How to write amazing podcast episode titles

Picking a good title for an episode is one of the most common questions we get here at Bamby Media. It’s actually really tricky! How do you know what makes a good title?

Firstly, let’s consider the reasons why you want a good title. The main reason is what you’d expect - you want a title that is clickbaity. Something intriguing enough that someone can’t help but want to listen to it.

The other is because of the title's importance for organic reach.

How effective is your title at turning up in searches? (I have a Podcast Masterclass coming up that talks specifically to organic reach and we go into this in a lot of depth).

Searches are based on your podcast title, episode title and episode description. You really want to make sure they are full of SEO keywords that are related to the topic you’re discussing, otherwise you’re really missing out.

Organic reach is really important when you’re starting out. You want to reach those listeners that have never heard of you, and you can do this via keyword searches.

So definitely think about your episode titles:

What are people searching for?
How does your topic relate to what people are searching for?
How do you tie it together and also make it something someone wants to click on?

I also run through some less than ideal episode titles, and give you some valuable tips on how to improve the effectiveness of them.

There are a few other ways you can optimise titles - it’s pretty lengthy! If you are interested in learning more I’m running a Masterclass specifically on organic reach where we take a deep dive into great podcast titles.

So - think about your titles and think about how you can really upgrade and improve them, to get those people interested in your topics that previously had no idea your podcast existed.

Our Next Podcast Growth Masterclass:

HOW BOOST YOUR ORGANIC REACH

When: Tuesday, 16th August, 2022

Time: 12pm - 1pm

Where: Online via Zoom

Transcript:

00:00
Welcome to Pump Up Your Pod What's going on everybody? Welcome back to Pump Up Your Pod with me, Brianna, your host and the head honcho here at Bamby. Media. What is going on? What's going on today? Are you? Well, I hope so. I have some girls coming over this afternoon for a mentorship that I'm a part of. I'm a mentor now it's so weird, I feel so old. But I'm also not very old. So it seems very strange to me that I was invited to do this. And it's just so great. So they're coming over to learn a little bit about podcasting, what it's like to run a company of this size, but also work from home and have a completely distributed workforce. So it's going to be a bit of fun just showing them around how I do things, how we do things, how we communicate, how we communicate with our staff, and how we keep a lot of goals. So yeah, I'm pretty excited about that this afternoon.

Today, I'm going to speak to you about episode titles. And this has to be one of the most frequently asked questions from the clients that we have. Like they'll put a title in separate in their production schedule. And we'll get a comment saying, you know, hey, is this any good? And it's really tricky. Like, it is actually a really tricky thing to pick a good title for an episode. And why you want to pick a good one is kind of, well, there's a few different levels of why the first one being the one that you would expect, which is like clickbait-y stuff. If someone reads that title, would they click on this and then want to listen to the episode. So that's the first one, making it something that is intriguing enough for someone to want to click on it and then actually listen to the episode.

The other thing to acknowledge about episode titles is how important they are for your organic reach your organic search capabilities for your podcast. I actually have a podcast masterclass coming up very soon. In August, I'll put the details in the show description below so that you can see when it is and how much it costs. And all the things that talk specifically about organic reach how to boost your organic reach for your show. And one of the things we go into is this topic, episode titles. So if you have decent episode titles, and they're key worded properly, then it means that if someone searches for that word in their search bar, which 60% of people that are wanting to listen to a podcast and learn something will go to the search bar of Apple or Spotify or whatever and type in a keyword. And I know I've mentioned this before on the podcast. So they'll type in a keyword of something that they that interests them that they want to know more about. Maybe it's a person that they want to hear from specifically. And the search options from there are based on the podcast title, the episode, title, and the episode description. So if your title doesn't have any keywords in there that makes sense for the topic that you're discussing, and also something that someone would want to search for, then you're missing out, you're not going to be featured anywhere, it's going to not get any organic reach there at all. So it is something that's really important to think about and actually dive into. Because it just helps you if you're just starting out and you don't have much of a following you're trying to get organic reach, you're trying to get people that have never heard of you to listen to you.

For our VIP strategy clients. This is actually part of the service, we will go back through their whole back catalogue. And we will update all their episode titles based on keyword searches, things that we believe and know to be true of things that people search for. It's quite time consuming. So it's not something that you can just do it willy nilly. But it is worth doing because we then see the result of that based off of old episodes getting downloads where they weren't getting downloads before.

04:03
So definitely think about your episode titles. What are people searching for? How does your topic relate to what people are searching for? How can you tie it together and also make it something that someone wants to click on?

