Looking to grow your Medium traffic?
I was too. And in many ways, I still am.
I’ve done my fair share of reading on the topic, and some of the experts make it sound so easy…
Well, I don’t know how easy it is to get 1,000 views per article. I just know what I had to do to 4X my Medium traffic.
And I’m not even saying I’ve reached all my goals, but I am glad to see things have picked up.
Here are some tips that should help you broaden your horizons and begin to see new possibilities for Medium traffic.
Publish Daily
This is the meat of it. The 80/20 if you will.
Publishing daily is the best way to continually bring more eyeballs to your content.
In saying that, you’ve got to let go of perfectionism completely.
If you let perfectionism take over, you’ll overthink the process, try to come up with an inspired post every single day, and take on the impossible task of trying to change the world with your writing.
Sorry, not going to happen.
Although I mostly share about the music business and personal development or spirituality, I have snuck in the occasional story about life experiences or food too (I love food!).
I don’t think this has done me any harm. And my niche content sits on my niche websites anyway and is imported to Medium where there is a broader base of readers.
So, see if you can get in the habit of publishing daily, because it will boost you traffic over the course of weeks and months, even if virtually nothing happens upon starting (it might be crickets for weeks).
Share Personal Stories
In July, when I began publishing daily, I started off with a couple of origin stories discussing how I got to where I am, and then iterated on them.
I shared a lot of details about my past, with one of the most notable things being the death of my father when I was 13.
I wasn’t sure what the results would be, but these stories ended up connecting with my family, who still check in on my writing from time to time.
I didn’t necessarily think of writing as a relationship building tool, but when you think about it, it has the potential to be exactly that.
I don’t know how much you want to reveal about yourself, but it might be worth experimenting with. As I’ve shared before, I think it’s tacky to reinvent the past.
Comment on Other People’s Stories
Others in the Medium community have already pointed out the significant traffic boost this simple act can provide.
But just commenting isn’t good enough. Don’t say, “great post”, “awesome job”, or worse: “🔥🔥🔥🔥” and run off like you’re the hottest thing since sliced ham.
Connect personally to the author. Mention them by name. Pick out something specific you loved about the article and add your own thoughts and ideas to it.
Basically, be a participant in the discussion. Take the time to read what others are sharing and be thoughtful in your interactions.
Hilarious that I should even need to tell you to do that, but trolls are in no short supply.
Connect with Friends
I have some friends who are also publishing daily on Medium. So, I figured it would be worth connecting with them, too.
I don’t do much except for read their occasional story, offer a clap or two, and maybe leave a comment, but no good deed goes unrewarded, right?
Do for others what you want done unto you, and blessings will chase you down.
Do for others what you want done unto you, and blessings will chase you down. Click To TweetI also shared some stories with my friends on WhatsApp and LINE, especially if they had any part in inspiring it.
Create Your Own Publications
Since I share a lot about the music business, I created a publication called Music Business Training awhile back. So far, it hasn’t picked up much steam, but I still think it made a difference to my Medium traffic.
If you haven’t created any of your own publications yet, then it might be worth a look.
I plan to create another one revolving around personal development and spirituality. There would be an opportunity to add my friends as writers to the publication too.
If people have made you a writer for other publications, then there’s obviously an opportunity to leverage there, too.
I’ve been added as a writer for an investment related publication. I haven’t written enough about investments to be adding stories to it all the time, but it’s always nice to know the opportunity is there.
Share Your Content on Social Media
This is basically advice directly from Captain Obvious of Obviousville, but free traffic is nice, isn’t it?
In my case, I loaded up my Medium feed into Meet Edgar so that I can approve new posts to be shared on Facebook and Twitter. And it’s great that I don’t need to go in there all the time to create new posts.
This makes a lot of sense to do if you’re publishing daily.
Since Meet Edgar will keep pulling from your library of content and share it out continually, that can give your content a second life, third life, fourth life… You get the idea.
Of course, auto-posting just doesn’t work as well as manual posting. So, when you share new content, the best thing is to write a compelling, personal introduction like this:
(That’s the copy I put together to introduce a new podcast episode but the same idea applies to introducing blog posts.)
Note that the copy you create can be used in your emails as well.
Share Your Content Through Email
If you’ve got an email list, it can’t hurt to share your stories with your audience.
It’s up to you how often you share, but I think daily might be a bit much. You could handpick the best stories and share them with your audience one by one, or you could take the classic approach of putting together a weekly digest style newsletter where all the posts are linked up.
I admit I haven’t been doing this as much as I could be lately, but then again, I’m trying to keep my workdays to four to six hours max.
When you’re publishing daily, you want your time and energy to go towards writing, not to busywork that may not even pay off.
Link Up Your Content
Any time I see an opportunity to link up my content on Medium, I do.
The main sites I publish on are Music Entrepreneur HQ and my personal blog, and there are quite a few links pointing to my stories on Medium from each.
But I’ve even tried creating audio/video versions of my posts, which I’ve uploaded to YouTube. Link is in the description, of course!
Finally – and I guess you could say this is kind of advanced – my books also point to relevant stories on Medium as additional resources. If it benefits the reader, why not?
Interlinking your stories on Medium is not a bad plan, but if you can link to them from other sites, blogs, and platforms, why not?
Medium Traffic, Final Thoughts
What I’ve shared here is just the beginning. There are so many other ways to get Medium traffic.
But like I said, publishing daily was the main thing that made a difference for me. It might make a difference for you too.
Have fun writing and let me know how things go. If you manage to 4X your Medium traffic, obviously I would love to hear about it!
Shh… Don’t tell anyone. Only the cool kids are talking about it.
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