Learn the Poor Man’s SEO, a simple three-part framework that makes every podcast episode findable and compounds on your website over time.
Most coaches hit publish and move on.
The episode goes live on YouTube. Maybe it gets pushed to audio platforms. They share it once on Instagram. And then, nothing. The content just sits there, slowly collecting dust in a corner of the internet that nobody is visiting.
Here’s the frustrating part. That’s not a content quality problem. Most coaches are creating genuinely valuable material. The problem is what happens, or more precisely, what doesn’t happen, after the episode goes live. There’s no foundation underneath it. And without a foundation, no amount of great content will compound over time.
What we call the Poor Man’s SEO is the fix. It’s not going to make you rank number one on Google overnight. It’s not a replacement for a full SEO agency, there’s a time and place for that investment in every growing business. But before any of that matters, you need this foundation. And right now, almost no coaches have it.
What the Poor Man’s SEO Actually Is
The concept is straightforward. Every time you record an episode, that content should live on your website in three forms: the video, a blog post, and the full transcript. That’s it. Three things. On your website. Every single week.
The video gives watchers what they want. The blog post gives readers what they want. The transcript does something most coaches have never even thought about, it gives Google something to work with.
When you post a full transcript on your website, you are adding thousands of words of keyword-rich content that search engines can index. You’re not stuffing keywords artificially. You’re just publishing the conversation you already had. Over time, Google figures out who you are, what you talk about, and who should be finding you. That’s not magic. That’s just how search engines work, and most coaches are leaving it completely on the table.
The CCOS: Turning One Episode Into Multiple Assets
At 1898 Creative, we call this process our Content Creation Operating System (CCOS).
The idea behind CCOS is simple. If you record a great episode and it only lives in one place, you’ve severely underutilized what you just created. A 45-minute conversation contains enough material to feed your website, your social accounts, and your email list for an entire week, if you have a system to pull it apart.
The Poor Man’s SEO is the foundational layer of that system. Every episode goes in three places on your website: YouTube houses the video, the audio platforms house the audio, and your website blog roll houses the video, the blog post, and the full transcript, all together on one page.
Think about what that creates over time. If you publish consistently, you’re adding a new video, a new blog post, and a new full transcript to your website every single week. Your website is never stagnant. It’s always being updated. And search engines prioritize websites that are regularly updated with relevant content.
That weekly rhythm is how you stake your claim on the internet. You’re not waiting for a viral moment. You’re building a searchable, compounding library of your expertise, week by week, episode by episode.
Why the Transcript Is the Most Underrated Step
If you only implement one thing from this post, make it the transcript. Most coaches either don’t know they can get a transcript quickly and for free, or they don’t understand why it matters. The reason it matters is simple: a transcript is your episode in text form. It includes every topic, every concept, every term, every name, and every question that came up in the conversation.
When that text lives on your website, every one of those keywords is now indexed. Someone searching for content strategy for coaches, or podcast repurposing, or how to build authority online, your page is now in the conversation. Not because you did anything technical. Just because you published the words you were already saying.
Dustin said it well: it’s staking claim on the worldwide web. This is who you are. This is what you’re about. And you’re making it harder and harder for Google to ignore you.
How to Get Your Transcript (Free)
Getting a transcript is easier than most coaches think. Riverside.fm has a free transcription tool. Upload your audio file, audio processes faster than video because the file is smaller, and you’ll have a full transcript within minutes.
From there, drop it into Claude or ChatGPT and ask for a cleaned-up version. Ask for a blog post. Ask for a meta description. Let AI do the heavy lifting on the first draft and then edit it in your voice. That becomes the process you run after every single episode.
Video at the top. Blog post below the video. Transcript below the blog post. That’s the page. That’s the foundation.
Do that consistently and you will be in the top one percent of coaches creating content right now — not because you outspent anyone, not because you had a better idea, but simply because you did the foundational work that almost everyone skips.
There’s no shortcut that replaces this. But there’s also nothing complicated about it. You already have the content. You just need to put it where people. and search engines, can actually find it.
If you want to see the Poor Man’s SEO working in real time, go to 1898creative.com and check out our podcast page. That’s exactly what we do for ourselves and our clients every single week.
Watch or listen to Episode 018 of the Coaching with Content podcast for the full conversation.
Full Transcript
Darren: One of the things that we’ve found that is really strong is just this idea of the Poor Man’s SEO. This isn’t an SEO strategy. This isn’t going to replace a company that does this for a living. This is just something that we do to make sure the foundation of what happens is solid and working for you.
So Dustin, when it comes to SEO, let’s talk a little bit about what SEO is and maybe what it isn’t.
Dustin: Yeah. I’m no SEO expert, but I think it stands for search engine optimization. And so it’s basically — this is my non-SEO brain trying to describe SEO — I had two meetings this week with SEO experts who are friends and clients of mine, and I’m just going, I hope they never hear me try to explain this. But if we have good SEO, then maybe they’ll accidentally hear me.
