Category: WebsitesCategory: Websites

We spent years putting our best “content” onto social media platforms, and wonder why no one visits our websites anymore.

• Copy and paste your posts to your own blog.
• Make a photo gallery on your site.
• Put the videos you post on your sales pages
• Embed the music players on your own site (right next to the stuff you have FOR SALE)

Becoming “top of mind” isn’t just for Coca Cola and Best Buy, it’s for everyone in the field you work in, or the art you make, or the magic you bring.

When I think Apple, I head to Daring Fireball.

And I hope when people think about “leaving social media,” they’ll know where to look.

In today’s Mini Escape Pod Zoom call, a member was talking about leading virtual co-working sessions. They had a sales page set up with their Square Space site, and (to avoid having to upgrade their Square Space plan) they linked out to Gumroad for payments.

They had an email list of 700 people, which is a great place to start! I suggested they also reach out to some people personally, too, since not everyone reads every newsletter, and it’s good to just directly invite people to things you’re starting (I did this initially with my Escape Pod Zoom calls back in 2023).

They brought up maybe paying for some classified ads. Spots that are relatively cheap via assorted email newsletters, and usually a good “customer fit” for this sort of thing.

The only thing I cautioned was to figure out their own invite / newsletter flow first.

Figure out how to get a few people to go through their paid process first. Get a few customers into the flow first, and make sure things are moving smoothly before injecting any paid traffic into the system.

The last thing you want to do is spend money on a “leaky” sales process.

UPDATE 8/14/2025: Just wanna stress that there’s a lot of talk about funnels, and paid ads, and “driving traffic” on the internet, especially wrapped about making sales. That’s sort of what I’m talking about, but at a much slower level. We don’t need to “drive” 1,000 people to our sales pages right away. Heck, if we get 10 people to click over, that’s great. And that’s what I’m talking about here. Get 10 people to your sales page. Maybe two sign up. Hey, that’s a 20% conversion rate, and in internet terms, that’s good. Sure, you’ll learn more from 100 people to visit, but start with 10. Be content with learning on a monthly schedule, not an hourly one.

Had another chat with Angela Hollowell (Please Hustle Responsibly) all about the benefits of spending our time away from social media, content ownership, and lots more.

Angela talking about spending your time wisely:

“I could be on social media, making a big deal that I’m going to be here and doing all these things. Or I could just let the people who want to be on social media stay there, and focus instead on the relationships that matter — the ones that aren’t dependent on social media.”

(more…)

Never forget that corporate vultures swooped in and wrecked blog culture with their SEO posts and 13 display ads, and said “wow, blogs suck now!”

Then those crooks rolled out their shiny social media platforms – “wow, so clean! Who even needs a website?!? LOL!”

Now everyone’s ideas and posts were readable, without pop ups or takeover ads. It was bliss!

But the pivot to video (which was based on a lie) got writers fired. Sites shuttered because social media sites throttled links.

We’re learning everyday that maybe centralized kingdoms of power maybe aren’t great.

The decentralized internet is already here in the form of domain names, websites, email lists, and RSS feeds. We don’t need to wait for anyone, we can just decide today where we spend out time and energy.

I’m a big fan of one-page websites, and How To Leave Substack is one such site.

We’re discovering more and more that centralized kingdoms of power are not the answer. Especially when such a platform has no back ups of your work when you inadvertently delete something, or when they send a push notification with a fucking swastika, or goes quiet while a known Substack Bestseller is accused of plagiarism.

I understand the “Asking Authors To Move” section of the How To Leave Substack website. But trust me, moving ain’t easy, as Tara McMullin wrote about this back in “Substack Has a Nazi Problem” era (Nov 2023),

“There’s the work that goes directly into making a move—researching the options, exporting and importing old content, learning how to use the platform, designing your profile or site, moving your audience, etc. There’s also the work that goes into establishing yourself within the network of a new platform, answering questions from your audience about the new platform, and figuring out what kind of content is going to work best on this new platform.”

It took me a solid month or two just to export my paid members to Memberful. I was afraid I’d break something, that some setting would be left un-checked and I’d double charge my members. Or have to refund everyone.

Working with Substack, turns out, is precarious.

There’s a lot of people who probably want to move, but many don’t even know what the options are at. But trust me, I’m telling lots of current Substack authors that they can move their paid members to Memberful.

Looking to move your paid subscribers off of Substack? I’ve moved mine to Memberful.
Got questions? Book a 1:1 call here, or explore my Email Guidance offering.