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Should you include guest names in your episode titles?

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Thank you for joining me for The Audacity to Podcast. I'm Daniel J. Lewis. If you ever

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have a guest on your podcast, you might be wondering where to put their name. Here are

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some things to consider for your own podcast. Follow along in the notes, a tap or swipe

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away inside of your app or go to theaudacitytopodcast.com/namesintitles. That's also where you can go to share this

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episode out with any other podcasters you think would benefit from this.

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So first, is your guest well-known to your audience? Celebrities, and we could put that

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in quotation marks, they come in all sizes and niches. Consider whether they'll be

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known to a broad audience or even to your own audience, however big your audience is.

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For example, imagine you have a podcast about dogs and you invite me as a guest. Now get

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used to this example because I'm going to use it several times in this episode. Even

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though I've had a couple of dogs, I'm known for talking about podcasting and helping

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podcasters. Your audience wouldn't even know me and any "celebrity" or "influencer"

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status I might have is constrained to a couple of small niches, and Dogs is not one of them.

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Since my name would not be known to your audience or niche in this particular case, you could

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deprioritize it in your episode title or remove my name altogether. And if you have a guest

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whose celebrity status is mainstream, like Elon Musk, Michelle Obama, President Donald

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Trump or Tim Cook, then definitely put their name prominently in your episode title because

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their celebrity status is mainstream. So consider, is your guest well known to your audience?

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Then consider your SEO. Proper and ethical techniques for search engine optimization

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or SEO can help your podcast be found for relevant searches by people, human beings,

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use search engines. That's the "duh" of SEO – you're optimizing for people

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who use search engines. And one such relevant search might be your guest's name. This

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usually works better for names of people outside of mass popularity. For example, while Pat

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Flynn of Smart Passive Income is not a mainstream celebrity, he's been a guest on so many

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podcasts and there's been so much content about him that you probably wouldn't receive

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much of an SEO boost by being yet another podcast that interviews Pat Flynn. You would

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just be lost among the herd of all of the content that's already out there about him

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and interviewing him. Thus, there's not as much SEO value in his name alone anymore.

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However, if there's someone strongly associated with your own niche and known within your

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niche, then their name could provide huge SEO benefit to your podcast. For example,

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If you interview a cast member from a TV show you podcast about, they're probably a true

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celebrity, but there's not a flood of content about them in interviews with specifically

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that one person in the context of that show that you're podcasting about.

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So the associations with their name can boost your search engine optimization.

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That's considering your SEO.

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Next consider your guest's SEO.

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Flip this around and think about the value you offer to your guests.

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And little side tangent here, having guests on your podcast should be primarily about

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the value they bring to your audience and the value you can give them, and much less

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about the value they might give you.

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Okay, that little tangent aside, if you can focus your conversation around your guests'

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expertise, and I recommend that you do, then having their name in your descriptive episode

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title will help boost their SEO, their authority, and their influence. This works by associating

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those special keywords in your title with their name.

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Let's go back to that example of having me on your podcast about dogs. Although I

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like dogs, and they're much better than cats, I'm probably going to get more comments

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about that than anything else, that's not the subject for which I'm trying to build

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any authority or influence. Thus, I would be less interested in having my name associated

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with the subject. But if you have me on your podcast to talk about getting more podcast

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reviews, for example, that is a subject I want to be known for and would appreciate

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having my name associated with those relevant keywords. And speaking of podcast reviews,

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are you still manually checking for all your reviews and giving complicated or alienating

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instructions to your audience, check out mypodcastreviews.com to save you tons of time tracking your ratings

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and reviews and get awesome new tools to help you get and use more podcast ratings and reviews

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and more followers for your podcast.

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That's at mypodcastreviews.com.

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Moving on, consider what's more important, the what or the who.

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First recognize that yes, every person has value, no matter their niche, their skills,

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their size, their status, and such. So I'm not referring to whether they are important

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as a person. Instead, I mean what's most important in the context of your podcast content

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and your audience. For example, if you could get an interview on your podcast with Elon

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Musk, Michelle Obama, President Donald Trump, or Tim Cook, that would probably be far more

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exciting than whatever they're talking about. Look at what happened when Mark Maron got

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to interview President Barack Obama. Lots of people who didn't normally listen to

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Mark Maron's show listened to that one episode because they wanted to hear whatever President

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Barack Obama had to say in that podcast. But if you have little ol' me on your podcast

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about dogs, what I share in your podcast would be more important for your audience and your

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podcast than who I am. And let's be honest, with such a podcast, the audience probably

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wouldn't care at all who I am, at least not until after they hear what I have to share.

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But even then, I think they still wouldn't really care who I am, they just want to know

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the story about dogs or whatever that thing is that I'm on your podcast to talk about.

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Then, when you've decided to include the name of your guests with your titles, structure

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the title to prioritize what matters to your audience. Almost everything you do with your

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podcast should filter through the question, "What matters to my audience?" Thus, use

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that criterion when you consider applying my previous points to how you structure the

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title of your episodes. My general guideline is to make what's most important to your

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audience be the first thing in your episode titles. If the "who" is more important

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than the what, then put their name first.

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But if the what is more important, then put their name later or omit it completely depending

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on these other factors that I've shared.

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Here are a few title format examples for you.

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Elon Musk shares why he bought Twitter.

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Since the name is most important in this context and for this person, it goes first in the

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title.

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Here's another one.

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Daniel J. Lewis shares how he built a business around podcasting.

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If your podcast is also about podcasting and has an audience of podcasters and you've

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invited me to be a guest on your podcast, then my name might be recognizable enough

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to put first or you might want to put my name last.

