26 Comments
User's avatar
Jessica Gilbert's avatar

I have actually already been linking related posts. Its good to know its benefit in relation to SEO.

Lidiya Kesarovska's avatar

Yey, so nice you were already doing it!

Debbie Giannioti's avatar

I have been adding links to my articles for a while now.

I always thought it was a great way to show that I have already covered various (related) topics and to increase the perceived value of my publication. And hopefully keep people reading my content.

But I never considered the value from an SEO perspective.

Thanks!

Lidiya Kesarovska's avatar

Glad this helped a bit.

And you just reminded me of another benefit of internal linking - we build more authority in the eyes of readers (especially new ones) by showing we’ve covered many topics before ☺️

Debbie Giannioti's avatar

I see people commenting on older posts so I think it helps from that perspective.

But I have no idea about SEO ...

Magdalena Gereva, PhD's avatar

I am going through all of them, adding between 2 and 3 internal links.

Lidiya Kesarovska's avatar

Thanks for following my recommendations ☺️

I hope it’s not too much on your plate.

Don’t forget, SEO can wait. Engagement here and sticking to your content schedule is more important.

Magdalena Gereva, PhD's avatar

I have a lot of old content that needs more visibility. Will share it again and under a different angle. I have the feeling that it is a period of re-adjustment of all my sections and articles. Will try to produce one more this week. Thank you, I need to fix the things and rethink...

Lidiya Kesarovska's avatar

Sounds good 🤗

Sandy Halliday's avatar

I put links in my blog posts from one article to another as suggested by my SEO plugin but I have never thought of doing it on Substack. It seems obvious now you point it out. I will definitely start doing it.

Lidiya Kesarovska's avatar

Yes, it’s interesting how much of the blogging world can be applied to Substack (but in simpler ways) to boost our growth here.

Thank you for reading, Sandy!

Shirley Identity Reframes's avatar

I do this but I feel it makes little difference to none. Will keep trying. Thanks

Lidiya Kesarovska's avatar

Hey, Shirley.

SEO is a result of a series of actions taken consistently and it’s a long-term strategy. We don't see or feel its effects usually.

It’s about slow, steady growth, and building a good reputation online and with search engines.

Barbara Poblocka's avatar

Thanks for the article, great read! I was thinking this must be pretty simple to build a cloud tool that knows all the pieces one has written to help them decide what to link.

Have you tried similar approach?

Lidiya Kesarovska's avatar

Hey, Barbara.

I haven’t tried anything like that, but I can imagine it would help some people.

First, do make sure there’s enough interest for this. Not many Substack writers are into SEO yet, so you will have to explain the benefits of internal linking to them so they can see why the tool would help.

I myself am a big more old school and like doing it manually.

Barbara Poblocka's avatar

Ah no I only meant to use just Claude for finding the links between my own articles not as a tool for anyone else :)

Lidiya Kesarovska's avatar

Ah, yes. That might work, if you're a Claude user and like optimizing processes 🙌🏻

Barbara Poblocka's avatar

Somehow it's just hard to remember from the back of one's head what information one may find in and where, even if these are all my own articles 😅

Taka Toyoshima's avatar

Thanks for the great advice!

It’s interesting to see that techniques used in traditional blogging can be applied to Substack as well. I’m going to go back through my posts and see where I can add more internal links.

By the way, the publication homepage already serves as a kind of overview, but do you think it would also be effective to create separate topic hub pages?

For example, a page dedicated to a specific theme like data centers or Physical AI, where readers can find all the related articles organized in one place and follow the research around that topic.

Lidiya Kesarovska's avatar

Good question, Taka.

That is highly recommended for a blog, but I wouldn’t say it’s a must for Substack.

A good practice is to have longer guides for each of your main topics, though. These are your content pillars.

Then, many other posts on the topic will link to these and search engines and readers will know these are your most important pieces.

There you can also include other articles to read, so in a sense, it serves as the kind of page you were talking about :)

Kathy Patterson's avatar

Awesome advice. Gonna jump on this today!

Hebrew By Inbal's avatar

Thanks! I started this with today’s post 🤗

Lidiya Kesarovska's avatar

Yey ☺️ Welcome!

Paul Arino | How To Grow Tips's avatar

Such great advice Lidiya - especially the part about internal linking to your related articles - as ALL of them... Google, Bing & DuckDuckGo love this for authority in that particular subject you're writing about.

I'd also add, to help your article even further on authority from search engines - I'd add a link to a relatable high-authority website as well.

For example, if you're writing an article about Substack Notes, go to Google, do a search on "Substack Notes", and find the highest listed link from Substack.com, and include that link at the bottom of your article.

Hope this helps!

Best,

Paul Arino