A Comprehensive List of Top Writer Tags in 2022 + Some Good Practices

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Tags on Medium are becoming more important than ever before. And Medium does not provide enough resources concerning this subject. They only go so far as to say: “Add or change tags (up to 5) so readers know what your story is about.”

And that begs the question, ‘If we’re using the right tag;’ ‘what is the right tag.’

Do we know all the options that we have? And what the hell is this Top Writer thingy?

Let’s sort this all out. So here’s presenting the ultimate guide for top tags to use in your articles plus some good practices.

What are tags?

Tags are those keywords that you’re prompted to enter before publishing a story (or submitting it to a publication) on Medium.

It helps the algorithm know more about your story and to which group of audience to show it to.

It’s of no significance from your readers’ POV. If you open any Medium article through your web browser you won’t be able to see the tags of that story.

But for the algorithm, it’s the most important 5 (group of) words. If not, then only second to your Title.

With that understanding of tags clear in our minds, let’s move on to know what a Top Writer Tag is.

What are the Top Writer Tags

Top writer tags are some popular tags in which a lot of stories tend to get tagged. And considering that Medium offers a badge, that becomes visible under your About section.

These tags are known as Top Writer Tags.

You can see the above screenshot showing that I’m a top writer in

Ideas, Writing, This Happened To Me, Reading, Books

These are some of the Top Writer Tags.

Why should you aim for earning a “Top Writer in XYZ” badge?

Medium awards Top Writer position in a handful number of tags only.

From a search around the web, I found out that currently there are only 72 Top Writer Tags.

And Medium awards the Top Writer badge to only the 50 most popular writers in a particular tag.

That means the total number of top writers are very limited. (You can do the calculations: ~72*50)

This adds credibility to your writing.

Per my personal experience being a top writer doesn’t impact the reach of your story.

It’s not that if you’re a top writer in Books, let’s say, you’ll get more distribution/reach solely on the merit of your status of the top writer.

The key is quality.

Nevertheless, it’s still worth the grind to try to earn a Top Writer position. It feels good

Let’s now take a look at the tags eligible for “Top Writer Tags”

Below I’ve compiled a list of all eligible Top Writer Tags along with the important metric of the number of stories published under them.

Additionally, I’ve also tagged two current top writers in all the tags individually so that you can check out what and how they’re writing that has helped them land there.

Also, I don’t think “2016 election” is a top writer tag anymore as it’s not displayed under the About page of writers topping lists in that category. Instead I saw Politics in its place. So yes, it’s now gone. Also, if you think any tag is missed, comment to let me know.

‘TWs’ means ‘Top Writers’

Advice: 77K stories | TWs: Ashley Broadwater; Victor Mong Architecture: 37K stories | TWs: Mukul Attavania; JIN Art: 180K stories | TWs: Nikhil Vemu; Kamna Kirti Artificial Intelligence: 168K stories | TWs: Soner Yıldırım; Jonathan Hui

Bitcoin: 311K stories | TWs: Isaiah McCall; Skyworth Professionals BlackLivesMatter: 57K stories | TWs: Rebecca Stevens A.; Allison Gaines Books: 160K stories; | TWs: Margaret Pan; Ruchi Das Business: 382K stories | TWs: Tim Denning; Richard Appiah

Climate Change: 93K stories | TWs: Will Lockett; Grant Piper Cooking: 29K stories | TWs: Jarvis Wai-Ki Clarke; Arpad Nagy Creativity: 154K stories | TWs: Burk; Tim Denning Culture: 164K stories | TWs: umair haque; Sean Kernan

Design: 287K stories | TWs: Muzli; Abraham Hernandez Diversity: 37K stories | TWs: Jeffrey Kass; Timothy Kincaid

Economics: 75K stories | TWs: Peter Shanosky; Mitchell Peterson Education: 370K stories | TWs: Tim Denning; Frank Andrade Energy: 39K stories | TWs: B; J.R. Flaherty🌱 Entrepreneurship: 365K stories | Tim Denning; Burk

Fashion: 104K stories | MIRL; Faith Tribe Feminism: 81K stories | Katie Jgln; Ossiana Tepfenhart Fiction: 172K stories | Jillian Spiridon; Sonja Rae Finance: 177K stories | Richard Appiah; Darshak Rana Food: 186K stories | Khyati Jain; Tracey Folly Future: 58K stories | Will Lockett; Andrew Tanner

Gaming: 117K stories | TWs: Gala Games; MonkeyLeague Government: 61K stories | TWs: Jessica Wildfire; Lauren Elizabeth

Health: 438K stories | TWs: Darshak Rana; Dr Mehmet Yildiz History: 121K stories | TWs: Sean Kernan; Jonathan Poletti Humor (not humour): 171K stories | TWs: Sean Kernan; David Graham

Ideas: 40K stories | TWs: Margaret Pan; Ruchi Das Innovation: 120K stories | TWs: Nikhil Vemu; Faisal Khan Inspiration: 167K stories | TWs: Karen Nimmo; Neeramitra Reddy Internet of Things: 26K stories | TWs: Jason Aro; Pratik Rupareliya Investing: 128K stories | TWs: Isaiah McCall; Tim Denning

