Episode 56
056: Keyword Magic: Getting Listeners to Tune In
Your podcast is only powerful if people can find it.
Keywords are not a technical trick, but the exact language your ideal listener is already using when searching for support, answers, and guidance. Understanding how different platforms like podcast apps, AI tools, and search engines interpret those words allows you to position your episodes in a way that increases visibility and connection.
By using simple structures like who, what, and context, you can create titles and descriptions that feel aligned, natural, and highly searchable. When your podcast speaks the same language as your audience, growth becomes a whole lot easier.
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Mentioned in this episode:
The Resilient Kid - https://pod.link/1572235687
Transcript
All right, we are going to talk about something super important today, and that is your keywords.
Speaker A:We are going to demystify keywords today on podcasting for your spiritual business.
Speaker A:And this is Kim Parkinson, your host.
Speaker A:So let me ask you something.
Speaker A:If you wanted to find a podcast about managing anxiety as a working moment, what would you type?
Speaker A:Go ahead, say it out loud.
Speaker A:Whatever just came out of your mouth, that is a keyword phrase, and your future listeners are typing that exact thing right now.
Speaker A:The question is, will they find you?
Speaker A:And it's not just what you think that keywords are, but how they actually work differently depending on where someone is searching.
Speaker A:Spotify thinks differently than Google.
Speaker A:ChatGPT thinks differently than both of them.
Speaker A:Apple thinks differently than YouTube.
Speaker A:And at the end of all of this episode, you'll know how to write for all of them, and you'll never stare at a blank episode title again, and your episode will be found.
Speaker A:What are we covering today?
Speaker A:What exactly a keyword is and why.
Speaker A:Keyword phrases are where the real power is when you need to be found.
Speaker A:How people search differently on podcast players, AI tools, web browsers, podcast distribution platforms, and what that means to you.
Speaker A:And I have a few formulas and an exercise to see if you can really hone in on your keywords.
Speaker A:So, so a definition of a keyword, right?
Speaker A:Let's see.
Speaker A:Most people think a keyword is a single special word that you like, sprinkle into your content to trick an algorithm, but it's not.
Speaker A:A keyword is just a word or phrase that a real human types or speaks when they are looking for something.
Speaker A:That's it.
Speaker A:There's no magic, no trick.
Speaker A:It's just the language your listener is already using.
Speaker A:And here's the key here.
Speaker A:It's probably the language you're using, especially if they're your ideal client.
Speaker A:Most podcasters are missing the real power that is the single keyword, right?
Speaker A:They want to use a single keyword, but it's not just the single keyword.
Speaker A:It's keyword phrases.
Speaker A:That is 2, 3, 4, sometimes up to seven more words strung together that describe a very specific thing that somebody wants.
Speaker A:Nobody's searching for anxiety and expects to find exactly what they need.
Speaker A:But managing anxiety during a career change at 40, yeah, that person knows exactly what they want.
Speaker A:And if you've made that episode, yeah, they're going to find you.
Speaker A:Let's just recap that real quick.
Speaker A:A single keyword would be like the word anxiety.
Speaker A:A keyword phrase would be the words multiple here.
Speaker A:Managing anxiety during a career change at 40.
Speaker A:It's specific person, specific need, and findable.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Longer phrases is less competition, higher intention, and better, more engaged listeners.
Speaker A:And they're finding exactly what they want to listen to.
Speaker A:So think of a keyword as a door.
Speaker A:A single keyword is a revolving door, thousands of people spinning through, most of them going somewhere else.
Speaker A:A keyword phrase is a specific door with your listener's name on it.
Speaker A:They knock you open, and that's the match that you're building towards.
Speaker A:Another thing to remember is that your podcast isn't a blog.
Speaker A:You're not a YouTube channel, although you might have one, which I totally understand, and a lot of this will be applicable to your YouTube channel.
Speaker A:But remember, if you are an audio podcast and people are searching for you in Apple, Spotify and all the other podcasting platforms for you, you are in a very particular headspace.
Speaker A:These people are usually multitasking and they're looking for a voice that they can trust on a very specific topic.
Speaker A:They want to feel like the show was made for them, and that's why they are looking for specific keyword phrases.
Speaker A:And you want them to outperform general keywords every single time.
Speaker A:So how are people searching for these keywords?
Speaker A:There are a couple of distinct search environments where your podcast can be discovered.
Speaker A:Each one of them is totally different and the users are sometimes different, and definitely they have different optimization needs.
