Your podcast’s title may be the one most necessary textual content in your podcast. The very best titles will clearly talk your topic to potential audiences and stand out in related search engines like google and yahoo.
Sure, there are many extremely well-liked podcasts with much less descriptive titles. However they turned profitable regardless of their titles as a result of they’d a number of good advertising and marketing. Nonetheless, even a glance by way of the present high charts in Apple Podcasts left me having to do little or no guessing in regards to the topics of many of the high reveals due to their largely descriptive names and related cowl artwork.
Most of us podcasters haven’t got huge advertising and marketing budgets to compensate for “unhealthy” titles. However there are some phrases I counsel avoiding in your podcast title, that will help you optimize for search, uniqueness, branding, comprehension, and utilization.
The next are solely pointers not “legal guidelines.” So should you break these, break them deliberately and with good causes!
1. Ambiguous cuteness (01:39)
It may be cute to interchange phrases like “to” and “for” with the numbers 2 and 4, however that cuteness may cause confusion, particularly in case your present or potential viewers might want to sort it in. Or perhaps you get cute with the spelling, like “Wut Nuw wit U?” or changing C’s with Okay’s or S’s with Z’s.
When you do cute issues together with your title, you may need to at all times make clear it, like saying, “That is the quantity 2,” or having to at all times spell it out.
I am not suggesting avoiding all types of cuteness—though it’s best to nonetheless think about it—however avoiding what could be ambiguous to a listener.
When you do go together with cuteness, attempt to get the opposite potential understandings of your titles as domains and social-media IDs (the place you promote) and level these misunderstood or “typo” variations to the proper place.
When you’re nervous about your cute title getting used uncutely by another person, then the most effective safety will come from claiming it as a trademark and registering that trademark the place you possibly can.
2. Simply misunderstood made-up phrases or mashups (03:53)
Much like being cute, it appears the “dot com period” made it well-liked to make up new phrases or mash elements of phrases collectively—the latter really being referred to as a portmanteau. For instance, I may mash up “entrepreneur” and “father” to get “entrefather” or “fatherpreneur.” Or I may mash up “funding” with “analytics” to get “investalytics.”
Nonetheless, the secret’s to keep away from simply misunderstood issues. I really assume these mashups may be straightforward sufficient to know. And made-words or mashups are a lot simpler to trademark due to their distinctiveness. (I’ve a pending trademark that leverages this similar thought.)
Language adjustments, and a few portmanteaus are so well-liked that they have been outlined within the dictionary, spellchecks do not flag them, and most of the people would not even must marvel what you are speaking about. For instance, “smog” was a mix of “smoke” and “fog” that began approach again within the 1800s! Everybody is aware of what “brunch” is. “Infotainment” is inherently clear that it’s combining data (or “information”) and leisure. And, in fact, our personal phrase “podcast” is a portmanteau of the phrases “iPod” and “broadcast.”
So it isn’t inherently unhealthy to make up phrases or portmanteaus; it is solely unhealthy if it is simply misunderstood.
For instance, “BuyFryer”—a podcast about buying air-fryers—could possibly be misunderstood as “ByFriar”—a podcast critiquing the writings of a previous friar. (Even the phrase “fryer” may be generally misspelled as “frier” like “whoa” is usually misspelled as “woah.” And it delights my coronary heart to see my spellchecker nonetheless flag “woah.”)
When you’ve gotten a title in your podcast, strive talking it to somebody unfamiliar together with your podcast to see in the event that they correctly perceive what you are saying and might even appropriately guess what your present is about. And if there may be nonetheless potential confusion, both think about a unique title or comply with the identical tip from #1 to get the choice variations for domains and social-media IDs if you wish to catch misspellings.
3. Beginning with “the” (07:05)
I’ve seen many robust manufacturers weakened with a easy, pointless “the”! For instance, think about the hilarious conservative satire web site with “bee” within the title. Is it “The Babylon Bee” or “Babylon Bee”? Their very own web site is not even in step with it! The brand and social IDs have “the,” however the web site area and copyright line exclude “the.”
I am a little bit of a stickler for this. If an official title has a “the,” then I’ll communicate that title it doesn’t matter what! That is my very own fashion alternative, and also you may need your individual desire. For instance, how would you discuss with their web site? “The Babylon Bee’s web site,” or “the The Babylon Bee’s web site”? Or strive verbal gymnastics to keep away from that wording downside?
Utilizing a “the” appears to de-emphasize the remainder of the title. On this similar instance, it makes me assume there are different kinds of “bees,” as if it is a well-known style of content material or publishing fashion, and that is merely the “Babylon” one.
