The Key To Great Podcast Episode Titles

Episode titles can make or break your podcast’s appeal, but there’s one crucial mistake you must avoid: clickbait. In this episode, Dave Jackson explains what makes a great episode title.

Start with the listener’s benefit, including relevant keywords, and, above all, being truthful. He shares why misleading titles erode trust and waste your audience’s most valuable resource: their time. Join Dave as he explains how to craft honest, enticing titles that draw listeners in without deception and keep your audience coming back for more.

It Takes Years To Build Trust, and One Piece of Clickbait to Lost it

You might be enticed to exagerrate when it comes to your titles and thumbnails, but we've all been there when you realize someone just wasted your time, and you can't get it back.

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I have talked a lot about the importance of the titles of your

episodes, and there's one thing you want to make sure

that you never do. Welcome

to your podcast consultant. Small lessons with

big value. With more than a

decade of experience and millions of downloads, this

hall of fame podcaster is a featured speaker, author,

and mentor to thousands. Now he wants

to work with you. Your podcast consultant,

Dave Jackson. There are so many things

that go into a good episode title. I

always say, how about leading with how you'll benefit,

gain more time by, you know, blah, blah, blah.

So and so explains how to make more money, how to do,

how to lose weight, whatever it is. What's the benefit

of listening to your show? And then if you can put

some keywords in there, that's great.

And for me, the easiest thing is I might write two or

three titles for an episode and then

simply look at it and go, which one makes me want to

click more? And I will go with that one.

But there's one thing that you want to make

sure you don't do, and that is clickbait.

And so, to understand what clickbait is, let's

look at the word bait. Now, most of us, when we hear the word

bait, we think of fishing. And what is fishing? Well,

you put a worm on a hook, and the

worm is the bait. So what happens?

The fish comes over, goes, mmm, a worm that's moving

around and stuff. It goes to bite it, and

voila, they get stuck on the hook. We drew

you in with one thing, but it's not a worm, it's a

hook. And that's the thing you never want

to do with your episode title, is lie.

So when it's, I see this all the time.

On occasion, I will [email protected],

don't ask me why, and I will see a title, and

I will click on it. It'll be like how this

celebrity does, blah, blah, blah, and you're like, oh, I like

that celebrity. And you click on it, and it's A list of 17

celebrities that did the blah, blah, blah. And then you go through

the 15th, and there's so many ads, and you

finally get to the bottom of the list, and the celebrity you clicked on

to see it isn't even in the list. They

lied. It was clickbait. And you are not happy.

And if you do that, you are really

jeopardizing the trust of the

audience with you. And I know for me,

if you want to get me mad at you, just lie to me.

I got pretty thick skin. I can Take

constructive feedback. And so if you say something

or whatever it is and it's not the truth, I am

thoroughly confused and a little more than average

upset that you chose not to tell me the truth.

And I don't know anybody that really is like, boy, I love it when people

lie to me because you waste their time. And that is

the most expensive thing you can rob from someone

is their time. So keep that in mind. I know you want

clicks, I know you want this and that. And, and even right now I'm

hearing that some of the younger people don't even like it when

you use AI in your. Like if

you're doing YouTube and you're doing a YouTube thumbnail and

you make a thumbnail that shows

a, I don't know, a giant car and

you're standing and it's going to run you over and then you find out later

there is no giant car. That was just something that they put together

to click. So keep that in mind. Always

value your audience's time and never

ever lie to them. Now, if you need help with this,

I can help. It's super simple. Go over to

schoolofpodcasting.com and use the coupon

code Listener. That's L I S T E N E R.

And you can use that on either a monthly, quarterly, or yearly

subscription. And of course, that comes with the 30 day money back

guarantee if you're like on day 29. Dave, this isn't

for me. This is more work than I thought. Gladly.

We'll say thank you so much for giving this a shot.

Here's your refund. And we don't

trap people at the school of podcasting again. There's no

clickbait there. The website again.

Schoolofpodcasting.com I'm Dave Jackson. Been doing this

for over 20 years and I can't wait to see what

we're going to do together because I want to be your podcast

consultant.