I started writing consistently on Medium, but I want to explore and learn one thing: reading and analyzing my stats.

I have been writing for 3 years and there is one thing that I just realized recently — I don’t look much at my stats to analyze what is working and what is not.

So, I will try to deep-dive into it and see if I can take advantage of my current stats to better understand my readers. I will also discuss how you can use this feature in Medium to improve your writing and attract more attention from your readers.

If you have been writing on Medium and look at your stats that is constantly decreasing, maybe you are not doing it right. There is one thing I realized after analyzing my stats, I was writing for myself and not for my audience.

This mistake lost me readers…and as a writer who is obsessed with stats (I know it is bad), but it is frustrating.

Hence, I will share how you will analyze your readers and how to get the most out of it.

Why Medium Stats Matter?

It matters, but very few people use this.

Most new writers on Medium disregard this feature, thus, they lose their momentum and then leave immediately.

How many people have you seen saying that…

“Medium is a shit”

“I don’t earn from it“

“It’s a scam”

I know I know…these phrases are familiar to those users who don’t understand the game.

They post a story, they get viral…then what’s next?

They continued posting thinking that they would go viral again, but you are not. Unless you analyze your stats and metrics.

I have been there before, I was thinking the same. But here’s what I learned…

Think of Medium stats as a conversation between you and your readers. You write something, they read it, then analyze their behavior.

Look at the read ratio, are they reading your content until the end?

Are they clicking your story?

Those are the questions that you should be asking to understand what is working and what is not.

Many new writers are looking into their stats but they feel overwhelmed by a huge spike and increase of their traffic. So, they don’t know how they can start.

It is pretty normal.

But learning those questions and what you should prioritize is very important to succeed in Medium.

The stats aren’t just numbers to show, they don’t exist for nothing. It is your map to find the right path to success.

It will guide you to what you should write next, what will keep your momentum, and what will help you to earn more money.

Views VS Reads

Many new writers misunderstand the two, they think that they are the same and they don’t know how does it work.

Views are just simply the indication of how many times people see your post on the homepage and their feed, but they never click and read it.

Reads, on the other hand, indicate the number of people who actually read your story and spend their time reading it.

Having a lot of views, but only a few reads is a bad indication of your stats (more on this later).

This happens when you do not write quality content or you use clickbait as your title.

I will never recommend writing something like this because it can hurt your reputation on the platform and lose your readers.

I published a post about how to write titles on Medium to help you with this one which you can read HERE.

Read Ratio

This metric is the most helpful metric on Medium (at least for me), because it helps me to understand my audience more by learning what content they find relevant.

The read ratio is computed using this formula: (reads/views) x 100

The higher the read ratio, the better.

This means that your readers actually read your content for more than 30 seconds. It is a new guideline of Medium, the more the reader spend their time on your content, the better it will affect your earnings and engagement.

But why 30 seconds?

It is a new system on Medium which if a reader stays on your post for more than 30 seconds, it will be counted as Reads instead of Views.

Let’s say your story gets 100 reads and 500 views…

(100/500) x 100 = 20%

This means that your read ratio is just 20% which is lower than the recommended read ratio of 40% to 75% based on the blog post by Thomas Smith.

As of writing, I have a total of 606 reads and 1k views which gives me a 60.6% read ratio; here’s how I did it…

I find writing short paragraphs helpful to keep the readers engaged with your content.

A single or two lines will help them to read it well and keep scrolling to your content.

I know this because, from my reader’s perspective, I do the same. When I read content that is written with long paragraphs, I feel lazy reading it so I leave the post and not read the whole content.

In addition, using images, graphics, and bullet points to divide the context of your content helps a lot. I would say that formatting matters, so you better take it seriously.

Keep your fans engaged

Making friends on the platform is easy if you know the secret on how to do it.

People who comment, read, and clap at your posts deserve recognition. You can do it by mentioning them in your next post, reading their content as well, and giving them a clap.

It is not a clap-to-clap scheme.

Make it sincere and genuine. Build connections and make friends. By this, you can easily create a support system within the platform that will pay you in the long term.

I have a blog post on my website about how building community will help to build your social media success that you might find related to this idea.

Traffic sources

Okay, so you have stats…but what now?

Understanding where the traffic comes from is an important step to understanding what you should continue to use for your marketing.

Do you promote your posts on Facebook, X, or TikTok?

Or does the traffic only come from Medium internal traffic?

Understanding this will help you to decode sudden traffic growth.

My post about how to optimize your Medium profile went viral after a week, and here are the traffic sources that I had on that specific post.

Seriously, it is amazing to see Google on my external link sources because it means that my stories are now getting indexed on Google and can potentially get more traffic soon.

Identify the patterns on your stats

When you publish a lot of posts on Medium, you will now have the opportunity to dig deeper into analyzing your stats.

For example, my most-read story is about writing on Medium, tips on writing (mostly on Medium), and personal stories. The least read are the stories that are long content and have a target audience of beginner writers.

It seems that my audience prefers direct to the point, in the intermediate stage of writing, and exploring more new things on what to write.

Hence, I try to write more content about them and what is their interest.

The timing of when should you post also matters.

If you post mostly in the morning, and you get more traffic than posting it in the evening, then there is a higher chance that your readers are mostly reading content in the morning than evening.

Unfortunately, it is a bit hard to track this one if you are submitting your posts to publications because the editors won’t publish your story right away after submitting it.

Learning these patterns will help you to understand more when and what should you write.

Wrapping up

I know that being obsessed with numbers is bad, so you must learn to balance everything when analyzing it.

Overfocusing on the numbers will kill your productivity and motivation, you should use it to your advantage, not use it to discourage you.

If you get only 20 claps in your post and only gets 5 views even after doing the tips above, maybe you are something important.

The stats don’t define the full story, it doesn’t define you as a writer. Try to build a relationship and experiment with new things.

Have you tried promoting your content on social media? If not, try it!

I got some claps and visits after posting this story on my Facebook.

Medium’s algorithm is changing, it is mysterious for every writer. What you need to do is to keep building on the platform. Write more stories, be consistent, and build friendships.

I am pretty sure that it will help you in the long term.

It is better to focus on one metric first if you are just starting. Try to start learning more about your read ratio; this will help you to understand which content finds your audience relevant.

Start small, then move to the next step once you master it.

Frequently Asked Questions [FAQs]

• How to keep my read ratio more than 50%? Start writing engaging content. Break down your paragraphs into single or two-line spaces. This will keep your audience scrolling and reading your content.
• How to increase my external traffic? Learn the basics of SEO. It will help you to target your readers by learning their search intent. You can also do keyword research and know how to properly use it.
• Why my Medium views and reads are low? You might not be distributing your content properly. Try to join publications and submit your posts, it has more chance to get viewers and readership. You can also take advantage of using social media to get more external traffic.