How to Optimise your Show Notes for your Website with Sarah McDowell

Rachael Botfield: 00:00:09

Hi and welcome to Podcasting 101 with Rachael. This podcast is for busy female entrepreneurs who run their own businesses and want to start a podcast or who may already have a podcast.

I want to share practical information and tips on how you can get your podcast started and managing it along the way. I'll also be interviewing other female podcast hosts to give you real insight into what it's like having your own podcast.

Welcome to this week's episode. Today I wanted to talk about show notes and whether they're important from an SEO perspective.

And who better to have that conversation with than my podcast partner in Crime, Sarah McDowell.

Sarah is a podcast producer, SEO consultant, podcast host of the SEO Mindset podcast, a podcast studio owner and co founder of the West Midlands Podcast Club with me. Welcome, Sarah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:09

Hello. I'm very excited to be here and.

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:13

I'm excited to talk to you. And actually we're recording in Lyrebird Studios in Worcester.

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:18

We are.

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:18

It's my first time being in here since it's been created and all finished and it looks fantastic. I'll be sharing some pictures on social media so you can all have a little sneak peek at what Sarah's studio looks like.

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:30

And I just want, want to say to your listeners that you, you were part of the process.

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:36

Oh, yes.

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:37

You helped. You did some painting.

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:39

That is correct. Me and my daughter, we came and helped do the painting and actually lost a bet with my daughter about the color of the door, didn't I?

Think I still owe her. She still says that. Still owe me £2.

Sarah McDowell: 00:01:51

You got to pay those debts.

Rachael Botfield: 00:01:53

I know. I'll just have to get her some chocolate to make up for it.

Right, so for those of you who don't know what show notes are, they are the description for your podcast episode. They can include a short summary of the episode, provide links to resources and your information so people can contact you if you want. They can be.

They range from being quite short to quite long and in detail.

I know sometimes some people have full show notes on their website, don't have all the information inside the podcast apps, but that is why I wanted to have that conversation with Sarah today, to really have a little look at what it means from an SEO perspective, because Sarah is an SEO expert and we've had her on the podcast before, sharing her top three discoverability tips for your podcast, which if you haven't listened to, I would highly recommend going back and listening to. So I'll link it in our show notes.

But Sarah, just to start, could you just let us know what the benefits are of show notes for SEO and discoverability.

Sarah McDowell: 00:02:51

Yes, definitely. And I think I just want to start by clearing up any confusion, because when we're talking about show notes, you gotta think of it in two places.

So, like, you say you've got your show notes, or other people call them descriptions in your podcast directories and apps like Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, and then you've also got your show notes that are on your website. So if you have a podcast website, and I.

For SEO purposes, I would recommend that you do have a website for your podcast, but when you are publishing your episodes, the idea is that you have individual pages for these episodes and then you've got your show notes there. So when we're talking about SEO, we're mostly already talking about it for your website, if that makes sense.

Rachael Botfield: 00:03:41

Okay, so that's just another interesting thing. So for me, I put the same information in the description that goes out on my podcast platforms as I do for my website.

So is that the right thing to do or is that too much information?

Sarah McDowell: 00:03:57

You've got to think about what you're trying to do with both of the different places and directories and being found on places like Google in search engines, they'll have their different algorithms.

When you search in places like Spotify for certain topics or podcasts or episodes, it has its own algorithm and decides what it wants to show based on that. And Google and other search engines have their own. So my experience from an SEO background is more in the website side of things.

And what's interesting to say as well is that when you're in your apps, your show notes get truncated, don't they? So when you're first searching and looking for. Not everyone is first shown the show notes in its full entirety.

So the idea there is you've got to think of a hook. Yeah.

So I got this tip from Anna Xavier from the podcast space, but she was like, when you're writing your show notes, don't start with in today's episode, because that's wasted space. Especially if you're thinking about that's being truncated. So get to the point. Hook people in. Why should people listen?

And the point of show notes in directories is to, like, tease people, isn't it? It's to tease people to get to listen to your podcast. And having keywords in your title and having keywords in your show notes are going to help.

