#18 Beyond Your Podcast Title and Landing Big Guests ft. Byron and Margaret

In this episode of Podcasting Badass, Steve sits down with Margaret and Byron from the Beyond I Do podcast to discuss powerful strategies for podcast growth. They explore the use of title extensions for increased visibility, SEO tactics to improve search rankings, and the role of social media in expanding their audience. Steve provides actionable advice on targeting relevant keywords and utilizing guest swaps to boost engagement. The conversation highlights the importance of maintaining a clear focus and direction, ensuring consistent growth and listener retention.

- Title Extensions for Visibility: Techniques to make your podcast stand out in search results.
- SEO Strategies: Tips on optimizing your podcast for better search engine rankings.
- Leveraging Social Media: Effective ways to grow your audience through online platforms.
- Guest Swaps and Networking: The benefits of collaborating with other podcasters.
- Maintaining Focus: How to keep your podcast content consistent and engaging.

For a free consultation on how to launch or grow your podcast, visit [www.sobersteve.com].

Check Out Beyond I Do ft. Byron and Margaret

Transcript

Steve: 0:00

Hey there. Podcasting bad-ass is it's your host. So received the podcast guy and I am so excited for today's episode. Get ready for a chat about spreading the love while increasing your search engine optimization and interviewee expectations. As I welcome Margaret and Byron from the beyond, I do podcast. Together, we're working on. Taking their clever name and adding a really strong title extension on it. And improving the show description to really help increase their visibility. And then we're going to focus on social media efforts and how to use guest excitement to help grow your show in podcasting apps and on social media. Before we get on into the interview, please remember to hit follow on your screen right now, wherever you're listening. So you can get these new episodes each and every Monday. And if you have a podcast you'd like to start, grow or monetize, reach out to me at www dot sober, steve.com for free one-on-one and the chance to be on podcasting. Bad-ass. For a tune up or a brainstorm episode. Would that being said, enjoy my discussion with Byron and Margaret. Hey there, podcasting badasses. It's Steve here with Byron and Margaret from the Beyond I Do podcast. Welcome to the show.

Margaret: 1:13

for having us. Yes.

Steve: 1:14

Excellent. And I know I've done a little bit of homework, but right from the get go, I saw your podcasting and I said, I really hope this is about married couples. And so I was, Very glad that at least at the Beyond I Do, people can tell from the title what your show is about. But tell me a little bit more about what that means to you about Beyond I Do.

Byron: 1:35

The foundation started when I was watching the episode of Steve Harvey's TV show. It actually started before that. I was wanting to do something on social media and I wanted it to be meaningful. So while I was trying to sit there and figure out what that was going to be, I was watching the episode of Steve Harvey's TV show. And they had married couples on people had been married, 20 plus years. When I saw that, they asked a couple that had been married over 50 years, how did you guys stay married so long? They said communication. In my mind, I was like, what is communication? That got me thinking. I said we've been married at that time over 24 years. And, I was like maybe we could get on and share our story and try to help some people, become successful in relationships because, we love and we like to see people succeed in love. And, so that was the. Idea I approached her about it. She's an introvert. So I was like, she's not going to go for it. She surprised me and it took us a year and a half to actually launch everything, do an episode and launch it. And, the rest is history. So we're here now.

Steve: 2:48

Excellent. And I did see that you've been releasing content consistently since January, correct?

Margaret: 2:54

Yes, we, that first year it was just the two of us and then coming up on the second year we started to invite guests. And the thought behind that is in order to be the best individual or the best partner, you have to be the best individual. And so we brought in experts who speak to self improvement basically, and we've also invited some couples to come and share their love story as well.

Steve: 3:21

I love that. And I definitely give you kudos for releasing that content regularly because you are already in the top, 10, 15 percent of podcasters in terms of your longevity of sticking it out when, half of them give up after eight episodes, you're keeping at it. So I definitely admire you for that. What's been your favorite part of your journey so far?

