Let’s Talk About Tags

Tags are the lifeblood of discoverability for online writers. Tags connect our content with similar posts and open our writing to new audiences. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.

Medium recently updated its site design which led to multiple questions, namely about where all the tags went. While we can pick five, only one shows up in the feed.

Celine Lai responded and let me know the one tag displayed in the new Medium feed is the first tag added to a story.

So, fellow Medium writers, it’s extremely important to choose the first tag wisely. Instead of picking the most popular tag first, make sure to pick something unique. Does it properly reflect your content? Is it a unique descriptor to capture new audiences?

Today is Be Humble Day. Part of humility is admitting when you don’t know something. While I’ve written a detailed guide for using Medium, there are still many things I don’t know. I’m grateful to Celine for pointing out how tags work with the new design and making the Medium guide that much stronger.

Today’s discussion is twofold: how do you determine tags for your posts, and how do you stay humble as a writer online? I genuinely try to respond to every email reply I get, so please let me know what you’re thinking.