Here's All the Mistakes I Make When I Write on Substack

I screwed up so you don't have to

Happy Tuesday, y'all! I hope everyone had a good weekend. While you are thinking about it, please click the Like button to help raise visibility of this issue on Substack. Thank you!

I hate to admit it, but I can be pretty stubborn and inconsistent in my writing. There are many 'best practices' that I know about, but often neglect one or more of them in my writing.

Today, let's talk about YOU can do a better job of organizing and presenting your content than I do. The goal is we want to break down the information into smaller pieces so that your audience can better 'consume' that content and engage with it. These are things you can do to improve the readability and design of your content, and I often miss these.

Use H3 Headings Often

Ok this one is obvious. The use of subheadings in your article or newsletter has several advantages:

• Readers can more easily scan the article and pick up on keep points. This improves understanding and helps the reader stay interested in the topic.

• Headings improve recall. Using Headings to highlight the main points of your article helps the reader remember what they read and why it was important.

• Headings boost engagement. If readers can better understand the topic, they are more likely to keep reading and engaging with that content. That means longer times on page.

But it not only helps organize your post, it also breaks it down into smaller subpoints that are easier for your reader to follow. Plus, these Headings are eye-catching. The last thing we want is for the reader to become bored.

And this ties in with the next point…

Avoid the Dreaded 'Wall of Text' at All Costs

Let's be honest, nothing puts a reader to sleep faster than seeing a long post or article that's nothing but text. Even if the reader is enjoying your topic, long sentences and paragraphs are harder to read. Plus, it becomes harder to hold the reader's attention.

First, check paragraph length. Again, this is where I screw up a lot. You don't want to have 10 sentences in a paragraph, 4-6 is ideal length. Just long enough to make a point, but not so long that you start to ramble.

So you've added in Headings and shortened your paragraphs. That alone makes your content much easier to read. Now think about visual cues you can add. Here's some examples:

• Images. These are perfect, and Substack let's you add images straight from Unsplash so there you go.

• Gifs. I don't use gifs typically, but many people enjoy them, especially the humorous ones.

• Video. One thing I love about Substack is you can link a YouTube video in and it will directly add the video into your post. Perfect. I did this with the Marketing and Music: Evanescence's My Immortal post.

• Links to older Substack posts or other Substack features. I do this in every post as a way to create a break in the 'text wall' and give readers a new visual cue to grab their attention. In fact, let's try a Poll now, I haven't done one of those yet:

One final thought on adding different features: You can also add audio. I am seeing many writers on Substack creating audio voiceovers for their posts. I don't want to do that, but I am going to start creating audio for more of my posts in the coming weeks as a way to add a bit more insight to the topic.

Focus on Article Length

This one is very important. If your article is too short, readers may feel like they wasted their time as you didn't get into the topic enough to give them value. On the other hand, if you get too wordy, they may drop off halfway through the article.

Neela 🌶️

tells me that the sweet spot is to shoot for a post that takes 6-7 minutes to read. For me, that's right at 1,000 words. That's what I shoot for on the free side. For the Paid issues of BackStage Pass, I will often go a bit longer, say 1,500-2,000 words.

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An important caveat to this: Every audience is different. For most audiences, 6-7 minutes of reading time is a good spot to shoot for. But some audiences only want a couple of minutes, others may want extremely long posts that take 15 minutes to read. You just need to try things differently and see what happens. And that brings up my final point…

Test, Test, Test

One of the things I try to do in every issue I write is I try to test something different. I will make some change, maybe it's small or maybe it's huge, and see how readers react to it. It could be writing a longer post, or publishing at a different time of the day or on a completely different day.

Sidenote: I've been doing a lot of testing with Notes, and will continue to do so. Mainly around sharing different types of content, presented in different ways. I actually have a really interesting lesson I recently learned that I will be sharing here next Tuesday when I do my monthly recap for October.

The point is, you really need to experiment with how you deliver your content. Your audience is not the same audience that I have. As a result, your audience will respond differently than mine. I can tell you all the things you can do to improve your ability to connect with your audience, but please use my advice as your STARTING POINT.

Not the end. If you truly want to have your Substack reach its full potential, you need to constantly be testing what works for YOU. Don't just simply want for the 'experts' to tell you what to do, go break shit yourself. That's how you learn, and that's how you make the most meaningful improvements with your craft.

I have one more point I could add, but I see I am right at that 6 minute reading time mark that

Neela 🌶️

told me to shoot for, so I will save the last point for a future post. Thanks for reading, I hope this helps and if you have any other ‘mistakes’ that you see on Substack, please add a comment.

I hope you have a great Tuesday, Paid subscribers, your next issue drops on Thursday!

Mack