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Every now and then, someone asks me: “Why did you move all your blog content to Substack?”
It’s a fair question.
In case you didn’t know, I used to run a WordPress blog for years. But over the past year, I moved everything to Substack.
Here’s why.
Substack Compared
On the surface, Substack and blogging platforms like WordPress or Ghost are somewhat similar.
Both let you write things, publish them, and share them with the world. The design is different, the backend too, and the feature sets are quite different as well.
But overall, all 3 are blogging platforms.
The Substack Appeal
Substack has a huge edge.
There are already people in the room, conversations happening, a vibe you can plug into.
From day one of publishing, you can utilize a large audience base and a proven ecosystem.
Readers are already there.
Writers are already there.
The recommendation engine is surprisingly effective.
The network effect is real.
And Substack has social media with Substack Notes.
That means you can grow without needing another social media platform, or a secondary community, a polished SEO strategy, or even much technical know-how.
If your writing is good or useful (or, God forbid, both 😜), Substack can carry you. The growth happens inside this one platform.
For writers, that’s intoxicating. You can focus on the work and skip the headache of setting up websites, plugins, SEO tools, and hosting.
But this power comes with risks. More on that in a second.
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