The Perfect Recipe for Podcast Show Notes

Show notes are often a half-baked portion of the podcast recipe. You start writing it one way on your first episode and by episode three, you start to forget how you wrote the last two episode. By episode 5, you’re off the rails completely and you start to ask yourself… Do show notes really matter? Who actually looks at these anyways?

I look at them! And I look at them often. But they are often riddled with broken links, non descriptive bologna, and no connection to other content.

In this blog, I’m going to explore why show notes matter, the best recipe for show notes, and how to keep them consistent from episode to episode.

Why Show Notes Matter

Before people even get to the main entrée of your actual audio, they get the appetizers: your title, show notes, and description. Many new listeners look at show notes before tapping the play button. If the summary doesn’t intrigue them, sorry but you’re not getting in their queue.

The only person that looks at your show notes 100% of the time? Search engines. Listening platforms. In the ever expanding world of automated lists and search results, show notes help people find your show through those search platforms. Yes, some platforms are transcribing your audio content word for word to make it more searchable BUT not all.

The cherry on top: show notes are a great way to provide direct links to resources too complicated to say on mic or type into a search bar.

The Ingredients for Good Podcast Show Notes

Title

Even before someone sees the show notes, they see your title. Although not normally included as show notes, titles plays a role with them. There are lots of different philosophies for titling shows. I believe its something you’ll develop for yourself over time. Here are some general rules of thumb:

1. Keep it short (under 54 characters).
2. Create intrigue with truth (no click bait).
3. Showcase your guest’s name.

Short description

This is your time to shine! Use all those words you held back from the title and continue that intrigue. Why would your ideal listener want to listen to this episode? What are the major themes, ideas, or interests shared or discussed? Try and sum it up in one to two sentences. I recommend writing the description as soon as you finish the recording so the whole conversation is fresh in your mind. Alternatively, you could use a transcription service so you can read through it or an AI tool to write episode descriptions for you.

Here are four tips for writing a better description:

1. Study other show notes. Check out the Apple or Spotify charts or your  favorite podcasts and see how they’re doing it. Top YouTubers are also skilled at wri ting descriptions so try there as well.
2. Use highly specific words. Why use many word when few do trick? Rather than using a full sentence to describe something, does a single word exist to describe it?
3. Use more interesting words. Thesaurus.com is your friend. Merriam-Webster’s word of the day could also be your friend. If you fill up on gas at Kwik Trip here in the Midwest, you can get GSTV’s word of the day!
4. Use highly emotional words. Emotional words pull people in. Try using an emotional wheel to find better emotional adjectives.

Episode specific links

These links change every episode, if they’re even there! This could be Bible verses mentioned (I use links to Bible Gateway), a link to the video version of the sermon or episode, or other resources to dive deeper into the conversation.

Guest info

If you do interviews, it is courtesy to add your guest’s bio and links to the show notes. However, guests should provide their own bio and links. I would ask them to keep it to one to two links: a link to their website (where everything else can be found) and/or a link for a specific call to action like signing up for a newsletter, a book sample, or some other incentive your listeners get free.

Connected media

Podcasts shouldn’t be siloed. They should draw your community closer to God and closer to each other. Include links to your church’s website, a connection form, your small group sign-up, your other social accounts, and anything else you think will help them do that. Make sure to add a small tag line so people have clear expectations for what they’re clicking. For example, if I were to add a link to our small groups page, I’d write “Looking for a small group?” or “Join a small group today.”

Credits

Give credit to where credit is due. If you have a team helping you bring your podcast to the world, list ‘em here. If you’re using a Creative Commons (CC) licensing for music or other media assets, list ‘em here. If you want to keep your show notes as short as possible, you could link to a page on your website with the credits as well.

As every good chef knows a recipe can be altered, so can your show notes! Add a sprinkle more of this, a little less of that. Again it goes back to the goals for your show.

A Footnote on Consistency

A quick note: 75% of the show notes stay the same from episode to episode. I recommend bookmarking a Google doc or Notion page with your show note template with all your hyperlinks and info. Build it out with all the ingredients listed above and use placeholder text for the parts that change every episode.

A major challenge with most hosting platforms is their show notes are static. Let’s say you get fifty episodes into your podcast and need to change your website. Easy enough to do moving forward but now you’ve got fifty episodes to scrub through and edit the link. Time consuming and boring to say the least.

That’s why I love Caltivate.FM because they have an awesome show notes features to solve those issues. The first is a default show notes which will automatically insert your show notes template you created on any new episode. The second is the dynamic snippets. These are code words that are linked to phrases you can edit in the back end. So if you update your website or add a new social media account (like Threads), you can add it to the code word in the back end and it will update to your entire backlog! (As long as you’ve actually used the code words in each).

Your Task

I hope you can put these tips into practice and serve up some show notes to make your community happy. Your task now: Go to your favorite podcast. Screen shot the show note of an episode. Send it to me and tell me what you think works and what doesn’t. I’d love to see your favorite shows and your thoughts!