What Makes A Good Title?

The title of your podcast - and each episode - is the gateway to your offering. For many, it’ll be the first thing they encounter about your podcast. 

Remember, the “proper” listeners to your podcast aren’t your friends or family - it’s the stranger in another part of the country, or another country entirely, who stumbles onto your podcast whilst they’re browsing through Spotify. 

THEY’RE the real listeners. 

The title of your podcast AND the title of your episodes are another way that people can find you - so you need to think about them when you’re putting your episode together.

You need to think “What are people going to be searching for?”

So, if your podcast is about knitting, for example - our favourite fake podcast, even though there are some excellent podcasts about knitting out there - and you had just recorded an interview with someone called Harry Durham about the latest type of wool that’s out there - let’s say its called Lovely Wool - what would you call the episode?

Now, if Harry was world famous and people outside of the knitting world had heard of him, you *could* call the episode ‘Interview with Harry Durham’ but, to most people they don’t give a tinkers cuss about Harry - and that’s a shame, because he’s a lovely bloke.

He’s not - because he’s not real. We’ve literally made him up for this example.

So, if you can’t call the episode the literal interpretation of what the episode is, what CAN you call it?

If you had the mythical creature that is Harry Durham talking about the new Lovely Wool - how *could* you title it, if not ‘Interview with Harry Durham’.

Well, how about ‘Lovely Wool - what’s it all about?’ Or ‘Lovely Wool - is it really so lovely?’

Or if, during the course of the interview, Harry said something like ‘I think that we’ve got some wool here that’s going to change the world of knitting’ - use that as your episode title.

Apple - and we’re using them because they tend to be the standard bearer when it comes to so many aspects of podcasting… Apple allow you 255 characters when it comes to your episode title, and “Something that is going to change the world of knitting” is only 55 characters - you could go on for ages!

But that brings us on to our next point - DON’T go on for ages…

As much as you want to create an episode title that not only covers the content of that episode, but would also create enough interest in a casual browser, you should be wary about making the title too long - you want it to attract people almost immediately.

Also, bear in mind the words you use in your title. 

Podcasting platforms - certainly Apple and Spotify, work like this:

• Podcast Title
• Episode Title
• Episode Description

So, when you’re choosing your title, as well as coming up with something that no-one has come up with before - you also need to use words that you are pretty sure people are going to be searching for.

However, don’t just fill your title and episode description with key words. If you, with your knitting podcast, called your episode ‘Wool, Knit, Needle, Fantastic, Clothing’ then you could find yourself getting into trouble with your podcast publisher. They might even delete your podcast.

So - just a few things to bear in mind when it comes to putting together a title for your podcast!