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ShaeP's avatar

As a newbie trying to find my friends on this platform this is super helpful to read!

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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

I am so happy you're finding the information helpful!! It makes the suffering worth it. Thank you for the kind words! 🖤

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The Three Candlesticks's avatar

That you so much for the tips you have laid out here - I will definitely be looking into these moving forward. It can be disheartening that we have to court the algorithm in a way, but if that’s what it takes…

Thank you for the advice - it’s super helpful!

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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

I absolutely and totally understand that. It’s maddening. But, once you get the hang of it, it makes such a difference that it’s definitely worth it.

Being able to google three keywords and see my publication taking up the whole first page on Google? I almost cried. Traffic shot up. I gained roughly 30 subscribers overnight.

It’s worth it. Your work, your writing, and your voice are worth it. Think of how much blood, sweat, and tears that you’ve put into your art—this is not any more work.

It’s different work. Different doesn’t have to be hard. We can do it together 🖤🌙

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The Three Candlesticks's avatar

Thank you! Super inspiring and yes, let’s do it! 👏👏

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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

And, if that doesn’t work, we go nuclear. ✨

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The Three Candlesticks's avatar

That’s plan B! 👍

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E.J. Moon's avatar

This. Post is sooo good. Thank you for all this info, it is very well put together.

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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

Thank you so much for the kind words! I'm happy that my suffering is being put to good use. Together, we will make the algorithm weep. 🖤🌙

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Eric's avatar

The Eternal Kingdom of Innocence

It is 1977. A gallon of gasoline costs 65 cents, Voyager 1 and 2 are launched on their way to make the first unmanned landing on Mars, the miniseries Roots is the year‘s top rated show, the movie Star Wars breaks all box office records, and Elvis dies at the age of 42 while sitting on the toilet.   

It is a simpler time: no home computers, no internet, and no cell phones (if you have to make a call, you either use a pay phone or call from your house). There is almost no cable television and where you can find it, (usually at a social club), you have only eight or nine channels to choose from.  The structure of the average family in the home is much simpler too: usually just a married couple with kids, with maybe a stray grandparent or two.

I was twelve years old then and still so full of life. I lived in an incredible Kingdom where I was free to go anywhere and do anything I wanted, just as long as I wasn’t late for supper and I didn’t get caught. There was no checking in or having to stay within sight. Heck, I didn’t even start to head for home until my mother called out my name three times from the front door.

On any given day, I could be found running everywhere, like a gazelle, along with my two best friends Grant and Bryon. We constantly cried out just to release the pent up energy that vibrated through our youthful bodies. We could do anything we wanted to do, but we usually spent most of our time trying to find the limitless boundaries to our Wondrous Kingdom. For we were Kings in Our World, and, best of all, we knew it.

There was no place we were afraid to explore: from the very top of an ancient oak tree, to the dark, musky, 200 foot drainage pipe that ran into Mule Deer Lake. Anywhere and everywhere we could be found blazing a trail where, we imagined, no one had gone before. We were Magellan, Cortez, and Columbus all rolled into one.

Every day brought us new adventure: we awoke to the expectation of expanding our experience, and pushing back the boundary of the unknown. It wasn’t just the physical world we tried to expand, but also a world that for us contained magic, and mythical beasts of all size and nature. We could, for example, at any time conjure up a Tyrannosaurus Rex and pit it in deadly combat against the greatest agents of evil, either Nazi’s, or our neighborhood bullies.

There was no limit to what we could do; we could cross time and space. Our neighborhood more often than not was transformed into Camelot, Omaha Beach, or an alien planet in a distant solar system. Sticks and broom handles became steel swords that clashed together over and over in a frenzy of manic energy. Death rays shot from squirt guns vaporizing beasts too horrifying to imagine. And no day was complete without someone or something getting blown up by a pine-cone hand grenade or being sprayed by an imaginary machine gun.

