Ep 91: How to Rank Your Podcast in Apple Podcast Search Results

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[00:00:42] Verity: If they type in podcasting tips, at the time of recording this particular episode, my podcast, lazy girl's guide to podcasting, turns up in the top 5 to 10 search results for shows and episodes for that particular phrase. So you might be thinking, well, how do I do that? How do I get my podcast to turn up in those search results on Apple Podcasts when people type in specific keywords. First thing you need to know is what it is that your audience is searching for because otherwise, you're not gonna be able to create content that is gonna be right in front of them. So you need to get really, really comfortable with reading your podcast analytics, and those are gonna come from your podcast hosting platform.

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[00:01:51] Verity: Absolutely brilliant. Episodes for and what my drop off rate is. All of this information is really, to episodes for and what my drop off rate is. All of this information is really, really crucial to finding out who is already listening to my podcast and how are they finding my podcast as well. And off the back of that and still talking about analytics, if your podcast hosting provider has a functionality whereby you can link up Google Analytics to your podcast hosting platform, do that because it is a great way to get even more information about whoever is listening to your podcast.

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[00:03:14] Verity: Because that is then going to be very similar to the keywords that are being typed into Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etcetera, though we are only focusing on Apple Podcasts for this episode. But I also know that a lot of my audience are searching for very specific keywords such as podcasting tips, how to podcast, how to create a podcast, podcast about podcasting. So I have, through trial and error for about a year because at the time of recording, this podcast has been going for just over a year. Yay. Thank you everybody who supported us for just over a year now.

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[00:05:01] Verity: It's actually called the lazy girl's guide to podcasting, podcasting tips for how to start and run a podcast because there's more keywords then that are inserted into that title, thus hopefully encouraging my podcast to rank higher on Apple Podcasts for those keywords. But as I said, I just call it lazy girls go to podcasting because, do you know what, that title is long enough. So there's 2 places already that you can look at inserting keywords to help you rank higher in search results for Apple Podcasts. The other places that I insert my keywords are largely in the episode titles and show notes. So, for example, in the show notes of every single podcast episode, I try and naturally because it's really important to insert keywords naturally and not just shop them in and overstaff.

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[00:06:35] Verity: There are 2 other things that I have done in order to rank for keywords in Apple Podcasts search engines. The first one is create good content. Now that sounds like I'm blowing my own trumpet to say that I'm creating good content, but all I'm gonna say is the stats don't lie. My downloads have just continued to go up week on week, month on month. My audience listenership and retention rates has continued to increase and maintain and get better and all the rest of it.

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[00:07:45] Verity: So if your podcast artwork is not standing out, if it's not engaging with your potential audience or your intended audience, people will just scroll past that. Now I'm not saying it needs to be bright colors, it needs to be you laughing, or, like, anything overly emotive, but it does need to have something where your intended audience are gonna say, hey, that resonates with me, I want to listen to that podcast, or oh, I'm kind of interested in that. Basically, it needs to be something where people are not going to just be like oh that's boring and scroll past because as I said people judge books and podcasts by their covers so it needs to be something that is going to stand out that in the split seconds that people are scrolling through search results on Apple Podcasts, it's standing out enough for people to say, hey. I actually wanna find out more about this. I'm gonna click on this and see what content this individual can give me.

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[00:09:31] Verity: Maybe a couple of months before you decide either this is working or this isn't working. Because if you just shove up a new cover art every other week, then you're not gonna be able to get results that will actually show you that that particular piece of cover art was more engaging for your potential audience or that that particular keyword that you included in your podcast description was relevant to increasing you ranking in Apple Podcast search results. So as ever, I hope that you have found this episode useful. If you have got a fellow podcaster in your life, please share this episode with them, and hopefully, they will also pick up some useful tips to help them rank higher for their podcast and Apple Podcasts as well. Otherwise, thank you so much tuning in for another episode.

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