Medium SEO: How To Rank Your Medium Articles In Google Search

Learn How I ranked my Medium stories on Google search through proper Medium SEO.

I got a job offer because one of the most prominent internet marketers in my country finds out my article through Google search. As an internet marketer, it is your job to learn search engine optimization. If you don’t know about SEO as a writer, you will learn everything on this Medium article; how to rank your Medium article, and how to get more traffic to your Medium stories. So, how can use optimize your Medium articles for the search engines?

In this article you will learn the following things:

• What is SEO?
• SEO Setting in your Medium Stories
• Applying On-Page SEO on your Medium stories
• Applying Off-page SEO on Your Medium stories, your work didn’t end with publishing an article.
• Benefits of SEO for Medium Writers

First thing first, What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is making your article optimize for the search engine so that it easily getting ranked for keywords of your interest. There are some useful techniques through which you could target the right audience, write for the right audience, and get more exposure in the niche of your interest.

Google is one of the famous search engines with the highest market share. Google has over 200 factors that they consider before ranking a website on Google search. As a writer on Medium, metrics like website loading speed, domain authority, and other minor factors are already compared in this but if you are competing with the writers who have more SEO knowledge then you might miss the chances.

Read: Don’t Buy A Course Of SEO Instead Read This

Medium SEO Video: How to rank your Medium articles in search engines?

SEO Setting in your Medium Stories

The most important thing to do when you want to optimize your Medium stories for search engines is to use the Medium available SEO setting on your story. While writing the draft, click on the three horizontal dots on the top right of your Medium story. Click on that three horizontal dots and click on the “More settings” option.

There are two things in the SEO setting on your Medium story, you have to optimize it the following way;

1. SEO Title: In the SEO title, only 70 alphabets will be shown in the search engines. Not just the words but what type of words you use in your SEO title is also important. You need to add your target keyword in your Medium story title. For example, in my case, “Medium SEO” is my target keyword. It is also very important to know where your SEO title uses the target keyword. It is the best practice to use your keyword at the very beginning.
2. SEO description: Not just SEO title but SEO description is also a very important part of the Medium SEO Setting guide. Medium by default takes the 200 characters from your Medium story but there is a very important thing to do here. For On-Page SEO you need to repeat your keyword in some form in the title, description, and body of the content. Try to add a custom SEO description to your Medium articles.

Some Medium SEO tips For writers who want to rank their Medium stories in search engines;

1. Put your main keyword in the title as well as the SEO description of your article.
2. While adding a picture, make sure to add an Alt-tag to define the image.
3. Write long-form articles as according to a study from Backlinko, Long-form articles rank very well in the search engines.
4. Add Multiple “H1” and “H2” headings and remember to include your keyword in any of the headings.
5. Interlink your posts to make it easier for your readers to find more of your content.
6. You can even edit the URL of your Medium stories and make it shorter, to the point, and search engine friendly.
7. Repeat your keyword multiple times in your article. That doesn’t mean you repeat your keyword after every sentence but make sure to repeat it at least 5 to 7 times in an article of 1,000 words.
8. Research before writing an article. You can use keyword research tools like SEMrush or AHREF to find the keyword and their monthly search volume.

Applying On-Page SEO on your Medium stories

The most important thing in ranking your Medium articles in Google search or through any search engine is by optimizing your Medium articles through On-Page and Off-Page SEO.

This keyword is one of the highest competitive keywords on the Internet and with the right keyword research, I have got over 133,000 views on this article. As you can see, even though I have just made $20 from this article but I wrote this article just to share my thoughts or opinions and not to make money. But, how you can rank on any keyword through writing on Medium and optimizing your Medium articles for search engines? This On-Page SEO tips will help you.

