6 Ways to Come Up with Episode Titles

Perhaps you’ve got a great name for your podcast… but you’re struggling to come up with titles for your episodes.

Or maybe you haven’t even got that far: you’re just starting your podcast and it doesn’t have a name yet. No worries, I’ve got you covered with my free podcast name generator tool. Take it for a spin and you’ll instantly get dozens of fun podcast name ideas.

The name of your podcast—and its episodes—are both important.

Listeners may not even get as far as reading the description, let alone streaming an episode, if the title doesn’t draw them in. And if your episode titles are too generic or too abstract, they won’t be very search-engine friendly … meaning you’ll miss out on traffic.

So how can you come up with the perfect name for your podcast and the right titles for your episodes?

Podcast Name Ideas: 6 Ways to Come Up with Great Episode Titles (+ Free Naming Tool)

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Brainstorm a Catchy Podcast Name

I’ve got quite a lot of advice on naming your podcast in my comprehensive guide to starting a podcast, so I’ll keep it fairly brief here.

Your podcast’s name should:

• Be fairly short: the most popular podcasts tend to have names that are 20 characters or fewer, and 75% of podcasts have names of 29 characters or fewer.
• Be clear, even to people who don’t know you. I called my podcast “The Side Hustle Project” because it’s about side hustles! That way, if someone searches “side hustles” in a podcast app, they’ve got a good chance of finding it.

You also want your podcast’s name to give some indication of your brand, if possible, whether that’s quirky, irreverent, talk show style, thoughtful, in-depth, or something else entirely. Make sure it appeals to your potential audience and makes the right first impression.

Should you name your podcast after yourself? Plenty of podcasters do—naming their podcasts things like “The Tim Ferriss Show” or “The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett.”

But this works best if you’re already well-known in your niche. If no one knows who you are, something more descriptive will make for a good podcast name—like “The Ninja Selling Podcast” or “The Daily Stoic”.

If you’re really stuck, try a podcast name generator like mine. This can be a great way to come up with a more creative podcast name. You might want to come up with a bunch of potential names before settling on the perfect podcast name.

Why Are Great Podcast Episode Titles Important?

Your episode titles shouldn’t be an afterthought. Just like blog post titles, they need to do their job well in just a few words.

Episode Titles Affect Your Podcast’s Exposure

If you want to get new listeners, it helps to have episode titles that are likely to show up when people search for the topic you cover in that episode.

Here’s an example from the Entrepreneurs on Fire podcast: “How to Drive Sales Without Spending a Cent on Advertising with KJ Blattenbauer.”

That title could show up when people search for podcast topics like “driving sales” or “driving sales without spending on advertising.” It could also come up if someone searches for KJ Blattenbauer, the guest on that episode.

If the episode had instead been called something like “Episode 200” or “Sales” then it wouldn’t get nearly so much exposure.

Episode Titles Help People Decide Whether or Not to Listen

Even if someone’s subscribed to your podcast, they won’t necessarily listen to every single episode. Your episode titles need to “sell” them on why it’s worth spending their time engaging with your podcast—rather than with someone else’s.

“How to Drive Sales Without Advertising with KJ Blattenbauer” would be a good title. But you can see that “How to Drive Sales Without Spending a Cent on Advertising with KJ Blattenbauer” is more compelling. It feels more interesting, regardless of the content in the episode.

Think about your own target audience when coming up with an episode title. Funny podcast names might work for a Gen-Z audience but may not go down so well if your podcast is aimed at middle-aged professionals.

How to Come Up With Great Episode Titles

It can be tricky to come up with great titles for your podcast episodes—but it’s well worth spending a bit of time on this. Here’s an example of an episode title from one of my shows a few years back:

I recommend that you allocate time both before and after you record your podcast:

• Come up with a working title before planning, scripting, and recording your podcast episode. A good working title helps you to stay on topic and make sure that you’re delivering on your promise.
• Revisit your title before publishing the podcast. Think about whether there are any ways you could make it more compelling, perhaps by using some of the tips below.

With your title itself, you’ll want to:

Use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Principles

Podcasts, just like blogs, can use SEO (search engine optimization) to rank better in Google.

