Are you a tired, frustrated blogger?
Are you looking to get more eyes on your blog without exerting extra effort?
Are you worn thin by your social media efforts that don’t seem to be producing the results you want?
Then try Medium. It is an option for bloggers frustrated by traditional blogging and social media platforms.
What is Medium?
Many bloggers write about repurposing old posts. You should find ways to get new eyes on your old posts. Your articles should keep their shelf life and not sit on the metaphorical shelf and collect dust.
Finding places that accept posts that are already written is the answer. You can’t guest post since guest authors want original material. Finding Content Syndication Sites, sites that accept previously published material, could be your answer. Medium is one of those sites.
However, at Medium, you have a choice. You can repurpose old blog posts by publishing previously published articles from your site, or you can write new material.
The History of Medium
In 1999, the owners of Blogger wanted to start a site that would also be an alternative to Facebook which they felt was more for sharing with friends.
They also wanted a place to publish where writers could write more than the 140-maximum length Twitter character count. The site promotes itself as an alternative to Twitter for this reason. The site owners wanted a place for writers to publish medium-length content, and in 2012 Medium.com was born. It has been available to the public for use since 2013.
How to Get Blog Traffic From Medium
You can get attention to your posts in order to draw attention to you and your blog by using Medium. These techniques run pretty similar to how you’d draw attention to posts on your blog.
- Use long colorful graphics, so users notice your posts.
- Comment on other people’s posts.
- Like other users’ posts.
- Share other users’ posts.
Advantages to Using Medium
- Making new connections is easy. I have only been active a short time, and I already have 435 followers. According to the developers of Medium, the site is a network of people and ideas.
- You can widen your reach. You will get new eyes in front of your writing without having to create new content. You can make people aware of your site by including links to your blog posts and your home page. According to blogging guru Ted Rubin, Search engines will send people to you on Medium where you will have links back to your blog.
- Make people familiar with your brand. More people can discover my niche and the audience I write for.
- Get new eyes on old posts. When you republish your old posts, you can change the graphic, the headline, the content, or make no changes whatsoever.
- Further establish yourself as an authority in your area. Include a short bio explaining why the content you are writing about is in your area of expertise.
- Busy people will read your articles. When readers see your article, the number of minutes it will take to read it is indicated. Since they know the minutes ahead of time, readers can budget their time.
- Be yourself. Be as wordy as you want. You don’t have to worry about being succinct like on Twitter. You can also be as succinct as you want. Since you are not worrying about people finding your blog, since you are not writing on your blog, you don’t have to be concerned about SEO and write at least 1000 words.
- For a relatively new site, it is popular. According to 2014 figures, there were 460,000 users then. The site is continuing to grow in popularity as people find writing without the constraints of their blogs refreshing.
- Medium is used for content curation. You can bookmark articles to return to later.
- Using the site saves readers time. It says how long it will take to read the article.
- Writing for this platform saves you time since you don’t need to recreate new content to get new eyes on your blog like with guest posting.
- Publishing on Medium increases your social media presence since you can share your links on FB and Twitter.
- Publishing here is a chance to create new content which deviates from your norm. For example, the articles I publish are much shorter than the ones I publish on my blog.
- You have a place to publish medium-length posts. Twitter is for short posts, and your blog is for longer posts.
- Analytics are under Stats so you can build on prior successes.
- It’s easy to use. Unlike at your blog, you don’t need to set up sidebars or widgets.
- You can self-promote. Link back to your blog and your relevant posts.
- Your writing gets more focus. Since fancy sidebars don’t exist to distract the reader, writing on Medium is more about the content than on a traditional blog.
- Medium is convenient. They send you your stats. They send you your analytics like your page views and who has recommended your article to others.
- Writing for Medium contains less pressure. You can publish whenever you want as opposed to sticking to a publication schedule out of fear you will disappoint your blog readers.
- The site is helpful. They recommend posts they think you will like. They call these Top Stories for You. You will see them when you log in.
- You will receive good customer service. The site recommends stories that match the interests you selected when you signed up. Medium Emails you these stories.
- Famous people use it. For example, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld publishes there.
- The site has wide-range appeal. Writers run the gamut from famous people to hobby bloggers.
- Medium is unique. Instead of commenting at the bottom of the post like readers do on a blog, Medium’s readers can comment on each paragraph. You can also choose whether to make your comments public or private. You don’t have to allow comments if you don’t feel comfortable.
- Medium allows for collaboration. You can save drafts and not publish your articles right away. Since you can comment on articles before the blogger publishes, you can help save each other embarrassment from typos and inaccuracies.
- Algorithms ensure the best articles have the most visibility. Even if you don’t have a slew of blog followers yet, you can be a success here. Medium is about the quality of the writing, not about the blogger’s popularity.
- Successful bloggers recommend the site. Ashley Radar recommends it and calls it a highly trafficked site. She recommends slightly modifying old content.
- Medium increases self-esteem. Bloggers get frustrated when they don’t see results on their blog stats which lowers their morale. At Medium, you can write without your enjoyment marred by falling stats.
Disadvantages to Using Medium
The disadvantage can be summed up in one word– fear. Users are downright scared to use Medium.
In 2011, Google came out with what is called a Panda penalty. One of the reasons Google will penalize the blogger and assign a Panda penalty is due to duplicate content. If your content is on both your blog and on Medium, you are publishing duplicate content.
This is a problem since Google doesn’t know which to rank in their search engines.
I interviewed three blogging and SEO experts to ask their opinion about the safety of using Medium.
1. Amin Ghale, from SEONerdy, reassured me when I questioned him. He explained,
Nah! It’s absolutely fine to post on authoritative sites like Medium. I do it all the time. Syndication shouldn’t be a problem as Google keeps it close to the heart.
And as your post is already indexed by Google at first before seeing it on some other site, you are safe from any penalty. Panda penalty doesn’t work like that…
So consider yourself safe…
I asked Robin if your whole site would get penalized or just the one post that you are duplicating. He indicated the latter; just the one post would fall in the search engines.
3. Ted Rubin explained,
I strictly repost content I have posted to TedRubin.com, and elsewhere, there. I am told by people I totally trust in this regard that Google does not penalize you, that is a content myth. The more places your content lives, the more people will see it simply by being there, and via Google indexing. Make people familiar with your brand.
The majority of the experts consider publishing to Medium safe from Google penalties. It seems in the worst case, if Robin Khokar is right, only one post would be buried in the search engines and not all your posts. You may consider it worth it to take a hit on one post in order to open up your blog to a whole new audience of readers.
Robin also indicated that, in his experience, readers don’t follow him over to his blog since they can read the whole post at Medium. However, he went on to say that you could link to your site, so they can continue reading there.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Medium has more advantages than disadvantages. It might prove an effective alternative to traditional social media. Are you ready to make an account? Go to Medium.com today.
First, please share, so other bloggers know the advantages of trying Medium.
Readers, what do you think? Is this a site you might try? If you are already publishing on Medium, can you think of any other advantages of using it? Would you recommend it? I look forward to your views.
Related Posts:
12 Best Tricks to Get More Eyeballs on Your Old Posts
How to Be a Better Blogger with Quora
4 Simple Things You Can Do to Be a Better Blogger: MidLife Boulevard
Do You Desire Improved Blog Growth? [Blog Directories]
How to Get the Kind of Blog Traffic You Want with Reddit
Sources:
http://phenomenalseo.com/avoiding-google-penalties/
http://todaymade.com/blog/medium/
https://www.getblogo.com/blog/the-truth-about-repurposing-content-to-medium/
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/marketers-guide-to-medium/
