Have questions about publishing, growing, or going paid on Substack?
The Substack team, and your fellow writers, are here to help!
Today we’re gathering the writer community and members of our Community, Product, and Writer Development teams together in a thread to answer writer questions for an hour.
Seeking inspiring ways to reflect on and commemorate milestones? Check out Garbage Day’s one year review and Tiny Driver’s reflection on learning in public for a year.
What goals have you set for your publication? Courtney Martin, author of The Examined Family, discusses how she cultivated a writer's mindset and set goals for a paid launch. At the first session of Substack Grow, we’ll dive into setting goals for your Substack. Request a seat.
Drop your questions in the thread and we’ll do our best to supercharge each other.
Our team will be in the thread today from 9 am - 10 am PST / 12 pm - 1 pm EST answering questions with you.
Thanks for stopping by Office Hours. It's rad to see you jumping in to answer one another's questions. Next week we will host our third Shoutout thread. It's an opportunity for writers to share their publications and what they've been inspired by. Hopefully, you'll discover publications too :)
One thing I like about substack is that it isn't one big feed controlled by an algorithim--I think that was Medium's fatal error. But I do wish there was a way to promote organically on the site--maybe that's what the grow directory will be?
Anyways, what metrics or what does Substack look for when they promote newsletters on their home page? And does Substack find that doing so, actually boosts that letter significantly?
Hey Jack! We're always looking for new ways to help writers discover and promote one another.
On the homepage, we aim to feature undiscovered writers who are going deep into a clear topic and exemplify best practices, like posting regularly and engaging with readers. We have seen that writers gain some traffic from a feature.
That's good to know. What constitutes a clear topic, though? I write about a variety of topics, but I think my umbrella theme is pretty clear. I suppose I worry my stuff would never be presented there because I don't write about plants and only plants every week (or something like that).
I would compare my publication to Galaxy Brain, whom I believe is partnered with Substack--he writes about the internet but that's obviously a massive umbrella of topics with a variety stuff to unpack. But Galaxy Brain came from NYT--so he brought an audience with him, an advantage which I don't have.
Whatiscalledthinking.substack.com now has over 100 paying subscribers and 800 total readers. One way I want to grow is to cross promote with other newsletters. How do I find other content creators that are reaching people I might also resonate with.
Hopefully next week at the shoutout thread you might meet some writers:)
I'd also recommend exploring the homepage categories (https://substack.com/home) and thinking about writers who may not be in your niche but adjacent. E.g. if you talk about climate, it's likely your readers also care about global news. Who is writing on global news?
Gorgeous substack project - I also just subcribed, even though mine is on literature and very different (so don't feel obligated to return the favor, lol)!
Perhaps I'm one of them? I popped over to check your news letter and like the Socratic style of exploring topics with questions. Over on colenoble.substack.com , I write about how mountaineering and exploring impact the way we perceive life's challenges. If that sounds interesting to you, let me know.
Same question as last week. How can we get the new posts to show up in Google? The slightest mention in other tiny pubs and blogs like Patch and the Easy Reader equal a name alert e-mail. Is there some setting we're missing in Substack to make that happen?
* Don’t underestimate the value of the plain but well-optimized text—Use visual components appropriately and only when they improve content. Random images or GIFs may be entertaining but they can slow down rendering time for a reader (especially in their email).
* Improve headlines and text—It takes time to generate catchy content for your newsletters. Use test emails to analyze how motivating they are. Would you personally click on such an email?
* Apply basic on-page SEO techniques—Use keywords in your headlines (H1 tags), subheaders (H2 tags), and the body of your content (text).
*Use the alt attribute for images—Substack lets you customize alt tags for images in your post. The alt tag is used by screen readers, which are browsers used by blind or visually impaired people. These tags can affect SEO. Google’s article about images has a heading “Use descriptive alt text”. This is no coincidence—Google places a relatively high value on alt text. They use it to determine what is on the image but also how it relates to the surrounding text. Ideally each image should have a unique tag, but at a minimum, any custom featured images, should include descriptive alt text). Note: Captions are not a substitute for alt text!
* Fill out all basic newsletter fields—This seems basic, but I notice many Substack writers who have not properly filled out some of the basic fields attached to their newsletter. These include Publication name, One-line description, tags, Subscription benefits (all three lines), etc.
