Titles written for search
People search for the topic, not the episode number. With the topic first and the podcast name and number last, each title reads well in search results and the series still stays together.
Case Study
Ants Rootslane: YouTube channel and podcast setup for “Minu elu, minu reeglid”
Podcast playlist, unified titles and descriptions, end screens and new channel branding
Risto Tõldsep set up the YouTube channel of Estonian therapist Ants Rootslane and his podcast “Minu elu, minu reeglid” in November 2026: a podcast playlist with all 9 episodes, one title format, a description with links for every episode, end screens, a channel description and links, and a new banner and profile picture in the style of antsrootslane.ee.
Client Ants Rootslane
Year 2026
My role Channel setup and branding
Live site www.youtube.com
Services Social Media & YouTube Setup
The challenge
Ants Rootslane is a systemic therapist and author, and his podcast “Minu elu, minu reeglid” already had an audience of about 5,000 subscribers on YouTube. The channel around the podcast was barely set up.
There was no playlist, so the podcast did not show up as a podcast on YouTube or YouTube Music. The channel description was empty and the channel page had no links. Most videos had the same generic podcast text underneath, the titles were in different formats, and nothing pointed a viewer from one episode to the next.
What I built
- A “Minu elu, minu reeglid” playlist marked as a podcast, with all 9 episodes in order.
- One title format for every episode, topic first because that is what people search for: “Topic | Minu elu, minu reeglid #N”.
- A description for every episode: one or two sentences on what that episode covers, then the same links to events, therapy bookings, Spotify, Instagram and the website.
- A channel description and five channel links: website, events, Spotify, Instagram and Facebook.
- End screens on all 9 episodes, so viewers move on to another episode instead of leaving.
- A new banner and profile picture in the visual style of antsrootslane.ee.
- Monetization guidance: the channel already met the YouTube Partner Program requirements, so I explained the application and how Ants links his own AdSense account.
Technical highlights
Drafts before any change
I sent Ants the channel description, the title list and the description template as drafts first, and changed things on the channel once the texts were agreed. Two of the episode descriptions are in his own words.
Manager access, no passwords
I work on the channel as a Manager in YouTube Studio. Ants keeps full ownership, and the AdSense account with his bank details stays his alone.
A podcast, not just videos
Marking the playlist as a podcast puts the series in the channel’s Podcasts tab and on YouTube Music, one more place where people look for something to listen to.
Results
5.2k subscribers
9 episodes in the podcast playlist
25k public views on the newest episode in its first 4 days
250 → 9.7k views per day, before vs after
3× more views on older episodes
- The channel page now has a description, five links, the new banner and a Podcasts tab with all 9 episodes.
- The newest episode, published the same weekend, passed 25,000 public views in its first four days.
- The whole setup took 4 hours.
- Views per day went from about 250 before the work to between 5,900 and 9,700 in the three days after it (YouTube Studio).
- New subscribers went from 0 to 5 a day to more than 100 in three days.
- The older episodes got about three times more views than before, around 800 a day together. A new episode came out the same weekend, so part of the jump in daily views belongs to it, but the growth on the older episodes points to the setup itself.
- The new episode had 21.4k views in its first three days, an 8.4% thumbnail click-through rate and an average view of 27.5 minutes.
Tech stack
YouTube StudioYouTube PodcastsPlaylistsEnd screensChannel brandingGoogle AdSense
Frequently asked questions
Did the videos themselves change?
No. The episodes stayed as they were. The difference came from the channel around them: titles, descriptions, the podcast playlist, end screens and links.
Why does a podcast need a playlist on YouTube?
YouTube treats a series as a podcast only when it sits in a playlist marked as a podcast. Without one, the episodes do not show in the Podcasts tab or on YouTube Music, and viewers have no simple way to play them in order.
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