Get updated on the search engine scene in your car or working out! Here are the five best search engine marketing podcasts.

We admit it: At first we didn’t get it. Who on earth would like to spend an hour listening to some enthusiasts babbling about the latest search engine news, when you can absorb the same amount of useful information in 10 minutes reading a blog?
After all: We are busy people!

Then we tested some podcasts on our iPod, on long flights, on the train, and on our rowing machine and found that they can actually work quite well — exactly because they make you slow down and bring you out of the regular manic multitasking mode.

That doesn’t mean that all search engine podcasts are worth while. Some of them are so full of chatting and off-topic nonsense that you feel an urgent need to give the hosts a serious kick in the butt. Other conversations are like bad episodes of Beavis and Butthead.

But then, suddenly, in between all this small talk you are presented with a real gem, an original perspective, or a search engine marketing secret so black that the hosts would never dare to write about in their blogs.

And, what’s just as important, the fact that many of these podcasts take the form of regular conversations, means that you get a lot of info on the social SEM scene that might be very useful if you are trying to get on the inside of this particular community.

There are quite a few SEM related podcasts out there, and many can be found by doing a search for “search engine” in the iTunes Store.

However, so far it seems that all the worth while search engine marketing podcasts are published by one company: WebmasterRadio.FM. They have managed to introduce a certain level of professionalism to a medium that is otherwise amateur heaven, and they have their own style: American, funny and outside the box.

You do not have to use iTunes to listen to these podcasts. Go to the WebmasterRadio.FM archive for links. You may also follow many of the shows live, and join the hosts in the Webmasterradio.fm chat room.

The Daily Searchcast

“Want to keep up with the latest in search news while you’re on the go? Check out The Daily SearchCast…it’s a 10-15 minute recap of the previous day’s news.” Or at least, that’s what the ad says.

The fact is that a Daily Searchcast normally takes up to 30 minutes. Nevertheless, this makes it the shortest search engine marketing show on the market. And that’s a good thing, believe us!

Danny Sullivan is the best known search engine expert in the world and he definitely knows what he is talking about. He follows the search engine scene through the Search Engine Land blog and through his role as a search engine conference facilitator. He uses this knowledge when planning his radio shows.

Every show is well structured and he even prepares a Daily Searchcast blog post with all the relevant links available before the show. This means, of course, that he has to present all the news listed, which normally leads to the final five to ten minutes becoming very hectic indeed. His co-hosts normally have to struggle hard to get in a word, and most of them give up eventually.

if you want a focused and competence based summary of the latest search engine news, this is the podcast for you. And as an added bonus, you may also get the chance to hear Danny sing!

Daily Searchcast archive.

The Pulse

Compared to Danny’s hectic pace, the Pulse is an oasis of search engine marketing calm. Barry Schwartz and co-hosts Ben Pfeiffer and Chris Boggs discuss the latest news from the search engine industry, expanding on the various topics using their vast search engine marketing experience.

Barry “Rustybrick” Schwartz is the editor of the Search Engine Roundtable site. Benjamin Pfeiffer and Chris Boggs are his Roundtable co-editors. Hence it would be fair to call the Pulse the Roundtable podcast.

The Pulse archive.

SEO Rockstars

The SEO Rockstars are Todd “Oilman” Friesen and Greg “WebGuerrilla” Boser, and yes, there is something “heavy metallish” about this podcast. They are outspoken, sarcastic and very well informed. We especially like their ability to put a lot of the most common SEO myths to the test, and then debunk them.

Todd and Greg do not practice black hat SEO techniques themselves. Nobody does — officially. Nevertheless, this is the place to go to learn about what Webmasterradion.fm calls “high risk methods of online marketing”.

Todd can be found blogging at the Oilman blog, Greg at WebGuerilla.

SEO Rockstars archive.

GoodKarma

Greg “GoodROI” Niland presents a low key podcast that should be perfect for beginners. He normally spends an hour or so on interviewing one expert on search engine marketing related issues, asking explicitly for hands-on SEM advice.

If you follow his program live, you can also answer questions in the chatroom and win a prize.

Greg is a New York based SEM adviser and affiliate marketer. He is blogging at GoodRoi Internet Marketing.

GoodKarma archive.

Strikepoint

Strikepoint is the European answer to SEO Rockstars. Thanks to the most British of all SEO experts, Dave Naylor, it definitely belongs to the “Explicit Language” or “I don’t like Mondays” category — which, of course, is what makes this radio show so entertaining.

His co-host is the Dane Mikkel DeMib Svendsen. He often makes heroic effort to keep the show on the track, so that the two of them can manage to cover the topic of the day before the program is over. Amazingly enough, they often succeed.

Dave Naylor can be found blogging at DaveN. Mikkel has his own Danish language blog. Dette er meget bra, Mikkel!

By the way, Strikepoint covers the whole search engine scene, and should be just as interesting for Non-Europeans.

Strikepoint archive.

See also The Pandia Search Engine Detective List of podcasts. (See left hand column)