52. How to optimize your online brand for maximum SEO exposure with Jason Barnard

Deirdre Tshien 00:00:00

Be honest here. Do the latest SEO kind of freak you out a little bit? Does it, I don't know, make your eyes glaze over? Does it make you want to maybe wash the dishes or mow the lawn or literally do anything else than try to figure out yep. Me too. And I say that knowing a little something about it. After having nerded out on it for the last two to three years, it still has me feeling overwhelmed with all the different facets that go into it, from the technical side of SEO, to the content side of it, to the marketing side of it, to the everchanging algorithms. There is no better word to describe SEO than overwhelm. But I also know the incredible power of this strategy. If you can figure this out even a little bit, it actually pays dividends over a longer period of time, which is why it is a strategy that my team and I are leaning into way more than social media, a strategy we're leaning into for both our podcast and our business for cap show. And if I'm going to be completely honest, it's something I really enjoy learning more about from experts. Yep. Nerd alert. It's just so fascinating once you start to pull the layers back and when it actually starts making sense bit by bit. And the great thing is that on today's episode, I have invited someone who can help us start to figure out SEO from the beginning to get those fundamentals right. This is the first step. If you can nail the three pillars of this particular SEO strategy that Capsho Bernard from Kalicube will be taking us through on this episode, you're actually setting yourself up really well to take advantage of the power of search engines of Google. My name is Deirdre Tshien, CEO and co founder of capture, the fastest way to market and grow your podcast. And this is the Growmap podcast show.

Jason Barnard 00:01:56

Yay. Hi, I'm Capsho Barnard. I'm the brand serp guy. I specialize in how your brand appears on google, how you can project your ideal brand message on google. In the case of podcasting, that's both the host and the podcast itself.

Deirdre Tshien 00:02:23

You may be wondering, just like I was, exactly how someone decides to get into this particular line of work.

Jason Barnard 00:02:30

I was pitching for work as an SEO consultant, and when I talked to clients, they would google my name, and I realized very quickly that it was showing Capsho Bernard is a cartoon blue dog, because I was in a cartoon a few years ago, and google had understood that. So it was presenting me as this cartoon blue dog. And obviously, from a professional perspective, that doesn't make sense. It doesn't get the clients on board. And so I thought, well, why is google misrepresenting me today by presenting me through my past? And I figured out the recipe, let's say, to make sure that google presents me the way I want it to today.

Deirdre Tshien 00:03:10

This is actually a very important point that Capsho highlights. Too many of us are really passive on Google. We'll just let it do its thing and keep our fingers crossed that it picks up the right information about us and portrays who we are and what we do in the right way. I know that I was certainly like that. And what I'm really excited about is how Capsho is going to break it down for us, what to do instead, so that we can be deliberate and intentional with all our content, including our podcast, so that Google picks up exactly what it is that we want it to pick up about us. So let's get straight into that, shall we? What is the first pillar of his strategy on getting the type of visibility that you want on Google?

Jason Barnard 00:03:55

The first one is understanding. You need Google to understand who you are and what you offer and to whom, because what it wants to do is match the audience that it has or the users it has to. What you have to offer so topicality is hugely important. I've got a friend called Korea Guru who's a Turkish SEO. He analyzes doodle's, algorithms and patents. And Google has actually developed a system whereby it's called Shards. And it's terribly geeky, and I won't go into the details, but it splits the world into topics. So if you're not topically clear, you're going to get lost in the years to come. So the idea I need to cover as many topics as possible is completely false. Today, you need to stick on topic, make sure that Google says you're an expert, you're authority, and you're trustworthy within your own topic. The expertise within your topic is hugely important. That understanding as well goes from who am I as a host? What is my podcast as a thing? Because it's a thing, it's something that Google can grasp and understand. What is each episode within that podcast series? What are we talking about and to whom are we talking? It becomes very important not only to build puppet, but also to invite the right people, the people who are actually experts in the field, who can bring their expertise. And Google will understand that they are bringing their expertise. So we end up in a situation whereby, as a host, you're looking for guests who are already recognized experts. And we're going to end up in a situation where breaking into the field as an expert is going to become increasingly difficult, because we're all going to be looking to be established experts because they bring more value in terms of Google's understanding about what we're offering to its users. And you have to remember that those are Google's users. They might be potentially our audience, but we're asking Google to recommend us to its users, and it will. Google's aim is to get its users to the solution to their problem as efficiently as possible. So you end up in a situation where we're saying to Google, where can I solve a user's problem? And Google will then recommend us if it is a understood, which is that first initial point.

