Favour Obasi-ike: [00:00:00] the more platforms that are third party come to your first party website.

The more data you can possess. 

And also use to help other people get more out of their time. 

Because they're coming to you for help. 

And you wanna serve them. You wanna be a servant. 

You don't wanna be a seller. You don't wanna keep selling things. You wanna tell them stories that they can remember.

Welcome to the Simple and Smart SEO show podcast, where we talk all things, brand building, SEO, helping you connect with your audience, elevate your visibility and grow your business. 

Crystal Waddell: I'm your host, Crystal Waddell, here to bridge the gap between SEO strategy and real world business success. By bringing you insights, stories, and conversations from the SEO community and beyond. 

Whether you're an entrepreneur, marketer, or SEO enthusiast, this is your place to learn, share, and build a brand that stands out. 

So grab a coffee or your favorite tea. And let's dive into Smarter SEO for your business.

Hey guys. Welcome back. Thank you for joining us for part two of my conversation with Favor Obasi-ike. 

Podcasting Dilemmas

Crystal Waddell: I just set up a new [00:01:00] website. 

Built with Wix studio. Woo. Woohoo. Yeah, really cool. You guys have to go check it out. 

Simple and smart seo.com. 

But I'm still trying to figure out, okay. Should I do. Like podcast. Simple and smart seo.com? Like a subdomain for my podcast? 

Should I take the Easy road? And just have simple and smart seo.com/podcast and forward it to the Buzzsprout domain? 

But I want to retain the SEO value. I know I probably can't have my cake and eat it, too. 

But what is the best way to set it up to where you have your podcast on your website? 

Great question. 

Setting Up Your Podcast Website

Favour Obasi-ike: So I have the same problem, too. Earlier on because.

I have, the company website is Play Inc. Online. 

Somebody can type work and play entertainment. They'll see it. And then they'll see the podcast. And it will take them to the RSS feed for Wix. 

Where you can just paste it and it's good to go. And I was doing that for some [00:02:00] time. 

But I was like, I'm not really getting any stretch. 

Because it's coming from an RSS feed. And an RSS feed is contained within a domain. 

So you don't really get the full benefit. It's a great benefit, but it's not the full benefit. So I said, okay. 

If I want to build and scale this podcast, it needs to live on its own piece of land. 

It needs to have its own property. It has to have its own asset. 

It has to have its own value. Its own exchange. But it still links back to the parent website.

Benefits of Separate Podcast Domains

Favour Obasi-ike: So what I did was I now got a we dont play podcast.com domain. And then set it up on a completely different platform. 

So how did I even think about this? 

On a Sunday morning. Somebody from Lithuania emailed me. 

And he's the founder of this amazing platform called onpodium.com.

Very easy. It's like a pod page. 

But it's really nice. About $180 a year. And all you need to do is connect your domain. Connect your RSS feed. 

And set up your website. So if you have your podcast on YouTube, you can connect the YouTube [00:03:00] RSS feed into that place. 

So you have both an RSS feed from your, hosting for podcasts.

And you also have an RSS feed pointing to youTube. 

Which is coming back to your website. 

So I created a completely new website. Just to have the podcast on there. 

And then have a popup. So that people that want to subscribe to the podcast can actually opt in with their contact information differently from the parent website. 

'cause somebody can come to parent website, they need SEO services. 

They need their website built. 

They need to, get locally ranked on Alexa. 

They wanna get on those things so that they can be visibly seen as a business. 

They may not just wanna listen to the podcast. 

But when I send a podcast newsletter to everyone. 

I realize that they all mix in. Because I, I do polls.

So that's how you definitely would do it. 

Have it on two different platforms as opposed to one. 

And have them both, but prioritize on the domain.

Okay. 

SEO Strategies for Podcasts

Crystal Waddell: So I guess you're still getting the benefit then of, something kind of curating all of the podcast assets for you, right? 

Because you don't [00:04:00] have to rewrite the show notes as a blog? 

Or something on a separate page. 

Is that right? 

Favour Obasi-ike: So you want to have the podcast on its own. 

Because if you think about it the simple and smart SEO show.com will have its own domain authority.

Then you'll have your own domain authority for another property that you own. So by the time you're linking both of them, you have two properties that you're working with. 

And they're both giving value to your audience. 