This World belonged to us, and it was completely separate from the ordinary, dull World of our parents. I’m sure that there were times when they looked down at us and wondered just what planet we were from. I think that planet was Pluto... Not all of our adventures were fantastic though… Once in a while reality came crashing through, and we ran headlong into it on the Fourth of July, 1977…

We were going to sleep out on my family’s boat that night and watch the fireworks show. We stuffed ourselves that afternoon on hot dogs and potato chips that they were giving away at the clubhouse. Around six o’clock, after spending the day playing by the pool, we got started preparing for our night sleeping under the stars. Grant brought the comic collection that we were going to read by flashlight, Bryon brought the sodas, and I brought the candy bars and more potato chips.

We had just dragged our sleeping bags and stash down the steep steps that ran down to the dock when we heard someone yelling from across the lake. The state park was in that direction, and only a couple hundred feet away. We watched a half dozen boats crowding together over there near the beach .One of the boats belonged to the local police, so we knew something bad had happened.

“Hey, what’s going on?” we quickly called over as we started settling in for the night.

They called back that a drunken man had fallen over the side of his boat and had never resurfaced.  The body still hadn’t been found by dark, and they soon had to give up on the search. It was still there later that night, only 200 feet away, when the sky suddenly exploded with bursts of red, white, and blue. As soon as the fireworks started, we were startled by loud splashes that broke out all around us.

We all cried out, thinking that the drowned man’s body had somehow come back to life and was trying to climb out of the water to get us. As we looked away from the fireworks display and our eyes readjusted, we could see that it was just fish leaping out of the water. They were attracted by the flashes of light in the sky thinking that the explosions were food. The splashing stopped as soon as the show ended, and the lake became so still and quiet you could hear your own heart beating.The sky was perfectly clear. Intense, bright moonlight lit up the water, creating sparkling diamonds as the wakes slowly crossed back and forth.

But for us, the lake had become very dark, and as the night wore on this darkness grew all around us. None of us slept after that, no matter how late it got, nor how tired we got, we just couldn’t settle down. Something had changed… We weren’t quite sure what had changed, but nothing was the same after that night.

Our youthful spirit had forever slipped away and something else had taken its place.

We couldn’t see it, we couldn’t touch it, we couldn’t smell it, we couldn’t even hear it.

But there it was, just the same, lingering around just beyond our grasp.

 It was stalking us, trying to break into our Kingdom.

And no matter how hard we tried, we just couldn’t keep it out.

It was Death…   

Oh, we had seen people die on TV and in movies

Over and over again

And it never seemed to bother us.

But this was different,

This was real,

The Grim Reaper was real.

No amount of imagination could change it

Or make it go away.

We had lost our innocence that night;

The Eternal Prince had crept up

And snatched it away from us.

 He had taken away our immortality, our kingdom, and replaced our eternity.

We were no longer going to live forever.

His Specter would now haunt us until our dying days.

We knew that “The End” was coming,

We just didn’t know where or when.

With each passing year I can feel Him

 Slowly creeping up on me.

On cold nights in the deepest dead of winter

I can sense Him lurking somewhere nearby.

During these times I can even feel His frosty breath blowing

Softly across the back of my neck.

It chills my heart and seeps its way into my aged bones.

So as each year passes on…

And I think back on those much simpler times…

The more I miss The Kingdom...

And the more I miss

Our Beloved Eternity…

https://substack.com/@eric13bravo

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Jay Wilcox's avatar

Great stuff. Thank you

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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

I’m glad you liked it! Was it the slow realization that I lost my sanity along the way? Or the SEO stuff? 💀

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Jay Wilcox's avatar

A bit of both lol

I admit, I don't fully understand SEO and would love to get better at it

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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

I love that! I'm actually polishing up a 'newbie guide to SEO,' so if you have any questions, ask away!

I've been so deep in the trenches that I want to make sure I'm covering the right things.

