Transcription is one of the easiest ways to grow your podcast. And, often, one of the most overlooked tools for podcast growth. A good, high-quality transcript makes your show easier to find, easier to follow, and easier to share. It’s not just about accessibility or podcast SEO (though it helps with both). It’s about creating a better experience for every listener and ensuring no growth is left on the table.
We know what you’re thinking: Transcripts? But podcasts are an audio and listening experience. We totally get that, but consider your listener and the scope of, well, everything.
We live in a very loud, crowded world. Your audience may not always be in an environment conducive to listening. (Think noisy subways, crying children, the neighbors are redoing their deck…you get the picture.) Additionally, some things are just really hard to hear for one reason or another, or are just difficult to find.
The point is, your audience has to juggle all sorts of stuff to find and tune into your show.
That being said, if you’ve been wondering whether to transcribe your podcast or how to transcribe a podcast, you’ve come to the right place! Because, hear’s the truth (…get it?…), transcription isn’t just a technical checkbox, it is a powerful tool for show accessibility and podcast discovery. Transcripts make podcasts inclusive, engaging, and discoverable.
This blog will help you learn about the power of transcription as well as teach you how to transcribe a podcast. So, let’s get into it!
Why you need to transcribe podcasts
Podcasting has exploded in popularity, but there’s still a hidden roadblock holding many shows back: they exist solely as an audio file. Without a transcript, your podcast is effectively invisible to search engines and inaccessible to millions of potential listeners.
Transcription changes that. It’s the simplest way to make your podcast more accessible, engaging, and discoverable—and it’s easier to do than ever before.
Here’s why every podcaster should make transcription part of their workflow.
Transcription opens the door for more listeners
In the U.S. alone, 15% of adults (or 37.5 million) experience some form of hearing loss, according to the National Institute on Deafness. Combine that with the fact that about 55% of U.S. adults listen to podcasts, and you’re looking at nearly 20.7 million potential listeners who are excluded from podcasts that do not add transcripts.
However, as we pointed out earlier, accessibility matters for a multitude of reasons.
For example, consider non-native speakers. As global listenership continues to rise, transcripts are the perfect tool for helping break some of those spoken barriers. They provide a written guide for listeners who may struggle to follow every word, especially in shows with fast-paced dialogue, regional accents, or technical jargon. By adding transcripts, you’re making it easier for these listeners to stick with your content instead of bouncing to something easier to follow.
Additionally, transcripts are helpful in noisy environments or when unexpected interruptions occur. In these moments, a transcript acts as a safety net, allowing people to read along and stay engaged even when they can’t listen (or catch what they just missed).
And let’s not forget about the growing trend of multi-modal consumption. Many people don’t just want to listen; they also want to read and reference your content. For educational or data-heavy podcasts, especially, transcripts make it possible for listeners to revisit key takeaways and cite your podcast in research.
In short, transcripts give your audience a way to connect with your content, no matter what.
Transcripts make podcasts more engaging
Accessibility, in and of itself, is a compelling reason to start transcribing a podcast. But did you also know that transcripts make podcasts more engaging?
Transcripts provide a visual aid that reinforces what’s in people’s ears. For example, not everyone retains what they hear. Some people learn best by reading, doing, or writing things down. Transcripts unlock an additional path to learning and retention for different types of learning styles (and audience members!).
Adding transcripts has even been known to increase view retention and engagement literally. For example, as a direct result of adding transcripts, This American Life, a consistently ranking top 10 show, saw a +7% lift in engagement. That’s over 1 million people using a podcast transcript! And 89% of people who viewed the transcript continued to engage with the show, such as listening to additional episodes.
Additionally, transcripts have been shown to increase viewer retention, particularly for video content. On average, people who watch a video with captions (populated by transcripts) have an average completion rate of 91%. This is compared to 66% completion for content without captions (transcripts). That’s a +25% difference!
Also, consider changes in major podcast players. Spotify and Apple Podcasts both now support transcription and captioning. These changes, made by industry leaders, answer to a larger shift in listener consumption and demands as podcasting continues to grow.
Transcripts improve podcast SEO & make podcasts more discoverable
Did you know search engines, YouTube, and podcast players cannot listen to podcasts? But, they can read transcripts! Without a transcript, your podcast is essentially invisible to the algorithms that decide what content appears in search results.
