Design your Substack Homepage to gain subscribers

This is Veronica Yurka Smith from Dilemmatry Mindset and El Limonero, the Spanish version. I'm super excited to launch a new initiative with all of you today, which is called the Substack Live Training Series. So let me start with the what, the why, and the who. So what this is, it's a 4-series, 4 sessions about how to grow your Substack, how to build your community, and how to turn it into a sustainable business. That's exactly what I'm doing, both with my English and my Spanish version. And my goal is really to share what I'm learning, what's working and what isn't, to help you in your creative journey. Why I decided to do this is because so many people in my community are asking me to have a more guided way, a more structured way to learn about Substack so that it's more logical and you can follow a sort of blueprint or a roadmap. So my goal is to try to give you that so that you can really grow in a more strategic way and not just throw spaghetti at the wall and see if it sticks, which is what I did for a very, very long time. And who is this for? So obviously it's for you. And if you're here today, I want to clarify that this is not just for beginners. If you're just starting on Substack, great, because it's going to give you a 360 blueprint, but it's also very useful if you're getting stuck somewhere. Because I will talk in future sessions about how to grow by leveraging the organic tools at Substack. And even if you're already very established, I see that some of you have over 1,000 and 2,000 subscribers. And it's great that you're here because we always have to challenge ourselves to keep raising our standards and to change what we're doing. And honestly, what made us successful in the past is not what's going to make us successful in the future. So personally myself, I'm always auditing my work and I'm always trying to see How I can improve. So I hope these will be useful. Today is session 1, and we're going to get started. One thing, my publication is called The Lemon Tree Mindset for a reason, and everything that I do really comes from a place of growth mindset. I'm a triathlete. I'm actually going to Thailand later this month to do a triathlon there, and mindset is everything, at least 50% of whatever you want to do in life, whether it's sport, whether it's your creative projects, and so on. So a couple of words about mindset. The first thing about Substack is that this is really a long-term investment. I don't have any formulas for overnight success. I don't have any shortcuts for 6 figures. So this is the wrong live session. Sorry if that's what you are expecting. It honestly took me over a year to get momentum. And I'm sharing this because it can feel very lonely and it can feel very frustrating if you're just writing and trying your best and putting in effort and you don't see the result, but treat it as an investment. Treat it as something that is really long-term where you will have eventually the return because a community, and I will use this word again and again, a community is about trust. And I'm sorry, but I don't have a shortcut to build trust. It's something that you do again and again over time. And that's why today when I see so many names like Gunnar and Joanne, it's just great to see so many people that I've connected through, throughout a very long period already. So, It does take time. Something that helps a lot as well is change the mindset. And I'm speaking for myself here, but when I started, I had this idea that I was going to grow an audience. Actually, it's not an audience. It's really a community. And a community means that you're connecting with people. It's not about subscribers. It's about connections. It's not about having 10,000 or 20,000 subscribers, but it's really about having a small community that is connected through a common goal. And if you change this mindset and if you move away from this idea of I'm growing a newsletter to I'm building my tribe, in my case is my Lemon Tree Tribe, it really helps you stay grounded. It really helps you be more human. So I really encourage you to do that. In fact, for those of you who have recently joined my newsletter, my title of my welcome email is This is not a newsletter. And I explained, this is a community. So think about that and how you can really use the power of your mindset because it's gonna, it's what's gonna take us further is what's gonna help me hopefully finish my triathlon in 2 weeks. So with this, with this framework about the mindset, I really want to get started. And what I'm going to do, so today's session is really called the basics. It's going to be about the foundation. I don't know if some of you in the audience are visual learners. Please let me know. I'm definitely a visual learner and I need to visualize. I have my notes here. Because otherwise it just doesn't sink in. And so how I'm going to explain how you can organize your publication is by using the metaphor of a house, okay? So I want you to imagine that your publication, whatever your topic is, is a house, okay? And the first message that I always tell people is that you have to have your house ready and tidy and organized and decorated before you invite the guests. Imagine that you have all these subscribers coming to you suddenly and everything is messy. You don't have anything organized. People get lost. So we don't want that. We want to make sure that we give them a great experience because it's not just about sending emails. It's about bringing people to you and giving them a great experience. So let's think about what that experience in your house looks like. The very first thing is to think about what type of event are you inviting people to come? Is it a coffee? Is it a party? Is it a barbecue? What I mean by this is that it's very important that you're very clear on what the vision is for your publication and why you're inviting people to come. And while this sounds very basic, whenever I ask people, tell me about your publication, they don't have an issue to explain it in 5 minutes. But if I ask them to use one sentence to explain what they do, most people really struggle. And that's because we want to talk about so many things and we have so many topics that we're passionate about. So it's very important to land it and to bring it home. And so a little framework that I use just for ideation, you don't have to use it like that for the actual crafting, is the following: I help X achieve Y with Z. So the big question is, who are you helping? How are you helping them? And what is that transformation? How are you going to help people? And when you shift the focus from what you do, what you talk about, me, me, me, to them and how you want to help people, everything starts to make sense and it's much easier to explain what you do. So first exercise of today, after this live session, take a piece of paper or notebook or whatever you want and do this exercise. I help X achieve Y with Z. Let me give you an example. In my case, the elementary mindset. I help writers, I help creative entrepreneurs unlock the magic of creativity to create a sustainable business. So basically what I want to do is to help people turn their creativity into their lifestyle, whether you publish books, whether you're a public speaker, I do a lot of public speaking, whether you want to grow your community, publish digital courses, all of these, even though it's different topics, it goes in the same direction. It's really helping people create a business out of what they're passionate about, Which is their creativity. So what does that look like for you? And I'm going to give you real examples from my community so that we talk about very different verticals, very different industries. Mark Furlong is one of my founding members and his publication is actually about religion. He's a former pastor and he used to say that he writes about religion. And when I had the one-to-one with him, we changed the mindset and we said, well, It's about helping, in his case, helping busy Christians reconnect with their faith. And so instead of talking about the transactional topic, you're actually taking people through a transformation. Let me give you another example. Let's say that you focus on women over 60, for example. Try to describe that transformation. What is the challenge that these people have? It might be that they want to build confidence, that they want to regain their voice, that they don't feel heard, and so you're gonna help them amplify their message. So try to think about that journey and how you're helping people. So this is what I mean by the invitation to your publication. What it looks in tactical terms is that this is going to be the short description of your publication. If you go to your settings, you will find one item there that's called short description. That is so important because it's the first thing that people are going to see when they are hesitating whether they're going to join your publication or not. They click. And that's what shows up. The elementary mindset or community of writers, of creators, or whatever that might be. Like those words are really your elevator pitch. And this is what I mean by the invitation. What are you inviting people for? What are your guests coming in for? So that's the very first thing, being very, very clear on what your topic is about. One question that I get asked very often is, should I have a niche? And, um, A niche definitely works, and if you're very passionate about one specific topic, that's great and you can stay there. If you don't have a niche and if you're more like a multi-passionate person, and I'm definitely in that second category, you actually don't need to have a niche, and it's much more about who you want to help than actually having a niche. Let me explain a little bit. In my case, I want to help writers and creators turn their business into an actual lifestyle so that they can really live out of their creativity. And so I don't only talk about Substack, for example, which is what I'm doing today. If you follow my content, and if not, I invite you to subscribe. I talk about publishing books. I talk about how to launch courses on Gumroad. I talk about the mindset. I do a lot of mindset posts and live sessions as well, because it's a huge part of what I write about. And so yes, a niche works, but do you necessarily have to have a niche? No. What you need to have is clarity, being very clear on who you want to help and how you can help them. And I think this is a big relief, so we can all breathe. We actually don't need a niche. It's okay. So this is the first thing, being very clear on who you want to target. A second exercise that works very well, and now we're gonna go a little bit deeper, is so now that you've defined what your publication is about, what your community is about, and why you're going to attract people, try to really describe the people that you're trying to attract and try to put yourself in their shoes. What challenges do they have? What is their goal? What is holding them back? In my case, for example, instead of thinking about what I want to talk about, I try to make that connection between topics that I'm passionate about And people in my community. Some of the challenges that I've heard, because I ask a lot of questions, I get a lot of feedback, is, for example, I don't know how to be more strategic with my content, or I don't know how to create an offer, or I don't