The Biggest Podcast Growth Mistake You're Probably Making

The podcast industry has convinced you that podcast growth comes from choosing the right marketing tactic. Yet every day, thousands of podcasters are spending time on strategies they can't tell are helping, hurting, or doing nothing at all.

In this rapid-fire Q&A, I'm answering how to move your podcast to #1 in search results, the two factors that matter more than any single growth tactic, and the simplest way to determine which marketing strategies deserve your attention (and which ones don't). If you're serious about growing your podcast and want a better way to evaluate what's working, hit play and let's dive in.

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2:03 – How to Move Your Podcast From #2 to #1 in Search Results

5:41 – The 3 Most Important Places to Optimize for Podcast SEO

9:08 – How to Choose the Right Podcast Marketing Strategy

13:41 – The 2 Factors That Matter More Than Any Single Growth Tactic

22:01 – The Hidden Skills Behind Every High-Performing Podcast

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Episode Links

Think you've cracked today's mystery word? Go to PodLaunchHQ.com/mysteryword and enter your guess. Get it right, and you'll unlock a mystery prize hand-picked to help you improve your podcast's growth and performance.

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Other Episodes You’ll Love: 

Why Podcast SEO Makes It Easier Than Ever for Niche Shows to Get Discovered

3 Podcast SEO Strategies That Increased My Downloads 41%

3 Signs Your Podcast SEO Strategy Is Working

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Special thanks to Eve Hall, Host of Please Me, and to the anonymous listener who submitted today’s questions.

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Special thanks to Resonate Recordings, our implementation partner for PodLaunch® Accelerator. If your podcasting efforts aren't bringing you the listeners or sales you expected, book a strategy call for help to fix it.

