Since podcast episodes are in MP3 format, these have tons of information buried within the files. The ID3 tags are bits of information that are embedded on the track or the MP3 no matter what the file name is.
You can see these on your player’s screen. These tags can be the cover art, the artist, album name, and genre among others.
The ID3 tag is a way of embedding these descriptive information on the MP3 track. This descriptive data or information is also called metadata, a data describing other data.
These come in a variety of 80 tags. This means you can store as much information as you want in a single MP3 file.
A plain MP3 file only consists of the audio data without any additional information about the artist or the audio. The title and the description will not even show. Publishing a plain MP3 file can make you look unprofessional and potential audience might find it difficult to listen or want to listen to your content.
Tagging your MP3 files ensures that your podcast will be displayed properly on all the media players. Tagged data is added either in the beginning or the end of a track.
Tags provide a general information about your podcast and help the audience search through all the podcasts and find yours through certain keywords.
For example, if you add an image to the ID3 tag, this will display the cover art on the media players. On the other hand, if this is left out, the player will just show a generic image.
But above all else, iTunes favors mp3 tags and wants your episodes to be properly tagged in order for it to display the data properly.
Since there are different ID3 tags that you can add on your MP3, it might be confusing to figure out which ones to use. It may also be tempting to stuff your MP3 file with tons of information. However, the key is to be brief and only use necessary tags.
The common ID3 v2 basic tags are: cover art, title, artist, album, year, genre, URL, comments/ description, and copyright among many others. Usual podcast tags are: identifier, feed, and description. These are the tags used by top podcasts and you should consider these without overloading information in your MP3.
Extended tags are not commonly added by most podcasts. However, some who do add the subtitle, released, and recorded information. You may not reap many benefits in adding these, though.