How To Easily Use Kickers, Tags, Keywords and SEO

Help Readers, Google, and Curators Find Your Writing on Medium

Learning to use kickers, tags, SEO keywords, well-written titles, and Google-friendly descriptions on Medium is easy. These tools help readers find you.

Mastering these skills boosts the number of views, claps, and fans you’ll receive. You’ll increase your readership, Google love, and money earned through Medium’s Partner Program.

Writing for the internet whether it’s a story on Medium, your latest blog post, even a Tweet requires attention to a few carefully chosen words that you deliberately repeat. And repeat in such a way that reading your writing doesn’t seem contrived.

Using these words helps your readers find you and then spend time reading what you’ve written. And that’s your goal.

So grab a cup of coffee and let’s dig in. If you’re new to this, take your time. It’s not difficult. No law requires you to do it all at once!

Terms used in this article:

Kickers: Words that tell your readers, Medium, and search engines what your article is about. Usually separated by “pipes” or vertical lines, they appear above your title. 2–3 kickers should include main topics in Medium. (See below for a list of Medium topics.)

Tags: Like kickers, but appearing at the end of your article. I suggest using the same words for kickers and tags.

Keywords: The words Google and Medium use to find your articles. Your kickers and tags will be your primary keywords.

SEO (Search engine optimization): Search engines like Google and Bing help your readers find your articles by the keywords you use. (Pinterest, YouTube, Amazon, and Facebook are also used as search engines.) “Optimization” means using keywords to help a search engine find what you wrote.

Tip: Think of kickers, tags, and keywords as synonyms. I suggest that you use the same five words for all three. They’ll be words you use frequently in your article. You’ll also use these words in your title and often your sub-title. Some writers suggest other methods, but this is the easiest. And it’s effective.

To make these instructions easy to follow and easy to use, list the steps on a chart or grid. You can do it in Word or an Excel spread sheet. When you write a new story, check off each step as you complete it.

The 11 steps include in order: temporary title, tags, kickers, title, subtitle, replace temporary title and insert subtitle, change display title, SEO title setting, Description, SEO Description Setting, write story.

Except for tags, title, description, and of course writing your story, the remaining tasks are quick. They involve no more than clicking and inserting words you’ve already written. So no need for overwhelm!

1. Insert Temporary Title

Begin by inserting a temporary title, subtitle, and picture. If you didn’t use Unsplash which Medium provides for your picture, you must give attribution to your picture, even if you own it.

I’ve tried doing the steps below first. But it seems that Medium wants your title before you do anything else.

The steps that follow will be found by clicking a the top on the three dots next to the bell and your picture. Some steps will be in the main list of settings that you see. Other steps will be found under “more settings.”

WARNING: Be sure to click “save” or “done” after each of the steps below. It’s easy to forget, especially if you have to scroll a bit to see the click. (I know this from personal experience!)

2. How to Find Tags

You’re going to skip ahead to the last step before you write your story. Before you insert kickers and replace your temporary title.

Click on the three dots by the bell and your picture. Scroll down to click on “change tags.” This is confusing. You are NOT changing tags. You’re inserting new ones. (If you decide later to change the tags, then it’s accurate.)

You’ll be instructed to insert five tags. (If you insert less than five, you won’t be allowed to publish. If you skip this step completely, you can publish.) Tags are five words that best describe your story.

When you insert a tag, you’ll also use that tag as a kicker and a keyword. Since that word will be used in your article several times, you need to choose carefully.

To help you decide if you’ve chosen a “good” word, i.e. the best tag, you’ll see a small box above a word with the number of times this word has been used in Medium. If only a few times or never, don’t choose this word for a tag.

Don’t waste your five words on words that are rarely used. You want five words that have high frequency on Medium unless you’ve made a decision that a specific keyword is important to the readers of your story. The fancy name for this simple step is “SEO” or “search engine optimization.”

The words on Medium’s topic list all have high frequency. If your word has sufficient numbers, type in the second word and another until you have five keywords or tags that rank well in Google as it applies to Medium.

I try for at least two tags, preferably three, that correspond to Medium’s list as shown below. In my article I used “writing.” Because this article is so specific and somewhat “techy,” I was only able to find one keyword from Medium’s list. (That’s unusual.)

Topic List for Medium: education, entrepreneurship, feminism, history, inspiration, life lessons, life, love, mental health, parenting, productivity, psychology, reading, relationships, self-improvement, this happened to me, and writing.

Print this list. Post it close to your computer. I have it pinned on a cork board and in big enough font that I can see it from my keyboard.

Don’t make up quirky tags. But you can have important tags from your article that aren’t listed as I’ve done. When you use them, make sure they’re generic enough that your readers and search engines understand them. They also need substantial numbers from your SEO research.

