Writing on Medium is both a rewarding journey and an uphill battle. You write, you garner fans, you get a great practice going. Just when you think you’ve written the perfect post, Medium’s curators pass on the piece. Without curation, your hard work sits there without viewers.

So how do you write a piece that wows readers and impresses Medium’s curators? A post worthy of curation into the Medium Partner Program? You do research. You write amazing stuff. And you try a few more tips I’ve rounded up for improving your Medium writing.

Follow Medium’s Guidelines Closely

The Medium Partner program has a set of guidelines on their website, but to sum them succinctly, you need to:

• Write about topics you’re familiar with
• Be respectful and avoid hate in your writing
• Complete every part of your user profile
• Attach appropriate, relevant tags to your post
• Write an appropriate, relevant title and subtitle
• Check for and eliminate any grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes
• Include at least one high-quality, free to use image
• Respond to reader’s responses to your post
• Exclude any advertisements or promotions
• Provide relevant content not designed to drive traffic to another website
• Disclose any compensation or freebies you received for writing the post
• Avoid asking for claps, follows, donations, or any compensation from readers
• Avoid using images that don’t offer commercial rights to use

So that’s a pretty big list of items, but fortunately, most of them are actually really easy. Write good, readable content without ads or soliciting, comb it for errors, and get ready to upload. But what about those other guidelines? How do you find the right tags and select the right photos? I’m going to cover that, so don’t worry.

Use Quality, Free to Use Photos When You’re Writing on Medium

A good Medium post needs good photos. The right image can make the difference between a member clicking or moving on. You need to select photos that complement your writing instead of dragging it down.

Photo by Balázs Benjamin from Pexels

Credit Your Photos

First, you need to find images you have the rights to use on your posts. These include images that you create yourself, images that you buy the commercial rights to, and images that give commercial rights to you for free. Occasionally, you might be able to include a photo you took yourself, or you’ll want to purchase an image to use. But most Medium users rely on images with Creative Commons licenses that allow free commercial use.

Where can you find these images? Plenty of websites offer free to use images. I wrote a whole blog post on finding better images to use you can look at. Here’s what Medium says: “Double-check to make sure you’re not violating copyright or licensing with your images. Free resources like Pexels, Pixabay, and Unsplash are great for sourcing Creative Commons-licensed images.”

Those are all great websites for getting your photos from! And you’ll notice if you go into the Medium editor, one of the toolbars has a magnifying glass on it. Click that and enter a search term, and Medium will pop up a list of photos from Unsplash that meet your query. Plus, Medium will automatically caption any photo you select. So, that’s the easiest way to add good images to your Medium article.

Wherever you get your images from, check the rights and usage associated with each image. Don’t steal, don’t use non-commercial photos, and don’t just google some images to use. Images on Google are almost never free to use. Even if you filter by usage to look for free commercial-use photos, Google frequently makes mistakes, and there are rarely good photos anyway.

On Medium, you must always give credit to the maker in the caption for any image. If you paid for an image, credit the maker. If you got the image for free, even if the rights say credit isn’t required, credit the maker anyway. Even if you took the photo or made the image yourself, credit yourself so Medium can see it.

Find High-quality Photos

Second, the photos you pick should not only be free to use, but also good. Your images should be high-definition, not fuzzy, and relevant to your writing. Don’t add blurry photos or rough illustrations. Everything should look clear and professional. This will impress both your readers and Medium’s curators.

Use the Right Tags on Medium

When your article gets curated, Medium curators select one or more of the tags you attached to your article and distribute it to readers who have shown interest in that tag. Then, curious readers get clicking. But for that to happen, you first need to select the right tags for your post.

These tags are nothing like social media tags such as #hustleandgrind or #fridayvibes. They tell readers and curators what topics your post is about. Most tags are for popular topics like technology, fitness, and creativity.

Some tags are more likely to get you curated than others. Try to select tags for broad, popular topics over really specific niche ones. Tagging your post “Fitness” is better than tagging it “Vinyasa Yoga” or even “Crossfit.”