But when it's on your website, you have a Little bit more flexibility because when you're doing your show notes in the directories, you're kind of restricted with format. What you can add, what different things you can add to your show notes.

So I would say get the point across, tease people, get people wanting to listen to your episode. Make sure you've got your call to actions in there. Make sure you've got enough information and there's enough content.

So the podcast players know what it's about, but so do your listeners. But when you're thinking about showing it's on your website, it's a completely different ballgame because you've got so much more flexibility.

You can have different formats, you can have bullet points, you can have infographics, you can have videos, you can have images. So you've got to tackle them differently. Does that make sense?

Rachael Botfield: 00:06:26

It does make sense, yeah. And for me personally, I've been not tackling them differently. I have put the same show notes in my podcast descriptions. I use Captivate as a host.

I put that, put it in there and that gets uploaded. And then I use the same show notes, although I do add a transcript under your advice. And I do obviously have.

I have some players embedded in there as well, so it does look different. And you're right, you do have more space to play with when you're working on your website.

Sarah McDowell: 00:06:57

Yeah, because. And also there is no word limits on your on your website, so I should know this off the top of my head, but Apple directories, there is a maximum word count, isn't there? Or characters that you can have in your show notes. I can't remember. I should know this.

Rachael Botfield: 00:07:16

I don't know that one. I know the description. 600 characters in Spotify podcasters, because I've recently helped some clients set up that.

Sarah McDowell: 00:07:22

Well, it'll be the same. Yeah, it'll be the same sort of difference. So have a look at. Because all directories are going to have their different word counts, aren't they?

And what they can show. So already you're limited, whereas when it's on your website, you have no limit. So you've got more flexibility.

And yeah, like when you're tackling your show notes on your website, you've got to. The best way to think about SEO is give it two ways to think about SEO.

Giving Google enough information so that it knows what that website page is about.

So as you can imagine with a podcast episode, podcast pages, generally speaking are much thinner in content compared to other product pages or blogs, for example. Yeah, and that's just the Nature of podcasts. So what the opportunity here is to help Google a little bit more. So having your transcript, that is important for accessibility reasons, but also helps Google understand what that podcast episode is about. Take out interesting key takeaways or interesting talking points from that podcast episod. Add images, add clips, add FAQs, do your keyword research.

I'm probably going to go into more tips and stuff like that later, but if I were you, tackle them differently.

And the main reason is because on your own website, you've just got more flexibility, you've got more options, you've got more chances to make Google understand what that podcast episode is about. And it's not just about Google. Google and search engines have customers. Yeah, their customers are website users.

So you've always, always got to think about them. What is your user experience like? Is there enough information on the page for users? Is there enough information? But is it an engaging way?

Is it presented in a way that's easily digestible? Is the page exciting to be on? Think about your intent. Are you. Sorry, I'm getting a bit on my soapbox?

Rachael Botfield: 00:09:36

No, it's great.

Sarah McDowell: 00:09:37

But are you answering all the questions or any queries that someone might have? You still want to entice people to listen to the episodes. There's always going to be a bit of a balance, isn't there?

Because what you don't want is for someone to be able to get all their information that they can on the page and then they don't listen to your podcast because we're all chasing those podcast downloads. So there is a balance. But you've just, you've just got Rachel, you've got more opportunities, more possibilities.

And also what you got to think about is you can convert people who weren't necessarily looking for a podcast.

So when you searching in Google, nine times out of 10, you're expecting, I don't know, to come across a blog article or maybe a video or an infographic.

Like, you're not necessarily going to be thinking that you're going to come across a podcast episode, but for me, because I enjoy or I take on information better when I listen. I'm a visual person or I'm a listener. That's how I learn.

Some people do prefer reading, and that's fine, but you just got to think someone might stumble across that podcast episode that you've optimized.

You've got all this lovely content and they weren't expecting to listen to a podcast, but they've come onto your page and they've Realized, oh my gosh, this is a really cracking episode that's got all the answers to my questions. This is what I want to listen to. I don't want to read, I want to listen. And you've got yourself another listener.

Rachael Botfield: 00:11:10

That's a great point. You can bring people in that might not necessarily thought about using that medium as well by making it more enticing on your website page.

I was just thinking about what mine looks like and I'm thinking maybe I need to make it look more enticing. So we need to address the description for the podcast apps on our website in two very different ways.

So like, you mentioned a hook and I heard about that kind of research and I've been testing that out for my own show notes as well. I guess it is a bit alike.

When we talk about our marketing, you've got to make sure we're thinking about the user experience and who is we're doing it for the two different. The two different platforms.

Okay, so how would you say, well, you just gave us two big tips there on how to think about it from a search engine optimization. Would you other specific things that you would recommend to include on your website? I know you said transcripts. So for example, timestamps.

Would you recommend timestamps?

Sarah McDowell: 00:12:13

Yes. So what to include in your show notes. So always start off with a bit of keyword research.

Yeah, I'm not going to be an SEO person if I don't talk about keyword research. And there's lots of great tools out there. Some are. Some you have to pay for, some are free, some really cracking. I said cracking. I'm not passionate.

You can just tell how nerdy I am really, can't you? But some cracking free research tools. One is Google Trends.

I don't know if you've come across Google Trends, but it's a great tool and basically Google has all this data so it knows when topics are trending.

So what you can use that tool is to type in a topic or an idea that's related to your podcast and see what's trending, what's coming up in the news, what's happened and making something really big and really like everyone in, in the world or the UK or wherever your audience is, what are they talking about? Another great free keyword research tool is also asked. How Also Ask works is it gets its data from People Also Ask.

So you know when you're searching Google and you get that little box that says people also ask gives you questions. That is where this tool also asks its data from.

And it's great because you put in a topic or an idea and it will tell you all of those people also ask questions.

But what we'll also do is it will categorize them like they'll put the topics together in a visual way and that helps you then structure and put together your podcast episodes. And yeah, you can pay for also ask, but you get three searches for free a day, which is pretty cool. So, yeah, so always do your keyword research.

And I would go for the longer tail. So longer tail basically means your longer keywords.

So I think typically longer tail keywords have more than, let's say, three words and they're like questions sort of thing.

So have a look at those longer tail keywords, have a look what people are searching for and pick ones that have a decent search volume, are not very competitive, but are relevant to that podcast episode. And just have a look at what people are searching for.

Because once you've got that in your mind, then when you record your podcast episode, you're naturally going to be saying them. So then when you've got your transcript on your page, you've got lot, lots of lovely keywords and synonyms.

One thing that I would say is be careful of keyword stuffing. You don't want to do that.

And I see this in the wild where people will list synonyms of keywords in their title or their description and they'll literally just list out variations of the same keyword. Don't do that. That's not going to work. It's going to put off your listeners, which you don't want at the end of the day.

And Google cracks down on stuff like that. Search engines don't like that. So don't do that.

Something else that you've got to remember and consider is Google is always checking its algorithm and looking at ways that it is serving content because at the end of the day, it wants to serve the best content for its users. It needs to be helpful, it needs to be valuable. It wants to get rid of those spam and awful search results. It wants to show up for its customers.

There was a couple of updates that have been rolled out. There was one that was called the Helpful Content Update and there was another one that was called eat.

And I'm saying EEAT in a weird way because EEAT stands for Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trust. So what these two updates did was they wanted content to prove their worth.

They wanted website owners and people who are writing the content to prove what they're saying can be trusted can be valuable.

So when you're thinking about your show notes, make sure that you're backing what you're saying up with research, data, statistics and make sure that you're linking from.

So in your show notes, what I usually have is a resources section and I'll just say something along the lines of resources that help today's episode come from here.

So if you're linking out, you are showing to Google and to your users that what you're saying, what is being talked about has been backed up by research, if that makes sense.

Rachael Botfield: 00:16:54

Yeah, that's really interesting. I never would have thought about that. I have done past episodes where I would link to outside resources and things like that.

But that's like, for example, we were talking before we hit record, we've got, I think the episode would have come out by now, but Khadirah Mahammed talking about automation processes.

So as an example, she's talking about the automation process. You can have to streamline your podcast guest outreach and then also mentioned about it for other processes.

So maybe looking around that subject and getting some statistics together to have that for further information for people and things like that. Is that what you're saying I could do in that situation?

Sarah McDowell: 00:17:35

Yeah, definitely. And also if you are inviting experts or an authoritative person to come onto your website. Sorry.

To come onto your podcast episode, make sure you've gotten a bio about them. Yeah. So you've seen this when you come across articles on the website, you'll see like a little bio and it will say like, why this person can be trusted. It's got their accreditations, their certifications, where they've been mentioned. Do the same in your podcast episode.

So make sure that any guest, any person that you have on, have a section that explains and proves to both Google and users who that person is.

Rachael Botfield: 00:18:15

So yeah, for example, I always ask that of my guests, so I would have her bio on there and I also invite them to send me any links and things like that. But you could include perhaps other places where they have spoken about these particular topics, like you said, to verify that.

Yeah, that's just that extra little step. Yeah, to take that extra step to make it. Yeah, I really like that. That's a really great idea.

Sarah McDowell: 00:18:39

And then another couple of tips is always add FAQs. So for example, use also ask that I've already talked about.

So you could find frequently asked questions that are related to the topic that you're talking about and you can answer them on your show notes. But then you can hook people in as well.

You could be like, you could give them an answer or a bit of an answer, but then be like, ah, listen to the episode to find out more sort of thing. So that's another great thing that you can do. I mean, do you use FAQs?

Rachael Botfield: 00:19:13

I don't actually, no. Not in my podcast episodes.

I know that Hannah, my awesome copywriter, helps, when I was building my website, recommended having an FAQ section so that could answer further questions about me and my business. But I hadn't thought about doing it for individual podcast episodes.

So how so is that something that you do for your podcast for the SEO Mindset podcast?

Sarah McDowell: 00:19:36

It's something that I work with, on clients with. And so something that me and Tasmin are working on with the SEO mindset is we're going to create our own website.

So at the moment we're using an autom, one that captivate very wonderfully put together. But we're at the point now where we want more flexibility, we want more options.

So once we do that, it will give me opportunities to create the best possible show notes that I can. And then you mentioned timestamps.

Timestamps is always great because that helps people to navigate to points of an episode that they're most interested in. And what's interesting there is Google can track behavior on a, on a website, they can track how engaged people are.

So if people are sticking around and they're going through like your audio or your episode, they're increasing the time that they're on the page, then that's only going to be a good thing. Key takeaways as well is a good one. So people know bullet points of what, what this podcast is going to be about.

And then a nice little one that I always recommend is think about your internal links. So internal links is where you link to other pages of your website. Yeah.

So if you've got a podcast website, you can be linking to other individual podcast episodes. So you could have a section in your show notes that said, enjoy this episode. We also talk about other topics related to this.

Check out this episode, check out that episode. And that's a great way of hooking people in and checking out more of your episodes that will help you download numbers and everyone's a winner.

Rachael Botfield: 00:21:26

Yes, I do try and do that. So for example, in this episode Show Notes, you hopefully will find a link to Sarah's past episode SEO tips for discoverability of your podcast.

So, yeah, that's a great idea.

So would you suggest kind of putting together a template of sorts of what you would like your show notes to look like for your website. For example, have you hook short summary key takeaways in the form of bullet points.

Then if you have a guest, including the guest bio and where they can find them and any other helpful resources that guests may have produced to help with the validity of the episode. Having an FAQ section and then including your transcript as well. Does that sound like a good kind of format to kind of stick to?

Because I have to admit, sometimes with my episodes, they do differ and I've tried to template it. I have tried been testing out with the hook at the beginning, like really succinctly because I know it's truncated on like Spotify and all the other podcasts. Other podcasts, apps are available.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:37

Rachael is not sponsored.

Rachael Botfield: 00:22:38

Not sponsored by Spotify. Oh my God, I'd love it. Not yet.

Sarah McDowell: 00:22:42

Not yet, folks.

Rachael Botfield: 00:22:43

And yeah, so. And that's what I try to recommend for my clients as well. I used to include timestamps. I don't so much anymore, but they are useful in that way.

Like, so when you're maybe giving your key takeaways, you could put a timestamp at the end of that. So somebody really wants to focus on that specific piece of information.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:02

And timestamps are going to be helpful as well because Google is getting more and more sophisticated. It's getting more and more knowledgeable. So you've got to think of synonyms. Don't just think of standalone one keyword.

Think of keyword topics, keyword clusters, everything that's related to that query or whatever that person is searching for. So if you have got your key takeaways, you're going to be naturally mentioning stuff that's synonymously related. Yeah, I don't know if I've just made up a word. But you're going to be saying we cover topics that are related to this topic.

So that's going to help your potential listeners because they'll be like, hell, yeah, I'm going to listen. But also you're helping Google understand and joining up the dots.

Rachael Botfield: 00:23:53

Yeah.

Sarah McDowell: 00:23:54

So the biggest thing is tackle show notes in a way where Google and users are left with no questions. The only questions that they should be left with are where you're then getting them to listen to the podcast episode. Yeah. Get the intent. Right.

Do your research. Get your call to actions. Yeah, call to actions are really important.

So in your template, what I'd recommend is deciding what your most important call to action is what do you want people to do? And pepper that throughout your show notes as well.

Rachael Botfield: 00:24:30

Okay. So not just leave it as one at the end.

Sarah McDowell: 00:24:35

Not everyone's going to scroll all the way down there.

So as long especially so you've got to think if you are creating these perfectly beautiful show notes that are really going to entice people, you can tell how passionate I am. Rachel.

The page is going to end up being a bit on the long side and scrolling, which is fine, but you just got to remember that people aren't going to scroll all the way to the bottom. So make sure that you're. You're peppering your call to actions or your main things throughout that page.

There are some great heat mapping tools that you can put on your website. Microsoft Clarity is one. Why is it when I talk about a tool, the names just go from my mind? But search heat mapping tools.

Some are free, some are paid for, of course, free. You're going to be limited.

But with these heat mapping tools you can see where the most popular areas on your website are and where people don't get to.

So that's helpful to know because if you've got your most important one call to action right at that bottom of the page and no one's getting there, you know that you need to bring it up higher. So I'd recommend getting a heat mapping tool.

Rachael Botfield: 00:25:50

That is a fantastic tip. I have never heard of that before and I will definitely be taking a look at that.

Sarah McDowell: 00:25:57

I want to say Crazy Egg might be a heat mapping tool. I recently used this and it's really annoying that, that the name's gone out of my mind. I'd be. I'd be awful as an influencer, wouldn't I?

Rachael Botfield: 00:26:09

Well, if you think of it after then let me know when I can pop it into my show notes where I'll be leaving some links to different heat mapping tools. Maybe I'll even leave a link to a tiny blog that says how I got on with mine.

Sarah McDowell: 00:26:21

But what you can also do with heat mapping is they'll do recordings of people using your website. So what that's really helpful for is I've seen one that has a rage meter. So how angry people get because they can't do what they're expected to.

So they're on a page and they think something's a button when it's not and they carry on clicking or. We've all been there, haven't we?

When we've tried to do something on a website and it's not doing or another thing to look out for is how much your page moves when it is loading. Because that's a user experience. User experience is very important. Yeah. So user experience.

So make sure your content and your show notes is engaging, but make sure there are no errors on your website. Things are working as they should be.

There's a fancy word and I'm going to say it and then your listeners can say it and sound like an SEO wizard as well. But there's something called Cumulative Layout Shift cls and basically what that means is a fancy word for how much a page moves when it is loading.

Because it's very annoying when you're waiting for a page to load. Finally it loads. You go to click something, but then as you click, something else appears and then you end up somewhere else. Yeah.

So that's what Cumulative Layout Shift is. There another tool to check out is Core Web Vitals. Google Core Web Vitals. So basically this is a free tool.

You can put any pages of your podcast website into it and Google will show you how good your user experience is and it will tell you areas that you need to improve on. So if your website is too slow, if the Cumulative Layout Shift is too much, it's really good. Go and check that out.

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:08

Wow. I will definitely be checking those out. Fantastic.

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:11

I feel a bit out of breath.

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:13

You've just given us so much great, fantastic information throughout this whole half an hour that we've been talking. So I just want to. Before we wrap up the episode. So we're just going to little recap of what you said.

