E373: I met a guy using Parasite SEO on Reddit to drive listeners to his podcast.
Writes detailed Reddit posts about trending and consistently hot topics.
Manipulates Reddit a bit with upvotes.
Changes the post text. Removes the details he wrote and replaces it with a recommendation to listen to his podcast to learn about the topic.
The Reddit post ranks on Google.
People go to the Reddit post → go to the podcast → listen → some people become regular listeners.
Evil genius.
As recommended in the episode: “Ranking #1 on Google Twice This Week Within 24 Hours” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXYoEF5886M “How Bobbi Althoff Got Drake as a Guest for Her 4 Month Old Podcast” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD6ehuODLDY
00:00 Advanced Podcast Listener Strategies 00:05 Understanding Parasite SEO for Podcasts 00:56 Google Prioritization of User-Generated Content 02:40 Practical Steps for Implementing Parasite SEO 04:14 Using Reddit for Podcast Growth 10:59 Final Thoughts 12:43 This Podcast
#podcastmarketing #digitalmarketing #parasiteseo #growthhacking
This is how to get listeners to a podcast at dance mode. We're talking about something crazy today. This is parasite podcast SEO, combining a bunch of different buzzwords together. Parasite SEO for podcasts. So does that mean you're doing parasite SEO on podcasts? No, it means you're doing parasite SEO to drive listeners to a podcast. And this is what I have for you today. I met someone here in a hotel in Poland, crazy luxury hotel that I go to. Overheard somebody talking about digital marketing, started talking to this guy, this blew my mind. And I'm going to share this with you. I can't, of course, I can't name the person because parasite SEO has a dark name for a reason. It is against lots of terms of service, but I can share how it's done. And that is what I'm going to do. I'm going to share how this person is driving so many listeners to a podcast by doing parasite search engine optimization. What is parasite search engine optimization? Parasite search engine optimization means that you are using other platforms to rank for keywords on Google. Google is prioritizing user generated content. It's prioritizing platforms with lots of user generated content. And many of these platforms have very high domain authority. The reason that Google is prioritizing user generated content over, let's say, blog content is because blog content has gotten less trustworthy. People are jamming blogs with AI generated text. And the comments section of blogs are no longer used as much as they were in the past. People who are searching, they like comments. They like seeing if the content in what they're reading is legitimate or not. The comments will talk about that. The comments will add nuance. The comments will save something is legit. The comments will save something is false. Comments are very important. That's one of the reasons why when a lot of people do their searches, they will add plus Reddit at the end of their searches because they want to see what people are saying about a topic on Reddit. They'll do the same for TikTok. They'll do the same for Instagram. They'll do the same for LinkedIn. They want to see what users, real people are saying about a topic. And Google has seen this. And so they are boosting user generated content in their search engine results pages. I give this example all the time. Reddit one year ago was at number 80 in terms of market share in the search engine results pages, now it's at number five. It is the fifth most popular website on Google search. That is because Google is prioritizing the user generated content, such as what you will see on Reddit, on Quora, so many others. All right, so that is the background. It's called Parasite SEO. People are finding keywords. They're putting their keywords in the title of their posts. They're writing long descriptions, long post bodies using their keywords at the beginning of these descriptions and then throughout the descriptions as well. And then very importantly, they're getting engagement on the posts because a lot of these things won't rank on Google unless they have engagement. Google wants to see comments, Google wants to see upvotes, Google wants to see likes. I've talked about in the past actually very easy way to rank. And I do this every week. It's crazy. Find a keyword. Make a short form vertical video about that keyword. Write a long description for the video with that keyword. Put the keyword at the beginning of the description. You write a long description. The keyword goes at the beginning of the description. The video is about the keyword. The video comes out on Instagram reels on TikTok on YouTube shorts. And if you know how to make engaging content and it just takes a few months of practice to learn how to make engaging content, I taught myself by making videos every single day. If the video gets some engagement, if it gets comments, if it gets likes, there's a good chance that the next day it's going to rank very high on Google for this keyword that you selected. And I do this several times a week. I'll make a