Cover Image Source: Medium.com
Semi-Organized Lists of Tips I’ve Learned in the Past Year Writing Over 300 Stories
Warning: This post doesn’t have epic formatting, so don’t use this one as a reference for formatting a story!
Write Every Day
The more you post, the more views you get. The more views you get, the higher the “ranks” you move. The higher the “rank”, the higher visibility you get for and from publications, Medium, and the daily and weekly digests. It’s as simple as that.
Comment More
Provide insightful comments to top writer’s stories. They get tons of views and people read the comments they get. If you write something good, they may click on your profile. Also add tags to your insightful comments!
Use Top Tags
Find tags with at least 50k uses and always use them (Credit: Florin Badita):
Inside the TOP 1000 tags on Medium.com — Part 1
Get More View on Your Medium Posts
In the following video from Tom Kuegler, you’ll learn how to get more views, have nice links to previous stories you wrote, how to tag people (like I did just above), and how to feature a story to get more views on it:
Format Your Stories Nicely
Put a cover photo above the title.
Photos of people or cute puppies work best.
Photos of women work even better.
Make cover photo larger than width of text (see mine above).
Make photo full-width if and only if it takes less than a full page height (favour wide photos).
Don’t describe your cover photo, just put the reference.
Use a subtitle.
Limit number of links to outside things (unless absolutely needed).
Insert “horizontal bar” between each Title (the … or the green bar I’m using).
Create your own horizontal bar or steal mine from above.
Put photos sparingly. A single photo at the top is good for stories of 1–5 minutes. 5+ minutes may require another photo to catch the attention again.
Titles in caps. Subtitles is debatable.
Questions on separate lines, in italic. Ask a few questions to your reader in each post.
Short 2–4 lines paragraphs.
Use one-line sentences for emotion-grabbing sentences or questions.
Put in bold things you want your audience to highlight.
Put in super quote what you want your audience to remember (and highlight).
Be conversational as much as possible.
Be positive.
Negativity can be used for humour, but “hate” posts rarely work.
Keep sections to between 2–5 paragraphs (text below a Title or Subtitle).
Reference your other stories at the bottom, you don’t want them to leave without reading the current one. Give them a chance to clap and comment (I failed on this story).
Have a (great) actionable or inspiring conclusion.
Pump readers to action near the end, give actionable items they can do to apply tips from story.
Recall your story’s title in the conclusion.
Have the same saying in each story at the very end of your conclusion (mine is: You can do this!).
Have a call to action at the bottom.
Write Great Content
Use power words in your headlines (at least one, preferably 2): https://ninjaoutreach.com/words-to-write-better-headlines/. Shoutout to Dave Schools and Anthony Moore for their awesome courses/webinar, providing top-class tips on how to craft solid headlines.
Put powerful quotes from “famous” people.
Start with a powerful quote.
Ask relatable questions to your audience every 1–2 minutes of reading time (200 +/- 50 words). This brings everything back to them.
Write as you would talk (with some minor editing to curses).
Write like you’re having a dialogue, not a monologue.
Listicles work great.
Quotes drive engagement.
Pure stories with no “what’s in it for me” don’t do well.
A good balance of “what’s in it for me” (You) and personal stories (Me) is powerful:
— Me -> You -> Me -> You = Good (I tend to use this one because it’s easier to put people in context, but it’s not as effective).
— You -> Me -> You = Better.
Using your own personal drawings as cover photo is powerful (if you’re good at it…).
Photos of yourself is great for Brand building. See Nicolas Cole and Tiffany Sun.
Custom separators work great. Example: https://melmagazine.com/the-rise-in-self-proclaimed-time-travelers-b29e800f1935.
Find an Infinite Source of Ideas for Your Stories
Getting Writer's Block? Here Are 21 Ways To Find Inspiration For Your Next Story
Use Top Quality Quotes
The 56 Most Inspiring Quotes According To Top Medium Influencers
41 Short And Powerful Quotes To Make You Feel Unstoppable
Also here: Addicted2Success.com
Make Money
Making money is as simple as publishing a story for the member program and getting a single clap from a Medium member.
The $5 a member pays goes directly to the people they clap for (Member stories only).
On average, I seem to be getting about $1 per Fan (from Stats page).
To get more claps, make sure your reader wants to read the whole story. Follow all the tips above.
To get more claps, craft a great actionable and relatable conclusion. Drive engagement.
Other Random Stuff
2 minute articles will get you more reads, less fans.
8 minute articles will get you less reads, more fans.
If a reader highlights something, they’re more likely to clap.
Medium members are more generous with their claps.
Medium members tend to fully read stories more than non-members.
Limit your writing time to 1 hour (or aim for that at least).
Have a clear shot of your face. Stand out as much as you can. People want to see who you are.
Be a Medium member, it adds credibility.
Know who the top writers are, eg: https://medium.com/tag/travel/top-writers. Interact with them the most.
Identify what makes top stories so good. If subject is a reason, write on the same subject, but from a different perspective.
Have a website in your bio.
Disclaimer
All the above tips cannot guarantee Medium success.
Conclusion
Well, that’s it folks! I hope any of these was helpful to you. Let me know in the comments:
Which ones you apply yourself;
Which ones you tried and didn’t work for you;
Which ones you agree with;
Which ones you don’t agree with; and/or
Which ones I missed.
Also let me know what else you’d like me to include in the lists. It’s likely that I forgot tons of valuable info. Again, my go-to people when it comes to learning more about writing on Medium are Tom Kuegler, Dave Schools and Anthony Moore.
Make sure to also follow The Writing Cooperative where so many great tips are being shared around on a daily basis, for free.
Are you ready to upgrade your Medium writing?
Act on the lessons above. Bookmark this story. Refer to it for every story you write, until you’ve mastered it all. Looking forward to reading your souped up articles!
You can do this!