This Medium Article Sucks. (Breakdown of a Bad Article)

Learn from my many mistakes.

I have some articles doing pretty well right now:

I wouldn’t say I’m an expert (not even close!), but here’s what my articles used to look like:

I’m going to take one of my flops and show you the mistakes I made. Hopefully, this will help you avoid making them too!

The article I’m going to use is called “What the Heck is Ghostwriting?”

Without going any further than the headline, I already see some problems:

The headline is dumb.

This was the perfect opportunity to use SEO. I could have easily gone into Google and found better headlines in about 10 seconds using their predictive text function.

The headline is too short and vague.

There’s no benefit to the reader and they don’t know what they’re going to get out of reading this article.

There’s no subheadline.

You don’t always need a subheadline (although, I always add one now), but it does help point your reader in the direction of where your article is going to go.

Here’s the subhead for this article:

It’s not monetized.

I wrote this article when the monetization rules were different, and you needed 100 followers to qualify for the Partner Program. I didn’t have that at the time.

But I should have gone back to add a paywall. Then again, no one’s going to read this, so it doesn’t matter. lol

It’s only 2 minutes long.

Short articles can do very well, but explaining ghostwriting should take more than 2 minutes.

There’s a reason I didn’t make it any longer, and this reason is extremely important, so pay attention...

I don’t care about ghostwriting.

It’s so hard to write about things you have no interest in. If there’s one lesson I hope you take away from this article, I hope it’s that.

Find things to write about that you enjoy. Because you’ll be writing about it a lot!

Moving on to the next section of the article…

The image is boring.

The image is OK, but it’s not very eye-catching. Now I would use Midjourney to come up with something a little more unique. Like this:

Or I’d pick something bright and happy like this:

(Looking at both of these options, I’d likely pick the bright and happy one. The ghost guy looks like a hacker up to no good!)

There’s no image credit.

Under each photo you use, you want to credit it. Even if it’s an image you took with your camera, one you created in Midjourney (or another AI program), or screenshots you’ve taken.

Medium makes it super easy when to use photos from Unsplash, and these get credited automatically.

Just click this button:

Then pick an image, and you’ll see the credit added.

When in doubt, use the Unsplash images through Midjourney.

The introduction isn’t compelling.

There’s no benefit to the reader at all. It’s just so boring! My own eyes glaze over, and I’m the one who wrote it.

One thing I’ll give myself credit for is breaking up my paragraphs and using subheads. it keeps the flow going, and it’s easy to read.

But, again, this is all boring. It doesn’t have any substance to it.

Not enough images.

I only used a main image, and this article could be pepped up with more images or screenshots.

Not enough information.

I wrote steps about getting started as a ghostwriter, but I didn’t say how to do any of those things. How do you pick a niche? How do you find Twitter accounts?

The truth is, I don’t know because this is not my area of expertise! It’s better to pick a topic you know well, or one where you can document your steps as you learn yourself. That’s what I did here.

No call to action.

Technically, I have a call to action, but it’s to someone else’s thread. I don’t mind linking to other resources, but I should have added my own.

Back then, I didn’t have a good place to send people, but I could have at least added my Twitter profile link.

Now I always add my newsletter link, as you’ll see in a minute…

Final Thoughts

If you’re struggling to get reads on your articles, take a look and see if you’re making any of the same mistakes I did here.

The good news is all of these are easy fixes and you’ll get better and better at piecing articles together with a little practice.

The main point I want to reiterate one more time is this:

Find what you most enjoy writing about.

I do not enjoy writing about ghostwriting. I do enjoy showing people things that work for me (and things that don’t) through my writing!

Once you find out what you’re good at, it’ll be smooth sailing… Keep experimenting and practicing until it comes.

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About the Author

Hey! I’m Christina, an introverted book nerd on the outside, and a raging metalhead on the inside. 🤘 I’m a married mom to two teenagers (and 3 cats and a dog). I love Vegas 🎰, the band Chevelle 🎸, and murder mysteries 📖.

I also love creating short, daily lists of resources and ideas to help you boost your online income. 👈 Click that astonishingly long link to sign up for free.