One set of notes, three places
When you publish an episode, your host adds it to your RSS feed, notes included. Apple Podcasts and Spotify read that feed and show your notes under the episode. ShowHub reads the same feed and puts the same notes on the episode's page on your website.
So the website stops being a separate task. There's nothing to copy, and the website can't fall behind, because it's built from the same source the apps use.
A show notes template that works
Because your notes now become a web page, they're worth writing for two readers at once: a person deciding whether to listen, and a search engine trying to work out what the episode is about. Both want the same thing, which is specifics.
Here's a template you can paste into your host and fill in:
[One or two sentences: the question this episode answers, in plain words.]
Guest: [Full name], [what they do]. Find them at [short address].
In this episode:
- [Specific topic 1, phrased the way someone would search for it]
- [Specific topic 2]
- [Specific topic 3]
Mentioned:
- [Book, tool or article], [short address]
- [Another one]
[One line on how to support the show or what to listen to next.]A few notes on using it:
- Open with the question, not the episode number. "How do you price handmade work without undercharging?" tells a reader and a search engine exactly what's inside. "This week we chat with Jo about lots of things!" tells neither.
- Use full names. People search for guests by name. "Jo" won't match; "Jo Okafor, ceramicist" will.
- Write topics as phrases people type. "Pricing for wholesale vs. retail" is a search. "Money stuff" isn't.
- Keep it under a few hundred words. The page has room for more, but your notes also show in podcast apps, where long notes get cut off. Transcripts (on Pro) carry the full detail.
About links
ShowHub takes the text of your notes from the feed, so formatting and link markup don't carry over. A link shows as its written address. That's one more reason to use short, readable addresses in notes: makersandmarkets.fm/pricing is easy to read and type, and a 90-character tracking link is not.
When notes aren't enough
Show notes are a summary. They help, but a page with 150 words of notes gives search engines far less to work with than a page with the full conversation on it.
Two upgrades build on what you already have:
- Pro adds transcripts under your notes on every page, created automatically. See podcast transcript pages.
- Business adds AI blog drafts. Pick an episode and ShowHub writes an article from its transcript, title and description. You edit it, check the facts, and publish it to your hub or copy it to your own blog.