Byron: 3:43

I would have to say, in the beginning of this year, at the end of, 23, we're trying to decide where we're going to go this season. She was like I'm going to reach out to people about being guests. I was very hesitant about it because I wanted to keep things the way it was. But, since then, meeting all these fantastic people like yourself, that has opened our eyes up to a life that we didn't know that existed beyond, just podcasting. So I can say that meeting people like yourself, being encouraged to hang in there and do the things that we never thought we could do. And that has been the most exhilarating thing that I've gotten that person.

Steve: 4:26

That's excellent. And Margaret, did you have anything to add with that?

Margaret: 4:28

The, just the creation of something together, outside of the kids, for us to work on, have something to work on together. And I think that we've been able to see each other in a different light because. We're using gifts and talents that I think we knew were there, but we're seeing the use different. That's been a neat thing to work together in that capacity.

Steve: 4:52

That's exciting. I love the idea of talking about marriage, especially coming from your experience of having over 20, years now together. You said 26 years. Wow. Having that time together and being that you have a book about. relationships and that you're going to be coaching couples through relationships. This is definitely like a great podcast to have now in terms of the name and branding and everything like that. Do you have, when you think about it, do you have what? I call it my group or with my clients, a keyword bank of words that you always use, whether it be like hashtags or phrases or words, but a set of these are my words and phrases that my people use when they're looking for me or talk about me.

Margaret: 5:39

Yes, and no, I think we have things there's. There are certain things consistently. We always talk about the importance of love in a relationship and cultivating a friendship in your relationship. So there are certain concepts. But I think that's one of the things is that we're reaching and grabbing for different things to get the message out. When you're close to it and in it, it's hard to see what that looks like for people who are looking for that type of content.

Steve: 6:14

Excellent. In terms of making sure that we're using the most of our time and what kind of strategies you'd like to talk about going forward. I do really like your description of the show. I feel he does a really good job of telling you what the show is going to be about, which is what it's supposed to be, how on each episode they'll discuss the ups and downs of marriage, what really happens behind beyond saying, I do. It gives your 25 years, there is room to grow in the about. Oh, because the three things that search engines look for, most of the time is the title of your podcast. So what words do you have in the title? So right now you have beyond. I do. So the, when people are searching for a podcast about marriage, those are the three words that they would want to put in most to find your show. And then if they were searching for other things though, like there's the word marriage right now isn't in your title, but it is in your show notes, which is, or like in your podcast description, which is the second thing that they look at before they then start looking into your episodes and it goes down from there. But beyond I do is a great name for a podcast. I don't think you should change the name at all, but what I would consider is in the industry, we call it a title extension where it's like a subtitle, like you would for a movie, but that title extension is going to be words that you know, your ideal listeners. My podcast, badass. The title extension is like, Mindset tips and podcasting tricks for monetization, success, growth and downloads, but by adding those words in the search bar, when people are looking for podcast growth, podcast monetization, I'm going to show up a lot sooner because I have it in the title rather than having it in the description. So I would definitely add a title extension for you that you can do quietly, but that should help increase. Your downloads pretty much give it like a week or two, but I would bet that will make people easier to find if you include more words about what you're talking about with these topics regarding marriage and couples help and assistance using your guidance and support.

Margaret: 8:21

Okay. All right.

Steve: 8:23

Sounds good. How do those land?

Margaret: 8:25

They sound good. That things that I would have never I would have never thought about.

Steve: 8:31

I'm glad I was able to help then. And then in terms of, I heard you both light up when you were talking about the connections that you're making across. Doing the podcast with these interviews. Have you been on other podcasts to talk about your podcasts?

Margaret: 8:45

Yes, we have. We've been on probably about eight or nine at this point.

Steve: 8:52

The more of those that you do, definitely the better as you continue to grow. How are you finding them? Or are they finding you?

Margaret: 9:00

The, Facebook podcast groups, and then. Connections made from that group networks through the people that we've connected with.

Byron: 9:12

And some of them some of the people who have talked to us about becoming guests at their podcast. We generally switch, dates or whatever, and they'll be on our show and then we'll be on theirs, on a later date or whatever.