Because of the people who are coming in. 

So if you are using it on two different platforms, it's better. 

 If using your business to sponsor your podcast. Then that's a good way to give people a good brand awareness of your business as well.

Optimizing Podcast URLs

Crystal Waddell: Okay. 

So not exactly the answers expecting. 

Oh, make it another website! 

Which, but I do already have it. 

When I originally was with Buzzsprout, I could just overlay their technology. 

Like I could just point everything at my domain. 

And so the domain authority of Simple and smart seo.com went up really fast. 

[00:05:00] Like into the double digits before just a few months. And I wasn't really doing anything except publishing podcasts.

And so I thought, wow, that's really powerful. 

But then I thought, okay. How do I retain that when I change websites? 

Because I don't wanna put it back on Buzzsprout to where now Buzzsprout's still retaining the domain authority. 

Importance of Domain Authority

Favour Obasi-ike: That's why I switched. Because you want to own property.

The goal about being online and domain is to own. 

Let me put it this way. 

You first protect. Because you have to protect it with your domain. You have to put a certificate on it and SSL certificate on it. 

Then from protecting it, you want to scale it. 

By earning information and putting it down.

Because there are four types of media for people to look at. 

SEO Best Practices

Favour Obasi-ike: There's owned media. Which is the stuff that you own, your books, your podcasts, your content. 

Then there's paid media. Which you use your from your owned media. 

Then you have shared media, which you take from your owned media to share on different platforms.

And then earned media is where you're getting the receiving end. The publications, [00:06:00] magazines, and all those kind of things. 

So yes, it's good to be on different platforms. 

But like you said, if you are only just on buzzsprout and the day you move, it tanks. 

It's not going to be a good longevity process for you.

So it's just better to start from scratch, have your own website. Build the links. 

If you have enough episodes and you're building them. Eventually those episodes will turn into URLs. 

And then if your SEO is really good on your search console, you don't have to worry about any technical errors. 

Someone can literally type the name of your topic, podcast title. 

And then they'll find your link there. 

And link back to your show.

So it's easier to get ranked up than just the whole podcast as a full. 

Crystal Waddell: Yeah, and that's the other problem with using something like Buzzsprout is those super long URLs. 

Like it's, your podcast. 15 numbers slash the first 2000 characters of the title description. 

And you don't have a way to, control that.

That's just what it picks up. 

So then I was creating [00:07:00] redirects. And I'm still working on creating redirects. But I stopped for a second because I was like, okay. 

Where is this gonna end up? First of all. 

Like, how am I gonna rebuild this in a smart way? So before I made all of the redirects, I said, okay. 

I'm gonna stop for a second.

I'm gonna take a step back. And see what's the smartest way forward. 

Favour Obasi-ike: Yeah, you're doing it right. 

I'm glad that you're also taking time to look through it because when you make that move, you don't want to make another move again. 

Because you want to make sure that it's the right move for you. 

And also the right move for the people listening, too. 

Because what I realized. Moving it over to the website as opposed to just keeping it at a 

slash podcast. 

Which is still there, most people don't even end up on that slash podcast.

When I look at the search console, they end up on the actual podcast link. 

Because the name of your title of your podcast. 

Is the name of your URL, your uniform resource locator. 

Just like with LinkedIn. 

The very first seven words of your caption turns [00:08:00] into a URL on LinkedIn. 

So if you are creating content and you're using those keywords towards the left. 

And you're putting it on a website, let's say for this,

title of the show. 

It would be the name of the show. And then that name of the show would also be the URL. 

So that way you can decide, okay, I want this long. 

I want it short, depending on how you want it. 

And that way you can submit it to Google and now it becomes its own standing page. 

Which you can now use to index and rank your content for, wider listening too. 

Using Keywords Effectively

Crystal Waddell: And then I noticed something about, you said something about keywords. 

And like how if you don't change episode one and episode two or whatever to keywords, then you're missing an opportunity. 

Do you remember yes. What you were talking about there? Can you explain share with us what you meant?

Favour Obasi-ike: Yeah, thank you. 

Yeah. I always look at SEO and I put it in an analogy statement or bracket. 

Where, if I go to the library. And I'm looking for history books. 

I'm gonna look for history books on this history. That history. This revolution, that revolution. This year. That [00:09:00] year. 

