also to attract an audience. A cute title is likely to get lost or passed over because people won’ t know what your show is about. Therefore, be precise in your title, and include keywords that improve your rankings and help searchers find you. In that same vein, include keywords within the episode’ s title and description.
Next, include a sleek cover design for your podcast— one that demonstrates the theme of your podcast but isn’ t too busy. Keep in mind that your podcast cover is the size of a thumbnail. Keep the cover simple; otherwise, your message is likely to get lost.
Step 3: Grow downloads
Like reviews, the number of downloads your podcast receives indicates the quality of that podcast. As a result, download velocity has a direct effect on your search results in iTunes. Steady, consistent increases in downloads improve your rankings.
To increase downloads as you launch your podcast, publish three to five episodes at the same time, because the more times you publish in the beginning, the more episodes people have access to and the more downloads you’ re going to see as people subscribe. As you gain subscribers after the first couple of weeks, you can publish on a consistent date, such as one episode every Tuesday, to let your audience know when to expect your latest episode.
Optimizing for review sites
If you’ re marketing a local business such as a restaurant, hotel, or retail store, you need to focus some of your search optimization efforts on review sites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor. Following are two steps to take to optimize for those sites.
Step 1: Gain legitimate reviews
You don’ t want to“ game” reviews; reviews that aren’ t legitimate can result in backlash from both your customers and the review site. Instead, you want to encourage honest reviews by making sure that the customer experience is top-notch and deserving of a good review.
That said, you can certainly encourage your customers to submit legitimate reviews with tools such as TripAdvisor’ s Review Express. A second method is to ask customers for their email addresses and for product or service reviews at the point of sale. Later, you can follow up with people and remind them to review by sending them an email, and you can entice people to review by offering giveaways or contests.
After someone gives you a review, respond by thanking the person for his time and letting him know that he’ s been heard. If someone gives you a negative review, respond to that person with empathy so that she knows that she’ s been heard. Explain your side of the story, and if the review requires more attention, move it to a private channel such as email or phone. It’ s best to handle customer-service issues outside public channels like review