You Might Be Overlooking Two Very Important Substack Must-haves
I see this more often than you'd think, working with writers on Substack.
Recently, I’ve had an unusually high number of requests for Substack audits. From dashboard settings to overall appearance and functionality, two glaring things are being overlooked:
The About page
Your Welcome Emails
More often than I would expect, Substackers are neglecting to update either of these two important pieces of their publications. So, this is your official reminder.
Substack provides us with plenty of FREE real estate to promote readership!
Your About page and your welcome emails work in tandem during the onboarding process. I like to think of these two as the lobby in a fancy hotel — one acts as the front desk and the other acts as the bellhop, escorting visitors to where they need to be.
The front desk is the first point of contact. So are your welcome emails…PLURAL…because Substack gives you FOUR ways to customize your message for a variety of subscribers (if you have paid subscriptions enabled). Yet, SO many writers are ignoring this.
Here’s how to UN-ignore your welcome emails. Go to your dashboard » settings » and navigate to the EMAILS section.
Each one of those edit buttons allows you to customize the message your subscribers see. Use them!
Next up is your About page. I’ve come across a staggering number of About pages that still contain Substack’s default messaging. However, we’re given all the tools we need to customize the hell out of this page!
All you need to do is locate the link in your navigation bar, go to the page and hit the “edit” button. Once you’re in there, I highly encourage you to go to town making your About page inviting enough for readers to want to know MORE about you.
Go ahead and click that screenshot to visit my About page on my primary publication for inspiration on spicing things up and enticing visitors to want to learn more about you.
If you do anything with your Substack today, do THESE immediately.
After that, you can focus on more advanced tasks, such as customizing your homepage layout and writing a welcome post. Happy Saturday!
Who’s brave enough to admit that they hadn’t updated their About page and welcome emails until they read this post? It’s all good…we don’t judge! We encourage!
I always double-check whether or not I’m doing the things you highlight, Kristi. And I feel like a badass when I am!
Thanks for this info— I've customized both, but definitely need to go back and re-do.