Ep 91: How to Rank Your Podcast in Apple Podcast Search Results

00:00:00 How to Rank Your Podcast in Apple Podcasts for Keywords

[00:00:00] Verity: Hello there. And welcome back to another episode of the lazy girl's guide to podcasting with me, Verity. In this episode today, I am gonna be telling you all about how I ranked not 1, but 2 podcasts in Apple Podcasts for certain keywords. Now you may not think that this is terribly exciting, but actually it's really, really vital because keywords is how people are going to find your podcast when they don't know what they're searching for on Apple Podcasts. What I mean by this is when somebody who has never heard of the lazy girl's guide to podcasting goes to Apple Podcasts and just knows that they just want a podcast about podcasting.

[00:00:42] Verity: If they type in podcasting tips, at the time of recording this particular episode, my podcast, lazy girl's guide to podcasting, turns up in the top 5 to 10 search results for shows and episodes for that particular phrase. So you might be thinking, well, how do I do that? How do I get my podcast to turn up in those search results on Apple Podcasts when people type in specific keywords. First thing you need to know is what it is that your audience is searching for because otherwise, you're not gonna be able to create content that is gonna be right in front of them. So you need to get really, really comfortable with reading your podcast analytics, and those are gonna come from your podcast hosting platform.

00:01:28 Utilizing Podcast Analytics for Better Audience Engagement

[00:01:28] Verity: Now I use Captivate FM as my podcast hosting platform. They are great if you want to try out a 7 day free trial with them. There is a link down in the show notes in the episode description. Captivate. Fm have got so many different analytics on there, which are absolutely great to be able to drill down, figure out who is listening to my podcast, how they're listening, where they're listening from.

[00:01:51] Verity: Absolutely brilliant. Episodes for and what my drop off rate is. All of this information is really, to episodes for and what my drop off rate is. All of this information is really, really crucial to finding out who is already listening to my podcast and how are they finding my podcast as well. And off the back of that and still talking about analytics, if your podcast hosting provider has a functionality whereby you can link up Google Analytics to your podcast hosting platform, do that because it is a great way to get even more information about whoever is listening to your podcast.

00:02:32 Tips for Improving Podcast SEO

[00:02:32] Verity: If you've got your own website that you are driving people to to listen to your podcast, again, make sure that you hook up your Google Analytics and that website because you are just gonna get so much more information to look at. I'm not gonna go into any more depth about looking at analytics for this episode. But if you would like an episode all about reading your podcast analytics, do let me know and I will happily create that for you. A lot of it when it comes to keywords is it's very trial and error. So as I said, how I find out about the different keywords that my audience is searching for is I look at the Google Analytics as to what people have searched for that they have then landed on finding my podcast through Google.

[00:03:14] Verity: Because that is then going to be very similar to the keywords that are being typed into Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etcetera, though we are only focusing on Apple Podcasts for this episode. But I also know that a lot of my audience are searching for very specific keywords such as podcasting tips, how to podcast, how to create a podcast, podcast about podcasting. So I have, through trial and error for about a year because at the time of recording, this podcast has been going for just over a year. Yay. Thank you everybody who supported us for just over a year now.

[00:03:45] Verity: But I have included and had trial and error of using different keywords within my podcast description, within my episode titles, within my episode show notes so that I have got more of a chance of my content being shown in search results when people who are on podcast directories are searching for certain keywords. So just as an example for lazy girl's guide to podcasting, some of the keywords that I have got for the podcast in my podcast description are podcasting tips, how to podcast, how do I start a podcast, is there an easy way to podcast, how do I get my podcast on Apple Podcasts? How do I get my podcast on Spotify? How do I promote my podcast? What should I podcast about?

00:04:30 Strategies for Improving Podcast Ranking on Apple Podcasts

[00:04:30] Verity: So there's a whole load of different keywords that are naturally inserted into my podcast show description, and that the show description is basically the blurb for your entire podcast. It's telling Apple Podcasts really what your podcast is about in a way. The other thing that I have done is I've actually got an extended title to my podcast. So the podcast, as far as I'm concerned, is called the lazy girl's guide to podcasting. However, if you actually look at it on a podcast directory, it's got a much longer title than that.