Follow for more podcasting insights:  LinkedIn | PodLaunchHQ.com

©Ⓟ 2018–2026 by Courtney Elmer. All Rights Reserved.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to another round of Rapid Fire QA, where I tackle as many of your questions as we can right here on the show in 20 minutes or less. And I've got some really great ones for you today, including the number one thing that you can do today walking away from this episode to get your show appearing number one in search results, and how to tell which podcast marketing strategy is going to be the most effective for your show based on where you want to take your show and where you are in your podcasting journey. Plus, I've got our podcast director of fun right here in the studio with me to announce something new that we've got for you that you are not going to want to miss. I've got all the answers that you need to see measurable growth on your show coming up right here next. Welcome to Insider Secrets to a Top 100 podcast. I'm your host, Courtney Elmer. Let's make your podcast binge-worthy. If you are just joining us here for the very first time, welcome. I am so glad that you are here. I'm so glad that you have found this show. And if you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for your support of the show through the months, through the years. You are the reason that I do this podcast. So wherever it is that you are listening today, I would really appreciate it. If you would take literally two seconds, hit that follow button, take a minute after this episode to leave a positive review, leave a comment if you're listening on Spotify or another app that allows comments. I read every single review, every single comment that comes through. And truly, this helps me and my family by letting others know that this content is valuable for you. And it helps me keep showing up to the mic to help you grow your podcast, which is my promise to you. So without further ado, let's dive right into today's questions. The first one coming from Eve, the host of Please Me, who asks, I have been hovering in second place in search results for my top keyword for the last five days. Yay! I need help getting to number one. Any tips you can give me. Holy cow, yes, podcast SEO is something I love to talk about because it is so practically applicable. It is something that you can apply and you can see results from very quickly. Now, SEO is a strategy that's been around for a long time. Podcast SEO borrows from traditional SEO. If the term SEO makes you kind of like your pits get sweaty and you're like kind of hyperventilating because you're like, that sounds really technical and that sounds really complicated. Take a deep breath. I promise you're gonna feel like a rock star when you finish listening to this episode because you're gonna be able to walk away and apply this and start getting your show showing up in search results too on Apple and Spotify where listeners are already looking. So, Eve, this is amazing. Hovering in the second place in search results is fantastic because what that means, think of the search results that pop up in Apple and Spotify, like page one of Google. And just like page one of Google, we look at the top results that show up first. We don't even scroll to the bottom of page one of Google anymore. And I don't know about you, but I never even look at page two of Google. It's like page two, page three, those exist really. We don't look at those anymore. We look at the top results, and our brains are conditioned to believe that those results are gonna be the most relevant based on whatever it is that you're searching for. So, much the same way a podcast listener types whatever they want to hear, whatever topic, into the search bar on Apple, on Spotify, on whatever podcast player, and they look at the search results that pop up. And of those results, five of them are gonna appear before they have to scroll. So if your show is showing up in that top five under that search term, that's amazing. Because not only does that get you more visible, but also it adds tremendous credibility to your show. So I just want to acknowledge that the SEO work that you've done on your podcast so far that has gotten you in second place, fantastic work there. Okay. So if it were me, here's exactly what I would do to help influence and leverage what you've built so far with SEO to get you to that number one spot. The very first thing I would do is I would add a descriptive tagline to your podcast name field, such as Please Me, a sexuality podcast, or something similar that fits your brand, a sexual wellness podcast, for example. What's that top keyword that you want to be showing up for? I took a look at your show. I noticed you don't have a keyword in the name field of your podcast. And the name field is very important because if you don't have keywords there, then it's gonna be harder for Apple and Spotify to know what your show is about. And if they don't know what your show is about, then they're not gonna be able to match you with the listeners who are looking for a show like yours. So a lot of times what happens is a podcast host will pick a show name that they like or that they think aptly describes their show. And they won't really be thinking about it from a keyword perspective. And so inevitably I get this question of like, well, Courtney, I already have a name for my podcast. I really like the name of my podcast, and I want to change the name of my podcast to add a keyword. What do I