What information should you include in your podcast show notes and transcripts?

While there is no right or wrong way to do show notes, I find that show notes are primarily used for discovery. Once you have a dedicated listener, they'll really only look at show notes when there's a specific reason, like a link to a product or upcoming event. When approaching show notes, try to appeal to a broader audience, who may be sifting through your episodes searching for a specific topic or found you through a search. My personal preference? 5 to 6 sentences explaining the key moments from the episode with any relevant hyperlinks built into the show notes. Below the show notes, include website, social media and sponsor information.

Here's what most people don't understand about show notes - all the podcast apps use them differently. So ticking boxes and writing two sentences could be hurting your reach within the apps. Yes, even Apple Podcasts. Don't believe everything you read on the Apple Podcasts website. They factor your descriptions in search too! Use your real estate to give listeners a surface idea at-a-glance of what's in the show, and where possible, direct them to your show's podcast website to learn more and get transcriptions and videos etc.

In my opinion, deleting filler words and repeated syllables from a transcript, makes it much more readable and enjoyable for a reader. As listeners, we have conditioned ourselves to ignore the verbal imperfections of the people we talk to (not to mention ourselves). However, once the speech gest meticulously transcribed with all these little faults, it can become an almost unreadable transcription. Take out all superfluous filler words, all "you know" and "like", any stuttering and your readers will love you!

Transcripts DO NOT enhance your SEO. This is a common myth. You will rarely (if ever) see a podcast episode transcript ranking in Google. The idea of this is absurd. Do transcripts because they're good for accessibility. That should be a good enough reason.

Here's what you should include: 1 - What the listener will learn from listening. 2 - How they should apply that knowledge. 3 - What they can do if they need more help or advice (even if that means sending them to a resource you don't own or control) 4 - Some bullet points of topics 5 - Timecodes if possible

I'd argue that in today's attention challenged world, timecodes are an essential. Optionals include guest bios and contact info (if they're nice to you haha!) and any free offers you can give them to help with a problem.

My podcasts are always accompanied by a detailed blog post covering the same topic. I embed my podcast audio at the top of the post and the post covers the podcast topic thoroughly. Near the top, I include a PDF download link to my show notes and I say, "In a hurry, grab the show notes." My show notes contain the same information as the blog post and link back to it on my website. I always include a bonus of some sort in my show notes that my audience can't get via the podcast audio or the blog post as an incentive to download the PDF. Once they have the PDF, they have a link back to me on their device until they delete it. Many listeners will download multiple PDFs to get that bonus incentives.

Formatting is largely unimportant because most of the apps mess with this anyway. Keep the formatting efforts to your own podcast website (which I really hope you have!)