Joshua Mason's Newsletter

Attention is everything.

If you write online, you're compete with millions of people to get eyeballs on your content.

That’s hard.

Guess what’s even harder?

Keeping that attention and turning followers into fans.

I haven’t cracked this code on X, but I’m finding success on longer form writing on Medium.

In just over 90 days I’ve written 18 articles, gained 465 followers, and 20 email subscribers.

I’ve also managed to earn the coveted Boost on two of those stories. If you’re new to Medium, the Boost means someone at Medium picked your story over dozens of others for distribution across the platform.

For the next few weeks, I’ll share some of what works for me and what doesn’t.

Today we look at the headline and the intro.

Headline

Headline should be between 6 and 10 words. Anything over or under have a harder time getting clicks. Aim to create an “open loop”. My last boosted story was titled “What Happened When I Pushed My Body Past the Breaking Point”.

The title could have been better, but it worked. It’s interesting, and it makes you want to find out, maybe just out of morbid curiosity, what did this idiot do to himself?

The reader needs to read some more.

Headline analyzer tools help with this. They simply mix emotional words, uncommon words, and powerful words together to make you stop scrolling.

I use Monster Insights free tool.

You have to give the reader some reason to pick your article over the hundred others he or she is going to scroll over.

Here is a tip. Go to Youtube and search some key words you are considering for a title. See what results come back. There is probably a Youtube video similar to your topic that has hundreds of thousands of views.

Steal a version of that title. Yes, I’m telling you to steal it. No one owns headlines, and if it covers the same info, have at it.

I have not used a Youtube headline exactly, but variations of ones that work are a no-brainer. They’ve done the research for you.

Medium pays you through a combination of metrics, one is the read-ratio. If lots of people click on your article and don’t read, it doesn’t help you.

It means you had a catchy title but no substance to your work. At least not in a format that held the reader.

You’re aiming for a 70% view to read ratio.

Intro

Do not, I repeat, do not start with a wall of text. If you open your article with five sentences - people are going to immediately exit.

My best article started with the four letter sentence “There was no fanfare”.

It makes people read the next line, because what the hell is the author talking about? Fanfare over what?

If you write on Medium without AI, use Grammarly to edit, use a brief intro, and spend time on a 6-10 word headline, you are already better than 60 percent of the 180,000 active Medium writers.

Next week, we’ll dive into topics and ideas.

Talk soon,

Josh