Creating SEO Content From B2B Podcast Episodes
In the world of B2B podcasting, having a clear strategic direction for the show as it relates to your business is a key for success. A B2B podcast without a strategy behind it might as well be a B2C or Entertainment podcast.
On this episode of A Guide to B2B Podcasting, I talk about the strategy behind creating search engine optimization (SEO) content around your podcast episodes to increase your Google rankings, boost brand awareness and visibility to your target audience, drive new leads and increase sales. This is one of the key strategies that has helped us grow into one of the top podcast production agencies.
Podcasting SEO Versus SEO Content
Sometimes people get confused about the difference between podcast SEO and SEO content from podcasts. They sound similar, but when I explain the way we approach them at Content Allies, you'll see that they are completely different things.
Podcasting SEO refers to how well your show ranks in your podcast content category in the podcast directories, such as Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify. The trendy alternative term for this is podcast visibility rankings or PVO. Not sure if the term PVO will stick, most people use some form of the term podcasting SEO.
What I'm talking about in this episode is generating content marketing material with a strategic approach to SEO. This is often the best way to drive search results to link to your company website in a targeted way that drives the right people to a landing page where you can generate leads for potential customers and increase sales. This content marketing strategy is not widely used in B2B podcasting, but we list it amongst some of the best practices available to use your podcast as an effective digital marketing tool.
The Hub and Spoke Model
We look at B2B podcasting as the hub in a bigger hub-and-spoke marketing model. Each episode presents multiple opportunities to create accompanying materials such as show notes, transcripts, blog posts and social media posts surrounding the show. You can use these assets to promote the show, and you can ask the host (if it's not you) and the guests on the show to use those promotional materials, as well.
This is what makes B2B podcasting such a powerful tool for any size company. In a large enterprise environment (we have many large enterprise B2B podcast clients at Content Allies) using this content strategy can result in valuable collaboration with different departments in the company. And the results are measurable, so it provides great ammunition when it's time to defend the value of the podcast to the Chief Marketing Officer.
The Written Assets of Podcasting
There can be some confusion about the different writing assets that can come out of a B2B podcast, especially for people who are considering starting a show but have no experience with podcasting, other than perhaps being a podcast listener. I'll go over each type of asset surrounding each episode that our content marketers use, and what each is used for.
Show Notes
The first place to start is the show notes. Every podcast episode will need to have show notes. These are a short summary of the podcast, usually 200 words or fewer. The information in the show notes includes the episode title, the topic or topics discussed and the background of the guests, especially if they are industry experts. The show notes are published on the podcast directory with each episode, and it's a great place for people to get a good idea of what they are getting into if they want to listen to the audio content. Because show notes are so brief, there's usually no need to pay attention to keywords or boosting a specific topic for SEO purposes.
Transcriptions
The next written asset that is gaining popularity in the world of podcasting is a transcription. This is a literal word-for-word transcript, usually verified by a human, of what was said on the show. This type of content is a great way to allow people to consume the episode if they can't or don't want to listen to it. However, there is not much SEO value in transcripts. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a Google search query link to a podcast transcription in the organic results. It's simply not the kind of content the search engines are looking for.
Summary Articles
The next content creation asset that can come out of each episode of a podcast is a summary article. This is basically a more in-depth version of show notes that doesn't have the character limitations of a podcast directory. It is pretty straightforward from a writing standpoint because there is no keyword research needed, as it is written without SEO intent. It is an article form of the episode that people can read to get a full understanding of what the episode was about without listening to it.
A summary article might include the topics discussed, the questions asked and the answers provided, some key takeaways from the discussion and some quotes from the podcast guests. A summary article is written in a narrative form, so it is much easier to consume than reading through an entire transcription of the episode. If one of these summary articles provides a bit of an SEO boost, it is the exception, not the rule. But it is a great way to create another piece of content from a single podcast episode.
SEO Articles
The SEO article is what moves the needle in search engine rankings, which can result in gaining new listeners some of whom may be prospects that you can convert into ideal customers.
The SEO article is usually not a straightforward summary of the audio or video content in the episode. It takes some strategy and planning, with some basic knowledge of keyword research and content marketing.