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So it might then be "How to Build a Business Around Podcasting with Daniel J. Lewis" or

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"How Daniel J. Lewis Built a Business Around Podcasting".

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So you can change that around if my name isn't the most important thing to your audience.

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Here's another example, "Differences between raising a big dog and a little dog" and

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that's the end of the title.

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There's no name in there.

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Here the stories and information I share, if I'm the guest on your dog podcast talking

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about this stuff, that information will be far more important to your audience than my

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name.

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In fact, your audience probably wouldn't care at all who I am and raising dogs is not

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a subject for which I'm trying to build authority and influence.

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So you could put my name last or even omit it entirely like I did in this example.

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Differences between raising a big dog and a little dog.

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That's it.

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That could be your title.

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You don't have to put my name in there because your audience wouldn't care.

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It wouldn't mean anything to your audience to have my name in there and it wouldn't

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mean anything to me to have my name in there.

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And one more example along these lines.

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When should you edit your own podcast or hire someone else?

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With Daryl Darnell.

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While Darrell's name may not matter as much to your audience, he is building his authority

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and influence in podcast editing because he runs a podcast editing company.

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So this helps his SEO and it could help yours too.

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Note that these examples are straightforward with putting the name first or last.

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I've seen some interesting hybrid approaches too that you could consider using for your

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podcast.

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For example, "New iPhones" colon "What Johnny Ive thinks about Apple's new design"

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There, the name is right in the middle and the subject that might be most interesting

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to the audience is "New iPhones" or "15 Reasons Adam Curry Wants You to Use Podcasting

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2.0".

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Again, there's the name in the middle but the 15 reasons is the part at the beginning.

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Maybe that's a more compelling and interesting title than "Adam Curry Shares 15 Reasons

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for You to Use Podcasting 2.0" or it could be "Podcasting 2.0 - 15 Reasons to Use It"

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or different things like that, but you're playing around with what seems the best to

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communicate what this episode is about, while also being a reasonable title to read, to

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share online, and that looks good. And one more, Ben Linus actor Michael Emerson shares

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stories from acting in Lost. Here I put the character name first because if your podcast

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as about the TV show Lost, then your audience might know the actor by the character they

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play more than the actor's actual name. And this is a general good practice with TV

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show fan podcasts anyway is to refer to the characters by the character's name that

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your audience will know because they're watching the show and less often by the actor's

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or actress's name which your audience may not even know.

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The trick here, if we even call it a trick, is to simply think about what matters most

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to your audience and make that the first part of your episode title, as much as possible.

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So with any of these examples, what is truly the most important part of the title?

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Put that first, put the other information after that.

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Put the least information at the very end of the title, or consider removing it altogether.

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When you're thinking about naming your episodes with the guest's name, please use more than

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their name.

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Regardless of how important your guest's name is to your audience and the broader world,

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I urge you to make your title be more than only their name or a verbose pattern with

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their name.

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Like, "Interview with name, interview with name, interview with name."

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See, it's the same pattern over and over.

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The only thing that's changing is the name.

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Don't do that.

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I see people sometimes do this because they're obsessing over the character length of their

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podcast. They want really, really, really, really, really short titles. Maybe that's

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for the purpose of URLs or for whatever other reason, but I really recommend don't obsess

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over the character length of your titles. As long as they're short enough to share,

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then it's fine. I see little to no actual benefit in having ultra-short episode titles,

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like just the name of your guest. Plus, what would you do if you had the same guest back for

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another episode later on? Would you say "Part 2"? Would you add a number 2? Would you say "Another

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Interview With"? What would you do? And even if they're a super celebrity, their name alone still

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won't be as compelling or well-performing for your engagement and audience growth as if you

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also describe what the episode is about. Lastly, don't forget the author and person fields.

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No matter how you title your episodes, remember to include your guest name in your episode's

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iTunes colon author and podcast colon person tags. The iTunes colon author tag is part

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of the standard iTunes namespace from Apple Podcasts and the podcast colon person tag

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is part of the Podcasting 2.0 specification. These tags will overwrite your show-level

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information for this episode instead of inheriting it as it would usually. So make sure you repeat

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whatever would regularly show. For example, while my show-level tags are set to "Daniel

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J. Lewis", if I ever again have a guest on my podcast, I would set the episode-level

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author and person tags to "Daniel J. Lewis" and the guest's name in accordance with

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how the separate tags work. Like the iTunes colon author tag is just a single field. So I'd put in

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there maybe Daniel J. Lewis and guest name or Daniel J. Lewis comma co-host name comma guest

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name something like that. The person tag works a little bit differently where you would have

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multiple tags for each person so you don't have to worry about the and or the comma or anything

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like that. You just have an additional tag for each person that is in that episode or each person

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to whom you want to give credit with that episode. So these are some things for you to consider to

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help you decide how to title your episodes. Should you include the guest names in the episode titles

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or maybe not? It's not a hard set rule. It's not a rule at all really. It's up to you to decide and

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to figure out what is best for your audience, for your guest, and for your podcast. If you want to

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review any of this information or share this episode out with any other podcasters you think

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think would benefit from it, I'd be greatly appreciative of that.

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Then please tap or swipe inside your podcast app to get to the notes or share it out, or

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go to theaudacitytopodcast.com/namesintitles.

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Now that I've given you some of the guts and taught you some of the tools, it's time

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for you to go start and grow your own podcast for passion and profit.

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I'm Daniel J. Lewis from theaudacitytopodcast.com and creator of mypodcastreviews.com.

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Thanks for listening.

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