I’ll admit, I haven’t been putting a ton of time into the show notes of my podcasts. I know I should give them more attention, but sometimes I’m so eager to get the next episode up, I scrap something together and click “publish.”
My recent conversation with Jaclyn Schiff, CEO of PodReacher, a company that helps turn your podcast episodes into blog posts, taught me a ton about show notes. In addition to how to better market your podcast, we talked about what should go in show notes, whether or not they attract a new audience, and the difference between show notes and a blog post for your episode.
One piece of the interview that stood out to me was whether or not show notes help with your podcast SEO. Will show notes help new audiences discover my podcast through a web search?
“I think of show notes as a resource for your current listeners,” says Schiff. “I don’t think [show notes] are an entry point for people to learn about your podcast.”
There just isn’t enough meaningful text within show notes to have them rank in a web search, she says.
This isn’t to say show notes should be neglected. They’re a great way to entice listeners to download or stream your content, especially your current audience and those searching around within a particular podcast app like Apple or Spotify.
Getting your podcast some visibility within those various apps or platforms is an emerging topic and one that Schiff says she’s paying very close attention to.
If someone is searching around within one of those apps, their search terms could be somewhere in your show notes, therefore potentially bringing in another listener.
Another piece to consider including in the notes are time stamps. According to Schiff, people use them as kind of a table of contents, especially if episodes are on the longer side and not as produced or edited.
I know, personally, I love this feature on YouTube videos and hadn’t even considered it for podcasts. But it makes sense.
In my case, I stream all of my podcasts to YouTube, so I could potentially be getting a nice two for one deal there. If I’m putting effort into my podcast’s show notes and including time stamps, that content is 100% relevant on YouTube as well – maybe with some minor tweaking.
Since your show notes, at least at the moment, may not create a ton of discoverability for your podcast, it’s essential that you’re marketing it elsewhere if you want more ears.
“If you want to focus on that, the better bet is to be turning episodes into blog content,” says Schiff. “Then people will find you through Google search.”
Don’t think you have time to create articles and blog content? I get it. It takes a lot of time. And not all podcasters are writers. Engaging people with the written word is not an easy skill. But podcasts that do well do a lot of repurposing, whether it’s posting video clips from their episodes on social media or streaming them on various channels, or creating blogs.
Just like there are companies out there that help you edit video or produce a podcast, there are companies that will help you write blog posts from your episodes as well. For example, Schiff’s company PodReacher.
“We optimize audio content for text…a question we get a lot is ‘is this transcription?’ It’s not,” says Schiff. “The process is to really organize and structure it with that audience in mind. What is the useful information from this episode that a person’s going to read?”
They provide someone who has an open mind and the brain space to think what is the show about and how can they entice people to want to listen?
Check out the full episode with Jaclyn to learn more about PodReacher, as well as what constitutes a good episode blog, good show notes, and what’s next for podcasting.