1. Write long-form Medium stories: This is one of the things I love. I always have the goal to write at least 3,000 words blog posts but end up with 1,500 words. 1,500 words article is still a 6 to 8-Minutes read time depending upon the story. According to a study from Backlinko; “Long-form, 4000+ words blog posts generate 4X shares, 4X traffic, and 2X more backlinks” so before starting writing about a topic, do in-depth research and try to explain things with every minor detail. An ideal SEO length for a Medium story is 7 to 10 minutes read the time.
2. Interlinking: Adding links of previously published articles on your new article is add link juice to your article and this helps you to get an authority in eyes of the search crawler. When a person visits your blog, she might find more helpful information in the form of links and this makes search engines happier because they deliver value to the user. One benefit of Interlinking is to generate multiple views from a single user. It also shows that the person talking about anything is an authority figure and knows about the said topic.
3. Optimizing your Images on Medium.com Stories: When a search crawler visits your site, it crawls the text but if you don’t add Alt-tag to images added on your Medium stories then it might be ignored. Loading speed is also a very important On-Page SEO factor but I have deliberately ignored it because Medium (Company) has already taken care of it. So, I wouldn’t advise you to compress your images because Medium is already doing it for you.
4. Publish your Medium story in a publication: I have noted this down in many instances. A medium story published in a popular publication ranked on top compared to a story published in a not-so-popular publication, but always remember, “Content is the king” Make your publication or send your draft to other popular Medium publications. One story of mine published in “ILLUMINATION” is ranked on top for a keyword.
5. Use the Medium SEO setting the right way: Yes, your Medium SEO setting is also part of On-page optimization. You have to add the keyword in your tile head, subheadings, SEO description, and in the body of your Medium story to rank it on top of the Google search.

Applying Off-page SEO on Your Medium stories, your work didn’t end with publishing an article.

If you think that just optimizing your Medium story through SEO will help you then you might be true but to increases your chances of getting your article on the front page of the search engines, you need to do some little work by doing off-page SEO of your Medium stories. This is what I do when I publish an article on Medium.

1. Share your Medium story on Social media platforms: This will helps to get some good SEO points. I usually share my Medium stories on Twitter, Facebook, and Quora Space dedicated to just articles about Medium. These platforms generate some views, most of them aren’t Medium members that make me money but I am writing about things I know about and money isn’t what I am expecting from every view. There are some benefits of sharing your Medium stories on social media platforms. Also, Don’t miss Pinterest. Here is the story about using Pinterest marketing the right way: Pinterest Marketing: How As a Blogger You Can Get More Traffic
2. Write an answer on Quora and A Blog post on your blog: For every Medium story you write, there exists a Quora answer, go and add value to the Quora community and share your link at the end of the answer. If you own a blog, write about the same topic, write a unique article, and share your Medium story link. This strategy will help you to get more traffic on your Medium stories and you might get more followers on your Medium profile.

Off-page SEO is mostly done by bloggers who are writing on their blogs. They work very hard to rank their blog posts, as Medium.com has a good domain authority so it is far easier to rank your article compared to your self-hosted blog. I was watching a YouTube video where the blogger in the video has deleted all his Medium articles and exported it to her blog, why? because she was getting good traffic on her blog and was making a very low amount of money so she taught maybe just publishing those articles on her blog will generate more money, but this concept is wrong. You might end up with less traffic because of the domain authority and age factor of your site.

Benefits of SEO for Medium Writers

• One of my highest earning Medium articles is getting traffic from the search engine and most of those are Medium members. If you find a way to target what Medium members are searching for, you might be among the top earners on Medium. The internal views here means that the person who finds this article from the Google search is also a Medium member or have a Medium account.

• You can make yourself a brand in a niche you are passionate about. Let say you are passionate about “Marketing” than writing about Marketing will make you an authority figure and it will help you to get a job or getting paid for providing services to clients.
• By properly adding SEO to your Medium articles, you can also make money through affiliate marketing from the traffic coming from the search engines. Yes, Medium.com does allow you to add affiliate links in your Stories but you just have to add a disclosure about the affiliate links.

PS: Medium SEO: How To Rank your Stories in the Google search?

1. Add your main keyword in the heading, sub-heading, and body of the content.
2. Optimize your SEO title and description by adding the keyword in the title and SEO description.
3. Use Alt-tag in your images.
4. Add Internal links, and Multiple Subheadings in your Medium stories to increase the time spent on your Medium stories.
5. Share your Medium story on social media platforms as well as on your blog and promote it through Quora answers.
6. Use the right use of tags in your Medium stories.
7. Publish your Medium story in a publication to increase your chances of getting ranked on search engines.

I hope this helps.

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