Substack SEO works, and it has limits worth knowing. A guide to ranking on Google and AI search, from a writer running a 30,000 subscriber Substack publication.
This is extremely helpful! Thank you for being detailed and also for stating clearly what to focus on first. I have a question when you say “With a custom domain you can verify at the DNS level instead” are you referring to the purchase $50 domain? I attempted twice to index my current Substack domain and it failed so I abandoned the task.
Would it be advantageous to go back to old articles and add links to other articles? I’m missing that peice currently.
you are welcome! And yes, you want to get the custom domain set up with substack first, and then wherever you buy it (i use namecheap), you can verify it there for google search console.
If you have free time, you could certainly go back to old articles, but also just thinking about how you can extend a readers conversation by linking them to something that goes deeper into one aspect of what you are sharing - going forward - would already be pretty wonderful. And as I mentioned - AI can help you with that - just give it your sitemap after you write an essay and ask it to find good linking opportunities for the essay you are working with.
This is a comprehensive and very helpful post. Thank you!
It's a big meal. I don't think I can digest it all right now.
I appreciate that you included the bit about "what to do right now":
~Week one. Connect Google Search Console. Fix your About page. Make sure your publication name and URL make sense for what a stranger would search.
~Week two. Pick three real questions your readers ask. Check the first page of Google for each. Choose the one with the weakest answers.
~Week three. Write the best answer on the internet to that question. Direct answer up top, real headings, over a thousand words, SEO title under 60 characters, clean slug, strong meta description.
~Week four. Link to it from two older posts. Mention it anywhere you legitimately can, your site, your profiles, a collaboration. Then start question number two.
If we are going to use video as a primary posting tool on substack, would you modify or tweak the advice of this post?
Perhaps the idea is to address the main points here in a video post as well, and write a good summary that supports the SEO. Is that right?
you are very welcome! And the short answer is YES - spot on with the summary as well as a few other tricks and tidbits we could cover once you have "digested" all that is here!
Two strategies to try that I've found drive a lot of clicks are 1) to pick topics around common questions and 2) write meta / macro stuff in line with the zeitgeist to get featured on Google Discover
This is extremely helpful! Thank you for being detailed and also for stating clearly what to focus on first. I have a question when you say “With a custom domain you can verify at the DNS level instead” are you referring to the purchase $50 domain? I attempted twice to index my current Substack domain and it failed so I abandoned the task.
Would it be advantageous to go back to old articles and add links to other articles? I’m missing that peice currently.
you are welcome! And yes, you want to get the custom domain set up with substack first, and then wherever you buy it (i use namecheap), you can verify it there for google search console.
If you have free time, you could certainly go back to old articles, but also just thinking about how you can extend a readers conversation by linking them to something that goes deeper into one aspect of what you are sharing - going forward - would already be pretty wonderful. And as I mentioned - AI can help you with that - just give it your sitemap after you write an essay and ask it to find good linking opportunities for the essay you are working with.
This is a comprehensive and very helpful post. Thank you!
It's a big meal. I don't think I can digest it all right now.
I appreciate that you included the bit about "what to do right now":
~Week one. Connect Google Search Console. Fix your About page. Make sure your publication name and URL make sense for what a stranger would search.
~Week two. Pick three real questions your readers ask. Check the first page of Google for each. Choose the one with the weakest answers.
~Week three. Write the best answer on the internet to that question. Direct answer up top, real headings, over a thousand words, SEO title under 60 characters, clean slug, strong meta description.
~Week four. Link to it from two older posts. Mention it anywhere you legitimately can, your site, your profiles, a collaboration. Then start question number two.
If we are going to use video as a primary posting tool on substack, would you modify or tweak the advice of this post?
Perhaps the idea is to address the main points here in a video post as well, and write a good summary that supports the SEO. Is that right?
you are very welcome! And the short answer is YES - spot on with the summary as well as a few other tricks and tidbits we could cover once you have "digested" all that is here!
Two strategies to try that I've found drive a lot of clicks are 1) to pick topics around common questions and 2) write meta / macro stuff in line with the zeitgeist to get featured on Google Discover
@phil Powis
It sounds like the four "word-choice" parts of SEO are:
1. SEO title
2. SEO Description
3. URL slug
4. Keywords.
And these items have their specific influences on SEO, clickability etc.
I see you've suggested a process in Google to do simple Keyword Search.
Are there ways that other AI models like Claude can help with this process?