Substack as Your Business Hub
Skip the Website, Substack Is All You Need
Still paying for a domain name no one ever types into a browser? In late-stage creator economy your “official website” doesn’t mean what it used to, and if you’re a writer, coach, or solo creator, it might actually be holding you back.
Skip the Website
Until recently, having a shiny website meant credibility. People could Google you, land on your site, and maybe even buy something.
But today? Google search won’t bring you clients. That’s not how discovery works anymore. If you’re coaching, writing books, consulting or building a personal brand Google search won’t do anything for you.
Substack.com carries domain authority.
Using yourname.substack.com means your posts here will rank higher than if they appeared on your own website. This is why I don’t use a custom domain for any of my Substack publications, I want the gravitas of the substack.com extension to boost my rank.
Substack is much more than a newsletter.
Think of Substack as a digital publishing ecosystem. In plain terms: it’s your hosting platform, blog, mailing list, podcast, video outreach, live-stream, community management and storefront all under one rent-free roof.
Substack is giving you this free space to build your business in exchange for 10% of your profits once you monetize with paid subscribers. Better yet, you can also earn from:
Digital Product Sales
Coaching & Consulting Sales
Physical Product Sales
Webinars & Live Events
Private Community Access
All roads lead to Substack.
Substack becomes the place you send everyone. And not just to the home page of your publication or your profile, but to specialized landing pages tailored to specific readers & potential clients. You no longer need a dozen apps, hosting plans or the premium tools that used to be required to build a system like this.
How it was.
You needed a WordPress website with like 30 plugins, then you needed an email service like Kit, a shopping cart like WooCommerce, Calendly, Teachable, Kajabi, Skool, Patreon and . . . I could go on but you get the point.
How it is now.
I run my entire business right here on Substack with Google Workspace for client work & digital product delivery and the native Stripe integration for payment processing. Zero subscriptions.
How do people find you?
Substack does double duty as both my website and one of my discovery engines. The built in Notes feature allows my work to be seen by other people using the Substack app. But I don’t stop there and neither should you.
YouTube
I have two YouTube channels, one that’s a talk-to-camera guide to building a cozy business, the other is a faceless tutorial channel and both lead straight to Substack.
Pinterest & Facebook
Though I swore off both of these years ago, I’ve decided that in the spirit of fairness I’ll give then an honest go in Q4. Meta has recently changed the monetization for pages on Facebook and I have to admit I’m intrigued. I’ll bring you a full report soon.
How to Set Up Your Substack Hub
Here’s how I set up a Substack hub for a coach or solo business:
Custom Pages → Landing pages, sales pages, consulting offers.
Segments → Sub-lists tailored to different readers
Stripe → Sell digital products, invoice for client work, even accept donations without paying Buy Me a Coffee’s cut.
Chat & DMs → I never cold-outreach. Every client I’ve signed on Substack found me through organic conversation in comments & chat.
Custom Pages
The custom pages feature (in your publication settings about 2/3 of the way down the page) is the key. Use these to create inbound landing pages, digital product sales pages, service and consulting pages — you can add as many pages as you need to create your offers and funnels.
Segments
Segment your lists if you have a variety of offers or digital products. Use your landing pages to build out sublists of readers or clients who are only interested in one aspect of your work. For instance, I’m working on landing pages for my clients who just want Substack help vs clients who need my help with a book project. I’ll be able to tailor my content to better serve both groups.
Stripe Integration
Stripe is an underrated powerhouse. I use it to sell and delivery (with Google Drive) all my digital products (I no longer give Gumroad 10% of my sales when I was driving all of them anyway). I also use it to invoice for client work and even for donations instead of Buy Me a Coffee. It’s free aside from the 2.7% transaction fee they take as the card processor.
Chat & Direct Messaging
Substack chat is going to be the break out winner in 2026. If my gut is right, we’re going to see increasing ability to manage our communities in chat rolled out next year by Substack. Making full use of this feature and testing things I can share with you is on my list for next quarter.
Substack Client Workflow
Once someone decides to hire me, I move the conversation off Substack to a private async workspace on Google Drive. They join the workspace through a link I drop in a DM or email. All of our work goes into this folder, they keep it forever, and everything feels seamless.
[If you want to know more about async client work, check out this post.]
Substack is Zero Risk, High Reward
You can literally start a fully functioning business right here, with zero money up front. You won’t be an overnight success but, if you’re consistent and add value to this community you WILL grow. I booked my first client just 17 days into my Substack journey and you can too.
This isn’t about growing a 10K subscriber base. It’s about connecting with the RIGHT reader, client or customer that is aligned to you and your unique solution to their problem.
If you want help turning Substack into your business hub, send me a message. No pressure, no sales pitch, just straight answers with maybe a cookie or two thrown in for good measure. I’m happy to help.🥰
This is all so brilliant!
very good writeup