* While it’s true that Substack has a ways to go on improving its features to optimize each post (i.e. meta descriptions, canonical links, etc.), Substack itself, the website actually has pretty high domain authority and it is certainly possible to rank highly in Google. For example, if you Google the search phrase: Medium vs. Quora you will see that my post on Substack (through my newsletter Blogging Guide) not only ranks on the first page, but it is the featured snippet for the term.
Lastly, know our team is working to improve search for writers!
Hi substack community, I write long form essays on culture on a bi-weekly basis. It's my preferred writing style, but I know a lot of substackers write on a weekly or daily basis and in much shorter form. I'm wondering if this is really detrimental to growth, or how other longformers have succeeded in growing readership? Any advice?
Hmm. I'm an occasional longformer (if "longform" is defined as "getting that little popup message saying the newsletter is almost too long for Inboxes"). I think it's really about the expectations you set. The crowd you gather is the crowd you ask for. I've tried to make it clear that mine is a mix of styles, some shorter and some long enough to make your Inbox groan. I read others that are super up-front about how theirs is a hugely deep dive into a topic that will take an afternoon to read. The ones that say it up front are the ones that do the opposite of scaring people off...
In a way, this feels a bit like something I encountered as a travel writer. At conferences, we were told "narrative doesn't get traffic", as opposed to more useful, SEO-friendly stuff. And some of the people in the audience went on to have very successfu careers as narrative writers. It's not so much the medium itself that decides growth - it's the audience, and the way you find it and nurture it and build enough of it up. (I've always felt like the Internet is an infinity of long-tail audiences of a whopping size, enough to sustain any writer, no matter how niche or "weird" they are in a general sense.)
Thanks for the thoughts. I think you're right--and the possibility for longform and narrative to succeed is the entire point of substack; so we can get away from the mindless algorithms and the trending.
My strat so far has been posting reflections on my recent expeditions on a weekly basis, then sprinkling in a bit of news that I think is relevant to my readers. But I also haven't been doing it long enough to know for sure how this impacts growth.
Just a thought: I’ve seen comments on here saying you really need to find out where “your intended audience” hangs out and somehow get in front of them. So maybe get your Twitter account active around the New Yorker and The Atlantic…. Those are the only two publications with long form journalism that I read.
I really like this idea and I think there is some overlap in audience. I recently made a twitter to try to do this sort of thing--trouble is growing a twitter/learning what works best on that site is a whole 'nother animal. But it is definitely something I'm trying--thanks for the thoughts/encouragement.
I read your most recent post and actually laughed out loud. Really fun style to read, and a lot of great points about the kinds of characters we're seeing portrayed in media.
...and I've also started to find "check it out" posts do very little. Is most of your growth coming just from within substack? Or are you finding people engage with your posts more on certain other platforms?
I agree that if you just say, check out my latest newsletter, it may not gain that much traction. You do have to write a few sentences before the link to entice them and spell out why it would matter for them to read this specific newsletter topic.
I'm excited to start utilizing the thread feature, but feel I don't have enough subscribers yet to make it worth while. Is there a certain threshold that works best for starting threads? How can I best lay the ground work to launch them?
Hey Cole! I wish there was a perfect number we could share but I think this might require some experimentation and intubation.
Some things to look out for:
- Are people responding directly to your emails?
- Are they commenting on existing posts?
You might consider reaching out to some existing readers and ask them if they would participate in a first thread with you. That extra invitation and nudge can go a long way (and mean a lot) to readers.
Some inspiration from publications hosting threads:
We've seen writers do a few different things in search for readers' feedback. Many use a simple google form. What seems to work is making a moment of the feedback, asking at a milestone and sharing how you intend to use the feedback moving forward.
Thanks for doing this! I’m curious about SEO? Are there any tools available within Substack to help us better understand what search terms we’re ranking for or drove visitors to our publication? Does linking to other websites help or hurt SEO? Any other tips on maximizing our reach in search engines?
My publication, Battleground, is a state-by-state review of the American political landscape via maps of election results. The topics that I cover are heavily searched for but as of now I don’t get really any traffic from search. Just naively trying to compete with the Politicos and FiveThirtyEights of the world!
When fully integrated, the dashboard not only lets you see the user's location, but also how they found you, how long they stayed on the site, and their demographic information. Google Analytics also integrates nicely with smaller marketing tools.
Hi gang! I write Life Mostly Full, a Substack about balancing the philosophical and the practical in handling all of the nonsense modern life throws at us. http://lifemostlyfull.substack.com/
- Question: "How do you best utilize Substack sections?"
