Google brings more attention to podcasting through new technology

Podcasts are rapidly growing, and with that rapid growth, companies such as Google are realizing that podcasts could be more discoverable and accessible.

Founder and head of product for Google Podcasts, Zach Reneau-Wedeen said last year, “Right now Google is really good at giving you text and video related to your search query. With all the amazing work podcasters are publishing each day, there’s no good reason why audio isn’t a first-class citizen in the same way.”

Now, a year later, Google is working to give audio media that first-class attention. Google’s Podcasts app is increasing discoverability by automatically transcribing shows. This capability allows people to search content in podcasts, by keyword or name of guest, for example, without having to remember the show name or episode title.

“At Google I/O Tuesday (5/7), CEO Sundar Pichai announced that Google will soon be indexing podcasts so the engine can surface relevant episodes of a given program, based on the content, not just the title.” (Podcast Business Journal)

Finding ways to get your podcast discovered is a difficult part of using podcasts as a marketing tool, and it’s a challenge all podcasters face. For businesses who are looking to launch a branded podcast or are already producing one, this new reality is huge.

The days of writing show notes and episode titles and optimizing them for searchability, discoverability and SEO are starting to wind down. Audio is the new SEO.

Now, what you say on your podcast gets served in Google searches. Increased discoverability through Google searches can help attract new listeners to your podcast and ultimately new customers to your business. In addition to growing your audience, this will make it easier to attract advertisers to support your podcast, because now they will be heard more as well.

Transcribing podcasts is not only great for increasing search results, but enables additional modes of consumption: more people are starting to read their podcast or follow along with the text while listening as some speed-reading methods recommend. It also increases accessibility for people who are hard of hearing.

The continued focus on podcasting and ways to improve its reach shows that podcasting is becoming more and more relevant and should become part of your business’ content marketing strategy.