Deirdre Tshien 00:06:06

Wow, there are so many nuggets. Capsho just dropped. Did you pick up on them? Gone are the days when we can keep being broad with our messaging. To be fair, I don't think that there was a time when that really worked at all. But if you know that you may be guilty of this, even just a little bit, then this is where it is not serving you. To keep being all things to all people, you have to understand who your audience is and what they care about. It's only when you understand that a machine like Google will understand does that make sense. And I know what you might be thinking. What if you are very clear about who you serve? There's deep understanding there, but you know that this who needs a lot of things, right? For example, if you listened to my episode with Rayshaun a couple of weeks ago, you might know that he is very, very clear about exactly who it is he's serving for his Motivate Grind Succeed podcast. And in serving this person, he knows very well that there are four things that they care about faith, fellowship, finance and fitness. And Rayshaun. If you're listening to this, I hope you don't mind, but I asked Capsho a question on your and many others behalf. Does it serve us from an SEO perspective to be talking about multiple things, having these multiple pillars, even if all these things are important to the exact person that you're serving? Can it work? From an SEO perspective?

Jason Barnard 00:07:30

What this person has is finance, fitness, and faith. And it sounds really good to me as the person. I've just remembered it. You said it to me once and I've remembered it. So from a marketing perspective and from a human perspective, makes total sense. And I'm on board in terms of understanding what this person is talking about. And the Fff is actually really what's the word? Attractive and helpful and memorable. But Google won't get it. It's three things that are so disparate. I think the word is that Google is going to be saying, well, fitness, faith and finance have got nothing to do with each other. And I can't actually stick it into one of my what I was calling earlier on Shards. I can't stick it into this column. And that creates a problem for Google is that it will be difficult for Google to understand that. And that's where multifacetedness comes in, is Google's huge problem is that it tends to be unifaceted in that it will look at you and say you do one thing, and the idea that you might do two or three things equally well is incredibly difficult. And it would be unfair to Google to say, well, that's rubbish, because as human beings, it's difficult for people to understand that I might be an accomplished musician, an accomplished author, an accomplished cartoon maker, and an accomplished digital marketer. They will say, well, which one are you? And he said, Well, I'm actually all of them. So as human beings, I don't think we're necessarily much better than Google. The other thing is that Google is actually using machine learning, which gets better exponentially. So what's true today, in a year's time, it's going to be even further advanced. So that multifaceted problem is today and not necessarily in two years.

Deirdre Tshien 00:09:17

As Capsho mentioned, talking about multiple things that aren't really related by way of topic, even if they are related by way of audience, doesn't quite serve us right now. But that's not to say with how quickly technology is changing, that this will continue to be the case. So my take is that if SEO is a strategy that you really want to own, then you may want to think about focusing on just one topic right now so that Google can actually understand what it is that you do and what it is that you're an expert in. In fact, this is definitely a strategy I am personally going to lean into more and more. And as the search engines start to become more multifaceted, then it makes sense to then start to broaden out my messaging, as long as it still makes sense for my ideal audience, of course. So that is the first pillar of Capsho's SEO strategy understanding. What we're going to do is we're going to take a quick ad break, and when we come back, we're going to head straight into Capsho's second pillar of getting visible on Google. I have already been learning so much from Capsho Barnard from Calicube, who could probably talk about all things SEO into next week. In fact, we've covered the first pillar of his SEO strategy, which is understanding. Google needs to understand what it is that we do and what it is that we talk about. And I'm really excited to now get into his second pillar for SEO.

Jason Barnard 00:10:34

Secondly, it thinks we're credible, a credible solution, which means reviews. It means positive user feedback. It means getting the experts on, it means becoming authoritative in our field, once again, being incredibly topical. But we've moved from step one, which is understanding, to step two, which is credibility. So Google needs to understand what you have to offer episode by episode and topically within your entire podcast, who you are as a host, what you have to offer, why you're an expert. Then that comes into the credibility with the reviews. You're an expert, you're an authority, and you know what you're talking about, and you've got the right guests. So that's the two first point.

Deirdre Tshien 00:11:10

Okay, wow. Let's break this down a little because there's so much going on here with credibility. As Capsho was explaining this, I had so many questions come to mind because it seems like there's a lot that goes into credibility here. For example, I know, having spoken to some of you, that you have a very full podcasting schedule because you're perhaps saying yes to a lot of guest requests that come in. It sounds like if we are saying yes to a lot of guest requests that we're actually doing ourselves a big disservice by saying yes to everyone. We're actually not building credibility in the topic we want to be known for, because the credibility that we're building also depends on their credibility. Does that make sense? So first thing we can all do to really control credibility for ourselves is getting the right guests on. So how can we actually check and control this?