know how to sell. I feel very awkward selling. So do I. I'm an introvert. I hate selling. And so try to really understand what are those challenges and how you can help them unlock those, because most people, they're looking to solve something. They're looking to achieve a challenge or conquer a challenge. They're trying to learn a skill. So really put yourself in their shoes and try to describe the challenges that they're having. I know what it is to be an author and not have anyone read your book. I know what it is to launch a Substack publication. You're full of excitement and you have 2 people like it and you are one of them. I know because I've been there. And so try to put yourself really in the shoes of the people that you're trying to attract. And have that empathy, have that emotional resonance, because that's really what's going to resonate, to let them understand I've been there. I know exactly what you've been through. So that's your second exercise. Be very clear on who are your guests, what challenges do they have, what you're trying to help them with, and what that journey looks like. And so now that we've defined what our house looks like, right? Like we want to invite people in and we want to start preparing the house, right? And making it nice for people to come. One of the challenges that I see very often when I visit other people's digital homes or publications is that everything feels like a big Pandora box. And I know because that used to be me. I just published a lot of content and then it was almost like this washing machine with a lot of different topics and themes. And while the content, I believe, was interesting, it was very difficult for someone to navigate through it. So that really wasn't a journey. It was more like this blog, endless blog, because I have already published over 400 pieces, I think. That's where I think it's very strategic for you to think about how you want to structure your house. And that's where sections come in very handy. If you're new to Substack, basically you can create sections in your publication so that instead of just having this big box, with a lot of content, you can organize it in a way that makes sense for you and in a way that is going to make sense for your guests. You have different ways of doing that. You can take a look at my publication. There are many other people who use the same approach. I use my own pillars, my content pillars to organize my content. So if you visit the Elementary Mindset, for example, you will see that I have an author's VIP corner. Now that's very handy because if Some of you come to me, hey Veronica, I'm interested in publishing, self-publishing, getting a publisher deal. Great. I send you straight into that category, into that section, and you can easily navigate and find all the resources that I have for that specific topic. Now, someone else might be more interested in the videos and the live sessions because they like this format more. And so instead of having everything blended in, I have a specific section That talks about that, where you can find every single live session. So you can go back to, to that particular area in my publication and everything is organized there. I have another one that is for mindset, for example. And so exercise for you, think about the navigation for your guests and how you can make it easier for them. Put yourself in the shoes of a stranger because so many people, when they land for the first time in your publication, They have no idea who you are. They have no idea what you talk about. And so how can you make that navigation easier and seamless so that they want to go from one place to the other and they're not getting lost? I always make this analogy that you want to have things organized so that someone who wants to go in the kitchen doesn't end up in the bathroom, right? And that's how sections come in very, very handy. What ends up happening as well, if you have your sections well organized, is that people are naturally going to stay longer. Let me give you an example, back to being an author. For example, if you want to publish a book, you might go to one of my articles that talks about how to self-publish on Amazon. You might like it, and then you might see another article that talks about how to serialize books on Substack. And so you're building this journey in a way where you're getting people longer and they are staying for a longer time, for a longer period. In your publication, which is what we want because that's what's going to build trust, right? So think about your sections and how you're going to organize them. Sections can be based on topics, but they can also be based, for example, on services, which is more horizontal. If you have services like webinars, for example, you can actually have a section dedicated to them, or if you have a coaching offer. So you can think laterally. It doesn't have to be only topic. You can be creative. In terms of how you do it. So now we already have our house decorated. We know who our guests are. We want them to come in. We have all our sections. And one thing that's very important is you. You are the host. And when people come and visit your publication, when they come and they visit your digital home, you want to give them a, like, a really nice warm welcome and let them get to know you. The person who is behind the publication. I really believe that a publication above all, it's a people business. It's not really a newsletter. It's really a people business. So who is the people? Who is the person behind that publication? That's where having a hero post makes a lot of sense. And for those of you who don't know, haven't heard the term before, it's basically a post that you pin. You can actually