How I Got Published in 5 of Medium’s Top Publications in 30 Days
The formula that secured me a top writer status.
This is the 21st edition of The Essence.
Last month was my best month on Medium. This month would be my new best month on Medium.
Many factors attributed to the incredible increase in my followers, earnings, and engagement over the last 60 days. But one of the main factors is the formula I discovered a few months ago.
This formula won’t only help you to get published in Medium’s top publications. It can also help you get featured in large media sites like Forbes and Business Insider. Aaron Orendorff used it to grow his freelance business from nothing to six figures in a year and a half:
“Guest blogging was the primary sales funnel that grew my freelance writing business from nothing to six figures in a year and a half.
It gave me authority and social proof (when — to put it bluntly — I didn’t deserve either).”
In June, this formula helped me get published in five of Medium’s top publications.
The Startup(729K)
Better Marketing(103K)
Mind Cafe(124K)
Ascent Publication(144K)
The Writing Cooperative(227K)
For a year, I couldn’t get into many of the top publications, especially Better Marketing. I tried a lot and got rejected a lot. But with the help of Aaron’s formula, I’m now able to get published in those top publications. Regularly.
This piece isn’t to brag about my Medium mini-success. But to help you replicate it.
Steal Aaron’s guest posting formula to get published in Medium’s top publications
The top publications got me more exposure, which ultimately gained me a place as a top writer in the topic of Art.
I don’t think I was going to accomplish all this without Aaron’s formula.
I came across his guest posting formula while browsing Copyhackers. When I read those lines in his guide, something lit in my head:
“If all I did was study what publications already loved, layer on something trendy (either from search or social), and craft an entire article just for them… the doors would open. And open they did — even for a nobody like me.”
It’s so simple, so effective. Aaron used it to get featured in Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, and many more major sites. I only discovered it recently, and I’m already getting great results.
From my experience, the most crucial step in his formula is the studying part. But you don’t have to study everything they publish. Study what they already love and want more of. In other words, study their popular content.
Publications, as Aaron explained, want popular content. Popular content brings them more exposure, and more exposure is what publications want.
More exposure = more views = usually more money.
As a writer, you also need exposure. The incredible exposure Aaron received from his guest posts got him enough writing clients to earn six figures.
Study the most popular articles of your targeted publications
Yes, studying each publication’s most popular pieces takes time. But as Aaron wrote, the time spent inside those articles is invaluable.
It’s also an enjoyable learning experience. You get to learn what those articles have in common, the ins and outs of each publication, and simultaneously, reading interesting articles.
Now let’s get into the practicalities. Medium makes finding popular content easy. You may find the publication’s archive in the navigation buttons of its homepage.
But many publications here don’t leave this button on their homepage. But you can type in Google the (publication name) + (archive):
When searching for the popular content of publications outside this platform, I often struggle. But here, there’s an archive page for every publication. That’s a writer’s goldmine! And the archive, by default, shows you the ten most popular articles of all time for each publication. You can also change it to study the most popular articles of this year.
Collect 10–20 of each publication’s most popular pieces. I use Google Sheets for this.
Study the popular pieces’ headlines and note the patterns
For instance, many of Better Marketing’s viral pieces headlines have names of popular brands:
Pepsi
Burger King
Amazon
LinkedIn
From this finding, we can understand that Better Marketing’s readers like those brand-related articles.
Another finding is the marketing stories among Better Marketing’s popular articles. Such as the orange juice rebrand article by
and the Pepsi typo incident by Sean Kernan.
Those findings are invaluable. And can help you when brainstorming articles’ ideas for them.
It also appears — and I found this pattern in most publications here — that numbers in headlines are desirable.
These patterns will help you know what the publication’s audience often favorites. And editors look for what best performs with their audience. When you gather such data, you’ll learn what both readers and editors want. Not only that, you’ll likely know what the algorithm also likes to promote. After all, those popular articles have been strongly promoted by the algorithm.
It is a win-win-win. What more to ask for?
Applying all this helped one of my recent articles become #1 trending in many topics:
The next steps are:
Calculate the characters in the popular articles’ headlines to find the average character count. I use WordCounter to calculate the characters of each headline. Then add them all and divide them by ten.
Check the word count of each popular article to find the average you should aim for with each publication. Some like short articles, like Business Insider. Others prefer longer pieces, such as The Writing Cooperative. I use WordCounter to calculate the word count for each article, add all the numbers, and divide them by the number of stories. Total word count/number of articles= Average word count
Study the subheadings of those popular pieces. Do they use the section breaker (three dots) or numbers in their subheadings? Are subheadings written in sentence case or title case?
Count the data points in those popular articles. I found that popular pieces are usually packed with evidence. But it varies from publication to publication. Do your research and also note the type of evidence used. Are most data points experts’ quotes, studies, or books’ concepts?
Check the media in the popular articles. How many images? And what type of images?
Count how many links are in those popular pieces. And how many of them are inbound or outbound.
Study the formatting of each publication’s popular content. Do they like long paragraphs of 5–7 lines or shorter snappier ones of 2–4 lines?
Run those articles in both Grammarly and Hemingway App. Note how each piece scored with each app. It will help you get an idea of the editing required before you submit anything.
It’s a lot of hard work. But you only have to do this once for each of your targeted publications. Then, you can use those findings for inspiration when you want to write for any of them. And before you submit, you can know how close your article is to what those publications are looking for.
But first, get the basics right
Make sure your Medium profile is neat (Profession + accomplishments like where you’ve been published + link (s) to your website, newsletter, or social media)
Become a reader of your targeted publications. Read even the non-popular articles.
Read their submission guidelines more than once.
Don’t submit instantly after writing a piece. (Give it time to sit. You’ll be able to edit with a fresher and sharper mind)
Don’t disregard the editing part. (I spend at least one hour on structural editing, an hour line editing, and one-hour proofreading)
Of course, and this should go without saying, you need decent writing skills. If your writing isn’t that good, work on improving that first.
After applying this formula, I wasn’t only easily getting published in Medium’s top publications. My writing improved, and my articles started receiving more traction, securing me a spot with the top writers.
Apply this formula and spend some time analyzing popular content. Publications love popular content, so does the algorithm. When you write what each publication readers like to read, you can satisfy all three.
I wrote this piece around August 2021. You can find the original here.
Thanks for reading and until next time,
Mohammed