If I don't have that year. Or that revolution, or that story. And it's not in my index.

The librarian can't give you that book. 

Because it's not in our index. We don't have it on the backend. 

So, the same thing applies to the title of your page. 

Because if you think about your website, it's a book. Everything that you're giving people are pages. 

Web pages are not a full book. It's just a page on the website.

So if Google is ranking your webpage, not your website. 

When it comes to those keywords. If you do season one, episode one. 

It'll be the name of your podcast.com/season-one-episode-one-the name of your show. 

Or the name of your episode. 

So you've spent so much time and characters. 

Crystal Waddell: I also am very interested in how to shorten my URL.

So it's just like how to differentiate without, messing it up for the search engine to understand exactly what I'm trying to do. 

Favour Obasi-ike: Yeah. 

I would say too, as you're doing [00:10:00] it, also on your main site. 

Point it back to your page that has that content. 

So let's say you have two websites, a parent website and a podcast website. 

You can point your podcast website to your parent website. 

Which will be on your show notes, on your podcast. Which is great for back linking. 

It's great for domain authority. When you put in your LinkedIn details, when you mask a text and you highlight it and put your keywords in there with the title of your URL.

Then that also shows up on different domains. 

Because the more you're putting your domains in different property banks, then the more people are connecting with you externally. 

So it's a really good way to give people insight about you. 

And that way you have two pages talking about one podcast show. 

Where you're ranking twice on Google because you have two different properties on the asset field.

I like that. Take it up more real estate on the search engine results page is always a good thing. 

Large Language Models and AI Tools

Crystal Waddell: Okay, so the last question I have for you. 

Is just really about around like large language models like chat, GPT, [00:11:00] Google Gemini. 

I guess it's a two, two-parter. What's your favorite large language model to use?

What are you using on a daily basis? 

Favour Obasi-ike: On a daily basis. 

I'm gonna let this out just because I love you and I love your audience, and you guys are amazing. 

I wanna give you guys a really cool tool. 

If you've never heard of it, try this out. I don't know where you hear this from, but this is something you can use to replace your assisting models.

For Chad, GPT or anything that you use. 

I use Harpa ai, H-A-R-P-A. AI. 

And Harpa. AI is literally think about all the language models together. As one. 

So literally it's like a powerhouse. It's like the Avengers. So you type in anything. It scans the code. It's a Chrome extension. And it's very affordable, very reasonable pricing.

And once you have it connected to your Chrome browser. Or to your brave browser. 

Then you can use that to now start scanning text like YouTube videos. I don't even watch YouTube videos anymore. [00:12:00] If that video doesn't have a timestamp, I'll create one for it. 

When you look at YouTube videos that have captions generated, those captions generated turn into text. 

Because it's coming from an SRT file extension.

When you think about movie titles and those, captions, it's coming from there. So when Google is now scraping to that data. It can create a structured, articulate way of actually giving you a language that you can understand. 

So I use Harpa. I love using Harpa.

If you wanna check out this new experiment called Google Learn about. 

That's also something that is happening.

If you just type in your name or your business name. See what Google knows about you. 

And if you're not there, put your links on Reddit. Put your links on LinkedIn. 

Put your links on Pinterest. 

Put your links on YouTube. 

Definitely on podcasts. 

Because the more platforms that are third party come to your first party website.

The more data you can possess. 

And also use to help other people get more out of their time. 

Because they're coming to you for help. 

And you wanna serve them. You wanna be a servant. 

You don't wanna be a seller. You don't wanna keep selling things. You wanna [00:13:00] tell them stories that they can remember.

So yeah, I use Harpa a lot and learn about too. 

Crystal Waddell: I like that. Tell them stories that they can remember. 

Very cool way of looking at it. Okay, last question. For real. 

Future Predictions for SEO

Crystal Waddell: Do you have any predictions for 2025 regarding SEO? 

Favour Obasi-ike: Ooh. I've always been saying this. SEO is gonna turn into thought leadership.

That's where I'm seeing it go. 

I don't know what year it's gonna turn into that. 

But people may stop saying SEO. And they might start saying, thought leadership. 

It might still be SEO. Completely, a hundred percent still possible. 

But I think the context will change. Because there's AI now. So it's gonna be like, okay. Who's the thought leader of this article? 