There are two approaches to SEO article creation, the first is reactive and the second is proactive. The reactive approach is to record an entire episode, then decide after the fact that you want to create an SEO article. Sometimes this approach can be a little tricky depending on the number of topics discussed (a single topic is easier for this type of article), the direction the conversation ended up going in and how much the episode focused on the keywords you're looking to rank for. The good news about the reactive method is that it's a fantastic way to revive older episodes and create fresh new content as long as the subject matter is evergreen, or at least still relevant.
The proactive approach is to decide on the keywords you want to boost your rankings for, then find potential guests who are industry experts or who might have their own podcast that focuses on those topics. This creates an episode that is perfect for creating SEO content that can boost your rankings.
Here's an example of how it works. Let's say you want an SEO boost for the term decarbonization. Once you have a new podcast episode in the can on that topic, whether it was planned ahead of time or not, you write your show notes, publish your transcript and summary article, then, to boost the value of that episode, you write an SEO article.
The SEO article is not simply a more in-depth summary of the show. The point is to write an informative and engaging article about decarbonization that will fully answer the most common queries people will type into Google, all in one place. You cite the podcast with quotes from the experts in the article, and you publish the article with the podcast embedded on the site.
Now let's say you move up the rankings for decarbonization, and it gets 4,000 hits per month on Google. Not only have you increased the traffic to your site and increased awareness of your podcast, but you are also attracting very qualified listeners to be exposed to your podcast. If your sales team wants inbound traffic from businesses that deal in decarbonization, this is a great way to achieve that goal.
SEO is a strategy that gets lost on many marketers. However, many case studies have shown that it works, though it takes strategic planning, time and effort to be effective. Recording podcast conversations focusing on topics that include long-tail keywords — resulting in a higher awareness of your company and your products or services — is an easy way to kick off an ongoing SEO campaign.
The Editorial Calendar
I already talked about fitting SEO articles around existing shows, but keep in mind that not all of those shows are going to be ideal candidates for producing effective results through publication of SEO articles. It is totally understandable to not worry about SEO when you launch your podcast, after all, launching a podcast is a big enough job in and of itself. But if you want to start taking advantage of this golden SEO opportunity, don't dismiss the old episodes. You might look back on your first ten episodes and only three of them are even remotely related to long-tail keywords that are important to your business. That's OK, every bit helps in the world of SEO.
But to really be strategic about it, the best way to manage your SEO efforts surrounding your podcast is to have an editorial calendar. As I mentioned before, instead of booking your guests first and allowing them to determine the topics that will be discussed, put the topics on your calendar that you want increased rankings for, then find the guests that best align with those topics.
Domain Authority
So you may be thinking that generating effective SEO articles for your podcast episodes is a lot of work. And you would be right. So is it right for everybody? Maybe not.
Your company website domain authority (DA) can tell you a lot about how effective your SEO efforts will be. Your DA is a metric that is a score between 0 - 100 which shows how credible your website is to the search engine algorithms based on a number of factors, including how long it has been around, the number of backlinks (links on other websites that point back to yours) you have from other high-quality, trusted sites, and the quality of the content on your site. You can check your DA at sites like SEM Rush or Ahrefs.
If your company is new, or it is a small business, or you just haven't paid much attention to your website since you launched it, you may have a low DA score. This means you might not get the results from this kind of SEO effort that a larger, more established company might. In that case, you may not want to spend the time and effort it takes for this type of SEO activity. On the other hand, you have to start somewhere, and if you want to up your SEO game and you have a B2B podcast, this is a great way to get started.
But if you are a bigger company with a DA of 50 or higher, this method is a good fit for building your audience and generating leads. If you are a large enterprise company with a DA of 80 or more, this is a no-brainer. Your efforts are going to pay off because your website is already totally credible when it comes to Google. At that point it is a matter of being intentional about leveraging the content, whether it already exists or if it has yet to be created, into increased ranking and higher web traffic.
I can't tell you how many times we've started with a new enterprise account at Content Allies and after doing some quick keyword research, we found incredible opportunities to boost rankings that could drive thousands of hits to the website for valuable topics, just by using SEO content generated by podcasting.
Keep It Real
When you start seeing results from your SEO efforts, it can be very exciting and it can make you want to do more. But remember, not every episode is going to be right for an SEO article. Your show must flow in a natural way in order to be interesting and attract new audiences. When spending the time and effort on producing SEO content is not the right move for an episode, don't let that kill an episode topic or guest that is otherwise a perfect fit for your show. But when it is right, it can be very powerful and effective.