Category: WebsitesCategory: Websites

One of the biggest things I push is to backup your work on your own site, which means if you write on Substack, your work should be duplicated on your own site, which led to this question:

Q. Hi, I read something yesterday about search engines getting confused if you have the same article in two places. I’ve been copying my substack pieces across to an old blog but now am wondering… what do you think?

A. SEO advice is avoid duplicate content, as it upsets the algorithm. But I don’t work for the algorithm, I work for me, and serve my readers / subscribers first. If it means less random traffic from search engines im fine with that. My hope is that work is good enough that some of readers might tell a friend about it, which I find much more valuable.

I’ve said recently “your newsletter isn’t your permanent address, it’s a delivery truck.”

It’s tempting to build on a platform, but as we know platforms come and go. They can lock you out. Lose your data. Shut down in the middle of the night.

I recently hosted a “let’s work on our websites together” virtual co-working session (next one is Tuesday, May 20 – it’s free, but RSVP here). We’re updating our bios, moving stuff around, setting up Now pages.

We’re re-using the videos we posted on Instagram (that 95% of our audience never saw), and putting them on our sales pages. We’re making videos that inform and build trust, and putting them next to our BUY NOW buttons.

Videos on our website recreate that vibe of the friendly shop owner who says hello when you walk in. Embedding voice notes to our About page lets the internet traveler know a bit more about who you are.

With our own website, our own zine, our own videos, our own voice – we get to fully show up as who we are, instead of twisting and contorting ourselves onto social media platforms, trying to fit in and appease algorithms.

It’ll take a minute to get people at large to return to websites. Lots of people are happy to just scroll on social media all day, and that’s fine. Maybe they’re not your people.

But if you’ve got a dozen people on your email list, you can send them a newsletter and tell them about the great new exciting work you’ve got on your website.

Because writing on your own site a few times a week isn’t all that different than posting seven times a day on multiple social media platforms. You’re just focusing your energy on your platform instead of someone else’s.

And when you’re constantly putting work on your website, when you sit down to write a newsletter once a week you’ll have no problem thinking about what to send, because you already wrote it.

You’ve already made the meal, now you just need to serve it to people who gave you their email address and said, “yes, let me know what you’re working on from time to time.”

Great post here: ‘If nothing is curated, how do we find things?’

“Before, you could reach for a magazine once a month or a watch a show once a week, but now you have to browse Vulture every day and read all 20+ articles they publish, even on the weekends. Who has time to read all that? Who has the time for any of this? Technology is making our lives harder, not easier.”

Everything is a mess right now. There’s never been a better time to be a curator, to own a niche, to be the source for certain sorts of music or media.

(link via Brad Barrish)

Put something new on your website, and link it in your next newsletter. Your newsletter isn’t your permanent address, it’s a delivery truck. Build an archive of work on your website and link to your stuff from your newsletter!

Kate Ellen and I (mostly Kate!) wrote ‘Ghosting Spotify: A How-To Guide‘ which got people talking.

We laid out why she pulled her music from Spotify: the streams weren’t translating into real support, and the platform made it almost impossible to build direct relationships with listeners.

We talked about how Spotify keeps people inside its walls, as listeners don’t click through to emails, don’t buy vinyl, don’t follow links. The listening numbers might look cool on paper, but they rarely lead to anything that pays the bills or creates momentum. Leaving forced Katie to focus on places where people actually show up, like Bandcamp, her website, and her email list.

Once she made that shift, she started seeing repeat buyers and more meaningful conversations. We dug into how owning the audience gives you room to experiment — releasing small projects, selling limited runs, offering commissions — instead of hoping a playlist bump solves everything.

The takeaway wasn’t “streaming is evil,” but that depending on Spotify (or social media!) as the center of your work keeps you stuck waiting for something that rarely materializes.