Podcast SEO myths busted!

There's been a lot nonsense spoken around how search works in Apple Podcasts. So I figured it was time to offer you my insight on this. And unlike the other 'advice' you might have read, mine is based on years of experience AND validation from actual staffers at Apple Podcasts (who for the purposes of respecting confidentiality will remain anonymous)...

Podcast SEO as most understand it

This is where we start with the reason I've decided to write this article, which some of the members of a certain podcast hosting company will angrily disagree with me on.

I'm a regular listener to Libsyn's podcast, "The Feed". This is hosted by podcasting 'Hall of Famer' Rob Walch (also the company's VP of podcaster relations) and Elsie Escobar, the formidable host of "She Podcasts" and also Libsyn's 'Head of Community'.

Both have been in the space for a long time, and I've nothing but respect for them as podcast experts.

That is, when it comes to everything in podcasting except for how podcast SEO works.

Rob's advice has always been the same.

Apple Podcasts indexes just the show title, show author field, episode title, and episode author field.

And therefore, according to him, that's all anyone should ever focus on when creating metadata.

Before he restated his claims on a recent episode, he claimed any advice counter to this is "wrong, wrong, wrong!"

He then went on to explain that Apple Podcasts does not ever index anything else, including show descriptions, and episode descriptions.

And why did he make this claim?

That brings us on to the next reason for this article.

Podcast SEO as Ausha understands it

A podcast hosting company named Ausha has recently unveiled a 'podcast SEO optimisation tool' for serious podcasters who want to improve their rankings.

They've hosted numerous webinars around this, and I've attended them all.

In these events, they claim they've been able to help podcasts climb up the rankings, based on their strategy.

In my view, this 'strategy' amounts to nothing more than utilising 'keyword stuffing'.

For those who don't know, 'keyword stuffing' is the practice of repeating a keyword many times over, in one piece of content.

The idea is that search engines then take that word's repeated use as a signal for how relevant the content is for contextualising the results it delivers.

It's a bad practice that is a favourite bottom-feeding black-hat SEO types tend to use.

In terms of its effectiveness, it can be hit or miss. But if you're trying to rank for a competitive keyword, you've got little-to-no-chance if you rely on this method.

Ausha's 'pitch'

Ausha are making all kinds of claims around the efficacy of their tool, which isn't cheap.

It's a significant investment even for a professional podcaster who has their podcast as their main source of revenue.

To be honest, they're seizing on an opportunity to fill a gap in the market left by another tool called Voxalyze. Now, there's debate around how Voxalyze gathered its search volume data. Some say it simply mirrored basic level Google trends.

I was told it had access to search traffic info from the podcast apps themselves.

I gave them the benefit of the doubt but either way, their data was not really worth the investment they were asking. And with Ausha doing largely the same thing, but without concrete data to back it up, the company definitely ticks a box in my 'bullshit' column.

Sorry, Ausha.

For the sake of balance though, let's share what I know about them.

For the investment would-be customers make, they're promised the opportunity to 'rank number 1' for short tail keywords.

And how can they do that?

Well, according to Ausha, they'll be guiding podcasters on adding keywords a certain number of times in a certain number of places, in order to 'gain places' in search.

They claim adding a keyword at least five times in a podcast's description can boost your podcast by an average of nine positions in keyword search.

Essentially, keyword stuffing.

Here's why this is nonsense advice.

Apple Podcasts is hot on the issue of keyword stuffing.

It's fine to add your keyword in your titles.

It's NOT fine to add your keyword in your titles a number of times.

So for example, "Fixing my Honda" is fine.

"Fixing my Honda. Honda repairs and making your Honda roadworthy again. The best Honda advice for Honda drivers!" absolutely isn't fine.

This could result in your podcast being shadow-banned by Apple's quality control people.

So on this point, Rob Walch is entirely correct when he calls this company out on their advice.

It's bogus and it'll risk your show's overall indexing.

Here's where the mist forms though.

In the same rant, Rob claims he ran an experiment to prove that no other areas get indexed. He explained how he added a short code using his son's initials and placed it in different areas to see if it showed up in search.

And he enthusiastically proclaims it didn't and this vindicates his view that the platform doesn't index anywhere else.

And this is the point at which I take issue with this blanket advice.

Apple Podcasts IS indexing other content - but it's random

To run his experiment, Rob used a weird code made up of his son's initials. That's not going to rank in contextual indexing, which as I understand it is a separate indexing that they use.

It'll show up in a title or an author field because Apple Podcasts' algo can't detect its relevancy. But in contextual search, Apple will just dismiss it as gibberish.

And, hate to say it, but I've managed to get podcasts and individual episodes to rank for keywords with SEO outside of title and author fields.

This goes as far back as 2021 with a show I ran called "Life In Barbados."

We mentioned Hurricane Elsa in the episode description, and nowhere in the title.

Yet, the episode showed up in search in both the US store and in Barbados itself.

This is likely because it was deemed contextually relevant at the time.

This has also been the case with episodes of The Weeniecast.

We've had search rankings for terms such as 'time management' even in episodes which don't mention this in the title, but do so in the content or the description.

My advice around optimisation for podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts

I've confirmed with at least two different team members at Apple Podcasts that the app does indeed index some descriptions and absolutely every show's content using the transcript that we now know they've been running in the background for the past two years.

I know some people in this industry would love you to believe they have all the insider information, and all the hacks, but they don't.

For instance, I don't know exactly what the criteria is for becoming a podcast that's deemed worthy of indexing outside of the title and author fields.

But I do know it's worth investing time in optimising everything you can because I've helped my clients to benefit from this extra effort.

And they're not all huge podcasts.

It definitely has a long term impact on your show's success if you optimise well.

And you never know when something's going to rank.

Nobody knows exactly how Apple Podcasts many algorithms work.

Not even podcast hall of famers.

All we can do is work with the intel we have, and see what happens.

If you want to listen to my episode that delved deeper into how search actually works, here it is.