Thanks for the work you’re doing on this, Dan. TheShortcut.com has gone from 400 clicks from Google daily to 4,000 daily. Looking forward to more SEO optimizations. 🙌
Hey Dan. Thanks for that. Super easy. Appreciate that you are continuing to work to give us more analytics.
Paul (below) did write a terrific post about installing the Google Search Console, for those who would like to do that. It's here: https://pau1.substack.com/p/install-google-search-console-for. Thank you, Paul. Your newsletter is always awesome.
Thanks. When using "Google Search Console", does one also need to generate a "Google Tag Manager ID" (previously "Google Analytics 3 pixel ID") and then place that ID into Substack "Settings | Analytics" -- in order for "Google Search Console" to "work"?
If "no", then what additional data does "Google Tag Manager ID" provide -- that "[basic] Google Search Console" does not? And, to the see the additional data that "Google Tag Manager ID" provides, does Google bring that into "Google Search Console"?
Hi Bailey, I launched my Substack at the beginning of January, having blogged for years first at Wordpress and then with Wix, where I felt I had to spend more time on SEO than writing, and pinging every new post. I really appreciate how different the experience of writing is with Substack. I have no great desire to get deeply involved in SEO again, but am delighted to learn that we can tweak how our post title and blurb show up in searches, which I will now go and learn how to do. Keep up the great work! 💕
Tedious SEO plugin management and fighting costly upgrade options that should have been included for free is one of the reasons I migrated 2 years of content to Substack this month. Thank you to the SEO team for helping me to focus instead on my writing.
Going to game the system with top SEO terms from now on - renaming all my articles’ SEO titles and descriptions to *checks notes* “facebook” and “youtube”. Hope the servers are ready for all this traffic!
I just tried this, not with your name, but mine. It seems many people have the same first and last as me who are far more famous than I am. I am not even well known where I live and have lived for most of my life. I'm not sure my boss knows I'm standing three feet from him.
I did that thing again where I ramble as though writing in my diary. Whatever.
I'm not sure if you meant to be funny, Corey, but you made me LOL! :) Yeah, I imagine with a last name like Smith there would be a few others. Honestly, I was kind of shocked. When I had a website my web designer was always trying to get me to pay attention to these kinds of things and frankly, I just didn't care. The day I closed my WordPress website and switched to Substack was a good day! The writing floodgates opened.
I'm a rambler, too, but am a terrible journal writer.
Thanks for the work you’re doing on this, Dan. TheShortcut.com has gone from 400 clicks from Google daily to 4,000 daily. Looking forward to more SEO optimizations. 🙌
Hi Matt, would you kindly share the SEO "meta description" you used, and a link to the article, for one of your most clicked posts from Google?
Hi Matt. That's significant! Congratulations!
Would you be kind enough to post how you are monitoring your Google clicks? Maybe a step by step guide? I see a few folks below wondering as well.
Thanks so much! 💜
A work around I can imagine would also be to:
- Drop in a Google Analytics tag in settings, tracking clicks & detailed source data
- Connect your domain to substack (or substack domain like @Jesse J. Anderson mentioned) & use G Search Console to track performance
Hi Franc, how would one "drop in a Google Analytics tag in settings"?
Would you share an image/example/how to, please?
Oh wow, I have 43 visits from google! How fun! (Probably not a lot, but it's more than zero lol)
Gotta start somewhere! Great job!
Hey Dan. Thanks for that. Super easy. Appreciate that you are continuing to work to give us more analytics.
Paul (below) did write a terrific post about installing the Google Search Console, for those who would like to do that. It's here: https://pau1.substack.com/p/install-google-search-console-for. Thank you, Paul. Your newsletter is always awesome.
Thank you Heather!
Or you can install Google Search Console.
Do subscribe
Love this!
Pro tips for those that want to dive in deeper:
• Add your Substack domain to Google Search Console so you can see the details behind what Google searches are leading people to your Substack
• you can add your sitemap to Google Search Console with just your Substack domain and “/sitemap.xml”
😎😎
Didn't know this was a thing, so thanks!
Thanks! Didn't know there was a site map waiting in the shadows....
Will search terms, etc be coming to Substack stats at some point so that we don’t need to bother with Google Search Console?
