61 // Podcast SEO Advice Beyond Downloads (What Actually Converts Listeners)

What if the reason your podcast isn’t generating more leads, clients, or sales has nothing to do with visibility?

Right now, there’s a lot of conversation around podcast seo. And while discoverability absolutely matters, I think many coaches, consultants, and course creators have been led to believe that getting found is the ultimate goal. It’s not.

Because getting found and getting clients are two very different things.

If you've been spending hours researching keywords, optimizing titles, and trying to grow podcast downloads, but you're not seeing meaningful business growth, this conversation may completely change how you think about your strategy.

The first shift is understanding that podcast seo is about much more than keywords. Keywords can help people discover your content, but they don't guarantee those people are aligned with the services, programs, or offers you sell. The most effective podcast seo strategy starts with understanding who you want to attract and what problems they're actively trying to solve.

We also dive into one of the biggest misconceptions in online business: the belief that more downloads automatically lead to more revenue. While it's tempting to focus on podcast growth, the real opportunity lies in podcast listener conversion. A smaller audience filled with potential buyers will almost always outperform a larger audience of casual listeners.

And this is where many business owners get stuck.

They're focused on how to increase downloads when they should be focused on how to convert podcast listeners into subscribers, email list members, consultation bookings, and clients.

Finally, we're talking about something that rarely gets discussed in conversations about podcast seo strategies: connection. Getting someone to press play is only the beginning. The content itself is what builds trust. It's what keeps people coming back. And it's what ultimately supports podcast monetization and long-term business growth.

If you're building a podcast business, growing a coaching brand, or looking for a smarter way to promote a podcast, this conversation will help you shift your focus from vanity metrics to the strategies that actually move the needle.

Because the goal isn't simply to be discovered. The goal is to attract the right people, earn their trust, and create content that makes them want to take the next step.

Ready to build a podcast that supports your business goals and attracts listeners who are more likely to become clients? Join Podcasts That Convert and learn how to create a podcast growth strategy designed for real business results. Learn more here: janditchfield.co/join

