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If you talk about multiple things in each episode of your podcast, here are five ways to title those multi topic episodes. Thank you for joining me for the Audacity to podcast. I'm Daniel J. Lewis. My friend Mark DeCote from Podcastbranding Co asked a great question and by the way, go check out podcastbranding Co if you need anything designed for your podcast like a logo, cover art, even a PDF that you want to give out for your podcast, check it out over at Podcast Branding Co and let him know that Daniel J. Lewis sent you. I do get a referral commission from that, but I've hired Mark to do things for me. Even though I am a designer myself, I don't design for clients anymore. I refer people over to Mark DeCote from Podcastbranding co. He's not sponsoring this episode, but he did ask this question of how to handle titling episodes when those episodes are covering multiple topics. I'm a big fan of presenting single topic episodes because that is not only very clear for your audience what they can expect for that episode, kind of making a promise to your audience of what they'll get from that episode. It also really helps you with podcast SEO, which is something I am now tracking a lot inside of Podgagement. I'll tell you more about that later. But Mark wondered how to title those episodes when you must be talking about multiple topics in the same episode. How do you put that in a title? That's what this episode is about. I've got five ways to share with you. You can follow along in the notes, a simple tap or swipe away. Look at the chapters or go to the audacitytopodcast.com multitopictitles number one find a theme Depending on what your topics are, there might be some kind of common theme among them. Most likely that is the theme of your actual podcast, but sometimes it can be a little bit more challenging. And I know that. And so I do have other suggestions too. But I'll give you an example here. Instead of titling an episode something like Pizza Recipes Colon Gluten Free, Low Sugar and Dairy Free, it could instead be titled something like three Pizza Recipes for Dietary Restrictions. And either one of those could be a really good episode title. But there is something to consider here as you might find this theme that ties all of these things together. Like in this case, Gluten Free, Low Sugar and Dairy Free. Those are dietary restrictions. Or they could be called other things as well. And that could be the theme of those three separate topics. Three separate recipes shared in that episode but sometimes by summarizing that into a single theme, you are sacrificing a little bit of your podcast SEO. Because maybe someone would want to search for gluten free pizza recipe or Low sugar pizza recipe or dairy free pizza recipe. Can you tell that I've been baking pizzas recently? That's my new hobby of things that I can bake because I really enjoy baking and pizzas are turning out really, really good. But that aside, this is a podcast about podcasting, not a podcast about pizza. If you have a podcast about baking and you share multiple recipes, it might benefit you more to still have that longer verbose title. Because then if someone is searching for a gluten free pizza recipe, they could find that episode. It's more likely people would search for that than searching for pizza recipes. For dietary restrictions, they might search for that too. And you could consider weaving in some of that terminology into the episode title as well. So maybe the full title could be Pizza Recipes for Dietary Restrictions, Colon, Gluten free, Low Sugar and Dairy free. But still that starts to get verbose. Does your title have to be short? Not really. It doesn't have to be. But do consider what shows first in your title, because that first bit is the most important thing. Even if you can find a theme for those multiple topics in your episodes, that doesn't mean you have to title your episode with only that theme. You might still want to combine some other techniques. I'll get more into that in a moment. But if you name your episodes something like Dietary Restrictions, yes, there's the potential SEO cost to that. And you have to decide what makes the most sense for you, as well as what seems to be the most compelling title and the most descriptive. Something that if you were to share it out on a social network, people would see that and think, oh, that interests me. I want to check that out. That's the kind of title you should go for. Even if it's a bit verbose or a little bit weird at times, you want people to want to listen to the episode. Number two, Use the most compelling topic from the episode. You might present multiple topics in the episode, and that's what this whole episode is about. Assuming that you are presenting multiple topics in your episode, and if those topics don't follow a common theme beyond what your overall podcast is about, look for what is the most compelling of those things. Generally, that would be what you spend the most time on in your episode. It might not be the first thing in your episode, although a good way to order your episodes is Give that most compelling thing up front in the beginning, but consider using that compelling part for the episode. Yes, it doesn't represent everything that's covered in the episode, but it could be a more compelling title than trying to represent everything that's in the episode. A good example of this is the podcast Ask the Podcast Coach by my friends Dave Jackson and Jim Collison there. They cover all kinds of topics in the episode, and sometimes their episodes do kind of follow a theme or they have a longer conversation about a particular subject, and that then makes it much easier to title that episode because that is the most compelling thing that they talked about and they also spent the most time about that. So some examples of this from their recent episodes are Apple Video Podcast Reality Check. That is an episode where they did spend a lot of time talking about Apple Video podcasts or another title is why all in one podcast platforms usually disappoint. The whole episode wasn't about that one thing, but that is perhaps the most compelling thing they talked about in that episode, or the thing they spent the most time on in that episode. Just please make sure that whatever you think is the most compelling subject and thus what you're titling your episode is actually delivered in the episode. I remember listening to a couple of podcasts where the episode titles really interested me. Or I see this even today with videos on YouTube and perhaps some of this is AI slop generated. But the title basically promises something and then the content doesn't actually deliver on that promise, whether it be how to do this or five ways to get that or whatever. And if there aren't actually five ways or the ways aren't numbered so that you even know this is number one, number two, number three, number four, and number five, or there is no how to. That's another thing I've seen very frequently, especially in the AI space on YouTube, where a lot of people are trying to sell access to their courses or their membership. So they're explaining the what in their content but not the how. And yet they title their content with a how, how to do this, how to do that, but they don't actually explain how. That is a promise you're making to your audience. I've done an episode previously about that. Go back and listen to it if you haven't yet about keeping your podcasting promises, but make sure that you do deliver on whatever that compelling title is. If whatever you think is a compelling title for your episode addresses content that is only a minute out of an hour, then that's not a good episode title because your audience could get frustrated by that feeling, like you wasted their time. You promised them content about this thing and yet you spent only one minute on that thing. That's not the way to go. So you could instead use whatever the most compelling topic is for your episode title. And when you deliver on that promise within your episodes and technique Number three List Topics Concisely Erica Mandy does a great job of this with her podcast the Newsworthy, where she is talking about multiple things in the news and those things are often not at all related to each other, so she can't find a common theme and she can't pull simply the one most compelling thing to use as the title. Instead, she lists the topics as concisely as possible within the title. Not every single topic that she mentions in those episodes, but she does cover the biggest ones. So for example, here are a couple of her episodes stock market, another AI Jesus, and Time 100 list. So there are three topics. Her episode contained more than three, but those are the three most interesting ones or the most newsworthy ones. Here's another example. Golden Age of America, Pentagon's AI, Ultimatum, and Olympic Ratings. I Again, three things listed there and as concisely as possible. Note that, for example, Olympic ratings. You don't really know exactly what it is. It's not telling you Olympic ratings are higher this year than previous years, or lower this year, or anything like that. It's just simply Olympic ratings. So she's listing the topics as concisely as she can, with as few words as she can, but still including a list in those titles. And that does then present information that people can see to spark their curiosity and interest in that episode, as well as obviously letting people know what that episode is about. And when they listen, they also get other news stories as well. Number four Be creative instead of descriptive. This doesn't work for every podcast, but if your podcast is more entertainment oriented, even if you're not setting out to make people laugh, but you do want people to have fun listening to the episodes, even if it's an informative episode, you could consider creative titles instead of your more descriptive titles or listing the Topics. The Podcasting 2.0 podcast with Adam Curry and Dave Jones is a good example of this, where they do talk about multiple topics within an episode, and they're generally Talking about podcasting 2.0 and what's going on in the podcasting community and developing the next generation of podcasting technology. They don't title their episodes like that, but their titles are often entertaining as well as informative. So I think they can get away with more creative titles. And here are a couple of examples of those creative titles. Slapjacked. And here's another one, Put more cheese on it. Now those titles do not necessarily represent what is in the episodes, but those titles are interesting and they're funny. And there's a bit of a special connection too that I think happens when you title the episode something like that, something that's clever, but that comes from the episode. Because if you make a pattern of this, I've noticed this in myself, I tend to start getting curious, how did that title come about? Who said that in the episode? What was the context for that? And then when that happens, I'm like, oh, that's the title of the episode and it makes for a fun moment in the podcast. And then I get it. So it's kind of yes, an inside joke on the outside. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I've done an episode previously about whether you should use inside jokes with your podcast. That was episode 389. I highly recommend you go back and listen to that if you haven't already. But it can be good to have those inside jokes because that helps involve your audience, their inside jokes with your audience. And using those inside jokes in your episode title can involve your audience then and sometimes even get them more engaged in the episode as those things will stick out to them and they realize that's where the episode title came from and they enjoy that moment with you. And number five, way to title multi topic episodes. You can combine all of these techniques together like number one find a theme. Number two use the most compelling topic. Number three list topics concisely. Number four be creative instead of descriptive. You could combine these things together, not necessarily all four techniques into one episode title, but you can combine some of these to be both entertaining and informative in your title or list and include the most prominent, most compelling part in the title. I think this Week in Tech with Leo Laporte does a good job of this. They do include something that is creative as well as then including something descriptive, which is usually the most compelling thing from their episode. For example, here are two episodes from this Week in Tech. The great British Marmalade scandal. Building your own router. Here's another one. Some had leashes. Google's Monopoly, Yap score, Robot marathon. That one there combined multiple topics into the episode while also including something that was creative in the title. With all of this, do consider what shows first inside podcast apps, because some podcast apps will truncate the title and people might not see what the episode is about if they can't see the full title. So have your most important text first. That's why I'm not a fan of things like writing the word episode inside your episode title. But if your episode number is important to your audience, as I've talked about in the past, go ahead and include that first, but as concisely as possible, and include the most important text of your title as early as possible in the title. If your podcast is seeking to entertain people, then it is okay to have a more entertaining part of your title first. Just think of these examples from this week in Tech. It wouldn't really be as fun of a title if they took that creative part and put that last. It might not even make sense. Then let's look at those same titles. But flipping the order here. Building your own router. The Great British Marmalade Scandal. Now that doesn't quite sound right. Kind of sounds like that is somehow part of building your own router. Like a substory to that. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Or taking the other title as an example, Google's Monopoly, Yap Score Robot Marathon. Some had leashes, huh? That doesn't even make sense. Then why that creative part would be in that title if it's put last. So yes, the creative part is not the most compelling part. But if the purpose of the podcast is also to entertain, then having that creative, entertaining part of the title first can be really effective. These are five ways that I think you can title those multi topic episodes and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Please reach out on X Hedaniel J. Lewis or or you can comment on the notes for this episode or share this episode out with any podcasters that you think would appreciate it. You can go to theaudacitytopodcast.com multitopictitles and before I go, special thanks to Brian Insmener from Top Tier audio for streaming 1897 Satoshis in total across the last couple of episodes of the Audacity to Podcast. I really appreciate the financial support, although I do other things to help podcasters like Pod Chapters Podgagement are my products that help build build the business. I provide this podcast to you free of charge and if you feel there's any value in the information that I share with you. Maybe it was entertaining in some way. Maybe it inspired you. Maybe it answered a question that you've had for a while. Maybe it solved a problem. Would you figure out whatever that's worth to you. Put a number on that and consider giving back what you feel this information has been worth to you. You can stream satoshis or send a boostagram through a modern podcasting 2.0 app, or you can send a gift of any amount through the audacitytopodcast.com giveback and I would be very grateful for your support. You can also check out my products podgagement and Pod Chapters. I would love to have you using them. Podgagement especially has a brand new feature in a secret beta right now and that is to be able to track your podcast SEO. And I think it does it better than any other tool out there before and gives you more data and a deeper look at that data. Because of course that's what podgagement does. It gives you a very deeper look at this data and it starts to overlay it with some information so you can see how some of your experiments are working for your podcast and start to track exactly when your podcast started ranking better or when you started getting more ratings and reviews. Check it out over@podcast podgagement.com now that I've given you some of the guts and taught you some of the tools, it's time for you to go start and grow your own podcast for passion and profit. I'm Daniel J. Lewis from the audacitytopodcast.com thanks for listening.