Summary

The website content explains how to analyze the readership and earnings of stories on Medium, focusing on understanding traffic sources and their impact on story performance.

Abstract

The article titled "How To Find Out Who Is Reading Your Stories on Medium" provides a step-by-step guide for Medium writers to track the performance of their stories. It emphasizes the importance of knowing where the traffic is coming from, which can be revealed by clicking on the "Details" link under a story's title. The author, Linda Ng, shares insights from their own experience, highlighting that a high number of reads does not necessarily translate to significant earnings. For instance, despite a story garnering over 2,000 reads, the lifetime earnings were less than $6, indicating that most views came from external sources rather than Medium's internal audience. The article includes screenshots showing that 98% of views on a particular story were external, with Google being the primary traffic source. The author encourages other writers to check their stats and engage in a discussion about their traffic sources in the comments section.

Opinions

The author believes it's crucial for Medium writers to understand their audience and traffic sources to manage expectations regarding earnings.
There is a clear opinion that high read counts do not guarantee substantial revenue on Medium, especially if the reads are predominantly from external sources.
The author finds it interesting and valuable to see how their stories are getting views and suggests that this knowledge can be beneficial for strategic content promotion.
The article conveys a sense of curiosity and investigation as the author searches for their story on Google and discovers it on the 6th page of search results, which may have contributed to the lower internal views and earnings.
There is an invitation for community engagement, as the author expresses a desire to hear from other Medium writers about their experiences with traffic sources and story performance.

MEDIUM

How To Find Out Who Is Reading Your Stories on Medium

Where is your traffic coming from? It’s easy to see!

Where are all these people going? Are they going to read your stories? 😀 (photo provided by Linda Ng)

I always wondered who read my stories on Medium. It’s actually really easy to find out!

This is my best performing story, garnering over 2K reads! Wouldn’t it be great to know who is reading my travel stories?

Knowing more about my traffic source would be so helpful. (screenshot provided by Linda Ng)

Do you see the word “Details” just under the title of my story? Click on that.

You’ll be brought to a new page with a ton of information.

Although my story had a lot of reads, the lifetime earnings for the story is less than $6. It was published in November 2022. That already tells me that most of the reads were from an external source!

In 5 months, this story only earned $5.20. Despite the high views, it’s not a lot at all! (screenshot provided by Linda Ng)

When I scroll further down, my suspicions are confirmed. The external views make up 98% of the views! No wonder I earned so little on this story.

On the left hand side, the data tells me that 98% of the views were from an external source. (screenshot provided by Linda Ng)

I would love to know more about the external sources. When I scroll down even more, I get a neat little breakdown of “Views By Traffic Source”.

It looks like the majority of my views are from Google, which is awesome! I’m really not sure what the rest of the sources are, but I assume some people may have shared my story link.

Views by Traffic Source are listed right here. (screenshot by Linda Ng)

Out of curiosity, I did a search on Google to see if I could find my story. I found my post on the 6th page of the search results!

My story on Medium is right here! (screenshot provided by Linda Ng)

I thought this was pretty cool. It’s very interesting to see how my stories are getting views. This example here tells me I’m not getting many internal views at all, hence the low earnings.

Now it’s your turn to check your stats! Where are most of your views coming from? Please share your thoughts with me in the comment section below! I’d love to hear from you!