Want to start talking about another topic on your podcast? Should you just mix them together?
My general recommendation is no, you shouldn't. But this plays out in a few different ways, and I do have a recommendation for what to do instead. Like most things, though, I don't want you to just follow my advice. I want you to weigh these considerations for yourself and make the right decision for your own podcast and your own audience.
1. The podcast versus its episodes
When I say “podcast,” I'm talking about the overall show that contains many episodes. The podcast is not a single episode. It's the umbrella, and the episodes are the individual releases under it.
So when you think about mixing topics, there are two approaches. You can mix topics within an episode, or you can mix them across your podcast where each episode is its own topic. For example, episode 50 covers topic A, episode 51 covers topic B, episode 52 goes back to topic A, and so on.
I'm a fan of single-topic episodes, and you can see that in how I run The Audacity to Podcast. Each episode usually focuses on one topic (and sometimes I spread one topic across several episodes when I have a lot to say). Single-topic episodes set clear expectations, they're easier to title, and they're easier to promote. I can simply say, “This is the episode you need for this topic, and this is all you'll get from it.” I don't have to tell you to skip to a certain chapter.
That said, if you do have multi-topic episodes, that's a perfect reason to use chapters so you can point people right to the part they want. And if you're going to do chapters, you know what to do. Use PodChapters to transcribe and chapter your podcast in seconds. No joke, it takes me about 30 to 60 seconds to do what used to take me about half an hour across five different apps.
If you're not sure how to title an episode that genuinely covers more than one thing, I cover that in 5 Ways to Handle Multi-Topic Episode Titles.
One important clarification: I'm not talking about covering different facets of the same topic. The Audacity to Podcast is all about podcasting. Yes, I cover many subtopics, but they all live under podcasting. I don't do episodes about homemade pizza or ice cream flavors. The trouble starts when each episode is about a genuinely separate topic.
And to be clear, it is fine to have a multi-topic show. You don't have to niche down on your topic. The topic is only one kind of niche. You might cover multiple topics but be the niche yourself because of your perspective, your audience, or your approach. I dig into that in 4 Types of Podcast Niches—It's Not Just Your Topic.
2. What audience and expectations have you built?
I separate these two things on purpose. Take Star Wars and Star Trek. If you start a podcast about Star Wars, you're going to build an audience of Star Wars fans. Some of them might also like Star Trek, but what brought them to you and what unifies them is Star Wars. So that's what they expect you to talk about.
If you start mixing in frequent Star Trek episodes, you risk a bait and switch. I don't mean the occasional reference. When my cohost and I did a podcast about Once Upon a Time, we sometimes referenced Lost because Once Upon a Time referenced Lost (a lot of the same people worked on both). But we weren't covering Lost. We'd explain a reference here and there (like why “815” was always significant) because many of our listeners had never even seen Lost. We built an audience of Once Upon a Time fans, not Lost fans.
So ask yourself: what audience have you built, and what are they expecting because of how you attracted them? Don't bring in all the Star Wars fans and then suddenly announce you're a Trekkie now and this is a Star Trek show. Think about why your audience is really there. That's the content you want to keep serving them.
3. What do you want your podcast known for?
This builds on the audience and expectations you've created. When someone recommends your show, what do you want them to say? “You've gotta listen to this podcast, it's about topic A and topic B. Oh, and topic C. And sometimes D and E. And occasionally they bring in someone for topic F.” See what's happening? It waters down the answer to “Why should I listen?”
This is what attracted me to podcasts in the first place, almost exactly 21 years ago when iTunes 4.9 launched at the end of June 2005. I had a long commute, I'd burned out on local radio, I'd run through my audiobooks and my own music, and then I found podcasts. What hooked me was that I could find shows about exactly the topics I wanted, and they were only about those topics. One of my first was This Week in Tech, which was only about tech from this week. Later I found Grammar Girl, all about grammar and writing. I knew what each one was for, so I could tell friends, “If you want to know about grammar, this is the podcast.”
Yes, your show might cover multiple topics, and that goes back to the different types of niches. What your podcast is known for might not be the topic. It might be you, your style, or the specific audience you serve. But it's a lot easier to build an audience, and to get your existing audience to promote you, when your podcast can be known for one clear thing. So decide: do you want to be known for a long list of topics, or for one strong thing people can easily recommend?
4. Consider your podcast SEO
Now for the more technical side. Call it SEO, or AEO, or AIO (artificial intelligence engine optimization), or whatever acronym you like. The question is the same: how are people finding your podcast through whatever tool they're using? It's much easier to build findability when your podcast focuses on a single topic.
I learned this the hard way years ago with Noodle Mix Network, which I've since retired. I put all the shows on one website because I'd seen This Week in Tech do that. What I missed was that all of their shows were about tech: Windows Weekly, MacBreak Weekly, Security Now, and the rest. Different niches, same topic umbrella. So one website made sense for them.
Noodle Mix, on the other hand, was a literal mix: clean comedy, TV show fan podcasts, productivity, technology, and Christian podcasts. That's why the tagline was “podcasts to help you think, laugh, and succeed.” But on one domain, I was trying to build authority and findability for completely separate topics at once. I also wanted The Audacity to Podcast pages to look and feel like The Audacity to Podcast, and the comedy podcast pages to look like the comedy podcast, with sidebars and links focused on each. That's really hard to do well on a single site.