Tom Kuegler gives a great tutorial on how to add tags as well as a list of Medium’s most popular tags. I love his list and use it regularly to help me find relevant, popular tags for my post.

Never simply pick a bunch of popular tags that have nothing to do with your article. Medium’s curators will see right through this, and your post won’t be curated. You might even risk losing your Medium account.

If you’re not sure what tags to use, hunt for some popular tags. Find a few that connect to your post. Then, type them into Medium’s search and look at the posts that come up. If they are a lot like yours, you’re set. If they seem pretty different or off-topic from yours, look for another tag.

Make Your Medium Title and Subtitle Shine

The title is the single most important part of your writing on Medium. It is the make-or-break element, the thing that sets how successful your piece can be. It’s one thing other than your photo readers see and use to decide whether to click your post or scroll on.

Format Your Medium Title Correctly

Seriously, this one is important. Format your title properly. Capitalize every word in your title except prepositions and don’t put a period.

This is the most common mistake I see out there. It makes me sad every time I spot a good article with a great title written out like a sentence. It’s not likely to get curated.

Not sure what to capitalize? I run most of my titles (and headers, too) through Titlecase. It’s a handy website where you simply copy and paste your title into the box, and it gives you back the correctly capitalized title version with no trouble. Your title will be correct and curatable with no fuss. Although if you want to format your titles on your own, here’s a guide to AP title case.

Don’t forget to handle your subtitle properly too. According to Medium, subtitles should be written out like sentences. So don’t capitalize anything other than the first letter and proper nouns and add necessary punctuation.

Without the right formatting, Medium curators are likely to reject your otherwise great article. Correctly punctuating and capitalizing your title and subtitle gives your post a better shot at curation with nearly no effort.

Make It Engaging

I’ve already written a post on how to make a great title for your blog post that I recommend you check out. But here are some more things you should remember when titling your Medium post.

To attract readers, your title must not only tell them what your post is about, it must also tell them why they should read it. Your title needs to tell readers what they are about to read and what they’ll get out of reading.

Photo by Luis Quintero from Pexels

Let’s look at a few good titles on Medium as examples:

1. “How To Become an Instagram Influencer and Start Earning Money”
2. “What If You Only Sometimes Work Out?”
3. “It’s Okay If You’re Not Resilient”

These are three currently trending articles on Medium, and two of them are from Medium’s own publication, Elemental. So you know these are the kind of titles they look for and that do well on the platform. They’re all different titles on very different topics. Yet, they all do good by telling you what they are about and why you should read them.

Number one, “How To Become an Instagram Influencer and Start Earning Money,” is beautiful, plain, and simple. It tells you the article is about to explain how you can become an Instagram influencer, step by step. It also spells out why you want to read this article and perhaps become an Instagram star—to make money.

Number two, “What If You Only Sometimes Work Out?” tells you the article is about the impact of occasionally working out. Why should you read it? Because if you work out sometimes, that’s a question on your lips and you want it answered. A title that asks a common question lures readers in with the “why” being an answer to their questions.

Number three, “It’s Okay If You’re Not Resilient,” suggests the article will talk about a lack of resilience. Why you should read this is because you might lack resilience and hope this article will comfort you. Readers love to be told their flaws aren’t so bad.

All these titles clearly communicate what they offer and why readers should click. These two factors are great for building strong titles that grab readers’ attention and get them engaged.

Format Your Medium Post Attractively

The right formatting is extremely important for getting curated. Making masterful use of headers, incorporating images smoothly, and including a few good quotes shows you know what you’re doing and makes for a seamless reading experience.

Use Headers Appropriately

First, get your headers right. Your articles should have several headers to help you transition from idea to idea. This lets your readers know exactly what you’re talking about.

Each header should have one idea. They can be phrases written in title case or whole sentences written in sentence case, but maintain consistency. Ensure your headers are topical to your subject and clear. Use headers consistently, beginning to end. Don’t have a header or two near the start and never put one in again. Every major idea in your article deserves a header.

