Welcome to Day 6 of the Substack SEO Challenge!
Here’s what we covered already:
Today we’re talking about another potential SEO asset quietly sitting inside your publication, and which many writers overlook - your Substack About page.
It’s one of your most important pages (so please, please don’t keep the default one!) and it’s time to make it stronger.
Now, if you want to write yours but aren’t sure what to include, check this out:
The focus today will be on how to tweak it a bit so it becomes more visible in search engines.
E-E-A-T
One of the frameworks Google uses to assess the quality of your content is E-E-A-T, and it stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
Sharing our experience, demonstrating expertise and building trust are the foundation of a personal brand, and our content is one of the best ways to show that. But it doesn’t happen through just one post, or a few.
Everything you publish becomes part of your personal brand and it’s what people associate you with. And that’s why Google looks at all the pages of your website/publication, not just a few.
We can become an expert on a topic by writing solely about that (or, mostly about it), covering all angles, sharing our results, lessons and mistakes, teaching unique frameworks, and linking between these posts so they can boost each other and take the reader on a journey.
It’s also about the accuracy of our content, the transparency, our skills and credentials.
Your About page is where you get to share your story and what your Substack is about, but it’s also more than that.
It’s a way to tell search engines what you teach, what topics you cover and what you want to be associated with, why you should be trusted, and what your credentials are.
Here’s how your About page can support E-E-A-T:
Explain your first-hand experience with the topic you write about. - Mention projects you’ve worked on, experiments you’ve run, or results you’ve got.
Show your qualifications. - It could be your professional background and certifications, or just years of experience and again, specific results you’ve got.
If you’ve been featured somewhere, this is the place to share it. Any award or companies you’ve worked with count too. Being cited on other platforms or interviewed on other Substack publications also deserves a mention.
Be transparent about where you come from, what you’re working on, and what your goals are with your Substack. Adding photos helps too.
Use relevant keywords naturally.
Show readers and search engines what your publication is about by using keywords.
If you’re writing about personal finance, for example, naturally mention that term, but also investing, budgeting, financial independence, and anything else that applies to your experience and what you will be sharing with your readers.
Write for humans first, though, and don’t over-optimize.
Link to your best content.
Yes, yes, that’s what your Start Here page is, and I highly recommend having one. (Even though I haven’t created mine yet 🤭)
But your best posts deserve a spot here too, and there are SEO benefits. Link to your foundational pieces. This gives new readers a good starting point, and shows search engines these posts are your most important ones.
You can also link to any paid offers, social profiles, or other important pages on your Substack such as your Start Here page.
And last but not least, I’d recommend having your name clearly visible.
I know some of you prefer to remain anonymous because you’re disclosing personal information (like numbers) or because you do this on the side of your job.
But for anyone else, having your name and photo on the About page is key. You are the person behind the publication and people like seeing that.
It humanizes your brand.
🎯 ACTION ITEMS
#1. Do the 10-second test.
Open your Substack About page and check whether a stranger can understand who you are, what you cover, and why they should subscribe.
If they had only 10 seconds to look at the page, would they get it?
If not, fix that. Usually, you can achieve it with the title and the first few paragraphs.
#2. Add your E-E-A-T signals.
Go back to the examples I shared and add trust and credibility signals to your page.
#3. Add your best content.
Link to your most valuable posts (3-5 is enough).
Think about the content you want a new reader to discover most. And know that these links can also help search engines understand which pieces are central to your publication.
And that’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed this one and picked up a few useful tips.
If you ever want my eyes on your Substack, that’s what The Substack Growth Audit is for. I review every element on your publication as well as your content and monetization strategy. SEO is part of that too.
If you made any updates to your About page, share the link below so we can check it out 🤩✍️
As this is a continuing project, the page should be adapted to new situations. For the moment, I have this one. https://magdalenagereva.substack.com/about
Just built a Start Here page for the first time, so this is timely. One thing I'd add: it's worth linking to a piece that actually demonstrates the work rather than just describing it, since "trust me" and "here's an example" land differently.