Medium.com is a great platform for publishing and reading stories.
It’s also a great platform for bloggers like you and me to republish existing content and drive more traffic.
Content syndication is not a new term for bloggers; it is a widely used strategy to drive more traffic to existing content.
One of our writers, Chintan, has previously shared a thorough guide on 30+ tested platforms to distribute content and get crazy traffic.
Today, I’m expanding this series to let you know how to import your content on Medium and drive more traffic.
Now, before we begin, the most obvious questions in this situation are:
- So what about duplicate content?
Well, Medium has solved this problem because they use the rel=canonical tag to pass the final authority of the content to the website you import it on.
I’ve talked about the importance of canonical tags before:
- What is URL Canonicalization and How to Use the Canonical Tag Properly?
- How to Use Rel=Canonical for Content Syndication and SEO
But why Medium.com?
Well, Medium.com is a very popular platform for reading content. Their user interface is very user-friendly and it is one of the most visited websites in the world.
Here are the latest statistics from Similarweb :
**With a global ranking of 416 and **being more popular in the United States , the site is a great platform for bloggers in any niche to republish their content for free and reach new audiences.
Creating an account on Medium.com is quick and you can sign up using Twitter, Facebook, Google, or even your email. Once you're logged in, you can start reading stories and following people and publications.
In this tutorial, you'll learn everything you need to know before importing and publishing existing blog posts on Medium.
If you have any questions before importing your first blog post, feel free to ask me in the comments section below.
A Beginner’s Guide to Content Syndication on Medium.com
Medium offers an import tool that you can use to import existing blog posts from other platforms to Medium.com. However, this tool sometimes doesn’t import images or videos, so you’ll need to add them manually before publishing.
So without further ado, let’s learn something new…!
Let’s get started:
- Choose a story you want to republish on Medium. I recommend choosing one of your popular blog posts because it has a better chance of going viral on Medium. You can use a tool like BuzzSumo to find the most popular blog posts for your domain.
Go to the Medium import tool here and add the link to the blog post you want to import.
This will extract all the text and formatting of your existing posts to Medium.
At the bottom of the imported posts, it will also add a link to the original post with a rel=canonical tag.
Currently, this post is in draft mode and we need to do a few important things before publishing.
If you only have text content, then this task will be easier for you.
However, I strongly recommend that you add some images as this will make your post more readable and interesting. If you don’t have images, you can use any of these websites to get free images for your blog posts.
If you already have images in your original content, you will need to download and upload them to the imported post. Click "View Your Story" and you can then begin editing your content and/or adding multimedia.
Note: In some cases, Medium.com will also automatically import images and upload them to its servers.
The first thing you should do is customize your post titles and permalinks to make them search engine friendly.
How to change the URL of a Medium article
- Open Medium on your mobile browser or desktop (if available)
- Please make sure you are logged into the account, otherwise please log in.
- Click your profile icon in the upper-right corner.
- Now, click on Stories and then open the required post (Draft Post)
- Again, in the top-right corner, click on the three dots and select More settings option.
- Now, scroll down and look for Advanced Settings where you can find Customize Story Links.
In this case, I’m customizing a link, so I click Customize Link.
Now, before you post, there is one very important thing to do - add tags.
Using the right tags can make your story easier to find. You can use up to 5 tags on Medium.
Click the drop-down link next to Publish and add some tags.
When you add a word, it will automatically show the number of times that tag has been used.
Make sure to use only relevant tags. You can also create your own tags instead of using the suggested tags.
- Once you have added all 5 tags, click Publish.
Your Medium.com story is now live.
Medium Publications: Curated Content and Branding Opportunities
Medium also offers publications that you can create for your brand or topic.
Publications are great because:
- You can import blog posts directly into your publication.
- You can add imported posts from your Medium profile to your publications.
- You can also curate other stories published on Medium into your publications. This is a great way to increase brand awareness and brand recognition.
- Publications can have multiple authors and editors to help you import and even organize your content.
- You can have multiple publications. You can access an existing publication or create a new one using this link .
Note: You can also import content and schedule it to be published at a later time. However, when you import content on Medium, it will be published using the date the article was originally published.
Personally, I like reading articles on Medium because it provides great discovery in the form of tags and the interface is very reader-friendly. They also have an iOS and Android app that you can use to read or manage your profile and publications on your mobile device.
I usually do this: I import the story into my profile and then publish it to my publication. That way, when people read the story, they follow both the publication and my profile.
Statistics on Medium
What’s the point of publishing if you can’t see the statistics?
Well, with Medium, you can view statistics for your profile and publications.
Click on "Referrers" under any story and you'll be able to see more statistics about that individual story.
Here are the statistics from an article I published on Medium:
To increase traffic to your articles published on Medium.com, it is really important to:
- Use a compelling headline. Use a headline analyzer if you want.
- Use labels correctly.
- At the end of your story, ask users to like it. I’d say something like, “Did you enjoy this post? Click 💚 to help others find it.”
- Remind users to subscribe to your Medium profile and publications.
- Share your Medium story on your social media profiles.
Read: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Getting More Views on Medium
Even if it's not a platform you own, you need to consider the reach of your existing content. Unlike other content syndication methods, this can be managed entirely by you or a member of your team.
Overall, it will definitely help your work attract more attention and receive more praise.
That’s all for my beginner’s guide to content syndication on Medium. Now it’s your turn to tell me how you syndicate content. Have you started using Medium? What is your experience with Medium? Share your experiences and expert reviews in the comments section below.
If you found this guide useful for attracting extra traffic, please share it with other bloggers to help them get more free traffic!
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