With over 2 million podcasts in the world, it’s essential that once you start a podcast, you also start investing in strategies that help your show get discovered by new audiences. Building momentum to keep getting more and more ears on your unique content is important to help your podcast climb to the top.
When it comes to podcast discoverability, some argue that there is a lack of technological development enabling search engines to crawl and index audio, making it difficult to show up in Internet searches. But this is starting to change.
As Google pulls more podcast content into its search engines, and Facebook and YouTube lean into the medium more, these platforms have some of the best content discovery tools. As time goes on, newsworthy podcast content will begin to surface more regularly on the platforms we all use daily – and you don’t want to miss the boat!
We’ve got just the strategies to help you with discoverability so you can keep growing your podcast audience and invest in the longevity of your show. Let’s dive into some of the tried and tested methods for boosting your podcast’s discoverability.
Engaging and quality content takes time and effort, but it is worth the investment. The key reason to focus on producing compelling podcast episodes is their ability to build a loyal fan base. Your listener’s time is precious, and you as the podcaster should always treat it as such. These listeners will tune into your show every week (or whatever your show’s cadence is), leave positive reviews, provide feedback, and share it with family and friends which all helps in driving podcast discoverability.
Podcast transcripts are a word-for-word manuscript of your podcast that has several benefits when it comes to optimizing searchability and discoverability. In short, transcripts:
Podcast Tip: Check out CoHost’s atuomatic transcriptions feature (with no extra costs added to your plan).
Just as transcriptions help, show notes improve the discoverability of your podcast by giving search engines text to crawl and index, helping your podcast show up in web searches. It’s important to think of your show notes as a crucial part of your podcasting workflow.
Essentially, creating show notes is just as important as publishing the episode. Show notes can also inspire new listeners to tune in who might be searching for a podcast on a particular topic – and come across your show notes that contains the content they are looking for.
So to break it down, quality show notes can convert a search in discovery, to a download to potentially a loyal listener. The perfect podcast listener funnel! They’re also a great way to include details (and shout outs!) to your special guests, sponsors, or resources you dropped during the episode.
Think of your podcast as something that works in conjunction with all your other brand marketing tactics. Create a website, write blog posts, use social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, to share content about your podcast.
In fact, results released by Edison Research for The Podcast Consumer 2019 show that 67% of podcast listeners across America found new podcasts because of social media. For some quick ideas, you could take some top points from your latest episode and turn them into fun infographics or TikTok videos. You could also create audiograms or engage with followers on Twitter and LinkedIn by responding to comments. All of these tactics will improve discoverability because each platform targets different age groups, audiences and interests.
High-quality sound helps to not distract your listener from your show’s content. A listener should be able to easily listen, learn and be entertained. If you tune into any of the best ranked shows on Spotify, Google Play, Apple, or iTunes, you’ll notice that they all have a consistent high standard of sound quality.
You want to ensure that your listeners keep coming back every time you publish. Besides, you don’t want all the hard work you put into creating quality content to be overlooked because your audio is too distracting.
Emails are still one of the most effective ways to reach your audience. By using your newsletter to highlight some of your unique podcast content, you’ll be able to create some great buzz around your show, which translates to upping your podcast’s discoverability.
What lots of people don’t realize is that the power of a podcast and a newsletter are similar in that you are creating an intimate connection between the creator and the listener / or reader. It’s through these channels that you are able to build up a sense of trust with people that keeps them coming back.
But remember, it’s important that your newsletter provides value to your reader and isn’t simply self-promotional. There are ways to build up your email mailing lists by running giveaways on social and creating posts or audiograms that encourage email sign-ups.
Consistency is key to the success of your podcast. When you publish your podcast episodes regularly, you give your listeners the power to build your show into their lives. But if you aren’t dependable, they’ll look for another podcaster who accommodates their life better. And most obviously, publishing a podcast regularly helps with discoverability because there is simply more content for potential listeners to discover.
Need help with boosting your podcast discoverability? Get in touch with the team at CoHost.
A team of driven podcast experts, the CoHost marketing teams goal is to provide content to help brands boost podcast growth, understand their data, and equip themselves with the resources necessary to scale.
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