Your cat’s name isn’t a good tag, except for your family and best friends. The generic word “cats” is fine even though it’s not in the list. Google knows the word “cats.” It doesn’t know your cat’s name, and “cat” doesn’t rank as well as “cats” which has been used 15,700 times.

So if I were writing about my cat, I wouldn’t use his name which is Rabbie. I wouldn’t use “cat” as a key word even though I’m only writing about one cat. I’d use “cats.”

Write the tags for your story on a piece of paper next to your keyboard. You’ll refer to it several times before you click “publish.”

If you often write in a specific niche, you’ll want to use several of the same tags often. For example, I often write about “how to improve your writing.” I use the tags (which are kickers and keywords) “writing” and “writing tips” in almost every story. I often use “reading” as I write about what how and what your readers are “reading.” I rarely use “reader” as it doesn’t rank well.

In this story, I used “kickers” as a tag even though it’s lousy for SEO. It’s an important part of my story and to Medium.

This may seem backwards, but doing the tags at the bottom first so you can check how often they’re used makes more sense. If you start with kickers, you may find after you’ve written your story that you haven’t used strong keywords.

When you do tags first, you know how your kickers rank in SEO. And you know what words to use often in your story. Once in awhile, I use a word that doesn’t rank well, but it’s specific to my story.

For example, in an article about Bach, I used the kicker, tag, and keyword “Bach.” Before I made that decision, I checked that “Bach” was better than “J.S. Bach” or “Johann Sebastian Bach.” Not surprisingly, Bach doesn’t get high numbers but higher than adding his initials or full name. If he didn’t rank at all, I would ask myself why I’m writing a story about him.

3. How to Insert Kickers

The tags at the very top of your post are called “kickers.They appear with “pipes” between each one. As I’ve already mentioned, kickers will be the same words you used as tags.

Click on your temporary title to insert an extra space. In the space that now appears above your title, type your first tag in all caps, insert a vertical line. Insert the remaining four tags with pipes.

When you have all five kickers, highlight what you’ve inserted. Click on the small T in the dialogue box as if you were making a sub-title. Your kickers will appear slightly shaded.

After your article is published, they will appear in a smaller font. No need to worry that your kickers appear too large in your unpublished story. Your tags have now become kickers.

More SEO: The Importance of Your Title and Description and How to Get Them Right

NOTE: I am not an expert in SEO. But I do know how to use it effectively in Medium. (Not that I always do!) It’s not difficult. Because SEO can be complicated and changes frequently, we often believe we can’t use the basic rules.

The basic rules are easy. They don’t change. You can use SEO even if you aren’t a tech geek. And you should use SEO if you want more readers.

You need to use search engine optimization for your title, subtitle, and description. But before you panic, you’ve already done most of the SEO work: you know the keywords for your article.

If you can count and have your keywords, you’ve got your title and description.

4. Title

Sometimes creative titles are tempting. But your title is an important component of your SEO ranking so a clever title without keywords isn’t a good idea.

If you want Google and the search engines to find you, never use more than 60 characters including spaces in a title. If you want Google to love your title (and why wouldn’t you?), Medium recommends using 40–50 characters. Mine came in at 49. I had to tweak it several times to get it down.

Nobody wants to count characters. But once you practice a few titles, you’ll be close. I thought mine was close. To make sure, I put the title in a blank Word doc and clicked on word count.

Notice, that I used four of my kickers/tags/keywords in my title: My keywords are “kickers,” “tags,” “SEO,” “keywords,” and “writing.” Google and my readers like that. And I told you the process I suggest is easy. (That’s not an exaggeration. It’s a lot of steps which can be confusing at first, but every step is easy)

Your kickers and tags are your main “keywords” for your title. It’s good SEO. And you already know what your words are.

Remember that at the beginning of this article, I wrote “put in a temporary title.” Temporary because you wouldn’t know your keywords yet. Now you can delete the temporary title and replace it with your new keyword-rich title.

Keep in mind that what’s good for SEO in a title will also help your readers know the focus of your story.

Books have been written about how to write great titles. Do a Google search and you’ll find more than you need to read. Here on Medium “How to Write Headlines that Work” by Darren Matthews does a good job of outlining the basics.

You can also use a headline checker like Headline Analyzer. It’s free and will give you a numerical score for your headline. My title didn’t do as well as I would have liked. I’m guessing because it’s a bit techy and doesn’t have an emotional wallop. I opted not to change it.

Here’s my title so you don’t have to scroll up to the top: “How To Easily Use Kickers, Tags, Keywords and SEO.”

It’s got “How to” which is in every list of good title examples. I let you know it’s “easy” so you don’t get put off thinking how difficult SEO might be and aren’t sure what the word “kickers” means. It’s got keywords. And it’s what the article is about.

5. Subtitle

If you can, you’ll want some kickers/tags/keywords in your subtitle. No need for counting characters in your subtitle. It can be long. I’ve seen some sub-titles by top writers that are 2 lines long.

