a picture on there, if you want one, you don't have to. And it depends on what the, format of the show is and how the format of your brand is. So if it's not critical to your brand for you to be part of that, maybe there's an, an alternative. I think it's good to have some kind of icon or some kind of image or something somewhere on your show art, but maybe that's not, that doesn't need to be you. And that would just be a call for yourself. But I would always think whichever image. You're going to put on there, have that as just taking up that last bit of space that's available. So you've got the words, obviously it's a square box. You've got the words, make sure that's really clear. And then there'll be somewhere that you can slot in a picture of something or slot in a picture of yourself, really. So I know when I look for podcasts, I always look at the show art and read the name on the show art,

Stephanie Smith: 19:11

Well, I just have my title on mine and there is an icon on there. So I guess it helps. There's no picture of me, but it is a plain background. So I checked most of these boxes, but I need to go back to our conversation earlier about the subtitle and then find out what my subtitle is and put that on there too.

Jules White: 19:27

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I would say maybe if you can have the keywords in a different color or somehow have the keywords to stand out as well, then that's really helpful. It can just help. Make that pop out to people so that they hopefully click on and start listening.

Stephanie Smith: 19:43

That makes sense. Yeah.

Jules White: 19:45

So, any questions,

Stephanie Smith: 19:48

I feel like I need you to just come do all this stuff for me.

Jules White: 19:51

Well, that is always an option. Definitely, especially around the keyword research. That's something that I do for my clients. So if that is, is feeling like that would be a, a rabbit hole to go down, then there's always that option there. The other thing I always say, which I didn't mention was the fact that We do want to be bringing it back to our own domain. I think that's one of the most important things is when a lot of podcasters just use that the built in website that comes with their podcast player apps and don't necessarily think about how they can then get that traffic back to their own website. And it's really valuable. The content that you're creating in your podcast, if you can have the transcript there and again, transcript and. Show notes, another place where you can make sure those keywords are in there. But if you can actually then bring that back to individual pages on your website for each podcast episode. And this is great. If you're just starting out, this is fantastic because you're not thinking, Oh my God, I've got all that content that I've created that, I've got to then go back and re categorize or re, you know, re go back through. If you can do that, and make, try and make it as simple as possible when you're doing that. So use AI as much as possible, use the automatic transcripts and things that are available to us, these tools. And then each show that you're doing, create an individual page on your website for that show. And that's, that's one of the biggest things in terms of then increasing your website. SEO, that's one of the best things you can do really. So I think I would, if I was thinking about how to, how to get started on terms of the content I create for my podcast, I would be thinking about what are those content buckets and creating some shows around those first and foremost and getting those onto your website. So even if you're thinking actually, I don't feel like I can do it for every single episode, what are the most important ones and having those on there first really.

Stephanie Smith: 21:36

That makes sense. That's a lot of pages. Uh, I can't, can't think about it. Just making a page for each episode seems like a lot, but that makes sense that you would have a place for it on your website. I've been doing better about making sure everything is on my site itself. So I direct people to my webpage as opposed to other places on the internet.

Jules White: 21:55

Yeah, so you're already doing half the journey. So I think the good thing with that is you're already creating that content and it's not that much more effort to then go and create a page, especially once you get it set up. And especially if you're using a blog builder where you can literally do it as a blog and every, all the other bits around it, get sort of, slotted in as you want to. But that's really powerful and actually that will then be updating your website with new content. Google loves new content, so that's updating your website. That's increasing the authority of your website. It's more likely that then those individual pages are going to show up on in Google searches as well. So it's a way to use what you're already creating and then just, you know, help that to grow your website's authority as well, really. And I think that's, it's something that does feel like it's a big thing, but it's creating a podcast in itself is a lot of work. So if you can just take that extra, step, and I would say doing that is probably From a long term point of view, it's probably more important than spend. If you're spending 10 hours creating stuff for the social media around your podcast, actually taking a little bit of that time and spending that on creating those pages for your own website is probably in the long run, it's going to pay off a lot better, really.

Stephanie Smith: 23:04

It makes complete sense. It's just finding the time and desire to do it all.

Jules White: 23:10

Yeah, absolutely. And it's finding ways to then. make that part of the process really, I think, so that you can then at some point hand that off to somebody else to do that for you as well, really.

Stephanie Smith: 23:20

Yeah. That's always a good, good key. Yeah. For other people. Yeah. Absolutely.

Jules White: 23:28

So hopefully that's been helpful and it's given you a few things to think about. Even if you did nothing else, but went in and worked out what keywords people are searching for and updated your title and description and, and it sounds like, the art, you've not got too far to go from there really, even if you just did that and add a transcript into every, every show, then that's going to make a big difference I think in terms of discoverability. Absolutely.

Stephanie Smith: 23:50

Well, thank you. This was so, such a good conversation. I've learned so much.

Jules White: 23:55

Fantastic.

Stephanie Smith: 23:55

My list has now grown exponentially.

Jules White: 23:57

I know, I'm sorry.

Stephanie Smith: 23:58

I need to do so, but things I didn't know I should have done. So I, I really appreciate it.

Jules White: 24:03

Yeah. And the great thing is you're just doing it now when you're getting started, so you can start off on good footing and then hopefully hit the ground running and get your show really growing

Stephanie Smith: 24:12

and just make it part of my process. And then it isn't like a huge burden to go backwards or anything. So

Jules White: 24:18

absolutely. And it shouldn't need to be a big, big thing, you know, and especially now we've got AI to help us with this. There's no reason why it needs to be a big drama. and then each time you do it, it gets easier and easier because it becomes that process really.

Stephanie Smith: 24:32

Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you. I appreciate it.

Jules White: 24:35

So I will put the link to the show and when it's launched, I will pop that into the show notes for this show. so people can come along and, but, so just remind them of the name for now.

Stephanie Smith: 24:46

my podcast is getting to the bottom line.

Jules White: 24:48

Yeah.

Stephanie Smith: 24:49

right now, you can only find me on YouTube, so that's kind of sad, but I need, to find a platform to put myself on. And I know, I need more episodes as I grow to get myself on Apple and everything. So I plan on being in all the places, but I'm not quite there yet.

Jules White: 25:04

Oh, I think I'm definitely a fan for being in one place well first. So even if it's just YouTube, even if you focus on YouTube and just focus on that, I mean, YouTube's amazing for SEO as well. So you're not in a bad place just starting with that anyway. so I'll add the link to that. If people want to find your website and find out more about what you do, where can they find you?

Stephanie Smith: 25:22

My website is newlightfs.com. So it's Newlight Financial Solutions, but financial solutions kind of long. So newlight fs.com, you'll find my website. I'm also on LinkedIn and Facebook and, and all the places, but

Jules White: 25:37

Fantastic. thanks so much, Stephanie. It's been lovely talking to you.

Stephanie Smith: 25:42

Thanks for having me. I, I appreciate it.