"In the fall of 2021, BU Today launched a new regular podcast, which is published every other week, called Question of the Week. It uses a Boston University faculty member or staff member with unique expertise to discuss a newsworthy and timely subject with the podcast host. The conversation would be brief, between seven and 15 minutes ideally.
An important part of the podcast production was search engine optimization (SEO). Once a timely topic is selected, our producers conduct thorough research into the precise wording of the selected question or topic. Using the optimized question as the headline, the podcast and associated transcript would rank highly in Google search results, or appear as a Featured Snippet.
Another piece of the SEO puzzle is publishing a transcript for each episode on the same page as the podcast. The transcript not only makes the podcast more accessible, but it also contains several instances of the keyword or phrase, making the page rank well for our focus keyword. In addition, given that YouTube is the second largest search engine, we also uploaded a simple audiogram version of each podcast on BU Today’s existing YouTube channel, optimizing the description for search on YouTube."
From the Judges
Strong nomination that tackles head on a very important topic. The judging panel was very engaged by the staff person that guest hosted the podcast and they felt it added another level of engagement.
