Why would anyone read a podcast?
Transcribing your podcast is the process of turning the audio of your episode into text so there’s a readable version of your show on your website (a transcript).
If you’re thinking “Isn’t podcasting about getting into people’s ears, not their eyes?” you’re right, but there are a few reasons why taking some extra time to transcribe your podcast is a really good idea…
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Podcast transcripts help with…
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Those three words are the difference between people finding your show when they search for topics in your niche and your show remaining in the dark shadows of the internet.
Keywords are words and phrases people use when they’re searching for things online.
Your content doesn’t pop up in search results by accident, it appears because it contains search terms people are actively looking for.
So, if you’re building an audience from scratch, this is an important way for new people to find your show (even if they don’t know you have one).
One of the simplest ways to ensure all the words you say in your episode are picked up by search engines is to include a transcript in the show notes on your website.
Building your show notes
It’s a good idea to create show notes for each of your podcast episodes.
Again, this is so your content can be picked up by search engines but also so listeners have a place to go if they want more information or to find out more about you and your episode content.
Building these from scratch can be a pain in the butt but if you’ve got a podcast transcript, you can use that as the base of your show notes and edit what you’ve already said on your podcast into a blog post.
These days, instead of re-writing the whole thing manually (like I used to), I feed the transcript into ChatGPT and ask it to generate a rough draft of a blog post in my voice.
Then I go in and tweak it, delete what doesn’t work and keep the bits that do.
It saves SO MUCH time.
Making your content more accessible
A less selfish reason to transcribe your episodes is so your show can be enjoyed by people who are hard of hearing.
Or for people who simply prefer reading over listening.
If someone wants to engage with your content but can’t (or doesn’t want to) listen to it, having a transcript makes your show more inclusive and user-friendly.
Just remember: if you’re uploading an AI-generated transcript, always proofread it.
Even the best tools can mess up grammar, speaker titles or brand names (like writing “Pod School” instead of “PodSchool”).
But a transcript that’s hard to read defeats the purpose of accessibility.
Generating content around your podcast (thank you AI)
With AI tools like ChatGPT now part of everyday podcasting workflows, transcripts aren’t just for SEO and accessibility they’re the foundation of your entire content ecosystem.
A transcript of your episode is a script of your content, in your voice and it’s the perfect source material for AI to generate additional collateral including…
- Blog posts
- Email newsletters
- Social media captions (for every platform)
- YouTube titles and descriptions
- Polls, quote tiles, carousel ideas
- Tips, summaries, chapter makers, key takeaways and much much more
Instead of staring at a blank cursor thinking, “What should I share on social media to promote this episode?” or going through your transcript line by line to fashion it into a blog post (thank God those days are over), AI can help you create multiple assets in seconds.
What it spits out won’t be perfect and you’ll definitely need to edit it to put it into your own words.
BUT it’s a heck of a lot easier to polish a rough draft of something than to start from scratch every time.
How do I create a podcast transcript?
There are plenty of tools that will auto-generate a transcript for your episode, including transcription services like Otter.ai as well as editing tools like Veed.io, Descript and Riverside.fm.
Some podcast hosts also include transcription in their plans like Captivate which saves you from uploading and downloading files across multiple sites.
Just remember to run an eye over it because even the best auto-generated transcripts can have (sometimes amusing) errors.
I ask ChatGPT to clean mine because it used to be a task that I, or my assistant, would have to do manually.
You really have to hammer home that you just want it to correct spelling and grammar and NOT paraphrase or do a full AI re-write, but once it understands that, it’s a massive time saver.
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2 Responses
Should you transcribe your podcast verbatim or should you change the way it written so that it’s easier to read/skim?
Hey Steve, If you have the time it’s always a great idea to edit. I’ll take transcripts from my PodSchool Podcast episodes and use those as the basis for my accompanying blog posts. It’s important to note that if you’re transcribing you’re going to have to do some editing anyway because the software rarely gets it 100%. Something to be mindful of because that does take time.