Episode Title Checklist
Quick checks before you lock in an episode title.
Episode Title Checklist
Podcast apps display episode titles in narrow list rows, often alongside the show name and a timestamp, which leaves less room than it looks like when writing the title in a wide text box — a title that reads fine while drafting can still truncate mid-word in a listener's actual app. Keeping season/episode numbering consistent matters for the same reason show notes and RSS metadata do: podcast apps and directories use it to sort episodes correctly, and an inconsistent scheme can display out of order.
The other three checks
- •A keyword placed early rather than buried at the end matters for the same truncation reason — the part of the title most likely to survive a narrow list row should carry the most useful information.
- •A guest's name in the title is often the single biggest driver of that guest's own audience finding the episode, since they may search their own name rather than the show's.
- •A title that overpromises relative to the actual content tends to hurt completion rate on that episode specifically, which can drag down how the show performs in apps that factor listen-through into ranking.