There are, nevertheless, some instances when “the” remains to be good for readability. I think about my very own present title to be an instance of this: “The Audacity to Podcast.” And I debated the inclusion of the phrase “the” once I first created the title in 2010! As a result of I at all times needed to emphasise “audacity” to imply guts, braveness, boldness, and the like, I couldn’t hear that as a lot with “Audacity to Podcast.” Plus, you’ve got may need seen that I have been emphasizing it stronger in how I say it within the audio podcast, too.
Beginning with “the” may nonetheless be a superb observe in case your title should embrace the phrase “podcast” or “present,” like “The Katie Smith Present.” And that leads into my subsequent suggestion!
Simply should you do have to start out with a “the” in your title, be sure you additionally get domains and branding with out the beginning “the.” (Which The Babylon Bee has carried out.)
4. “Podcast” or “present” (10:44)
Let me deal with the potential elephant within the room, since I introduced up the title of my very own present, “The Audacity to Podcast.” I am utilizing the phrase “podcast” as a verb in my present title. You can substitute that phrase with some other verb and the title would nonetheless make sense. For instance, “The Audacity to Bake,” “The Audacity to Make investments,” “The Audacity to Learn,” or “The Audacity to Assume.” You can additionally substitute it with a verb phrase, like “The Audacity to Prepare dinner Dinner” or “The Audacity to Drive Vehicles.” However substitute “podcast” with a noun, like “The Audacity to Film” or “The Audacity to Carrot” and you will see the title would not make sense anymore or it sounds even infantile. Thus, if I used “The Audacity to Podcast” as a much bigger model title, my audio podcast may precisely be known as “the The Audacity to Podcast podcast.”
Yeah, that is bizarre. Do not try this to your self!
However more often than not I see podcasters wish to use the phrases “podcast” or “present” of their titles, their utilization could be as a noun and doubtless pointless. On high of that, they’re often combining it with an pointless “the” in the beginning, too!
Contemplate which title sounds stronger as a model: “Impactful Dwelling” or “The Impactful Dwelling Present”? I believe the shorter, cleaner model sounds higher. Think about the podcast openings: “Welcome to Impactful Dwelling” versus “Welcome to The Impactful Dwelling Present.”
I counsel additionally contemplating your search-engine optimization (“search engine marketing”). Looking out in podcast apps remains to be not the most effective expertise at the moment. Whereas some apps may well seek for “and” once you sort “&” and vice versa, and even deal with totally different types of phrases and a few misspellings, they may also be dumb generally.
Nonetheless, I believe it may be unfaithful when some individuals say that including the phrase “podcast” makes your podcast abruptly much less findable as a result of it is competing with all the opposite podcasts which have the phrase podcast. A minimum of that is my remark with my very own present in Apple Podcasts. It actually will depend on how the search is treating every phrase.
With a good deeper, technical apart, it is a distinction between “AND” and “OR” boolean operators. Utilizing “The Audacity to Podcast” for instance, the phrases “the” and “to” may be thought of irrelevant or stop-words by some search engines like google and yahoo, in order that leaves “audacity” and “podcast” as the one search phrases. The “AND” operator would present outcomes which have each “audacity” and “podcast.” However the “OR” operator would present outcomes which have both “audacity” or “podcast” (or each).
You do not have to sort these operators in most searches anymore, however some search engines like google and yahoo routinely use one or the opposite. A easy strategy to discover out could be to see if including extra phrases provides extra outcomes (that is “OR”) or fewer (that is “AND”).
For instance, the Podcast Index search at present reveals 11 outcomes for “The Audacity to,” however solely 3 outcomes for “The Audacity to Podcast.”
So it isn’t a common rule that including the phrase “podcast” makes your present compete within the search outcomes for all different podcasts with “podcast” within the title. Nonetheless, it is often an pointless phrase in your title.
The place it is good to interrupt this rule is when the podcast is utilizing a acknowledged title from a much bigger model. For instance, if Microsoft began a podcast, it would be higher to be referred to as “The Microsoft Podcast” than merely “Microsoft” as a result of the model is a lot bigger than the podcast. Nonetheless, even on this case, I’d counsel a totally totally different title, like “Microsoft’s Bussiness Computing” and even transfer the model title to the artist discipline, which is additionally already searchable in all podcast apps I’ve examined.
Additionally, I nonetheless assume it is high quality to make use of “podcast” or “present” that will help you get a site that matches your podcast title. For instance, I hosted a fan podcast about Disney’s TV present As soon as Upon a Time (word that I did not say “the As soon as Upon a Time present”!), and we referred to as our podcast merely “ONCE” however we used the area and social branding of “ONCEpodcast” (and “ONCEshow” simply did not sound correct).