I am planning on launching a podcast soon and intend to give it a distinct section.
- Question: "Seeking inspiring ways to reflect on and commemorate milestones?"
I always love "best of" lists, even if I'm a longtime reader. It lets me revisit good posts I may have missed. If I'm a new reader, "best of" lists are golden.
- Question: "What goals have you set for your publication?"
I want to gain five new interested readers a day (on average). If I do that, I'm happy. There are many ways that I could gain a lot of readers, but I'd way rather have 1 new engaged reader than ten unengaged ones.
Hey Trent! Loved the publication. Instantly subbed! Loved the issue about sleep!
I write 10+1 Things a weekly newsletter featuring 11 interesting offbeat stories finely curated by me. In the latest issue, I talk about African Apocalypse, Build a Great Life, Internet in a Box and Plant Consciousness.
Hi everyone! I have a question, and also a tip on getting new subscribers that's worked for me.
- Question:
I'm currently writing my newsletter in seasons (as a good way to bake some engagement-friendly endings into it all), and I haven't yet worked out how to how to show & promote previous seasons as a discrete, one-click kind of thing from my landing page or elsewhere. Maybe this is something that Sections would be useful for? I'd love any advice from anyone a lot smarter than me about this stuff (which is probably everyone)...
- Tip:
If you have a newsletter that's particularly meaty & has a good storyline to it, adapt the whole thing into a thread on Twitter, using every storytelling trick in the book to keep folk reading ("you'll never guess what happened next" etc) and making sure you have lots of visuals. Just make sure you add a few CTAs for the original newsletter version, to attract people to sign up. For example, I did it with this - https://twitter.com/Mikeachim/status/1392468208922337280 - which went mildly viral and attracted just under a hundred new subscribers. Also, critically, it's fun to do! Win-win.
That's a great tip! And good for the Twitter algorithm too.
As for your question, sounds like sections might be a great fit for what you are doing. Some inspiration: Elle Griffin (https://ellegriffin.substack.com/) and other fiction writers use sections to break out their serialized fiction over a "season."
I've thought about doing that, too, and now I'm going to! I get no traction at all from Twitter when it comes to promoting my posts, even though I have more than 5500 followers. I'll give threads a try!
A shout out to those wonderful people who sit at the support desk. You're so patient! Thank you! My main annoyance is how hard it is to navigate my draft when I'm trying to insert anything but text. It seems I have to figure out a workaround for too many insertions.
For example, if I put a picture at the top of my post I can't get above it to add some forgotten text. I have to delete the picture, add the text, then insert the picture again.
I can't add text between buttons if I've forgotten something. And there are times when I can't get past a line to add more text. What am I doing wrong?
Hi Ramona, our support team is going to be happy to hear your message :)
I've shared your feedback with our product team about the publisher, they are working to improve your experience there.
I've had the same problem with a photo at the top of a post, the best work around is to delete it, write your text, and paste the photo back in where you want it.
I write my post entirely first. Edited, polished, exactly where I want it. Then I go back and add photos and also format with headings etc. Hope this helps.
the weekly newspaper empowering you to invest early in your financial future.
Very curious how other growing newsletters have been able to improve the premium experience for readers. We are closing in on 1000 subscribers without any paid promotion or advertisement. Always looking to learn and earn and cross promote.
Congrats on getting (almost) to that 1000 milestone.
I can’t answer your question but I used to run a personal finance blog and would love to share my personal story about investing (regrets, wins, etc) if you are ever open for guest pieces.
Hi Elliott, Would absolutely be open to guest pieces and hearing personal stories as that's relatable to everyone. Please message us at mailto:weinvestrly@gmail.com
Depending on your level of coziness with coding, you should be able to add an iframe within a pop-up. I'm not familiar with AddThis, so I'd recommend reaching out to their help team asking if they support that, here's the link:
I’d love to know what the optimum file size and format is for images embedded in newsletters and used as thumbnails. Does Substack automatically compress large images?
Hi Florence, 1456 x 1048 (or larger) is the ideal image size, 14:10 is the aspect ratio for the preview images, and images have to be at least 420 x 300 pixels to qualify for use as a preview.
Hi Kristen, thanks for this info but my question relates to file size (how many MB, what format? Jpg, png) not image size (in pixels) - could you clarify?
Hi Everyone. And thank you, as always, to our Substack team for helping us all grow. I am tip-toeing in, once again, to ask about the status of housing pdf's within our newsletters.