just click a little button there and it says pin to your publication. And that means that it's going to be boosted and it's always going to show up as your default post. If you visit mine, for example, it says that the crazy story of the Lemon Tree Mindset was born. And so instead of having the random latest post show up as the main one, you're very intentional with what you want people to see. And this matters because someone who has never seen your content before and has no idea who you are, they might feel lost if they don't have a bit of an introduction. So think about you being the host, you open the door, hi, this is Veronica, this is the Lemon Tree Mindset. That's what I mean, is giving people that warm welcome. There's not a magic formula. I don't give copy-paste templates or things like that. I don't believe in it. But what I find does help is explaining a little bit about you, your why, your vision, your origin story. I've shared my story many times and I keep on sharing it because I think it's important to explain to people why you do what you do. In my case, I used to be in the corporate world for many years. I worked at Apple, big organizations, and during COVID I was locked abroad. It wasn't intentional. I was locked abroad of where I live, Hong Kong, with my 2 daughters, and we ended up in Australia. For 6 months, I couldn't find a job. And after 6 months, I said, I'm done with this. When life gives you lemons, you have to take the seeds and plant your own lemon tree. That's the day, the exact day on the Gold Coast in Australia when I decided to start writing, when I decided to start my new path, no more excuses, not being a victim. That's my story. It's very meaningful for me. And that's why I'm here today. Without that story, I wouldn't be here. And so I do encourage people to share their story because that builds such an incredible connection with people, or it doesn't, you know, either way, it's fine. You really want to attract the people who are going to connect with you, who are going to relate to your message. So you can think about the message that is really important for you and you want to put in your hero post. And I know that every one of you has this special story of why you do what you do. Maybe you lost a loved one and you're talking about grief. Maybe you find yourself also unemployed and this is your opportunity to help other people build confidence. So whatever your story is, that is probably going to be The biggest tool that you have to attract people to you. So another exercise, take a minute to think about what is your story that you want people to know? How are you going to show up as a host where people come? Don't hide. I encourage you to have a picture, be very real. Like, this is me, this is my story, this is what I'm trying to achieve. Are you here for the journey? That's what I mean by a hero post. Many people ask me, what's the difference between a hero post and the about section? And there will be some overlap and that's normal. It has to be logical. So I'm just going to explain what my logic is, and then you can make your own interpretation and application of it. For me, the about is much more about the publication. This is what you're going to find in the Elementary Mindset. These are my sections. This is what I'm trying to achieve. This is how I can help you. And it's helping people understand what I'm doing. The hero post is much more about me. When you think of company, for example, you very often have about the company and about the founder. So that's the approach that I like to take so that it doesn't feel that I'm repeating the same thing again and again. But both sections, let's say, are definitely very helpful to welcome people in and let them know your why, your who, and a little bit more about what you're trying to create or co-create with them. So that's about The hero post and the about. And so now we have like a really nice house set up, right? Like we have our rooms, we have the invitation, we've introduced ourselves as the host, we've invited our guests. So we have everything going on for us. By the way, if you have questions, I will try to answer, but sometimes it's very fast, so I can't read fast enough. And so I want to share one thing that I added very recently. And back to my initial message, we always have to keep challenging ourselves to make it better, to innovate, to take risks. Look, it's not easy to show up in a live session solo like I'm doing today, but it's part of what we do, right? And so one thing that I added very recently is a section that is called Start Here. And I actually borrowed this idea from all the creators that I saw when I was checking different publications. And I thought it was such a nice idea. So I wanted to share openly with my community, Because I think it's definitely something that is going to help you and is going to help your subscribers have a smoother experience and navigation when they land in your publication. A Start Here is very self-explanatory. Start here. And you can think of it as a floor plan, let's say. So for example, if someone is coming for the first time and they don't know where to find what, you can use the Start Here to let them know. In my case, for example, This is what, um, the Lemon Tree Mindset is about. These are the different sections. If you're an author and you're interested in growing your author brand and sell more books, you can go here. If you're more interested in Substack, this is my experience growing my 2 different publications. Here is where you can find these and that. And so think about it as the Google Maps, right? Like someone who is coming in, my house is not that big, but imagine that it's that big. And so you give them a little bit of