Chapter 11

Providing Show Notes

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Understanding good show note etiquette

Bullet Planning your show notes

Bullet Deciding on your level of detail

Bullet Using images effectively

Bullet Posting with searchers in mind

Show notes are brief summaries of each podcast episode. Show notes can take the form of an outline, a detailed bulleted list, or just a few sentences of text. In this chapter, we show you how to effectively use show notes to enhance the listener experience of your show and bring in additional traffic to your podcast through search engines.

And where do you find these show notes? Simply enough, on the podcast’s website.

Remember Getting additional traffic means additional bandwidth consumption, which can cause issues. Flip to Chapter 10 for tips on ways to reduce the load on your servers and for info about optional hosting plans that don’t charge for additional bandwidth.

Show Note Etiquette

Several schools of thought exist on how to approach show notes. Some podcasters say you should be very brief, using notes only to hold URLs and other pieces of important offline data that your listeners may not have had time to write down as the show was playing. Others suggest show notes should be filled with information on each and every concept touched upon in the show. Whether you prefer a more moderate approach or a deeper dive into the format of your show, your personal tastes and style go a long way in determining what is right for you.

Setting aside the level of detail you want to explain, you need to follow some basic rules of etiquette:

  • Use intriguing and informative titles. In general, and to keep things simple, the title of your show notes should match your episode title. Your title is your pitch; you're a huckster competing for the attention of listeners. Some listeners may know all about you; others could be seeing something from you for the first time. Include keywords in your title that accurately and specifically represent the contents of this episode. Your keywords should also generate some excitement and make the episode sound interesting and intriguing to potential listeners.

    Warning There is a fine line between “intriguing and informative” and “clickbait” when it comes to titles and headlines. Don’t go for the sensational and avoid headlines that could come across as accusatory or toxic.

  • Include links to resources mentioned in the podcast. If you’re talking about a trip to the local museum, provide a link to the museum’s main site in your show notes. If you mention another podcast, link to it. If you mention a news story or opinion piece, drop that URL into your show notes. Don’t forget about music credits and affiliate or sponsor links too! Good linking brings good karma, and it may provide some interesting and potentially helpful “Hey, you linked to me!” comments (and backlinks) from others.
  • Concise or complete? Show notes can be as simple as a bullet list of topics or as detailed as a word-for-word transcript of your show. It’s up to you. The advantage to the bullet list is that it’s quicker to put together, obviously. If you’re already scripting your podcast, it’s no extra trouble to post the script, but be aware of the length. A transcript for a 3-minute show is pretty easy for someone to read from their browser; however a 45-minute transcript — yes, there are 45-minute shows that are completely scripted — may be something you don’t want the reader to go through.

Figure 11-1 displays how Tee composes his show notes for Happy Hour from the Tower (http://happyhourfromthetower.com). Each episode includes backlinks, embedded videos, and bullet points about the topics covered. Is it a lot of work? It can be, but the end result is a guide that listeners can easily follow.

Photo depicts The Fireteam from Happy Hour from the Tower implement show notes that range from simple backlinks to embedded videos related to the conversations.

FIGURE 11-1: The Fireteam from Happy Hour from the Tower implement show notes that range from simple backlinks to embedded videos related to the conversations.

Planning the Post

The amount of time you spend planning your show notes is inversely proportional to the amount of time you spend during your show prep (see Chapters 5, 6, and 7). If you forgot everything from your high school math class, allow us to paraphrase: The more you prepare for your show, the less time you spend working on the show notes — and vice versa.

Examine the notes you used when you recorded your podcast. Did you talk about any websites? Find the URLs and make sure you spell them right. Test them. Make sure they are headed to the right place. We highly recommend the copy-and-paste technique for URLs, rather than relying on your typing skills, especially for lengthy URLs.

If you recorded and/or edited your show hours or days before you started this notation process, replaying the media file with pen and paper at the ready is a good idea. Look for need-to-know moments and jot them down as the show plays. After it finishes, use a search engine to find additional, relevant URLs you may want to provide to your listeners.

It’s all in the details

Now is a good time to figure out what level of detail you’re going to employ in your show notes. Several factors can influence your decision, and audience expectation and personal choice are among the more important.

Tip Here’s a good rule: The deeper you dive into a single topic on your podcast, the less detailed your notes need to be. That may sound counterintuitive, and please keep in mind this is only a general rule and not a law. For example, if your podcast episode features a 20-minute interview with Theoretical Physicist Dr. Michio Kaku on his book Physics of the Impossible and how applicable those ideas are to the Star Wars Universe, you likely won’t have much more than a link to buy the book and/or rent the movie.

