Getting your podcast to be successful can be a significant investment in your time and money. You need to choose what the goals are for your podcast and what you constitute as successful. However, generally speaking, to get your podcast to be a hit, you will need to get it ranked on listings. Therefore, we’re looking at what elements can help you make your B2B podcast rankings better.
What are your Podcast Goals?
There are numerous different podcast goals that you can set, using all kinds of KPIs. For instance, you might be more interested in the number of listeners, downloads, revenue from sponsors, mentions in media, links from other podcasts, and more. These are metrics that you can use as your benchmark to define when you’ve reached your goal.
Podcast hosts can have various goals, for instance, they might want to use the podcast as a launch pad to bring in new clients or grow the profitability of their service business. Therefore, they will look at how the podcast is contributing to the sales funnel. If they see that more leads are being generated, then they will be pleased with the results. But there has to be some way to attribute signups to activities.
Other podcast hosts are going to be more focused on transformational accolades such as industry awards, mentions in the media, or general reputation. These can be much harder to measure, but some tools can help you here. There are also ways that you can see the impact of these elements through short-term fluctuations in listener numbers, business interest, and more.
However, these goals tend not to focus on growing the podcast, but their success can help with brand recognition.
Then there are those hosts who want to reach a larger audience, perhaps a more diverse audience. The main goal for these podcast hosts is to attain subscriber or listener levels that are going to be more attractive to brand sponsors, which will make sponsorship package valuations more valuable.
When it comes to setting goals, it is important to think about whether these goals are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Related, and Timely). Goals that do not fit this criteria can reduce the effectiveness of your work. Instead, carefully ensure that all the goals are going to be valuable to your long-term objectives.
Defining a goal can be relatively challenging, especially for those new to podcasting. Therefore, you might want to speak to those who professionally produce podcasts regularly. For example, you could discuss your goals with an account manager at Produce Your Podcast. They’ll be able to help you define realistic and relevant goals and also plan a pathway to help you achieve these goals.
Where Your Podcast Will Rank
There are also different places where your podcast will rank. For example:
On Podcast Directories/Listings: Whether on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple, your podcast will be displayed on a listing. Users can search using the categories section, or they can use keywords to find the podcast episodes/shows that they might be interested in. Sometimes, your episodes or shows might be recommended to audiences based on their user behavior.
Google/Bing/Search Engines: You might also find getting your rankings high on Google and other search engines will bring you results. Search engines will use different metrics when it comes to being found on podcast directories, so you might need to widen your marketing efforts to focus carefully on what search engines want.
Social Media: Social media is another core marketing channel that can help you get your podcast ranked. Here you are looking at building a page or profile that will be displayed in feeds or searches for other users. Social media can be a harder aspect to rank on because there is so much competition, and these platforms often have lots of traffic.
These three core aspects of your ranking all have different factors. But considering them all can help you build a larger, more diverse but relevant audience that can help you achieve your podcast goals.
What Factors Help You Rank and How Do They Apply?
So several factors can help you rank your podcast on various mediums. These elements are as follows, and how they can apply to your marketing.
Keywords
Keywords are a fundamental aspect of any marketing plan. They’re what drives most of the search results when a user is looking for content to solve a problem or entertain themselves. Keywords are also one of the most challenging aspects to get right for two reasons:
- You have to select the keywords that are being used by your target audience regularly.
- You’re using keywords related to your content.
- Your keywords aren’t in use by too many other brands where you’re going to be out-competed.
These make it hard to determine what keywords you want to use. Using numerous tools can help you select the right keywords, but you will also need to use them in the right frequency and locations.
On any website page, which can be key to being found on Google and other search engines, you need to aim for keywords to be used about 1.5% of the time. This needs to include being used in a couple of headings on the page, in the URL, image/video metadata, page meta title, and other locations.
Using the keyword too many times will mean your site will get a penalty that can harm its ranking. Likewise, using too few will lower the rank because search engines won’t know that the keyword is in use.