Got it - thanks for the detailed response! Excited for all the future stuff coming in more of the nerd space for Substack. 🤓
Thanks. When using "Google Search Console", does one also need to generate a "Google Tag Manager ID" (previously "Google Analytics 3 pixel ID") and then place that ID into Substack "Settings | Analytics" -- in order for "Google Search Console" to "work"?
If "no", then what additional data does "Google Tag Manager ID" provide -- that "[basic] Google Search Console" does not? And, to the see the additional data that "Google Tag Manager ID" provides, does Google bring that into "Google Search Console"?
I am not sure about any potential additional data provided, but no you don’t need to set the tag id up for search console to work.
Love hearing that Substack is cognizant of and working on SEO. Thanks!
This is really good :)
Your commitment to fine tuning the platform makes me a better writer! Every day I look forward to writing knowing Substack is behind me. Thank you!
Woot woot
This is awesome! I’ll need to play around with SEO title and description for better customization. Thanks Substack 🙏
🙌
LOVE the new SEO options. Really well implemented and will help improve discovery a lot. Thank you, team Substack.
Hi Bailey, I launched my Substack at the beginning of January, having blogged for years first at Wordpress and then with Wix, where I felt I had to spend more time on SEO than writing, and pinging every new post. I really appreciate how different the experience of writing is with Substack. I have no great desire to get deeply involved in SEO again, but am delighted to learn that we can tweak how our post title and blurb show up in searches, which I will now go and learn how to do. Keep up the great work! 💕
❤️❤️❤️
I feel like this too
Over the last 90 days, Google is the #3 source for visits to my Substack. What yall are doing is working! Thanks!
Awesome! Thanks for the heads up.
Amazing guys! Thank you for all your hard work behind the scenes to help boost discovery of our Substacks.
🙌🤘
Thank you for the insights. How do we check the number of clicks from Google?
Add your Substack to Google Search Console. I detailed this more in this comment: https://on.substack.com/p/the-state-of-seo-on-substack-feb-23/comment/12814741
Jesse, how does one get the link to a comment?
I figured out that if you click on the time stamp of the comment, e.g. "1 hour ago" then this gives you a link to the comment:
https://on.substack.com/p/substack-seo-guide/comment/12817642
It's neat! I didn't know we could do this. I think it's fantastically useful so we don't have to repeat the same comment.
How did you learn about it? What other secrets do you know? 🧐
Haha - I literally just did the same thing you did.
I thought “I bet there’s a way to link to this” and clicked around til the time stamp gave me a link. 😛
I do work with UI/UX as my job though, so I suppose I had a slight advantage of expecting that the link _should_ exist somehow.
That explains it! Thanks. I had no idea we could do it, but I wished we could, and now we can thanks to you pointing it out. It's magical! 🤗
Following this. Super curious.
For "number of clicks from Google (over a given time window)," is not "Dashboard | Stats | Traffic" giving you that?
[your substck].substack.com/publish/stats/traffic
Very glad to see SEO options for posts!
Tedious SEO plugin management and fighting costly upgrade options that should have been included for free is one of the reasons I migrated 2 years of content to Substack this month. Thank you to the SEO team for helping me to focus instead on my writing.
Going to game the system with top SEO terms from now on - renaming all my articles’ SEO titles and descriptions to *checks notes* “facebook” and “youtube”. Hope the servers are ready for all this traffic!
Thank you, Dan! I just typed my (real) name in the search bar with Substack and up popped my newsletter with a bunch of posts I'd written! Amazing! :)
I just tried this, not with your name, but mine. It seems many people have the same first and last as me who are far more famous than I am. I am not even well known where I live and have lived for most of my life. I'm not sure my boss knows I'm standing three feet from him.
I did that thing again where I ramble as though writing in my diary. Whatever.
I'm not sure if you meant to be funny, Corey, but you made me LOL! :) Yeah, I imagine with a last name like Smith there would be a few others. Honestly, I was kind of shocked. When I had a website my web designer was always trying to get me to pay attention to these kinds of things and frankly, I just didn't care. The day I closed my WordPress website and switched to Substack was a good day! The writing floodgates opened.
I'm a rambler, too, but am a terrible journal writer.