Show note details serve several primary purposes:

  • To act as a table of contents for the episode
  • To allow listeners to skip ahead if they so choose

As the podcaster, you can decide how much or how little you embrace these purposes. Here are some approaches that other podcasters have adopted:

  • Add a time stamp on segment or topic changes. Some podcasters put the exact time stamp of when they change topics, which can be frequent depending on the show’s format and its host. Time stamps can be quite helpful to your listeners if you cover a wide range of topics in a given episode and want to assist possible listeners in jumping around. Keep in mind, though — time stamps will take longer to note. Yes, it’s a terrific touch, but it’s a commitment.
  • Write in complete sentences and paragraphs. Taking cues from the world of blogging, many podcasters, such as Michael J. Rigg does in Steamrollers Adventure Podcast (http://riggstories.com/the-podcast), write show notes in prose, using complete sentences and paragraphs in place of bullet points and time stamps. This approach feels better to potential readers, giving them a flavor of the show without having to listen. However, we’ve also heard listeners complain that key elements are difficult to find in this format. The prose approach works best for fiction-driven and RPG podcasts or for short, quick podcasts designed for business.
  • Create a simple one-line summary. Some podcasters, such as Manoush Zomorod and her NPR podcast Note to Self (https://www.wnyc.org/shows/notetoself), take a minimalist approach and post simple one-liners or maybe three sentences that quickly sum up what the show will cover. We suggest new podcasters not follow this lead because it doesn’t do much for helping attract new listeners. Many shows that take a quick summary approach enjoy a wider distribution method. In this case, Note to Self is also broadcast over WNYC93.9FM.

Remember Detailed show notes improve your search engine rankings, and they enable curious Google visitors to determine the value of an episode before listening. Show downloads and subscriptions can spike whenever your episode touches on hot topics related to your podcast as these keywords appear in show notes as well as blogpost tags. That’s how powerful show notes can be.

A picture is worth a thousand words

Podcasters will also include a representative image or two in their show notes, as seen in Figure 11-1 and in 11-2. While random graphics serve only to increase your bandwidth consumption and risk cluttering your page, well-selected images can add flavor and dimension to your show notes.

Before you add an image to your post, keep in mind these three considerations:

  • Is the image protected by copyright? Simply grabbing an image off the Internet can land even the most well-meaning podcaster in a heap of legal trouble. Remember in Chapter 5, the section “I hear music…” about music in your podcast? Same thing. Here’s a few options to help avoid copyright issues:
    • Plan A — Use your own images. No issues there because you own them and can use them any way you like.
    • Plan B — Use Google Images (https://images.google.com). When you search, go under Tools ⇒ Usage Rights and select Creative Commons license. These images are the ones companies and personalities make available for public use.
    • Plan C — Identify the owner and ask for permission. Most people are eager to get their images displayed and are happy to say yes, provided they get credit.
  • Can you link directly to the image, or do you need to copy it to your server? Some sites, such as Amazon.com, allow you to link directly to images as they sit on the website. These sites have a huge technology infrastructure and can handle remote hosting images that appear on other sites. But many smaller and personal sites can’t handle the load a popular podcast can put on their systems if they allowed direct linking to their stored images. In these cases, copy the image to your own server before adding it to your page. If you're going to do this, it’s good karma to provide an “image courtesy of …” link to the original site. Again, this assumes you’ve received the appropriate permissions to copy the file. When in doubt, don’t.

    Tip If you are using images related to your show — a podcast about electric vehicles, for example — and you use images of the latest Tesla model, that is more than okay as you are using images directly related to your show. However, if you are using images of Elon Musk to promote your baseball podcast (dropping speech bubbles on Musk saying, “When I’m not creating ships bound for Mars, I’m waiting for the next Full Count podcast!”), that is crossing a line.

  • Does the image fit on your page? Images too small or too large aren’t doing your listeners any favors. Make sure the image you select is the right size. You can add width=”x” height=”x” declarations to your image tags to control the size or use your blog engine's editing presets to resize the image (better to go larger-to-smaller than the opposite direction), but keep in mind that this might distort the image. Previewing your post with resized images is a must. If your HTML is a little rusty, check out Coding For Dummies, by Nikhil Abraham (Wiley), for additional help.
Photo depicts each episode of The Spycast, a different image is featured, giving episode’s show notes an extra distinction from one another.

FIGURE 11-2: For each episode of The Spycast (https://www.spymuseum.org/multimedia/spycast/), a different image is featured, giving episodes’ show notes an extra distinction from one another.

Posting Your Show Notes

If you’ve planned and prepared, posting your show notes is easy. And if you've decided for the quick-and-dirty approach or don’t really care to use show notes, this process can go quickly as well because there’s nothing to do, right?

In this section, we show you how to enter your show notes by using WordPress and LibSyn as examples. If you use another tool to make your posts, or if you create your notes by hand, you still get value out of these examples as we show you things to consider along the way.

Posting in WordPress

WordPress is free, easy-to-use blogging software that also works well for podcasters. Follow these steps to post show notes in WordPress (https://www.wordpress.org):

  1. Log in to your website’s site administration page.

    By default, you typically can find a Login link on WordPress pages. If you’ve already provided credentials, the link may say Site Admin. In most instances, the URL looks something like http://www.your_domain_here.com/wp-admin.

  2. Choose Posts ⇒ Add New from the menu along the left of your browser window, as shown in Figure 11-3, to start a new posting.

    You can also choose +New from the menu across the top of your browser window. A new posting page opens. Here's where you fill in the details of your new posting. Although this screen displays a lot of items, you don’t need to use them all to get started.

  3. Select the appropriate category for your podcast from the Categories section.

    The Category feature keeps your various posts organized. It’s not uncommon to have one category for text/blog entries and another for podcasts. For example, you can have a category specific for Podcast Episodes and another category dedicated to Latest News where it is a blog entry completely independent from your podcast.

    Photo depicts you log into the WordPress interface, you can begin a new post either by going to the +New option from the top menu or the Posts option from the left-hand menu.

    FIGURE 11-3: Once you log into the WordPress interface, you can begin a new post either by going to the +New option from the top menu or the Posts option from the left-hand menu.

  4. Enter the title of your podcast in the Title text block.

    WordPress uses text blocks to compose your blogposts. The text blocks offer a variety of options for you. Some of the text blocks’ functions include:

    • Title
    • Text
    • List
    • YouTube embed
    • Twitter embed

    When you launch WordPress, every post begins with a Title block and a Text block. You build your post from here. For more details on the WordPress user interface and how it works, take a look at WordPress For Dummies, 8th Edition by Lisa Sabin-Wilson.

  5. In the text block offered, enter your show notes.

    Follow a chronological order and list the various topics covered in your show, one on each line.

  6. Be sure to add URLs to any websites you mention.

    To create a link, highlight the text you want to link and then click the Link button (the chain link icon) in the Text block’s interface, pictured in Figure 11-4. Copy and paste the full URL — including the http:// part — and then press your Enter/Return key.

    Photo depicts blocks in WordPress have their own unique toolbars. To create a link, go to the Link icon in the Text block’s menu and type or paste the complete URL in the field provided.

    FIGURE 11-4: Text blocks in WordPress have their own unique toolbars. To create a link, go to the Link icon in the Text block’s menu and type or paste the complete URL in the field provided.

  7. Connect your podcast file to the blog.

    Before entering in your show notes, you will want to install a plug-in. Figure 11-5 shows Blubrry’s PowerPress interface, but there are others out there you can install into WordPress. Your media file should be on your server (covered in Chapter 10), so use that pathname from your server and the plug-in will detect your file.

    Remember What if you wanted to feature a podcast you were on? What is the best way to share that experience with your audience? Well, this is when you syndicate an episode. The episode appears in your feed, but the statistics go back to the original podcast creator. Podcast plug-ins make syndication incredibly easy. Instead of the media hosted on your server, it resides on another server, a remote server. Go to your plug-in and use the entire URL of the podcast where you are featured — for example, http://theotherpodcast/episodes/path_to_yourinterview.mp3.

    Photo depicts Blubrry’s PowerPress interface.

    FIGURE 11-5: Blubrry’s PowerPress interface.

  8. When you're done entering your show notes, click the Save Draft button.

    You can see a preview of your post by clicking the Preview button in the top-right of your browser window. It’s not a bad idea to verify the format and ensure links will work before releasing it to the public.

  9. After clicking Preview, scroll through your post to proof it.

    Make sure links work properly, including your podcast file. Few things are more embarrassing than releasing that long-awaited podcast only to find that a link in your show notes doesn’t work. It’s up to you to test as much as you can before releasing a new episode.

  10. Return to your post editor and make any adjustments necessary.

    If you notice links that fail to work or typos, you still have an opportunity to fix them by returning to your blogpost in Edit mode and repeating Step 8 and 9 until you’re satisfied.

  11. When you’re satisfied with your show notes, click the Publish button in the top-right of your browser window.

    You can also enable the Schedule option by going to the top-right of the WordPress user interface. Click the time stamp to the right of the Publish option under Document ⇒ Status and Visibility and enter a date later in the week. You can use the Schedule option to cue shows for automatic posting.

  12. Click View Site link at the top of the page to see how your entry looks.

    Visiting your web page is a good idea to make sure everything looks as you expected it to. If it doesn’t, simply edit the post and save your changes.

Tip Many podcasters with detailed show notes use the <More> tag in their WordPress postings, the tool and tag highlighted in Figure 11-6. Any text above the More link is displayed on the main page. Those with interest to view the detailed content can click the link. If you have lots of show notes to include in your post, this is a good way to keep your front page tidy with a few bullet items for each show, and then you can “hide” the longer list.

Photo depicts creating show notes in WordPress, incorporating a View More tag can help keep the appearance of your blog’s main page tidy.

FIGURE 11-6: When creating show notes in WordPress, incorporating a More tag can help keep the appearance of your blog’s main page tidy.

Posting on LibSyn

Because LibSyn (https://www.libsyn.com) is a dedicated podcast hosting provider, the steps are quite intuitive and a bit different than those used by folks who work with blogging software.

Follow these steps to post your show notes on LibSyn:

  1. To create a new post, under Content, select Add New Episode.

    Tip LibSyn also allows text-only posts to the site, which is great for times when you want to post some text without a media file, such as to say “I’m on vacation for the next two weeks.”

  2. Click the Add Media File button.
  3. From the pop-up window, select Upload from Hard Drive and then select your episode file and click Choose.
  4. Under the Details tab, enter a title for this episode.

    We cover some titling tips later in this section. For now, simply enter a basic description of what this episode is about — “Classic Car Auction” will serve here as our example.

  5. Enter the detailed show notes in the Description box.

    This is the appropriate place for your detailed show notes. Follow a chronological order and list the various topics covered in your show, one on each line. Be sure to add URLs to any websites you mention.

    Tip Typing the URL in this section isn’t quite as effective as providing a true hyperlink. Making a hyperlink isn’t difficult, though it may look that way if you aren’t familiar with the mysteries of HTML.

    Hyperlinks follow this convention:

    <a href="link/to/website/or/web/page">Name of link</a>

    Basically, you fill out what’s between the quotes, replace the name of the link, and you’re done. Here are a few real-world examples:

    <a href="http://www.chuckchat.com/gmail">Gmail Podcast</a>
    <a href="http://morevi.net">Morevi podcast</a>
    <a href="http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/images.html" target="_blank">Pictures from Mars</a>

    Take note of the target=”_blank” part of the last link. By including that in the HTML tag, you are telling the link to open in a new browser tab.

  6. Choose a category for your podcast from the Category drop-down list.

    Categories on LibSyn work like they do with most blogging applications. To keep this simple, choose Podcast from the list. This Category is only used with internal LibSyn tools, such as its web page, media player, and smartphone apps.

  7. On the Details tab, fill in the information for Apple Podcasts Optimization.

    The key items to fill in are the Apple Podcasts Title, Episode Type (most cases it is Full), Episode Number, Rating, and Author.

  8. Under the Artwork tab, upload custom episode level artwork (if you have any).

    Tip Because LibSyn doesn’t allow you to preview your post first, we highly recommend checking your spelling and double-checking your links before you proceed. An ounce of prevention and all that.

    Figure 11-7 shows how your post looks on LibSyn before it is posted.

  9. Under the Scheduling tab, pick the specific day and time you want the episode to go live or just select Publish.

    LibSyn makes it hard to screw up, requiring you to fill out the appropriate fields before allowing you to continue. If you’re successful, you see a pop-up screen where you can copy the direct link to your media file and/or the embed code to the player for that episode.

  10. Check your page.

    Click the link to your show name and see how it looks in the real world. Check your links, spelling, and layout. If it’s not the way you want, close the window and click the name of your post to edit it.

Photo depicts filling out show notes on LibSyn is an easy process with an intuitive UI.

FIGURE 11-7: Filling out show notes on LibSyn is an easy process with an intuitive UI.

Tip It never hurts to mention in your show that you have show notes. You can do so as part of the running dialog. For example, in the middle of recording, say “… We found a great deal on those at Frobozco. We’ll have a link in the show notes on our website …” or mention it at the end of the show with contact information, as in “Don’t forget to stop by our website, where you’ll find links to everything we mentioned in the show notes, information on how to contact us, and much more at www… .”

Boosting Search Engine Rankings with Good Show Notes

One tangible benefit of quality show notes is the impact they can have on your listings within search engines. Traditional search engines cannot (yet) scan and index the contents of your podcast media files. As such, you need to provide text for search engines to examine and evaluate for index inclusion.