Jason Barnard 00:12:02

Now, what I would do for guests, or we actually do for my podcast, is we search their name on Google, we see if there's a Knowledge panel, which is the information panel on the right on desktop. If there isn't, they're not likely to be a very good guest. From the Google perspective, they might be hugely interesting and they might be hugely great for my audience. But in terms of Google, Google simply won't understand who they are and they won't bring any value for the SEL. So if you want to be a guest on a podcast, you need the Knowledge Panel on the right hand side. That indicates Google has understood who you are, it understands that you're an expert, it understands your authentic, and you get to the podcast, I'm bringing value and vice versa. In terms of a podcast, I can bring you value as a guest by the fact that I have the Knowledge Panel on the right hand side when you search my podcast name. Therefore, when you appear on my podcast, I'm going to give you some of my credibility. So it's a credibility swap in Google's eyes. And once again, Google isn't the most important platform right now for podcasters, but we're going that way, so it's a good time to start thinking about it.

Deirdre Tshien 00:13:03

I'm sure that you're probably listening to this, perhaps also taking notes on what might make you a good guest on someone else's podcast too. I hope so. There's another aspect to building credibility that Capsho also mentions reviews. What exactly does this mean and look like for US.

Jason Barnard 00:13:19

Entrepreneurs who podcast Apple divide their reviews by country. So if you get a review in the US, it will only show in the US. And if you get it in the UK, it will only show in the UK and Google Crawls from the US. So you immediately hit this problem and a lot of those reviews from a Google perspective, once again, a lot, whereas something like Podmat or Pod Chaser or one of the other platforms will aggregate the reviews and therefore will show more to Google. But you also have to consider how Google Crawls, how it looks at things. And Apple, although very powerful, actually cuts up your credibility from the review perspective into multiple chunks, which are potentially good from a geolocalized search perspective, because Google is hugely geolocalized. If you search a name of somebody in one country, they will show you one person. If you search that same name in another country, they will show you somebody completely different. But from a crawling perspective, in terms of Google actually getting the information, it isn't that obvious, it isn't that simple. And Spotify is actually quite difficult for Google to crawl as well. Spotify is a great platform, but Google can struggle with Spotify. From a crawling perspective, though, you need to look at where you're getting the reviews, where you're located and where the most power will come from. And now what Google also does incredibly well is look at audiences, geolocalized, so it will look at who your audience is within the place that you're the most popular. If you're in America, it would look at, let's say, Apple, but if you're in Australia, it might be looking at Spotify, because Spotify is bigger than Apple in Australia. I'm making that up. I've got no idea. And so you need to consider not the, you know, all these people who say, oh, has to be Apple, it doesn't have to be Apple. It depends on your country. In India, there's a platform, and I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head, that's hugely powerful. And Google is paying attention to that platform in India, and incredibly powerful for India, more so than Apple. So you need to look at your local market, your local audience, and where Google is actually paying attention. What we do at Caliq, we have a massive database, and what we do is push into our database names of podcasts or Podcast hosts or companies or people, and we figure out in which country, which platforms and which social media, which websites are most important for that geo region, for that specific entity type. So person, podcast, music, album, company, whatever. And that industry. So if I'm a podcast in the marketing industry in the UK, the list of important sources for Google will be very different to a marketing podcast in the USA, and that's hugely important. And paying attention to pushing the credibility signals on the correct platforms is the secret to making the least effort possible for the most benefit.

Deirdre Tshien 00:16:11

Holy moly. Okay, so it makes a difference where you're getting your reviews and who you're getting reviews from. Have you been trying to say specifically target a US audience, but perhaps most of your reviews are from people in the UK. Sounds like this is actually going to make a difference. So this gives us a lot to think about. How do you think that you're going to get the right reviews on the right platforms for you to build credibility in the eyes of Google? I'd love to hear from you. So definitely let me know. Okay, so there are a couple of things Capsho has gone into that determine our credibility with Google. One are the types of guests that we get on that is swapping credibility with our guests, and a second is reviews. And it makes a difference where we're collecting those reviews as well. Now, there was a third component that Capsho mentioned in passing that also affects credibility the publisher. So I asked Capsho to go into more detail about what this means. Who exactly is the publisher, and how can we use the publisher to increase our credibility with Google.

