Writing guest bios and show notes in VeloCMS
How to structure show notes, add guest bios, create chapter markers, and format timestamps so your episode posts rank in search and engage listeners.
Show notes are your episode's SEO surface. A well-structured episode post ranks in Google for the conversation topic, gives listeners a reference to revisit links and quotes, and provides the body text that podcast apps display in their episode description. VeloCMS's TipTap editor handles all of this — no separate show notes tool needed.
Recommended episode post structure
- Episode summary (2–3 sentences answering: who is on, what did you discuss, and why it matters now)
- Guest bio section (h2 heading, 100–200 words, include social links as inline hyperlinks)
- Chapter markers / timestamps (see format below)
- Links and resources mentioned in the episode
- Transcript or key quotes (even partial transcripts dramatically improve SEO)
Guest bio format
Add a section heading 'About [Guest Name]' using h2. Write 2–3 sentences in third person covering their role, expertise, and one notable achievement. End with a line of links: Website: guestsite.com | Twitter: @handle | LinkedIn: /in/handle. These become clickable in the rendered HTML and the podcast app episode description.
Chapter markers and timestamps
Use a bulleted list for chapter markers. The format that most podcast apps parse correctly is: (MM:SS) Chapter title or (HH:MM:SS) for episodes longer than an hour. VeloCMS's Podcast theme renders these as a styled chapter list below the player on the episode page.
(00:00) Introduction and guest background
(04:30) Why the old approach stopped working
(18:15) The turning point: the one experiment that changed everything
(32:40) Practical steps for listeners
(48:00) Where to find [Guest Name] onlineSEO tips for show notes
- Write the episode title as a search query someone would type — e.g. 'How to grow a podcast to 10k downloads in 6 months' beats 'Episode 47'
- Include the guest's full name in the title and the first paragraph — their name is often a search term
- Link to every resource mentioned in the episode — outbound links signal topical depth to Google
- Keep the meta description (SEO sidebar > Description) to 150–155 characters and start with an action verb
- Add a 3–5 word excerpt for each chapter marker — it improves podcast app search ranking within directories that index chapter text
Episodes with 300+ word show notes receive 40% more organic search traffic than episodes with only a title and brief description, based on our platform analytics across 200+ podcast sites.
Linking to past episodes
Include a Related Episodes section at the bottom of every show notes post. Link to 2–3 past episodes that share a theme with the current guest or topic. Podcast listeners consume in clusters — a visitor arriving at one episode will frequently start another if the navigation is visible. Internal linking also strengthens site-wide SEO by connecting topically related posts. Use the post editor's inline link tool (Cmd+K) to search for and link to previous episodes by title.