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I'm a long-time brick and mortar bicycle store owner, and have had a blog in some form since 2007. I feel like I've already written a blog post on every bicycle related topic under the sun (in fact, last year I went through and pruned outdated and redundant posts). And frankly, it got boring for me to constantly write how-to's and answer FAQ's for the bike buying public. I'm working on turning my blog more into a collection of evergreen or reference content that doesn't have to have a time stamp.

Parallel to this, I also write a bi-weekly newsletter with a great open rate, where I cover wide-ranging topics, including independent-minded take on topics such as personal growth, creativity and search for relevance, local adventure inspiration, links to compact and useful outdoor equipment, and great regional destinations to put together short trips.

I recently decided to move all this to Substack, because I've realized that the newsletters are more interesting for me to write, and I want to have a nicer repository for them than and Aweber archive page, as well as potential exposure to new readers.

I've signed up for your Substack course and began uploading some of my existing content. Next week, I plan to migrate my subscribers. Yes, I will probably still have a blog, but my energy is moving me toward a platform that has the potential of greater interaction with readers.

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Thank you for your comment Justyna and for buying the course! I can imagine that after a while writing on one topic gets boring, and I love reading how you’re diversifying. For me, Substack has been a great way of connecting more with readers and it brings me a lot of joy—wishing you the same! ✨

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Sep 6Liked by Astrid Bracke

I have a blog and have been blog (for different topics) for over 8 years now. Though I struggled with it for a while in the past, I still love blogs and writing blog posts. They are just such a great way to show your interests, knowledge and a bit of yourself to (future) customers or clients. Especially as I'm trying to build a social-media free business it's very important to me, however I also noticed that it makes such a big difference to run a blog depending on the overall field of your business. Some years ago I had a blog about equine health and it was so easy to grow and find topics to write about, while now as an artist and writer has been a looong journey until I figured out what I want / could write about that attracts customers that aren't only fellow artists.

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Thank you for your comment Mareike and for sharing your reflections—it’s so fascinating to see the difference between two types of topics and how quickly a blog grows. And, like you, I also still love a really good, informative blog :) Have a good rest of your day!

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A very clear guide to the differences in newsletter/blog posts, I do try to do this. However, I’ve been using substack *as* my blog though - in addition to mailing out occasional newsletter. The newsletters get stacked up in my chronological Substack post order, (which I currently don’t mind) and I post other bits n bobs around the newsletter. After reading this, it sounds like you would you recommend creating a whole other separate blog on my website?

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Hi Christi! I like having a blog on my website so that I can also pin the blog posts to Pinterest, and I like having my website as my main hub rather than Substack. But I’d only recommend this approach to you if it works for you—if you don’t necessarily want people to visit your website, for instance, or don’t use Pinterest, then there’s no need to go with my approach :) Does this help?

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Hi Astrid, Your messages seem to get buried in my email and I know I'm behind in my accountability posts. Could you please resend that invitation? Perhaps sending a couple of reminders would be great if it's not too much trouble for you.

On the blogs, such an interesting take. I've heard that one should run their Substack through an AI bot to change the wording, otherwise the SEO crawlers may prefer one or the other. What do you think?

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Hi Lora! I’ll send over the links to the most recent posts in a moment, though I seen you’ve already found the Accountability Club :)

I’ve not heard that about changing the wording—I don’t think I’d necessarily use AI because I’d want the voice to remain very much me. I’ve not seen a negative effect of being ‘penalised’ for having similar text on my Substack and blog, but should that ever happen, I’ll definitely go in to tweak some things :) Thank you for commenting!

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Good to hear that you haven't had any trouble and agree it would not be good to change our "voice" through AI. But I think you can actually prompt AI to use your own voice! I'll need to try that but too many other projects now..

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That makes sense, you can probably indeed train AI to sound like 'you' based on existing texts. Thank you for pointing that out :)

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It’s so helpful to know that you are using your newsletters as blog posts also, with good results. I have a few that overlap but I think I can put more of my newsletters on to my blog.

I have also started to add my podcast to my blog/ website, but I’m still a season behind on my website vs what has been published.

My traffic has definitely increased but I would love to get it to the numbers you are talking about!

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Thank you for your comment Linn and for sharing! I love the idea of adding your podcast episodes as well, that’s such a great idea. As for the numbers: the really high number I mention (for one post 😅) is definitely a fluke, I’d say, that I won’t easily replicate. Have a lovely rest of your week, and I hope you’re doing well! ✨

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I have been thinking about connecting my Substack to my blog section on my website! Do you think using another platform to host your blog would still drive people to your site?

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Thank you for your comment Angie! Do you mean uploading your Substack posts to your blog? That’s what I’ve been doing for 2 years and it’s not negatively affected either my blog or my Substack. I think my blog has better SEO than Substack so far, and since I also pin the blogposts, it definitely drives more/different people to my site. I hope this answers your question!

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