A reader arrives on your Substack homepage. Seven signals decide whether they hit Subscribe or back-button. Subtitle. Does it tell them what they'll get. Cover image. Does it look cared-for. Subscriber count. Social proof. Paid tier. Does it exist, and is the pricing sane. Recent post. Does this still exist, or is it abandoned. Podcast option. Some readers want voice instead of text. That's the whole decision matrix on page one.
The Substack Newsletter Audit grades each one from the public home page. No login needed.
The freshness signal is the one that bites most. Writers ship hard for three months, hit a wall, and their last post sits at three weeks old. Any visitor during that window silently assumes the project is dead. The fix isn't miraculous consistency. It's a holding pattern: a short monthly "still here, still thinking about X" note. Costs 20 minutes, keeps the newest-post timestamp green.
Methodology: Chapter 15 of The $97 Launch, Substack & Newsletter Revenue Strategies. For email-list building specifically, Chapter 44 of The $100 Network, Email List Building. The Algorithm-Proof Channel.