Growth Tips for your Medium Profile
11 simple tips that will increase your traffic
I have been using Medium for over a year now. It has became my number one platform that I use every day. At first, I didn't had any intentions to write stories, but as time passed I wanted to give it a try. One year later, I have published over 70 stories and here comes another one.
In this story, I would like to share some tips that I think are important for increasing the visibility of your profile, as well as your stories. I hope that you will find some interesting.
#1 Include Story Image
Always add an image under the title/subtitle of your story. The best image size for me is 1250x500, as it covers the full width of the screen and under your profile page. Also, when the reader opens your story the text is instantly visible. Having a constant image size on all stories increases the quality of the profile page.
#2 Medium Tags
This is very important. Medium makes your story visible to other readers by the Tags you have entered. Medium readers have the habit of reading stories from specific tags they follow. When a story is published under a Tag, the followers of that tag will see the story under their News Feed.
Also, your story might be included in the Top Stories section, if it gathers enough claps. That means, whenever a reader opens up the tag, your story will pop up right away.
To define which tags to add, there is a website I use (https://mediumtags.com/) that will show you how much audience and stories a specific tag contains. This will tell you how hard it is to rank on a specific tag and if the tag will generate enough views.
#3 Leave Comments
Comments on Medium are really powerful. They are treated the same as Stories. You can add up to 5 tags to a comment. They appear in the search results together with the stories. Comments can increase your profile’s visibility a lot.
So, you are reading something interesting and have something to say? Don’t hesitate, just leave a comment. For example, my latest comment on a story resulted in 1k views in just 4–5 days. 🚀
#4 Share Stories on Twitter and Facebook
Sharing on social media is without a doubt a great source for new readers. Building a great Twitter/Facebook following is really important for growing on Medium.
When you share your own stories don’t forget to include proper hashtags. If you are sharing someone else’s stories, tagging the person with @ on Twitter will provide a great visibility of the post and the person might even retweet you which will generate even more profile views.
#5 Write at least 500 words
Never write stories that consist only of Youtube links. People on Medium come to read stories, not watching videos. If you include a video make sure you write an introduction to the video and why the visitor should watch it. Always aim to have 2+ minutes of reading time of your stories.
#6 Proper Text Formatting
While writing, divide your story into paragraphs with headers included. Usually, a paragraph shouldn’t exceed more than 150 words. By adding headers frequently, your story becomes interesting as the reader will know what to expect further in the story. Stories with bad formatting can draw away the reader.
#7 Include links from your other stories
I have the practice to include links from my other stories into my new story at the bottom of the text. You can also include links in between paragraphs. To add a link, just copy and paste the link you want to the new story and press enter. It will embed a nice card to the story.
This can create a chain reaction to the reader and make him/her read more of your stories.
#8 Join Publications
Publications can have a really big impact on your profile growth. Especially if you join a publication that has many followers. That is because publications can have a huge amount of daily visitors and also implement their own marketing strategies for boosting stories.
Create a list of the biggest publications that publish stories that cover the same category as yours. Then, start writing to all of them and see where you will get accepted. Never leave your stories without a good publication.
In my case, joining Hackernoon as a writer launched my stories into the skies.
Thank you for that Hackernoon!
#9 Don’t publish stories on weekends
By studying my Stats on Medium, I have noticed that Saturdays and Sundays have 70% less reach than working days. That is a HUGE difference. However, most of my writing is about Programming. Not sure if this is the case with other categories, but you should definitely check your Stats. If you have the same stats as mine, I would advise you to publish your stories during the working days.
#10 Find your peak time
Open your Stats page and review the activity for the last couple of months. Try to find the best performing day when readers visit your stories the most. If that is not enough for you and want to go deeper, start monitoring the activity during your best performing day and find a time in the day when your stories are read/visited the most.
#11 Add Twitter handle
If you haven't connected your Twitter account yet, please do it now. When people want to share your story, they will share it with your handle included. That means people will find out about you more. They will be aware of both your Twitter profile and your Medium stories.
Conclusion
I hope that you have enjoyed my tips and found something useful. However, this all falls apart if you don't write quality stories. There are no shortcuts to reaching a bigger audience if your content isn't good. And that's a fact! 🚀
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