Having a concise and easy-to-read episode description with a few sentences, a bullet point list, short guest bio, and link to a more complete website post accomplishes all your goals when it comes to writing podcast show notes.
What kind of information should be included in podcast show notes?
“You definitely want a summary of your episode. That’s what people are looking for before they hit play” says Virginia Elder, a Podcast Editor and Copywriter from Podcast Abundance.
She goes on to say, “They want to know ‘What the heck am I getting into? Is this the advice that I’m looking for?’ You want that information right there up top.”
Some great ways to organize the information would be a short paragraph. Keep in mind that people skim. They are not going to take the time to get lost in your massive paragraph of thousands of words.
Short, tight paragraphs and bullet points are awesome. Timestamps, or chapter markers, are another type of bullet point way people can skim through.
And then of course at the bottom include guest info, a little bit about where people can learn more if you’re directing people to a blog post.”
A simple format would be to include:
- Short paragraphs
- Bullet points
- Timestamps/chapter markers
- Brief guest feature/bio
- Link to the podcast’s blog post
Keep Episode Descriptions Short
Most podcast apps only display the first few dozen characters until you click into an episode.
At that point you’re limited to 4,000 characters in Apple Podcasts and many other apps.
Keeping episode descriptions short, but including all the important information, is a great and simple strategy.
Finish it off with a link that takes listeners to the episode’s blog post on the podcast’s website.
Steve Stewart says the goal his clients is to get people to their websites. Including a link to the blog post is imperative!
Keep reading for more.
Make the Episode Blog Post Longer
Save time by using the short episode description as the base for a longer blog post.
From there you can add things like:
- Contact information (for your guest and for you)
- Social and Follow buttons (again, both you and your guest)
- Resources mentioned in the episode
There is no limit to how many characters or words can be put into a blog post.
Plus, you can include pull quotes, images, videos, and more features that would never display inside a podcast app.
(See what I did there?) 😉
Most importantly, you want to include calls to action. What is the listener or website visitor supposed to do?
For example, Steve’s clients want listeners to visit the site to join a newsletter, purchase a course or book, sign up for their coaching…whatever their goal is for doing the podcast.
Having a concise and easy-to-read episode description with a few sentences, a bullet point list, short guest bio, and link to a more complete website post accomplishes all your goals when it comes to writing podcast show notes.