SEO for Podcasters Isn’t a Buzzword — It’s a Blueprint With PodSEO Co-Founder Francesco Baschieri
Francesco Baschieri on building PodSEO and why indie podcasters are still flying blind
On a sunny day in Wasilla, Alaska - MY neck of the woods for a change and five months to the day after launching his newest venture - I sat across from Francesco Baschieri — over pizza and cold beers on his was to see Denali National Park in a quick break in his vacation — to talk about the SEO-shaped hole in podcasting.
If you don’t know Francesco, you probably know the trail he’s blazed: Spreaker co-founder, CEO of VoxNest, acquired by iHeartMedia in 2020. He stayed on a few years, building out their podcast tech stack — often alongside his wife and longtime collaborator, Valentina. Shoutout to Valentina for being an absolute gem and letting Francesco do the interview on their vacation.
But when it came time for the next thing?
“I said to myself, for the love of God, nothing in podcasting.”
Naturally, he ended up right back in it.
The Premise: What if podcasting learned from app stores?
After taking a break, Francesco teamed back up with his old colleague and longtime friend Andrea (now CEO) to found PodSEO, a visibility analytics and keyword optimization platform for podcasters.
The premise is simple: while mobile app marketers have spent years refining their SEO/ASO playbooks, podcasting remains in the dark.
“The old wisdom was: make great cover art, be consistent, you’ll get found. That didn’t work in tech, and it doesn’t work in podcasting either.”
Why? Because podcast search is broken… or if not exactly ‘broken’, it IS being strangled to death by dead and defunct feeds.
“The listening platforms are full of corpses. Four or five million shows, most of them long dead, still show up in search results.”
The Insight: Podcasting is a subscription medium, not just a publishing one.
Francesco believes podcasting is fundamentally misaligned when it comes to growth. Networks spend 60–70% of their budgets on promotion. Indies? Nearly 100% goes into production — leaving discoverability to luck, or spammy growth services.
PodSEO is built to fix that. Not by guessing, but by measuring.
“You can’t grow what you can’t measure. PodSEO shows you exactly where your podcast ranks for target keywords across platforms like Apple and Spotify, day by day.”
The platform does three key things:
Rank Tracking — shows where your podcast appears in search by keyword.
Keyword Intelligence — suggests primary and secondary keywords based on difficulty and volume.
Actionable Prompts — tells you what changes to make to improve your rankings, and when.
It's sticky for users who try it, but Francesco admits: slow adoption is the current reality.
How It Works: Keywords, Metadata & A Dose of Patience
Ranking in podcast search isn’t just about the title.
Each platform has its own quirks. Apple, for instance, weighs title and author fields heavily. Spotify plays by its own rules. And while the old “iTunes keywords” field is mostly legacy, some hosts still syndicate to places (like Castbox) where it does matter.
Francesco recommends that PodSEO users follow a simple, but effective playbook:
Pick a primary keyword that captures your niche
Choose 2–3 secondaries based on opportunity (difficulty vs volume)
Let rankings settle for a few weeks before changing things
Cycle keywords based on how you’re performing
“Page one is everything. Positions in the top 3-5 is the magic range.”
Just don’t expect miracles from episode descriptions or random field stuffing.
“There’s not much difference between most used fields. Author and title are your power fields.”
Platform Problems: Dupes, Dead Feeds & Divided Attention
“There are tons of duplicate feeds in Apple. Same podcast, different ratings and reviews. It cuts your chance at visibility in half.”
It’s a story as old as podcasting. I see it all the time with indie creators all the way up to premier news network mega-clients - podcasting is poorly understood from a technical standpoint, so when shows switch hosting, lose a producer, etc they often end up making big mistakes like duplicating their apple feed by resubmitting, rather than CLAIMING their show on the platform. Same for Spotify.
What most podcasters, even those who understand it is a common pitfall, don’t understand is why that matters so much.
It all goes back to how SEO works on the platforms. Specifically, keyword competition. If your show is partially being ranked based on downloads/listens when compared with other users of the same keyword, then splitting your audience artificially is going to screw up your entire discoverability algorithm.
What’s Next: AI Host Reads and Indie Uplift
For PodSEO, Francesco sees a clear evolution ahead: deeper integrations with hosting platforms and maybe, one day, direct optimization into the platforms themselves. That’s not live yet — but it’s the roadmap.
As for the future of podcast tech?
“Everyone’s chasing YouTube. Two years ago it was brand safety. Same hype cycle, different words.”
Francesco’s more interested in where AI can really help:
Scripted live reads that speed up ad production
Generative audio tools to help indie podcasters rival public radio
Less buzz, more utility.
“I’m not bullish on video. Most podcasts are boring to watch. It’s just a guy sitting there.”
The advantage, he says, goes to whoever can make the tools smart enough to lift the long tail — not just the top 1% of creators.
TL;DR Takeaways
Podcast search is broken. Dead feeds still dominate search results across apps.
Indie podcasters underinvest in visibility. SEO-minded keyword strategy is essential, as is advertising.
Focus on Title + Author fields. Apple especially gives both major weight.
Rotate and rank keywords intentionally. Track progress over weeks.
AI will help — but not where you think. Francesco’s betting on tools, not trends.
Stay tuned for more bonus content on PodSEO! Francesco promised a trial The Podcast Tech Stack - which we’ll be deploying across clients and sharing the results for.
Next up: an interview with the team behind ADOPTER Media on how monetizing your show works.