Smarter Podcasting: How To Use Podcasting For Business Growth
Welcome to Smarter Podcasting with Niall Mackay, The Podcast Guy and founder of Seven Million Bikes Podcasts.
If you're a business owner, founder, marketer or podcaster who wants their podcast to actually drive business growth, you're in the right place.
Niall has been podcasting since 2019, runs multiple top-ranked shows and produces podcasts for clients around the world. He uses Smarter Podcasting to share what's genuinely working in his business and his clients' businesses, with real strategies, real numbers and an honest take on what doesn't work either.
The goal is simple. Help you use your podcast to bring in leads, build authority in your industry and grow your business.
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Cheers!
Smarter Podcasting: How To Use Podcasting For Business Growth
Why Google Will Never Find Your Podcast (And the Simple Fix)
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“Google does not scan Apple Podcasts. Google does not crawl Spotify. Google does not read your podcast show notes inside those platforms.”
In this episode, I break down one of the biggest misunderstandings in podcasting: podcast SEO. A lot of people online tell you to optimise your episode titles, show notes, and descriptions so Google can find your podcast. But that is not really how Google works.
What I want you to understand in this episode is the difference between Google SEO and podcast app discovery. They are both useful, but they are not the same thing. Google reads websites. Spotify and Apple Podcasts read what is inside their own platforms. So if you want Google to send people to your podcast, you need blog posts on your own website for every episode.
5 Key Takeaways
- Podcast SEO advice is often incomplete
- Google needs web pages
- Every episode should become a blog post
- Google traffic is high-intent traffic
- Podcast app optimisation still matters
Chapters
00:00 – The podcast SEO myth
03:00 – Why Google does not read podcast apps the way people think
07:00 – The real SEO play: blog posts on your website
14:00 – How to structure a podcast blog post
18:00 – Podcast app optimisation
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Show Notes SEO Myth
SPEAKER_02When all of these experts online are telling you to optimize your show notes for SEO, that's useful, but that's not Google SEO. Google does not read your podcast show notes inside those platforms. It's designed to read websites. Web pages, blog posts, HTML.
Introductio n to Smarter Podcasting
SPEAKER_02Blog posts live forever. A social media post has a shelf life of maybe 48 hours. A blog post that ranks on Google, that can drive traffic for years. Years.
Introductio n to Smarter Podcasting
SPEAKER_02If you Google Podcast SEO right now, here's where you're gonna find a hundred blog posts by marketing experts telling you to optimize your episode titles, put keywords in your show notes, and write better descriptions on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And they'll tell you that if you do all of that, Google will reward you. Google will rank your podcast. Google will send you listeners. And it sounds really convincing, it sounds really smart, but there's just one big problem. It's not how Google actually works. Google does not scan Apple Podcasts, it does not crawl Spotify and it does not read your podcast show notes inside those platforms. Google is designed to read websites, web pages, blog posts, HTML, that's what it indexes, that's what it ranks. So when all of these experts online are telling you to optimize your show notes for SEO, what they're really telling you to do is make your Spotify description better. Which is fine. That's useful, but that's not Google SEO. That's podcast app discovery. And those two are completely different things. So today I'm gonna tell you what nobody in the podcast advice space seems to want to say. The real way to get Google sending people to your podcast, and it's not what you think. It's simpler, it's more powerful, and almost nobody is doing it. I'm Neil Mackay, the podcast guy, and this is Smarter Podcasting. Let's talk about what actually works for podcast SEO.