Who's the thought leader of this podcast? 

They're gonna be podcast AI too. So who's the thought leader of this book? 'cause you can write a book with Chat GPT now. 

So there's gonna be that thought leadership in place. 

And if you want to have that domain authority, it's still gonna point back to your website.

So I feel like things are gonna be changing now. 

But also short videos are gonna be [00:14:00] more extensive. 

Interactive content is gonna be the new thing. Animation is gonna be the new thing for SEO. 

So if you're thinking about animation. And also incorporating search voices into your business. 

That's a good time to start putting your brick and mortar or your online business website into those search engines.

Because. A time is coming that we're gonna be using a lot of voice search then text search. 

So if somebody's gonna search or ask Google or ask Siri, and you're not there. 

Or they don't give you a list of options. 

Then it's also good to look at where you're coming from your source. But I think that's gonna be a big prediction for 2025.

Crystal Waddell: Yeah, I think voice search is such a a hard thing for some people who are so used to traditional "type" search. 

But I felt like chat GBT was hard at first. Because I used Jasper. 

And so Jasper allowed me still to like kind of type in my query or whatever. 

And it would give me some responses back. 

But I didn't actually talk to it and chat back and forth.

So when chat GPT came out, I thought, oh, that's [00:15:00] weird. I don't like that. Like I don't like this conversation. 

And now I can't imagine not having that conversation. 

But it really was just like a mindset shift. 

And now even like when I'm driving, I can use chat GPT with voice. So I'm getting more comfortable with that.

And even though it's weird sometimes because I forget that I was using it. 

And then it still thinks it's part of the conversation when my son gets in the car. 

And it's oh, nobody was talking to you. 

But I just think as people get more comfortable, you're so right. 

For the ones who think voice search is never gonna really become a thing.

I'm just like. When it becomes so helpful that you can't ignore it.

Is when the shift is gonna happen. It'll be so swift that if you're not prepared for it, it'll be hard to catch up. 

So the only way to really be a part of the shift and the pivot when it happens. 

Is to prepare and build your business to be ready for it.

Favour Obasi-ike: Yeah, exactly. 

And you have to stay ready so you don't have [00:16:00] to get ready. 

We all know that. But how many of us apply it? 

I always ask people too, especially towards the end of the year, when was the last time you did something new for the first time? 

And if you can't answer that question in QuickTime.

Then there needs to be a solution for that. Because, there's so much we can do with so much time we have and we are not promised the time that we're given. 

So I feel like if we're able to not just post away, but actually post back and give back to yourself. 

Just like how you pay yourself first before you pay something else.

The same way you now pay attention to your website. 'cause some people still have copyright 2020 on their websites and we're going to 2025. 

So when you think about cleaning up your house and making it look clean. And people can visit it and keep coming back 'cause they're new visitors and returning visitors to your website. 

Then the more people can connect with you and the further you can stretch. 

Which now allows you to be compatible and compliant with the AI models coming in the future.

Crystal Waddell: That's so awesome. If someone's resonated with what you're saying, and they're like, [00:17:00] oh, you know what? 

I would love to contact Favour to talk to him more about, my business or my needs. 

How can they get in contact with you? 

Favour Obasi-ike: Thank you so much Crystal. I really appreciate you for giving this opportunity.

If you want to connect with me, please feel free to go to my website. 

Which is Play inc.online, P-L-A-Y-I-N-C. Online, and you just click book a call. 

And once you get there, you can be able to get on a call with me. 

And we can talk about your business in 20 minutes, understand what it is. 

And you'll have an email before you get on that call so we can talk through it and actually spend time together.

To make sure that your time is well spent and your delivery is well received, too. So you can connect to me there. 

Also go to, we don't play podcast.com if you wanna listen to the podcast. 

And sign up so that you can subscribe and get the emails that we have. 

We send emails every week and we connect with our people. 

And I'm so excited that I'm here all the way from Clubhouse, coming back here to you on the simple and smart SEO show.

And thank you so much for connecting with [00:18:00] me. 

And I look forward to working with you guys if you wanna. Ask for any questions, please feel free. I'm right here. 

I'm a call away. Thank you Crystal. 

Crystal Waddell: Yeah, thank you so much Favour.

It's been so much fun catching up. And guys, thanks for tuning in. Catch you next time.