My Story Hit 2.4K Views in 3 Days

And I almost didn’t even write it!

On June 24, I was scrolling through Facebook before starting my workday. A friend had shared a post with the unusual advice to go read the comments. Normally something I avoid if I can, but in this case, they were gold. I was very entertained by the entire thread. Basically, a woman swept most of the ribbons at her local District Fair and the internet was delighted and intrigued by her.

Normally, I would just re-share the post and move on with my day, but my muse insisted that this was something to share on Medium. So I started typing and a little while later published my take on the post, my favorites from the comments section, and my attempts to answer the key question in everyone’s mind — who, exactly, IS this woman?

Here’s the story if you want to check it out:

By the end of the day, my stats had jumped. By a lot. My overall views were over 3 times the highest I normally get. I saw that most of those views were coming from this story. It just continued growing over the next few days.

The majority of these views came not from people following me on Medium, not from those who saw it on my social media, but from Google and other search engines.

How did this happen?

My best guess is that a lot of people were searching the web for Linda after reading the same Facebook posts I did. And my title was exactly what they were typing in the search bar. And there was almost no competition; it’s not too common of a name so there aren’t too many other articles pulling the same keywords.

What was the benefit to me?

As you’ll see in the screenshot of my story stats, my total earnings after 2.4K views was a whopping 43 cents. So the dramatic increase in stats didn’t mean a dramatic increase in earnings. Many of the readers who came to this story were probably not Medium members.

There were some benefits, though. I won’t lie, my ego sure liked seeing these big numbers. Even better than the total views was the fact that most of the people who clicked on it read it. This is probably the first time something I have written has been read by so many people. It’s certainly the first time I’ve had data to say so! That gives me a confidence boost and encouragement to keep writing.

What lessons can writers learn from this?

There are a few lessons that I’m taking away from the experience, and I hope these lessons are useful to you, too, if you’re also a writer.

1. If you write what you’re passionate about, people will read it!
2. Pursuing your passion may not bring an immediate financial reward, but it’s worth it anyway.
3. Timely stories can get attention.
4. Keywords and niches can make a difference. These views happened because the title matched a search people entering into search engines better than anything out there. Make that happen with a post you write about a problem you can solve for someone, and maybe those thousands of views will convert to hundreds of purchases if you have a product (an ebook, digital download, etc.) or service to offer.

I’m grateful for this experience and hope it propels me to further success as a freelance writer!

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