a floor plan so that they know where everything is. And they also know where the emergency exit is because let's normalize one thing. People leave and people unsubscribe. And I have also a lot of people who unsubscribe every day. So I want to send a message to say that it's normal. Some people come, some people go. And so that's where they start here. I find that is very helpful. I've received a lot of positive feedback and I have had a lot of people in my community who have started to use the same approach as well, because it's a nice way, even for you, to think for a moment on what that navigation and what that experience looks like for your guests. And so now we have organized pretty much everything, right? Like we have our theme, we have organized the different topics, we have our about, we have the start here. There is one final thing that I wanted to talk about that is extremely important. And for many people, it's an afterthought. It's the most important email that you will ever send your subscribers. I'm talking about the welcome email. The welcome email is the very first thing that they're going to receive when they said, yes, I want to subscribe to you. So that's your one opportunity to make a first impression. We make a first impression in less than 7 seconds, and the same happens in in the digital world, if not faster. So when someone receives that email, their attention span is probably very short already. They receive dozens, if not hundreds of emails daily, and it's important to pause a moment, go back to your welcome email, whether it's for your free subscribers or your paid subscribers, and look at it from the perspective of someone who is a little bit fatigued from all these emails. How are you going to stand out? How are you going to make a great impression? How are you going to let them know Why they should be excited and why they should look forward to being in your community. I'm always looking at new ways of engaging my subscribers from that very first welcome email. And one of the things that I changed recently, I mentioned it earlier in the session, is that I changed the title and I changed it to, this is not a newsletter. And then I start to explain what I mean by that is my vision that this is really not a newsletter. It's not about just sending emails and having numbers. It's really about community. And I explain what I mean by that. I have a group chat that is very active. I like, I have live sessions like today where we have over 60 people coming together to talk about how to turn our creativity into our business and our lifestyle. I have a lot of masterminds. Recently I launched cohorts as well. So that's what I mean by this is not a newsletter. I have a lot of tips on what you can do for your welcome email, but the key is really find ways to connect. One little tip that I did recently, and again, I had a lot of engagement and positive feedback, so I want to share it with you, is have a welcome video. Very short welcoming video. I think it's 60 seconds or less, and it's something that surprises people because most of the time we are dehumanizing content with AI, with frameworks, with tips, all these things. And so actually having a real human who is talking to you, it feels awkward these days, but in a positive way. So if you're brave, I dare you to experiment with the videos. I think it is a great way to connect and to bring back the human element that is so needed. So with this, today's promise was to talk through the basics and really how to set up your publication so that it's not just a publication, but it becomes a town hall. Right? It becomes this community where people want to hang out, where people want to stay longer. They want to navigate. They want to know about your story. So I hope I kept my promise on that. One final tip that again very often becomes an afterthought is when you're thinking about the journey of your readers, of your subscribers, never lead them to a dead end. And I see this so often. You might read a post that is great from another writer, and then there's really nothing at the end, or the call to action is just subscribe, but you're actually not giving me a real reason why I should keep that relationship going. And so if you're not creating a journey, then it just becomes a blog and you read an article and you're gonna move on with your life and you're going to do something else. What happens afterwards? Try to make sure that every time you send something, There's a next step. And I'm not talking about selling. The next step could be like, hey, if you enjoyed today's live session, by the way, and this is true, next week I will do the same. And next week we're actually going to talk about how to use the organic tools in Substack to grow in an organic way, which is what I have done. So that's exactly what I've done here. Instead of just saying, this is a live session, it's over, go on with your life, try to really make it easy for people to follow, make it easy for them to know what's next. That's how you build trust. That's how you go from transactional to transformational. So instead of doing more, sometimes it's about doing the same thing, but with more intention. So everything I talked about today is about being intentional. How are you decorating your home? Who are you inviting? How are you making sure that they have a great experience? How is the navigation? All of this is about Intention. So I really hope that this was helpful. If you enjoyed it, I will make sure that I get back to you with all the comments afterwards. I will pause the recording. And as I said, next week I will have the session 2 out of 4. So thank you so much. I can't believe that we have 65 people showing up for this. So thank you. Bye. Bye.