Yeah, I mean, we’re talking about being able to make your stuff findable. The worldwide web is just massive — it’s bigger than the world itself. So how can you get your information found? How can you get your business, your coaching, found in this just giant endless ocean?
Darren: And what it’s not — if we’re framing today’s conversation — what it’s not is a full-fledged SEO strategy that gives you all of these things and guarantees all of this success and you’re going to rank number one in Google tomorrow. That’s not what we’re saying here.
What it is for us today is a simple path to platform your idea, your podcast episode, your blog — all of that — so that when somebody finds you, there are ways that they can engage with your content in a strong way. That’s really what we’re talking about with the Poor Man’s SEO. It’s just making sure that everything is aligned in a way that makes sense to somebody that comes across your content in some way or form.
So let’s frame out, Dustin, what we do with each and every episode for each and every client in our full system.
Dustin: I walk through that. I assume this is where you’re going. This is the strategy behind the CCOS process, right? Or more the outcome of CCOS — what you actually get. I don’t know if that’s where we’re going, but if so, I’m happy to dive into it.
Darren: No, that’s exactly where we’re headed. Let’s break down what we mean when we say CCOS. CCOS is our Content Creation Operating System. This is a process we use because if you are recording episodes, creating content, putting it out into the world — you can have a really good conversation, it goes out on YouTube or the audio platforms, and then it just stays there. That’s it.
Our CCOS process is taking that content and leveraging it across the board. Taking it and creating other pieces of assets from that conversation that allow for more reach and more clients connecting with who you are and what you do.
So if we say CCOS, you’re officially in — you know the insider language. CCOS: Content Creation Operating System. Boom.
Every episode needs to walk through a repurposing process so that we’re leveraging it to the best of its ability. And one of the things we feel very strongly about is this Poor Man’s SEO piece.
Every episode will obviously go on YouTube — that’s the video platform we use. Then you take the audio and put it out on all the audio platforms. Those are just where everything is housed and stored.
But then there’s a third one that we like to do, which is your business or personal website — your blog roll, where content is being added to your page consistently. And anybody worth their weight in gold in SEO strategy is going to ask: what are you doing each week, each month, to update your website so there’s new content going on your site in some way, shape, or form?
So what we do is take the episode and drop it into a blog roll on your website. The video is there. But then we also create a blog post around it — so if somebody is more of a reader than a watcher, or they don’t want to sit through an hour-long podcast, they can read a five-minute blog post instead.
We take that blog and put it underneath the video. And then what I feel is really strong in this SEO strategy piece is we take the full transcript of that episode. Say you have a 45-minute conversation — you take that transcript, put it underneath the blog post. It says “Transcript” and then it’s the full word-for-word text of the episode above.
So you have the video, you have the blog, you have the transcript. And now what you have is a massive piece of content — 45 minutes of conversation — living on your website every single week. You rinse and repeat that each and every week. Your transcript is full of all the keywords: podcasting, Coaching with Content, Darren Cooper, 1898 Creative, Dustin Pead. I’m chalking this transcript full of our keywords right now. But it’s all the things we naturally talk about. Over time, Google is going to catch on to who you are and what you do.
And there’s a secondary piece to this, Dustin — when you create consistent content on YouTube and audio platforms, YouTube eventually starts to figure out who you are and what you talk about. They’ll start serving those videos up to the right people because you’re creating long-form content. That’s why we believe in long-form content here.
So one big thing we do that is helpful in building that foundational layer is — obviously video, obviously audio — but putting this on your website as the Poor Man’s SEO allows you to get in front of people in a quicker, more efficient way. Dustin, what do you think?
Dustin: What you’re saying is it’s staking claim on the worldwide web. This is who you are. This is what you’re about. You don’t have to worry only about whether you’re saying the right things on your website — yes, you obviously need to worry about that — but in terms of being found on the internet, if we take this transcript word for word and put it somewhere on your website, your site is going to be elevated quicker when people are searching the things you’re talking about. And that’s what you want. A clean transcript helps that. The pillar blog post helps that too.
Darren: Obviously we do a lot more in our CCOS process with all of our deliverables. But this SEO piece is what I wanted to highlight today. If you simply take each episode or each video, do a blog post around it, add the transcript, and get it onto your website — now there is an ongoing flow to what you do. Someone comes to your website, they see what you do, they see this blog roll or podcast roll, they click on it, and now they’re seeing updated content. It becomes a way for them to engage with your stuff even more.
It’s a solid foundation. If you just simply do that, it’s going to be a solid foundation for you. It doesn’t mean you’re going to rank number one in Google. It doesn’t mean this is the best SEO strategy on the planet. That’s why it’s the Poor Man’s SEO. But this is a great foundational piece. And if you implement this today, you would be in the top 1%. the hard work of bringing that to life, and go out and create your art. We’ll see you here next time on the Coaching with Content podcast.