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Andrew Taylor's avatar

That Sitemap thing is great, and this whole post is *awesome*.

fyi for anyone that wants to pull off that link magic she talked about, different sites, and pages within the site, have different levels of “reputation”.

Medium links to your stack shout “high quality legit” and Insta bio links shout “maybe a bot”.

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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

WONDERFUL ADDITION!!! Thank you for this!! And thank you for the kind words 🖤🌙

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Liudmila Brus's avatar

"Manually enter URLs to force indexing. (Sometimes using your URL and adding “/sitemap.xml” will work)

Create a “fake” sitemap by posting your archive on a public Substack post"

Will you please explain this to a noob?

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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

I would love to!

The sitemap will look like a whole bunch of code. Think of this as the search engines map to your content. Sure, it can index your pages without it but... good luck. Google is like a toxic partner. If you don't tell it VERY directly how to find something, it'll pretend it's impossible locate.

So, for example, to get my sitemap, I used my URL (Nocturnal Narrator . com) and added /sitemap.xml to the end (NocturnalNarrator . com / sitemap.XML with no spaces but I didn't want it to embed the stupid link lol) That should bring up a whole bunch of code.

If it DOES you'll just use that URL and paste it into your Google Console under "Sitemaps,"

...If it DOESN'T, shoot me a message and I'll help you beat it into submission. ✨

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Leeron Heywood's avatar

Thanks for the guide, this was laid out very digestibly. I would like to add my vote for “pls do a newb starter SEO guide”.

Not wanting to cause email overload was a serious concern for me because I’m doing daily microfiction. After looking through some SS guides I went with creating a section in my publication for the dailies that by default people *aren’t* subscribed to, then telling them in my welcome email that they can get daily releases if they want. Otherwise they get the daily releases listed in a weekly roundup post.

The reason I wanted it to be an option is I have health issues which affect my cognition, and often small daily messages feel doable when a larger weekly one doesn’t. Brains are weird. 😆 So far it seems like most people stick with the weekly email option, but I do have some people who turned the dailies on.

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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

Thank you, I'm glad that this helped!!! I have started outlining a "newb starter SEO guide" because, if for no other reason, to save someone else's favorite coffee mug from "SEO induced blunt force trauma"

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Asteria Geisterblum's avatar

That was very informative and extremely interesting to me; however, I’m a management girl, I hide under the desk when marketing enters our floor so I have absolutely no clue on how to work Google or SEO 🥲 you’d definitely have me reading the how to if you ever decide to do one

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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

For you, I will.

But don’t think that I’m doing this out of the kindness of my heart—

It is only because I admire, appreciate, respect, and support you. I also wish you nothing but the best and will destroy anything that stands in the way of you achieving your dreams. And that includes SEO.

Just so we’re clear 😠🖤

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Asteria Geisterblum's avatar

why would you make me cry at 8:32 in the morning 🥹💛 you know what—give me a second

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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

HEY THAT’S NOT FAIR NOW I HAVE TO GO CRY AGAIN 😭 Ohhhhh no.

I hope you know that this means war. I am going to show you support until my limbs fall off.

Insert “Be Prepared” meme

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Asteria Geisterblum's avatar

Half of me is worried about the consequences, the other half smiling because I hope you enjoyed it 😂💛

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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

I wish you could hear the villain laugh behind my screen (listen closely, you might be able to) because, one thing I know I'm good at? Reciprocating effort. 🥰🥂 Let the games begin! (but make it wholesome)

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A. R. Eldridge's avatar

This was so helpful I’ve saved it and have made it a todo list. Especially the backlinks and sitemap stuff.

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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

I’m so glad you found it helpful! Let me know if you need any assistance with the site map portion.

I, unfortunately, have a very long history with that particular demon 😒

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Bradley Ramsey's avatar

This was absolutely phenomenal! Every single tip and strategy here was explained really well, and done so in a way where anyone, regardless of their experience, could find plenty to take away. I really enjoy your writing style and voice as well, it's very personable and easy to read.