Jason Barnard 00:17:12

The publisher, you're the host. That's great. Then you have a company that publishes. So the copyright holder, it might be you as a person, but it might also be your company. And you need to be really clear about that. And I think a lot of people think me and my company are the same thing, and you're not. Most of the time, you will have some kind of legal entity that represents the business side of what you're doing. If you're a professional podcaster, you are more than likely going to have a company, and that company is publisher and you are the host. You might also be the owner of the company, but that's a distinction if you need to differentiate yourself, excuse me, from your own company. And then you also rightly say the platforms, which is an aspect that is true about all SEO is google will then look around and it will see what platforms you're on. With podcasting, it tends to be quite standardized. We all use more or less the same platform. Which is the principal platform? Is it your website? Is it Anchor? There are lots of other pots, and Blueberry is another one, if I remember correctly. The principal platform is also going to be very important. And I would suggest that, and this is a general point about everything to do with digital footprints and digital brand management. Personal company or podcasts. Retain control of your own brand message by owning the property. Don't rent it. So rent an anchor or a blogger is not, for me, the best idea. Long term, it's a great solution to get you going. It can get you a really good kickstart. It can get you an advantage in Google short term. But long term you should be thinking, I need to own the platform where my podcast is appearing. I don't want to rent it. Have a website from which you then push the information out. Though I could say anchor is my primary platform, but I need my own website because if Anchor goes bankrupt, what happens? I lose it. I need Google to understand that my website is the place to come back to the fallback place. So I don't need to push it as being the primary place that I send people. I can still send them to Anchor, but if anchor collapses tomorrow. I need Google to know where to come when, if that happens. And we call that in SEO, a term I coined, which is called entity home. An entity is a thing. So podcast is a thing, you're a thing, your company is a thing, I'm a thing, my company is a thing. And everything that Google is trying to understand, we come back to that idea again, needs a home. And that home should be owned and not rented. Ideally, if you rent it, you're putting yourself in a situation where in the future you might lose it, but also you're putting yourself in a situation where you have incomplete control. If you own the entity home, you're on the website, you own the domain name, you own it long term. And you can also control completely how you're communicating to Google, because Google will understand only if you communicate with it clearly, and it uses the entity home, that website that you own, as the point of reference for understanding you from which you can communicate. And that is the real power moving forwards is if you own the place that Google is looking to for information about your podcast or about yourself, you have control, you have power, and you can control what Google shows in terms of your branding when people are searching in and around your brand.

Deirdre Tshien 00:20:37

Okay, I'm understanding this part. Essentially, we can still use a hosting platform to distribute our podcast, but you really actually need a podcast website that has its own domain name. So, for example, if you're currently using your host website capability, it is likely under their domain name, which you're renting, such as if mine was a Podbean. Comgromapodcasthow. Notice how the root domain is still Podbean.com. You really need that to be your own domain name.

Jason Barnard 00:21:07

And you can also have hosting platforms that allow you to host with them. We use blueberry. So I use Blueberry. But I've got my own website. I could also use Blueberry and point my website to their hosting and have my whole website built within Blueberry, but use my own domain name. The important thing isn't the platform, it's the domain name. So my podcast with Capshobarnard.com, if I've got it on Blueberry, absolutely fine, I can go on with that for years and years. But the day I want to retain control or change something and Blueberry is limiting me in any way, I can just move the domain and completely retain control. But if I'm using Blueberry.com, Capshobarnard, I don't have the control, I can't move it away. I'm tied into this rented space. The domain name is always going to be the most important in the sense that you can always point everything back to it and you will retain any power you've built up. Whereas if you point to Blueberry or anchor, you're losing that power as soon as you move away. So the domain, I would say, focus on that. It doesn't matter where you're actually hosted and where the website is built, as long as the domain belongs to you, because then you retain absolute control.

Deirdre Tshien 00:22:17

Okay, wow. I am learning so, so much from Capsho. How are you doing? How are you taking all of this in? Have you been taking notes as he's been talking? I really, really hope so, because we are now going to get into the third pillar of his SEO strategy.

