In this post I will go into detail on how you can increase your rankings in Google Local search results by being a guest on topically relevant podcasts that link back to your website assets.
Here are the steps I discuss:
- Why being a podcast guest is essential for Local SEO.
- Ranking in Google Local Search Results with backlinks from podcast show
- Understanding how many backlinks it takes to rank on the first page of Google for your preferred keyword with link gap analysis.
- Podcast outreach and podcast data platforms for email outreach.
- Podcast one sheets that use Person and SameAs Schema.
- Leveraging keyword research in questions for the podcast host.
- Leveraging E-E-A-T for podcast success.
- The power of show notes for link-building
- Harnessing Google reviews through podcasting for Local SEO.
- Measuring Success with Podcast Show Note Backlinks.
Who am I and why do I have the experience to talk to you on this topic?
My name is Matt Hepburn. I have been involved in creating SEO strategies for businesses since 2010. I have worked as a consultant, in small and large agencies, and for enterprise businesses. Currently, I host the Entrepreneur’s Marketing Journey Podcast (The EMJ Podcast).
If you’re ready, Let’s dive in
Why being a podcast guest is essential for Local SEO
Many businesses find it hard to rank for non-branded keywords in Google’s Local search engine results. Being a podcast guest allows you to benefit in several ways that affect your Local SEO:
- Possible Backlinks to your website.
- The ability to request podcast host reviews.
There is the additional benefit of possible Referral Traffic and Social Proof.
Ranking in Google Local Search Results with backlinks from podcast show notes.
One of the best ways to rank your web pages in Google is to have relevant backlinks (hyperlinks) from topically relevant 3rd party websites linking to your website.
How does being a podcast guest help build backlinks?
Being a guest on a podcast has multiple benefits for Local SEO. If the podcast links back to their guests’ website assets, it occurs within the podcast episode show notes.
What are the most common types of shown note backlinks?
- Social Profiles
- Website URLs
- Lead Magnet URLs
- Reference Links
- Blog Posts that go into more detail on a topic talked about within the episode.
What pages should you build links to rank locally in Google?
For local SEO, you will want to start having backlinks point to the web page that you have linked to in your Google Business Profile.
- I recommend that this be your home page if you have one location.
- If you have more than one location, you may still want to link to your home page but ensure your home page has links to your different location pages.
- This will help rank your Home page as well as your location pages, as the link juice (link authority) from these backlinks will travel through your web page internal links.
Understanding how many backlinks it takes to rank on the first page of Google for your preferred keyword with link gap analysis.
If you are trying to figure out how many links you must build per month, or to rank a keyword in Google’s Local search results there is a method to do just that.
Steps:
- Identify the number of backlinks and referring domains for each of the top-10 search results for your keyword. You can use a tool like Ahrefs or SEMrush for these metrics. I prefer Ahrefs.
- Identify the average amount of backlinks and referring domains for all top-10 search results.
- Identify the number of backlinks and referring domains for your target URL you are trying to rank.
- Identify the delta between your target URL and the average amount of backlinks and referring domains for all top-10 search results.
- This is the needed number of links that need to be built.
Example Keyword: Plumbers in Bergen County
In the example below the Link Gap for backlinks is 412 and for referring domains is 12.
Note: Several of the results in the top-10 search results had a higher number of backlinks. This skews the number of links that need to be built.
When this happens, I recommend using the link gap of the number of referring domains as the number of links that you need to rank for the keyword.
In this instance it was 12 domains linking to your site.
Check out these great podcast episodes around link building:
- Garret French Discusses Link Building & Link Gap Analysis
- A Link Building Deep Dive with James Wirth
Podcast outreach and podcast data platforms for email outreach
So, you want to be a podcast guest and possibly have some link building come from the process.
How do you identify where there is potential to build links while scaling your efforts in an affordable fashion?
I used to be a proponent of ListenNotes.com, but with their premium membership you still must pay extra for exporting data.
This made this platform not scalable, unless you had a lot of money.
Recently I have been using Podseeker.co.
Membership is reasonable at $99.00 per month.
In addition, you can create PR lists, and export the list and all its data.
This allows you to vet the list in excel format.
Here is a list of the different data that is available for export in Podseeker:
- Podcast Title
- Podcast Description
- Total Number of Episodes
- Last Episode Publish Date
- Estimated Listeners per Episode
- If the podcast is Inactive
- Explicit: True or False
- Language
- Country
- Primary Location
- Website
- Emails
- Genres
After you select a podcast, you can dive deep into the analytics of any particular show as seen below:
What are the requirements for vetting podcasts for link building?
- The podcast must be topically relevant to the topic you want to be a guest speaker on.
- The podcast must have published an episode within the past 60 days.
- The podcast must demonstrate they interview guests.
