by: AskPat 330 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: Hey, what's everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 330 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you are doing well, and as always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions, five days a week.
Cool. Thanks. Now let's get today's question from Brian.
Brian: Hey, Pat. This is Brian. I've been listening to you for a while and you've inspired me to try my hand at podcasting. So I want to thank you for that. I'm in the process of starting this podcast, and I'm really excited because I think it's going to help a lot of people and it's something that I'm passionate about and something that I've been wanting to do for a while. I didn't know I wanted to do it as a podcast, but it's information that I've wanted to share for a while and I didn't really know how to best do that. Thanks to listening to you and a few other people that I listen to, I realized that a podcast might be the best way to do it.
Now my question is, how do you go about writing your show notes? I just kind of did a demo episode, if you will, so I can hear myself, let a couple people hear it, see if the feel sounded like it should, you know, so I could actually release it eventually.
But what I didn't realize is I don't think the way that I outline my podcast would translate that well into show notes. I just did an outline. I didn't get any real specifics in there, and I just use those as talking points so that I could speak on it in the podcast.
So again, if you can tell me how you go about making sure that your show notes are something that other people will benefit from, I would really appreciate it. And also, too. if you would tell me, I’m in the process of thinking about either doing a website or just a webpage, and if I did a webpage, it would have links and everything to other important information, but I just don't know if I have enough content for a whole website yet. Do you have any insight on that?
All right, thank you. I appreciate it. You have a good day.
Pat Flynn: Hey, Brian. What's up? Thank you so much for the question. And first of all, congratulations on the decision to start a podcast. A lot of people are starting podcasts these days, and it's because it is a great way to deliver a message.
It was actually a podcast that got me into what I'm doing today, and hopefully a lot of other people out there have also been inspired by the podcasts and the content that I've done to start their own as well. And Brian, I'm really happy for you, and I can't wait to hear more about what you're up to.
But let's help you out here. So you're asking about show notes. And show notes are interesting because you can pretty much do whatever you want with how much you want to write about your audio. Now it's important to know that the show notes are a pretty valuable aspect of your podcast. Even though people are listening on the go, your show notes are very valuable because people are listening on the go and it's a great place to have people get those links and the resources that you mentioned in the episode.
But it's also a great place for people who land on your blog first to read those posts, those show notes, to see if that's actually something they want to listen to. So it can go both ways. It's also great for search engine optimization on Google and also sharing and obviously that's where calls to action happen.
You always want to bring people on your podcast back to your website. That's why, to go to your last question, website versus just a webpage to hold your podcast, I would really really encourage you to do an entire website about this. And yes, at the beginning, you don't necessarily have a lot of content. But you don't need a lot of content, and About pages are obviously going to be very important, but landing pages and that resource page with all the links and important items that you could potentially put on there to help your audience out as well. That's a great thing to have on your website because it's a one-stop shop of all the things necessary to do whatever it is you're trying to get them to do.
So a website with all the bells and whistles is not necessarily up front. But a website, yes, for the future because hopefully, over time, you will be building more content and will be placing more things onto your site, potentially selling courses and products and affiliate products and having coaching programs, whatever you want to do. A website is a great hub for everything. And it's just your podcast that's reaching out into iTunes, into Stitcher, into the audio audience, and bringing people back to your website.
So again, make sure you have a website. Now let's go back to your show notes. I like show notes to be a very high value item that really gets those listeners to come back to the website. And again, the links and the resources are great for that. There's also the aspect of leaving comments and calls to actions and giveaways. A lot of people are doing what's called upgraded content.
Amy Porterfield from AmyPorterfield.com is doing a really great job. She's gone to update her podcast over the last two years, so she's doing it weekly now instead of bi-weekly. And she has amazing show notes, so I would check out her site, AmyPorterfield.com, to see how she's running her show notes. But at the end of every podcast episode, every podcast episode, you don't have to do every episode, but the end of every podcast episode that Amy Porterfield puts out, she also mentions that you could download a PDF bonus.