Speaker A:But first and foremost, what I would like to talk about is the podcast players, because these are the big ones, right?
Speaker A:This is Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Overcast, Podcast Addict, all of those.
Speaker A:And those are where most of your listeners already are, the podcast platforms themselves.
Speaker A:When someone opens Spotify or Apple and types in a search, they're usually looking for a show or an episode in a very specific topic.
Speaker A:These searches tend to be short, two to five words and very noun heavy.
Speaker A:They are not asking questions, they're looking for something specific.
Speaker A:So how are they searching?
Speaker A:They're searching for short topic phrases, two to five words, noun heavy.
Speaker A:An example of this would be online spiritual business for women or true crime cold cases.
Speaker A:What is getting indexed here is your show title, your episode title, your show description, and on some platforms, your transcript.
Speaker A:And what's winning out is that episode titles with the keyword phrases that are front loaded.
Speaker A:And by front loaded, I mean they start off with the bang.
Speaker A:They start off with those keywords.
Speaker A:They're clear and they have language that people understand.
Speaker A:There's no like wordplay here.
Speaker A:There's no like solopreneur, although that has become more of A word that people are searching.
Speaker A:You don't want those words in your title, your description and in your episode titles to be something that you've made up.
Speaker A:You want them to be something people are searching for.
Speaker A:Listeners are searching for a show or a specific episode on a very specific topic.
Speaker A:And every word in your title is a keyword.
Speaker A:So choose them deliberately and purposefully.
Speaker A:You'll want something that says burnout recovery for nurses rather than when the tank runs empty.
Speaker A:That doesn't really tell me what that means.
Speaker A:Are we talking about a mechanic show?
Speaker A:Podcast platforms are relatively simple search engines and they're not reading between the lines, they're not really matching up like typical algorithms do.
Speaker A:They're matching words specifically.
Speaker A:So if your episode is about sleep and you never use the word sleep in your title description, that episode's totally invisible to anyone searching for sleep content.
Speaker A:It's really just very literal when it comes down to it.
Speaker A:Now there's also AI searches like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, all of those.
Speaker A:And this is the newest frontier and honestly probably the most exciting one for podcasters right now.
Speaker A:When somebody types a question into ChatGPT or asks perplexity to recommend a podcast, they they're not searching the way they search on Google or in the podcast platforms.
Speaker A:They're having a conversation.
Speaker A:They're describing their problem in full sentences, sometimes full paragraphs.
Speaker A:Maybe they're even speaking it into chat and they're asking full on conversations.
Speaker A:They are describing their problem and they might type something in like what's a good podcast about starting a business when you have no experience or money?
Speaker A:That entire sentence is a search in chat, Perplexity, Claude and the rest of them.
Speaker A:So people are searching for full sentences and with questions conversationally and often.
Speaker A:Pretty lengthy too.
Speaker A:They describe the problem, not just the topic.
Speaker A:And so what's getting recommended are shows and episodes with clear context rich descriptions.
Speaker A:Transcriptions are helping enormously.
Speaker A:AI reads those texts.
Speaker A:So what wins here is keyword phrases written as natural sentences, in some cases show notes that are read like answers to specific questions.
Speaker A:This is one of the reasons why in your podcast description, I always recommend having a few Google style questions in your description because those are what people would be searching for.
Speaker A:And this is a great way to for AI to pick those up.
Speaker A:Another example could be what's a good podcast about starting a business when you have no experience or money?
Speaker A:Again, remember, in AI, people are having full on conversations, right?
Speaker A:And so AI is going to read that context.
Speaker A:It's not just going to read the title, it's going to actually take into account what you've maybe listened to or talked about before with AI with that particular chat format.
Speaker A:And it's going to then recommend things based on how you are already interacting with AI.
Speaker A:And so if your episode explains how to an AI is reading this, then that's going to be offered to that person.
Speaker A:So when someone asks ChatGPT, what podcast should I listen to about navigating a divorce with kids?
Speaker A:If your show notes are written in that kind of natural full sentence language, if they answer that question, you have a real shot at being recommended.
Speaker A:Now this is going to be if your podcast show notes are being found online, if you do not have a website, or if you do not have a way for your podcast show notes to be found by AI, Meaning if you are not utilizing Libsyn, Captivate or any of those other podcast hosts website option, then your show notes won't be searched.
Speaker A:They won't be searched for that in any platform.
