This is the next in the occasional series about what no-one tells you about podcasts. Show notes are often misunderstood; They should be the hard copy of what people might want to know about your podcast, and have some essential elements which need to be considered.

Show notes need to be consistent – you can’t provide a full version one episode and nothing the next. Make sure you know how much in going in them BEFORE you start producing episodes.

Contact details are important. Where can people connect with you and, more importantly, your guests. An outline of who the guests are helps people decide to listen in or not. We ask for 30-50 words for the Women Talking About Learning podcast and ALL the links to connect – LinkedIn, email, etc.

Depending on how you want your podcast to be discovered, adding a summary of the episode can really help with SEO. Writing a summary needn’t be onerous though – upload a transcript into a LLM and ask it to summarise the text and you’ll have some good base copy in a very short time.

Attribute your sources. If you and your guests mention specific works, content, videos, thinking, etc, make sure you put links to it in the show notes. As well as making it easier for the listener, you are honouring the people who have produced the content in the first place and making sure their work is respected.

Link back to previous episodes. It’s pretty common on Women Talking About Learning for someone to reference a topic which has been discussed before. Linking back to that episode makes it easier for the listener.

Advertise future episodes. Tell people what you’ll be covering in the future so they – and you! – know what you’ve promised.

Keep them brief. There are conflicting ideas about how long they should be but you don’t need to produce an essay each time – keep them under 150-200 words for concise information.

Which podcasts produce show notes you like? Let me know in the comments.