It might be a checklist or a quick start guide or something related to the content. And you have to enter your email address to get that, and at the same time, she also tags people based on what that particular podcast episode was about. And then can deliver extremely personalized and high value content based on that interest item, and also products related to that as well down the road.
So that's, you know, a little bit more advanced, but the fact that she's giving away something at the end of every episode is a great value add. Its a great way to get people to come back onto her website to get people who aren't on her email list onto her email list and so on and so forth. So that's a great thing you can add onto your show notes as well, a giveaway, some sort of call to action, something that will, you know, incentivize people to subscribe.
Now here's the typical break down of show notes. And show notes, again, are great for a lot of reasons like I previously mentioned. You want to have some introduction about what the episode is about. Some intriguing points. Perhaps you can even put some bullet points like I do. And I have a couple types of different bullet points. Yes, I have the bullet points of the links and the resources, but that's sort of in the middle of my show notes.
Before that, I even say, “Here's what you can actually learn if you listen to this episode.” And I feel this part's important because the bullet points just makes it really clear, boom boom boom, here's what you're going to learn, and I make them intriguing. I make them like almost each bullet point is like a really intriguing headline, if you will.
And I do spend a little bit of time on that. So, for instance, is somebody's going to learn podcasting tips to help them, it might be the top three podcasting tips that you don't want to miss to get more listeners in 2015. Something like that. And I list a few of those related to what has been mentioned and the episode.
I also include, like I said, the bullet points for the links and the resources. And, again, it's important to have those really easily listed out. And then I also have the calls to action, and that's sort of what I feel like would be the best as far as minimum to put in your show notes. You can go all out and even outline your content even more if you, for example, do an episode that is your top 10 whatever.
You can list out those top 10 things and describe them a little bit under each of them to summarize them, but then again, intriguing people to go and listen to that particular episode.
Now, as far as creating the show notes. I know a lot of people struggle with show notes because you know they feel like you've done the audio, and you put in the work to edit them and publish it, and here you go, you have to write a whole entire blog post about it. You can make your life a little bit easier by preparing ahead of time.
Now you've said, Brian, that you created bullet points before you started recording, and that's great. That's going to be a great starting point to just really easily crank out your show notes, at least in those bullet points that I was talking about earlier. But also, if you're doing an interview, it can be a little tough because you don't know exactly where the conversation's going. So what I like to do is when I listen or while I'm editing that particular episode, sometimes I'll even export it, even before it's edited, just to kind of get the audio file in my hands, and then I'll listen to it at 2x or 2.5x speed. And as I'm listening to it, I'll write down or type out kind of the talking points to make sure that I can then copy and paste those or tweak them a little bit, and then put them into the show notes.
So again, I listen when I'm editing. And again, this was before I had my team doing a lot of this stuff for me. I edited the Smart Passive Income Podcast myself for four years, and I got really, really dedicated to figuring out how I could do it faster, and with the show notes it was while editing I was taking notes. Also, even while doing the interview, I got to the point where when I was doing interviews, I was actually taking notes so that I can then easily add them onto the show notes later on.
Now that took a little bit of practice because in the beginning it was hard for me to do all that at the same time. I really wanted to make sure I was focused on the guest, but you learn over time. And again, Brian, the way you do your show notes should be however you feel is happy and best for your audience as well.
So there are just suggestions based on my own experience and experience of listening to others and reading other people's show notes. So, I had mentioned AmyPorterfield.com. She does great show notes. Another person who does great sow notes is MichaelHyatt.com as well, and of course Cliff Ravenscraft from PodcastAnswerMan.com. So, those are the three I'd recommend checking out.
Brian, thank you so much for the question, and I wish you all the best with your new show and the show notes and everything. Because you were featured here on AskPat, we're going to send you an AskPat t-shirt, so my assistant is going to send you a link in the next couple weeks to collect your information.
So, thank you again for that. For those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like potentially featured here on the show, all you have to do is head on over to AskPat.com. You can ask right there on that page thanks to the widget from SpeakPipe.com.
Thanks again so much for listening in today. And this quote, which I'm going to end with, is from Audrey Hepburn. She says, “Nothing is impossible. The word itself says ‘I’m possible.’”
Cheers, take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Thanks guys.