5. Publishing frequency (“each day,” “weekly,” “month-to-month,” and so on.) (19:38)
This one is simple! When you add a publishing frequency to your title—particularly the tip—you then’re binding your self to that frequency. When you ever wish to change your publishing frequency, you would need to change titles. And should you ever skipped a traditional publishing cycle, then the title has basically turn out to be a lie.
There appears a noteworthy distinction between utilizing the time period on the finish of the title versus wherever else within the title. For instance, “Day by day Bible Studying” versus “Bible Studying Day by day.” Perhaps it is solely me, however placing “each day” on the finish sounds extra prefer it’s a information broadcast reporting on one thing each day, whereas placing the frequency wherever else sounds prefer it’s serving to to do this factor each day, even when the podcast is not revealed each day. For instance, “Enhancing Your Day by day Well being.”
So it isn’t the frequency phrase itself that is unhealthy, it is actually how you utilize it.
6. Obscenities [21:05]
Apple Podcasts used to forbid obscenities in present and episode titles or descriptions—actually any textual content in your RSS feed. However they’ve since eliminated that rule (apart from podcast cowl artwork) as a result of their system can routinely censor written obscenities. Nonetheless, I like to recommend avoiding them in your title as a result of it is going to make it simpler for different individuals to speak about your podcast, and cut back some friction some individuals may need in creating content material selling your podcast or in even following your podcast.
For instance, you may need seen that I by no means discuss with Marc Maron’s podcast by its title. It’s because I do not use profanity, and I think about even his present title’s abbreviation to be obscene as a result of almost everybody is aware of what it means anyway, so abbreviating it actually is not cleansing it up or making it family-friendly. It is just like if I censored the phrase “p*dc*st” by eradicating the vowels—you continue to know I am saying or writing “podcast” so it wasn’t actually censored.
And earlier than you say, “Having an obscene title hasn’t damage Marc Maron’s present!” Contemplate that you just actually cannot know that for certain. His present may very simply be even greater beneath a unique title. Additionally, I do know of some individuals who won’t take heed to or suggest his present precisely due to its title, even when the content material was the identical!
Plus, different podcast apps and directories may need totally different guidelines, particularly in different international locations. Even when your content material incorporates obscenities, it may be prevented from being featured or included solely due to the title. I really do that similar factor once I characteristic podcasts—I will not characteristic something with obscenities or profanity within the title or cowl artwork.
And again to Apple Podcasts, which does censor the textual content routinely beneath sure circumstances, they do not censor photos they usually have a particular rule that there should not be obscenities in photos. So in case your podcast title makes use of obscenities, then you would need to censor your cowl artwork so as to not get kicked out of Apple Podcasts. After which that is weakening your visible branding to not have your cowl artwork precisely replicate your title.
7. “with [your name]” (24:21)
To make clear, I am referring particularly to including your title to the finish of your title, like “with John Smith.” I am not referring to constructing your present title round your private model, like “The Joe Rogan Expertise,” “The Mel Robbins Podcast,” “The Charlie Kirk Present,” or “Conan O’Brien Wants a Pal.” As a substitute, I imply tacking “with [your name]” onto the tip of your nice present title.
A number of years earlier than Apple Podcasts, there was a glitch in iTunes that prevented podcasts from being discovered by their artist names. So should you looked for “Daniel J. Lewis,” The Audacity to Podcast wouldn’t present up. So a preferred podcast advisor again then suggested everybody to place their names of their podcast titles so they might nonetheless be discovered. That might heave meant renaming my present to “The Audacity to Podcast with Daniel J. Lewis.”
However that was a non permanent glitch! (I believe it lasted for just a few weeks at most.)
Sadly, that unhealthy recommendation’s harm was already carried out and a wave of extremely well-liked podcasts redundantly included the host names within the present titles.
That is pointless for a number of causes:
- Your podcast’s artist textual content ought to already comprise your title and it is nearly at all times displayed prominently with the title of your podcast.
- Each podcast app I’ve examined already searches the artist/creator textual content, returning podcasts together with your title.
- Voice-based assistants from Apple, Google, Amazon, and different assistant instruments will usually communicate or return each the title and creator of podcasts once you ask for them. So Siri, for instance, may reply, “Now enjoying The Audacity to Podcast with Daniel J. Lewis, by Daniel J. Lewis.”
That is just like when Apple began cracking down on keyword-stuffed podcast titles again in 2018. Podcast-publishing instruments have a number of fields meant for particular content material, and the content material shouldn’t be repeated the place it isn’t purported to be. The title discipline ought to have solely the title, the artist/creator discipline ought to have solely the artist/creator names, the outline ought to have solely the outline, episode titles ought to have solely episode titles (and never season or episode numbers), the copyright discipline ought to have solely the copyright, and so forth.
