How to Turn Medium Readers into Substack Subscribers
The right approach
My Medium friends can read this story over there as well.
Many readers ask me the same questions:
“Is it okay to repost my Substack stuff on Medium?”
“Will Google hate me for duplicate content?”
“Do I need to rewrite everything, change the title, tweak the links?”
Underneath all of that is the worry: I do not want to shoot myself in the foot with SEO. But I also do not want to do twice the work.
So most people do what we all do when something feels murky: We ignore it. Boy, do I know that well.
We publish wherever feels easiest that day, and hope it works out. For a very lucky few, that does work. Not for me. And probably not for you.
This approach usually means leaving a lot of growth on the table.
The problem isn’t Medium or Substack
It’s “freestyle.”
Medium is great. Substack is great. The problem is not the platforms. The problem is using them in “freestyle mode.”
One week you write a banger on Substack. Next week, you toss something similar on Medium. Sometimes you paste the same post into both. Sometimes you change the headline “a bit for SEO.” Sometimes you forget you even did that.
After a year, your writing is everywhere and nowhere.
You have:
The same core ideas scattered across different URLs
Confusing calls to action (join my list here… or here… or there)
No clear sense of where your “real” archive even lives
Why do I know this? This is exactly what I was doing for about 1 year when I started on Medium and Substack.
That might lead to problems: Readers are confused. Search engines are confused. And you feel like you are constantly publishing, but not really building anything solid.
That is not a platform problem. That is a strategy problem.
Medium is discovery, Substack is home.
The moment this clicked for me was when I stopped thinking: “Medium vs Substack” and started thinking: “Medium → Substack”
Medium is a discovery layer. A great one. Substack is a home base with control and email ownership.
Medium’s strengths:
Built-in audience
Recommendations and curation
Occasional external traffic boosts
High domain authority
Substack’s strengths:
You own the list
You own the relationship
You own the stack around it (paid subs)
If you only play on Medium, you are renting reach (which is great for growth, but not ideal long-term). If you only play on Substack, you are responsible for every eyeball you get. That takes time.
If you use both with a plan, you get the best of each:
Medium sends you new, cold readers
Substack turns the right ones into subscribers and buyers over time
“But what about duplicate content?”
We have all heard some version of:
“Google punishes duplicate content.”
“You can’t post the same thing in two places.”
“You must rewrite everything from scratch.”
So we imagine this scenario where cross-posting one essay will somehow destroy our SEO forever.
Reality is more boring.
Search engines mostly do not “punish” you. They just have to choose which version to show. And they do. Either on their own, or with your help.
If you post the same piece on Substack and Medium and never give any signal which one you care about more, they guess.
Sometimes they pick the one you did not want. Sometimes the Medium version outranks the Substack one. Other times, the other way around. And sometimes nothing really ranks at all.
The risk is not some mysterious penalty. The risk is confusion.
And confusion is fixable with structure.
One original, one satellite
The simplest rule that makes this work for most writers:
Substack is the original.
Medium is the satellite.
That means:
You publish the “master” version on Substack first.
That URL is your “home” for the piece.
Medium gets a version that points back to it.
You can:
Cross-post the full piece
Or publish a slightly adapted version
Or publish a “cut” of it that leads into the full essay on Substack
But in your head, there is always one source of truth: If someone asks “Where does this article really live?” the answer is your Substack.
Once that’s clear, the technical side (SEO, structure, links) becomes much less scary.
What about the other way around: Substack → Medium
Also possible. For some writers, even more useful. Medium now offers earnings for external views. This does make search engine traffic to your Medium stories more valuable.
So, yes, you can go the other route: Substack → Medium.
The only issue here is that Substack doesn’t offer a direct pointer (canonical URL) to your Medium story.
That means, it’s harder to make it work that way. I talk more about this in my in-depth Medium + Substack guide.
What actually needs to change?
Do you need a brand-new headline for Medium? Not necessarily. I rarely do this. But it’s an option.
Do you need to rewrite every paragraph? Definitely not.
Here is what you can do:
Make sure your Substack URL is the one you push in public (social, links from other posts, bio links, etc.).
Add clear CTAs on Medium that send interested readers to your Substack.
Adjust intros and outros to fit the context. Medium readers arrive differently than email subscribers. Talk to that.
That’s it. You are not writing two essays. You’re doubling your luck.
Where SEO fits into all of this
Substack behaves more like a search engine. I’ve been saying that a lot lately. It’s not a newsletter.
Substack is a blog that happens to come with email.
Your Substack posts can rank. Often faster than a brand new standalone blog. If you put in even a basic SEO brain, that’s a big deal.
Medium, meanwhile, is more of an in-platform recommendation engine plus some search engine juice.
So in a dual-platform setup:
Substack is your SEO library. You think in topics, clusters, search intent, and long-term compounding.
Medium is your amplifier. You think in readers, recs, and sending the right people back “home.”
If someone finds you through a Google search and lands on your Substack archive, great.
If someone discovers you via Medium’s recommendation system and then joins your Substack, also great.
Same essay. Two entry points. Same long-term asset.
Compounding, not hustling
We all have enough of hustle culture.
The best part of having a coherent system is not “growth hacks.” It is the compounding effect.
You write one strong, problem-solving piece. You:
Publish it on Substack
Give it a search-friendly title and structure
Cross-post it (intelligently) to Medium
Link it from related pieces over time
Now that one essay can:
Bring in search traffic for months or years
Grab recommended views on Medium
Move readers onto your list
Nudge them into your paid ecosystem over time
When this needs more system
Getting a proper republish system is crucial, in my eyes. You gain the best of two worlds while also having a backup for your stories.
But there are nuances:
Which pieces should be Substack-only?
Which ones should live on both?
How do you structure a funnel from Medium into your newsletter?
How do you keep your archive from turning into a bowl of half-duplicates?
To answer all this, I wrote an in-depth Medium + Substack guide.
It covers:
The “Substack as home, Medium as discovery” model in detail
When Medium first is better
Concrete workflows for publishing in the right order
How to think about duplicate content
Practical examples of CTAs, structures, and funnels
The Bottom Line
Do both. Get on both platforms. Republish. Be happy.
It’s not hard. It’s not twice the work. It’s double the luck.
And if you want the entire in-depth guide, here you go!
Thank you for sharing the tips, Burk!
I have already built a good presence on Medium and recently started Substack. I believe these tips will come in handy.
Here is my Medium account if you would like to explore:
https://medium.com/@shamim_rajani