So we've talked about keywords researching before you hit record so that we can make sure that those are appearing naturally throughout our podcast and also will naturally then appear in our summaries.

Sarah McDowell: 00:28:38

Can I really exaggerate natural don't keyword stuff. Yeah, yeah. That's not going to help anyone. It's going to annoy your listeners. Google cracks down. So please don't keyword stuff.

Have it there as a reminder, but don't be natural.

Rachael Botfield: 00:28:54

So we've got keywords, we've got making our Show Notes page on our website as accessible and interesting as possible for the user. Creating that user experience, allowing ourselves to be creative as well. Perhaps with our images, video clips.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:13

So Riverside Magic clips, you could pepper that throughout as well.

Rachael Botfield: 00:29:19

That's really. I didn't think about including video clips throughout the. I've just started doing clips like that. That's interesting.

So another awesome tip there to put into it. You can put together a template from what Sarah's been talking about today, we went through a rough example of a template.

I will leave the timestamp in the show notes so you can find that easily. But, yeah, that's a really. I think that's a good, quick way so you don't forget everything.

You've got this template, you know what you want to include, the format of what you want to include, and then you can try and hopefully recreate that similarly for each episode.

Sarah McDowell: 00:29:54

Handy little checklist, isn't it? Yeah, definitely, because you forget about stuff all the time. So I'm a big fan of a template or a checklist.

Don't be afraid to mix things up and test and experiment with different things, but as long as you've got your fundamentals, isn't it?

Rachael Botfield: 00:30:09

Yeah, I like that testing. I do a lot of experimenting with my podcasts and how I do things to try and find a really good way to. That might work.

I mean, there's no magic, "do this, this and this."

And it will always be amazing for you because obviously there are lots of different factors involved, but it just helps with creativity and just giving things a go, really. And I find that podcasting is so good to be able to do that.

And then Sarah's gave us some awesome tools to use to help with our user experience with our website. So I will definitely be checking those tools out. Thank you so much, Sarah, for coming on and sharing your expertise.

Sarah McDowell: 00:30:50

Thank you. I always. I always worry about saying too much because, like, I get excited and there's just so much that I'm.

I've been told I'm like a bit of a golden retriever, a bit happy, but hopefully it's been valuable and helpful.

Rachael Botfield: 00:31:06

I'm sure it has been very valuable. I have learned a lot today, as I always love to learn from my different guests that come on.

And you've packed a lot of information in there as well, so everyone will be getting a lot of value from this episode. Before we go, do you want to just let people know where you hang out the most and where people can find you?

Sarah McDowell: 00:31:23

Myself, personally, Sarah McDowell, we're on all the social media, so search for Sarah McDuk on Instagram and Twitter. My friend did point out that. That also, you know what I'm going to say here?

You're already laughing, but it also stands for Sarah McDuck, so that's a nice way of remembering that. Yeah. So. And Then just Sarah McDonald on LinkedIn search for Lyrebird Studios, Worcester.

If you want to come and see the studios, we do a little free tour. Rachael, would you come back and record?

Rachael Botfield: 00:31:55

Oh, 100% It's really lovely in here as well and thank you. It's really, really lovely.

And again, I'll be showing some pictures of me and Sarah in the studio as well.

Sarah McDowell: 00:32:04

Lovely stuff. So, yeah, I mean, I'm anywhere and everywhere and yeah. Sarahmcdowell.co.uk lyrebirdstudios.com I believe.

But if you search Lyrebird studio, Worcester, then I don't think there's another Lyrebird, if there is, I'm coming for you.

Rachael Botfield: 00:32:23

Fantastic, Sarah, and as I always say to my guests, I'll be leaving all those links in the show notes so you can easily get in contact with Sarah if you are interested in using her podcast studio or talking to her about podcast producing or any SEO work that you would like doing. So thanks again, Sarah, and thanks for listening and we'll see everybody soon. Bye. Thanks for listening to the show.

If you'd like to connect with me or get in touch, then head on over to my website. If you like the episode, then I'd love it if you could leave me a review in your chosen podcast app. Your feedback is much appreciated.

See you next time.