hey everyone Hudson here and welcome back to another video today I will be sharing Five Habits to help me move from earning zero dollars to one hundred dollars per month on medium these are the same five habits that help me move from one hundred dollars to one thousand dollars and to the point where I'm at now consistently earning over one thousand dollars per month on medium as always thank you so much for subscribing if you haven't already I would love for you to subscribe below and to leave a comment telling me what topics you would
like me to cover I'm happy to make a video on anything you're interested in with that said let's get into habit number one headlines headlines are the most important aspect of writing online they are the door that opens up the possibility for readers to read your amazing words there's tons of advice out there on how to write amazing headlines some of the most common being evoke emotion use power words tell the reader why they should read your writing personally these haven't been helpful to me until quite recently is when I first started out I didn't
know how to evoke emotion I didn't know which words were powerful and I didn't know why a reader should read my writing I've always found practice to be the most effective way to get better at anything headlines are no different so to maximize the amount of practice you can get on writing headlines I recommend writing on multiple platforms Twitter and Linkedin in addition to medium are perfect social media platforms to write on as they're word based if you think about a tweet it's essentially a headline tweeting gives you the opportunity to test topics words and
formats to see what people are interested in the same goes for the first two sentences of your LinkedIn post you can see what people like based on their engagement or lack thereof if you don't have time for both I recommend prioritizing Twitter as it's the lowest time investment versus the reward you get in terms of feedback you can schedule your tweets using Twitter's native tweet scheduler I'll make a video on exactly how to do that in the future but if you don't know where to start at all it can be helpful to see examples of
strong headlines I recommend this go to the home page of any media publication and type forward slash archive to see a list of that publication's most read stories this gives you insight into the type of headlines people are clicking on from here you can copy and paste these headlines onto your story as a basis to start experimenting I've compiled a list of the 100 top stories from medium's Top Publications which you can download in the description below lastly you can use a headline analyzer tool like this one to get a general sense of what makes
a strong headline this is my favorite I'll leave a link for it in the description below but obviously the best way to see what headlines work best on medium is to post on media which brings us to Habit number two habit number two Publications should you be submitting to Publications it's the age-old question of medium writers in my opinion the answer is yes I believe Publications are incredibly helpful especially if you're just starting out they offer you the potential to be seen by more readers and if you submit to the right Publications it will actually
offer you feedback that can help you become a better writer if I could give one piece of advice for anyone beginning their journey of writing online it's that feedback is an invaluable commodity it's how popular writers seem to know exactly what readers want to read they have a wealth of knowledge after seeing thousands and thousands of comments so the more feedback you can get the better any way you can test your articles to see how they fare and get an objective point of view on them the better in Step number five I will go over
exactly how to format your stories to be readable for medium readers and to be accepted by bore Publications in addition I will also add a link in the description below of my top five Publications to submit to these are my favorite because of their response time their feedback and the amount of reads I get when I publish with them plus I will add two Publications that will accept you even if you have zero followers if used correctly Publications can greatly expedite your growth and help you be more consistent on the platform which brings us to
number three habit number three consistency this word is the number one piece of advice I see online for new writers but what I see so many people leaving out is how to be consistent if you don't enjoy something you won't do it and forcing yourself to do anything is not a long-term strategy for Success so my strategy has always been to lead with passion and make everything I do as rewarding and enjoyable as possible to grow on medium I recommend posting two to four times per week but if you're like me that might be a
tall order when I first started writing online it would take me weeks if not a month to write an article that said all social media algorithms reward consistency if you think of an algorithm like a fire and your content is the kindling you need to be adding consistent kindling onto the fire to keep it burning bright the hotter Your Fire gets the more readers your stories will be pushed out to or you need to be posting consistent content so your stories will catch fire here's how you can stay consistent without burning yourself out I'm a
notoriously slow writer and I have the tendency to overthink I found that having a sched schedule to stick to helps me to be more efficient with my time and with my thoughts these are two things that really help me stay consistent and stick to a routine the first is submitting to short form Publications a short form story is 150 words per less there are some Publications that are solely dedicated to publishing short form content I will add a link to two Publications that I used to gain traction on medium in the description below this helps
you one remain consistent to feed medium's algorithm and two practice your headlines as well as developing ideas it's a great way to develop the skill of expressing your ideas succinctly and clearly and number two which is to publish at eighty percent overthinking is a common trait of writers as they're often deep thinkers but something that has really helped me overcome procrastination in my journey is to remove the idea idea that there is a 100 percent a perfect article articles just like life will never be perfect so start publishing them at eighty percent what you'll find
