This Strategy Gives Your Writing A Second Life
How to increase the reading time of your most successful articles
The moment the hula-hoop almost falls over, you have to strike it again.
As a kid I have been using sticks or my hand to roll hula-hoops along the quiet roads of my village. Have you ever tried this as well?
We played the game to roll a hula-hoop as far as we could.
The one with the least strokes would win. We had to strike it again just before it fell over. You had to have a strategy, the strokes could not be too hard neither too soft.
How are your articles connected to hula-hoops?
Do you remember your latest successful article? I suppose it did perform well.
You got a lot of claps, views and reading time in the very first days.
For a few days it remained almost on that satisfying level.
But you could observe how the recognition slightly but steadily dropped.
Lesser claps, lesser views, lesser reading time and occasional comments only.
After one more week the drop was obvious, but you still experienced daily claps and views, just on a lower level.
Then a bit further down the road you observed the first days when nobody would touch your article at all.
Only the god of artificial intelligence algorithms would know why readers have lost the interest in your wonderful writing.
That is the moment when your article needs another stroke, like a hoola-hoop when it is about to fall down. You have to keep it going.
I feel you already saying, how the heck does this guy want me to stroke an article.
How to stroke your articles?
Well there are a few ways you can give your article a stroke to make it roll on for while more. The stokes have to be used wisely as when you stroke your hula-hoop when your were a kid.
Stroke 1 – submit a subsequent article timely
When an article fizzles out then it’s the right time to submit the next one. The timing is important. If you launch your new article too early it might steal the audience from the high performer. Not everybody wants to read 2 article in one go.
But also do not submit the next article too late. You might miss the momentum. Use the momentum of the high performer to get your new article under the eyes of your readers. And vice versa. The new article will eventually put the high performer again in front of the reader’s eyes.
But as long the current article is going strong, do not disturb, there is no need to use a stroke.
Stroke 2 – backlink
Well there is a more straightforward way. You can write another article which is related to your high performer and put a backlink in it linking back to the old article.
Timing is not as critical with this approach. At any time you can place a backlink to any article and try if the content still finds appreciation.
Stroke 3 – pin to the top of your lists
Many writers create a public list with their best performing articles. It is a kind of a showcase of the capabilities of the writer. Not a bad practice either.
Put your high performer in such a public list. Some readers are curious about the other articles of a writer, especially if they like what they have just read.
You can put the articles in such a list in an order of your choice. This increases the chances that some readers who sneak through your public list get to see your best performing articles. This increases the chances to revive them to your own surprise and out of the blue.
3 strokes only?
There are certainly more strokes to keep your writing alive a bit longer.
But I believe in the power of three.
God knows where I got this power of three thing from, but it works for me. More would be too much and three are just nice to keep in your mind and take home with you.
Stroke 4 – Not really a gentlemen’s act
The next stroke, stroke 4, would be to review your article, to improve it, to fine-tune and launch it again under a different publication.
I would be certainly interested, what kind of strokes the long term Medium members would have up in their sleeves.
Do not be shy and advise me in your responses. I could use your great ideas in a kind of a stroke 4 approach.
