“Happiness Lies in Accepting Your Limitations” (Self-help gurus often tell you ain’t no mountain high enough.“Should Non-Native Speakers Write on Medium at All?” (This piece was my reaction to a blogger who claimed non-native speakers’ English is bad.If possible, it’s good to bring out the tension in the story, like this: They have an appeal to people’s emotions because you are providing the answer to what they want to learn. “What 5 things do you need to get people to read your articles?”.“Do you want to make $2,000 with an online side hustle?”.When writing a headline, you should also stay away from obvious questions: The title of the draft looked too generic: “You can get addicted to charity work.” I changed it to “Charity work can get you hooked like a junkie.” This spice made it too clickbaity, so Medium didn’t curate the piece. I backed it up with reliable medical sources, but it didn’t get curated. Once I wrote a nice piece on the effects of kindness on your body and mind. “If it exploits the reader’s emotions and insecurities, it is likely clickbait.” These choices are too manipulative and far from journalism. Don’t grab them by their fear, sense of inadequacy, or desire. Stay away from playing with the readers’ insecurities. “How to get better at… It’s not what you think”.“5 hacks you can do right now to change your life immediately”.There is no space for provocative claims: Of course, if you offer a quick fix to a serious challenge, you’ll lose your credibility with readers.Ī part of my excel sheet with the Medium Staff’s rules on how to write a headline ”The only thing you need for success is…”Ī headline must be so clear and specific that readers only ask themselves, “do I want to read this story?” As you write it, do your best to deliver the promise from the title.Also, you can’t exaggerate or overpromise the solution. The headline mustn’t play with readers’ emotions. Such headlines worked in the past, but now it’s all about moderation. You may want to manipulate people to click on your title. Let’s see what the Medium staff’s tips are on writing a good headline: For writers with over 10K followers, it’s not that big a deal. If you don’t play by the rules, you don’t get curated. On one sheet, I jotted down the Medium staff’s main guidelines so I don’t get back to the article every time I write. It has different pieces of information on writing, including my published posts.
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