I Teach Podcast SEO to My Clients - Here's Why I Wasn't Doing It for Myself

I talk about podcast SEO with every single one of my clients.

Keywords. Episode titles. Show descriptions. Author fields. I know exactly how this works and I walk podcasters through it all the time.

And for years I had absolutely no idea where my own website traffic was coming from.

Not a clue. I was throwing spaghetti at the wall, posting on Instagram, writing the occasional blog post, doing all the things, and just hoping something was sticking. I genuinely did not know what was working and what was not.

That changed when I went through Brittany Herzberg's SEO & Grow program. And what I found when I finally looked at my own backend stopped me in my tracks.

Want to hear the full conversation? Listen to my interview on Brittany's podcast The Basic B below.

Why Service Providers Are the Worst at Doing SEO for Themselves

If you are a service provider reading this you probably already know the feeling.

You are deep in client work. You are delivering results for other people, staying ahead of their needs, thinking about their strategy. And somewhere in the middle of all of that your own stuff slides to the back burner.

This is not a discipline problem. It is a priority problem. And honestly it is one of the most common things I see, not just in myself but in the podcasters I work with too. They know SEO matters. They just keep pushing it to later.

The problem is that later has a cost. Every week your show is not optimized for search is a week the right listeners are scrolling past you and finding someone else.

What I Actually Found When I Looked at My Own Data

When I finally dug into my own website analytics the first thing I said was - oh. I did not know any of this was happening.

A few things that stood out immediately:

People were landing on my site and leaving quickly. Not because the content was wrong but because there was barely any copy there. It was essentially here is the name of my service and the price. That is it. No context, no keywords, no reason for someone to stay and keep reading. The data showed me what I could not see just by looking at it.

My clients results page was one of my most visited pages. I almost did not include it on my new website. Who knew that was where people were going? The data did. I did not.

I was getting traffic from Facebook. I do not use Facebook for business. I have a personal page and that is it. But other people were mentioning me and my services over there and sending traffic my way. I would never have known that without looking.

I had 20 H1 tags on every single page of my website. My design template was set up that way and I had no idea. That is an SEO problem most designers do not catch and I only found out when someone actually audited my site.

All of this was happening quietly in the background. And I was completely in the dark.

How Podcast SEO Works the Same Way

Everything I just described, the traffic you do not know about, listeners who find you and leave, missed opportunities hiding in your backend that is exactly what happens with podcast SEO when it is not being looked at intentionally.

SEO for podcasters is not just about getting found on Google. It is about getting found inside Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and increasingly AI powered search tools. It is about making sure the right listener can find your show and immediately understand that it is for them.

Here are the places where podcast SEO lives and where I always start with clients:

Your podcast name. Clarity over cleverness every time. Your main keyword should be in your show name if at all possible. Not stuffed in awkwardly but built in intentionally.

Your tagline. One of my clients is Hailey, host of the Cork and Fizz Guide to Wine podcast. Her keyword is “guide to wine”. Her tagline is wine education for beginners and enthusiasts. That tagline does two things - it uses another keyword and it tells the listener exactly who the show is for. Both matter.

Your author field. This field appears in search results on some platforms and most podcasters leave it blank or use just their name. Adding a keyword here like Liz Chapman, Podcast Strategist, is a small change that adds up.

Your episode titles. Every episode title is a search opportunity. If someone is typing a question into Apple Podcasts your episode title is what either shows up or does not. Writing titles for search does not mean making them boring but it does mean making them specific.

Your show notes. Keywords woven naturally throughout your show notes help both platforms and Google understand what your episode is about. This is one of the highest leverage and most consistently skipped parts of podcast SEO.

And here is something worth knowing before you start any of this, keyword strategy only works when you are clear on who you are actually helping.

In Brittany's program one of the first things she had us do was answer three questions: who do you help, how do you help them, and what do you want to be known for? I remember thinking, I just help people. But once I got specific, everything clicked. If you are a podcast strategist who helps female entrepreneurs launch shows, then female podcasters is a keyword. Launch a podcast is a keyword. You cannot choose the right keywords if you do not first know exactly who you are trying to reach.

What Changed When I Started Paying Attention

I now check my website traffic and analytics every single month. I know which pages are getting traffic, where it is coming from, and what content is actually landing. I make decisions based on data instead of guessing.

That shift did not require a massive overhaul overnight. It required looking. And then making one change at a time based on what I found.

The same is true for your podcast. You do not need to fix everything at once. You need to know where to look and what to prioritize.

The data also told me something I was not expecting about where to put my time. I had assumed Instagram was my biggest traffic driver since it is where I am most active and most consistent. But when I actually looked at the numbers I could see I was ranking for more blog content than I was getting from Instagram. Instagram was still sending clicks but it was not the whole picture. I would never have known that without looking. And knowing it means I can make actual decisions about where my energy goes instead of just defaulting to what feels most visible.

Want to Know What Is Actually Happening with Your Podcast's Visibility? 

If you have been showing up consistently and wondering why your show is not growing the way you expected then the free Podcast SEO & Visibility Guide is a good place to start.

It walks through the two real reasons most podcasts stall even when the content is good - discoverability and listener retention - and it gives you a framework for figuring out which one is holding your show back.

If you want to go deeper on SEO for podcasters this is the best place to start. 

Because a good podcast strategy starts with knowing what is actually broken.

Grab the free Podcast SEO Guide here - lizchapmanco.com/podcast-seo-guide

Also mentioned: Brittany Herzberg's SEO and Grow program - brittanyherzberg.com/seo-group-coaching-program-for-entrepreneurs