video about a keyword. And then the next day I'll see that video showing up number one for the keyword. I've talked about this on the podcast before. If you want to hear more about this, it's episode 352 of the show ranking number one on Google twice this week within 24 hours. That is the title of the episode. I'll also include it in the description. All right. So what did I learn from this character in this hotel? What craziness am I going to share with you? It's actually pretty easy to understand now that you know the background. Here's what this person is doing. So this person has a podcast. One of the challenges with any podcast is getting listeners. Podcasts marketing is notoriously difficult and takes a lot of time. There are ways to jumpstart this such as having an existing audience being famous, doing some huge stunts with your podcast similar to what Bobby Althof did, how she got Drake on her four month old podcast and made it the number one podcast in the world. That is exceedingly rare, but she did several big stunts to do that actually made a whole episode about that too. That's episode 36 of the show. That'll be in the description too. Or just growing on social media and constantly plugging your podcast. But here's another way to jumpstart this so brilliant. So this person has a niche and every now and then he'll find a hot topic in the niche or something that is trending, trending news in the niche. And this works very well with both of these trending news and hot topics. The person uses Reddit parasite SEO. Like I said, Reddit is prioritized in the search engine results pages. I don't know if I should be talking about this, but I'm going to share it because it's so wild. You may have noticed yourself Reddit showing up in the Google search results. This person will write long explanations of these trending topics or of these hot topics. The topic is the keyword and that keyword that topic is in the post title and at the beginning of the description. The person will post these long descriptions of trending topics and hot topics onto a related subreddit for the niche for this person's niche. Then this person will jumpstart it by buying up votes for the post. Not a lot of up votes. You just Google buy up votes. I'm not going to give any recommendations on how to buy up votes. In fact, I'm not recommending any of this. I'm just sharing this story. I don't recommend this stuff. I just share this stuff since person buys up votes, not a lot, just enough to jump started because the thing is if the post isn't good and the person buys lots of up votes for the post and it's going to be very clear that this person is gaming Reddit and if the person is caught gaming Reddit, person risks having all of his posts taken down, which would be very detrimental to this strategy as you will find out in a moment person is very safe with the upvote buying person does not be suspected of gaming Reddit and the person is OK with having posts that flop. But the person will buy a few upvotes, maybe 10, maybe 25. Usually it's on the low end, so it could be 10 and that will usually be enough just to get it into the top spot of the subreddit. And if the post is good and oftentimes the post is good because it's on trending topics, this person does his research. Then the post will be naturally upvoted to the number one spot on the subreddit. So here is where the craziness begins. A few days later, this is super against the rules. A few days later, this person will change the contents of the post. So the post is no longer on the front page of the subreddit. Reddit, if you don't know, has all these different boards on it. It's a it's a forum with all these different boards and each board is a different topic. People vote on posts on the board on the subreddit and upvotes make the post go down, which means it gets less visibility. So you want to put up something good so it gets upvotes and it gets more visibility, and then eventually a couple hours later, or if it's not a very highly traffic subreddit, it could be a couple of days later, the post just naturally goes down. It's usually a couple hours later. And then eventually it moves off of the front page of the subreddit and it goes back. It gets pushed back and back and back as new posts are made on this subreddit, on this board. This is so crazy. So a few days later, the post is no longer at the front of the subreddit, it's no longer in the first page, no longer at the top, buried way deep because of all the new posts, a few days later, the person changes the contents of the post and there's a limit. I forget what the limit is, but after a certain amount of days or weeks posts can no longer be updated. So it's right before this point where posts can no longer be edited, can no longer be updated. So this person will change. So actually, you know, before I say what happens, let me rewind back a little bit before the person puts up the Reddit posts in the first place, the person also puts up a podcast episode about this trending topic or about this hot topic. So the person did his research for this trending topic, hot topic, enough research