5 Ways to Boost Your Articles from Average to Awesome
Take tips from the pros
Have you ever wondered what makes an article (or person) successful?
It seems like the same top people are always writing articles that go viral, but it is so hard for everyone else to get to that point!
You publish an article that you think will take off, but then it falls flat. Your disappointment floods you, and, yes, a bit of anger, too.
What happened?
In order to make this more down-to-earth for you, I’ve done two things.
- I’ve studied income reports from about 20 different people
- I’ve studied over 20 top-read articles from five different publications
Hopefully, this will help you to answer a bit of your What Happened? question.
Income Reports
How they grew their followers
- ⅓ had a prior audience and so they started making high income immediately
- ⅓ have been on Medium 3 months or less and have made less than $100 total
- The last third grew their income slowly over a period of 9–14 months
Length of time it took for their income to start doubling
- 1 person: Month 3
- 2 people: Month 5
- 1 person: Month 9
- 1 person: Month 14
- 6 people: Been writing less than 5 months and haven’t hit $100 yet
- 6 people: Already had experience writing online and brought their audience with them, so they started off in the 100’s in the first month
(I understand that’s only 17 people and I have 20 in my study, but the last three were just weird so I didn’t include them.)
Top Articles
Does length matter?
It depends on the publication. Most of the ones in places like illumination were 4–7 minutes.
How did they go viral?
After people hit the 5-month mark on Medium, their income tends to start doubling. I believe this happens for several reasons…
- The number of articles they have earning money has built up
- They have been on the platform long enough to learn what types of stories their audience likes to read
- They have built up a presence in several different publications and have an email list, plus a good fan base of followers
In truth, they’ve built up enough momentum to get the boulder rolling downhill and now they have to do minimal effort to make everything explode.
Momentum Effect Formula:
Focused intensity/ Time x God
= Unstoppable Momentum — Entreleadership
Whether or not you believe in the divine, it’s certainly true that momentum builds to a peak when you put in a specific effort over a period of time.
What did the most popular articles have in common?
- 11/17 — formatting broke up the read (lots of white space, bullets, pictures, short paragraphs)
- 10/17 — Clear structure (no rambling!)
- Style of writing: Conversational (like sitting at a coffee shop), Scientific (like reading a research paper), or Expert (an actual expert gives advice in her field of study)
- 16 stories — conversational/ 2 stories — scientific/ 2 stories — expert
Niche had no bearing on popularity.
I’m serious. That was something I noticed almost immediately when I was going through my spreadsheet.
The stories were from all kinds of different topics.
The most important tips were that they were engaging, interesting, had a headline that caught your attention and…well, you just read about their similarities, now didn’t you?
…and now that you’ve been a good little reader and gone through every single tip, I’m going to be nice and give you some freebies.
Here are some articles you must read if you want to be successful on Medium, plus four publications that are fairly easy to get into for a beginner.
You’re welcome! I am so nice. I know.
Other random notes to remember as a newbie
Articles you are allowed to binge read
Casey Boticello’s Blogging Guide
Beginner-friendly publications
Infographics to help newbies
First Week on Medium Survival Checklist
Five Simple Articles for Medium Beginners to Write
Action Steps for Rock Stars like You
- Quit reading the get-rich-quick income reports (or at least limit it to once a week!)
- Study the top articles in publications you want to join. What makes them popular?
- Practice writing good headlines, formatting your articles in an attractive way, and writing for an audience (other than your Mom!)
- Read all the freebies and take their advice
Now, shoo! Go and do it.
Are you tired of only getting to read three articles per month?
Join the Medium community today! For the price of a small latte, you can have unlimited access to all your favorite authors (including myself)!
And while you’re at it…check out my profile on Gumroad! It has a bunch of stuff to help new writers.
(And most of them are free.)