66. Want to Attract New Listeners? Add a Subtitle to Your Podcast! | Podcasting Growth Strategy

Setting your podcast up to stand out in a crowded field and attract new listeners can be challenging. Adding a subtitle might do the trick! Tune into this episode to learn how this underutilized podcasting growth strategy can help your show, plus the formula for creating a great one!

This episode was produced by me, The Podcast Teacher! Contact me at Hello@ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Transcript

Hey. Hey, and welcome back. As podcasting solopreneurs, we're striving for a perfect podcast arc. We want to attract new listeners. We want to retain them and establish know, like, and trust, and then we want to convert them into clients. Today, we're focusing on the a in arc, attracting new listeners. And one of my favorite ways to do that is by adding a subtitle to your podcast. So in this episode, you're going to learn what a podcast subtitle is, why it will help to attract new listeners, and how to create a great one for your show.

Let's start out with the basics. What is a subtitle? The literal definition is a second title or an explanatory title. When you think of a book, this is a pretty easy concept to understand. Let's take the well known book, Atomic Habits. The main title of the book is Atomic Habits, and then there's a subtitle that reads, an easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones. The subtitle adds additional context. For some reason, when it comes to podcasting, I find that many people get confused by this concept of a subtitle. Maybe that's simply because subtitles aren't a common practice in podcasting.

I don't know. Some folks refer to a subtitle as a tagline or a title extension, but it's all the same concept, just additional words that explain the podcast. When you create your subtitle, you just add it on to the end of your podcast's title. So in the back end of your podcast host, in the text field where you've already typed the main title of your podcast, you're simply going to add some more words there as your subtitle. So that's what a subtitle is and where it goes. Now let's talk about why adding one can help you attract new listeners. The first reason is that it helps your search engine optimization strategy. The title field is a heavily weighted field for SEO, meaning that the words included there hold more value than words placed in other parts of your podcast's written content, like the show description or even the episode titles.

So by adding a subtitle, you're adding additional words that can help you to show up in search results. This is an incredibly valuable podcast growth strategy that is being seriously underutilized. The second reason why adding a subtitle to your podcast can help you attract new listeners is because it provides additional context to the human in charge of choosing which podcast to click on. If your podcast shows up in search results or someone happens to come across it when they're browsing, the subtitle can help to clarify if your show will help them with whatever they're looking for help with. A subtitle can make the difference between someone clicking on your show or the one next to it in the search results. Alright. So how do you create a good subtitle? I like to use the what for who formula. What does your podcast cover, and who is it for? When choosing the words to describe the what and the who, pick words that your audience uses and might be searching for.

Podcast search optimization works off of broad keywords and short phrases. Things like online business, weight loss, anxiety, travel, divorce, mindset, digital marketing, copywriting, women, Gen X, midlife, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So choose broad words and short phrases that describe your podcast's content and the audience that you're trying to reach. A potential listener needs to quickly understand that this show is for them and that it contains the information that they are seeking. One of the best things about a subtitle is that you can change it as often as you want to. So you can try out a few words and phrases and let it run for 90 days or so, see how it's going. And then you can swap 1 or more of the words out for something else to see if that works better if you're not getting the results that you want from the original words. Once you've landed on a final or final ish version of your subtitle, you might choose to put some of the important words onto your cover art.

This can help with a first impression, particularly if your podcast's main title is somewhat vague or creative and doesn't necessarily tell what the podcast is about and who it's for. Adding keywords onto the cover provides additional clarity. Alright. One bonus tip about subtitles. You can also add subtitles to your episode titles as well. The episode title field is the 2nd highest weighted field for SEO in podcast players after the show title field. And, of course, a potential listener is most likely scanning episode titles in order to decide which one to press play on. So you can add subtitles here as well, again, to increase your search engine optimization strategy and to provide additional context to the potential listener.

An example of this strategy in the wild is episode 52 of this podcast. The main title of the episode is thinking about taking a break from your podcast. And then I added on a subtitle of podcasting tips for when you're feeling stagnant. I did that to get in a keyword. Podcasting is an important word for me and my podcast, for my search engine optimization strategy. And so the subtitle accomplishes getting that word in, and it also gives further context to the potential listener of what exactly I'm going to cover in that episode. Not only are we gonna talk about how you're feeling about maybe wanting to take a break from your podcast, but I'm gonna give you some tips to work through it. So you can choose to do this too with your episode titles if and when it feels right to you.

I suggest starting with a subtitle for your show as a whole and then incorporating them into episode titles as you see fit. Until next time. Happy podcasting.