Day 2 - Should you link out to other web sources from your Substack publication navigation bar?
How about a Substack PAGE instead...
Hi folks,
Welcome to day two of our
… how did you get on yesterday?You can find all the posts in the series here. Please do support each other in the comments.
Today we’re talking about linking out and away from our Substack publication.
Our main objectives are to get;
non subscribers to subscriber
subscribers into the archive
subscribers interested in paying for our work (if we have paid switched on)
Here’s my Behind the Scenes of my Business Newsletter
I don’t link out from my navigation bar here because I have the objectives above…
I made a welcome/ contents page so I could display a navigation and talk about my offers and my books…
I do two jobs in one because this is a very simple weekly newsletter
What about authors who want to sell books or link out to services?
Sure… here’s why I don’t recommend linking straight out to amazon/ another online shop from your nav bar…
You loose the potential for the non subscriber to subscribe if you send them into the bowels of amazon.
You loose the opportunity to nurture your subscribers
You send them into the abyss of an online shopping portal.
For services
Again same reason, nurure your subs on a page and then give them the links…
You can also put them in the footer of your email
Exceptions
If you are an influencer and have a bigger profile on tiktok or instagram, you might want to link straight out to that from your nav bar for social proof/ to cross pollinate your audience - feel into it?
Instead of linking straight out, you want to make an evergreen custom page…
Type page into your dashboard settings (see screen shot)
Click add
Compose the page
Click update
Head back to the same page grab the URL
Add to your navigation bar
So what do you want to put on your page and what are you feeling about your navigation bar?
Have fun!
Plan it out on paper first? That’s your task for today!!
Claire
I see the savvy of this approach. I've tried something slightly different--sharing a few links out and away at the end of my posts as "extras" -- songs, art, books... my readers tell me they value this so I'm inclined to keep it.
However... I could have the best of both worlds... maybe put it behind the paid membership walls and make it a juicy "extra" my inside peeps get. When I turn payments back on that is something to consider.
Coming back this evening to answer your ACTUAL question - about linking out on our NAVIGATION bars lolol. :-) I don't link out in the navigation links...I want it to feel like the reader has landed "in" An Inviting Space and keeping the navigation in that space helps me set a cozy boundary--at least that is my goal.
It's such a challenge to work online because the entire internet is always only a click away... I'm less interested in holding attention and more interested in holding space and THAT idea just occurred to me as I was typing this response. Going to consider that and what it means for my home page.