Speaker A:As of right now, that is changing and could actually change.
Speaker A:Even though I'm, I'm recording this pretty quickly after, before I, I send this out to the world, it could change real quick.
Speaker A:So even though I have always said podcast show notes are not searchable, it could come to the day when they really are based on even the podcast platforms.
Speaker A:When you write your show notes, just make sure that they sound like you're answering a question someone might be asking AI for, right?
Speaker A:That is what the key here.
Speaker A:You want your show notes to kind of give those answers that that AI would be looking for and then you'll be ahead of the curve for when that is finally coming to fruition.
Speaker A:Now the last way that people search are website browsers such as Google, Bing.
Speaker A:I don't even know if there's any Safari.
Speaker A:There's another one, right?
Speaker A:Safari.
Speaker A:Google can't listen to your podcast and that is actually what's really important here.
Speaker A:It can only read the text around your podcast and, and it cannot specifically read every single podcast platform.
Speaker A:It's going to be searching for your website and anything that you've posted on your website first.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So again, this doesn't have to be specifically your website, but you could use something like podpages or something else like that.
Speaker A:Captivate has a great like little page that they make for each podcast episode.
Speaker A:So those are searchable when you do that.
Speaker A:If you have great keywords on there, if you have show notes that really have some amazing context as far as keywords on there, there, that is what is going to be searchable via web searches, Google, Bing and all of those.
Speaker A:Here's another tip.
Speaker A:LinkedIn is superb at being searchable.
Speaker A:I don't know why, but they really are.
Speaker A:So if you are talking about your podcast, posting about your podcast, maybe even doing one of those newsletters about your podcast specifically, that is probably going to come up in a Google, Bing or Safari search well before your website even.
Speaker A:I don't know how LinkedIn does it, but they have the monopoly on that.
Speaker A:So when you are looking to be found on a web browser, I'd like you to use a mix of short phrases and questions.
Speaker A:So best podcast for is very common and searches by guest name or episode titles are very common as well.
Speaker A:So you'll want to make sure that that is on your website and your transcript is there as well.
Speaker A:And a episode titles and also LinkedIn.
Speaker A:Really LinkedIn is like a major producer here.
Speaker A:I don't know why, but they really are.
Speaker A:So what I really want you to kind of take a, take a gander at is just how these different words, keywords and keyword phrases are searched and how can you get these so that they are ultimately what you're going to name your podcast episodes or what you're going to name your podcast even.
Speaker A:You really want them to be found.
Speaker A:So this is where I'm going to get practical.
Speaker A:I'm going to teach you a formula for building your keyword phrases from scratch.
Speaker A:Even when you feel completely stuck, even when your topic feels really broad or complicated.
Speaker A:Give this one a try.
Speaker A:So every searchable keyword phrase has the same anatomy.
Speaker A:There's a who, the specific person doing the searching.
Speaker A:There's a what, the topic, problem or outcome they care about.
Speaker A:And then there's the context, a situation, a constraint, a qualifier that makes it specific and real for that person.
Speaker A:You mix all three of those elements and you get a phrase that a real person is going to actually type in.
Speaker A:So remember who the specific person your audience is narrowed down, not just people, but working moms or first time managers or nurses or or women over 40.
Speaker A:And then what?
Speaker A:It's the topic, the problem or the outcome, the thing that they are searching for help with or information about.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And then the situation, constraint or qualifier is what makes this specific to their life.
Speaker A:For instance, without quitting your job or on a budget or in your 40s.
Speaker A:So let's say you make a show for nurses.
Speaker A:Your whole is nurses.
Speaker A:Your what might be dealing with compassion fatigue.
Speaker A:Your context might be without leaving the profession.
Speaker A:Put it together.
Speaker A:Dealing with compassion Fatigue as a nurse without leaving the profession.
Speaker A:That is a complete, searchable keyword phrase.
Speaker A:And I bet almost nothing on Apple podcasts or Spotify has an episode with that specific title.
Speaker A:But here's the thing.
Speaker A:Remember, we want to start these with the most searchable words.
Speaker A:Dealing with compassion may not be the correct words to use.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:So we want to make sure that we have fatigue as a nurse without leaving profession.
Speaker A:Something we want it to kind of build around this.
Speaker A:Okay, say you are covering personal finances, right?
Speaker A:So who.
Speaker A:Single moms.
Speaker A:What?
Speaker A:Because building an emergency fund context, it's on a tight budget, right?
