Should I Move My Blog to Substack? 5 Considerations for Entrepreneurs

What I'm doing with 11 years of blog content & 10 years of newsletters.

Since I switched to blogging on Substack only a month ago, I’ve been answering many questions about this in my private writing community. 

Here’s the original announcement that covers why I made the move.

Now, if you run a business (or are starting one), let’s get to the questions you might be asking yourself:

Q1. What are you doing with your old blog posts? Are you going to convert them or republish them?

I have A LOT of blogs on my website. I have no idea how many, but the oldest entry is from 2012. “Shit tons” of content is my best guess. 

I decided not to migrate my old blog posts to Substack and leave my blogs where they are. Since my website is home to my group offers — the writing community, VIP community, Finding Flow, courses, and template bundles, I’m leaving everything there. I didn’t want duplicate content out there, and removing all the old entries didn’t feel right. 

What I did:

• Published a new blog about the move to Substack (which is my one exception to duplicating content on Substack) so that anyone visiting my website’s blog will see that they can browse old articles and then see where to find new ones. 

• Added Substack Opt-In forms around my website and in my email signature

Current email signature. I update it monthly.

What I’ll do with 11+ years of blog content: 

• New Substack articles might link to old articles on my website. I can easily grab links to my old posts because I follow the intuitive content creation process I teach in the writing community (you can watch a free replay and grab my content template, though).
  
  Here’s a peek at how I keep my content links organized…
  

  

  My content planning and live content all get linked in this sheet. You’re peeking at some writing from summer ‘23.

• Using Missinglettr (affiliate link), I had all the blogs I’d created over the past year on a 12-month evergreen campaign (it takes me roughly 10 minutes per blog to set up).
  
  As blog campaigns finish, I choose two old blogs a week based on how well their previous Missinglettr campaigns performed, and taking into account any seasonality, I update them with any link changes, add links to relevant new articles (on my website or Substack), add at least two images (if they previously had none), update SEO descriptions and titles if I’m called, review and update CTAs and then create a new Missinglettr campaign. Currently, Missinglettr sends links to my Facebook business page (the only activity there these days) and Twitter. I didn’t see good results posting to LinkedIn, and I use a completely different strategy there (more on LinkedIn strategy another time, but if you need a bio refresh, grab this recently updated guide).

Here’s a snapshot of how my links are doing with Missinglettr:  

As of October 5, 2023, a few posts a day are automatically published to Twitter and a Facebook business page.

Q2. If I've transferred all the posts to Substack, what do I do with my website?

Your website is your calling card, your billboard. Use it to offer and sell products and services, feature testimonials, and share more about you, your business, and your work. If you don’t have a business and are blogging, you might not need a website. 

This is why I recommend starting with Substack if you want to blog and don’t want a business yet or if your blog has nothing to do with your business.

Q3. Should I move to Substack?

I don’t know. I’ve received a bunch of questions like this one. I’ll never tell you what to do. I share what I’m doing and the reasons behind it, and from there, you can use your discernment.

Q4. Are you using Substack for your writing and keeping courses and learning in Podia (or whatever other platform)?

Yes. Substack is where my new writing lives. My free resources, courses, and community will stay on Podia. Now, this part is manual for now. 

When someone signs up for a free resource, course,  or community on Podia, they get the option to opt-in to emails from me. Currently, there’s no Substack integration, so Podia is still integrated into MailChimp (which I’m no longer paying for, just adding emails to).

Before I go into Substack and publish each week, I manually add new emails from that list. I'm hoping for a Zapier fix in the future. For now, it’s just a few minutes a week. 

I like Podia (affiliate link) because ALL my paid group offerings are in grouped in one place. 

Q5. Can you send emails that are separate from a blog post? I.e., when you want to promote something?

Yes, but how I use Substack differs from how I did email marketing with MailChimp. First, I appreciate how,on Substack, the blog IS the email (one less thing to write!) 

Because stories are powerful on Substack, I’m weaving promo into my messages when appropriate. I also have my footer set up to promote whatever I’m focused on at the moment. 

In short, yes, you can send emails that are separate from Substack articles. This is currently how I email writing community members updates every Friday. You can send emails only to a specific audience subset using the filters currently available (comp, free, paid, etc.) It’s not an email marketing tool today. I’m okay with that. 

You also can’t create a welcome email sequence because, again, it’s not email marketing, but you can customize a welcome email.

Here’s mine below if you want to use it to inspire yours (note… inspire, not swipe 😉):

👀 my welcome email to Substack free subscribers:

🎉 You're in!

I’m Jacqueline Fisch. You can call me Jacq. (Sounds like “Jack” — it only looks fancy and French, neither of which I am).

You're getting free posts from The Intuitive Writing School by me!

You’ll get emails on most Sundays exploring authentic (read: no AI) writing, connection, and the writerly life for business owners and creatives.

On Wednesdays, you’ll also get the special feature called “Show Your Work,” where you’ll get to peek behind the scenes of my writing students and clients to see how they shape their blogs, sales pages, emails, and more. Learning through examples helps make the lessons stick!

While you wait for the next email, here are some other projects I’m dedicating my energy toward:

1. ✨ The Intuitive Writing School Community — An online writing space for business owners & creatives who want accountability, support, and resources to write authentically and write well.

2. ✍️ Finding Flow — A 28-day live writing experience to help you redefine your relationship with writing

3. 🎧 A new podcast! More on this soon!

Why do I do all this?

I believe that writing doesn’t equal suffering. I’m here to offer practical guidance to help you do the writing you need to do. Whether you dream of telling your stories in blog posts or books or need a website refresh, I believe that everyone — yes, everyone can write.

Every day, I wake up and ask, how can I serve today?

So, how can I help? Reply to this email and tell me two things:

1. How did you find my work?

2. What’s one question or sticky situation you have about writing, creating content, or finding inspiration right now? I probably have something to help you out right away.

I 💙 email. Like really love email. Which means I respond to every reply to this welcome note and every newsletter.

A big picture of my smiling face at the bottom of the email so readers know who’s behind the keyboard.

💙 Jacq

Ways to work with me:

• Hire me as your personal writing coach and mentor for a month or more.

• Join the writing community or the VIP option.

• Or buy a book.

Want more?

To get every post and other paid subscriber benefits, upgrade to a paid subscription.

Paid subscribers get:

• 🎧 Weekly writerly forecasts with bite-sized writing and editing tips for business

• 📆 Quarterly office hours to ask me anything (next one is on Tuesday, January 9, 2024 from 1-2:30pm Eastern.)

• 👀 A behind the scenes look at how I write drafts and finalize my work for website copy, blogs, and social posts.

As you can see, I’m a fan of writing on this platform.

🎧 Listen to the weekly writerly forecast about how to flow with your words as we wind down to the new moon and how to play with rewards: