If you’re investing time into creating amazing blog posts, you want as many people as possible to read your brilliance. One easy way to get more reach from your posts is to re-publish your best work on Medium.
But what’s the best way to share your content to Medium without impacting your website’s SEO? Check out these strategies below:
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What is Medium?
- “Medium is an open platform where readers find dynamic thinking, and where expert and undiscovered voices can share their writing on any topic.”
What are the benefits of being on Medium?
- 170 million readers
- Big deal publications (like The Atlantic & New York Times) & authors (like Roxane Gay)
- You can make money from your writing through the partner program, where you earn a monthly payout based on the amount of time people spend reading your articles
Should I build my blog on Medium?
If you want Medium to be your primary form of income, then it makes sense to have that be the initial point of publication. And if that’s the case, you should do your best to keep ALL your work on Medium, and rarely link out to external sites, because that will decrease the amount of time that people spend reading your work.
BUT for those of us that are business owners & want to use Medium to expand our audience then drive people to our websites, I highly highly recommend building your blog on your own website, then republishing your best pieces to Medium.
I know that setting up a blog on Medium is super easy — especially if you’re trying to get contributing writers to easily participate, without needing dozens of log-ins to different sites — but for most business who are focused on long-term SEO benefits from their content, it’s almost always better to build the blog on your own website instead of Medium.
How do I republish my blogs on Medium without messing up my SEO?
DO NOT COPY/PASTE YOUR BLOG ONTO MEDIUM.
I almost never write in all caps headings, but this is really freaking important: There is a right way and a wrong way to share your blog posts on Medium so that Medium doesn’t usurp all your Google rankings.
Here’s why it matters: Google doesn’t approve of duplicate content. If you post the same information in two places, Google won’t assume that you’re the author of both; it will assume that one of those is plagiarized.
This is a good thing! It prevents random bad actors around the internet from stealing your work and passing it off as their own.
But when two sites have identical content, Google’s robots have to decide which to share, and two of the factors that it looks at are the age of the post and the authority of the platform.
So if the post appeared first on Site A, then a week later it appeared on Site B, Google might notice that and make an assumption that it originated on Site A since that’s the first place that it appeared.
But if Site A publishes less frequently than Site B, Google might actually find & index the content on Site B first, even if the publication date is later. And if Site B is a more reputable site (it has more domain authority) then even if Site B published later, Google might trust it more.
Even if you publish to your website first, Medium might outrank your website for your own content if you’re not careful.
Ok, so what are the proper steps to take?
1. Publish on your website FIRST.
2. Log in to your Medium account, drop down STORIES, and click IMPORT A STORY.
3. Paste your link into the box.
4. Edit it to look & feel the way you want.
Medium articles tend to do well with large featured images, and sometimes the formatting looks really funky, especially for header tags.
5. Double check your canonical link.
Re-publishing to Medium is a great way to get more people to see your blog.