I made a similar move recently. Seems smart, especially since Substack is an automatic mailing list builder of interested subscribers. Wordpress doesn't do it and I'm not sure anyplace else does, really. Thanks for this!
I, too, have a pretty much dormant website that I thought might bring me some editing business but really just fills a slot no one looks at. I'm thinking of taking it all down and just moving everything over to Substack. I'm on Substack more often, so it makes sense.
Hi Claire, I saw your presentation at WIP Summit and am intrigued with Substack. I opened an acct and , hmm now what, what do I focus on since I am an old ADD person with lots of interests. Looking forward to learning and connecting with you.
Hi Antoinette! Thanks for sharing where are right now with Substack. The first step is to figure out your why. Why are you looking to gain an audience on Substack? (Or is that your intention?) Second, narrow down your focus or your "theme." I took a look at your Substack and love your theme!
Since your stories have to do with your friends/family, maybe you can create "sub-themes" or categories. For example, maybe you have a ton of stories from your maternal side, or your childhood, etc. But honestly the biggest hurdle is just to start writing. Once you have a number of newsletters published, start creating categories for them (the "tabs" at the top of Substack). The more you write and get into the process, the more ideas will come to you.
I'll also note, you don't have to be super strict and only write about what's in your theme too. I subscribe to plenty of Substacks where authors/writers share about their personal lives in the midst of whatever project they are working on. Let me know if this makes sense and if you have any other questions! Good luck! :D
I've thought about letting my WordPress site go, but I'm not quite ready to do that. I still want to have options, even though I run nearly everything through Substack now.
Hi Sarah, I totally get it! This is why I kept my two WordPress sites for as long as I did. I kept thinking in my back of my head that I'd eventually move it over, but I was too lazy to make any moves. But once that email with the yearly subscription fee came in, I was like, okay, I'm ready to do this! haha.
If I'm not mistaken, I think my WordPress site will always be there, but it now has wordpress.com in the URL. In terms of updating, I will only do it in Substack.
Honestly, I think I'm just going to keep it as a WordPress site and not pay for the URL. Then if I ever need to jump ship from here, I have a place to land 😉
I'm seriously considering this move, as well. However, I want to point my domain name to it (which means I don't have to worry about changing all the places that point to my website.) My site is hosted on GoDaddy and it's expensive. My domain is there, as well. I'm just a liiiiiitttle bit nervous. I need to decide if I want to pull my blog posts over or just start from scratch. Eek.
The decision would be "do I care enough about these old blog posts to keep them." There is also SEO to consider. Links to blog posts associated with my website. If the site no longer exists, all those links are dead. If I don't move the entire website somewhere else--which has its own problems--I'll create those dead links anyway. It's just a little much for me.
Ah gotcha. You can move over your blogs to Substack and do a 301 redirect from Godaddy. That way you can keep the SEO "juice" you have already built. However, I think you'd have to do it one blog at a time and I'm not sure how many blogs you have.
I made a similar move recently. Seems smart, especially since Substack is an automatic mailing list builder of interested subscribers. Wordpress doesn't do it and I'm not sure anyplace else does, really. Thanks for this!
I, too, have a pretty much dormant website that I thought might bring me some editing business but really just fills a slot no one looks at. I'm thinking of taking it all down and just moving everything over to Substack. I'm on Substack more often, so it makes sense.
Thanks for sharing. Lmk how it goes!!
Hi Claire, I saw your presentation at WIP Summit and am intrigued with Substack. I opened an acct and , hmm now what, what do I focus on since I am an old ADD person with lots of interests. Looking forward to learning and connecting with you.
Hi Antoinette! Thanks for sharing where are right now with Substack. The first step is to figure out your why. Why are you looking to gain an audience on Substack? (Or is that your intention?) Second, narrow down your focus or your "theme." I took a look at your Substack and love your theme!
Since your stories have to do with your friends/family, maybe you can create "sub-themes" or categories. For example, maybe you have a ton of stories from your maternal side, or your childhood, etc. But honestly the biggest hurdle is just to start writing. Once you have a number of newsletters published, start creating categories for them (the "tabs" at the top of Substack). The more you write and get into the process, the more ideas will come to you.
I'll also note, you don't have to be super strict and only write about what's in your theme too. I subscribe to plenty of Substacks where authors/writers share about their personal lives in the midst of whatever project they are working on. Let me know if this makes sense and if you have any other questions! Good luck! :D
Thanks Claire. I appreciate your advice and ill give this a good think. Stay tuned.
I've thought about letting my WordPress site go, but I'm not quite ready to do that. I still want to have options, even though I run nearly everything through Substack now.
Hi Sarah, I totally get it! This is why I kept my two WordPress sites for as long as I did. I kept thinking in my back of my head that I'd eventually move it over, but I was too lazy to make any moves. But once that email with the yearly subscription fee came in, I was like, okay, I'm ready to do this! haha.
If I'm not mistaken, I think my WordPress site will always be there, but it now has wordpress.com in the URL. In terms of updating, I will only do it in Substack.
Honestly, I think I'm just going to keep it as a WordPress site and not pay for the URL. Then if I ever need to jump ship from here, I have a place to land 😉
Haha, exactly. That's basically what I'm doing. :D
I'm seriously considering this move, as well. However, I want to point my domain name to it (which means I don't have to worry about changing all the places that point to my website.) My site is hosted on GoDaddy and it's expensive. My domain is there, as well. I'm just a liiiiiitttle bit nervous. I need to decide if I want to pull my blog posts over or just start from scratch. Eek.
Hi Shelley, just curious, what would be the thinking behind starting blogs from scratch vs. moving them over?
The decision would be "do I care enough about these old blog posts to keep them." There is also SEO to consider. Links to blog posts associated with my website. If the site no longer exists, all those links are dead. If I don't move the entire website somewhere else--which has its own problems--I'll create those dead links anyway. It's just a little much for me.
Ah gotcha. You can move over your blogs to Substack and do a 301 redirect from Godaddy. That way you can keep the SEO "juice" you have already built. However, I think you'd have to do it one blog at a time and I'm not sure how many blogs you have.
Yup. The 301 directs would be necessary. It’s doable.