Make Your Show Notes Shine and Uncover the Power of Transcripts

[00:00:00] Jennifer Henczel: Welcome everyone, Jennifer Hensel here of the Women in Podcasting Network. And today I want to help you make your show notes shine and uncover the power of transcripts with Descript, boost listenership, increase accessibility and amplify SEO. So we’re in Descript and we’re going to click new for new project and then video or audio project depending on which one you want to work with.

[00:00:37] We’re going to upload a file so that Descript can pull the transcript from that file. So it can be an audio or video file. I’m going to click add file. Now in this case, I’ve uploaded an MP3 file. You can also identify the name of the speaker by clicking speaker name, enter the name. So in this case, it’s me, Jennifer Hensel.

[00:00:59] Add my name [00:01:00] there and then done and it will put the name of the person beside the voice. So if you have more than one voice, when that little window shows up, you can choose one speaker, two speaker, three speaker and enter all the different speakers names. So right now it’s just creating the transcript and there we go.

[00:01:18] It just took a few seconds and now I’m going to click publish and in the publish area we’ll choose export and then transcript. And then choose what you want to include here. So speaker labels, I usually just include if it’s more than one speaker and then export. Now that transcript is saved in my computer and we’ll come over to the show notes and I’ll show you where I’ll put it in the show notes.

[00:01:47] So here are my show notes and this is how I do it. At the top, I have a video. If you don’t have a video, that’s okay. I then have the podcast audio, which I get from my podcast host. And for the video, I just get a script from YouTube. I put the [00:02:00] video script in there and then I put the audio script in here.

[00:02:03] And this here is a plugin that shows the different podcast platforms where people can find my podcast. And then I’ll put a description and some points. And then something about me. And if I have a guest, I’ll have a box for the guest as well, and all their contact information. So my listeners can connect with the guest.

[00:02:20] And then under that, I have some opt ins and lead magnets that people can join. And then you’ll see right here at the bottom, I’ll put the transcript. So let’s go take a look at how that works. So now I’m in the back office of my website in the blog post, and I’ll scroll to the bottom. So now I’m going to open that transcript.

[00:02:39] So now I’ve opened the transcript that I downloaded from Descript, and I’m going to go Ctrl A, which is copy all, and then Ctrl C for copy. And then right here in this block, I’m going to go paste. Control V. Those are the commands in a PC. Control A, Control C, and Control V for paste. So now you can see the transcript is pasted in [00:03:00] there.

[00:03:00] And then I will save that blog post. Now let’s go back to the show notes and I’ll click refresh. And there you go. You can see the transcript is right there. So let me go over some of the reasons why it’s so important to have that transcript in your show notes. So I use a WordPress site, as you can see, for my show notes, it’s basically just a blog post, but your host might have a solution for you where you can put your show notes, wherever you put your show notes.

[00:03:26] It’s good to have the transcript, and here are some reasons. First, To generate the description and key takeaways. So if you don’t have that description already, the transcript can help you. Let’s go take a look in AI and how that would work. So I’m here in chat, GBT, and I’m going to type in create show notes for this podcast episode.

[00:03:47] With key points, and make it 500 words or less. And then I pasted the transcript in after that prompt. Let’s see what it came up with. Yeah, so it gave some key points here, some point form. [00:04:00] And so then I can copy and paste that into the description of the show notes. So I’ll have the description, which is a concise overview of the episode.

[00:04:08] And then the transcript will go below, which has all the details and who said what. So that’s for generating the description and the key takeaways for the episode. The other reason is improved search engine optimization and visibility. Search engines crawl the text to understand the content. So when you include the transcript in your show notes, you’re providing a text based version of your audio content.

[00:04:31] It enhances the keyword optimization. The transcript is extra content. It allows you to naturally incorporate relevant keywords and phrases that your target audience might use when searching for content related to your podcast topic. The transcript also provides long form content, which keeps visitors on your site longer because they’ll read through or scan through and see if they want to listen to the podcast episode.

[00:04:57] And then of course, accessibility and [00:05:00] inclusivity. Transcripts make your content accessible to a wider audience, including those with hearing impairments. Transcripts ensure that everyone can consume and understand the valuable information you shared in your podcast episodes. So overall, including detailed episode transcripts in your show notes not only improves SEO, but also fosters inclusivity.

[00:05:23] It engages a broader audience and enhances the overall user experience. It’s a simple yet powerful strategy for maximizing the reach and impact of your podcast content. Thank you so much for watching and listening. You can find the video and the audio and the transcript for this episode at www.

[00:05:42] womeninpodcasting.net. See you next time.[00:06:00]