I requested my podcast lawyer, Gordon Firemark, about logos. (I earn no commissions by referring his customized authorized companies.) He mentioned that placing your title in an in any other case non-distinctive title, like “Day by day Information with Jane Smith,” doesn’t make the title any extra trademarkable as a result of it is nonetheless extremely descriptive, not distinctive.
In case your title is so generic that there are various different podcasts with the identical title, this may be a superb case for placing your title within the title, similar to “Day by day Information with Jane Smith,” despite the fact that that may’t be trademarked. The non-distinctness of the title permits different individuals to do the identical however including your title to this sort of title will help your viewers be extra assured they’re choosing the proper podcast.
8. “Pod” and “forged” (30:02)
Please keep away from the cliché of stabbing your podcast title with “pod” or “forged.” Your present would not have to be “PodCooking” or “CookingCast.”
Apart from “pedia” from “encyclopedia,” I could not consider any time the media or distribution format time period was chopped and stabbed into one other phrase within the title. Are you able to think about attempting to make mashups with the phrase “film” in titles like “StarMov Wars” or “Indiana JonesVie”? Or making portmanteaus with “music” and the most recent music album titles?
I believe this meta/cliché/portmanteau observe is okay once you’re making a services or products for podcasting. For instance, PodMatch, Castopod (2 factors for this one!), and Pod Decks. Clichés aren’t at all times unhealthy, however it’s best to attempt to keep away from them just like the plague.
9. Emoji 😮 (31:15)
Whereas emoji may be enjoyable in your cowl artwork and even episode titles, keep away from them in your podcast title. Some podcast apps nonetheless cannot show emoji appropriately. They may both omit the emoji altogether, or they’d substitute every emoji with “??” within the title, which might trigger some unintended meanings. Anywhere that generates a URL in your podcast may additionally have issues or make a extremely messy URL so as to correctly encode the unicode essential to show an emoji.
When you use emoji in your title, you may need to at all times remind your viewers not to sort the emoji as a part of your area or social-network IDs. Nonetheless, they may attempt to seek for your podcast with the emoji anyway, and the way would somebody even be certain they’re utilizing the proper emoji?
10. #Hashtags (33:33)
Hashtags like “#podcasting” are pointless in titles and descriptions. They do nothing in your search engine marketing and they’re going to look bizarre (however not as bizarre as emoji). The one place hashtags are at present of any use is once you submit on social networks, like Twitter, Fb, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Mastodon, and even YouTube descriptions (however not titles). Every of those is a spot the place you’ll submit about your podcast, not your full podcast content material itself. So whereas it is good to hashtag the suitable key phrases out of your title and outline in messages you submit on social networks, do not put the hashtags in your podcast title.
A very good exception to that is when your podcast is about one thing identified by its hashtag, and it is primarily identified by that hashtag. For instance, whereas Podcast Motion 2022 had its personal hashtag, #PM22, that podcasting convention was not primarily identified by that hashtag. However titling a podcast “#MeToo Survivors” could be immediately recognizable as a result of it was identified because the “#MeToo motion,” and thus this could be a superb motive to make use of a hashtag within the title.
However do not begin hashtagging key phrases in your title merely since you assume it is going to assist your search engine marketing; it will not.
11. Phrases that are not your precise podcast title (36:57)
I hope that is apparent by now: your podcast title must be solely your podcast title. It should not be a tagline or a listing of key phrases in makes an attempt to govern search engine marketing.
This was very fashionable earlier than 2018, and even I had really useful including keyword-optimized taglines to your title and creator tag. For instance, The Audacity to Podcast‘s full title was “The Audacity to Podcast – easy methods to launch and enhance your podcast” and my creator textual content was “Daniel J. Lewis, podcasting trade professional and how-to-podcast instructor.” That was an efficient search engine marketing trick again then, however some individuals caught on after which abused the system with titles that will seem like “My Superior Podcast – Entrepreneurship, Advertising and marketing, Passive Revenue, Relationships, Bitcoin, Enterprise, search engine marketing, and Vanilla Cream Soda.” That simulated title is 127 characters lengthy, however I’ve seen some that had been longer than 250 characters!
Apple cracked down on this keyword-spamming in 2018 and I shared some observations and testing round it. Now, I believe it is really fairly good to see concise titles which might be solely the titles!
There are some exceptions the place you possibly can embrace a brief form of “enlargement” of the title. For instance, Apple allowed our podcast about As soon as Upon a Time to stay beneath the title “ONCE – As soon as Upon a Time podcast,” and you will discover another, even high-ranking podcasts with equally formatted titles. But when your title has to be defined, then it may not be a superb title!
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