Helpful Tools I Used to Optimize My Medium Stories as a Beginner
By: Quy Ma
Tags: Blogging, Writing, Ｍedium, Advice, Writing Tips

Helpful Tools I Used to Optimize My Medium Stories as a Beginner

Tools to help you with headlines, grammar, and publication research

Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash

When I first started writing on Medium three months ago, I needed a lot of help. Like many of you probably, my first full month was trying to figure out everything that Medium had to offer.

I felt overwhelmed. Publications? Formatting? Tags? Topics? Curation? What? I just want to write, damn it!

Alas, that’s not how Medium works — and for good reason. Medium built a platform that rewards quality work and effective usage of the inner workings of the system. I understood very quickly that in order for me to have my stories read, I needed every advantage I could get.

Whether you agree with the idea or not, Medium fosters a merit-based, but very competitive environment for its writers. As a writer on Medium, you’re competing for the attention of millions of readers. Time is a limited resource and each and every reader only gets so much time to dedicate to possibly reading your stories.

Well, how do you stand out? Quality and relevance. Is your writing understandable and does your audience relate to it?

In the beginning, I considered my writing voice to be stale. My grammar wasn’t the best. I had zero experience with blogging. And I thought I was the most boring person in the world — what could I possibly write about that would captivate people’s attention?

Practice makes perfect

Fortunately, I’m a voracious reader, love researching, and learning new things. I put myself to the task and read up on as much as I could about Medium and how it works.

I poured through dozens of articles from a variety of different people. I tested out things to see what worked and what didn’t work. I wrote a variety of different stories under different topics.

In my journey, especially the first month, I found and used different tools that assisted in bettering my writing and formatting. I used the profits from my first month on Medium to subscribe to a few of the Pro versions too. I thought of the investment as an investment in myself and my potential growth on Medium.

The old saying, “Practice makes perfect”, couldn’t be more relevant for your journey on Medium. The more you do something, the better you’re going to get at it. It’s called continuous improvement.

I’ve since reduced my usage of some of these tools due to my growing mastery of the platform. I’ll probably unsubscribe from the Pro versions of the tools I bought since I barely use them now. I’m still not perfect, but if I look back at some of the first articles that I’ve written, I’ve definitely seen massive improvements.

I believe each of you will see the same incremental improvements in your writing too. These tools, especially if you struggle in certain areas, can help give you guidance so you can truly focus on what really matters most — your writing.

If there are any other tools, extensions, and websites that you’ve used in your Medium writing journey, leave a response below! I’d love to hear about them and include them in this list in future updates.

With this list, I talk about my thoughts on each tool, but I encourage each of you to try them yourself and see what works for you. Here is the list!