Is Having A Website Useful If You're Writing On Substack?
It depends. Are you into owning a solid piece of online real estate or being a tenant forever?
This is a repost from over a year ago. I only had 62 subscribers back then, so you probably never saw it. However, I believe this topic is useful enough that everyone should at least consider it.
Whether you write on Substack, Medium, LinkedIn, or even just the bathroom wall, the question about having a writer’s website will always be legitimate.
Do we need one or don’t we?
I’m not the president of the internet so I can’t say for sure but I can offer my input based on fifteen years of writing online.
In my (never) humble opinion, anyone who writes online should always have a space they can call their own, OUTSIDE of any writing platforms. Whether you intend to write on your website or not, I think you should have a home base.
I’m the perfect example of why.
From 2009 to 2019, I maintained a travel blog with tens of thousands of followers. In 2020, I chose to retire from that blog for personal reasons.
From 2019 to 2022, I prolifically wrote on Medium, publishing more than 400 articles and collecting over 5,000 followers. In 2023, I left Medium and joined Substack.
And here we are.
Letting go of other writing spaces meant letting go of thousands of potential readers for anything I would write in the future.
Thankfully, I’ve always had my personal web space called Written By Kristi.
I think of my website as a lighthouse. It doesn’t do much except stand on a lonely island. However, it guides anyone who has followed me for a decade or more to where I write at any given time.
Writers are not trees; we’re humans. We don’t have to plant roots anywhere for longer than we want, and having a personal website allows us to shine a spotlight on where we are.
I have updated my website a hundred times over the years. Life experiences change, locations change, and niches change. So can your website. No one will ever lose track of you.
Other benefits of having your own website:
Beauty. Hands down, this is my favourite reason. Websites just LOOK GOOD compared to platforms like Substack and Medium. We can customize websites to match our mood, our personality, or our far-out dreams from another planet if we want to.
Blogging. Even if your website just serves as a landing page for now, you have the flexibility to add a blog to it at any point. It's no secret that cross-posting is a powerful way to reach a wider audience and increase engagement on your content. By sharing content across multiple platforms, you can leverage different networks to gain maximum exposure.
A Safety Net. By now, pretty much everyone on Substack probably knows that
lost her ENTIRE Substack a couple of weeks ago. Yup, over 12K subscribers and ALL of her content. You can read more about that here. It serves as proof that bad things can and DO happen to online platforms. Keep a backup of your work published somewhere else.Custom Names. I realize we can use custom domains here on Substack, but do you? If you do, is it your actual name or is it a publication name? My website is Written By Kristi but my main Substack is Wildhood Wanted. They serve two very different purposes and I like the separation but I link both of them to each other. Here are two ways to do that:
Adaptability. As mentioned, writers don’t have to be rooted anywhere. No matter where we end up, our websites can serve as road maps to where we want people to find us.
Selling & Commerce. This is a big one in my opinion. Do you sell books? Might you sell courses in the future? Might you start coaching down the road? Yes, we can sell things on any platform but it looks and functions better on a custom website. And if your website is on Squarespace (for example) everything you need to start selling is built in.
I sell Substack services via my business site and creative writing workshops via Written By Kristi.
This post wasn’t meant to spark fear over losing your beautiful content. It was meant to inspire you to take action and keep your work in more than one place.
If you haven’t the faintest idea how to build a writer’s website but you’re interested in having one…
ASK ME to do it for you.
It is one of many tricks I perform as a Substack virtual assistant and luckily, nerding out on Squarespace is my idea of a good time.
Do you have your own website outside of Substack? If so, feel free to share in the comments! We’re all about networking here…show us what you’ve got!
I was considering dropping my website and simplify my life. You have just convinced me otherwise, and I am going to set up cross-posting. Thanks for this valuable advice.
Lots of good points here, especially the one that you own your platform. They also perform different functions. My website matchingfoodandwine.com which I’ve had since 2006 is more like long term resource on food and drink pairing. My Substack is more up to the minute - more like a blog (and more fun to write!)