do? Do I have to change the name? And I would say, look, we might want to consider a name change if we're doing a full brand overhaul and relaunch of your show. But for right now, really all we have to do is get a keyword into that name field. And the simplest way to do that is to add a keyword-specific tagline that not only lets listeners know what your show is about and helps provide more context and relevance for listeners, but also helps platforms know who to match your content to. Apple and Spotify both prioritize the keywords that appear in the name field of a show. So if you were to do nothing else for your SEO, this is the one thing to do. This tagline does not have to go on your cover art. You do not have to use it anywhere else. In some cases, like in my case, it will get truncated. It will get cut off. Like a listener won't even be able to see it. But the main purpose here is letting platforms know what your show's about and who it's for. And if a listener were to read it, it will also help to let them know that they're in the right place. So that's thing number one. Thing number two is when you are building a keyword strategy for your show, typically you're not just gonna have one keyword that you're working to rank for. We're gonna have multiple keywords that we're working to rank for. Of those keywords, we want to develop a group of them as your core keywords. These are the keywords that are gonna be the most relevant for your podcast and for listeners who are searching for your topic. And we can go into more detail, but we don't have time because I've got more questions to listen to. And this is a topic that I could literally just unpack for you in an entire episode. And I've got lots of episodes where I do walk you through this. So I'm gonna link to those in the show notes below. But we wanna make sure that those core keywords appear once or twice in the first two sentences of your podcast description. Because when players are skimming your podcast metadata, which is just a fancy way of saying all the written messaging of your podcast, they're looking for keywords. They're looking for what is this show about? And therefore, what listeners might be interested in this topic based on the search terms that they are using to look for a show related to this topic. And so Apple and Spotify place some emphasis on those opening lines of your podcast description. So it can be helpful to work a couple of keywords in there when it's relevant. We don't want to stuff them in. We don't want it to sound awkward or unnatural. If you need an example of this, go look at my podcast description. There are some keywords that are very naturally woven in to those first two sentences, and that is intentional. The other thing you can do, if you have been podcasting for a while and you have more than 10 episodes on your podcast, you can revisit your back catalog. That's all the episodes you've previously published to date. And you can look for any opportunities that you've missed to add your keywords to your episode titles where it's relevant and when it makes sense naturally. I put an article out on my Substack recently, Courtneyalmer.substack.com. Come follow me there. Let's hang out. Because I recently re-optimized my back catalog on my podcast of over 400 episode titles. And there were very clear patterns that emerged. And so in that article, I walk you through exactly what the patterns were, what the platforms are looking for. And people have been saying, like, this is absolute gold. Thank you so much for sharing this. So I recommend reading that because it's going to be helpful for you too. Because optimizing your back catalog can create a lot of leverage for you very quickly from a keyword perspective. And when you can dominate a keyword, you can dominate your competition. So those are the three places: your podcast name, first opening lines of your podcast description, and your episode titles. These all carry pretty substantial SEO weight with Apple and Spotify and other platforms. And I want you to know there's a lot of strategy that goes into choosing keywords and knowing which ones to prioritize where. So if you would like help to do that, head to the show notes, grab my podcast SEO mastery course. It's 39 minutes. It will walk you through exactly what to do. And because you're a listener of this show, you can get $50 off with code TOP100. So, Eve, as a way of saying thank you so much for sending in this question, I'm going to email you a very special gift that's going to give you some more tips on leveraging a keyword strategy for your show and to get your show ranking in the top five for multiple keywords so that your listeners can't help but find it. All right, so keep an eye on your inbox for that. Within the next, say, 24 to 48 hours of this episode airing, we will get that out to you. And if you're listening to this and you want a gift like this, well, send me your question. The link is below in the show notes and you can text it to me. You can shoot me a voice note, which I especially love, because then we can feature you and your voice and your show here on my show for more listeners to find. So just click the link that says Got a Podcasting Question, send it to me here, and it'll walk you through the next steps to get your question over to me. Now, before we get to question number two, I've got my podcast director of fun right here in the studio with me to introduce something new to you that we are doing here on the show. You ready?