I created a digital download for new subscribers using Gumroad -- I include the download code in my welcome email. It's been a fantastic work-around to this issue. (H/t to Casey Botticelli for this idea!)
Hi Jamil. Is it possible to give us something specific about a launch for this? Each week I hear that it's on the list, and then the next week and so on. Trying to keep the faith.
And I should add, I completely understand how hard it is when there are so many requests for different things. I have run a couple of start-ups and the priority lists were always long. So, not complaining, just wondering. Thank you. 💜
There's no exact timeline just yet, but I can say I've seen mockups for how it'll look and many of us are pushing for it, including me :) Thanks for keeping us fired up!
That's a great suggestion! Product teams view these threads and they'll be happy to hear this feature request, as well as the reasons you'd value its addition.
Hey everyone!
Thanks for stopping by Office Hours. It's rad to see you jumping in to answer one another's questions. Next week we will host our third Shoutout thread. It's an opportunity for writers to share their publications and what they've been inspired by. Hopefully, you'll discover publications too :)
We hope to see you! In the meantime, our Resouces page is here for you: https://substack.com/resources
Happy Writing!
Katie + Kristen + Jamil
Thanks Katie, Kristen, Jamil--it was my first office hours and I had a great experience. Have a good one!
One thing I like about substack is that it isn't one big feed controlled by an algorithim--I think that was Medium's fatal error. But I do wish there was a way to promote organically on the site--maybe that's what the grow directory will be?
Anyways, what metrics or what does Substack look for when they promote newsletters on their home page? And does Substack find that doing so, actually boosts that letter significantly?
Hey Jack! We're always looking for new ways to help writers discover and promote one another.
On the homepage, we aim to feature undiscovered writers who are going deep into a clear topic and exemplify best practices, like posting regularly and engaging with readers. We have seen that writers gain some traffic from a feature.
That's good to know. What constitutes a clear topic, though? I write about a variety of topics, but I think my umbrella theme is pretty clear. I suppose I worry my stuff would never be presented there because I don't write about plants and only plants every week (or something like that).
I would compare my publication to Galaxy Brain, whom I believe is partnered with Substack--he writes about the internet but that's obviously a massive umbrella of topics with a variety stuff to unpack. But Galaxy Brain came from NYT--so he brought an audience with him, an advantage which I don't have.
That's a great point Jack! Nicolas Cole writes a lot about this. Here is a great post for some inspiration: https://dailywritinghabits.substack.com/p/why-is-category-creation-so-important
+1 to that.
Whatiscalledthinking.substack.com now has over 100 paying subscribers and 800 total readers. One way I want to grow is to cross promote with other newsletters. How do I find other content creators that are reaching people I might also resonate with.
Congrats Zohar!
Hopefully next week at the shoutout thread you might meet some writers:)
I'd also recommend exploring the homepage categories (https://substack.com/home) and thinking about writers who may not be in your niche but adjacent. E.g. if you talk about climate, it's likely your readers also care about global news. Who is writing on global news?
Congrats on your accomplishments thus far!
There are services such as Radletters and Introsend that do help connect you with other writers.
Introsend, however, do not necessarily send folks your way that may write about similar or adjacent topics.
Would love to connect. We seem to write about similar subjects.
https://equanimitas.substack.com
Gorgeous substack project - I also just subcribed, even though mine is on literature and very different (so don't feel obligated to return the favor, lol)!
Thanks a bunch! Of course I’ll have to check it out lol
Thanks so much, Elliott!
Your substack looks dope!
Perhaps I'm one of them? I popped over to check your news letter and like the Socratic style of exploring topics with questions. Over on colenoble.substack.com , I write about how mountaineering and exploring impact the way we perceive life's challenges. If that sounds interesting to you, let me know.
Nice content cole! Subbed!
Subbed to you as well! I like your internet taste, makes for a good selection of headlines!
Hey Zohar!
I'm interested in cross-promotion. I write 10+1 Things a weekly newsletter featuring 11 interesting offbeat stories finely curated by me.
Link: https://rishikesh.substack.com/
You can also check CrowdMagnet for cross-promotion oppurtunites.
I love the name of your newsletter!
Hey Kritika! Thanks for the feedback. I have been a subscriber of your newsletter for a while!
Check me out, could be something. https://youtopianjourney.substack.com/
Great read! Do you do the illustrations that accompany the piece too? They're neat and keep the pace flowing well
Thanks! I have an artist that draws them based on my scripts, glad you dig it!
