Should You Write on Medium or Create Your Own Website?
Let me share my secret!
Do you know what? I spent three months finding the answer to this post’s headline. I’m sure it’s worth reading!
Table of Content
Should you write on medium?
4 Steps to succeed on Medium
Should you create your own website?
What did I learn?
Comparing Medium and Your own website
Conclusion
In this period, work at home is a must. It could be a crisis and opportunity at the same time and the possible chance for you is writing. Yes, you can write.
In daily life, you write.
You may write e-mail, SMS, article, assignment, or even a book every day. That’s why you can write and it’s better if you can earn money from it. That is why you are here and I am ready to share it with you all.
Should you write on medium?
Many people fail to earn money from the medium. Someone might not be able to get a chance to join the Medium partnership Program as they are not able to register for Stripe.
Me too! I have lost before I have started as I was living in a country that Stripe was not supported. In the end, I found the way and succeed in joining this program. Check this if you are in this situation.
Well, after joining the program, I write and post the article above without publication. This is my first post but without publication, I do not expect anything and I also get nothing.
What’s next?
I don’t know which topic I should write about and ask myself if I am good at anything. Then the answer pops up. I have answered in Quora for a while about reincarnation and karma. So, I am good at this.
I plan to write a new post that explains what people want to know and ask in Quora. After that, I put the link at the bottom of my answer, hoping that readers are members of Medium.
I was stupid out there to think that way.
I failed.
I tried another post and also failed.
I was going to give up but my first post after joining the Medium partnership Program make $0.02!
It changes my life!
Now, I have reason to not give up and analyze why it can make me some money. The first thing is, I write it with excitement. As you know, if people can’t register Stripe, they have no chance to make money here unless the publication will pay you. So, I wrote what those people like me want to know.
It is a writing formula, do X to achieve Y.
I do not fully understand it until I earn this $0.02.
Well, I am going to write seriously from then but my English does not that good. I have no confidence in my English after all after I tried to write a novel once. I felt like being tortured by every single letter at that time. It’s a trauma that I never think it will happen. So, I need something to boost my confidence other than Grammarly.
I search for AI that can assist my writing which you can find my experiment in my previous posts. In those posts, I tried to figure out how capable they are and what I should pick. I paid for them trying for two months and write them on Medium.
I found Geek Culture, the publication that accepted my posts, and the first two of them were promoted as features. I got views, reads, claps, comments, and followers from them.
Why?
After I wrote for a while, I realize why the two first posts got promoted.
They were written in my style and people followed me because of my style!
4 Steps to succeed on Medium
Then everything was concluded. Here is my guide for you who wanna write on Medium.
- Find yourself
This is a bit hard but once you find what you are happy to write then go for it. If you are uncertain that you are happy or not, then choose what you can write fast.
2. Find your voice
This is what I found everywhere but I do not understand as English is not my first language. I just understand this when I found my place to write. Briefly, if people remember your voice, then your writing is the same. Even you pretend to be a robot, they still recognize your voice. So, be yourself and improve your writing in your own way.
3. Find your task
The reason why people read your work is that it has values. You might write about your experience of something useful but what’s next? As you see my first post is about how to join the Medium Partnership Program.
So, people can join it once then I have to find something new to write. In fact, you are not going to find it but create it.
People buy the time you invest in something interesting.
You might invest to expert some skills or invest in experiment something that matters to them and write what you experienced. This is your task to find a passion for something worth investment and fuel your writing machine.
4. Find your place
You need a publication that suits your writing. If you don’t have anywhere to belong to, then create your own publication.
Should you create your own website?
Medium keeps changing and writers complain about losing the monthly income they deserve. Tons of articles are posted every day. It’s a nightmare for newcomers to overcome the factors that they can’t control.
If you depend on Medium so much, will you suffer a big loss in the future?
I don’t know if Medium will be a better place for newbies or worse. To be safe, I establish a new site to publish my fresh content.
You may hear it somewhere about SEO.
Yes, you have to write SEO content for your own website. It’s different for Medium that you can just write anything in your style to earn money.
The learning curve is quite high and I have failed before. My main problem is writing in English. I can’t do it at that time because there are no tools or software to help me. For example, Grammarly did not appear a century ago. So, I can’t check my grammar error.
Also, SEO is complicated while I can’t find a book about it in my country. I learn from the community but still lack a full picture and resources.
Now, I have my AI assistant and am ready to face it again.
As I said earlier about the experiment of AI writing assistants. I would like to declare the winner here…Rytr.
It’s the most flexible AI writing assistant on the earth. With affordable prices and unlimited generating, I decided to buy an annual subscription. That is why I have to create my own website again. It’s a path of no return I create to dive me into a better goal.
I like learning and interesting in different filed. I always buy some courses when they are discounted in Udemy and SEO is one of them. Well, this is the time. I go there and learn about choosing a domain name, buy one and establish a WordPress website. I also subscribe to Envato Element yearly.
What a crazy dude. I spent a lot of money in a short span of time without a plan to earn that money back. It was a reckless act, perhaps, but I could learn many things from it even I might fail. However, I should succeed this time.
What did I learn?
Creating your own website takes a lot of time if you are not familiar with it. Also, the following stuff you need to do is different from writing on Medium that you just write. Here is why.
- You have to spend a lot of money
What? Is it another way to do it without recklessness like me? Oh, yeah. You can just buy a monthly subscription if you are not sure about it. But you need to know that your website needs backlinks and it’s really hard to do it on your own.
Yes, you can find a way and create some for your website but you will not have enough time to write!
Also, the first step of SEO is doing keyword research. I have to spend the entire day finding a few useful keywords with a free tool. So, I have to endure bleeding to buy a tool for this operation.
2. AI writing assistant is very useful
Unlike writing on Medium which earns money from readers, your website earns money from ads and affiliates. If you can write something that makes them come back for more, that’s great. But if you don’t, it’s nothing bad.
So, the writing does not need to be your style like Medium and AI will take the role of protagonist here.
3. You will write better
What? Did you just say AI is your protagonist? Yes, I said that but I have really improved my writing with it.
Content is king.
This is the…well, I think it’s a motto of Google. (LoL)
Google forces us to write well. No low-quality content can rank well in Google. If people can’t find your post in Google search result then it’s no different than something does not exist.
That’s why I write better after learning how to write SEO content. Even you decide to write on Medium, it’s worth learning it.
4. You will get passive income
Twelve years ago, I found a good keyword about the game and a game engine that collaborate tons of flash games. The website was established. After that, I hire someone to do off-page SEO. Well, I got around $50 each month from Google Adsense.
The problem is, I forgot to renew the website and boom! Everything gone.
So, after your website ranks on the first page, it’ll grant you a passive income. That’s why I was so reckless out there. But if you don’t have money to spend on them (I think it’s about $300), Medium is always your choice to start.
Comparing Medium and Your own website
Medium
Learning curve: Low
Need money to start: None
Ready to start now: Yes
Passive income: Uncertain
Start to earn money: Fast
Potential income: Normal
Maintenance cost: No
Your website
Learning curve: High
Need money to start: Yes
Ready to start now: No
Passive income: Certain
Start to earn money: Medium to Slow
Potential income: High
Maintenance cost: Yes
Conclusion
Well, I think you can choose your own way now. How about doing both of them? Yeah, you can but create your own website without technical knowledge is a bit troublesome when problems occur.
However, it’s not a big deal. Everything has a solution but it might take a lot of time.
Medium is uncertain. SEO is certain if you do it right.
Whatever you use AI assistant or not. The important thing is horning your writing skill, then you can write wherever you want.
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N.B. If you want to know how to use Rytr, click here.