Journalism: 63K stories | TWs: Jeff Pearce; Caitlin Johnstone

Leadership: 191K stories | TWs: umair haque; Alexei Sorokin LGBTQ: 65K stories | TWs: James Finn; Keith Michael Life: 632K stories | TWs: umair haque; Jessica Wildfire Life Lessons: 531K stories | TWs: Sean Kernan; James Michael Sama Love: 416K stories | TWs: James Michael Sama; The Good Men Project

Mental Health: 263K stories | TWs: Nick Wignall; Dr Mehmet Yildiz Movies: 174K stories | TWs: John DeVore; Simon Dillon Music: 256K stories | TWs: Gala Music; Isa Nan

NBA: 38K stories | TWs: Larrylambert; Breaking The Glass

Parenting: 113K stories | TWs: Kerala Taylor; Patrícia Williams Photography: 143K stories | TWs: Susie Kearley; Josh Rose Poetry: 548K stories | TWs: David Rudder; Erik Rittenberry Politics: 433K stories | TWs: umair haque; Jessica Wildfire Privacy: 46K stories | TWs: Mystiko.Network; Dre Tech Tips Productivity: 213K stories | TWs: Tim Denning; Darshak Rana Psychology: 157K stories | TWs: Tim Denning; Nick Wignall

Racism: 67K stories | TWs: Rebecca Stevens A.; Allison Gaines Reading: 70K stories | TWs: Margaret Pan; Ruchi Das Relationships: 273K stories | TWs: James Michael Sama; The Good Men Project

Satire: 54K stories | TWs: Larrylambert; Christine Stevens Science: 118K stories | TWs: Will Lockett; Andrew Tanner Self-driving Cars: 19K stories | TWs: Recode China AI; Dirk Gorissen Self Improvement: 405K stories | TWs: Sean Kernan; Tim Denning Short Story: 167K stories | TWs: Jillian Spiridon; Bella Cooper Social Media: 271K stories | TWs: Burk; Dan Foster Space: 31K stories | TWs: Ethan Siegel; Will Lockett Sports: 229K stories | TWs: Khyati Jain; Allan Aguirre Startup: 524K stories | TWs: Tim Denning; Aaron Dinin, PhD Sustainability: 56K stories | TWs: Paul Greenberg; Charlie Brown

Technology: 426K stories | TWs: Michael Lin; Will Lockett Television: 76K stories | TWs: Allan Aguirre; Jamie Logie This Happened To Me: 36K stories | TWs: Ruby Lee; Tracey Folly Transportation: 25K stories | TWs: Grant Piper; Beppo Brun Travel: 363K stories | TWs: Anastasia Frugaard; Levi Borba

Venture Capital: 66K stories | TWs: Sammy Abdullah; Caleb Naysmith Virtual Reality: 44K stories | TWs: Krishiv Thakuria; Louis Rosenberg

Women in Tech: 33K stories | TWs: Indhumathy Chelliah; Kristina God Writing: 410K stories | TWs: Ashley Broadwater; Tim Denning

Some good practices while deciding which tag to use

Make sure the tag is reasonably popular on Medium (when you’ll type to add the tag, the number of stories tagged will show beside it)

Keep 2–3 tags reserved for ultra-specificity.

For example, in the above screenshot, look at the tags it’s suggesting when I type “Advice”—

• Advice (77K)
• Advice and Opinions (2.3K)
• Advice For Life (1K)
• Advice Column (316)—not a very popular one
• Advice For New Writers (256)—not a very popular one

We can call all the tags other than those eligible for Top Writer status “specificity tags,” as they help in providing more context to the article.

So all the above tags except Advice can be used in the place of these 2–3 tags, as it suits.

Don’t use tags that are not related to your story.

I don’t know about you but what I did when I was starting here is I’d use Productivity in an article that talked about how much I procrastinate. 🤦😅😂

I thought that I’m talking about not being productive so let me tag Productivity here. Stupid me!

Don’t do this.

Be specific and only use the relevant tags.

Visit the tag page you write most in to get a feel of what’s performing the best.

Assume you write a lot of Technology articles.

Then visit the Technology tag page often and update yourself on the nuances of the area.

• What are the most popular publications people are publishing into?
• What headline trend is noticeable in the best articles?

This helps.

You can visit any tag page by entering “https://medium.com/tag/ ” and then the name of the tag, like Technology.

Similarly:

Science: https://medium.com/tag/science Fiction: https://medium.com/tag/fiction Love: https://medium.com/tag/love

This Happened To Me: https://medium.com/tag/this-happened-to-me

LGBTQ: https://medium.com/tag/lgbtq (typing LGBTQ instead of lqbtq will land you in a different place) NBA: https://medium.com/tag/nba (and not …/tag/NBA)

Hope this helps—Smita Sinha, and all of you guys.

Show some support on Twitter—it’d mean the world to me. Until next time, byeeee! 👋❤️🌟