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Tag: SEO

The Ultimate Guide to Turning Your Podcast into a Youtube Video

If you want to take your podcast to the next level, you might be wondering if you should start putting videos on YouTube. 

Video is one of the most popular types of content on the internet, and it can be a great way to reach more people. But before you start filming yourself talking into a microphone, there are a few things you should know. 

In this article, we’ll show you how to turn your podcast into a professional-looking YouTube video that keeps people interested and helps you grow your audience. We’ll also tell you how to choose pictures that go with your audio and how to make your video work best on YouTube. 

So, if you want more people to listen to your podcast, keep reading to find out how to turn it into a YouTube video.

Why turn your podcast into a YouTube video?

You might think that YouTube is just for watching videos, but more people listen to audio on YouTube than anywhere else! 

According to the Music Consumer Insight Report, 47 percent of the time people spend streaming music around the world is on YouTube. In fact, YouTube even beat Spotify to become the biggest platform for listening to podcasts in the US. 

People don’t seem to mind staring at a screen that doesn’t change while they listen to something they like. So yes, you can be successful even without a video on YouTube! Many are happy to just sit there and listen without watching while they go for a walk, work out, or fold some laundry. 

Adding some visual interest, though, will grab viewers’ attention and keep them interested when they aren’t just listening. It also lets you add more information that might not be possible in an audio-only format.

Your podcast’s online presence could be more than doubled if you upload it to YouTube! It potentially gets you in front of billions of Youtube users every day, and it’s a great way to make your content available to your audience no matter where they are.  

So before you record that next episode, it’s worth brainstorming ideas about how you can turn your podcast into a YouTube video.

Steps to Getting Started with Youtube

Step 1: Decide what type of video you want to create

There are a few different ways you can go about creating a video version of your podcast. The first is to simply take a video of yourself while recording your podcast. This is the easiest way to create a video, but it can be a little boring for your audience if they’re just watching you sit and talk.

You could also record your podcast on your webcam. You don’t need to buy any fancy equipment to do this. Simply plug your microphone into your computer, use the built-in camera, and use Zoom or QuickTime to record yourself while you speak. Make sure that your podcast microphone is being used instead of the computer’s built-in microphone in your audio settings.

 If you decide not to film yourself, add pictures and short video clips to your audio for visual interest. This is a great way to keep people watching, and it lets you easily add extra information that might not be possible with just sound. 

It’s important to choose high-quality images that fit your brand’s style and aren’t a distraction, so make sure they relate to your topic and add value

Step 2: Record your audio 

Once you’ve decided what type of video you want to create, it’s time to start recording. When recording your audio, it’s important to speak clearly and at a consistent volume. You also want to avoid any background noise that might be distracting to viewers. 

Your sound file alone is an MP3 type of file, which can’t be uploaded to Youtube. Because the video site requires MP4 video files, you will have to have some type of video to go along with your podcast, even if it’s just one image, so that it “plays” and uploads to the site like a video would.

 Step 3: Converting your audio file into a video

If you want to spend even less time uploading your podcast to YouTube, keep reading. 

Create a background image first by using free graphic design software such as Canva or Envato Elements. Both already have YouTube video templates, so you’re not starting from scratch. Adding your logo and changing the colors is pretty simple, and there are thousands of graphics available to really customize your video. 

What should be included in that graphic? 

Your company’s logo, name or host, website URL, and any other relevant information. YouTube recommends images with a resolution of 2560x2240px for the best results on all devices. When you upload the MP3 audio file of your podcast to a software app like Canva, you can easily add and switch from one image to another with a wide range of customizable effects to go along with the sound.

Be sure to include a call to action page at the end so that people know what to do next. 

You can also add links to your website or other social media and encourage people to like, share, and subscribe to your channel.

Finally, you now have an MP4 file to upload to YouTube!

Step 4: Optimize your video for YouTube

 After you’ve added your designs and recorded the sound, you need to make sure your podcast is ready for YouTube. It’s important to use keywords that are related to the content when optimizing it. You should also think about adding captions and/or subtitles. 

YouTube says that videos with closed captions get 12 percent more views than videos that don’t. Some polls even show that people are more likely to finish watching videos until the end if there are captions. This is perfect for those times when people might find it easier to watch video content without the sound on. 

Don’t worry, YouTube has its own built-in AI that captions your videos for free once they are uploaded. It may not always be 100% accurate, so remember that the higher the audio quality you provide, the better the AI-generated transcription will be. 

Once you have your Youtube channel with your uploaded videos, you can access and edit the closed captions. Click on the Subtitles section and select the icon below.

You can either edit your subtitles directly within YouTube or upload your audio subtitles using a site like https://otter.ai/home, which will ensure your audio text is indexed and searchable on the internet. This will help your videos rank higher in search engines by turning every word that is captioned into metadata and making it more likely that your videos will show up in Google searches.

Shorter Podcast Clips, Are They Still Worth it?

