What are Podcast Show Notes?

Podacst Show Notes are the written material that goes along with each episode you release. You’ll find them in podcast players like Apple and Spotify when you’re looking at an episode, and, if the host is clever and strategic, you’ll also find them on individual web pages on their company website.

They can also include graphics, quoteations, social media sharing copy, timestamps, resources mentioned, guest information, additional resources to consult, and next steps to take.

There are four main types of show notes: Minimal, Description + Bullets, Paragraphs and Blog style, each with several varaitions and subtypes.

Minimal Show Notes

Minimal show notes will usually have a short description of the content of the show, links to any resources mentioned, and about the guest being interviewed if there was one.

If they’re around or under 200 words, they’re minimal show notes.

Sometimes, you see a single sentence about an episode that shares the key idea being discussed, and sometimes, you’ll see a few sentences about the guest and different topics.

These show notes are the quickest to put together, and they are best for when your content really needs to be heard or seen to acheive your goals. Sometimes this is a relationship building podcast where most of the nurturing is happening ‘off air’, an entrepreneur who has always been audio or video first, or a conversion podcast where the notes are part of the premium access level.

Description + Bullet Show Notes

Bullet Show notes are probably the most common, and they are designed to get people to listen to the episode.

They usually start with one or two paragraphs of description, followed by a list of key ideas, questions, highlights or quotations (or combinations of all of these!) from the episode in a bulleted list, followed by links to resources and the guest if there is one. The goal of each bullet is to give a compelling reason to listen and encourage people to engage with the content.

For example, if we had a bullet point that said, “Then Guest X mentioned a strategy for podcast promotion, that absolutely knocked my socks off. I can’t wait to try it; it’s going to be a GAME CHANGER,” – odds are that you’ll want to listen to the show and find out what that strategy is.

This style can work pretty well for all of the Blueprints and strikes a good balance between efficiency in production and having written content that is worth reading.

Paragraph or Blog Style Show Notes

Finally, paragraph or blog style show notes.

This is where you will have a few paragraphs of description, generally without bullet highlights, or a full write-up about the episode with headings, subheadings and more.

This is the style to use when you want a reader to get a similar experience to a watcher or listener. 

You can use a script if you write them in advance or a transcript of the recording that’s been edited to read well visually. Some people write whole blog posts based on the episode that are standalone pieces of content.

Some people take it a step further and write a totally unique blog post expanding on one or more ideas from the episode, a totally unique piece of content that complements the episode

Blog style show notes are far and away the best for enhancing your SEO. You can optimize for keywords, link to other content, and drive traffic to your opt-ins.

Ultimately, if you don’t really care how someone gets the information as ong as they get it, then making it thoroughly available in as many formats as possible will maximize your results from it.

Podcast Show Notes in the Data

Show Notes Style in the Top 100 Podcasts

Podcast show notes are one of the things we look at every year in the State of Business Podcasting Report, and it’s a really insteresting window into how businesses are prioritizing the written materials associated with their shows. This year e say that 50% of the shows were using Pragraph or blog style notes, which seems to indicate that the on-page SEO value of the podcasts is making an impact. 

Resources inclued in Show Notes

Another thing we look at in the report is what resources are included with show notes. The most popular things to include are an opt-in of some kind, social links to connect elsewhere, resources mentioned in the episodes, and guest links. Each of these was used at least 30% of the time in the tip 100 shows. 

AI Shownotes

At the time of this writing, the podcasting industry is obsessed with AI-generated show notes and other written content, and some of the providers are doing a decent job of it, as long as you have a real human diligently reviewing and correcting the content.

The problem with AI notes and assets is that they can be pretty good, so good that the errors they do make are hard to see, and the kinds of errors they make can be embarrassing, like misspelled names or companies.

I have found it takes about the same amount of time, or more, to verify that AI notes are accurate as it does just to write them from scratch, although they can make a usable first draft if you find editing easier than starting with nothing.

Different Destinations

You might want different versions of your show notes for different destinations. A blog style is going to be amazing on your website and for SEO, but it might be overkill when someone is scrolling Spotify. (There is also a 4000 character limit on some of the podcast hosts and players – they don’t display, or even let you upload more than that.)

If you are doing extensive show notes, writing a short summary or description with a link to your full blog post for uploading to the host is a good way to get the best of both worlds.

Timestamps

Often, you’ll see a list of topics or keywords with timestamps or timestamps associated with different bullets from an episode. The idea here is to let people quickly navigate to the part of the content that is the most useful for them.

Some people love them, and some people hate them, and when you’re deciding whether to include them or not, remember that static (not-clickable) notes cannot take into account dynamic ads. If I put in my notes that I share the meaning of life at minute 37, but I have pre-rolls and midrolls that come before it of varying lengths (that change every week!), that timestamp will not be accurate a lot of the time unless I verify and update it every time I change my ads.

That won’t make anyone happy.

It’s also really hard to validate if people actually use them or not. Getting feedback from your audience about when and if they use show notes can help you decide whether or not you should go to the trouble of them.

Some alternatives are to create a video version of your show (audiogram style is fine!) and add “chapters” that can be identified in the player itself and directly linked to it. This lets people find and access content easily, and the chapter headings will always be correct.

Transcripts

Transcripts can be a valuable addition to your podcast; they make it accessible to people who do not or cannot listen to content, and some people just prefer reading! They also increase your potential for SEO and make it easier to search your own content for research and repurposing.

AI transcripts are getting better and better, so the cost of creating them is going down. You can even ask an AI to correct the spelling and grammar in an automatically generated transcript! It will still need a human to read and review, but it is a major time saver!

Avoid publishing an unedited transcript if you can. A little polish makes a big difference in terms of the reader experience and will reflect better on your brand.

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