How to Pick the Best Tags for Your Medium Story

Summary

The article provides guidance on selecting effective tags for Medium stories to maximize visibility by leveraging Medium's topic list and understanding the platform's unique SEO approach.

Abstract

The article emphasizes the importance of choosing the right tags for Medium stories, which is crucial for their visibility and success. Contrary to traditional SEO practices that prioritize specificity, Medium's SEO strategy favors broader, more inclusive tags that align with the platform's topic-based organization. The author advises writers to select tags from Medium's topic list and supplement with popular tags not listed, ranking them by relevance to the content. The goal is to associate stories with Topics that readers follow, rather than optimizing for search functionality. Additionally, the article suggests that while Medium curators do not officially curate articles based on tags, there seems to be a correlation between selected tags and curation outcomes. For writers interested in monetizing their work on Medium, the author offers a free book that covers the essentials of earning money through the platform.

Opinions

Medium's approach to SEO is distinct from traditional SEO, prioritizing broad tags over specific ones.
The effectiveness of tags on Medium is tied to the platform's Topics, which are followed by readers.
Despite official statements, there is a perceived connection between the tags an author selects and the likelihood of their article being curated.
The author provides a resource for new writers aiming to earn their first $100 on Medium, suggesting that their advice can help streamline the learning process.

The short answer: Pick tags off of Medium’s topic list

As of September 2020, this information is out-of-date.

When it comes to getting your story noticed, tags are second only to your headline in how important they are. Picking the right tags can make the difference between an article making hundreds, and an article dying upon delivery.

This is true of picking tags anywhere on the internet. Picking tags on Medium, however, is not like digital marketing on other parts of the internet. On other websites, you want your tags to be as specific as possible — but on Medium, you don’t.

Medium SEO is Different From Other SEO

Anyone who’s done work in traditional marketing knows what SEO means. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the art of figuring out what it is algorithms prioritize when people search using algorithms, and then engineering content to match exactly what the algorithm prioritizes. When you are trying to get your website to appear high in Google search rankings, or trying to get your product to appear high in Amazon search rankings, SEO is critically important.

Out there in the wider world, the key to SEO effectiveness is specificity. If you are trying to promote a website with self-help advice and you choose for Google the keywords self-help, self-improvement, and life advice, your website will be very low in Google’s rankings.

On Medium, however, the opposite is true. The broader and more inclusive tags you pick, the more people are going to see your work. This is because everything on Medium is arranged according to Topics. (Here is a link to Medium’s topic list).

The goal of Medium SEO is not to get your article in front of as many people as possible using Medium’s search function, because very few readers rely on Medium’s search function. Most of them rely on the topics they choose to follow. Therefore, the goal of Medium SEO is really to link your story to particular Topics.

So are you ready? Let’s go.

How To Pick The Best Medium Tags:

Go to the Medium topic list. Write down every topic that is relevant to what you’ve written.

Some popular tags don’t appear on the Medium topic list. Here are some other popular tags to pick from: Self Improvement, Life, and Life Lessons.

List those topics in order of most relevant to least relevant. Take the 5 most relevant, and use those for your story.

That’s it. Happy writing.

EDIT 02/08/2020: I've learned that, officially speaking, Medium curators do not choose which categories to curate an article for based on which tags you've selected.

That being said, I think they do look at the tags, because I've personally found that the vast majority of the time, I only get curated into tags I've selected for my article.

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