PSO Keyword Audit Template

Find the right keywords and optimize your metadata more effectively

Podcast Search Optimization (PSO) is the key to making your show more discoverable on platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Yet many podcasters choose their keywords intuitively, without a clear method. The result: they miss out on strategic terms, target keywords that are too competitive, or overlook valuable long-tail opportunities.

This template was created to help you avoid those mistakes and give you a simple but highly effective method.

The first tab, “Keyword List”, is your brainstorming space. Gather all your keyword ideas without filtering, then add the essential data: search volume and difficulty score. With the built-in formula, a relevance score is automatically calculated, helping you quickly identify the most promising keywords. From there, you can sort your ideas and highlight the ones with the best potential.

The second tab, “Selection and Prioritization”, helps you structure your strategy. The goal isn’t just to collect keywords but to give them a hierarchy. You’ll define one primary keyword (the core of your positioning), then select secondary and satellite keywords that expand your reach across a broader semantic field. Finally, you’ll set aside lower-priority keywords to test later or use for complementary content. This hierarchy is especially useful if you’re targeting multiple countries—a keyword may be effective in the U.S. but far less relevant in Canada, or vice versa.

The third tab, “Metadata”, centralizes everything that shapes your podcast’s identity on listening platforms. Title, long and short descriptions, author, bio, tags, episode signature—all in one place. The character counter helps ensure you stay within platform-recommended limits, which is essential for effective PSO. With all your metadata in one table, you gain consistency and efficiency—no more searching through scattered documents.

Using this worksheet means moving from an intuitive approach to a structured, strategic one. You’ll stop choosing keywords at random—you’ll evaluate, compare, and prioritize them. You’ll stop letting your metadata evolve haphazardly—you’ll centralize and optimize it.

When combined with Ausha’s PSO Control Panel, this template becomes part of a winning duo: on one hand, a reflection and organization tool to build your keyword strategy; on the other, an expert platform that delivers the data (volume, difficulty, AI suggestions) and performance tracking. Together, they turn PSO into a clear, measurable, and effective process.

Downloading and using this template gives you the tools to build a strong, scalable, growth-focused PSO strategy. You’ll know which keywords to target, how to organize them, and how to leverage them to make your podcast more visible and more appealing to your audience.