How to do SEO for music and podcasts on Spotify?

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How the Spotify algorithm works
As I mentioned earlier, if you are a Spotify user, you have probably noticed that it recommends content very similar to what you usually listen to. The algorithm is based on user behavior and their main interests.

Let's say you're into hip-hop and you listen to A$AP Rocky a lot. Spotify's algorithm will naturally recommend artists like Pusha T or Tyler the Creator instead of Adele.

It does this by recognizing certain parameters specific to genres and songs, such as the tempo, the rhythm of the song, its chords, and even its “mood”!

The same would happen with Podcasts, if you normally listen to Digital Marketing podcasts, this is what it will recommend to you. The algorithm loses some effectiveness in podcasts in terms of what we were referring to regarding rhythm or musical genre, it is necessary to use small SEO tips to be able to position yourself better or be discovered.

How to be found on Spotify?
Before we get into the tips, we need to differentiate the three ways to be discovered on the platform, and know which ones we can interfere with and which ones we cannot.

1. Through the search engine:
Spotify's search engine will probably be the most used by users. The main interior designers service email database advantage of the search engine is that you must already have a high brand recognition, since users, before searching for you, must know your podcast/band . Therefore, it is a very beneficial tool for those artists who are already known, but if you are a "newbie" on Spotify, it will be the most complicated way to attract new listeners.


As we can see in the image, the results of a search are very few. It forces the user to make more clicks through the categorization that we find on the results page (Songs, Albums, Playlists and finally Podcasts).

Improve your SEO!
This search engine is quite basic in the sense that it responds strictly to the keyword entered. We do not get the same results if we enter “workout” as “work out” when the search intent is exactly the same.



Therefore, keywords are one of the factors that must be worked on, as we will see later.

2. Through user-generated lists:

User-generated playlists can bring a lot of value to us as an emerging artist.

We should focus on finding playlists that have a lot of followers and have the traction we need to promote our content and ask for its inclusion.

We are also interested in detecting a pattern of keywords in these playlists. For example, if your music tends to have a sad tone, we will look for playlists with music that resembles it, since we also want to respond to normal user behavior and provide content that they will like.

3. Through playlists generated by the algorithm (Weekly Discovery, Artist Radios, personalized playlists):

These playlists are the ones we can have the least influence on, since they depend 100% on the algorithm. As we have mentioned before, the algorithm is based on about 20 variables to identify and organize music in its database. Another very curious feature of the algorithm is that sometimes it is also based on the behavior of users that Spotify considers “early adopters” within its platform. That is, the algorithm detects those users who listened to groups when they were emerging and today “have succeeded.” Therefore, it estimates that the evolution may be similar for other artists, and therefore, it takes them into account when selecting content for weekly discoveries.

4. Through Playlists generated by Spotify:

The streaming platform also generates playlists manually . These are the ones in which we can see the logo in the playlist image above on the left.

These types of playlists are the most difficult to manage, as they are created by expert curators at Spotify. They are usually playlists with many plays and listeners, with bands that suit a wide variety of users.

Now that we know how you can appear in different types of searches, we give you the basic tips to get your podcast positioned on Spotify.

SEO tips to position your podcast on Spotify
Just like in the more “typical” SEO, it is also necessary to work on keywords in Spotify . We have seen in some of the search examples that having the right keywords can have a big impact on search results.

In order to position your podcast, you must optimize the keywords in both the title and the description as much as possible.

How to optimize keywords on Spotify?
First of all, we must take into account that there are no clear guidelines, as there are on Google, for example. We have relied mainly on search results for this:

The title should not exceed 50 characters , as it will be cut off and the CTR will probably be reduced . It should generate brand image and also contain the main keyword, which is essential. This is because, when searching for new podcasts through the search engine, the main result is a podcast channel and not an episode. So if your channel's main keyword is the topic of the podcast, all the better.