Blogging has always been considered a staple for businesses looking to boost their online presence, but have you ever thought about expanding your business blogging game to include Medium.com? If you haven’t thought about Medium for blogging, you should.

In this article, we'll take a look at the history of Medium, explore why Medium's domain authority is important, provide the basics on how to blog on Medium, and examine how Medium can drive referral traffic to your website. Additionally, we’ll also discuss tips on how to optimize your Medium blog posts for SEO and increase so you can improve your online visibility. By the end of this post, you'll have a better understanding of how Medium can help your business grow, and you'll be ready to start blogging on Medium to take advantage of all the benefits it has to offer.

What is Medium.com?

First things first. What is Medium and is Medium good for blogging? Medium is a popular platform for bloggers, writers, and journalists to share their ideas, stories, and knowledge.

Founded in 2012 by Evan Williams (yep, he’s also the co-founder of Twitter), Medium has become one of the most popular platforms for bloggers to reach a wide and engaged audience. With over 200 million active users, the platform offers businesses the opportunity to reach a large audience, establish their brand as an authority in their industry, and boost their search engine rankings (more on that in a bit).

Medium users tend to be tech-savvy, well-educated and interested in current events and personal growth. Additionally, Medium's users are highly interested in reading and writing, which makes it an ideal platform for businesses that want to connect with their target audience through long-form content and storytelling. (Note: Medium also includes super user friendly audience analytics that can help your business understand how your content is performing...an awesome way to optimize your strategy ongoing)

So what kind of content gets published on Medium? Anything, really. But the big topics usually range from tech, business, and culture to personal development. It’s especially known for truly long-form content… anything from thought-provoking articles to personal stories and reflections. 

The best ideas can change who we are. Medium is where those ideas take shape, take off, and spark powerful conversations. We’re an open platform where over 100 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Our purpose is to spread these ideas and deepen understanding of the world. 

-Medium.com

Why should Medium be a Part of Your Digital Marketing Strategy?

1. Capitalize on High Domain Authority - Medium's high domain authority (pssst, it's around 95 ) means that when you post on Medium, your content has a better chance of ranking well on search engines like Google. Of course this assumes that you have done high quality keyword research and optimization prior to posting, but the bump your post will get thanks to Medium’s domain authority is unbeatable. And let's be real, who doesn't want to be at the top of Google's list? 
2. Drive Referral Traffic- Medium can also drive referral traffic to your own website. Imagine having a dedicated audience reading your content on Medium, and then being directed to your website for more! When you publish a blog post on Medium, you can include compelling, internal links back to your website within the body of the post.  This is a great way to bridge Medium readers into your own site visitors. Although this might be more of a long-shot, Medium has a feature called "Highlights", where their editorial team chooses certain stories to feature in the Medium home page, newsletter and search results. Being a highlighted resource could be a huge boost for your site’s visibility and traffic. 
3. Establish Your Brand as an Industry Authority - As we mentioned above, Medium's audience is known for being tech-savvy, well-educated and interested in current events and personal growth. This makes it an ideal platform for your business if you’re looking to establish your brand as an industry-leader. SO how do you do it?  By publishing high-quality, informative and thought-provoking content on Medium, you can establish your brand as a credible and reliable source of information in your industry. In addition, Medium also offers a really cool feature called publications, which are collections of stories on a specific topic. Anyone can create these, and doing so allows you to not only establish yourself as an authority in your field but also attract other experts in your industry to contribute to your publication. This can also help you to grow a following on Medium, which can boost your brand’s credibility. Remember Medium's built-in analytics we mentioned earlier? This data, which allows you to track the performance of your content, can help you to understand what type of content resonates with your audience. By better understanding your audience and what resonates with your users, you can tailor your messaging and position your brand as a leading voice in your industry.

How To Optimize Medium Blog Posts

1. Create Compelling Content -  It’s a trite SEO adage, but it’s said for a reason: Content is king. The higher quality content you put out, the better your results will be. How can you up-level your content? Use images, videos, and infographics to break up your text and make it more visually appealing. Make sure to keep your paragraphs short and your sentences concise, as this makes your content more easily digestible for both readers and search engines. Conduct extensive research and provide new ideas.
2. Choose Strategic Keywords - Like any content, Choosing the right keywords is essential for optimizing your Medium blog posts for SEO. Research the keywords that are relevant to your post content and include them in your article’s title, headings, subheadings, and body content. Looking for free SEO tools for this? Check out our post on that here.
3. Use Medium's Built-in Tools - As with most publishing platforms, Medium includes meta data fields. When creating a new post on Medium, you can and should  add a title, subtitle and a meta description. The title and subtitle are the main headlines that will be shown on the post while the meta description is a short summary of the post that is shown in search results and gives context to the user before they click on the link. By adding these details, you can improve your blog post’s viability in search engines. Medium also includes a “series” feature that enables you to group related blog posts together to create a comprehensive resource for your readers. When creating a series, Medium allows you to add a title, subtitle, and a cover image. This all helps provide context to the series and make it more visually appealing for your readers. The series feature also includes a table of contents at the top of the page, which makes it super easy for readers to navigate the different posts in the series. By grouping related posts together in a series, you can make it easier for your readers to find and read all of your content on a particular topic.  Additionally, it can also help to improve your search engine rankings since the feature   communicates the relatedness of all the blog posts in the series to search engines. 

Don’t Forget About Your Own Website

As you can see, Medium is pretty awesome. However, it’s important not to lose sight of your own website. Remember, your own website is an important tool for building your brand and creating a strong online presence. By publishing  content on your own website, you can ensure that your brand is front and center and that your website is the primary destination for your dedicated readers. After all, your website is the quickest way for users to learn more about your products or services and ultimately convert as paying customer.

At Blue Archer, we recommend you approach your content strategy in a way that enables you to publish to Medium and your own website. After all, you have no control over Medium – it could shut down at any moment, and your content could go with it. Furthermore, the only way to improve your own domain authority for your website is to add quality content over time.

So, if you’re interested in using Medium, ensure you’re publishing a mix of content to both Medium and your website. Use analytics to better understand which content performs best where, and make sure to consistently evaluate your performance overtime.

Your Next Steps

What are you waiting for? Create a Medium account,  publish a few long-form blog posts, and see how it helps to round out your business’ content efforts. Remember, Medium has a great community and resources to get you started if you need more direction or inspiration. Blogging on Medium for your business is truly a great way to expand your reach  and drive more traffic to your website. 

Need help generating content for your Medium blog for business? Does your website need a face lift? Don’t hesitate to reach out to our Blue Archer team.