Adding transcripts changes that completely. Transcripts act like a map for search engines, giving them all the context they need to understand and index your show. This means your episodes are far more likely to surface when people search for the topics you cover.
Quickly, let’s think back to our earlier example of This American Life. In addition to enhancing audience engagement, transcripts also drove a +4.36% increase in inbound traffic! That’s over +661k new ears JUST from adding transcripts.
Now imagine what even a fraction of that traffic could mean for your podcast. Whether you’re just starting or have hundreds of episodes in the archive, transcripts can help new listeners find you and give existing fans more ways to engage.
How to transcribe a podcast
All that sounds compelling. Right? But now you need to learn HOW to transcribe your podcast. And, more importantly, how can you get started with transcription without spending hours and hours typing each word (or spending a small fortune!)?
The good news? Transcription has come a long way. Whether you’re working with podcasts, YouTube videos, or both, there are now tools that make the process seamless and fast.
Let’s break down what’s changed and how you can transcribe your podcast without losing your sanity or shirt!
Manual vs. automatic podcast transcription: What’s changed?
Not that long ago, podcasters had about two options available to them if they needed to transcribe their podcast:
- Spend hours listening, re-listening, and typing every.single.word.
- Pay someone else to do it! This ran about $1-$3 per spoken minute (on average, $45 per episode).
To be honest, neither option was particularly great. Both were time-intensive and, for many podcasters, cost-prohibitive. As a result, transcripts often fell to the bottom of the to-do list for most podcasters.
However, thanks to AI and a lot of hard work, transcription is much more feasible today! Automatic transcription platforms can transcribe podcasts in minutes and at a fraction of the cost of manual services. Automatic podcast transcription saves money and gives you your time back.
What makes a good automatic podcast transcription tool?
Not all automatic podcast transcription tools are made equal, though. When looking for your perfect fit, here are a few things to consider:
- High accuracy: Especially important for proper nouns, brand names, and technical terms.
- Speaker labeling: Makes conversations easier to follow, particularly for multi-host shows.
- Editing capabilities: The ability to clean up and format your transcript without leaving the tool.
- Integration with your workflow: Ensure the tool supports the medium you record in (audio, video, or both).
- Added bonuses: A lot of tools have additional features outside of transcription. Double-check featured offerings and pricing pages to ensure you’re getting the most bang for your buck.
All of these things matter when picking a transcription tool. Ultimately, there is no one tool for all.
Depending on your needs and resources, what works best for your buddy may not work best for you. Make sure your automatic podcast transcription tool not only gives you a transcript, but gives you a finished product you WANT to use.
Making transcription easier with Eddy
If you’re looking for an automatic podcast transcription tool that checks all those boxes and more, then might we humbly suggest Eddy by Headliner!
Eddy is our automatic transcript-based editor. Not only is Eddy an accurate transcription tool, but it also allows you to edit audio and video projects quickly.
Here are some more things Eddy can do:
- Connect to Zoom and Google Drive for easy ingestion.
- Find up to 20 shareable moments you can clip (or create audiograms for)
- Generate automatic transcripts from your back catalog
- Transcibe YouTube videos (it can caption and clip YouTube videos too!)
- Create a branded Podcast Promo Pack, which includes social captions, keywords, show notes, and more!
- Automatically detect and name speakers.
- Insert Super Chapters (yep, we’re Podcasting 2.0 official!)
And if you’re managing multiple episodes, Eddy even lets you automate transcription so each new episode is processed as soon as it’s published.
Eddy comes bundled with all Headliner tiers, so it is totally free for Headliner account holders.
What to do with your podcast transcripts
So you’ve transcribed your podcast—now what?
Here are some of the best ways to put your transcripts to work promoting your podcast, growing your audience, and getting more value out of every episode:
1. Use your podcast to transcribe YouTube videos (and upload them!)
This one is obvious, but don’t forget to add your transcript to your uploads! Most podcast hosts support adding transcription. Generally, you should see a large ‘Add Transcript’ button at some point in your upload process.
Another place you should add your transcript? YouTube! Transcribing YouTube videos creates closed captions.
