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You're listening to Up an Octave, a podcast by Sonivia, the podcasting agency that believes that women and non binary people deserve to take up space in the podcasting industry because our thoughts, voices, and stories matter. Here you'll learn how to make dope podcasts that inspire, educate, convert, and most importantly, make your voice shine.
I'm your host, Rue Spence, and I'm here to take podcasting up an octave. Let's get into it.
Welcome back to Up an Octave. Today we are talking about the importance of podcast show notes. And how they can boost your show's discoverability and engagement. Let's get cracking. First up, let's talk about why show notes matter. This is something that I have so many conversations with podcasters about because It can feel kind of pointless, and you know, honestly, even I don't really look at show notes that often, unless I'm hunting for specific information.
There are a couple of purposes that show notes have, whether or not you or the audience is actively engaging with them. There are things that Google sees that your audience doesn't see. So first up, the first thing that we're going to talk about with why show notes matter is definition and purpose. Show notes act as a written summary that accompanies your podcast episode.
They provide essential details and offer additional resources. This is where you put links or sponsor information if you have affiliate codes. But they also are going to help SEO, search engine optimization, know what the heck your episode's about and what the heck to do with it. Shownotes also offer a visual component to the things that you're talking about.
So if you're offering links or a specific name of a thing, a resource that people may need help spelling, or they may have forgotten about. If you have that in your show notes, it gives people a space to engage with that so that they can come back to it later without having to hunt through the episode or Try and figure out how to spell something show notes can also be helpful for new listeners When they're deciding if your show is right for them at a glance your show notes can provide people a little heads up about what?
They're getting themselves into so how do you craft an effective show note as I mentioned offer a Compelling episode summary some people will choose to do timestamps I don't choose to just because my episodes tend to be shorter You But offering people a, Hey, this is what we're talking about today. If you are this or this or this, this episode is for you, something like that so that people right away can tap in and go, I know that I am exactly who this episode was made for.
Now what I like to do in my show notes is I like to just do bullet points of Things I talked about, key takeaways, important information that you should know. But some people do choose to do full on timestamps. There are a lot of different ways that you can make this information digestible. But the biggest thing is that you want to just kind of touch those critical points of your episode.
And the information that I'm giving right now is a little bit more tailored towards our funnel type podcasts or the podcasts that filter into your business. But this is even true if you are doing a fiction podcast, or more of a storytelling podcast, or just a fun or fandom podcast. There's still information that you can give out.
For example, if we take a look at Morbid, a super, super popular true crime podcast. So, episode 620 of Morbid that just came out. Their show notes are really, really, really fantastic. Uh, I think that they are pretty unparalleled when it comes to like the true crime world for how they do their show notes.
So just really quickly on November 2nd, 2016, 34 year old so called supermom Sherry Papini went out for a run near her home in Redding, California and disappeared without a trace. Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. So it goes through and gives highlights of the case that they're covering. And then they say, thank you to the incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe podcast for research and writing support.
Then they list all their references, which I just think is so brilliant, so well done. Um, and then they've also got privacy policy information. And I think it's just fantastic to have those kind of resources and the sources that you're using in your show notes, just so that, A, you are proving, you know, this is whose support I used, but you're also, you know, when people are looking at this ABC News article, There's a chance it's going to ping to your show notes.
Then we've got, you know, conversely Office Ladies, which this week, Jenna and Angela tackle episode two of The Office. They cover Michael Scott's cringeworthy jokes, their own harassment training as actors and how offices. All over the country use clips from Diversity Day as examples of bad office behavior.
Finally, they reveal the origins of the famed line, I will attack you with the North and beg the question, Was Angela in the right dressing room for the 2004 World Series? Link to song, which I love giving credit. Uh, and then I'll link to their transcript. Which is always fabulous to see. And then privacy information from Odyssey and ad information.
So that's also great. You know, the office is huge, so they're already super tapped in to that kind of SEO, but it just gives you a heads up. Like this is what this episode is about, which is done fantastic. And then kind of more on the business side with becoming CEO by India Butler. She's got the best business advice I wish I'd followed sooner is the name of the episode, and the episode show notes are in this candid episode.
I open up about the key lessons I wish I'd learned earlier in my entrepreneurial journey, drawing from my own experiences of building multiple six figure businesses while balancing motherhood, I share insights that could save you time. energy and potential burnout. In this episode, I share bullet points, the shift in perspective I needed, blah, blah, blah, how making this one change to my offer suite scaled my business, how letting go of perfectionism, et cetera, et cetera.