Why Google Ignores Apps
SPEAKER_02Okay, let me explain why the standard advice is wrong. Or not wrong exactly, but incomplete in a way that is really misleading. When someone tells you to optimize your podcast for SEO, they usually mean put keywords in your episode titles, write very detailed show notes with relevant terms, and make your show description on Spotify and Apple Podcasts as descriptive as possible. And all of that is useful, and I'm going to cover it later in this episode. But the implication, the thing that they let you believe is that Google is going to read all of that and start sending you traffic. And that's the part that's just not true. Here's the reality. Go to Google right now and search for any topic your podcast covers. Search for how to start a consulting podcast or best podcast microphone for beginners or whatever your niche is, and then look at the first page results, and only the first page because that's the only thing that counts. You're going to see blog posts. You're going to see YouTube videos. You might see a Reddit thread, but you're almost never going to see an Apple Podcast link or a Spotify episode. It just doesn't happen because Google doesn't crawl those platforms the way it crawls the open web. Google is built to read web pages, HTML, text on websites. That's what its entire infrastructure is designed to index and rank. Your Spotify description, Google can't see it. Your Apple Podcast show notes, Google doesn't even know they exist. That beautifully keyword optimized description you spent 30 minutes writing inside your podcast hosting platform for the episode, it lives on Spotify servers, not on the open web. Google has no access to it. So when people tell you the podcast SEO is about optimizing your in-platform descriptions, they're confusing two things. They're confusing podcast app discovery, which is how people find you inside Spotify and Apple Podcasts, with Google SEO, which is how people find you through a Google search. Both matter, but they work completely differently. And the Google side, the one with the biggest long-term payoff, requires something that almost no podcaster is doing. So here's what actually works. And it's so simple that you're going to wonder why more people don't talk about it.
Real Podcast SEO Strategy
SPEAKER_02You need a website for your podcast.
SPEAKER_00When they're searching for the topic that you've covered in that episode. And on that blog post, you include links to the full episode.
SPEAKER_02Embed the audio player if you want. Give people every possible way to listen. That's the strategy. That's the whole thing. A blog post on your own website for every episode. Written with the search terms, your ideal listener would actually Google. Now, let me explain why this is so powerful. Because it's not just write a blog post. There's a reason that this changes everything. First,
Why Blog Posts Win
SPEAKER_02these are high intent people. Someone who types a question into Google is actively looking for an answer. They have a problem and they want a solution right now. That's a completely different kind of person than someone scrolling through TikTok or Instagram. Social media is passive discovery. Google search is active discovery. The person searching is already motivated. They're already interested. All you have to do is show up with a good answer. And I know you will. And when they land on your blog post, they get the written version of your expertise. And right there on the page, they see, oh, this is from a podcast. I can listen to the full episode and now they're a podcast listener. Not because you got lucky on social media, because Google sent them to you. Because they were searching for exactly what you know. Second, blog posts live forever. A social media post has a shelf life of maybe 48 hours. A blog post that ranks on Google that can drive traffic for years. Years. I'll give you a real example. I have a show called Discover Vietnam. It's a podcast about life in Vietnam. And we publish blog posts for the content that we cover. Now one of those blog posts ranks number one on Google for best happy hours in Saigon. Something close to my heart. Number one on Google. And that post to this day, years after we posted it, still drives traffic to the podcast every single day. Because people Google best happy hours in Saigon. And when they do, they land on our blog, they discover the podcast, and some of them become regular listeners. They might even become a sponsor. Now that's not theory, that's real. We proved it, you can get a blog post about your podcast content to rank number one on Google. And when you do, it's like having a salesperson who works 24 hours a day, seven days a week, sending people to your podcast while you're asleep. Third, remember the content waterfall, one recording, 10 plus pieces of content. The blog post is just one of those pieces. You're already going to be creating it as part of the system. So this isn't extra work. This is just making sure that one of the outputs you're already creating is structured to rank on Google. And here's the beautiful part. Every episode is another blog post. Every blog post is another page that can rank. Over time, you build this library of searchable content on your website. Every page is a doorway, and each doorway leads to your podcast. The more episodes you produce, the more doorways you create, and the more Google traffic you get. It compounds. So what should these
Blog Post SEO Framework