A few little things there. And that's why we get that question all the time from clients putting little comments in their production schedule is this title good. Because a lot of the time they're not quite sure whether it is and I don't expect them to be really automatic, especially if you don't have any copywriting experience, then it's not something that you would necessarily know too much about. But it is something that you can learn. You can learn about SEO, you can learn about what a keyword is you can learn about SEO sorry, you can learn about how to structure your sentences in a way that are intriguing to people.

So what I'm going to go through now is just a few little like some bad episode titles. What bad but just not as good, versus how you could make that same episode title stand out to someone. So, one option we have here is a title that is business strategies to boost your sales. Now that title by itself is not that bad, like, yeah, okay, business strategies to boost your sales. I want to know about that, that would be good. But there's not really enough there from a keyword perspective or like it's not niched enough, it's not specific enough. If someone says business strategies in their Apple Search, or their Spotify search, there's going to be a shitload of responses to that. So unless you're a big podcast, you're not going to come up in that search, because it's way too broad, right? So it needs to be a lot more specific. So a better example of that could be the strategy I used to increase my sales by 50%. So what have I done there, I've brought it into the personal instead of here's a business strategy. It's what I personally did, I'm still using the word strategy, but I'm not using business with it. And I'm using the words, increase my sales, so that it's not boost, it's increased my sales, and then I give a number, a percentage, or dollar amount, something like that, because that shows people Oh, man, she got it to 50%. More. That's amazing. And I want to know how to do that. So it's more personal because it says the strategy I used, and I increase my sales by some sort of number. So for a business podcasts or marketing or something, podcasts, that kind of title will go a lot better than just business strategies to boost your sales. Again, not a bad title. But it could be better.

Another example, let's go where I see that our podcasts that just use the name of the guest as the title of the episode. Not necessarily bad, if the name is someone well known. So like an example would be smartlace. The podcast, they just have the name of the guest as the episode title, like Will Ferrell. And people will will click on that because this Will Ferrell, so you don't have to worry about it just being the title, his name because it Will Ferrell. So that's not a problem. But if you're obscure, if the guest that you have is not someone super well known, then why would someone click on that? Think about it, unknown name? Why would they do that? You've got to give more information about that person that is hopefully relatable or searchable, and is related to the topic of the episode for someone to actually engage with that. I would then change that to be let's say, let's say the guest name is Victoria long bottom. And I'm going to change the name of that instead of just being Victoria long bottom.

08:17
The reason I gave the name long bottom is because I love saying bottom. Just makes me laugh. Anyway, the title is now learning how to love your flat bottom, with Victoria long bottom. So see how it's not just Victoria now. It's our man, I do have a really flat bottom. I would love to know how to love it. Please help me learn how to love my flat bottom. So it's relatable. It's content that someone would click on Firstly, because that's kind of funny. But secondly, because it's not just a guest name. It's relatable topic. It's got some keyword in there. And it's now interesting. Do you see what I'm doing here now?

Okay, so the last one I'm going to give you is a different title. Again, let's say your nutrition or health focused or something like that. The title currently is three tips to increase your energy in the afternoon. That's not a bad title. That's a pretty good title. But it can be better. It's not quite specific enough. It's not quite click Beatty enough. It's not as relatable as it could be. How about if we take that title and we change it to the 3pm slump? Why you're tired in the afternoon, and how to move through it. Again, relatable clicky it gets clickbait-y enough. It's something that lots of people struggle with. And it takes it away from increasing your energy in the afternoon which isn't specific enough to go ah, I have have heard of that 3pm slump, or, yeah, I am really tired and it is normally 3pm. Putting more words in there that feel more like an actual conversation and feel like an actual thing. That's more grant like you can grasp it will increase the effectiveness of your title.

So now I've given you three kinds of options there and ideas as to an okay title. It's not bad. But what can we do to that title to make it more intriguing to the person that is hopefully going to engage with that content. And I see it over and over again, with our clients, especially the ones where we're doing the strategy stuff for when we change the title. Or when we know we've nailed a title. And then it directly relates to the actual downloads of that episode. It's awesome. Like it's really, really cool. So it's worth doing. There's a few other things that you can think about with your titles as well like resisting the urge to use buzzwords and a whole bunch of different things that we can go into as far as the titles and how to really optimise those not going to go through it all right now because it's quite lengthy. And it is part of a broader strategy around organic reach.

So if it's something that you're interested in knowing more about, then go and click on the link in the description and sign up for the boost your organic reach masterclass, that is coming up very soon. That's going to be fantastic. And if you want access to all of the master classes that I'm running, I'm running one a month and a group as well, you can join the pod lovers plus, there'll be a link to do that in there as well. I hope this has given you some really valuable information here. Think about your titles, and look at how you can really upgrade them, improve them to get those people interested in your topics. Who'd previously had no idea that your podcast existed. That's it for me today. Guys. Have a lovely afternoon and I will talk to you later.