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Hi everyone, my name is AJ, and I really like it when you send in your questions to my mom so I can read them on the show. I also really like making people laugh, and I like puns, so if you can guess the real words my punny names represent, you're gonna get a mystery prize. Like a cool resource from my mom to help grow your show. Just go to podlaunchhq.com slash mysteryword and enter in your guests. Also, my mom pays me an ice cream to read questions, and I really like ice cream. So send me more questions in the show notes below this episode. Today's question comes from Anita Listener. She asks, with so many marketing strategies available, how can I determine which one feels right for me to implement? AJ, you crushed that up top.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

All right. I love this question. I get this question a lot in some shape or form. How do I know which strategies are best for me? Which ones will work for my show? I've tried X, Y, and Z and it didn't work, and I don't know what to do next. All of these questions expose something that I'm spending a lot of time researching right now, which is the number one biggest underlying roadblock to podcast growth, and that is decision making. I have studied hundreds of podcasts, and this is something that no one's talking about. No one is paying attention to this, but it is the one thing that determines whether your podcast succeeds or not. And it's a double-edged sword because there's the host decision making that gets done on behalf of the listener and in light of the show's goals, and then there's the listener decision making that happens whether you as the host realizes this or not. And this is a major, major industry blind spot that I will unpack more in a future episode. Because after spending six years studying podcast growth, I am convinced that the biggest factor determining podcast success is not publishing frequency. It's not whether or not you have video for your show, it's not whether or not you post to social media, it's not the marketing strategies, it's not SEO, it's not guesting, it's not monetization, it's decision making. Specifically, how are you as a host making decisions for your show? And what decisions are your listeners making about your show? But in answer to your question, there are two things that you need to know. And the first one might sting a bit. All right, your podcast is not as much of a unicorn as you think it is. And number two, when you realize that, picking the right strategy becomes a whole lot simpler. But what do I mean by your podcast is not a unicorn? And look, what I'm about to say is not just true in podcasting. I see this happening all the time in the business world too. Everyone thinks they're special. Well, my my show is unique. Well, my show is different. Yeah, it's different because of this. Or, well, that tactic doesn't apply to me because XYZ. Or this strategy doesn't work for me because A B C. For example, podcast guesting. Well, you know, I tried podcast guesting, but it didn't work for me. Or in the business context, webinars. Teaching webinars doesn't work for me because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. My business is so special. But look, when you can lovingly, tactfully set that part of you aside, your ego aside, that says, I'm so special, I'm so different, that's why this will or will not work for me. We all do it. Okay, I'm guilty of this too, throughout the entire lifetime of my business. We all do this. Our ego gets in the way. When we can set it aside, we can get to the brass tacks of how do you want to grow your show? How do you want to market your show? You might have heard other experts out there in the podcasting space say, well, you know, all the marketing strategies work, all the tactics work. It's just about figuring out which ones work for you. Okay, yes, there's a kernel of truth there, sure, they all work, but you know what they don't take into account? They don't take into account the two factors that are gonna determine how well they'll work for you, specifically your budget and your bandwidth. So the real question to be asking is not, well, which is the best strategy? And how do I know which one is the best? You need to ask, what is the end goal that I'm aiming for here with my podcast? And in light of that, which marketing strategy is gonna get me there the most effectively in the least amount of time? And that is where we can begin to build a strategy that fits your budget, that fits your bandwidth, because those are the two things that it boils down to. So inside of the podcast operating system that I've spent the last six years building, one of the things that I've developed is called the Podlaunch 90 Day Audience Growth System. And what this is, is it is a structured cyclical marketing system and decision-making process that helps you select and execute specific podcast marketing strategies, audience growth strategies over set intervals of time. And what it does is it takes the guesswork out of asking, well, which strategy is best for me? Which one is right for me, which one is the best for my show? And it shifts it to if this were not my show and my ego were not involved, then what strategy would I test first based on this particular show's goals? And it takes emotion out of the equation. That, that right there, removing the emotion is the first step in the pod launch 90-day audience growth system. We gotta look at your show as an outsider, taking a look at it. Pretend you are a consultant for your show. You're not the host of your show, you're a podcast consultant who's looking at your show and analyzing, well, what is this show's goals? What is the budget and the bandwidth available to the host? In light of that, which strategy might make the most sense to test first? And then, okay, great, we've chosen the strategy. Let's execute that now over a specific interval of time. And then after that interval of time, we're going to evaluate and then we will adjust that strategy going forward accordingly. You know, the problem with most podcast growth advice today, and in fact, one of the most glaring problems in the podcasting industry as a whole, is that the podcast industry measures activity, not performance. It is very activity and output focused. Publish an episode every week, that's activity. Add video to your show, that's activity. Social clips, we got to post those everywhere so that people can find our show, more activity. Let's interview some guests, activity, let's guess on other podcasts, activity, let's run ads for your show or on your show, activity. But none of these, none of these tell you whether your podcast is performing. Now look, don't get me wrong, these things are not bad in and of themselves. But when you take a step back and you look at it, they're just activities. And activities are not the same thing as performance. And if we were to put a definition to podcast performance, it is the ability of a podcast to consistently move listeners through the listener journey, from non-listener to listener, from listener to repeat listener, from listener to subscriber to email lead to a client. But instead, the industry only measures activity to outcome. They don't map activity to performance to outcome. And that missing piece is the performance piece. That is the gap. And this gap is part of the reason why nine out of 10 podcasts fail before their first year. But smart hosts who are serious about their podcasts reverse engineer what they're building with their show. And that is my advice to you. Instead of asking which strategy is the best one for me, ask what is the goal of this show? What does my budget and bandwidth allow? And based on that, which podcast marketing tactic am I going to test first? And how will I evaluate it to know if it worked for me or not? That is the game. All right, great question. We're out of time. That is my fault. I got on a bit of a soapbox here, but I hope it was a helpful soapbox for you because that is my goal with this show to help serious podcasters like you make better decisions about your show's growth and performance. So huge thanks to everyone who submitted questions today. If you have a question that you want featured on the show, send me some fan mail. Click the link in the show notes that says got podcasting questions. It'll prompt you on whether you want to text those to me, voicemail them to me. You can leave your name so I can shout you out here. You can leave it anonymous. It doesn't matter to me. What matters is that you send in your question because AJ wants more ice cream. It's as simple as that. All right, and remember, if you figured out today's mystery word, go enter it in at podlaunchhq.com slash mystery word. And when you get it right, I will send you a mystery prize that will help you improve your show's growth and performance. And then stay right where you are because I have got Buzz Sprouts Podcast Producer joining us in the next episode. The one, the only Jordan Blair, who not only produces Buzz Sprouts Podcast, but who also has a show of her own with over 13 million downloads that she's successfully monetized, although probably not in the typical ways that you expect. And she's gonna take us behind the scenes to share how she started monetizing her show long before she grew to the number she had today, so that you can take her process and replicate it across your show to start making money from it, even when you have fewer than 100 listeners. Yep, that's all coming up next to help you make your podcast bingeworthy.