Have you been noticing more and more podcasts appearing in Google desktop and mobile search results? If so, you’re not alone.
Once you’ve submitted your show to Google Podcasts, here’s how optimize your episode descriptions to maximize the value you can get from having your show appear in Google search results!
How to Optimize Your Google Podcast’s Description
Because optimization is so important, at RSS.com, we’ve made it easy to not only add a thorough description of what your episode is about, but also allow you to insert links in your description so that you can EASILY direct listeners to your website or social media profiles.
When you add your episode details on our platform, you can add a title up to 250 characters, a description up to 4000 characters, and choose a season number and episode number.
What some people don’t realize though, is we give you the ability to add bullet points, bold/italicized font, and hyperlinks. Simple things like this can help you stand out from other podcasters, and could result in more listeners finding your show.
Odds are, you already know about the importance of using keywords you want to rank for in your show titles. You may have already been adding them to your descriptions too.
However, you can take things a step further to drive more potential listeners to your show on podcast directories, and back to your website too. Take a look at this example from the Social Media Marketing Podcast on Google Podcasts:
Do you see how they have used italics and hyperlinks to optimize their description and grab the reader’s attention?
Not only are they using their intended keywords in their title and description, but they are driving traffic back to their website, their Apple Podcasts review page, and an additional podcast episode.
More Tips for Optimizing Your Show for Google Search
There are a few things you should be doing to stand out in the sea of podcasts that are out there. With that in mind, here are some additional tips for SEO to help your show get more attention:
Tip 1. Use as much of your description area as you can, but keep in mind that only the first 150 characters or so will show up in your summary. On Google Podcasts with several episodes, we’ve seen visible character counts truncated to as little as 136 characters. Therefore, your keywords and the highlight of your show should appear in the beginning.
Tip 2. While your title can be 250 characters maximum, Pacific Content stated that the most popular title length is 16 characters, and that the mean average show title is 23.9 characters.
Tip 3. Your show notes should include the most relevant highlights of what your show is about, and can include secondary keywords in an effort to show up in more search results.
Tip 4. Don’t keyword stuff your description. Adding your keywords multiple times in an effort to “game the system” can get you flagged for spam, and in the worst cases removed from podcast directories.
Tip 5. Finally, refrain from clickbait. If it’s not in your show, it likely has no business being in your show notes.
💡 Related Reading: Check out our post on 9 Effective SEO Tips for Podcasts.
To provide another example of how podcasters are working to optimize their episodes, check out how EV News Daily – Electric Car Podcast has added external links throughout their episode transcription to their show on other directories, sources, their website, etc.
We hope this has been useful and that you now that you have a better idea of how to optimize your podcast for Google Search!