If you can’t get keywords in your subtitle, that’s fine. Because search engines pay less attention to the subtitle, keywords aren’t as crucial. The subtitle’s purpose is to help your reader discover more about your story. Again not a place for cute or clever.

Readers rarely read your story if your title and subtitle don’t explain what follows in your story.

If it’s a “how to” story, readers want to know what they’ll learn and the benefits they’ll get after reading your story. It helps if you let them know that the “how to” won’t be difficult.

6. Replace Title and Insert Subtitle

Medium suggests using capital letters for each word in the title. Major words in your subtitle will be capitalized, less important words lower case.

Insert your subtitle under your title. Highlight and click the small T in the dialogue box.

7. Change Display Title and Subtitle Setting

Go back to the three dots by the bell and your picture. Click on “Change Display Title and Subtitle.” Make sure what’s in the two boxes is accurate. Don’t be surprised if you find your temporary title and the wrong subtitle in the boxes. Edit and click “done.”

You want your final title and subtitle to match what you’ve got on your story. The titles in “Display title and Subtitle” are the titles used by social media and in Medium previews.

This may sound like a minor point. But if you make major changes to your title and don’t change it in “Change Display Title and Subtitle,” your temporary title can show up on Google, not your final title with keys words and the right length.

8. SEO Title Setting

Now that you have your title and you’re replaced the temporary title, go back to the three dots by the bell and your picture. Scroll to “More Settings,” then to “SEO Title.”

Your temporary title will probably be in the box. Delete it and put in your correct title. The word count you see will probably be wrong. Don’t worry about it. Medium may add your name and Medium. Again, don’t worry about it.

9. Description

For the purpose of search engines, Medium recommends 140-156 characters in your description. (Sometimes called a meta-description.) I write my 1st paragraph as the description I’ll use later in “settings.” Take advantage of the full 156 characters which includes spaces. If you go over 156, Google will truncate it — meaning only part of the description will show up which might be a confusing half-sentence.

In good, non-fiction writing, the 1st paragraph usually tells the reader what is to follow in the rest of the piece and uses keywords. If you think of your 1st paragraph in this way, you’re writing your description at the same time.

As you did with your title, drop your description into a word doc to get the character count. It won’t be long before you can judge how close to the number you are by eye-balling the length on your screen.

Or look at my 1st paragraph/description above. It’s 153 characters and 29 words. (Number of words is only a rough estimate so don’t be fooled that counting the words will end up with the correct number of characters.)

A description with key words and within the character limit is an important element of your story. Most argue that your title is more important. But given the emphasis Google puts on your description, I also argue for the description.

The description is one short paragraph. Mine is one medium-length sentence and one short sentence.

Sometimes the description, the first paragraph of your story, is as difficult to write as the title. One can easily struggle more with it than writing the rest of a 5-minute read. After all, with only 156 characters you’re summarizing an article that might be a 15-minute read.

Don’t despair. It will get easier.

And as I warned about titles, don’t be cute or clever in your description. Google doesn’t understand it, and it won’t help your reader. Wait until your second paragraph for humor and creativity.

Be sure to hit enter after you’ve finished your description to make sure that Google understands, it’s a paragraph.

10. SEO Description Setting

Now back to the three dots. Scroll to “More Settings” and then to “SEO Description.” It may have your original 1st paragraph complete with the typo and truncated because it was a couple hundred characters. Delete that and type in your final description of 156-characters.

11. Writing Your Story with Keywords

Time to get out those key words again. Sprinkle them liberally throughout your article BUT don’t overdo. Google doesn’t like that. It will assume you’re “key word stuffing” to get a good ranking. Readers don’t like it either. It’s redundant and doesn’t read well.

It shouldn’t be hard to use your key words several times in your article if you stay on track . . . which you should be doing anyway. And don’t forget to use them in your article subheadings.

Good kickers/tags/SEO keywords are often the words you thought of when you first planned your article.

In my story, my kickers/tags/key words (the same five words) are the focus of the story and used as subheadings. It’s easier and more intuitive than you might think.

Final Words

Using kickers/tags/ SEO keywords may seem like a steep learning curve, but I promise it’s not hard. I suggest you make an outline or list from this article to remind you of each step. That will make it feel less overwhelming.

Once you’ve done it a few times, you’ll realize how easy it is and wonder why you weren’t doing it before.

In my story, I told you that you’d learn how to use SEO, tags, kickers, and keywords. I told you it would be easy. And I told you the benefits: if you follow what I’m showing you, you’ll get more readers and more attention from Medium and Google.

Readers have lots of choices. They need a reason to read your story. Good kickers, titles, and 1st paragraphs help them make the decision to read yours.

(Hey, all you ADHDers: kickers/tags/keywords will help you stay on track. You won’t have a choice but to focus.)

After you’ve taken care of kickers, tags, and SEO in your article, don’t forget to proofread!

More tips on proofreading: