Do Episode Numbers Really Matter?

I've been thinking a lot about episode numbers and if they really matter. My other podcast, streamlined solopreneur, has undergone a lot of changes this year. I'm doing more solo episodes. Several of my interviews had two parts. I'm tinkering with the format. I think tinkering is actually an understatement. I've been very selective about sponsors. Video and YouTube strategy has changed. I killed my membership. And I'm doing more voice notes, which I wouldn't really qualify as full episodes. I'm also approaching 500 full episodes. These are episodes that are, I'm going to say, 15 minutes or longer. They get an actual episode number as opposed to the voice notes, which are just bonuses. And this is a really exciting milestone. If for no other reason, then it's a testament to a host's dedication to a show. and I've been doing that show since 2016. While all of this is going on, I also decided to consolidate my shows. I was doing four or five at some point, and I'm back down to three. This one, the local show, which I'm largely just a producer on, and then streamlined solopreneur. So I made this change earlier this year where one of the shows I've consolidated was my audio notes only podcast. It started off as an experiment to try to grow my mailing list. So it was actually a free private podcast. Anybody who gave me their email address would get their own private feed. But after six months on the experiment, I decided to call it unsuccessful. or at least half unsuccessful. I think I was able to prove that you don't need a high production value to have a good podcast. And it's evidenced by the fact that my little voice notes show, which is seven minutes or fewer, recorded on a DJI microphone from my iPhone, gets more engagement than my full podcast episodes. So I'm trying to figure out what that really means as far as if the growth goal was a failure or not. People joined my mailing list and people still interact with it and engage with it. It just didn't build my mailing list as much as I would have liked. So in February or so, I was trying to decide if I should make the show public. And if I was going to make it public, where I should put it. So I was originally going to put it on its own feed. And actually, there are episodes over there on its own feed. But recently, and I'm talking, I made this decision in February. I'm recording this in July of 2025. I started putting the audio notes on the streamlined solopreneur feed. And I'm making them bonus episodes. And I've decided that the number of episodes that is showing up in my podcast host doesn't have to match the episode number because bonuses and trailers and other things like that are inevitable. But like I said, it got me thinking about why episode numbers matter. For me, there were a lot of technical reasons. I have the episode numbers in my notion planner, which kicks off automations. All of the URLs go to streamlined.fm slash some episode number. But that, again, is all kind of self-imposed technical constraints. Through this experiment, I realized that episode numbers don't matter that much for most podcasts. but they do matter in some cases. And here's where I think they matter most. Number one is if your show is serialized. If your podcast tells a story that relies on your episodes being in order, being listened to, in order, numbers matter greatly. New listeners need to know where to start. Now, I know some listeners like to start any show at episode one, but for episodic podcasts, that is, podcast where each episode is discreet and doesn't rely on the previous episode, a date-based listing is sufficient. I want to know for an episodic podcast what's the latest episode because it's not telling a story and I want the post's most current thoughts on the matter. If someone started streamlined solopreneur at episode one, first of all, they would hear a name of the show. They'd hear a very different person and they'd hear a very different topic. And they'd have to go through that nine year evolution from the beginning. And that's great if they want to do that. I wouldn't want to do that. Because most people are listening to streamlined solopreneur to learn something. So if your show is serialized, yes, episode numbers matter greatly. The second reason is podcasts have short series, right? So if your podcast has a short series, then yeah, episode numbers are going to matter. One of my new favorite shows this year is the rest is history, which usually does a three to four episode story arc on a specific event throughout history. Not only do episode numbers matter there, but this is one of the few times where I think having an episode number in the title. is helpful. I am usually bullish on not having episode numbers in the title for a whole bunch of other reasons that I suspect there's already an episode on this podcast where I talk about that. But if every month you're starting a new series, then yet you should have the episode number in the title because I want to know what part of the series. series is this? And what episode should I be starting at? So if they're doing a short run on the War of 1812, for example, and it starts at episode 647, I want to know that's the episode I'm starting on. And so maybe putting the episode number like at the end of the title is a good idea there so that I can glance it quickly, especially if the app doesn't prominently show the season and episode number. The third reason, and I've, you know, since kind of writing up and thinking about this, I feel differently, but the third reason is you've made them important. This is the bucket that I fell into. I've embedded the episode number into the very fabric of my podcast, referencing those numbers in many episodes, and even readjusting every episode of my show last year. 2024 so that the episode numbers match the total number of episodes published on the feed. I had a very haphazard way of deciding if an episode got an episode number or if it was a bonus. So that was unclear and I made that adjustment through the years. As I publish every episode on my podcast feed on YouTube, on my website, on Spotify, I wanted, or as I did this, I wanted to ensure consistency. Plus, all of my automations, nearly all of my podcast systems, rely on a pre-assigned episode number. The show has worked that way for nine years. But even when I wrote this article that I'll put in the show notes back in February, I knew this was a weak argument. And here's what I'm doing today. and here's why I'm thinking about this again. I've decided, like I said earlier, to publish my audio notes podcast on the streamlined solopreneur feed as bonus episodes. So I'm not going to have parity between the episode number and the number of episodes published. I've also decided I'm not going to have parody on YouTube. YouTube, despite what all the people at YouTube say, doesn't care about podcasts the same way that podcasters care about podcasts. And so having an audio-only show on there or having video elements of every episode, I should say, just for the sake of having a video on there, doesn't matter that much. Now, if you use something like RSS.com's podvis to get your show onto YouTube, that's one thing. I think that's a good idea to have a presence on YouTube if you want it. For me, I think that my podcast has enough of a presence on YouTube and a lot of my solo episodes have some visual element. And so those are the videos that I'm uploading. Everything's kind of in flux. So, you know, this is, this experiment might change, but I think that this is going to be the way I do things. because the videos that have a visual element or the episodes that have a visual element are important enough to be standalone YouTube videos. And then I've also adjusted my process to have the episodes from the RSS feed automatically imported to the website so that I don't have to worry about matching episode numbers and things like that. So I have ultimately changed my process. I think that the episode numbers are still important to me. I will be celebrating my 500th full episode this year, and I'm really excited for that. But I've stopped saying episode numbers in the actual recording. I've stopped referencing them in other places where they don't necessarily need to be referenced. Each full episode still does get the streamlined.fm slash episode number at the end because that's easy to remember for a lot of people. But I've already seen the benefits of not explicitly saying the episode number during recording. One of my guests has a book coming out. And if I had said the episode number during the recording, I really, I wouldn't have been able to make the release of the episode close to the book's release date, which is beneficial to my guests, but also beneficial to me. Because they are going to get a PR bump. They're going to be sharing those episodes and talking about the book more. And so I wanted to make that accommodation, and I'm glad I could. So how do we, how do you approach episode numbers here? If you're trying to decide how important episode numbers are, consider how much your listeners rely on them, or if your systems use them in a way that's crucial. And that is, it will break if you mess them up. For me, for a long time, episode numbers were an integral part of my process. They are less important now. For most podcasters, they likely only matter after an episode is alive. if at all. I'm trying to get there and I've made a lot of changes, but for you, if you're listening to this, I would say you can probably have some flexibility in how you approach episode numbers on your podcast. Now, the last thing I'll say here is there are some shows that are weekly news shows or they do special shows, all the shows at Relay.com do this sort of thing where they say, you know, welcome to episode, blah, blah, blah. And that's so, so I think they influenced the way that I view episode numbers a lot, but they are very different. They're very different from me. I don't do a lot of new shows. I don't talk about current events on really any of my podcasts. or I try not to. And so, again, the episode number matters less. But also for them, every time they publish, there aren't really bonus episodes of their podcasts either. So what they're doing is akin to a TV show, I think, where every discrete piece of content that they put out gets an episode number. My show used to be like that, and it's not anymore. I used to have seasons. Seasons made no sense for my podcast. So I guess your big takeaways here are put some thought into this before you launch your show if you haven't launched your show. But also, things can change. You can change things. There's no real permanence. There might be some backwards compatibility. things where you wouldn't want to break something. But try things. See what works for you. And most importantly, see what works for your audience. That's it for this episode, Streamline Podcaster. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, let me know what you think. Send your thoughts over to streamlinedfeedback.com. That's streamlined with a Dfeedback.com. I'd love to hear from you. And until next time, I hope you find some space in your week.