No, most of my advice is for people running real websites.
The strategies are completely different because on Substack your content is the product. People are paying for your personality/insights.
On an Authority Site or a blog for an e-commerce/service/SaaS business you're writing basic content that targets keywords that people are already searching for to get them to click on your affiliate links or buy your product.
Basic on-page stuff like properly nesting your subheadings always helps, but in general if you're trying to attract organic traffic I'd say set up a website and funnel the traffic from your site to your Substack.
As someone who churned content and did SEO at my career before can 100% say this is true, especially inverted pyramid. Another interesting thing my team and I found is that long form writing works, counterintuitively, since many have the impression that scammy affiliate style trash copypasta works. While it’s still true to some extent, quality content is still worth it. Good for LTV as well.
Do you think AI driven writing assistants like copy.ai or jasper.ai add legitimate value? I’ve played around with them and results are decent in that they sound like a human wrote it, but the cost is high and it’s still unclear if it adds quality in google-bot’s view.
I use Jasper for smaller tasks like writing meta descriptions. It can also be used for guest posts on other sites that you don't care about. For long-form articles on your site I would not recommend using them without HEAVY editing.
I also use it as part of my AI linkbuilding strategy (more details on my Substack).
Thanks Tetra! Does it make sense to invest in SEO if selling niche products locally (country population <6m) with most keyword search volume only in the hundreds per month?
Is it worth running SEO if writing in substack?
No, most of my advice is for people running real websites.
The strategies are completely different because on Substack your content is the product. People are paying for your personality/insights.
On an Authority Site or a blog for an e-commerce/service/SaaS business you're writing basic content that targets keywords that people are already searching for to get them to click on your affiliate links or buy your product.
Basic on-page stuff like properly nesting your subheadings always helps, but in general if you're trying to attract organic traffic I'd say set up a website and funnel the traffic from your site to your Substack.
Gracias Tetra
Get a "real website", Biotech. lmao
I have the same question as well. Seems substack isn't very good at SEO (compared to other platforms like Medium) though Tetra would prob know more
You could also try Ghost. It seems built more for SEO/blog and has newsletter as a feature rather than main thing.
How prescient. I was researching keywords for my content site and this will focus my efforts. Glad this was posted. Thank you!
No prob, glad it helped.
As someone who churned content and did SEO at my career before can 100% say this is true, especially inverted pyramid. Another interesting thing my team and I found is that long form writing works, counterintuitively, since many have the impression that scammy affiliate style trash copypasta works. While it’s still true to some extent, quality content is still worth it. Good for LTV as well.
Yes Google has been turning the screws on garbage content over the past few years.
It's getting harder to rank without being legit (can still do it with high enough authority).
Thank you Tetra. This article was amazing and so timely for me. You are a chad.
Do you think AI driven writing assistants like copy.ai or jasper.ai add legitimate value? I’ve played around with them and results are decent in that they sound like a human wrote it, but the cost is high and it’s still unclear if it adds quality in google-bot’s view.
I use Jasper for smaller tasks like writing meta descriptions. It can also be used for guest posts on other sites that you don't care about. For long-form articles on your site I would not recommend using them without HEAVY editing.
I also use it as part of my AI linkbuilding strategy (more details on my Substack).
Thanks Tetra! Does it make sense to invest in SEO if selling niche products locally (country population <6m) with most keyword search volume only in the hundreds per month?
Yes.
Local SEO is huge and it'll help you stand out since most local businesses suck at it, especially outside of the US.
(all marketing strategies commonly-used outside of the US are about 10 years out of date from what I've seen)
Does it make sense to use this format if writing in LinkedIn?
Yes you should always write in the Inverted Pyramid style. No one wants to read an article if you frontload with fluff.
Great intro to SEO Tetra.
Regarding Content Score using Surfer...How important is following word count recommendation?
I find my self in the green often, even though sometimes I'm off by the wordcount by 1k to 2k words per article.
As long as it's green you're good.
Don't try to max out the score. Overoptimizing can create problems as well.
What’s the name of the the Sunday paid newsletter? Trying to comment on it to get the books but can’t find it, thanks!
This sunday just respond to the post via email that's it.