Substack + YouTube Is the Best Discovery Engine for Your Business

Turn one Substack video into double Google visibility

Aug 31, 2025

What if I told you that every time you published a single video, Google would give you two search results instead of one? Twice the visibility, twice the credibility with no extra work.

That’s the power of pairing Substack with YouTube.

Substack has a quiet little feature that lets you upload your video once and it automatically publishes to your connected YouTube channel. That means you’re not just showing up on YouTube search, you’re also getting indexed on Google twice — once through your Substack video post and again for YouTube. One effort, two results.

For cozy business owners and solopreneurs, this is huge. It means you don’t have to live on the social media hamster wheel, constantly churning out disappearing posts. Instead, you can build a discovery engine that compounds over time, quietly attracting the right readers, clients, and customers while you focus on doing the work you love. ❤️

The Problem with Traditional Social Media

If you’ve been trying to grow a business online, you already know the hamster wheel.

Instagram posts vanish in 24 hours.
TikToks burn bright and die fast.
LinkedIn feeds bury your content by lunchtime.

And the worst part? The audience doesn’t even belong to you, it belongs to the platform. The algorithm decides who sees your content, when, and for how long.

That’s exhausting for a creator or business owner who doesn’t want to spend every waking minute performing online. You need something sustainable, something with roots.

Why Substack Works So Well

Substack feels like coming home. It’s slower, deeper and built on a much slower moving feed. But it’s also powerful as a discovery tool.

Here’s why:

SEO Still Matters — Every Substack post is indexed by Google. That means a post you publish today can bring in new readers months or even years from now. Substack posts will always rank higher than YourBusinessName.com because of the domain authority associated with Substack. Your business domain has very little ranking authority and will never make the AI overview page. Substack.com has high domain authority and your post on Substack will show pages in front of the same post on your own website.
Network Effects — When other writers recommend you, their readers discover you. That’s word-of-mouth, digitized. Notes is also a good way to find other Substack readers who might be interested in your publication. Substack has a built in discovery engine from within its own ecosystem.
Multi-Format Hub — You can write, podcast, livestream, manage your community and embed videos all in one place. No need to scatter yourself across ten platforms.
Ownership — Unlike Instagram or TikTok, your audience belongs to you. Substack delivers directly to inboxes, the app, and the web. You own your list and you get multiple distribution channels with one publish button.

Substack is wonderful for discovery on its own. But when you connect it to YouTube? That’s where the magic happens.

Why YouTube Works So Well

YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world, right behind Google. People go there with search intent to solve problems, learn & find answers.

A few reasons YouTube is still unmatched for discovery:

Evergreen Search: A video you publish today can keep getting views for years.
Trust Factor: Seeing your face and hearing your voice builds connection faster than text alone.
Algorithm Rewards Consistency: You don’t have to go viral. Steady uploads, even simple ones, get rewarded over time.
Repurposing Made Easy: One video can be clipped, embedded, turned into text or shared to other platforms.

Not everyone wants to run a full YouTube channel. The editing, the thumbnails, the grind often feels like another job.

But Substack makes YouTube feel easier, downright cozy even.

The Secret Weapon: Substack Auto-Publishing to YouTube

Here’s the part most people don’t know, Substack can auto-publish any video you upload to a connected YouTube channel.

That means:

You record or upload your video on Substack.
Substack automatically publishes it to your linked YouTube channel.
Google indexes it twice: once as a YouTube video and once as a Substack post. Bonus points if your Substack post has text too!

One video, two search engines, zero extra work.

And the algorithms love this. By showing up for both YouTube and Substack on Google Search for the same topic, you build topical authority. You’re signaling to the AI overview that you know what you’re talking about, and that credibility stacks up over time.

For creators, coaches and small business, that’s discovery on autopilot.

How the Loop Works

Think of Substack + YouTube as a discovery-and-retention loop.

Step 1: Someone searches for a topic → they find your YouTube video.
Step 2: They click through to your Substack link in the description.
Step 3: They subscribe to your Substack publication → now they’re in your cozy circle.
Step 4: Your next post lands in their inbox → keeping them warm and connected.

Or, it might happen the other way around:

Step 1: Someone Googles a question → they land on your Substack post.
Step 2: They see your embedded video → they click through to YouTube.
Step 3: They binge more of your content → YouTube suggests you to even more people.

Each platform feeds the other and both keep feeding your business.

A Cozy Example

One of my recent clients came to me overwhelmed. She wanted to start a Substack but she also worried she wouldn’t have time to start a YouTube channel.

Within two hours, we had her Substack live, her workflows set up and her YouTube channel quietly connected.

Now, when she posts a single video to Substack, it’s doing double duty:

It appears in her subscribers’ inboxes.
It lives forever on her Substack blog (indexed by Google).
It automatically publishes to YouTube (indexed again).

She’s not hustling for likes on Instagram or chasing the algorithm on TikTok. She’s building steady, compounding visibility with tools that love her back.

How to Get Started

If you want to set up your own Substack + YouTube discovery engine, here are three simple steps:

Create or revive your YouTube channel. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just connect it to your Substack.
Connect your YouTube channel under Settings in your publication, it’s almost at the bottom of the page.
Start publishing on Substack first. Think of Substack as your home base. Upload your videos here, then let the auto-publish handle YouTube.
Repurpose smartly. Write a short article to go with your video. That gives you another double-index effect, Google finds both the written text and the video.

That’s it. No complicated funnel. No endless editing. Just a cozy system that compounds quietly over time.

Your energy is precious. You don’t want to burn it all on social media posts that disappear overnight.

By leaning into Substack and YouTube, you’re building a business that works in the background. Your content keeps getting discovered while you’re living your life.

And that’s the heart of a cozy business, work that loves you back, even while you rest. ❤️

Final Thoughts

Substack + YouTube isn’t about hustling harder. It’s about planting seeds that keep growing long after you’ve moved on to other things.

With this double-discovery loop, you can:

Get found on Google.
Build trust through video.
Own your audience through email.
And do it all with minimal effort.

If you’re ready to stop chasing algorithms and start building a discovery engine that loves you back, Substack and YouTube are your new best friends.

📌 Want Help Setting This Up?

If you’d like me to help you turn Substack into your cozy business hub and connect it to YouTube so you can double your discoverability, I offer done-for-you and done-with-you Substack setup packages.