Steve: 9:27

I love a good guest swap when things like that happen. How do you promote each other?

Margaret: 9:36

Social media posts. When we have guests, I'll do an image that whatever image we use to post on hours, I share, we do we record and video, so we have. Video clips pulled from the video

Byron: 9:53

promo,

Margaret: 9:54

and then he creates a longer trailer promo for it. Yeah, and then we've had the ones that we've been on, they do the same thing where they share their reels and things like that. And we post them to our social media.

Steve: 10:10

Very cool. And what's your favorite social media app to play on?

Margaret: 10:15

I wouldn't say favorite necessarily, but the one that I've been, posting this More on is Facebook. And I think that's just because of the common use to it and Yeah. But Facebook is where I post things on all the platforms that we have. But that's where we get the most traction.

Steve: 10:35

Yes. And. It's funny how it's we don't realize it's not a coincidence until I sometimes when I tell people but that is the Facebook also the app that when you're not podcasting that you're most likely to spend your personal time on. Yes. And Facebook knows that you spend more time logged into That app, then you do the other apps, which is why it's more friendly showing your content

Byron: 10:57

to

Steve: 10:57

other people. So I always tell people like you're doing it right that you're focusing where you like to play anyway, because you can get 1000 views on a tick tock. But if you're not on the app to be liking and commenting, they're not going to keep boosting you like that, that will come and go wherever flower like it's like lightning, who knows when it will strike again. But when you are Logged into an app consistently and you're liking and commenting and engaging with not just your podcast content, but just other content in general, the apps definitely favor you as well. So how are you happy with the engagement on social media?

Byron: 11:35

We feel that they could be more, but we also know that, TikTok has their, not TikTok, I'm sorry, Facebook has their algorithms and, for a while, our personals, you tend to see the same people. And so it's like, how do we get beyond, the same, feedback in our, for your page and watch out beyond that.

Steve: 11:58

Yeah, I definitely would recommend like any guest connection that you make is important. I've had some guests that have thousands of followers that give me hardly any sort of bump in my numbers. And I've had people that have a hundred followers, but for some reason, it feels like every single one of those people tuned in that week when I had them on. So it's not always a direct correlation. But with that, there are certain ways that you can help if you're willing to put in the work, like chase big fish. In terms of guests to get on your show, I would look in the apple podcast top 200 for all the different categories and see what shows you might be a good guest for. Or get get people who podcast that might be a good guest for your show, but find people that are in the top 200 because in almost every podcasting category, whether you're looking under health and wellness to go that angle or whether you're looking at I have to look at all the different categories in front of me, but I'm sure there's one but whatever, when you decide will be closest to relationships where you're going to see stuff, We're like society and culture, whatever. When you look through, find the relationship one, see what's working, what's not with them, but also try and connect with those people because those podcasts in the top 200 generally means that they have a thousand downloads for each new episode within 30 days of it coming out. That's a big deal. Numbers for small podcasts. That's just getting started. But if you're able to offer them something of value from your unique take, or if you see something about them that you can connect with her, when you reach out to them, it's not just like a saying, Hey, I want to get this from you. Or like Hey, I know that you did that recent episode on this. And I have this really hot take. So let me tell you my take that, we could talk on about our marriage and give your like a pitch, but when you pitch to people like that, if you're able to get them on the hook, that's when you can get those thousand people who love podcasts to find your shows when you go on them.

Byron: 13:55

Okay. Okay. Sounds good.

Steve: 13:58

I like that. Yeah. And, I think I can do one more fun bit. Tell me a little bit. What about when you went clear focus.

