The Ultimate Guide to Writing Medium Articles
A 5-part process for writing articles that is guarantee to break your writers block.
Do you sometimes find yourself hopelessly staring at a blank page, not knowing where to begin? Don’t worry — it’s an all too familiar feeling for the most experienced scribes as well. Writing is a mix of science and art. The creative side writing—the of generating ideas, authoring quippy one-liners, and burning passion for a topic —that’s the fun part of writing and often easier waters for writers to wade through. But turning ideas into words? Words into thoughts? Thoughts into entire articles!? Yikes!
The science part is where many writers (myself included) struggle—from choosing your topic and crafting that perfect title to getting those thoughts down on paper — there are certain obstacles every writer needs to overcome. When it comes time to take pen (or pixels) in hand, many of us hit our biggest hurdle yet — how to actually turn these ideas into words.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that a combination of creativity and structure is the key to success when tackling any topic. A plan — not just wishful thinking — can get you from point A to B much more quickly than if you let ‘the wind take you.’ A clear map is always the better option than attempting an aimless journey. A solid structure acts as your very own compass, helping you stay on course and eventually reach your goal in no time.
This is the general structure I use. It acts as a process, an outline, and a map to writing great articles.
Prepping With Pre-Writing
- Choosing a topic
- Finding a category
- Focusing on the right audience
- Know your point-of-view
Nailing The Header
- The Sweet Promise Headline
- The Best Headline
- The How-To Headline
- Proven by Science Headline
- The List Headline
Hooking With The Introduction
Streamlining Article Sections
- What is the section about?
- Why does it matter?
- What evidence do you have to support? (examples or research)
- What is the key takeaway for that section?
Wrapping Up Your ArticlePrepping With Pre-Writing
Before you start writing your article, there are a few items of pre-work you need to get through. Many writers would rather skip this step and move to the writing part. If that worked for you though you probably would be reading this article and likely wouldn’t have writer’s block. Humor me and just go through the pre-writing parts.
Choosing a Topic
Before you start writing your article you need to figure out what you’ll be talking about.
When choosing a topic, it’s important to choose something you know about. You don’t have to be an expert, but you have to know enough to write an entire article about it. It should also be something you have an interest in. Let’s face it — your readers can spot a lack of interest and knowledge from miles away. Impress readers with a distinct value proposition, formed from well-thought out opinions backed up with solid insight.
Finding a Category
Once you have a topic, find the best corresponding category for your article. You’ll need that when it comes time to publish the article.
As an example, I have about 5 different categories I try to fit my article topics into. This becomes really handy for getting repeat readers. I find my readers will read several articles in a given category if they value one of an article I write within a category. This also helps with adding tags later.
Design; a category for general design topics such as trends, best practices, new technology, etc.
Design Disciplines; a category for articles specifically written through the lens of design disciplines; UX Design, Product Design, Service Design, Communication Design, Design Strategy, Design Research, Design Engineering, and Design Ops.
Design Ethics; a category for articles written about ethical principles, practicing ethics in design, and topics such as dark UX patterns.
Career Growth; a category for articles related design development and career growth.
Design Leadership; a category for topics relating to tips, guides, and best practices for design leaders.
If you were to go through all of my Medium articles, you’d be able to map my articles to at least one of these categories.
Focusing On The Right Audience
You have chosen a topic and category for your subject. Great! Now, who it this for? There are going to be different audiences for different writers. For me, I write about design and therefore, typically have 3 different audiences I write choose from:
Designers: Meaning the people on the front-lines, doing hands-on design work. Product designers, content designers, UX designers, service designers, research, and the like all fall into this audience. Articles written to this audience are intended to support, educate, and equip designers doing the work.
Organizations: The companies where designers work. This would be adjacent roles like stakeholders, developers, product managers, C-suites roles and more. Articles written to this audience are intended to help all the people that interact with designers and design leaders better understand design.
Design Leadership: There are millions of professionals within the design community around the world. Within that community there are a handful of voices that help to equip the leaders within that design community. We are aiming to be a voice that supports those leaders. Articles written to this audience should help to support, equip, and educate leaders within the design community.
Again, these audiences apply to my writing but may not apply to you. Whatever, this looks like for you, the important thing is to settle on an audience to write to.