[00:05:01] Verity: It's actually called the lazy girl's guide to podcasting, podcasting tips for how to start and run a podcast because there's more keywords then that are inserted into that title, thus hopefully encouraging my podcast to rank higher on Apple Podcasts for those keywords. But as I said, I just call it lazy girls go to podcasting because, do you know what, that title is long enough. So there's 2 places already that you can look at inserting keywords to help you rank higher in search results for Apple Podcasts. The other places that I insert my keywords are largely in the episode titles and show notes. So, for example, in the show notes of every single podcast episode, I try and naturally because it's really important to insert keywords naturally and not just shop them in and overstaff.

00:05:48 Tips for Ranking in Apple Podcasts Search Engines

[00:05:48] Verity: But I try and naturally insert the phrase podcasting tips because I know that that is a really really high value keyword for my audience to be searching to find or potentially find my content when they don't know that it's my content that they want to be searching for. So I try and naturally insert insert the term podcasting tips in every single set of show notes that I publish for the podcast. And then within the episode show notes and also the episode titles, I try and include keywords that I have researched that people are going to be searching for for information about a particular topic. For example, rank in Apple Podcasts is a keyword. So I have got that included in both the title of this episode, and it will also be included in the show notes and episode description for this episode as well.

[00:06:35] Verity: There are 2 other things that I have done in order to rank for keywords in Apple Podcasts search engines. The first one is create good content. Now that sounds like I'm blowing my own trumpet to say that I'm creating good content, but all I'm gonna say is the stats don't lie. My downloads have just continued to go up week on week, month on month. My audience listenership and retention rates has continued to increase and maintain and get better and all the rest of it.

00:07:02 Creating Engaging Podcast Content: Tips for Success

[00:07:02] Verity: So my point is is that hopefully you guys agree with me, otherwise you're just listening to me for white noise or something, but I'm clearly creating content that my audience wants because otherwise people wouldn't come back for the next episode and they wouldn't be listening to the large amounts of the episodes that people are listening to, which is really, really important. And we'll talk about analytics in another episode because there's so much about analytics, which is so important. And I think there's a lot of misinformation about the podcasting analytics that you should be focusing on versus what people do actually end up focusing on, but that's an episode for another day. The final thing to concentrate on is your podcast cover art. People judge books and podcasts by their covers.

[00:07:45] Verity: So if your podcast artwork is not standing out, if it's not engaging with your potential audience or your intended audience, people will just scroll past that. Now I'm not saying it needs to be bright colors, it needs to be you laughing, or, like, anything overly emotive, but it does need to have something where your intended audience are gonna say, hey, that resonates with me, I want to listen to that podcast, or oh, I'm kind of interested in that. Basically, it needs to be something where people are not going to just be like oh that's boring and scroll past because as I said people judge books and podcasts by their covers so it needs to be something that is going to stand out that in the split seconds that people are scrolling through search results on Apple Podcasts, it's standing out enough for people to say, hey. I actually wanna find out more about this. I'm gonna click on this and see what content this individual can give me.

00:08:37 Optimizing Your Podcast for Higher Ranking on Apple Podcasts

[00:08:37] Verity: Because regardless of how good your episode titles are of your show notes, etcetera, when you are in the search results of Apple Podcasts, you only get to see a very small amount of that title and of those show notes. It's your episode artwork which really is gonna be dragging people in, so make sure that that is as on point as you can possibly make it. And remember as well that with your podcast description, with your podcast title, with your, with your cover art, it's okay to update these and have trial and error. There are so many podcasts from indie podcast, professional podcasters, people who've been doing this a long time, people only doing this a few weeks, who have tried and experimented with different cover arts, different titles, different keywords, etcetera. What I would say is if you're going to experiment is that you do need to allow your experiment to run for a sustained period of time.

[00:09:31] Verity: Maybe a couple of months before you decide either this is working or this isn't working. Because if you just shove up a new cover art every other week, then you're not gonna be able to get results that will actually show you that that particular piece of cover art was more engaging for your potential audience or that that particular keyword that you included in your podcast description was relevant to increasing you ranking in Apple Podcast search results. So as ever, I hope that you have found this episode useful. If you have got a fellow podcaster in your life, please share this episode with them, and hopefully, they will also pick up some useful tips to help them rank higher for their podcast and Apple Podcasts as well. Otherwise, thank you so much tuning in for another episode.

[00:10:13] Verity: I'm Baratie. This is the lazy girl's guide to podcasting, and I will see you next episode.