Why Tags Matter
Getting your work seen long after it disappears from the latest stories list
As an editor of 5 publications, I read through tens of articles, poems, essays, and pieces of fiction every day. One of the biggest problems to getting your work the readership it deserves is in your simple use of tags.
Every publication uses tags to organise the pieces it publishes. If you check the header bar you will be able to see the sections in which your work will end up. These sections are essential if you hope to have your work read after the first few days in a publications pages.
You see, once published your article will stand tall and proud on the main homepage screen, it’s carefully chosen image sparkling in the screenlight trying to draw in the reader’s attention. As the day passes, a few more pieces will be published, and after a day or two your slaved over words will drift lower and lower down the screen and past the attention span of most people. And this is when your tag usage can save your work from obscurity and give your work a hopeful boost.
Tags on Medium are often likened to hashtags on other social media platforms, which is one way of looking at them, but they are so much more when used as a search tool and as a way to keep your work at the top of your publication’s section list.
