I've been in the blogging/seo world a long time and have seen Google decimate various platforms - I'm actually kind of encouraged that we aren't seeing tons of substack content taking over google - after watching Squidoo and Pinterest (specifically) get wiped out by too much google attention too quickly - It's nice to see this being a slower more intentional influx of content into the search engine.
a note on custom domains - if you have a custom domain you can't hyperlink it in notes. Not a commentary on whether or not to do that just information. if discovered.
Yeah, my lenses got obliterated back in the day, and Pinterest was way overperforming, often dominating the first page or more of Google SERPs. Now, of course, people complain about too much Reddit in there. It's always something.
As for Substack, we shall see. And yes, custom domains suffer from the inability to @ them in Notes, but I believe there are some strong benefits to having one. My custom domain hasn't missed a beat on the SEO front, so I'm optimizing a bit more. Onward!
I have been migrating a 100+ page/post WordPress site for two months. After I move a page, ib point that page to the same in substack. More important I share the substack page with my Facebook following of 5000. Careful doing that that you use the shareable graphic and put the actual link in the comments of Facebook. My best post in substack has had 500 views and my subscribers are about 200 from scratch
This is exactly the kind of nuanced SEO breakdown I’ve been looking for—so much noise out there about Substack being ‘bad for SEO,’ but no one ever seems to back it up with real data. It’s a topic near and dear to me as a content marketer *and* creative writer. I’ve chosen to focus less on optimizing at this stage of my Substack journey and more on being true to my voice, but it’s helpful to see a data-backed article with guidance. One thing is certain: “owning” your audience is better than leaving it to chance (or an algorithm).
There's a lot of gut reaction and bad assumptions. I plan to follow up on this in the near future with more after my custom domain gets a little bit more time to bake in. Since you mentioned optimization, the thing we all should be counting on is that as search engines get smarter and more and more AI-based, we need to focus more on satisfying the visitor. That includes taking search intent into account. Visitor behavior has been a factor for a long time, but it will be more and more important to please the visitor as time goes on.
I've been in the blogging/seo world a long time and have seen Google decimate various platforms - I'm actually kind of encouraged that we aren't seeing tons of substack content taking over google - after watching Squidoo and Pinterest (specifically) get wiped out by too much google attention too quickly - It's nice to see this being a slower more intentional influx of content into the search engine.
a note on custom domains - if you have a custom domain you can't hyperlink it in notes. Not a commentary on whether or not to do that just information. if discovered.
Yeah, my lenses got obliterated back in the day, and Pinterest was way overperforming, often dominating the first page or more of Google SERPs. Now, of course, people complain about too much Reddit in there. It's always something.
As for Substack, we shall see. And yes, custom domains suffer from the inability to @ them in Notes, but I believe there are some strong benefits to having one. My custom domain hasn't missed a beat on the SEO front, so I'm optimizing a bit more. Onward!
Thanks for the link to the guide on SEO. I need to work on this.
You're welcome! I'll be doing more Substack SEO posts in the future.
I have been migrating a 100+ page/post WordPress site for two months. After I move a page, ib point that page to the same in substack. More important I share the substack page with my Facebook following of 5000. Careful doing that that you use the shareable graphic and put the actual link in the comments of Facebook. My best post in substack has had 500 views and my subscribers are about 200 from scratch
Great read.
Thank you!
This is exactly the kind of nuanced SEO breakdown I’ve been looking for—so much noise out there about Substack being ‘bad for SEO,’ but no one ever seems to back it up with real data. It’s a topic near and dear to me as a content marketer *and* creative writer. I’ve chosen to focus less on optimizing at this stage of my Substack journey and more on being true to my voice, but it’s helpful to see a data-backed article with guidance. One thing is certain: “owning” your audience is better than leaving it to chance (or an algorithm).
There's a lot of gut reaction and bad assumptions. I plan to follow up on this in the near future with more after my custom domain gets a little bit more time to bake in. Since you mentioned optimization, the thing we all should be counting on is that as search engines get smarter and more and more AI-based, we need to focus more on satisfying the visitor. That includes taking search intent into account. Visitor behavior has been a factor for a long time, but it will be more and more important to please the visitor as time goes on.