to make a podcast about it puts up that podcast. Again, use the keyword, the trending topic is the keyword, the hot topic. It's the keyword puts that keyword in the podcast title, podcast description. The keyword goes at the beginning of the podcast description and it's using the podcast title. So the podcast is made then the Reddit posts is made. And now we're several days later right before the point where posts on Reddit can no longer be updated and this person changes the person edits this post. The person says and the title of the post stays the same. But the body of the post is different. So the first sentence will be maintained. So it has that keyword person says, if you want to hear a crazy breakdown of this trending topic or of this hot topic, listen to this podcast, it's amazing. Here's a few extra sentences of detail and then that's it. And here's what happens. The Reddit posts got enough engagement, enough comments, enough upvotes. It did well enough, enough traffic that it ranks on Google for this trending topic, for this hot topic, whatever it is, if it's a hot topic or a trending topic, it's trending news or if it's just something that's always hot in that niche, it's ranking on Google for that people are searching the trending topic or they're searching the hot topic and then this Reddit post comes up and the person, the searcher on Google clicks on the Reddit posts and then they get to this Reddit post, but the Reddit post isn't describing it anymore. It used to be describing it, but it's not. Now, the Reddit post says to hear the description of this trending topic of this hot topic, go and listen to this podcast episode and links to the podcast episode on YouTube. That is what is happening. And then people go and listen to this podcast episode and a few of these people convert into regular listeners. Crazy, crazy, but this was so wild, so brilliant, such a wild black hat funnel, so wild against the rules funnel. So few people think of stuff like this. I thought it was so smart, so crazy. Now, again, I'm not recommending it, even though it's pretty easy to do. I'm not recommending it, but it's crazy and getting listeners to a podcast is hard. I think podcasts are really dumb to start. If you don't have an existing audience, I started this podcast because I had an existing audience. I think starting podcasts without an existing audience or without an existing audience, I don't have an existing audience, I don't have an existing audience. I don't have an existing audience, I don't have an existing audience. I don't have an existing audience, I don't have an existing audience. I don't have an existing audience, I don't have an existing audience. I don't have an existing audience, I don't have an existing audience. I don't have an existing audience, I don't have an existing audience. I don't have an existing audience, I don't have an existing audience. I don't have an existing audience, I don't have an existing audience. The available user interface, terrible user experience, the app breaks all the time. It's inconsistent, it's slow, but they are very good at media buying and at app store optimization and at organic social media and they're making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month and their costs are not very high. He can see that if you use sensor tower.com, you can see how much apps are making. And he's sensor tower.com. He's seeing that his competitors are killing it again because it's about the marketing. Product is important, don't get me wrong. I totally believe product is important, but this is a marketing show. I love marketing, I love visibility and I know that a mediocre product can still get users, can still get customers with good marketing. I haven't listened to a lot of this person's podcast. I think it's above mediocre because this person is very smart and well spoken. But generally with podcasts, as with any other product, it's good to have a way to drive visibility, to drive listeners, to drive people who are watching to the podcast. So I thought this was so smart and that is what I wanted to share with you on episode 373 of my daily digital marketing podcast is episode 373 of the Edward Show. I do this thing seven days a week every day. It is truly daily. I started this podcast 373 days ago back home in New York City. Now I'm in Europe. I do this thing even when I have red-eye flights, when I'm traveling, no matter the city I'm in, I did this thing. I was pretty sick a few months ago, but I still got out a podcast episode every day. And some of them did all right. Do this thing every day. This is my stick. I believe the consistency, even if I have an episode that is mediocre and I rarely do. Come on, the show is amazing. But even if I have an episode that is mediocre, I think the consistency is still enough to inspire people and words going at it. Every day I do this, and I really believe that every day I do it. Every day I get a little bit better. Thank you so much, everybody for watching. Thank you so much for listening. Hope this provided some crazy insights, a crazy story. I will talk to you again tomorrow.