Jason Barnard 00:22:31

The third one is suitability. And suitability is from the perspective of Google. And I think it's important for all these three points to look at it from the perspective of Google. It's what's Google looking for. It's deliver the best possible solution to its user's problem as efficiently as possible. It's as simple as that. And you need to have it understand what you have to offer, understand that you're the most credible solution, and also provide the solution in the format that makes the most sense for Google's user in the circumstances they find themselves. So from a podcast perspective, you're immediately saying, we need an audio audience, an audience that's looking for audio content. Now, if you have just an audio podcast, you're immediately at a disadvantage here because Google tends to focus on video, though its order of priority is text, video, audio, and that is based on its users usage rather than its own preferences. So if somebody is looking for how to cook a meal, they would be looking at how to cook roast pork. I would be looking for text that I could read. I don't want to watch somebody cooking pork. I want to read about how I can do it. But then if I'm looking I did this the other day, how to set up a green screen. I need a video because I want to see somebody do it, because I want to see all the silly things that I'm going to get wrong if I don't actually watch somebody else do it properly. So you need to think about the format. And where audio is going to be most important is when somebody is traveling. So somebody's on a bike or they're on the way to work, when they're actually looking for a podcast. So you're going to be in a situation where you need to think, well, am I actually suitable for this user? If it's for sending up a green screen, audio is going to be rubbish. So there's no point in having a podcast that tutorial about how to put up a green screen. How to cook an amazing pork dish for your family might be a great conversation, but you need to figure out who's looking for that conversation and listening to you talking about cooking pork. And I'm only talking about that because I looked across Adam Cookie talk. Right now, as most of us, we have very little imagination. We just look around the room and say, this is what I'll talk about. So from a podcast perspective, having video and audio is hugely helpful because Google digests video in priority to audio. So if you look at it from that perspective, if I take this one piece of content and create three different formats, I'm immediately satisfying three potential. We could say deliverability or suitability needs for Google to deliver to its users. And I think that's really important. Google is delivering to its users the best solution in the most efficient manner. The most efficient manner might be text, it might be audio, and it might be video. If you can provide all three, you've got the best chance possible, because you're going to be hitting all three opportunities. Oh, I'm sorry, I've got another point, which is actually to do with your platform, which is sometimes we just want a tiny little chunk. We don't want the whole 30 minutes. We want a tiny little chunk because we want to understand one thing about one particular aspect that's hugely powerful. This is all repurposing. It's saying, well, perhaps the user just wants to understand the temperature for the pork. I mean, it's an Arable example. I don't know why I started with this one, but if you can produce that little chunk, google will show it because it wants it to be efficient. So if I say, what's the temperature for cooking pork? And you've got a clip for it, we're away. We're winning the game all the way down the road. And I really wish I started with that example.

Deirdre Tshien 00:25:43

Okay, so let's break this part down a little bit, shall we? This third pillar is what Capsho calls Suitability, which is suitability of your content for Google's audience. And as a podcaster gosh, it's hard to hear that audio isn't at the top of that list. But it's not. It's superseded by text and by video. So it goes text, video, and then audio. Fortunately, capture helps you massively on the tech side. So go on then, get onto capture right now and start producing your text based blog posts from your podcast. And what Capsho mentioned about video is exactly how we think about videos for our podcast here at Cap Show. If you haven't listened to episode 35 of this podcast, go and do that next. Because in that episode, I actually break down our whole strategy for YouTube videos from our podcast, which exactly ties into what Capsho was saying is how Google looks at these different forms of content. Okay, so just to recap, here are the three pillars for a really effective SEO strategy for your podcast. One, understanding. Google needs to understand what it is that you do, who you're talking to, and what you're talking about. Two is credibility. And there are three ways that we can affect credibility. One is having guests, expert guests, who are experts around the same topic as you are, having reviews on the right platforms and owning your domain name. And three, suitability. Can we be creating content that. Google actually prioritizes that's text, video, and then audio. And I couldn't let Capsho go without asking a really important question, one that I get asked time and time again, which is, how important is including a transcript for SEO. So if you want to get the answer to that once and for all, then please head over to the Show Notes and get that free bonus clip. And if you want to know more.

Jason Barnard 00:27:27

About Capsho, you can go and search Calicube Kalicube or Capsho Barnard. Capshobarnard. You search that and you will find exactly what you need to know about my company, Calicube, or myself. Capsho Barnard because we have worked to craft and design that Google business card to provide you, my audience, or the Calicube audience with the information you need to understand what we do and what we can offer you and the choice of how you might want to interact with us through our websites, through our social media, through the articles, through the podcast, through our academy or through our SaaS platform. That is absolutely key. Tightening up the bottom of the funnel, which you told me is so crucial, so many of us work on the top of the funnel. The bottom of the funnel is a mess. If we tighten up that bottom of the funnel, we will convert more users to clients or people to listeners, subscribers, and we're winning all the way.

Deirdre Tshien 00:28:26

Awesome. So I've left all the information in the Show Notes, as well as that free bonus clip with Capsho answering the question of how important a transcript is for SEO. My name is Deirdre Tshien. Stay awesome.