Designing Your Substack Structure
Sections, Tags, and Homepage Layouts
If you’ve been writing on Substack for a while, you may have started asking questions like:
Do I need sections?
What should I use tags for?
Why does my homepage feel disorganized?
How do I structure things without creating a mess later?
This live workshop will walk through the strategic side of organizing your Substack so that your publication feels intentional, navigable, and sustainable over time.
This is not a technical tutorial.
This is a strategy and planning session to help you design the structure behind your publication.
What We’ll Cover
During this 90-minute workshop we’ll work through the key decisions that shape how your Substack is organized.
Why organization on Substack feels confusing
Understanding the difference between your inbox audience vs homepage visitors
Why Substack structure feels different from traditional blogs
The roles of sections vs tags
Do you actually need sections?
We’ll walk through a simple decision framework to help you decide whether sections make sense for your publication.
We’ll also discuss when NOT to use sections, and why restraint often leads to a cleaner publication.
Designing a clean tag system
Tags are one of the most powerful (and most misunderstood) tools on Substack.
In this section we’ll cover:
How tags create your archive architecture
How tags become navigation tools
How tags influence your homepage layout
You’ll identify:
Your core themes
Any recurring series
Your long-term content pillars
Then we’ll turn those into a simple, sustainable tag framework.
Homepage layout strategy
Your homepage isn’t random.
It is shaped by the decisions you make about sections and tags.
We’ll look at examples such as:
Homepages organized by tag
Featured content layouts
Grid style layouts
Then you’ll sketch your own homepage intention — what a new visitor should understand about your publication within the first 10 seconds.
What You’ll Leave With
By the end of the workshop you will have:
A written structure map for your Substack
A draft section plan (if sections make sense for you)
A clear tag framework
A homepage layout concept
Confidence about how to organize your future posts
Who This Workshop Is For
This workshop is for writers who:
Have already started a Substack
Have published several posts
Are starting to think about long-term structure
Want their publication to feel organized and intentional
This workshop is not for total beginners.
If you are brand new to Substack, I recommend becoming familiar with the basics of publishing before attending.
You may want to review these tutorials first:
Next Workshop Date:
April 16th at 11am CDT
The workshop will run approximately 90 minutes and includes guided exercises.
Access and Registration
This is a paid workshop.
If you are a paid subscriber to the Substack Coach Community ($15/month or $160 annually), access to the workshop is included in your subscription.
You will receive an email with the RSVP registration link several days before the workshop.
One-Time Purchase
If you are a free subscriber (or not subscribed to the Substack Coach Community) and would like to attend, I am opening the workshop to a limited number of seats for $29.
If you would like to attend as a one-time purchase, please use the button below.