32 Comments
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Meera Menon's avatar

Love this 😀 ❤. Makes my life easier!

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Yara Abboud's avatar

Love your advice especially the you don't have to reinvent the wheel each time.

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Aun Jafri's avatar

Brilliant reminder, Matt. Consistency compounds faster when you stop worshipping “perfect” drafts. I’ve seen solopreneurs triple their visibility once they treat writing like reps, not art.

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Matt Giaro's avatar

Glad it resonated, Aun

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Brian R King, MSW's avatar

Thanks Matt, I'll be trying this.

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Matt Giaro's avatar

let me know how it goes

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Naomi Esther's avatar

Thank you! Very helpful article

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BarbaraMac's avatar

Great advice as always, Matt. I was surprised by your advice on titles. I'll surely try it. Thanks.

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Matt Giaro's avatar

enjoy

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Kristian Rasmussen's avatar

Good input. Thanks.

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Pauline Sargisson's avatar

Have you been spying on me?? 😂😂 Very good advice. Practice makes perfect, but dont aim for perfect, get publishing!

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Flora M Brown's avatar

Your post resonates with me and has inspired me to tighten my process, especially with using three types of posts and creating the headline first. I’m off to write my posts faster and more successfully than ever. When I can create a post in 25 minutes. I’ll jump for joy. Thank you.

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Matt Giaro's avatar

glad to hear that.

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Jordan's avatar

Matt,

I never thought to settle my post title (and subtitle) first rather than after. But that does make a lot of sense because the writer should be able to describe their post in a nutshell before they write it, with clean simple, and attractive words.

Thanks for the advice.

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Matt Giaro's avatar

Glad it resonated, J.

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Eljon de Ocampo's avatar

I’ve been blogging since 2021, and a lot has changed since then, especially in SEO. Do you think people still read purely informational content now that AI is everywhere? Should we make our posts more personal and experience-based? I’m taking the personal approach, but I’m still not sure if I’m doing it right.

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Matt Giaro's avatar

personality and first-hand insights are the most valuable for sure

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Laura Howard's avatar

I like this outline you laid out

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Matt Giaro's avatar

glad it resonated

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Matthew James Price's avatar

Great advice, thanks Matt!

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Matt Giaro's avatar

glad to hear that

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ProfessorTom's avatar

I think using AI to write the post isn't real writing. People want to read people, not what a computer generated.

Also, when it comes to blog templates, I've never found writing templates to be that useful. If I have something to say, I say it in my own words without some prefabricated "paint-by-the-numbers" outline.

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Matt Giaro's avatar

I respect that, but disagree. And you know what? I think that’s okay.

Because some people will resonate with your approach.

Thanks for the kind comment and restack, Professor.

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Luke J. Wilson's avatar

Thanks for this. I've been trying to adapt my blog writing to speed things up but your point got having set structures or templates is likely the key I've been missing out overlooking. I'll give it a try

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Luke J. Wilson's avatar

Btw as a side question: how do you sell courses etc to your email list without pushing people away? Or being too "salesy"?

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Matt Giaro's avatar

don’t make it about your product. make it about the idea.

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ProfessorTom's avatar

I think the answer is you don't.

You have to be constantly selling, otherwise people will think all you offer is free content and will be repulsed when you do finally send them an offer.

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Matt Giaro's avatar

agreed

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Luke J. Wilson's avatar

Hmm ok. I mean, I do write and sell books as well which my subscribers know. I've just been wondering how to transition into online courses (and what format too, but that's a separate issue)

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ProfessorTom's avatar

You may need to define your question about transitioning more before I could attempt to answer that.

One approach here on Substack is that you can use Substack to send out emails to just subscribers without posting to your site. So you can "advertise" that way, telling your subscribers, "hey, I have a course you might be interested in." Of course, your course (of course) needs to be hosted elsewhere.

As for what format, it can be an email course (they get an email every day) or on a platform like Circle. I think you have to decide if you want to build a community or if you just want people to buy something from you.

And of course, your course can also be a book. Or you can turn your books into courses.

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Luke J. Wilson's avatar

Great thanks, given me a lot to think about :)

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ProfessorTom's avatar

My DMs are open if you want to talk further.

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