Speaker A:So the phrase is emergency fund as a single mom on a tight budget.
Speaker A:That's a lot of words, and it's very specific.
Speaker A:It's completely searchable.
Speaker A:And the person who types that phrase in is going to feel like you made this episode for them, because, let's face it, you did.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:So you want to run through two or three of these with your show's actual niche, and then you're going to swap in your real audience, your real topics, and your listeners are going to tune in because you're speaking directly to them.
Speaker A:Now, notice that every single one of these phrases sounds like something a real person would type into a search bar.
Speaker A:And that's the goal.
Speaker A:You're not inventing any kind of new language.
Speaker A:I know people always say to me, I don't understand keyword phrases.
Speaker A:You really just need to narrow it down to what do you think your people are searching for, how are they typing it into whatever platform it is that they're searching, and that's the language you're speaking.
Speaker A:All right, so next thing I want you to look at is when you are naming your episodes, make sure that it starts with that keyword and it answers all three of those questions.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:And again, those questions are, who exactly is this for?
Speaker A:What exactly is the problem or outcome, and in what situation, with what constraint, or at what life stage we're adding context.
Speaker A:Those are the three questions.
Speaker A:I know the last one's maybe not quite the same question, but it's definitely something you need to think about now.
Speaker A:Also, let me just say it is absolutely 100% okay to go back and rename past episodes so that they are more fitting of a keyword rich title.
Speaker A:I actually highly, highly recommend it.
Speaker A:If that episode is not getting the love and the downloads that you desire.
Speaker A:And you know, it was an amazing episode that needs to be re looked at, and those keywords need to be added in.
Speaker A:Changing your podcast name, changing your podcast description and changing the podcast episode titles can be done at any time.
Speaker A:You do not have to keep the same of any of that.
Speaker A:You can keep the same RSS feed and not lose any of your current listeners.
Speaker A:You can do a play off of your podcast title by keeping the original title and then just adding on some podcast keywords.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:But what I want you to do is make sure that you know who you're speaking to, what they need to be looking for, and what is that situation or what is that life stage that they are going to be searching for that's so important in order to make sure that you're really attracting and aligning with your true listener that needs to hear your podcast episodes.
Speaker A:All right, so again, a keyword is just a language that your listener is already using to look for you.
Speaker A:It's a keyword phrase.
Speaker A:It's not any kind of special language.
Speaker A:Again, you're already doing it.
Speaker A:So remember that when you're opening up a Google or Safari or an AI or any of that, what are you asking it?
Speaker A:What are you saying to it?
Speaker A:That's exactly what your listeners are saying as well.
Speaker A:And so we want those podcast players, we want those AI platforms, and we want those searchable web browsers to be finding you and your podcast and specifically the episode that that person needs to hear.
Speaker A:Because once they hear the first one, hopefully they'll just stay and they'll continue to listen and be super fans in the end.
Speaker A:So hopefully this demystifies keywords just a little bit more.
Speaker A:And remember, if you're stuck and you're staring at a blank title and nothing's coming up, make sure you do the exercise and then ask who specifically what specifically in what situation.
Speaker A:Three questions and you'll have a phrase every single time.
Speaker A:They are what you and your listeners are searching for.
Speaker A:If you're finding that you're having trouble understanding where these keywords and keyword phrases are, please reach out, set up a call with me and we can go ahead and we can talk about your keywords for your podcast.
Speaker A:I have a free 20 minute growth clarity call that I'd love for you to join.
Speaker A:So go ahead and go to kp creative media.com forward/growth claritycall and you'll be able to get right on and we'll be able to talk about what your keywords are right there.
Speaker A:There'll be a few questions for you to answer and you'll and you'll find those.
Speaker A:Remember, keywords are not magic and they're not a mystery.
Speaker A:They're what your listeners are looking for what you're looking for, and that's where they're going to find you.
Speaker A:So until next time, where your voice flows, your business grows.
Speaker A:Talk to you next week.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for being here and spending this time with me today.
Speaker A:If you're ready to deepen your visibility and grow your podcast in a way that feels aligned, come join my email list@kpcreativemedia.com Newsletter or where I share exclusive guidance, support, and next steps.
Speaker A:And if this episode resonated, I'd be so honored if you left a review on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker A:It's one of the most powerful ways to support the show and help other spiritual women discover it.
Speaker A:Until next time, keep showing up and sharing your voice.
