What show notes are for
Show notes do three jobs. In podcast apps, the first lines decide whether someone presses play, because they are all that shows before the “more” link. On your website, they turn each episode into a page search engines understand. For listeners, they are where to find the book, tool or guest mentioned at minute 23.
So write the opening for a stranger scrolling through an app, and the rest for someone who has just finished the episode. They are different readers, and good notes serve both.
A structure that works
Summary: two or three sentences that say what the listener will learn or hear, with the topic and the guest’s name in the first line. Skip the opening “In this episode”: every show uses it, and it wastes the most visible words.
Chapters: five to ten timestamps with short, descriptive titles, such as “12:40 Why we stopped running ads”. Many podcast apps make timestamps in the notes clickable, and readers use them to jump to the part they care about.
Then the details: a one- or two-line guest bio with their links, the resources mentioned, the credits (host, editor, music) and how to contact the show.
Start from the transcript
Writing notes from memory means rewinding to find the exact moment a book came up. With a transcript, it is a search. Upload the episode, or open an existing transcript, and generate the notes.
The generator reads the whole transcript and drafts a summary, chapter titles with timestamps, key points and a list of the names, books and links mentioned, in about a minute for a one-hour episode.
Treat it as a first draft. The summary may lean on what was said most rather than what matters most, and chapter titles gain from your own voice. Five minutes of editing make the notes yours.
Write for search without stuffing keywords
Use the words people actually search for, usually the topic and the guest’s name. If the episode is about pricing freelance work, say “pricing” and “freelance” in the summary and in a chapter title or two, the way you would say them out loud.
Publish the notes and the transcript on your own website as well as in your feed. Apps and your hosting platform show the notes too, but your site is the page you control, and the one that builds your show’s search presence over time.
Give every episode a descriptive title on top of its number. “#112” tells nobody anything; “#112: Pricing freelance work, with Inès Duarte” tells listeners and search engines what is inside.
Check before you publish
The first sentence names the topic or the guest. The timestamps match the published file, not your raw recording, especially if you added an intro or a sponsor message after transcribing.
Every link works and goes where it says. Guest names, book titles and company names are spelled the way their owners spell them.
The notes read well in a podcast app, where formatting is limited: short paragraphs, plain links, no tables.
Frequently asked questions
How long should show notes be?
Long enough for a summary, chapters and links, often 150 to 400 words. The first two sentences matter most, since apps hide the rest behind a “more” link.
Do timestamps become chapters automatically?
Many podcast apps make timestamps written in the notes clickable. For chapter markers inside the episode itself, add the chapters in your hosting platform; you can copy them straight from the generated notes.
Can I generate show notes in another language?
Notes are written in the language of the transcript. With more than 40 transcription languages, a French or Spanish episode gets French or Spanish notes.
