How To Write Show Notes For Your Podcast
It’s important that your relationship with your audience extends beyond audio. This is where show notes come in. Podcast show notes are a written description of the content covered in an episode. Show Notes can be viewed by clicking on an episode’s info within podcast listening apps. Many podcasters also post them on their website. In this article, we’ll be covering how to write show notes for your podcast.
Show notes help reinforce the message of an episode by complementing audio content with imagery and articles. This creates an in-depth look at an episode topic that can be consumed audibly and visually.
Your show notes will serve as a hub that listeners can access to learn more about you, your guests, and the resources, and information that were discussed in an episode. Within your show notes, it’s also a great idea to add links to websites, social media accounts, promotions, books, courses, etc…
While listening to a podcast have you ever memorized a link or promo code mentioned in the middle of an episode? Maybe, but it’s tough to remember on the fly. Ideally, the host of the podcast put that link in the show notes, that way anybody can pull it up on the web, and get that discount code. See how easy that was?
Writing Show Notes vs. Blogging
Rest assured, writing show notes are not as involved as blogging. You aren’t expected to write out the entirety of an episode you recorded into a blog post. That’s a lot of work and redundant. What you do want to do, is to create a short summary of your episodes, hitting highlights, and takeaways. Think of it as a written commercial for an episode, not quite as long as a blog post, but longer than a tweet. It is important to make these short “commercials” a minimum of 300-400 words, and this is why…
Show Notes Will Boost SEO
If you create show notes for each episode of your podcast, this will help your website to be found by search engines like Google, through keywords, and in turn will bring those people searching those keywords to your website and, fingers crossed, to your podcast.
But, in order for that to occur, you need a post 300 words or longer, and your post needs to contain keywords that potential listeners would search for in relation to the topic of your specific episode and/or in your general podcast niche.
Search engines can find text, but not audio (yet), therefore show notes will be your best friend when it comes to using SEO as a marketing tool for your podcast.
You can use general terms or words that may take a new listener to your main podcast page. For example, if your podcast is on books, this is a pretty wide genre, and keywords like books, new authors, and classic stories are fairly general search terms that may not lead searchers to your podcast page. However, if you do an episode on little libraries, you are going to want to make your keywords more specific when it comes to posting show notes for that particular episode, like little free library, or little library map, any keywords that are more specific to that more narrow topic. Your goal is to gather in the potential listeners who are searching for those specific terms.
How To Write Your Show Notes
If you’re wondering, “How do I write the show notes for my podcast, like, physically write them?” We’ll show you below. First things first, you’ve got to create a template. This way each post looks the same and you can just plug in new information for each episode. Here’s what to include in the template:
- Name of Guest, Guest’s Profession, Title of Episode
- Paragraph 1: Guest Bio
- Paragraph 2: Brief Episode Summary
- Bullet points: Highlight Key Talking Points and Top Takeaways
- 3 Memorable Quotes From The Episodes Guest
- Links To Websites, Books, Courses, Offerings, and Social Media Accounts
- End With a Call To Action: “Sign Up For Our Email List To Recieve Actionable Tips On How To Grow Your Podcasts Audience.”
Don’t have time to create your own template? We’ve got your back. Here’s your free Podcast Haven – Show Note Template. It’s the exact same as the content below, but, in a word doc. Plugin your own content and you’re good to go.
In the sample below, we wrote the show notes as if our founder, Eric, recorded a podcast on how to write show notes.
Eric Montgomery: CEO of The Podcast Haven | How To Write Show Notes For Your Podcast
Eric Montgomery is the founder and Chief Engineer at The Podcast Haven. As a recording professional, Eric spent many years recording Voice Over for TV, Video Games, and Radio. He worked on hundreds of Voice Over projects and his Voice Over production work can be heard on The Food Network, Nickelodeon, CNN, The Hallmark Channel, Adult Swim, Comedy Central, and other major media networks.
In 2016, he founded The Podcast Haven, a Full-Service Podcast Production Company that produces podcasts for business owners, brands, social media influencers, and corporate partners. Since its inception, The Podcast Haven has edited and produced thousands of episodes. Notably, they’ve worked with The Los Angeles Times, Sony, Nike, Lionsgate, PodPeople, and Stitcher. The goal of The Podcast Haven is to help content creators tell their stories through audio.
In today’s episode, Eric is on the podcast solo, discussing the ways that podcasters can use show notes to market their episodes. He will be discussing why written content is better positioned to be indexed by Google, how show notes enhance the listener experience by giving them a hub for episode extras and recaps, and why these bite-sized posts come in an easily accessible format that new audiences can review without having to commit to listening to a full episode.
” Your podcast’s show notes will serve as a hub that listeners can access to learn more about you, your guest, and the resources/information that were discussed in the episode.” – Eric Montgomery
“Show notes help reinforce the message of an episode by complementing audio content with imagery and articles. This creates an in-depth look at an episode topic that can be consumed audibly and visually.” – Eric Montgomery
“It’s important that your relationship with your audience extends beyond audio.” – Eric Montgomery
Episode Highlights:
- Why you need to be writing concise show notes for your podcast
- Using text to boost SEO
- Using show notes as a form of content marketing
- How to structure your show notes
- What to include in your show notes
- The importance of linking to resources mentioned in the show
- The importance of a Call To Action
Connect with Eric Montgomery
Email List
Show Notes Best Practices
Now that you have relented, and good for you for understanding the importance of this strategy, there are some tips to keep in mind when writing show notes.
- Create a separate page on your website that is unique to your podcast. Keep this page as a designated episode page where you will list information about your podcast as a whole and then individual pages for each episode. This method will enable search engines to find pages more readily.
- Remember to use keywords significant to the topic of each episode. Topic-specific words may lead newcomers to your content when they plug them into a search. Again, make sure your post has enough words in it. (300 words or more.)
- If you have a guest speaker on a particular episode, connect their social media, books, or websites to the specific show notes page. Also, add a polite thank you once again to recognize them for helping you out.
- At the end of each podcast, remember to inform your current listeners and new listeners that there is a dedicated website for your podcast and show notes.
- End with a Call To Action. Ask your guests to sign up for your email list, then provide the link. Or, ask them to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast on their favorite listening app. The goal is to get your audience to get involved with your ecosystem of content, services, or offerings.
Recap
It takes more than just audio to create a competitive podcast. You’ve got to create an ecosystem to funnel audiences through, and show notes are a big part of that ecosystem. Show notes will help you demonstrate expertise in your niche, and create an online community for your podcast. Once you start pumping them out, you’ll slowly build your SEO juice, and in turn, increase your podcast’s reach.
Other Ways To Market Your Podcast
Show Notes are only one piece of the marketing pie. There are a few other ways to market your podcast, such as; Audiograms, and transcription, and we will be discussing these next week, bringing us closer to the end of our fourth pillar of podcasting. If you follow these marketing avenues you will be on your way to having that strong and competitive podcast.
If you still feel like you don’t know how to write show notes at this point in the construction of the Four Pillars of Podcasting, Podcast Haven can create keyword-rich show notes for your podcast that you can post to your website. When you’re more settled, you’ll be able to hop on board and do these for yourself, but until then stop by and see what The Podcast Haven can offer you.