You will also want to use the keyword on episode titles and descriptions/podcast notes for your podcast episodes. Be sure that keywords stand out, they’re not only important for your search engine results, but for users to identify the content and want to engage with it.
Using tools like Google Trends can tell you what keywords you want to use for the immediate time, letting you know what keyword usage has changed recently, but it might not help you in the long term. Instead, you want to look at the longevity of the keyword lifespan.
And you will want to check on keyword usage over time. Sometimes the use of keywords will change as user behaviors evolve.
And it is important to note that using the same content for all your platforms, like on listings and websites is not a good idea. Duplication can cause issues such as being ranked lower or competing with your content. This can reduce traffic and results.
You can also use tools like Google Webmaster Tools to see how your keywords are performing. That way you can build strategies to help you improve results when a keyword is not performing.
Hashtags
Hashtags are really important on social media platforms. Facebook, X, Instagram, and LinkedIn are all going to be interested in the hashtags that you’re using on posts to market your content and connect users to your content. Hashtag usage changes all the time and there are certain days when specific hashtags can be more useful. For instance, WhateverWednesday or
ThrowbackThursday.
Using hashtags the right way can help you find new followers on all channels and build audience levels.
There are lots of options for you to find the best hashtags. For example, you can use hashtag monitoring tools that can tell you how much a hashtag is being used and what is trending now.
Or you can use social media and check what the top brands are using.
While it might be tempting to use lots of hashtags on every single item you publish, you must reduce their usage to a select few of the important hashtags. About 2-3 hashtags per post is enough to get attention, but you can have lots of hashtags that you use across the day on all the platforms to maximize reach.
Research has shown that using fewer hashtags improves impressions, engagement, and ROI. And these are metrics that you also want to be using.
Engagement
Engagement with your content is critical. If you have a lot of comments, likes, or shares on your podcast episodes (on listing sites) or social media posts, it will demonstrate that your content is good. This social proof will then be used as a ranking factor.
There are numerous ways that you can improve the engagement rate of your content. For one, you could ask for audiences to engage with your content. Asking for a share, like or comment is more likely to generate one of these actions than not. And if you use a reason, such as because it will help you out, will increase compliance with the request.
Engagement can also help encourage action with other audiences. If a post already has 10+ likes or comments on it, people are more inclined to join the conversation. And this can be critical to the success of the post.
What you want to do is to avoid some of the negative comments or reactions you might get. For example, you might get some people who don’t like your social media posts. Therefore, try to always use content that is going to be a positive influence on the audience.
Reviews
In addition, you want to make sure that you’re grabbing the attention of Google and other search engines with reviews. Your podcast listings will also benefit from being reviewed on the platform.
Reviews are another way for your brand to gain social proof. Many consumers won’t buy a product from a brand if there are no reviews for the product/brand. And the same is true for your podcast episodes. Why would anyone listen to the show if you don’t have anyone saying how good it is?
Research has shown that you don’t need a 5-star review score to be completely trustworthy. Those brands that have reviews that sit between 4.2 and 4.5-star ratings tend to do better than those that have 5-star ratings. One reason for this is the trust factor. Many consumers believe that a 5-star rating appears as if the brand is only inviting happy people to review them or they’re buying reviews.
To get more reviews for your podcast, try asking for them. In podcast episodes or on podcast notes add a call-to-action that requests this. It is a simple, and easy-to-do feature that can help you build a following in the long term.
Constant Content
One way to help you rank is to constantly add to your content database. It is critical to success. All the channels will reduce the impressions of your website/listing/profile if you go inactive. They only want to show the most active brands because that is how users get a good experience with their product/service.
Therefore, you should build a blog where you’re going to publish content regularly and release episodes on a schedule that is predictable and other aspects. For social media, you should aim to get one piece of content out to every platform every day, except for X, where you can get 6-8 posts out per day.
To help you build an effective schedule, why not create a content calendar where you list every marketing activity that you’re currently looking at completing and then build out from there? Your calendar should include every platform that you publish on and include email marketing, blogging, YouTube, TikTok, podcast production, and social media.