is what you deem to be an unfinished product are often the stories that perform the best people don't want perfect they want lots of pretty good number four engagement medium is a social media platform as much as we would all love to write our amazing Stories hit publish and have them be seen by thousands of readers it's just not the case not for ninety percent of writers so here's what I recommend doing set up a schedule of Engagement into your posting routine the best way to get people to read your stories is to engage with
other writers I recommend engaging with at least five different accounts every time you post personally my routine involves posting and then opening up my latest story responding to every comment and spreading engagement on as many as I can try to respond and engage with every single person that leaves a comment on my posts but I understand not everyone has the time or the desire to do that so here's what I recommend as a minimum engagement routine every time you post open up your most recent story and respond to every comment and go on their profile
and a gauge in this way open up their latest story highlight any points that stick out clap for the story 50 times and leave a thoughtful comment this has you show up in their notification bar multiple times so they will be more likely to reciprocate engagement over time you will build a base of other writers who enjoy reading your stories and will reciprocate engagement this will tell medium's algorithm that your story is worth reading it will push your story out to more readers that said if you lack a solid headline or your story isn't engaging
this will fizzle out so the importance for quality work needs to stay at the Forefront if you don't have any engagement on your stories pick out a minimum of five writers within your Niche to engage with one trick I used to use was to what I call Steel engagement here's how to do it find a story that's in your Niche you can do this by searching for a topic or by simply typing in some keywords that you also write about then find a story with lots of Engagement go to the comments and use this as
your pool for engagement try to find stories that are reasonably recent so you can find commenters that are active on the platform and may even be writers themselves go on to their profile and engage with their content these users are more likely to reciprocate engagement as they are active users that are already leaving comments when it comes to engagement in this is the hierarchy of value starting with claps then highlights then comments when it comes to social media comments are currency they take more time and more effort and that's why people value them more these
little tricks to feed mediums algorithm won't help you at all if your story isn't worth reading which brings us to our last Point number five formatting this may be the most important step on your medium Journey medium has a unique aesthetic it's one of the main reasons why I've chosen to write on medium over other platforms medium readers also like a unique style of formatting you could write the most amazing story piece together in the most amazing way but if it's not formatted for medium readers will likely not read until the end that is because
on the internet people skim first and then they read readers have no investment in your story other than the investment you give them so format your stories for skimmers and you'll turn them into readers here are a few tips on how to format on medium for maximum readability first I like to use the top down approach this means when editing or re-reading stories I start from the top and go all the way down to the bottom this causes me to focus more energy on the top portions of my article than the bottom your headline followed
by your introduction are the two most important aspects of your story they get your reader to open up your story and then tell them why they should stick around next is to never have my paragraphs exceed five lines on a desktop large chunks of text can be overwhelming for readers and cause them to exit your article the more white space the better and the more you can change up the formatting in your story attracts readers eyes and keeps them engaged readers often get lost in large chunks of text so keep your paragraph small use lots
of white space on the page to keep readers eyes scrolling down your story it's the same concept that is the foundation for perhaps my best and most powerful formatting tip something I call the three scroll rule never let readers scroll more than three times before seeing a change in formatting this could be a heading a subheading quote a numbered list or bullet points a change in formatting naturally attracts the eye and keeps your reader scrolling down the page lastly on formatting I always do all my final edits on mobile personally I use an app called
notion to house all of my drafts headlines and ideas it's also a great way to format for mobile I also like to send myself a draft link before publishing of my medium story so I can see how it looks on mobile this is because the majority of readers read on their phones I'll share more tips on how to optimize your stories for Mobile in a later video so stay tuned for that to summarize these were the five habits that helped me grow initially on medium I hope they do the same for you develop your own
style of Headlines by practicing on multiple platforms use Publications to gain feedback and to help promote a routine of consistency set a routine for yourself and stick to it publish articles at 80 percent remember medium is a social media platform aim to engage with at least five other writers every time you post medium has its own unique styling and formatting use the five line Rule and the three scroll rule to make sure your stories are as readable as possible and remember to format for skimmers if you want to attract readers thank you so much for
watching until the end if you haven't already I would love for you to subscribe below and leave a comment on the topics you would like me to cover next or any areas of this video you would like some further insight into that's it for me and I'll see you tomorrow