SPEAKER_02blog posts look like? Let me give you the framework. The length should be at least 1000 to 2000 words. Google likes substance. A 50-word summary won't rank. A thousand word article that genuinely covers the topic will. The title. Now this is crucial. The blog post title should include the exact words that someone would type into Google. Not your clever episode title, the search query. If your episode is about pricing strategies for consultants, the blog post title should be something like How to Price Your Consulting Services, a Framework for Setting Rates. That's what people Google. Now for structure, the opening paragraph that hooks the reader and explains what they learn is crucial. Then the key insights from the episode written as a proper article, not a transcript. Three to five main points with enough detail to be genuinely useful. And then the links. Links to Spotify, Apple Podcast, ACAST, Overcast, YouTube, everything. Give them it all. Give them every single option. And write it in natural language. Don't stuff keywords into every sentence. Google is smart enough to detect that. Just write a genuinely useful article about the topic using words a normal person would use to describe it. That's the best SEO strategy there is. And of course, you're gonna use AI, ChatGBT, Claude to write that. Of course, why would you not? But make sure you prompt it properly to cover all of the things that I've talked about. Okay, so that's the Google side. Blog posts on your website. That's the thing that nobody talks about, honestly. That's the real SEO play. But there's
Podcast App Optimization
SPEAKER_02a second kind of discovery that also matters, and I don't want you to ignore it. And that's a discovery inside the podcast apps themselves. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, all of them. Now, I want to be really clear about what this is and what it isn't. This is not Google SEO. Google is not reading your Spotify description. But Spotify is reading your Spotify description. Apple is reading your Apple listing. Each platform has its own internal search engine, and that search engine uses your titles, descriptions, and show information to decide whether to show your podcast when someone searches inside their app. So let's call this what it is. Podcast app optimization. It's a different thing from Google SEO. Both matter, but they work differently and they need different approaches. For podcast app optimization, here's what matters. Your show title. It needs to be descriptive enough that someone searching for your topic would find it. The business show tells the platform nothing. Smarter Podcasting, how to use podcasting for business growth, tells it exactly what you're about. Your
Four Title Rules
SPEAKER_02episode titles. This is where I'm going to give you four rules that I use for every episode we produce. Rule one, lead with the topic, not the guest's name. Nobody searches for Sarah Johnson's CEO on Spotify. They search for how to price consulting services. Your title needs to match what they're typing into the search bar. Put the guest name in the description. Rule two, use the words people actually type, not industry jargon, not clever wordplay, the plain language version of the problem. Go to Spotify, start typing a topic and look at the auto-complete suggestions. Those are real searches. Use that language. Rule three, front load the keyword. The first 40 characters of your title are what shows up before it gets cut off in most apps, especially on mobile. If the searchable phrase isn't in those first 40 characters, it might as well not be there. Rule four, keep it under 60 characters. Short, clear, and searchable. Longer titles get truncated, look cluttered, and dilute the focus. Let me give you a quick example. So a bad title would be Episode 23, Semicolon, My Amazing Chat with Jane Doe about email marketing and how she built her brand. A good title would be Email Marketing for E-Commerce Three Strategies That Convert. Same episode, completely different discoverability inside the podcast app. Your show description also matters massively. This is the text that people see when they find your show on the directories. Make it clear who the show is for, what they learn, and why you're the right person to teach it. Use the language your ideal listener would use to describe their own problems. Don't use the flowery language that ChatGPT will give you. I've seen it before and it's obvious and it looks bad. So to recap the distinction, Google SEO blog posts on your website. Podcast app optimization, titles, descriptions, and show information inside the platforms. Both are important. But the blog posts are the piece that almost nobody does, and the piece with the biggest long-term payoff. That's the unconventional part. That's what nobody online is telling you. Here's
Your Next Steps
SPEAKER_02your assignment, two things. First, if you don't have a website for your podcast, set one up. It doesn't have to be fancy, a simple WordPress site, a Squarespace site, whatever you're comfortable with, just somewhere that you can publish blog posts. Second, take one existing episode and write a blog post for it. 1,000 to 2000 words. Title it with the words that someone would actually Google. Include your key insights from that episode. And at the top, link to all of the different directories where your podcast lives and the YouTube video if you have one. Then wait. Give it a few weeks, watch what happens in your Google Search Console. You might be surprised how quickly a well-written blog post about a specific topic starts showing up in search results. And while you're at it, take one episode and rewrite the title using the four rules I gave you for podcast app optimization. Lead with the topic, use real search language, front load the keyword, under 60 characters. See how it goes. Remember, follow Smarter Podcasting and share this episode with a podcaster who's been told optimize their show notes for Google because it's all of them. They'll all be wondering why nothing's happening, and now they'll know why. I'm Neil Mackay, the podcast guy. This has been Smarter Podcasting. Cheers.