If you’re uploading your podcast or video content to YouTube, relying solely on auto-generated captions and transcripts can hurt podcast SEO. While YouTube’s automatic transcription and captioning system has improved, it still is only about 65% accurate. And, if your podcast includes multiple speakers, music, technical terms, etc., that accuracy can drop even further.
Having accurate captions and transcripts matters more than you might think.
Poorly transcribed captions don’t just make your content harder to follow—they can actually hurt your chances of being discovered. YouTube uses captions and transcripts to help understand your content and decide when and where to surface it in search results. So if the captions are garbled or inaccurate, you’re missing out on prime podcast SEO opportuniteis and leaving listens on the table (once again).
A properly transcribed and cleaned-up caption file makes your podcast easier to understand, more accessible to a global audience, and way more likely to rank in YouTube and Google search (which is a huge boost for podcast SEO!).
Pro Tip: If you’re already creating transcripts for your podcast, don’t let them collect dust—upload them as captions to YouTube. It’s a small extra step that can lead to a big boost in visibility.
2. Create a podcast website (if you don’t already have one)
If you already have a website for your podcast, transcripts can do the same thing for your site as they can for your show:
- Increase discoverability & podcast SEO: Having transcripts on a webpage provides search engines with more crawlable data. This increases the likelihood of ranking in search results.
- Improve engagement: Adding transcripts increases time-on-page and gives listeners a way to skim, scan, and revisit key points.
- Enhance accessibility: In addition to making your show more accessible, transcripts make your website more accessible, particularly for non-native speakers. Search engines like Google have automated translation services for text-based pages and assets. Having a full transcript on your page makes your podcast easily accessible to people in different languages!
Even if you don’t have a dedicated podcast website, you can post transcripts on a simple blog page or a Substack to start reaping these benefits.
3. Turn transcripts into social media content
Social media is built on quick, digestible interactions. And your transcripts are full of those moments.
Transcripts are the perfect tool for quickly grabbing quotes to make quote cards, captioned videos, and trending posts.
Pro Tip: Eddy by Headliner can help! Eddy generates a branded Podcast Promo Pack with every project automatically. Get all sorts of social media posts from still images to quotes to captions without lifting a finger (well, once to click on the Promo Pack).
4. Create blog posts from your transcripts
One podcast episode often contains enough insight for multiple blog posts. Instead of starting from scratch, use your transcript as a foundation, kind of like what you see here!
Here are some benefits of having a podcast + blog combo (speaking from experience):
- Pull out key points, organize them into sections, and add an introduction and conclusion.
- Use the blog content to target new keywords, expand further into topics, and drive ultimately drive organic traffic to your podcast.
- Link back to the full episode for listeners who want to dive deeper.
This strategy not only improves podcast SEO but also provides a steady flow of new content with minimal additional effort. Work smarter, not harder, am I right?
Pro Tip: Eddy’s Podcast Promo Pack also generates blogs!
5. Optimize older episodes for new audiences
Your back catalog represents hours—maybe years—of work. But if those older episodes aren’t transcribed, they’re likely invisible to search engines and harder for new listeners to discover.
By adding transcripts, you can give these episodes a second life.
Pro Tip: Eddy by Headliner has an ‘Automatic Transcription’ feature. This automation flow enables you to transcribe your entire back catalog in one go (or flow!). Learn how it works below:
Transcription Isn’t Just Helpful—It’s Essential
We’ve covered a lot in this post, but here’s the bottom line: transcription isn’t just a nice-to-have anymore. It’s one of the most practical, impactful things you can do to grow your podcast.
Transcripts make your podcast more accessible to millions of people—whether they’re Deaf or hard of hearing, non-native speakers, or just trying to catch your show during a loud commute. They make your content more engaging, giving listeners an easy way to revisit and reference what you said. And they make your episodes discoverable, unlocking organic traffic from search engines and podcast platforms alike.
So if you’ve been wondering whether it’s worth it to transcribe your podcast—the answer is a resounding yes. You don’t need to overhaul your entire workflow. You just need to make transcription part of it.
Your future listeners will thank you.
Looking to get started with podcast transcription? Try Eddy by Headliner. Eddy is an easy-to-use, automatic transcription tool designed to help improve podcast SEO and make podcasts more accessible and discoverable. Visit eddy.headliner.app to get started.