Um, links and resources ready to build a business that doesn't need you around the clock. Join my free masterclass with a link for how to get into that and then a prompt to write a review and leave a rating and a reminder to follow. So she is bang on for what you'd want to see for a funnel podcast.
Kudos to you. I followed her for a long time. She's excellent. Good stuff. So those are kind of examples of the different types of podcasts that there are and how show notes look for those different styles of shows. I also So so strongly encourage you to share some love and just rain down little forehead kisses on any guests that you might Have had in your episode in your show notes A, this is going to just give them a little extra love from your listeners, but also when we're talking about SEO, name dropping is going to help with that cross pollination of your communities.
You can add, you know, any of their socials, whatever freebie or link they would like for you to include, as well as just some information about them, a short bio or, you know, anything that feels right to share to get your audience excited when they click on your episode. Good. And then, as I mentioned with the episode for becoming CEO, leaving that really strong call to action is also fantastic.
So I'm sure if you take a look at my show notes, you have seen that I always invite you to email me or come hang out with me on Instagram. And I always have a link for whatever I'm promoting at the time as it pertains to podcasting. So whether that Booking your discovery call with me, or getting my Editing with Audacity guide.
I always have some kind of link just so you can hang out and stay in my ecosystem since you're already here hanging out, so there's a chance that you dig me. Now, let's talk about the best practices for writing show notes so that you can get back to making your podcast and celebrating the end of the year, because wow, 2024 put us through it.
To optimize your SEO, make sure that you are capitalizing on keywords and doing your market research. See what else is working. See what happens when you're Googling your niche. What comes up how can you capitalize on that and how can you try and emulate it to become? What Google is spitting back out?
some great tools that you can use for this are the Google keyword planner or uber suggest or Semrush is another one that is huge any of those are going to offer you Keywords that are popular in your niche and are going to be able to provide you with suggestions for how you can capitalize on those for your own show.
Something else you can do is of course, go hang out with our bestie chat GPT and get some insight over there by prompting it. What should I be doing for my SEO? What does SEO look like for this niche and, you know, asking it to support you in that creation. And something that I don't think enough people in general who are in the online space, but especially podcasters, are capitalizing on are long tail keywords as opposed to short tail keywords.
So a short tail keyword, for example, would be, let's take one of my podcast episodes. So if we go way back to my episode, what is equalizing and why your podcast needs it. If I were to just spit out equalizing or equalizing podcasts, there is a lot happening in that Google search. Uh, there are going to be a ton of.
other hits that I'm going to have to fight through to get noticed. But the more information that I can add, so why your podcast needs it, that's also going to help to cut through everything else that can be equalized, because I'm adding that We are talking about equalizing podcasts. So that's going to help to get people a little bit more tunneled in and make sure that the people who are finding my show are the exact right people for it.
While that's going to look a little bit less popular. It is going to make sure that I'm connecting with the right audience. And as we talk about so often on this show, I am not here to inflate your vanity metrics. There are people probably sliding into your DMs right now who are promising you that they can grow your podcast.
But baby, I am here to make sure that I am growing it with the right people. Because just getting listened to is not the same as being heard. Something else that SEO really likes is your formatting. So this is another reason that bullet points are super helpful. SEO is basically just scanning content and helping to plug puzzle pieces into the right place.
So the easier and more digestible it is to really front load, this is what this is about, these are the things I'm talking about. The more that SEO is going to be able to match up audiences with your show. So make sure that you are keeping things search engine friendly and staying organized, which is helpful both to SEO algorithms and human beings finding your show as well.
I'm not a huge fan of really lengthy or complicated show notes. I think clarity and brevity is the most important. After all, podcasting is an audio format. So People are not here to read an entire blog post. There are other spaces where you can capitalize on that if you love to write. Your show notes really should be like the jacket of a book.
You're not giving away too much, but you're making sure that it's visually appealing and offers some of the little nuggets that are going to be found within the actual content. So when you think about it that way, you know, you're, you're adding a little bit about what you're talking about. You might add a little bit about who you are and why you're qualified to be talking about it.
Just give those little snippets away to make sure that you are connecting, connecting, connecting with the right people. As always, something I harp on, I feel like probably every week is that consistency is key. So make sure that your formatting is consistent between different episodes. And this is okay for it to evolve, I promise you that mine has, but in general, you want it to kind of all feel cohesive.