You can use the calendar to also build systems where the content is interconnected and themed. Or you can use it to know what content gaps you have.
Inbound Links
While the importance of inbound links has significantly declined over recent years, they can still be helpful in some ways. Google has certainly reduced its effectiveness lately. But you should still try to organically improve the number of inbound links that you have to your website.
The best way to do this is to keep on releasing great quality content that people want to be associated with. The better your content, the better your ROI will be on links.
One tactic that many people use is to reach out to brands and request links from third-party websites. While you might get some links this way, it isn’t always effective and can be costly. You might be better off spending that time recording another episode of your podcast.
Website Speed
Your website’s speed is critical to success. Google is prioritizing user experience over keywords and more. And one criterion for a good ranking is speed on your website. Websites need to load quickly, with 7% traffic loss for every 1 second it takes for your website to load. Conversion rates also drop when you have a slower website.
Ensure your website’s coding is optimized and you’re using the best image formats for any media on your website.
Videos should also be streamed from a third-party server, not your own.
To improve speed, try using a cloud hosting provider. These are more expensive but can reduce loading times significantly.
On-Page Elements
If you want a website to rank high, it is also important to have all the right elements on a page. As a quick guide, here are some of the core elements that you need to have on your website pages to ensure that they’re SEO-friendly.
- A video for each of the core pages (can also improve conversions).
- Optimized images to demonstrate core concepts.
- Text sections that are no longer than 300 words.
- A single H1 heading.
- Two H2 headings
- Possibly one or two H3 headings.
- Three internal links (links to other pages on your website) and one external link (a link to another website).
Using this as a guide, you can see how much effort has to go into building a website page to rank your website. This should be done for every podcast episode that you publish to maximize the chances of your episodes being found by your target audience.
You shouldn’t just rely on the podcast listing sites because if two podcasts share a similar topic/title, they’re going to rank the podcast with the best ratings, which might not be yours.
Domain Authority
Domain authority is a key website metric that you need to be aware of. Several factors contribute to the value of the domain authority, and there is some debate over what can be more valuable than the other factors. But there is one element that is critical that you need to be aware of: domain age.
The longer you’ve owned your domain, the more valuable it is and the better the ranking of the domain. Therefore, if you don’t get the results now, don’t worry. As time goes on, if you follow proper SEO best practices, then you will see the domain authority and traffic to the site grow.
There is a problem when you change your domain. Google often applies a three to six-month penalty for new domains, so their rankings are lower. In addition, all the old inbound links will be worthless.
If traffic is poor, don’t change the domain name. Instead, figure out ways to build your domain’s value and improve the website’s performance using some of the best SEO practices.
FAQs:
How much time should I spend on my rankings?
You should spend between one and two hours a day on activities that will help to improve your rankings. This can be set across numerous campaigns and tactics to help you build a strong portfolio of profiles to help you attract core audiences.
Is SEO important on just my website?
No, SEO is a critical aspect of many marketing channels. You should consider how to implement it in your podcast listings and YouTube channel to help you appear higher in searches on those platforms. Remember that YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine based on search entries alone.
How can I get help with my rankings?
Hiring a professional podcast production company, who knows how to create excellent content and market your episodes across numerous channels is the best way to streamline your marketing and ensure that you get the results that you want for your podcast episodes.
Final Word: B2B Podcast Rankings: How Are They Calculated
For those with a podcast, or thinking of a podcast, getting those episodes noticed is going to cause some concern. However, above are some of the ways that podcast listings, search engines, and social media platforms rank content and profiles. Using these to your advantage you can be found by the relevant audiences so you can constantly get new listeners and demonstrate that you have value to potential sponsors.
Produce Your Podcast is a full-service podcast production, editing, and marketing agency specializing in helping brands launch, grow, and monetize successful podcasts that impact their bottom line. With 30+ years of experience in broadcasting and business development brought to every project we work on, our team of experts is a reliable partner to help you achieve your goals with your show.
Click here to schedule a conversation with our team today and let’s bring your show to life!
