I promise your medium game will upgrade within no time. Grab a cup of coffee, your favorite beverage, or just a glass of water, and try absorbing as much information as possible. No rush.
What are Medium tags?
I belive tags means catageroies. It simply means your story belongs to this category.
For example, I love to write about health, life lessons, technology, self-improvement, psychology, etc. Therefore, my tags are aligned with the story message at the end of my article.
Tags can change the trajectory of your story if you use them properly.
Why the following tags?
Its simple, medium readers love to read these categories (tags). That’s the logical reason famous writers are creating content in these categories.
Tags are a super important element for every Medium story. They are the first impressions to share your story with more audiences.
I also believe you are not going viral by just publishing 1–2 stories.
Consistency is the key to playing this game in the long run.
Here is my favorite quote by Jonah, which summed up my thoughts on going viral.
Going viral isn’t random, magic, or luck. It’s a science. — Jonah Berger
How to get more views, reads, claps, and comments?
1.That’s a relatively easy question to answer. Here is my 3-steps approach.
2.Find out the topic you are interested in writing about.
Go to the Medium search bar and write the closest tag. For example, I love to do 30+ days of experiments and one of my favorite writers is Dr. Yildiz, who is always at number 1 or 2 in the health category (Medium Tag), as you can see in the screenshot.
#3 Pick the top 5–10 writers and learn what they are doing.
How to pick the top 5–10 writers in your niche (tag/category)?
Everyone has their own voice and a unique story to share.
Choose writers close to your follower count or a bit higher. For example, if you have 500 followers, pick writers in 1000, 5000, and 10,000 categories for better engagement and learning perspective. Try to spend some time and learn the following.
Read their story structure.
What tags are they using? After reading the story or at least the title, try to answer why they are using these tags.
How are they structuring paragraphs? Are they writing long, convoluted paragraphs or just 1–2 sentences?
Always check the titles, subtitles, main picture (source of the image), and closing thoughts (aka conclusion, bottom line).
Medium tags mean how many stories are in that category or how many Medium audiences are interested to read that topic.
Producing without demand is irrational.
If your top writer uses the tag “health, ” more than 500,000 stories are already written using that tag. There is logic and a clear path as to why they are using it.
I HAD MANY QUESTIONS TO ANSWER when I wrote this article in February 2022. For example, many writers ask me the following questions.
Question
I don’t understand the numbers next to the tags, for example, “Life — 618k.” But I actually read from another writer on Medium that the tag number does NOT mean the number of people subscribed to the particular topic but rather how many articles are written or tagged to the topic, in which case it would seem the higher the number, for example, 618k, would just be a more unwanted competition?
My response
That’s an excellent thought process. I don’t know the exact answer to how the Medium algorithm works.
Let’s look from a different perspective. Each tag is 250k+ (stories), which means Medium drives more readers to read these topics. It makes more sense to write (niche)what people love to read. There is competition, but a great story will always catch the reader’s eye. All the best, and welcome to Medium
Question
Wouldn’t all of those popular tags also be the highest competition, hence reducing the likeliness that your work will be read? I am asking seriously. I don’t know how that works.
My response
That’s an excellent question, and you’re probably right. I don’t know the exact answer to how the Medium algorithm works.
Let’s look from a different perspective. Each tag is 250k+ (stories), which means Medium drives more readers to read these topics. It makes more sense to write what people love to read. Thanks
Writer’s response: I agree with that! Thanks, Sufyan!
Assume you’d like to learn more about what I said a year ago.
Here is the link to the article. I’m updating this article and sharing my experience and lessons learned.
The following article (Written in Feb 2022) received over 4.2k claps and 60 comments. It’s worthwhile to learn what other writers are saying or what works for them.
I also wrote a short version to boost the main article. I don’t write the short versions anymore. I think it doesn’t work on Medium. Here is the short version link, which got over 800 claps and 10+ comments.
Writer’s Comments on the previous article
Sort of like the Instagram hashtag system but on a more narrow scope? Love the list, and will definitely keep this one for later reference.
This was very helpful. Thanks for the advice!
How to pick your category?
I started to write about technology, especially emerging tech, to share my thoughts about self-driving cars, reading habits, and hiking.
Within a few months, I just blended my unique story into health, backed up by the latest research (science), my experiments, and psychology articles.
I gained more clarity on the importance of focusing on specific tags based on Medium data and readers’ comments.
Top 20 Tags in 2023
Following are the top 20 tags on Medium.
Data source: Medium
Life — 769k
Blockchain — 711k
Poetry — 646k
Cryptocurrency — 630k
Life Lessons — 627k
Startup — 569k
Technology — 565k
Health — 554k
Self Improvement — 532k
Writing — 530k
Business — 509k
Love — 493k
Politics — 482k
Education — 436k
Travel — 419k
Entrepreneurship — 411k
Marketing — 398k
Relationships — 353k
Design — 322k
Social Media — 318k
The following image will help you understand the difference between top tags on Medium in 2022 and 2023.
How to use tags properly?
- Make sure to use the first tag really close to your story summary.
- Be sure to guide the reader.
- The Medium platform allows you to use a maximum of five tags.
- The first couple of tags are close to your storyline.
Then the rest are a bit broad sections to get more exposure (the purpose is to get more readers who like other categories but might like yours too; you have to decide which is the closest tag to your main tags.)
Warning
It’s possible you are not going to see more views regardless of using these popular tags.
Why?
After titles and subtitles (attention grabbers), your story plays a pivotal role in getting more read time.
Story is king. Everything else is slave to story. — Casey Neistat
The medium booster mechanism often chooses the story for further distribution if your story is strong and/or gets more engagement. I will leave this to you guys. You know way better than me.
Proper tags will increase the reach of your story, but the trick is you have to read the top 10–15 writers on how they are playing the game.
When did I start getting more views?
Everything changed for me when I started incorporating more real-life stories into my writing.
For example, instead of just sharing my thoughts after reading a book or article, I started doing 30-day experiments, and based on those experiments, I shared my findings with the readers.
I clearly observed that it resonated with readers.
I proudly say that some of my articles got more than 50,000 views (internal) based on the strategy I am sharing with you.
How to get more engagement on the Medium story?
You can use my 6-step approach to get more engagements on your Medium story.
Here are six straightforward steps:
#1 — Read a lot on Medium
#2 — Write
#3 — Follow
#4 — Clap
#5 — Comment — Always give genuine comments
#6 — and highlight other writers’ work.
Medium Analytics
Medium stats are powerful. Always trust the data.
- See the traffic source
- How is your story driving readers?
- It’s possible you may start driving readers from different tags (broad categories). Based on the data, update the tags.
- I rarely update the tags. Depending on the data, I might write more about those topics where my story gets the most traffic.