When you craft your podcast episode’s title, you want to use keywords—the terms that people would use to search for your content. For instance, if your podcast episode is about setting achievable goals, you could target a keyword like “set better goals” or “reach your goals”. This can improve discoverability, especially if you also use all or part of the episode title for a blog post title.

Ensure Your Episode Title is Easily Readable

You don’t want your title to be confusing or ambiguous. Make sure that it’s easy to read and makes sense at a glance: people won’t stick around to puzzle it out if they’re confused—they’ll just move on.

Having a readable title also means avoiding keyword stuffing (cramming your title full of keywords, hoping you’ll get search engine traffic, instead of making it sound good to humans). We’ll take a closer look at keyword stuffing a little later in this article.

Add in Power Words or Numbers to Make it More Compelling

A great way to make podcast titles more compelling is to add power words and/or numbers. These hook listeners’ interest and also help clarify what to expect from the episode.

Power words are things like “secret”, “fantastic”, and “instantly”—words that evoke an emotion. Smart Blogger has a huge list of power words to try.

Numbers are a great way to make a specific promise. “7 Tips” is always going to be more compelling than just “Tips”—the listener then knows exactly what to expect.

Include the Name of Your Guest Speaker (if You Have One)

If your episode includes a guest speaker, add their name into the title. This has several benefits:

• It means that people searching for that speaker’s podcast (or podcast appearances) will find your episode.
• It lets you “name drop” and benefit from your listeners’ interest in that person.
• Even if someone doesn’t listen to that specific episode, just seeing that you’ve interviewed someone they’ve heard of can give your podcast more credibility.
• It’s a nice way to promote and thank your guest speaker—which could also lead to them sharing your podcast episode on their social media.

Keep Your Episode Title Reasonably Short

While podcast episode titles can be quite long, you don’t want them to be longer than necessary.

If your episode title is more than 60 characters, it’s likely to get cut off in some podcast apps—so if you have a long title, try to make sure that it still makes sense even if people can only read the first 60 characters. That’s around 8 to 10 words.

Try Out a Podcast Episode Title Generator if You’re Stuck

If you’re struggling to come up with a title, you might want to try out a free podcast episode title generator. You simply enter your topic (one or two words) and the generator will automatically come up with some potential titles.

These generators aren’t especially sophisticated—they’re more like playing a game of Mad Libs—so you’ll need to wade through some odd or nonsensical titles to come up with the best ones. Even a so-so title, though, could help inspire you to come up with something you like that works in the real world.

What to Avoid When Crafting Episode Titles

So what shouldn’t you do when coming up with a podcast episode title?

Don’t Stuff Your Title Full of Keywords

While you do want to think about SEO when writing your podcast episode title, you don’t want to stuff in lots of keywords.

For instance, if you have an episode on setting achievable goals, you don’t want to call it something like “Set Better Goals | Reach Your Goals | Goal Setting Tips | Better Goal Setting”—that’s just too much.

Keyword stuffing won’t help your search engine ranking and it’ll turn away listeners, because it looks spammy. Only use relevant keywords in your titles.

Don’t Include Episode Numbers in Your Titles

This might seem like an odd recommendation, because plenty of podcasts do put their episode numbers in their episode titles. And you might think that would make it easier for listeners (and you!) to keep track of the episodes.

However, episode numbers take up valuable space in your title, especially if you also include the word “Episode” in there. They also make it trickier to republish that podcast episode in the future, as by doing so, you’ll need to change the number.

If you do want to put the episode number in the episode title, keep it short (e.g. #132 not Episode 132) and consider putting it at the end of the title rather than at the start.

FAQs About Podcast Names

Ready to Get Your Next Podcast Episode Out There?

Coming up with episode titles can be tricky, but with the tips above, you’ll be well-positioned to craft podcast episode titles that draw in new listeners and keep old ones coming back for more.

If you haven’t yet created your own podcast and got your first episode out there for the world to listen to, it’s time to get going. Head over to my guide on how to start a podcast, where I take you through everything you need to know, step by step.

Use My 30+ Powerful Free Blogging Tools Today

When I first started blogging, I couldn’t afford fancy tools. That sucked. And that’s why I’ve built a stable of powerful free blogging tools ranging from keyword research to an AI article writer, blog idea generator and more. Forever free for all to use—no strings attached.