I Cracked the Code of Curation

And here’s how you can do it too

I’ve been writing on the platform for a year now. When I first started, I only had about a 30% curation rate with my articles. Recently though, my curation rate has jumped up to 90%.

As I started analyzing my articles, I’ve noticed a trend among all my curated articles. Here’s what I learned.

Factors that play into curation

Headlines and Formatting

Articles with the words “you, your, or How-to” articles have a higher chance of curation. And so are the listicles with numbers in the title. Your headlines also have to be catchy, but not clickbait.

How well you structure and format your stories matters a lot. Well-formatted stories with clearly delineated bullet points are far more likely to be curated than those with not so good of a structure. Poor formatting can ruin your whole story and automatically disqualify it from curation.

So before you publish, inspect your titles, subtitles, and bullet points and make sure they’re in the proper case. It’s also important that the content under each subtitle matches the actual subtitle. That means your content has to be to the point and your discussion is centered around your subtitle.

Clarity versus quantity

Every word you write counts. Don’t write a bunch of words without making any point. That said, your writing has to be clear and concise. Avoid overly technical or flowery language.

Too many words and overly long sentences make for a boring reading experience. For contrast, alternate the length of your sentences — long, medium, short and mix them up. Make your writing easy to read, which will increase your chances of curation.

If you’re stuck, you can use Hemingway App to help you better structure your sentences. Just copy/paste your text in the app and it will scan and evaluate your text.

Your personal take

I noticed articles with a little personal spin or an anecdote brought into the story have a higher chance of curation.

If you’re discussing a particular topic, for example, see if you can relate that topic to your personal, unique experience. It could be just a sentence or two where you talk about how it applies to you or in what way something has affected you. This will elevate your story and help the reader engage and relate to your experience more.

Source links

I found stories that have at least one link to a source — it could be a book, a research study, interview, or podcast — are more likely to get curated. By adding research links, you add credibility, and readers can trust that whatever you’re saying is true.

If your article heavily relies on research, say if you’re writing a scientific article, then you need to link to your research even more. I found research-related articles backed by scientific studies have a higher chance of curation.

Choose the right tags

Tags are crucial in curation. Your story can be amazing, but if you didn’t put in the correct tags, creators won’t be able to distribute it on the right topics.

When deciding on the tags, choose the most popular tags on Medium. For example, if I wrote an article on meditation, I’d put the most popular tags, such as mindfulness, psychology, mental health, and health, and then put meditation as the last tag.

And there you have it, if you follow these tips you’ll increase your chances of curation.