A podcaster reached out to us earlier this year. Good show. Consistent releases. Guests with real audiences. He was doing everything right on the recording side.
But traffic to his episodes was flat. Discovery was almost nonexistent. New listeners weren’t finding him.
When I looked at his show notes, I understood why.
Three lines. A guest name. A vague summary. No context, no depth, no keywords. Just enough to technically have something there.
His show notes weren’t helping him. They were placeholder text that happened to live on his website.
It’s more common than you’d think. And it’s leaving a lot of potential listeners on the table.
What Most Show Notes Actually Look Like
I’ve reviewed a lot of podcasts over 12 years, and most show notes follow the same template:
A one-sentence description of the episode. A short bio of the guest. Maybe a few bullet points of topics covered. Links to the guest’s website and social. A subscribe button.
That’s it.
Nothing’s technically wrong with any of it. But it does almost nothing to help new listeners find the episode, understand what they’re getting, or decide to hit play.
Show notes written this way are a deliverable. They check a box. They don’t do any real work.
What Show Notes Are Actually For
Here’s the reframe that changes how you think about this.
Your show notes are not a summary for people who already listened. They’re a landing page for people who haven’t.
Think about the journey of a new listener. Most of them don’t start by browsing Apple Podcasts. They start with a search. They type something into Google. They land on a page. They decide in about ten seconds whether it’s worth their time.
Your show notes are that page.
When they’re written well, they answer the questions a first-time visitor is actually asking. What is this episode about? Is this person credible? Is this relevant to my situation? Should I listen?
When they’re written poorly, or treated as an afterthought, that visitor bounces. And you never knew they were there.
How Show Notes Help With SEO
Let’s get specific about the search side, because it matters more than most podcasters realize.
Audio isn’t indexed by Google. Your actual episode doesn’t show up in search results. But your show notes do, if they’re written with enough substance to rank.
Every episode you publish is a potential SEO asset. A well-written set of show notes on a specific, searchable topic can bring in organic traffic for months or even years after the episode drops. That’s the kind of compounding value most podcast marketing doesn’t create.
To make that happen, your show notes need a few things.
- A title that includes something people actually search for. Not “Episode 47: A Conversation with [Guest Name].” Something like “How to Launch a Podcast Without an Audience, with [Guest Name].”
- An intro paragraph that sets the scene for a first-time reader. Who is this guest? Why does this topic matter? What will the listener walk away understanding?
- Enough body content for Google to understand what the page is about. Real sentences, not just bullets. At least 300 words of substance. Often more.
- Natural use of relevant terms. Not keyword stuffing. Just writing about the topic the way a human would, which naturally includes the language your audience uses when they search.
- Timestamps that act as a content outline. These help both readers and search engines understand the structure of the episode.
What Good Show Notes Actually Look Like
Good show notes feel like a short article about the episode, not a press release about the guest.
They give a reader enough context to decide whether to listen, and enough depth to rank on their own. They tell the story of the episode instead of just cataloging it.
Here’s a useful test. Could someone read your show notes without listening to the episode and still come away with something valuable? If yes, you’re on the right track. If it’s just a summary that requires the audio to make sense, it’s not doing enough.
The best show notes we write for our clients work on two levels at once. They function as a discovery tool for new listeners via search, and they function as a recap tool for existing listeners who want to revisit something from the conversation.
The Compounding Effect of Getting This Right
Here’s what I’ve seen happen when podcasters start treating show notes as a real content asset.
Episodes that were published months ago start getting organic search traffic. Guests share the show notes page because it represents them well. New listeners find an episode through Google, read the notes, listen to the episode, and subscribe to the show.
That flywheel doesn’t start spinning from a three-line summary.
It starts when you decide that every episode you release deserves a page worth landing on.
Where We Come In
Writing good show notes takes time. Done properly, with an eye on search, on readability, and on representing both the host and guest well, it’s not a 10-minute job.
At Podcast Engineers, show notes are part of our standard post-production workflow. We write them with SEO in mind, with the listener journey in mind, and with your brand voice in mind.
If your episodes are good but discovery is flat, this is often the simplest place to start.
Talk to us about what that looks like for your show.
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