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Podcast SEO is having a moment right now, but I think we've started treating it like a magic bullet. And that's causing a lot of women with a podcast to start focusing on the wrong things. So let's talk about it. I'm Jan Ditchfield, an award-winning marketing strategist who left the corporate world, picked up a $25 microphone on Amazon, and built a half million dollar business powered by my podcast. Along the way, I learned that success online isn't about hustling 24-7. It's about building a business that works even when you're offline. I created Evergreen Marketing Simplified to give you simple, actionable, step-by-step strategies to help you build an Evergreen business through your offers, your content, and a podcast-driven system that sells for you. If you're a coach, consultant, or a course creator who wants to create consistent income without living online, so you can actually enjoy the life you're working so hard to build, you're in the right place. Let's get to work, my friend. Over the last few weeks, I've been deep in podcast strategy work with a couple of private clients and been helping them reposition their shows and build their SEO strategy and just generally create a stronger foundation for growth. And one of those clients recently launched her new strategy, and the results were almost immediate. It was like within days of releasing her trailer, she landed in the top 50 of her category. Her visibility increased dramatically. New listeners started finding the show. And the thing that perhaps is the most important, she finally had a podcast that was positioned to attract the right people instead of simply attracting more people. I was joking with her as we watched the numbers climb, but it reinforced something as well that I've seen over and over again. A lot of what people think about podcast SEO is, and a lot of what gets taught about podcast SEO is only a small piece of the puzzle. Now, don't get me wrong, keywords matter, and your titles matter and your descriptions matter, the categories that you put your show in matter. All of those things absolutely play a role in helping people find your show. But if you're a coach or a consultant or a course creator using your podcast to grow your business, then discoverability is only part of the equation. Because getting found and getting clients are not the same thing. And that's where I see so many women with a podcast getting stuck. Because you spend hours researching keywords and tweaking episode titles and trying to improve rankings, but it's still not seeing the business growth that you expected your podcast to create for you. So in today's episode, I want to walk you through three of the most common podcast SEO misunderstandings and more importantly, how to fix them so that your podcast attracts not just listeners, but the right listeners. Now, the first mistake that I see many people make is thinking that podcast SEO is just keywords. And now, before you start laughing and you say, Jan, like, aren't you the person who teaches this? I want to be clear. Keywords absolutely matter. I teach them, I use them, I spend a lot of time helping clients choose the right ones, but keywords are only one part of the strategy. And what I see happen a lot is that people get so focused on finding keywords that they forget to think about who they're actually trying to attract. A keyword can absolutely help somebody discover your podcast, but it doesn't automatically mean that that person is a good fit for your business. So, for example, if you're a business coach, you could create content around broader topics like mindset, productivity, motivation, entrepreneurship. And those are all popular search terms, and they may bring new listeners to your show. But are those listeners potential clients? Maybe, maybe not. Now, if we compare that to somebody searching for help attracting clients or growing a coaching business, improving conversions, um, launching a group program, that's a very different person. They're not just interested in the topic, they're actively trying to solve a problem. And that's the shift I want to see you make. Instead of starting with a keyword, start with the listener. Who are you trying to attract? What problem are they trying to solve? What questions are they asking when they look for help? Once you have those answers, then choosing the right keywords becomes much easier. Because your goal isn't to rank for the biggest keywords in your niche. The goal is to attract the right people to your podcast. I've seen podcasts with great titles and descriptions and all the right keywords still struggle to generate clients because the strategy stopped at getting discovered. Nobody stopped to ask whether the people finding the show were actually the people the business wanted to serve. And the best podcast SEO strategy isn't going to be the one that attracts the most listeners. It's the one that attracts the most aligned listeners. Those people who hear your podcasts and they immediately think, this is exactly what I've been looking for. Now, the second mistake I see so many people make is optimizing for downloads instead of buyers. And again, downloads matter. If nobody's listening to your podcast, then we have a problem. But one of the biggest misconceptions in podcasting is the belief that more downloads automatically lead to more business growth and they don't. I've seen podcasts with large audiences struggle to generate clients. And I've seen podcasts with much smaller audiences consistently produce leads, get sales calls, and get business directly from their show. And again, the difference isn't the size of the audience, it's the quality of the audience. So let's think about it this way: if you're a consultant who works with seven-figure companies, would you rather have 10,000 random listeners or 500 people who perfectly match the type of people you want to work with? Most business owners are going to choose that second option every single time. I know I would. And that's because your podcast isn't just content, it's a marketing tool. Its job isn't to just simply attract listeners, its job is to get the right people into your world. And when you start looking at your podcast through that lens, everything changes. So instead of asking, how can I get more downloads, I want you to start asking, how can I attract more of the people I actually want to work with? And then instead of focusing on audience size, you start focusing on audience alignment. And this is why buyer intent matters so much. Somebody who's actively looking for help solving a problem is far more valuable to your business than someone who's just casually consuming content. And the closer a listener is to needing a solution, the more likely they are to engage with your offers, join your email list, book a call with you, and become a client. And that's why some of the most profitable podcasts are not the biggest ones. They're just the ones that are simply attracting the right people. So if you've been measuring the success of your podcasts entirely by download numbers, I want you to ask yourself a different question. Are the people listening to my podcast actually the people I want to serve? Because a smaller audience that's full of your ideal people, those buyer-ready listeners that I always talk about, that's always going to outperform a larger audience that's just simply passing through. And that really is the difference between building a podcast that grows an audience and building a podcast that grows a business. The third mistake I see women make is focusing so much on getting people to find your podcast that you forget to give the people a reason to stay. And this is where I think a lot of podcast SEO conversations fall short. I mean, you can't really open up social at all these days without seeing conversations about discoverability and rankings and keywords and search results. So it's easy to start believing that if somebody finds your podcast, the hard part's over. But it isn't. Getting someone to press play is only the first step. What happens next is what determines whether they subscribe, they come back next week, they join your list, they become a client. And that's why content strategy matters just as much as SEO strategy. And in fact, when I teach this, we spend two weeks on SEO followed by two weeks on content because they need to talk to each other. When somebody discovers your podcast, they're not looking for a perfectly optimized title. They're looking for answers, ideas, insights, perspectives, things that are going to help them solve that problem or see the problem differently. And then they're looking for a reason to keep listening. This is something that I've been thinking about a lot since I launched my second show, Small Town Stories. And if I had approached that podcast strictly from an SEO perspective, meaning all I thought about was the SEO, and that's where it started and where it stopped, I probably would have made very different decisions. I'm really definitely know I would have focused much more heavily on business keywords, entrepreneurship topics, things that were really marketing trends. But instead, I focused on telling stories. There are stories about business owners, about community, uh creativity, those people that are quietly shaping the villages and the towns that they live in. And what surprised me most is how strongly people have connected with those stories. The SEO helped people discover the show, and it's a darn good SEO strategy, I will say that, but the stories are what made them stay. And I think that's an important lesson for every woman who has a podcast for business. People don't hire us because we rank for a keyword. They hire us because they trust us. They listen to the content, they connect with our perspective, and they start to believe that we understand the problem they're trying to solve. And that kind of trust is built through the content itself. So, yes, make your podcast discoverable. Use keywords, optimize your titles, think about SEO, but don't stop there. Make sure you're creating content that's worth finding in the first place. Because the goal isn't just to get someone to press play, the goal is to create an experience that makes them want to come back. That's why I always say that the strategy is what's going to get people to press the play button, but connection is what's going to make them press the subscribe button. And that's what we really want them to do. Stay with us. All right, let's quickly recap those three mistakes that we talked about today. And the first one is thinking that podcast SEO is just about keywords. Yes, your keywords matter. Do not undervalue how important they are, but they only work when they're connected to the right audience. The second is optimizing for downloads instead of buyers. And a larger audience isn't always a better audience if those listeners aren't aligned with the work that you do. And the third one is focusing so much on discoverability that you forget about the connection. SEO can help people find your show, but your content is what's going to build trust and keep them coming back. Again, I want to say podcast SEO matters. Like I teach it, I use it. I genuinely believe it's one of the most powerful growth tools available to your podcast today. But SEO is part of the strategy. It's not the entire thing. We don't want the goal just to be getting found. We want the goal to get found by the right people, earn their trust, and then move them toward working with you. Now, if you'd like to go deeper into the discoverability side of this conversation, I recommend going back and listening to episode 57, which was about podcast SEO tips that actually work. It pairs really well with today's episode, and it will help you understand how discoverability and the strategy work together. And if you would like help building a podcast strategy that's going to attract the right listeners and turns your podcast into a growth tool for your business, I'd love to help you. You can work with me privately or you can join me inside a podcast that convert. And if you want to check out more about that, just head over to janitchfield.co forward slash join. All right, my friend, that's it for this one. Thank you for joining me for this conversation. And until next time, remember, let's keep it simple and let's keep it profitable. I'll talk to you in the next episode. Thanks so much for spending time with me today. If you know someone who's trying to grow their business in a way that actually feels sustainable, would you share this episode with them? It really does help more people find the show, and I'd be so grateful. And if you're loving what you're hearing, make sure you're following along on your favorite podcast platform and leave a review. I read every single one, and it helps me create more of what you actually want and need. All right, my friend, I'll see you in the next episode.