You run into the same problem when you combine unrelated topics on one podcast. It's tough to rank for “podcasting” and “cake-baking recipes” at the same time. One will overpower the other. And if someone landed on The Audacity to Podcast searching for a cake recipe, they'd be confused by a site that's clearly about podcasting. These aren't long-tail variations of one topic. They're entirely different topics, and that splits your authority.
Here's a quick example. I actually do offer a homemade eggnog recipe once a year for whatever people feel like paying (someone once paid me about $250). But I would never try to rank The Audacity to Podcast for “eggnog.” If I frequently did whole episodes about eggnog, the search engines, the AIs, and the LLMs would start to see that my show isn't only about podcasting, and that would hurt my ability to rank for the things that matter most.
Speaking of which, I just launched a new feature inside Podgagement that helps you track your podcast SEO. You enter the search terms you want to be found for, and Podgagement tracks where you rank in Apple Podcasts (with more platforms coming soon). It tracks all 175 Apple Podcasts countries, so you can see how you rank in Canada or globally, not just in the United States.
It also splits out the results the way Apple Podcasts actually shows them: the top results (a mix of shows and episodes), the podcast results, and the episode results. That means you can track individual episode rankings as well as your show's overall rankings, down to hourly detail. I tried a little experiment with the term “how to podcast,” made a change, and watched the movement in the charts within hours, without refreshing Apple Podcasts myself.
That's part of the Constellation tier, which also includes charts and rankings, podcast networking to find crossover audiences, written and voicemail feedback collection, extra landing pages, and global ratings and reviews tracking. If it's your first time, there's a free trial. Enter your search terms, then experiment. You could even release an episode with a target term in the title and watch how it affects your rankings. That's all over at Podgagement.
If you want your podcast found for a certain thing, focus on that thing. The moment you cover multiple unrelated topics, you're trying to optimize for several things at once, and that's a much harder job.
5. What prevents you from starting a separate show?
So with all of that in mind, here's my real question. If you still really want to talk about other topics, what's stopping you from starting a separate podcast for them?
Years ago, the answer might have been cost. A second show meant a second hosting account and paying double. That's not how it works everywhere anymore. The host I recommend for most podcasters is Captivate. (That's my affiliate link, and I do earn a commission, but I genuinely love Captivate. I used to be on their advisory board because of their real innovation in a space that had gone stale.)
One thing I love about Captivate, and some other hosts now do this too, is that you're not charged by the number of shows. You're charged by downloads. So you can host multiple separate shows about separate topics without paying extra, as long as your total downloads stay under your plan's limit. When you grow past that limit, you simply upgrade. You're not hit with another $20 a month just for starting a show that has no audience yet. By the time you do need to upgrade, you're usually in a position to handle it through sponsorships, audience support, or other income.
And here's why a separate show makes everything else on this list easier:
- Audience and expectations. Your Star Wars show keeps serving Star Wars fans, and your new Star Trek show builds an audience of Trekkies. Each audience gets exactly what it expects.
- What you're known for. Each podcast is known for its own thing, cleanly.
- SEO. Each show ranks for its own topics instead of fighting itself.
- Cross-promotion. This is the fun part. You might not attract Trekkies to your Star Wars show, but your Star Trek listeners might love Star Wars and never thought to look for a show about it. When you tell them, “By the way, I also have a Star Wars podcast,” you get that crossover. I saw this with Once Upon a Time and our clean comedy podcast. Some people started watching the show because of our podcast, and some comedy listeners came over because they enjoyed our personalities. That gateway effect is so much easier when you have separate shows.
Separate shows also protect you if you ever want to switch focus. If you stop covering Star Wars to cover Star Trek within the same feed, that's a bait and switch. But if you spin Star Trek into its own show, your Star Wars podcast can keep living and attracting fans even when you're not actively producing it. I still get emails from people discovering my old Once Upon a Time podcast for the first time, years after the show went off the air and we stopped recording, because it exists as its own brand with its own SEO and its own audience.
You can even use a dormant show to launch a new one. Big networks do this. If I started a new TV show podcast, I could drop a trailer into the old Once Upon a Time feed: “If you liked my take on Once Upon a Time, you might enjoy this new show about a different series. Still me, maybe some of the same cohosts.” That brings part of one audience over to seed the next.
Honestly, the frustration that inspired this whole topic comes from YouTube. There are channels I follow specifically because of the topic they built their audience around, and it bugs me when they start posting whole videos about an unrelated topic, sometimes using the same thumbnail style so I click expecting one thing and get another. I'd rather wait longer between videos about the topic I actually follow them for than wade through unrelated content in between. Whether it's a YouTube channel or a podcast, splitting things out serves both you and your audience better. You get to grow separate audiences, and your listeners get to follow exactly the content they want, until they decide they love your voice so much they'll follow you anywhere.
If you love The Audacity to Podcast and value the podcasting inspiration and education I provide, would you please consider giving back what it's worth to you?
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This post may contain links to products or services with which I have an affiliate relationship. I may receive compensation from your actions through such links. However, I don't let that corrupt my perspective and I don't recommend only affiliates.
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