Same question as last week. How can we get the new posts to show up in Google? The slightest mention in other tiny pubs and blogs like Patch and the Easy Reader equal a name alert e-mail. Is there some setting we're missing in Substack to make that happen?
Hey Jefferson,
Casey from the Blogging guide offers some great tips on helping your publication appear in search here: https://bloggingguide.substack.com/p/substack-faqs-and-tips
Key points:
* Don’t underestimate the value of the plain but well-optimized text—Use visual components appropriately and only when they improve content. Random images or GIFs may be entertaining but they can slow down rendering time for a reader (especially in their email).
* Improve headlines and text—It takes time to generate catchy content for your newsletters. Use test emails to analyze how motivating they are. Would you personally click on such an email?
* Apply basic on-page SEO techniques—Use keywords in your headlines (H1 tags), subheaders (H2 tags), and the body of your content (text).
*Use the alt attribute for images—Substack lets you customize alt tags for images in your post. The alt tag is used by screen readers, which are browsers used by blind or visually impaired people. These tags can affect SEO. Google’s article about images has a heading “Use descriptive alt text”. This is no coincidence—Google places a relatively high value on alt text. They use it to determine what is on the image but also how it relates to the surrounding text. Ideally each image should have a unique tag, but at a minimum, any custom featured images, should include descriptive alt text). Note: Captions are not a substitute for alt text!
* Fill out all basic newsletter fields—This seems basic, but I notice many Substack writers who have not properly filled out some of the basic fields attached to their newsletter. These include Publication name, One-line description, tags, Subscription benefits (all three lines), etc.
* While it’s true that Substack has a ways to go on improving its features to optimize each post (i.e. meta descriptions, canonical links, etc.), Substack itself, the website actually has pretty high domain authority and it is certainly possible to rank highly in Google. For example, if you Google the search phrase: Medium vs. Quora you will see that my post on Substack (through my newsletter Blogging Guide) not only ranks on the first page, but it is the featured snippet for the term.
Lastly, know our team is working to improve search for writers!
Never even heard of alt-text until now. Thanks Katie.
The three dots in the right top corner when you select an image.
Katie thanks for the tips. I will savor them!
Alt text is a great tip - had no idea!
Yes, so helpful, thank you! I also was an alt-text idiot :)
Hi substack community, I write long form essays on culture on a bi-weekly basis. It's my preferred writing style, but I know a lot of substackers write on a weekly or daily basis and in much shorter form. I'm wondering if this is really detrimental to growth, or how other longformers have succeeded in growing readership? Any advice?
Hmm. I'm an occasional longformer (if "longform" is defined as "getting that little popup message saying the newsletter is almost too long for Inboxes"). I think it's really about the expectations you set. The crowd you gather is the crowd you ask for. I've tried to make it clear that mine is a mix of styles, some shorter and some long enough to make your Inbox groan. I read others that are super up-front about how theirs is a hugely deep dive into a topic that will take an afternoon to read. The ones that say it up front are the ones that do the opposite of scaring people off...
In a way, this feels a bit like something I encountered as a travel writer. At conferences, we were told "narrative doesn't get traffic", as opposed to more useful, SEO-friendly stuff. And some of the people in the audience went on to have very successfu careers as narrative writers. It's not so much the medium itself that decides growth - it's the audience, and the way you find it and nurture it and build enough of it up. (I've always felt like the Internet is an infinity of long-tail audiences of a whopping size, enough to sustain any writer, no matter how niche or "weird" they are in a general sense.)
Thanks for the thoughts. I think you're right--and the possibility for longform and narrative to succeed is the entire point of substack; so we can get away from the mindless algorithms and the trending.
Hell yes to that. :)
and YES! Good thoughts here--thank you!
Same question lol. I write on an ad-hoc basis myself.
My strat so far has been posting reflections on my recent expeditions on a weekly basis, then sprinkling in a bit of news that I think is relevant to my readers. But I also haven't been doing it long enough to know for sure how this impacts growth.
Yes, agreed. I'm a long-form boy and I ain't changing. The question is, how to find those long-form lovers?
Just a thought: I’ve seen comments on here saying you really need to find out where “your intended audience” hangs out and somehow get in front of them. So maybe get your Twitter account active around the New Yorker and The Atlantic…. Those are the only two publications with long form journalism that I read.
