4 Reasons Why I Write for Free on Medium and Not on My 6-Figure Blog
“I liked your Medium post on tiny houses, but why are you wasting time there and not writing on your blogs?”
A friend asked me this, and I realized how weird it probably looks.
On the surface, there is no obvious value to my bottom line.
I don’t have many outbound links to my websites.
I’m not collecting leads.
Monetization is turned off.
There are a couple of reasons I “waste” time here on Medium.
Reason #1 Love of the Game
I love to write.
All of my business ventures are aimed at earning me enough money that I can write about what interests me without worrying about tickling the Google algorithm to get traffic and conversions.
My end game is to write horror, comedy, and books on the more niche aspects of entrepreneurship.
All without the pressure of needing anyone to actually read or like them to keep the lights on and the kids fed.
Even if writing on Medium isn’t the most efficient use of my time, I didn’t enter the world of self-employment to worry about squeezing every penny out of every second of my workday.
I did it for freedom. Writing gives me that sense of freedom.
Reason #2 Practice
No offense to my fellow Medium readers, but Medium is where I experiment and test new writing styles.
But why not just practice on my websites?
Well, when you have a niche website, you have limitations on what you can write.
When you have limitations, writer’s block can kick in.
So, if I just need finger reps on the keyboard, I’ll grab one of the endless numbers of topics I’ve saved over in Notion and type away.
I can write a 2,000-word post in the same amount of time it would take me to write 200 words on a topic that doesn’t interest me as much.
There’s also no better place to practice writing great headlines than on Medium. I’m an avid consumer of other Medium creators’ content and I come here to harvest inspiration and bring it back to the places that actually make me money.
Medium not only makes me a better writer, but writing also helps me learn more about the things that interest me.
It helps me organize my thoughts and gives me a better understanding of the topics I cover.
So often, I’ll be writing about a topic and get to a point where I realize I actually didn’t know what I didn’t know until I had to articulate it to other people.
The highest form of learning is teaching. Medium often helps me with that.
Reason #3 Protecting Topical Authority
When I first started blogging, I wrote about whatever I wanted to. This sounds great on the surface, but it’s not a good SEO practice.
Google’s latest “helpful content” update proved they’re serious about a website focusing on a niche and not messing around with random topics.
So, if I’m tempted to write a post that I know will be fun and interesting but isn’t related to my main topics, I will bring it here.
Reason #4 Recycling Bin
Some posts I’ve written elsewhere simply aren’t made for organic traffic. If I think they were great pieces that deserve a chance at a second life, I republish them here and redirect the old URL to Medium.
Thanks for reading and do me a favor and subscribe. I’ll be here writing either way, but I’d love your company.
