Photo Credit: Pineapple Supply Co
This is a guest contribution from Tiffany Sun of Rabbut.
It’d always frustrate me after I publish a post on my blog. Simply because no one would respond or share it.
Did I pick a boring topic? Did I not provide enough value to readers? Did I publish at the wrong time?
No, the real problem was not getting enough visibility to generate a steady stream of visitors to my blog. In other words, I had a dead blog.
The only way I could get people to realize I even existed was to:
1. Write SEO-optimized content.
This required me to research for specific keywords that’d help me rank higher on search engines and write fresh, quality content using those keywords.
or
2. Use a mainstream media to promote my content.
This meant publishing my post on active social media sites: Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+, and Quora to drive more traffic to my blog.
To keep it simple, I devoted all of my attention to #2. Surprisingly, Medium had worked the best for me.
In one month, I’d gotten 1,193 visitors who’d read my posts and clicked directly to Rabbut (my blog).
Google Analytics | The traffic count from Medium to my site in one month.
Here’s why Medium is the better marketing platform to promote your blog.
Medium targets readers.
Unlike Linkedin who appeals to college graduates and marketers or Instagram who attracts photographers and food/fashion bloggers, Medium targets readers. Readers who crave stories that evoke strong feelings and open their eyes to new perspectives.
Just read one of the posts from “Top Stories” or Editor’s Picks, and you’ll know exactly what I mean. Rarely will you find posts that try to “sell” you a product or waste your time, simply because Medium rewards stories that teach or awaken your senses. As a matter of fact, they keep reforming their homepage and search page to deliver only the best stories to their readers.
What does this mean to you as a blogger?
A sure way that people will actually read your content on Medium and be interested in what you say.
Medium gets more traffic than your blog does.
You can throw out thousands of dollars into marketing or publish hundreds of blog posts, but this alone still won’t get you as much traffic as Medium gets.
I’m talking about 30+ million visitors a month (that’s 1 million visitors a day!). It’s a staggering number, considering how Medium was launched in August 2012.
Where are they now?
Ranked among the top visited sites online, #335 in the world according to Alexa.
Alexa | Medium’s ranking on the internet.
So it doesn’t surprise me when people tell me how they got more views on Medium compared to their own blog.
“We got significantly more views in the past 90 days on Medium than we got in 18 months on our blog.” ~Quincy Larson, teacher at Free Code Camp
“Within 6 hours my post on Medium had surpassed the average number of views a post on my site would get in its entire lifetime. Within 24 hours those numbers quadrupled.” ~Mike Essex, Marketing Manager of Petrofac
Just remember to mention (and link) your blog somewhere within your Medium post. Personally, I like to add it at the bottom of my post under my bio snippet.
My Medium post: I write because I care | The place where I mention and link my blog.
I’d get a 8–17% conversion rate by this one simple tactic.
Medium | The total number of people who’ve read my entire post, measured by “Reads.”
Google Analytics | The total number of visitors who came to my blog from my Medium post: I write because I care.
The Takeaway
Medium brings more people to read your post and follow your blog.
Medium lands more guest blog opportunities for you.
Medium not only attracts readers but also publishers from reputable sites, like HuffingtonPost, Lifehack, Thought Catalog, Flipboard, just to name a few.
The reason is because high quality content is too easily consumed and always high in demand. If publishers want to keep their site’s reputation as the most reliable source for great content, they constantly need to look out for them.
So just keep pushing out great content onto Medium, and you’ll eventually catch the attention of these publishers. They might ask you to republish your post on their site, or better yet, become a contributor for their site.
Either way, this is probably the easiest way to land guest blog opportunities and secure multiple channels of traffic back to your blog without exerting too much effort.
Medium unlocks extra visibility for your content.
Because Medium is both a blogging and social media platform, they’ve added extra features to spread your content.
One, you could highlight snippets from your post and Tweet it out.
Medium | Highlighting my content and sharing it on Twitter.
Two, you could share your post directly to Facebook.
Medium | Sharing my content to Facebook.
Three, you can add tags to your post to help people discover your content through Medium’s search page.
Medium | Adding tags to my story, so I can get more exposure on Medium’s search page.
Note: Tags is what Medium uses to categorize their content.
Medium is free.
Why spend the extra money marketing your blog when Medium is entirely free?
So what are you waiting for?
Create a Medium account. Republish your blog content onto Medium! Give it time, and you’ll eventually see more results (more traffic) than blogging on your own.
Tiffany Sun is the creator & marketer of Rabbut – a writer’s best friend for collecting emails for Medium, Linkedin, and personal sites.