I really like this idea and I think there is some overlap in audience. I recently made a twitter to try to do this sort of thing--trouble is growing a twitter/learning what works best on that site is a whole 'nother animal. But it is definitely something I'm trying--thanks for the thoughts/encouragement.
I would also like to find those same lovers. Most of my posts come in at around 1000 words.
I read your most recent post and actually laughed out loud. Really fun style to read, and a lot of great points about the kinds of characters we're seeing portrayed in media.
Another week of writing on Substack and loving it.
I have two newsletters:
Odd Jobs:
www.oddjobsnews.com/welcome
The First Years of Marriage:
www.thefirstyearsofmarriage.com/welcome
In growth mode for both.
What's working:
1. Writing 5x a week for Odd Jobs. It's helped me 10x my growth in the past 2-weeks
2. Creating shareable content (with interesting stats, links, and quizzes)
3. Reminding people to share! That's important.
What's not working:
1. Posting "check out my newsletter" on other social platforms. There's no value there.
2. Self-doubt. Growth can be slow but it happens.
Jen — I'd love to see an example of a quiz. Can you please share?
This is extremely helpful.
I'm just starting out with Cole's Climb:
https://colenoble.substack.com/
...and I've also started to find "check it out" posts do very little. Is most of your growth coming just from within substack? Or are you finding people engage with your posts more on certain other platforms?
I think it’s important to write on the post itself (within the social media platform), talking about the topic of your recent newsletter post.
May help draw people in and those who are interested would click the link to read the article.
I just recently started doing this and got a tremendous uptick in views; some signups as well!
https://equanimitas.substack.com/
Thanks for the tip! I just checked out your recent post. Loved your thoughts on intentionality.
Thanks, dude! Subbed back, looking forward to reading.
I took my wife out climbing on our second date when we first met lol
Sounds like a fun time! And what a fantastic way to build trust!
gotcha back! "Does luck matter" was the first thing I saw and I love it so far!
Jen, I used to love your Monday newsletters. Glad to see you've started two more. :)
Thank you! I still have the Monday one going as well: https://view.flodesk.com/pages/5db880ce58289c0026459c42
I agree that if you just say, check out my latest newsletter, it may not gain that much traction. You do have to write a few sentences before the link to entice them and spell out why it would matter for them to read this specific newsletter topic.
I'm excited to start utilizing the thread feature, but feel I don't have enough subscribers yet to make it worth while. Is there a certain threshold that works best for starting threads? How can I best lay the ground work to launch them?
Hey Cole! I wish there was a perfect number we could share but I think this might require some experimentation and intubation.
Some things to look out for:
- Are people responding directly to your emails?
- Are they commenting on existing posts?
You might consider reaching out to some existing readers and ask them if they would participate in a first thread with you. That extra invitation and nudge can go a long way (and mean a lot) to readers.
Some inspiration from publications hosting threads:
- The New Fatherhood: https://www.thenewfatherhood.org/p/whats-the-most-fun-you-ever-had-with/comments
- Amal Content: https://amal.substack.com/
Thanks for the advice! I'll give this a try
I noticed you removed the "beta" label from the dashboard. Congrats on the milestone! 🥳
You certainly did it faster than Gmail did back in the day...
Thank you, Liberty! It was time for the dashboard to graduate.
Hey Everyone!
I write 10+1 Things a weekly newsletter featuring 11 interesting offbeat stories finely curated by me.
What are some innovative ways to collect feedback and testimonials?
I use Feedletter, but not really a fan of their design. What are some other easy ways so that subscribers can easily give feedback?
In the latest issue, I talk about African Apocalypse, Build a Great Life, Internet in a Box and Plant Consciousness.
Link: https://rishikesh.substack.com/p/african-apocalypse-build-a-great-life
Hey Rishi!
We've seen writers do a few different things in search for readers' feedback. Many use a simple google form. What seems to work is making a moment of the feedback, asking at a milestone and sharing how you intend to use the feedback moving forward.
Thanks for doing this! I’m curious about SEO? Are there any tools available within Substack to help us better understand what search terms we’re ranking for or drove visitors to our publication? Does linking to other websites help or hurt SEO? Any other tips on maximizing our reach in search engines?
My publication, Battleground, is a state-by-state review of the American political landscape via maps of election results. The topics that I cover are heavily searched for but as of now I don’t get really any traffic from search. Just naively trying to compete with the Politicos and FiveThirtyEights of the world!