To go back to the book example, you kind of know when an author has another book. Like, I am looking at my bookshelf right now and I'm too far to really be able to read, but like, I have a collection of books. 90s Goosebumps books. And even from way far away, I can tell they're all Goosebumps books. I can tell Michael Crichton books, they're almost always high contrast, red, white, and black.
So I know what I'm looking at, even from super far away. So at a glance, give that same feeling where people are like, Oh, I know right away, that's an up an octave episode, because I see the bullets, I see this, I see that, etc, etc. This is part of the reason why this isn't really show notes, but it's kind of show notes because it's episode specific.
I'm not always a huge fan of episode specific artwork. And I have a couple caveats. I want to shout out my skeptical sister because I think they do it really well, um, with their different episodes. They post a childhood photo of the hosts With the episode title on it, and I think that they do that in a really sweet way and considering that such a Component of their show is that family aspect of them being siblings I think it works for them, and also because they all feel cohesive, because they're all that kind of nostalgic feel.
And I don't know if they put a filter on all of them, or if it's just the genuine photo of a photo or scanned photo. I think that they do that really well. But I have seen some other shows that just, it doesn't do it for me, I gotta be so honest. Uh, let me pull up one that I, I love. But that I have gotten confused about before.
So I am a spooky babe and I love me some no sleep, but their artwork isn't always helpful. And so when we think about how we consume content, there's often, you know, I'm listening to one podcast and it ends and I'm elbow deep in dirty dishwater. And so it just rolls onto the next thing. So, when we listen to things as an autoplay playlist, we might not always immediately know what we're listening to if we're not selecting those episodes, and NoSleep, which I mean, don't get me wrong, they are good at what they do.
They are in the top 01 percent of podcasts for a reason. And, they're production value is off the freaking charts, but I'm not a fan of their individual episode art. It definitely works for, I mean, it ties in really beautifully with what each episode is, but it doesn't have something that makes it feel like a through line podcast.
And I would even love it if there was just, like, more of a watermark of their logo in the corner. That's all it would take for me to be over the moon. But when we think about the autoplay, if I'm just seeing these creepy pictures It's not necessarily going to trigger, oh, that's no sleep. Now, for the most part, their art style is close to the same, but I just, I want things to feel really cohesive.
Like I said, they're top 0. 01 percent for a reason. They're obviously not losing any listeners over this. But, if you are not in the top 01%, I would advise against doing this. If you do choose to have episode specific artwork, I would lean way more in towards the My Skeptical Sister flair, where everything feels cohesive, where it all feels like it's the same brand, and not so much into just the pictures that tie in with the episode.
In general, if you love doing episode specific artwork, I am not here to yuck your yum, keep it up, make your magic, but it's not something that's gonna add if it feels like it's too much. So there's no need to do it, but if it's fun for you and you can keep it cohesive, do your thing. Alright, so, finally, I just want to give a little bit of a rundown on how to create great show notes, and this is somewhere that I absolutely recommend using AI to make things easier on yourself.
You should already be transcribing your episodes, however you're doing that, whether that's using Otter, or You're using Descript. There are so many tools out there that automate transcription and make it easy breezy for you. You can then very easily take that over to ChatGPT and say, spit me out show notes.
The caveat to that is that you have to teach it what your show notes look like to make sure that you are keeping that consistency. But that's going to help you make sure that you're hitting the high marks of what are the key takeaways from this episode, what do I want my audience to focus on from this episode, and just a reminder, what resources did I use?
What did I name drop? What books did I talk about? So that, you know, if you do forget, if it's maybe been a minute since you've recorded the episode, it's going to help jog that memory. As always, I recommend babysitting your AI. But it is helpful. It's absolutely a helpful tool. And my belief is that it's here anyways.
So you should use it to your advantage when you're able to. All right. I have yapped enough. It is the week before Christmas. I am trying to get my behind out the door so I can go home to Kansas City. Uh, which I'm super excited about. I will be back next week on Christmas Eve. Listen whenever. If you need an excuse to, uh, pop in your headphones so you don't have to hear your in laws, I am happy to provide.
Come hang out with me on Instagram or threads at Sonivia Studios. Feel free to shoot me an email if there's anything I can help you with for your podcast in the coming year at rue. sonivia at gmail. com. And I'll see you next time. Thank you for helping me take podcasting up an octave.
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