Margaret: 14:08

That's probably more me. Because I keep adding to, and we started with the podcast and then that led us to these other opportunities. And so I start to think like I said, the first year it was us and we talked about ourselves, our relationship, the different aspects, and then we started to pull in content to discuss. And then once we started with interviewing people and. Our focus just got spread and so then it becomes, what are we even talking about? What are we going to talk? And it became so difficult to even think of topics. And just, in fact, I think it was a day or so ago. I told him, I said, remember when we started and we would find an article and we would discuss it. Maybe we need to get back to that. And so I just feel like the desire to grow and to do more took over. And it's you hear all these different things and you're trying so much that then, nothing is working because you can't put enough energy into anything. And so that was my thing, just clear focus as to what our purpose is and how to fulfill that

Byron: 15:23

purpose. We literally once we sent out for guest. We literally have done guest right in the beginning of the season of this year up until one release today was us. From January, February on to now, we haven't had us on there by ourselves in quite some time. So it's I missed this, but it was just that great influx of. Sometimes we would have three recordings a day, yeah.

Steve: 15:54

And the hardest thing for a lot of new podcasters or for eager podcasters who are looking to grow and excited about their podcast is, how do say no to guests? Because there is, there are 23 guests for every podcast.

Byron: 16:07

Yes.

Steve: 16:07

So there's always going to be people knocking down your door

Byron: 16:10

with

Steve: 16:10

something awesome and amazing and life changing to offer you. So it really is just a matter of, I feel like if you don't already have one, then maybe setting some time together, have a dinner date with a notepad nearby where you're talking about what your keyword bank is of pick about 20 words that those words are phrases or it could be like two words together, but have those 20 keywords be your identity of what your show is and have that make sure that not only is that in your verbiage for your branding, but that if that's part of your identity, when these new ideas, you can look at your bank of this is, Who I am and what I talk about and what my goal is. And if it fits into that keyword bank, great. But if it doesn't, maybe it's something that just shelf. If you have enough with your keyword bank to keep it going

Byron: 16:57

or put

Steve: 16:57

it on a little limbo part where you have to really love it for 90 days before you can move it into your keyword bank, try and make sure that you're sticking to that primary purpose of who your podcast is about. Okay. Should be like in there. So like that keyword bank should not just be like hashtags necessarily, but it should be like, where it's like who it's about. It's like married couples struggling, or, whatever kind of verbiage it should also be like, what, like the topics that you'll be talking about, like topics that you'll know once a month or every couple of months, you're going to revisit this thing because everyone loves to talk about it or everyone always struggles with it. But figure out what your identity is in those kind of keywords and phrases and having that will help so that the more you use those words over and over again in your show notes, in your descriptions, in your social media posts, the more the apps are going to make it easier for you to find using those words when people are searching for them. So it helps with your SEO, but then it also helps keep you on track with what your brand is and what you're standing for. So everyone wins in that situation.

Byron: 17:56

Okay. Sounds great.

Margaret: 17:58

I like that. That

Steve: 17:59

helps.

Byron: 18:00

Excellent.

Steve: 18:01

So overall, the entire conversation today, what would you say is your bigger takeaways?

Byron: 18:09

Putting ourselves out there using those keywords to increase our search and just doing the work. And that's the main thing, we're, we are trying to. You are new ventures at the same time, maintain our current lives, which both of us are full time employees. So it's like finding the time to. Everything in editing, then once we hear great ideas like yours. Okay. How are we going to sit down and implement those? But I don't think it's going to be a problem

Margaret: 18:44

and it's going to help for me. It, more targeted and that's definitely helpful and it provides a level of direction. And so I don't feel like I've just got to reach and grab things now. I feel like I have specific steps and they all align to to what we're trying to do.

Byron: 19:08

I would say, for example, if you took the arms and stretched them out, I'm big, you took the arms and stretched them out wide and you've done this, you close and gave us a little narrower direction to go.

Steve: 19:24

Excellent. I'm glad I was able to help with it. I appreciate that compliment. So thank you. And thank you listeners for tuning into another episode of podcasting badass. I hope you found some helpful tips and tricks to help you podcast like a badass. Make sure you follow wherever you're listening so you can get these new episodes every Monday. And also make sure you check out the show notes where I'm going to link over to the beyond I do podcast so you can check out all of their great content. Thank you again, Byron and Margaret. Thank you. Thank you

Margaret: 19:54

for having us. Thank you so much.