Substack Essentials Even Big Publications Miss

Before you write your first post, there are four essential items that you need to have in place. If you’ve been writing on Substack for a few months or even years, and you realize you don’t have these essentials in place, don’t panic. Not having these items doesn’t mean you failed, it just means that as you put these in place, you’re more likely to get and retain subscribers.

It’s not just the Substacks that are starting from scratch that miss these things, you would not believe how many Substacks with hundreds or even thousands of subscribers that I’ve worked with or subscribed to, that do not have all four of these items in place.

The truth is, most of us know our topic, we know what we want to write about, but we don’t know marketing, or we don’t know Substack.

What are these four essential items?

1. Your Profile

This is separate from your publication: it is you — as a person, a writer, a creator, the owner of your publication. When you use Substack Notes, you are commenting, liking and subscribing as you (an individual) not as your publication.

With rare exceptions, this means we want two items completed here to start: The profile picture and the bio. This is a photo of you, or a caricature, or something that represents you, and a personal bio.

This bio should not be the same as your short description (in point 2), and should be only 1-2 sentences.

To find these, you’ll log in to Substack, click on your profile, and then click the edit profile button.

2. Your Publication Name and Short Description

These are the start of your publication, and you’ll want them in place before writing.

Why?

By default your publication name is Your Name’s Substack – very generic. Could you leave it like this? You could—but why not be creative?

Even if you want the Substack name to be your name, you don’t have to use the automatic generic name. Some tips about your Substack’s publication name:

• If you’re writing on a specific topic that people will search for in google and in Substack, find a way to include this topic in your publication name.

• If you’re an author or influencer and people will be searching for your name, then include your name in the title, but be creative. Maybe you’re writing letters, musings, essays, thoughts & opinions…. There are many options here.

• If your business name is what people will be searching for, be sure to include that in the name of your substack.

The name of your Substack is the first thing that the Substack algorithm considers when sorting your posts into the categories and subcategories of the Substack explore tab for discoverability.

Try searching your topic using Substack search, does your content show up? Does your publication show up? How can you tweak the name of your Substack so that it might show in the search results?

Your short description; part two of this point, is the most succinct essence of what you’re writing on Substack. By default, when you start your publication, this will be your bio. You will want to change this into a short (one sentence if possible) description of what you create on Substack.

You will find these in your dashboard, then in settings. They are at the very top of the settings page.

3. Your About Page

The default about page is incredibly generic and does a great job of advertising Substack and the Substack app, but not your specific Substack.

Your Substack about page is where you’ll introduce your Substack in more depth to potential subscribers. Your current subscribers won’t visit the about page, unless you ask them to, so this is for new people to see who you are and what you offer.

Here are some important items to include on your about page:

1. What you are writing about. Don’t make this page all about you personally, but rather what your topic is, what is the “thing” that you are addressing, the problem you are solving, or the topic you are passionate about.

2. How often can your subscribers expect to hear from you? On Substack, we really like predictability, and we want to know ahead of time how often you’re going to be dropping into our inbox. Daily? Weekly? Monthly? When the mood strikes?

3. If you have a paid level, make sure it’s clear in your about page what you offer for free, and what you offer for paid.

4. You can also have an “About the Author” section, if you would like to. This isn’t always necessary, but if your life experience makes a difference in whether or not people will subscribe, and especially if this is a personal story Substack, then I highly recommend an “About the Author” section.

5. And don’t forget to include Subscribe buttons! Don’t make your new potential subscribers go hunting for a way to subscribe to you, make it easy.

To edit your About page, go to your dashboard, then settings, scroll down to Website, then click on the edit button beside About page.

4. Your Welcome Emails

Finally, the last piece of this Substack starter puzzle is your welcome emails. These are so important!

Your welcome email is the first thing that people will receive from you when they subscribe to your substack. Don’t lose their interest here by not giving them some unique information from you. Here are a few tips for what to include in your welcome emails:

• First, express appreciation for their subscription. Even if they’re subscribing for free, they are still giving you their email address.

• Then, state what it is they can expect to receive from you (don’t assume they’ve already read your About page).

• Give them a path back to your content. Don’t overwhelm them with a dozen links to your favourite posts, but at least give them a couple of links so they can easily return to your homepage and read more, or direct them to a couple of specific posts to get them started.

• If you have a thank you gift, this is the place to put in a link for your new subscriber to download it (no, you cannot embed a PDF in the welcome email itself).

• If you have payments turned on, let the free subscribers know what they could get if they upgraded, and include an upgrade button.

Don’t forget to also fill out the “Imported subscriber” welcome email. If you are importing a list, you’ll want to do this for sure, if you aren’t, copy and paste the free subscriber email to this one. After all, you never know when your best friend will say “hey, sign me up for your substack” and you don’t want them to get the generic email after you put in their email address.

If you have payments turned on, you’ll want to edit the paid subscriber email, and the founding member email. These emails should be similar to the ones above, but also include any relevant information that your paid subscribers need.

You’ll find your welcome emails by going to your dashboard, then settings, then pick the “emails” section from the left menu, and each welcome email is listed in that section.

If you would like to be able to purchase a “starter kit” for Substack, which includes all of the above with screenshots, videos, and templates, as well as a couple other details, let me know in the comments.