As we covered in our last blog post, video marketing is definitely worth your time. 

Because YouTube has such a large audience, it’s one of the best places to put podcasts and other types of content. People enjoy YouTube because it’s popular and it’s what they know. 

But what if you don’t have the time right now to post full episodes of your podcast on YouTube? 

That’s okay! You can still promote it by posting shorter clips from each episode. 

This is great for several reasons. Listeners are more likely to download the whole episode on their favorite podcast app, which could mean more endorsements. Also, people are more likely to share a short video than an entire episode that lasts 45 minutes. And finally, they are perfect for sharing on social media.

With a little effort, you too can turn your podcast into a YouTube full length video or short video clip that will help you reach a wider audience! 

If you are looking for help in this area, our team at IFTS is here for you. We are committed to your success and will take the stress out of creating marketing content! Contact us today for a free one hour consultation at 412-715-6266.

How to do Keyword Research to Improve Your SEO

Keyword research is the core of digital marketing. This SEO strategy should be performed regularly in order to stay in touch with your audience as they grow and evolve. 

The goal of YOUR research is to find out what words or phrases your target audience is searching for, so you know what it will take to rank on search engines for those specific terms.

If you don’t know what keywords you should be targeting for your business – how are you going to optimize your website and create content to best serve your client?

In this guide, we will cover:

  • What are keywords?
  • What is keyword research and why is it important?
  • How to conduct keyword research using SEMrush
  • How to use that keyword research to get more clients (with some BONUS TIPS)

What is a keyword?

Keywords, also known as search terms or search queries, are the words and phrases that searchers use to perform a search in a search engine (like Google or Bing). Keywords are extremely important in an SEO strategy and should be the backbone of any written content you release on the web.

What is keyword research?

Keyword research is an SEO strategy that is used to find specific terms that users enter into search engines to find products, services, and information.  More importantly, keyword research helps you figure out how people find you. Using this knowledge, you’ll know exactly what to write about on your website and blog for your target audience. 

In order to get traffic from Google, performing keyword research to understand the words and phrases used by searchers is essential. Google uses this information to determine what content is relevant to a search term, and how that page should rank in search.

Proper keyword research will help you:

  • Understand your audience
  • Reach your audience
  • Find new hot topics to cover
  • Improve ad campaigns
  • Build brand awareness

Why is keyword research important?

Do you ever wish that you could read the mind of your perfect client? With a little bit of keyword research, you CAN jump into their mind to figure out the exact words and phrases they are using to search for results that relate to your business. 

Who wants to waste time creating content on topics that aren’t being searched for? 

Keyword research can help you answer the following questions:

  • How difficult is it to rank for this keyword?
  • How much traffic will I receive if I rank for this keyword?
  • What keywords are my competitors ranking for?

How to do keyword research

Keyword research consists of collecting relevant variations of all keywords that relate to your website, products, services, etc.

We are going to walk you through researching keywords using SEMrush. This is an amazing tool that is used to improve online visibility and discover marketing insights.

Step 1: Build your keyword list

Let’s build a list of keywords for ABC painting company. To begin, we will start by searching for a general keyword relating to this business. In the image above, you can see that we searched for “professional painter” in the keyword overview section of SEMrush. 

Keyword overview gives you a quick analysis of your keywords.  You can see a summary of metrics for each keyword such as number of results on a search engine results page, monthly search volume, average cost per click in Google Ads, paid search competition, and more.

You can create your master keyword list using the keyword magic tool. Starting with our seed keyword, professional painter, we are now able to see lists of keyword variations and related keywords. 

You don’t have to stop here; continue to search for other seed keywords if you would like to keep growing your list. When researching keywords, be sure to also search for location specific keywords. For example, “professional painter pittsburgh” or “Pittsburgh painting company”.

The photo above shows the list of keyword variations for “professional painter”. Although the results show thousands of keywords, this does not mean that they will all be relevant for you. After your initial list has been built, it will need to be trimmed down to just the terms that are truly relevant to the site you are researching.

Step 2: Analyzing your keyword list

Having a list of thousands of keywords is all good and well but how do you know which ones are the best to use? SEO keyword metrics can be used to narrow your master list down and find the best of the best.

Export the data from SEMrush and make note of the columns boxed in red – these are the categories that you want to look at. These are the keyword metrics that will help you narrow your list and find the best keywords to use.

Search Volume

Search volume shows you the number of monthly searches for a particular keyword over the previous 12 months.

Keyword difficulty (KD%)

The keyword difficulty index (from 1 to 100%) shows you how difficult it would be to outrank your competitors in the Google organic top 20 for a given keyword. The higher the percentage, the harder it will be to achieve high rankings for each targeted keyword.

Cost per click (CPC $)

Average price in USD that advertisers pay when a user clicks on an ad triggered by a given keyword.

Competitive density (Com.)

The level of competition between advertisers bidding on a given keyword within their PPC campaigns. Competitive Density is shown on a scale from 0 to 1.00 with 1.00 being the most difficult to rank for.

