Podcast Transcripts: What they are and why you need them!

According to Edison Research, as of April 2019, more than half of the US population has listened to a podcast. What’s more, there are over 700,000 podcasts totaling more than 29 million podcast episodes. While there is more content than ever available online for listeners to enjoy, this also means podcast competition is steep for producers. While your podcast may be incredible and chock full of one-of-a-kind material, if your audience doesn’t know about your show, you might as well not be producing it. One way of drawing more attention to your podcast is by generating podcast transcripts.

What is a podcast transcript?

Put simply, a podcast transcript is a document that lays out, word-for-word, what was spoken during your podcast episode. You can type these yourself or hire a transcription company to do it for you. The benefit of a podcast transcript is that it helps search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing to index your episode and make it quickly found online. Search engines do not index the information recorded within digital audio files, so generating a transcript makes your podcast searchable online.

How podcast transcripts benefit you

Some podcasters make the mistake of thinking that podcast transcripts serve no purpose. They are just an extra unnecessary expense. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Podcast transcripts help podcasters in the following distinct ways:

1. Podcast transcripts improve your SEO rankings. Since search engines only index text, not audio, without a transcript of your podcast you lessen the chances of being found online.
2. Podcast transcripts strengthen your credibility and authority. This is because more content on your website can help enhance your position as an expert in your subject area.
3. You can reach more of your audience in ways convenient to them. When you make consuming your content easier, this builds loyalty among your subscribers.
4. The more content that is available about your podcast online will mean that you come up in more search results. This can drive more traffic back to your website.

Using podcast transcripts to build your audience

When you’re trying to make a name for yourself, podcast transcripts can help you establish yourself as a credible voice among the masses. A podcast transcript can make the difference between people finding you online or not at all. Don’t leave your best content locked up in audio files that can’t be queried in search engines. Podcast transcripts help you build your audience in several ways, including:

• Connecting with deaf and hard of hearing audience members. The World Health Organization estimates that there are over 360 million people in the world with a hearing disability. This is a large segment of the population that you could be missing out on unless you have podcast transcripts.
• Being convenient and accessible. Not everyone will always have 30 to 60 minutes to listen to your entire podcast. But, when a podcast transcript is available, it can be read while commuting, while sitting in a waiting room or wherever is convenient for your subscriber.
• Increasing social leverage. With podcast transcripts, you give your audience members more ways to share and comment on your content via LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
• Making your podcast citable. When your podcast transcripts are available online, your listeners can easily query something you spoke about and cite you. This helps ensure that what you said is quoted accurately.

Podcast transcripts can help you generate content

Content generation is more important than ever to keep you and your podcast top of mind. But coming up with new content is time-consuming and challenging; especially high-quality content that is meaningful to your audience. Many producers overlook that they are sitting on a treasure-trove of content until they realize they can generate transcripts of their podcasts. Plus, although millions of people listen to podcasts, others don’t listen at all. This means you can reach an entirely new audience of people who don’t consume podcasts the traditional way. What’s more, you can adapt your podcast transcripts to create whitepapers, eBooks or even blog posts.

Podcast transcripts help you promote your business

The transcripts you generate from your podcast episodes are ideal for helping get the word out about you. For instance, you can create a call to action with visitors on your website by encouraging them to sign up for your mailing list and then rewarding them with a free download of a podcast transcript or a whitepaper that you’ve adapted from the transcript of your podcast. Of course, you can use the podcast transcripts on your show notes page too. Some producers even sell their podcast transcripts to monetize them. The way you use the podcast transcripts is only limited by your imagination.

How to get quality podcast transcripts

While you can transcribe your podcast episodes yourself, this tends to be too time-consuming for most. This is also why many producers opt to outsource their podcast transcription to a transcription service. Regardless of which option you choose, not leveraging podcast transcripts can put you at a disadvantage, so how you generate them is a matter of time, cost, and preference.

For podcasters who do decide to use a transcription company, it can be tempting to use an automated transcription service. This is because automated transcription companies offer low prices and rapid turnaround, but quality is often an issue. Transcripts produced by computers, without any human proofreading, can result in embarrassing mistakes that are time-consuming to correct.

However, trained human transcriptionists will help you make the most professional impression on your audience by accurately converting your speech to text. Remember, the quality of your podcast transcripts will be a reflection on both you and your business. Choose your podcast transcription partner carefully.

To have your podcasts transcribed accurately, quickly, and professionally, we invite you to contact Athreon at 800.935.0973 or contact us here. Be sure to ask about our free trial to help you get started