78 - Tip Tuesday - Tips To Make Your Show Notes Lure Listeners With Lara Loest

As the popularity of podcasting increases, it's more important than ever that what you do stands out about the rest.  Not only is the interview important, but so are the show notes.  Today Lara Loest breaks down what it takes to have great show notes attached to your podcast, so that it grabs the reader's attention and wants them looking for more.

There are many ways to have show notes, one for one, notes that give the highlights and then just a very brief description of what you will find when you listen to the podcast.

What do you feel constitutes great show notes? Are you trying to do the whole thing or are you pushing for the listener to press play? There are really two parts to it for me and for my clients. One is to give the readers content and give them something tangible that they can take away and leave them wanting more. So they do press play and they do download, because as we know in the podcast world downloads are BIG.

What makes a great copywriting? Where do you tie in the copywriting and what goes into crafting the show notes for you and how you get that hook? Always use bullets points because you can cover a couple of topics or let the readers or listeners know that these topics are covered even if there is not in-depth notes in the show notes. Bullets are actually an art in and of it self. Lara suggests finding someone who you like, by his or her style and then handwrite his or her copy. It will help you craft your copy style.

Explain that a little more for us “handwrite their copy”. Handwrite word for word what that copy is that you are reading. Ideally doing this activity for at least 30 minutes a day but if you can only get 15 minutes that is good too. There are proven studies out there that link this neurologically to being beneficial and retrain your brain to think and communicate in that same way.

Can you describe what goes into a great bullet point? The good vs. the bad. The different between good and great bullet point is in the detail.

Good Bullet Point: example

“Here are common mistakes that people make starting XYZ”

Great Bullet Point: example

      “What are the four most common mistakes people make when starting XYZ”

You make it just a little more specific that makes it great.

How much do you consider the host of the show’s voice for the show notes? Reflect the voice of the host. Because as the person that is writing the show notes you are a ghostwriter. Just mimicking their voices and styles is a trainable task. Lara feels that it is critical based on her clientele but does not feel that it is important in all cases to reflect the host of the show. Keeping it in mind when you are first starting out but working towards keeping it true to the voice of the host as time goes on is very important.

What about headlines are you writing those to? They do not come the easiest to Lara but she learned from one of her clients that if the guest has a very popular website or book to put it in the headline because it helps with SEO.

Do you draw a balance between the SEO side and drawing the audience to want to listen to the podcast? It is only a strong factor when they have a popular website or book. Otherwise she just uses the main theme from the show. Lara does not let SEO be the main focus she allows the headline to guide the SEO.

How much to you let SEO drive the content of the show notes? It is pretty organic. She mentions the name of the podcast in the show notes to help boosts the rating in the search engines.   Lara uses SEO Yoast which is a plug-in on Wordpress that she uses for some of her clients but she does that after she completes the show notes, so her content is really all organic.

What would you say for the person just starting out as general rules for show notes? Keep with the same format for every episode and think about the show notes as content that you can and should be repurposing in some way. Weather it be taking a snippet and using as a tweet or Facebook to generate traffic.

Do you have any tools that you use to make the sharing a bit easier? Click To Tweet is her favorite tool and is used with all of her clients.   The only other one that she uses for the content is SEO Yoast.

Any advice on full transcription?  Not really because she does not do any full transcriptions for her clients. It is a very different skill set than what her client base is looking for and really does not have an interest in learning. There are some that feel that people learn in different ways and feel that full transcription will reach a different audience.

You can find Lara at Shownotesmadeeasy.com. She has a course running online as well so you can check that out on her website.

More about Lara Loest – She is a successful entrepreneur, writer, and trainer. Lara believes in the beauty and power within each of us and loves supporting people in creating lives they love. She has taught and trained all levels and ages from inner city youth to entrepreneurial seniors - and everyone in between.

Lara has a background in marketing communications and project management; she has run several businesses of her own and thrives on the entrepreneurial spirit. Her love for personal and professional exploration have taken her on many journeys including living overseas in Ireland and earning her MA in Women's Studies.

Currently Lara resides in sunny southern California where she is building a thriving business writing killer show notes and helping other podcasters with her Show Notes Made Easy products.

In her spare time she enjoys exploring San Diego, being at the ocean, hiking, dancing, yoga and travel.