Technical stuff Podcasters can pick up a lot of tips and tricks from bloggers and other website owners on how to boost search engine rankings. Many include page-level changes to positioning of elements, correct usage of headings, meta and image tags, and back-linking techniques. That conversation is far beyond the scope of this book, so grab a copy of SEO For Dummies, 7th Edition by Peter Kent (published by Wiley) if you want to make a bigger splash.

In the following sections, we show you some best practices you can implement right away that can make your notes (and podcast) more accessible to search engines — and ultimately search engine users.

Loading up your titles

Search engines (and searchers) pay close attention to titles. You should consider the title of your individual podcast episodes every bit as important as the title of a given web page.

Important as they are, most podcasters struggle with effective titles. The biggest problem comes from confusing titles with descriptions. If your title starts with “In this episode,” stop right there. You’re writing the description, not the title. A title is a string of well-chosen and crafted words that has no room for superfluous baggage.

We find that the best titles come from a re-examination of your show notes. If you haven’t made your notes yet, you may find coming up with a solid title quite tough. Here's the process we suggest:

  1. Read your show notes and pull out the key elements, thoughts, or themes covered on the show.

    Let’s say you have a podcast on a Classic Car Auction. In your show notes, you have covered:

    • Sleeping in the Seattle airport while the flight was delayed
    • Interesting discussion during the flight with an 80-year-old man who is a car restorer
    • Under the hood of the 1965 Ford Mustang
    • Custom headers and exhaust systems
    • A short interview with the owner of a 1972 Chevy Nova
    • Taking a 1957 Chevy Belair for a cruise
    • Listener feedback request: What’s your favorite classic car
  2. Boil down each element to a single word or phrase, if possible.

    Think about the people who might be interested in the contents of your show and pick common words they’re likely to search for.

    Potential episode titles from your bullet list above:

    • Sleepless in the Seattle Airport
    • The Old Man and the Chevy
    • Two Decades of Drive
    • Making a Classic Your Own

    These all make solid titles, giving searchers a good tease about what they can expect. It all depends on what kind of title you want for your episode. A sense of humor? Alliteration? Something more literal? Whether your audience is more casual or, in the case of our Classic Car Auction podcast, more serious collectors and restorators, you select the key points from your show notes and condense them to what works.

Remember Notice how the title doesn’t cover everything, and it shouldn’t try. That’s the job of the description where you can go into even greater detail on those three elements, plus the many other things you talk about on the show.

Titles also carry good keywords likely to be of interest to your audience. Chances are good that you know your audience much better than we do. Think about how people are likely to search and write your titles for that. Keep them short, don’t try to cover everything, and employ more detailed descriptions to carry the rest of your story.

Soliciting backlinks

Backlinks are the Holy Grail of search engine optimization. A backlink is simply a link from someone else’s website to yours as opposed to a link from your site to another. In this case, you are looking for outside locations to link back to your own site. Sites that have a lot of backlinks pointing to them are considered “more important” to the computers that control where your site shows up on a search engine. To get backlinks from others, you have to create links to their websites in your show notes.

Tip When you’re soliciting backlinks from sources, make each email personal, provide the exact link you want them to use, and tell them why you think it’s important for them to link it.

Before you post your show, contact other podcasters, bloggers, and perhaps notable websites to see whether they’re interested in linking to you (and you to them) to generate interest in your podcast, rather than a specific show. Many sites have a section somewhere for related sites. This can be a very effective tool for drawing people to your site and your podcast. Then you can also find folks who might want to backlink to particular episodes.

You’ve posted your show and got your show notes online. It’s time to start soliciting backlinks to individual episodes:

  • Company backlinks: Write to the company that manufactures the custom headers to explain that you're posting a review of one of its products. Getting big companies to link to you doesn’t always happen, but sometimes it does. And getting backlinks from big popular sites is very beneficial to your rankings.
  • Courtesy backlinks: If someone helped you with a part of your podcast and you mention it in your episode, let that source know. Send an email to the agency you booked the trip with and maybe even the hotel.
  • Backlinks from fellow podcasters: If other podcasters cover topics related to your episode, let them know about it because they might be willing to spare you a backlink. Notify various car bloggers and podcasters about the new episode. It takes only a few moments of your time and is information they may welcome.

Warning A fine line exists between asking for backlinks and spamming someone. If you can’t think of a good reason why that site should link to you, then you don’t ask for it; otherwise, just mention what your show is and what you’ve covered that might be of interest and let them decide whether they want to provide a backlink.

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