- The podcast must demonstrate that they link back to guest assets
- Less than 33% of podcasts do this.
- The podcast must use some form of show notes.
- Podcasts that link to guests are typically self-hosted websites, as most podcast aggregators or podcast aggregators provided websites do not allow for customization or show notes.
- There must be some way to reach out to the podcast host:
- Contact forms.
- A guest appearance request form.
- An email associated with the domains, or the podcast.
- This is best if the email is associated with one of the podcast hosts.
- The email should be validated with a tool such as hunter.io.
Once you have a validated list, you can start to do manual email outreach to the podcast hosts.
I recommend the following:
- Pitch how you’d help the podcaster explore something their show has missed so far.
- Listen to the show:
- Understand the overall premise or angle of the show.
- Pitch an angle or a story you have not talked about.
- Align your pitch to the podcast host’s angle if possible.
- How can you frame the pitch on how you could help further explore their premise.
It is critical to understand that this is relationship building, and not just another marketing channel for you.
Podcast one sheets that use Person and SameAs Schema
Podcast one sheets help a podcast host to get a view on you as a potential guest. They also can help Google to better understand who you are as an entity across the web.
Examples of what Person and SameAs schema can tie together:
- Social Profiles
- Guest Author Profiles
- Author Bios
- Podcast Guest Interviews
How can podcast one sheets help in indexing your podcast guest interview backlinks?
By listing your most recent podcast guest interview URLS on your podcast one sheet, you help Google to crawl that URL.
Requirements:
- Your podcast one sheet should be set to index.
- It should be included in your sitemap.xml file.
When you update the podcast one sheet with a new linked guest interview, Google will see the update to your web page and crawl it, and the links within it.
What should you include in your podcast one sheet?
- Your full name.
- Your bio as a description
- Gender
- Languages Spoken
- A head shot image.
- Awards
- Your company name.
- Your company address.
- Your company’s phone number.
- Your business email.
- Your Skype address.
- Your website.
- A lead magnet URL if applicable
- Social Profile URLs
- Review Platform URLs
- Google Business Profile
- BBB Profile
- Yelp Profile
- Specific Professional Profile (Allowing Reviews)
- Topics you can discus (10+)
- Interview Questions You Can Ask (10+)
- Recent Podcast Appearances
Leveraging keyword research in questions for the podcast host
One of the best ways to be topically relevant is to understand what questions People are asking in Google around the topic you want to be interviewed on. A great tool for doing this research is alsoasked.com.
If you pose these questions to the podcast host as questions you want to be asked. The episode transcript has the possibility of showing up in Google for answering one of these questions.
Leveraging E-E-A-T for podcast success
The E-E-A-T framework helps reward content creators who leverage their expertise and experience. That is why it is important to use your professional point of view in your podcast guest interviews.
It’s also important to ensure you are using SameAs schema in your podcast one sheet, so that Google includes the content within how it sees you as an entity and the expertise and experience it is associating with you.
By using these tactics, your backlinks are more powerful because of this.
The power of show notes for link building
As I mentioned in the podcast vetting section, if a podcast does not include show notes you should skip outreach if you are only doing outreach for link building purposes.
What are the exceptions to this rule?
- If the podcast has a good number of listeners per episode, it may make sense to appear on it, even if they do not link back to guests.
- If the podcast is on YouTube, you can request a link in the YouTube description.
Harnessing Google reviews through podcasting for Local SEO
One of the other benefits of being a podcast guest is that you can ask the podcast host the following once an episode is recorded (it does not need to be live):
Reach out to the podcast host.
I typically say something along the lines of:
If I brough value to (their podcast name), I was wondering if they would be willing to leave an honest review on one of my following profiles.
- Google Business Profile
- BBB Profile
- Yelp Profile
- Specific Professional Profile (Allowing Reviews)
Business reviews are a top 2023 local ranking factor in Local Pack/Finder and contribute to Local Organic ranking Factors.
2023 Local Search Ranking Factors – Whitespark
Check out my Google Local Profile to see podcast guests’ reviews live on Google:
Here is an example of one of my podcast host reviews on my Google Business Profile:
Measuring Success with Podcast Show Note Backlinks
To measure your progress with link building it is critical for you to have a baseline of keyword rankings for the URLs you are targeting with link building.
There are many tools out there that will measure how you are ranking.
I also suggest looking at how many links your URL has monthly via a tool such as Ahrefs or SEMrush.
This will allow you to see how your link profile for URL is progressing. It will also allow you to see if new websites link to your content. Good luck on your podcast guest campaign.
Matt was interviewed on the Crushing it with Kitchen Remodeling Contractors podcast to dive deeper into this topic
- The Benefits of Being a Podcast Guest for Local SEO - September 25, 2023