Now that you have formed a list using what you think that people search for, it’s time to confirm your suspicions by researching your competitors.

Competitor-based keyword research

Competitor keyword research uses seed websites instead of seed keywords to begin searching. This approach can be used in conjunction with traditional keyword research.

Discover organic competitors

Using organic search, you are able to find who Google believes your competitors are.  You can also see what keywords they are ranking for. 

Even if you think you know who your competitors are, it is still a good idea to check it out with this tool.  One important note, if you don’t see any of the competitors that you expect on this list, there is a good chance that your website is not optimized for the right keywords.

Navigate to the organic search tab on the left side menu and enter your domain in the search bar. Click on the competitors tab to reveal the table of domains that you are in competition with.

Here is a list of your competitors that can be used as your seed domains. They are sorted by competition level showing how close of a competitor they are to the one that was entered in the search bar. This metric is based on the total number of keywords of each competitor and the number of common keywords between the competitors.

How to get your competitors keywords

Under the positions report of the Organic research for the seed domain, you can find all of the keywords that a domain is ranked for.

Each keyword that a domain ranks for is shown in this list and is accompanied by a link to that corresponding landing page along with metrics to help further your research. So, for each of your competitors, type their URL into the search bar under “organic research” and you will have access to all of the keywords they are ranking for.

Between using a seed keyword and your competitors’ keywords, this method should help you create a list of keywords relevant to your business.  

What Should I Do With a Keyword List?

Taking the time to create this list can help your business in multiple ways, but the ultimate goal is always to get more clients.

So how do you use this list?

Write Relevant Blogs for Your Clients

You can use the list to write blogs or articles about the things that your target market are searching for.  SEMrush will also give you FAQs about the keywords your search.  Pick a few of these questions that are focused on a keyword and answer them.

BONUS TIP – You can also turn that blog into a script for a video that you can post on YouTube.

Improve Your Onsite SEO

You can use the list to improve the onsite SEO of your website.  Make sure that common keywords and phrases are found in your website headers, page titles and more.

BONUS TIP – Include keywords when you are naming images.  This is one trick that people do not typically take advantage of.

Improve the SEO of Your Social Media Profiles

Use the list that you create to craft the perfect message in your social media profiles.  By using words and phrases that they are using frequently, they will feel like you are talking to them and that you understand them.

Create Google Ads that Perform Well

Keyword research is critical when it comes to creating Google Ads and not spending a fortune.  Be sure to figure out what people are searching for when it comes to your business so you don’t waste your time and budget by showing ads to people searching the wrong thing.

Questions about keywords?  Need help doing with your keyword research?  Contact IFTS today and ask about our keyword research package!  We do the keyword research for you and set you up with a content plan for the next 365 days!

What Are Backlinks and Why Are They Important for your Website?

When looking at factors that help your SEO, everyone always tells you that backlinks are important.  

However, what exactly is a backlink?

A backlink is simply a clickable link to your website from another website.  They can also be called “inbound links” or “incoming links”. The number of backlinks is an indication of the popularity or importance of that website. Backlinks are important for SEO because some search engines, especially Google, will give more credit to websites that have a good number of quality backlinks. These websites are given a higher priority in the search results for relevant terms.

Why are backlinks important?

Google looks at a backlink to your website as a “vote” or “thumbs up” that the webpage the link is pointing to has quality content.  This is because most people would not link their website to a page that they considered bad.

The more backlinks that your website receives, the more “votes” that Google sees you as having.  By having many of these “votes”, it’s a signal to the search engines that your website is high quality with good content.  Subsequently, it makes the site more trusted by the search engines and improves your site ranking.

How do I get a backlink to my website?

Previously, before Google started guarding against it, people would create spammy, directory sites.  You could buy backlinks from these sites for very cheap.  This would make it look like you had a quality site very quickly and it would improve your search visibility.

Once Google realized what people were doing, they decided to put a stop to this.  Backlinks from reputable online sources are now way more valuable than those spammy links.  Websites now have a quality score that is taken into account.  For instance, the New York Times website has a much higher reputation score than your typical website.

Building backlinks is definitely a time-consuming task.  You want to start building backlinks to your site that have a good reputation score and are relevant to your business.  

One really good way to start is to join a local Chamber of Commerce that will give a backlink to their members.  Not only will most Chambers have a reputable website, but they are also local to you.  This is an indicator to Google as to the location of your business.  A similar organization that you can join as a law firm is the local, state or American bar association.

Another good way to build backlinks is to look at the backlink profile of your competitors who are ranking well.  You can use a tool such as aHREFs or SEMrush to see a list of their backlinks.  Then, you can start attempting to get links at the same places because you know that they are willing to link to businesses similar to yours.


Need help with link building or aren’t sure where to start?  Contact us at IFTS! Visit our website, iftsdesign.com or call 412-563-2106.