Thank you as well for the wonderful shout out!

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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

Wow, thank you 🖤🌙 All of the thanks goes to you and Johnathan, truly. I’m not flattering you for the algorithm, either. 💀

I have experience with marketing and SEO, and still never even considered incorporating what little (very little) I did know—which is exponentially more now, thanks again—into my Substack pieces. Your posts and advice are the whole reason I wrote this so thank YOU guys.

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Malcolm Embers's avatar

I'm honestly so dumb I didn't know what SEO meant before reading this, and now I do

Truly informative!

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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

First, you are not dumb. This information took a lot of trial and error (much more error). But if I saved even a shred of your sanity, then it was worth all worth it.

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Malcolm Embers's avatar

It's really that I have almost no experience with social media, no accounts anywhere else or whatever, but I started this whole thing because my telephone told me it was a good idea. And so far it seems like pretty great advice

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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

We (me and the Void demons) are happy you’re here 🖤🌙 if you have questions or would like me to elaborate on anything, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Though, that said, I am not an expert. I’m not even rookie. I’m just the jaded ex that has no problem telling absolute strangers all about my terrible experiences with their new friend (the algorithm, Substack, whatever the hell LSI is).

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Thomas Cargen's avatar

Very thoughtful and Informative. Technically speaking... it is clear well done, and simple yet comprehensive, but like a fast page turner of a story - rare.

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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

Thank you so much 🖤 It’s very appreciated.

I figured I could throw a post together and hopefully prevent another smashed keyboard.

Not my keyboard, of course. My keyboard is totally fine. I’m an emotionally stable adult ˙ᵕ˙

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Thomas Cargen's avatar

Well, that sounds better than

Smashing a fan. When it's running. With bare hands. Then doubling down because it cut you and is now instantly drawn into the battle as a new adversary instead of the random closest object that drew attention to itself. Spinning peacefully and all. If you spin them by the cable like a hammer throw ( in a moonit yard), it's an impressive distance projectile; bout 200 feet - Ish. So I've heard.

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User's avatar
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Apr 17
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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

Thank you so much! I absolutely mailed every single post when I first started. It's whatever works best for you and your subscribers—and some of mine actually cheered when I announced I wouldn't be doing that anymore, so 😅 do with that what you will.

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Apr 17
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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

I was worried about the same thing!

Shockingly, I got much MORE engagement doing it this way. By sending a weekly update (includes links to everything I’ve worked on in the week), they can open the email at their leisure, click on the links in whatever order, whenever they have time.

But when you’re emailing every day, or a bunch in one day, sometimes that turns people off entirely.

Think about your own online activities - how would someone hook YOU? What makes you open, click, read, share? You don’t need any of the Indeed-fluencer engagement hacks or click bait. You don’t even need this post tbh.

Just content that you love, and an understanding of your ideal audience. 🖤🌙 You’ll find the groove for them! Even when I was emailing every day, they stuck around. They just didn’t open them. My open rates at the beginning were atrocious 😅

Keep the questions coming, I love it!

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Apr 17
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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

Here are some examples! And ask all of the questions that your heart desires. Come back in two days and ask fifty more. If I'm helping another creator, I'm happy 🖤🌙

https://nocturnalnarrator.substack.com/t/nocturnal-news

Basically, I open a "new post" every week for my "Newsletter Draft."

Whenever I write something, change my publication in any way, or have a good idea I want feed back on, I dump it into that draft through out the week.

I also dump any keywords, title ideas, whatever, directly into the draft.

Then, usually the day before, I go through and organize it by putting everything into categories (outlined in the Newsletter Template!)

Then email and publish that one! I also have a "nocturnal newsletter" tag so anyone can go back through and read any updates they may have missed!

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Apr 17
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Nocturnal Narrator's avatar

I’m not the hero Substack wanted.

Nor am I the hero that they need.

That’s all you guys.

But I write pretty and have a tragic backstory that made me funny ✨

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