5 Tips to Maximize Your Medium Views

How I made $1,200 in my first two months in the Partner Program

You’re not writing on Medium to be seen, you’re here to make money.

After much research, experimentation, and getting serious about this platform, what follows are the five factors I’ve found to be the most crucial in increasing my views and profit on Medium.

1. Minimize Effort, Maximize Performance

Other writers will have you think that simply by writing every day, you’ll soon arrive at thousands of followers and Partner Program income that will make you second-guess your day job.

I strongly disagree.

I’ve seen hundreds of struggling profiles on Medium that produce quality work on a daily basis, and their average number of claps is still under 100. I would rather have a single story get 35K views than write 35 stories with only 1,000 views each (or less).

To succeed here, you don’t need quantity, you need relevance and emotion.

Analyze what performs well on Medium and you’ll soon realize that only a few topic categories have the wings to succeed here on this fine platform.

What knowing this fact forces us to do is to narrow our starting point to what sells, then start looking for an area within that we can add real value to.

For now, for maximum performance, root your stories in one of the following categories:

• Startups
• Programming
• Design
• Love
• Relationships
• Life Lessons
• Poetry
• Writing
• Self Improvement
• Productivity
• Politics
• Health

If you aren’t writing about a subject that fits within these tags, it’s going to be a hell of a lot more difficult to get your work seen.

Now that you’ve decided what category you’d like to write in, you need an angle. Here’s where things take a turn.

Don’t go searching for a clickbait topic that you think people will like. The moment you do, you’re setting yourself up to write something you don’t care about, and in turn, no one else will. I’ve done it, we’ve all done it. It doesn’t work, so don’t waste your time and your readers’.

Your writing should be an extension of yourself. If you write something with energy, emotion, and care, people are going to feel it in their chest like a bass drum in the moshpit of a rock concert. They are going to share it, and you’re going to make money from it.

Within your selected subject, think of a personal experience that is memorable and unique to you. I forget who said it, but “Write something that only you could have written” is great advice.

If anyone could write it, why are you wasting your time on it? The point of you existing as a writer in this world is to bring something new to the table. Bring yourself, your experiences, your failures, your pleasure, your nightmares, and your dreams. Bring them all and lay ’em down on the table for the world to inhale, because you’re selling the drug of emotion. If your shit isn’t powerful, they’re going to move on to the next word slinger.

To modernize Hemingway’s wise words, “Writing is easy. You just sit at the keyboard and bleed.”

If you don’t bleed something that is unique to you onto the page, then don’t waste your time trying to make money at this game.

2. Cut the Fat!

Unless you’re working from an outline for your story, you’re likely going to add a bit of fluff. No one likes fluff. Fluff is forgettable, and with every cottony poof you add, you’re subtracting readers.

Re-read your story at least three times and slice out anything that doesn’t directly relate to the title. Cut lines that provide extra, but not crucially useful, information.

Clean, concise writing is what will convince readers to slap that Follow button.

3. Crafting the Perfect Title Is Well Worth the Time

For every title, write at least 20 options before deciding on one. Look at the contents of your article from different angles and try to put yourself in the shoes of your readers. Ask your girlfriend or boyfriend (someone who will give a damn enough to provide useful feedback) to read the text, and ask them what title they would use. With more data comes better results.

Then, let your finished story sit there in the drafts folder for a day or two before coming back to it.

A fresh, objective perspective will do wonders for your writing skills. You’ll be surprised how much your high opinion of both your title and work will change once you’ve put a bit of space between you and the work. Your once perfect title will begin looking a bit rough around the edges. Peel it down and start again. You’re crafting quality, not quantity.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself before publishing:

• Does the title evoke emotion or curiosity?
• As a reader, would I really click on this title?
• Does it pose a question that I’m interested in knowing the answer to?
• Does it pose a question that is actually answered in the text?
• Does the subtitle (little T) add to the above four questions?

The more of these you can answer yes to, the better your story is going to perform.

4.Evoke Emotion With Your Images

Spend as much time as it takes to get the perfect image to match your title. I’ve had publication editors tell me, “We’ve tested and images don’t make a difference.”

Hogwash.

Images can convey emotion. Emotion will get you more clicks.

Unsplash is great, but if you aren’t able to find the right image in open commons, you might go in search of work on Dribbble, Behance, or other artsy-fartsy platforms. Don’t worry. If the right image is one not freely available, you simply need to contact the artist and request to use it.

Unsurprisingly, artists are usually very happy to have their work shared and will send you their approval to use it shortly after contact. I’ve requested use of over ten images so far and have never been turned down. I’ve been ignored, but persistence wins in almost everything in life.

Here are some tips for choosing images:

• Humans relate to facial expressions. Whether it’s a sexy smile or sad puppy dog eyes, evoking emotion will make your work stand out.
• Make the image connect directly with the title. If that’s not possible, ensure that it directly relates to the content in your story.
• Images should create a sense of mystery, curiosity, emotion, or inspiration. If you don’t feel that about the image you’ve chosen, go back and look for more options.

5. Be Patient to Choose and Get Accepted by the Right Publications

Getting accepted to a publication is the easiest way to boost your readership numbers. But not all publications are created equal.

Even some of the larger pubs don’t properly promote the articles they publish. They don’t share regularly on their social channels and they don’t send out update letters to drive more of their follower traffic to your story.

You can gauge a publication's promotion strength by looking through the articles they publish. If roughly half of them are getting over 500–2,000 claps, you’re onto a strong publication. Don’t just submit to the first publication you come across that seems like it might be a fit for your story.

Oh, and about that…

Once you find the perfect publication, make sure your story actually matches the content they publish. Sending a bunch of ill-fitting stories to a publication is a great way to get ignored on anything else you send in the future.

In order to match the style and guidelines of a publication, you’ll likely have to edit your article, match their style, and bring something new to their distribution.

Now, here comes the difficult part.

Once you’ve selected the perfect publication for your story, you’re going to have to be patient. Whether you’re submitting for the first time via their form, or through Medium’s own Add to Publication button (shown once you’ve been added as a contributing writer), you may have to wait up to two weeks before you get confirmation of acceptance or rejection. And hey, you may never be told one way or the other. Publications are the gods of Medium, and we have to abide by the varied personalities running the show to get the traction we seek.

But if you aren’t patient, you’re going to get antsy, say “to hell with it” and publish your story on your own. I can’t tell you how many times I was five seconds away from giving up on a submission when I got an email that said, “Your story has been accepted.”

Getting published is worth waiting for, so give it a chance before you go rogue.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll likely see a pattern among these tips.

Essentially, to get ahead, what you need to do is slow down.

Invest more time thinking and less time writing. Spend your time on choosing what to write, your story titles, your image selection, and in getting your completed stories into the right promotion channels. Once you’ve done that, it’s going to be 100X easier to grow your profile, get more followers, and start cross-promoting your stories for maximum exposure.