5 Ways How Transcribing A Podcast Can Increase Your Reach

Done right, podcasts are very effective at increasing your reach as a content creator. To make podcasts work for you, however, you need proper planning. Having a structured podcast script and engaging topics are vital in creating quality podcasts that make listeners want to come back for more. However, if you want to maximize the potential reach that podcasts can achieve, you need to use podcast transcripts. They can provide many benefits in increasing viewership for your podcasts as well as your other content.

Here are 5 ways you can use podcast transcripts to further increase your reach.

Accessibility for the hearing-impaired

As entertaining and informative as podcasts are, people with hearing disabilities often give them a pass because they’re unable to properly listen to the dialogue. This is especially when:

• The guests speak too fast.
• There are technical issues with the audio (e.g. gets too soft)
• Crosstalk happens.
• The accent of the guests is difficult to understand.

According to recent statistical data, while people with hearing disabilities make up 5% of the world’s population, 71% of them leave when the content of a website is inaccessible to them. That’s a sizeable group of people you can be missing out for your listener base.

Thus, podcast transcripts are vital to retaining hearing-impaired listeners. Providing transcripts allows them to follow along with the podcast and enjoy them just as well as those without disabilities.

Lets non-native speakers tune in

Your podcast is accessible to everyone, even those with no knowledge of the language you used in the podcast. Of course, using a single language in the podcast is practical to streamline the experience for all your listeners. Naturally, native speakers of your chosen language can easily understand and enjoy your podcast. On the other hand, non-native speakers will have a hard time catching up, let alone enjoying it.

You can easily remedy this by providing downloadable podcast transcripts. These allow non-native speakers to follow along with your podcast at their own pace so they can understand each point. They can search up or translate any lines that they’re unable to understand to their native language. Plus, providing podcast transcripts can make your podcast a go-to resource for non-native speakers to learn how to listen and speak your chosen language at a conversational level.

This does mean that your transcripts have to be accurate and organized for non-native speakers to rely on. However, transcribing a podcast is tiresome and resource-intensive, especially when you do it frequently. It can be tremendously helpful for you to use a podcast transcription service like TranscriptionWing to transcribe your podcast to text for you, quick and error-free.

Improving your SEO with keywords

In text form, podcasts can be a goldmine of keywords that could improve your content SEO. Currently, however, search engines only pick up keywords on written content; they’re unable to track keywords in an audio format, such as your podcast.

Podcast transcripts give search engines something to pick up when they index your webpage. Generally, your podcast transcripts can rank for several different keywords, depending on the topic, subtopics, or even any throwaway lines during the podcast.

If you have knowledge of SEO research, you can identify high-volume keywords within your podcast with which you can plan future podcasts. On the other hand, you can also determine if your podcast has low traffic. In either case, it helps you plan accordingly in your future podcasts (either in terms of the content itself or SEO).

Content repurposing

Podcasts are a flexible medium with how rich they can be with content. You can turn them into other forms of content to boost your engagement. Podcast transcripts make this process far easier, as it gives you a selectable and navigable point of reference for you to plan your repurposing.

Here are a few examples of how transcripts can help you repurpose a podcast:

• Writing blogs that summarize certain subtopics in the podcast
• Uploading the full podcast or highlights of the podcast on YouTube with captions
• Making posts on social media quoting parts of the podcast

Planning for brand new content

Like other forms of content, podcasts can serve as gateways to fresh, new content like blogs and even future podcasts. Podcast transcripts are also tremendously helpful with this. 

Here are some ways you can create new content out of podcast transcripts:

• Planning a new podcast themed around a heated topic in the previous podcast
• Creating videos for YouTube or TikTok
• Writing blogs or articles that discuss certain aspects of the podcast

Podcast transcripts are versatile in how it can help you maximize your podcast’s reach. However, whether you’re using it for your own research purposes or distributing it to your audience, it’s always best that your podcast transcripts are high quality and reliable. Often, this usually means spending a lot of time and energy to make them well. If you want to reap the benefits of podcast transcripts without the hassle, use a transcription service like TranscriptionWing makes your podcast transcripts so you can focus your efforts on planning future podcasts.