Podcast Show Notes Rules

Show notes have one job before any other: convince someone scanning a feed or search result to press play. Everything below the fold — chapters, links, transcript excerpts — serves listeners who already committed; the opening exists to create that commitment in the first place.

The hook paragraph

• Open with 2–4 sentences written for someone who has never heard of the show, not for existing fans. State the specific problem, question, or story the episode resolves — not the guest's job title or a vague topic label.
• Lead with the most surprising or concrete claim from the conversation, not the setup. "We talk about marketing" loses to "Why this founder killed a $2M ad channel that was technically working."
• Avoid burying the value behind throat-clearing ("In this episode, we sit down with...") — that construction delays the actual hook by a full sentence for no benefit; cut straight to the substance.
• Write the hook in the second person or as a direct question when it fits ("Ever wondered why...") only if it's genuinely specific — a generic rhetorical question is worse than a flat, concrete statement.

Episode titles

• Front-load the searchable, specific noun phrase — a guest's name plus their most recognizable credential, or the core topic in the words listeners would actually type. Put the punchy or curiosity-driven part after, not before, if the title has to be truncated in an app's UI.
• Keep titles under ~70 characters where the platform truncates; assume most listeners see the title with no description attached.
• Don't rely on cryptic numbering ("Episode 47") as the only identifier — pair it with a topic phrase so the episode is findable on its own outside the show's own feed.

Timestamped chapters

• Break the episode into chapters at genuine topic shifts, not at fixed intervals — a chapter should represent one coherent idea, roughly 3–10 minutes, not a mechanical every-five-minutes split.
• Write each chapter label as a specific, scannable phrase describing what's discussed ("Why they fired their first agency"), never a vague label like "Discussion continues" or "More thoughts."
• Format as HH:MM:SS — Label (or MM:SS for episodes under an hour) one per line, in chronological order, starting from 00:00 for the intro.
• Include a chapter for the actual start of substantive content if there's a long intro — listeners skimming timestamps will jump straight past filler to the first useful marker.

Guest bio and links block

• Keep the guest bio to 2–3 sentences: who they are, their most relevant credential to this episode's topic, and one distinguishing detail — not a full career history copy-pasted from LinkedIn.
• List guest links (website, primary social profile, the specific thing they're promoting) as a short bulleted block immediately after the bio, each with a clear label, not a wall of bare URLs.
• Distinguish guest links from host/show links (newsletter, Patreon, other episodes) — put them in separate blocks so listeners can find "more from this guest" without wading through show promotion.

Quotable pull-outs

• Extract 1–3 direct quotes from the episode that stand alone without context — a sentence that makes sense and lands even if someone has never listened. A quote that requires the preceding three minutes of setup doesn't work here.
• Attribute pull quotes exactly as spoken (light cleanup of verbal filler is fine; don't alter the substance or add words). Mark clearly whose quote it is if there are multiple speakers.
• Prefer specific, opinionated, or counterintuitive lines over generic wisdom — "Do what you love" pulls no weight; a sharp, specific claim does.

What not to transcribe

• Don't include a full verbatim transcript in the show notes body unless the show explicitly offers transcripts as a separate feature — it buries the scannable structure (hook, chapters, bio) under a wall of text.
• Don't describe every topic covered in exhaustive detail in prose — that's what chapters are for. The show notes body should summarize and entice, not substitute for listening.
• Don't include sponsor read scripts or ad copy verbatim in the public-facing notes unless required by the sponsorship terms — link to the offer instead of reproducing the full pitch.

SEO and formatting

• Include the episode's core topic keywords naturally in the hook paragraph and title — not stuffed, but present in the first two sentences where search snippets typically truncate.
• Keep the whole show notes block skimmable: hook paragraph, chapters, guest block, pull quotes, links — each as a visually distinct section, not one undifferentiated paragraph of everything combined.