Any help (or subs!) is appreciated :)
I really like Google Analytics and it integrates nicely with Substack w/ Pixel and Tag Manager. Best of all, it's easy on the wallet.
When fully integrated, the dashboard not only lets you see the user's location, but also how they found you, how long they stayed on the site, and their demographic information. Google Analytics also integrates nicely with smaller marketing tools.
Hey Luis! Do you have any good resources to share? I'm having trouble setting up the analytics?
@katie @bailey would be great if you could sum up how to integrate this in the resources section!
To my surprise, Google Analytics integrates very nicely with Substack and provides highly tailored data.
It just requires a lot of work to set up and integrate before it can be utilized fully. As a plus, it offers integration with many 3P marketing apps.
Unfortunately, the way I learned to do this was through trial and error.
Hi gang! I write Life Mostly Full, a Substack about balancing the philosophical and the practical in handling all of the nonsense modern life throws at us. http://lifemostlyfull.substack.com/
- Question: "How do you best utilize Substack sections?"
I am planning on launching a podcast soon and intend to give it a distinct section.
- Question: "Seeking inspiring ways to reflect on and commemorate milestones?"
I always love "best of" lists, even if I'm a longtime reader. It lets me revisit good posts I may have missed. If I'm a new reader, "best of" lists are golden.
- Question: "What goals have you set for your publication?"
I want to gain five new interested readers a day (on average). If I do that, I'm happy. There are many ways that I could gain a lot of readers, but I'd way rather have 1 new engaged reader than ten unengaged ones.
Hey Trent, cool to learn more about where you are at! Thanks for sharing. How do you plan to use sections?
I'm one of your five for today. Love this idea.
tumbleweed words @ substack for fiction poetry and a literary podcast! :)
Hey Trent! Loved the publication. Instantly subbed! Loved the issue about sleep!
I write 10+1 Things a weekly newsletter featuring 11 interesting offbeat stories finely curated by me. In the latest issue, I talk about African Apocalypse, Build a Great Life, Internet in a Box and Plant Consciousness.
Link: https://rishikesh.substack.com/p/african-apocalypse-build-a-great-life
tumbleweed words @ substack for fiction poetry and a literary podcast! :)
This looks awesome.
Hi everyone! I have a question, and also a tip on getting new subscribers that's worked for me.
- Question:
I'm currently writing my newsletter in seasons (as a good way to bake some engagement-friendly endings into it all), and I haven't yet worked out how to how to show & promote previous seasons as a discrete, one-click kind of thing from my landing page or elsewhere. Maybe this is something that Sections would be useful for? I'd love any advice from anyone a lot smarter than me about this stuff (which is probably everyone)...
- Tip:
If you have a newsletter that's particularly meaty & has a good storyline to it, adapt the whole thing into a thread on Twitter, using every storytelling trick in the book to keep folk reading ("you'll never guess what happened next" etc) and making sure you have lots of visuals. Just make sure you add a few CTAs for the original newsletter version, to attract people to sign up. For example, I did it with this - https://twitter.com/Mikeachim/status/1392468208922337280 - which went mildly viral and attracted just under a hundred new subscribers. Also, critically, it's fun to do! Win-win.
Hey Mike!
That's a great tip! And good for the Twitter algorithm too.
As for your question, sounds like sections might be a great fit for what you are doing. Some inspiration: Elle Griffin (https://ellegriffin.substack.com/) and other fiction writers use sections to break out their serialized fiction over a "season."
I've also seen writers hack a post and create a table of contents which they pin to the top: https://heavenlyorder.substack.com/p/table-of-contents
Ahhh, fantastic. Thank you, Katie. :) That's exactly what I was after.
I've thought about doing that, too, and now I'm going to! I get no traction at all from Twitter when it comes to promoting my posts, even though I have more than 5500 followers. I'll give threads a try!
Oh that's an awesome idea!
A shout out to those wonderful people who sit at the support desk. You're so patient! Thank you! My main annoyance is how hard it is to navigate my draft when I'm trying to insert anything but text. It seems I have to figure out a workaround for too many insertions.
For example, if I put a picture at the top of my post I can't get above it to add some forgotten text. I have to delete the picture, add the text, then insert the picture again.
I can't add text between buttons if I've forgotten something. And there are times when I can't get past a line to add more text. What am I doing wrong?
Hi Ramona, our support team is going to be happy to hear your message :)
I've shared your feedback with our product team about the publisher, they are working to improve your experience there.