Mix Images in Smoothly

Next, incorporate your images smoothly. Sprinkle them throughout the post; never cram two or more images right next to each other. Don’t use huge or distracting images. Use quality images that complement your writing instead of distracting from it. Put relevant images next to the passages they complement.

Medium has four image formatting settings: left-indented, regular, large, and overfill. Experiment to find the setting that works best for your images. I find vertical images do best with left-indented. Use Medium’s overfill image formatting wisely—meaning no more than once and preferably only for the title image. Make sure your photos look sharp and clear. Any photo you use large or overfill with must be very high resolution.

Add the Right Quotes

Finally, put in quotes. But which, you may ask? The small ones or big ones? Or in technical terms, the blockquote and the pull quote.

K. M. Brown created a great guide on Medium’s quotation system and how to use it, but I’ll give you a brief summary. Blockquotes are what you use when quoting other people. They’re the quotes with a little line on the left. Here’s a blockquote for you:

I’m not an inspirational quote kind of person. –Chrissy Teigen

Pull quotes, on the other hand, are what you use to quote yourself, from the article you just wrote. They “pull” a piece of writing from elsewhere in the article and quote it. Like this:

“Writing on Medium is both a rewarding journey and an uphill battle.”

Don’t use pull quotes for emphasis or to format your writing. You can’t use them to make text larger or more noticeable. They are only for repeating something you said elsewhere in your post, to remind the reader.

With your formatting done right, most of the battle is over. Well-written content plus a good idea equals a great shot at curation.

Get Into Medium Publications

The final thing you can do to increase your shot at curation, and guarantee yourself more readers even if you aren’t curated, is getting into a Medium publication. Getting your posts into a Medium publication puts your writing in front of all that publications’ fans. And, it shows the curators that a real editor liked your piece, which is a vote of confidence. Even better, some publication’s editors will work with you to improve your piece, to improve it and therefore make it more curatable. So yay for everyone!

To find publications, look at tags you’re interested in writing for and see what publications have popular articles in those areas. Many publications will have a “Write for Us” or “Submissions” tab on their homepage you can click on. That will take you to their application process and submission guidelines; follow them closely and you should get in.

Other publications will have calls for stories on social media; join Medium groups on Facebook or other platforms to keep an eye out. You can also follow editors, who sometimes put out requests. Occasionally, if a publication has no submission guidelines, you can contact its editor via email or social media to pitch an article or request to become a writer for their publication.

Photo by freestocks.org from Pexels

To find popular publications and to contribute posts, you could also try Smedian. It’s a service that tracks popular publications and allows Medium writers to submit to editors on the service. I haven’t used Smedian’s contribution feature yet, but I have perused the lists of top publications.

If you’re confident your writing is some of the best on Medium, it’s time to pitch Medium’s in-house publications. Medium has several publications that their editors manage just like an ordinary online magazine: Elemental, OneZero, Forge, Modus, Marker, GEN, and Human Parts.

Each one focuses on different topics and has different guidelines. The quality and pay are top-notch for these publications, so bring your best. Craft a quality, winning article pitch as if you were pitching a major magazine or newspaper.

Wrap-up: Writing on Medium is Good, Hard Work

Making it on Medium isn’t a race or a triumph of quantity over quality. Getting fans and curation writing on Medium means crafting great posts, putting all the finishing touches on right, and maybe landing your work in some good publications. And there’s no shortcut for paying attention to the details.

Listen to Medium’s guidelines. Add some good, legal images to your writing. Use the right tags for your subject. Make a title that’s properly formatted and irresistible. Format your articles like a pro. And get into some good publications in your niche. All these steps will lift your Medium writing to another level and get you some rocking posts under your belt.

Have any Medium success stories to share? More questions about writing on Medium? Any other tips for better writing I should know? Let me know in the comments!

Mint Miller

Mint is a writer and digital marketing pro who lives in coastal Virginia with her family and one lovable pitbull. Her passions include helping people and businesses display their best side through the power of communication, buying her dog costumes he doesn’t want to wear, and talking all day about Batman.