I've had the same problem with a photo at the top of a post, the best work around is to delete it, write your text, and paste the photo back in where you want it.
I write my post entirely first. Edited, polished, exactly where I want it. Then I go back and add photos and also format with headings etc. Hope this helps.
I do the same! It also helps me pick out what photos best suit what I'm working on!
Same here!
Hi all. Happy Thursday! We at investrly - https://investrly.substack.com :
the weekly newspaper empowering you to invest early in your financial future.
Very curious how other growing newsletters have been able to improve the premium experience for readers. We are closing in on 1000 subscribers without any paid promotion or advertisement. Always looking to learn and earn and cross promote.
Congratulations on the approaching milestone! This page might have some insights and tips: https://substack.com/resources
Thank you. I have looked through these.
Congrats on getting (almost) to that 1000 milestone.
I can’t answer your question but I used to run a personal finance blog and would love to share my personal story about investing (regrets, wins, etc) if you are ever open for guest pieces.
Hi Elliott, Would absolutely be open to guest pieces and hearing personal stories as that's relatable to everyone. Please message us at mailto:weinvestrly@gmail.com
Is there a way to use the iframe signup embed as a pop-up on a website?
Currently have it as a regular embed, but I'm using AddThis as a workaround for the pop-up for Timeless & Timely https://www.timelesstimely.com
Hey Scott,
In your settings there is a link you can use to embed sign ups on your website.
More info here: https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/360041759232-Can-I-embed-a-signup-form-for-my-publication-
Yes, as I wrote, I'm already doing that. I'm interested in making it a pop-up like I already do with AddThis.
See my main site: https://scottmonty.com for how this works.
Depending on your level of coziness with coding, you should be able to add an iframe within a pop-up. I'm not familiar with AddThis, so I'd recommend reaching out to their help team asking if they support that, here's the link:
https://www.addthis.com/academy/help/
I’d love to know what the optimum file size and format is for images embedded in newsletters and used as thumbnails. Does Substack automatically compress large images?
Hi Florence, 1456 x 1048 (or larger) is the ideal image size, 14:10 is the aspect ratio for the preview images, and images have to be at least 420 x 300 pixels to qualify for use as a preview.
Hi Kristen, thanks for this info but my question relates to file size (how many MB, what format? Jpg, png) not image size (in pixels) - could you clarify?
Great question. I would like to know as well.
I use custom drawn art in my substack issues. Check them out and you can see how they look. https://youtopianjourney.substack.com/
Thanks so much for this. You all rock!
Hi Everyone. And thank you, as always, to our Substack team for helping us all grow. I am tip-toeing in, once again, to ask about the status of housing pdf's within our newsletters.
Oooh that would be cool.
Yes, imagine being able to give a digital download to new subscribers, for example!
I created a digital download for new subscribers using Gumroad -- I include the download code in my welcome email. It's been a fantastic work-around to this issue. (H/t to Casey Botticelli for this idea!)
Ahh makes sense! I’ve used gumroad in the past. Great idea 💡
Hi Sarah. Love Casey's Blogging Guide! Just hoping to keep people on substack for the pdf.
Hi again! We hear you :) PDFs are definitely on our list of embeds we want to support asap!
Hi Jamil. Is it possible to give us something specific about a launch for this? Each week I hear that it's on the list, and then the next week and so on. Trying to keep the faith.
And I should add, I completely understand how hard it is when there are so many requests for different things. I have run a couple of start-ups and the priority lists were always long. So, not complaining, just wondering. Thank you. 💜
There's no exact timeline just yet, but I can say I've seen mockups for how it'll look and many of us are pushing for it, including me :) Thanks for keeping us fired up!
🔥🔥🔥
Would like to request a feature - POLLS.
1) Will help me better understand my audience.
2) Is low-cost audience participation for many who won't prefer to not leave a comment.
That's a great suggestion! Product teams view these threads and they'll be happy to hear this feature request, as well as the reasons you'd value its addition.
Thanks. Sorry for the double negative, I rephrased hastily. :P
Yeah, polls/surveys will be awesome.
I think they mentioned that it's on the roadmap, but not sure how close they are to shipping them.
Who prefer to not* leave a comment
Also, is email the best way to start people joining or is social media a better method?
This may be the worst question, but how can I share my webpage with other people so they can sign up?
Hi John! Your URL should be www.yourpublication.substack.com
Enter your publication's URL and add /subscribe