Know Your Point-Of-View
Once you know who you are writing to, you need to know why you are writing the article to begin with. What is your opinion about said topic? What’s your point?
When creating an article, it’s like being in a game of chess — all your arguments should be strategically placed to support the main point. Don’t forget that any contradictory points need to hit the chopping block, so you don’t find yourself tangled up in knots later on.
In short, make sure your arguments carry a unified message, with one leading the way. Any secondary or tertiary claims should be there to reinforce this main point — if you find any conflicting perspectives when writing, don’t hesitate to cut them out! Finally, limit your number of main points to between three and five.
Nailing The Header
Crafting the perfect article title can be intimidating — it’s often your reader’s first taste of what is to come. Depending on how you present it, a well-crafted headline may have readers clicking in eager anticipation or leaving them scrolling past without another thought. Make sure they get up close and personal with your masterpiece by creating an unforgettable introduction that leaves them wanting more!
When crafting your masterpiece, let the headline be your guiding light — it’ll help you stay on-track and avoid unnecessary detours.
If cleverly worded, titles can lead the way to success. Make sure your article stands out from the crowd and attracts attention by including just the right ingredients in that magical title-formula. If done right, your article will rise up Search Engine rankings for improved organic traffic.
The 5 types of headlines that will compel your readers to keep reading are:
The Sweet Promise Headline
The Best Headline
The How-To Headline
Proven by Science Headline
The List Headline
The Sweet Promise Headline
Best-selling author Jeff Goins created a simple yet effective headline-writing formula: “Number + Adjective + Keyword + Promise” The inclusion of a keyword makes this formula super SEO-friendly, and it’s a fool-proof way to ensure you make a promise to your reader. The key is making sure this promise actually matters to your audience.
Let’s test it using “intangibles of design” as our topic. We could write something like:
10 Vital Intangibles of Design That Every Designer Needs to Know
The Best Headline
This headline is another SEO powerhouse because it’s an exact match to how people search for things online. Want to know how to prototype in figma? Create a service blueprint? People will often start these searches with “best way to…”
Best Way to Prototype a New App In Figma
The How-To Headline
People care about and are influenced by what others do. If your audience looks up to or trusts a particular person or professional, tell them how these people do something.
In the design industry, there are trusted groups like IDEO, AIGA, and NN/G as well as trusted individuals like Jared Spool, Jakob Nielson, and Marc Stickdorn. If you want to educate designers or design leaders on how to do something in design, sharing tips trusted sources can go a long way.
How to Use Jakob Nielsen’s Heuristics to Evaluate a Peer’s Designs in a DQA
The Proven by Science Headline
People are much more likely to accept a statement as true if they trust the source. And when that source is scientific research, you’ve hit the jackpot. This type of headline is especially effective if you want people to change a behavior.
Take for example a company that wants to know the ROI of design—looking at the cost to build and maintain products and services work when compared to the impact design work has on the bottom line. If the writer can build its case around research, it’s more likely a reader—like that company—will be compelled to take action.
A Proven Formula To Show ROI Of A Design System
The List Headline
This is also known as a “listicle”. Noticing how the internet has us captivated with its clickbait lists, it's no wonder that BuzzFeed, Upworthy and other media companies have exploded in popularity. We can't help but share these irresistible articles.
Our brains love lists! Think about it: They give us useful, organized information in bite-sized morsels that make remembering and recalling a breeze. Lists are an effective way for organizations and brands to share tips, hacks and advice in a fun and conversational way.
The 6 Leadership skills That Every Designer Needs to Have
With these five types of headlines in mind, you’ll be able to craft compelling titles without much effort. Keep these tips in mind when writing titles for Medium articles; cleverly worded titles can lead the way to success. Whether you’re writing a list post or a tutorial post — or anything else — creating catchy titles will help draw attention and keep readers engaged throughout your entire piece. When done correctly, these types of headlines will improve SEO rankings while also increasing organic traffic flow significantly — helping maximize visibility for any website owner looking for maximum exposure online.
Hooking With The Introduction
Your introduction is like a well-laid welcome mat: short and sweet, yet essential for making readers feel at home in your article. It requires just the right balance of brevity and substance to capture audience attention — but achieving this can be tricky.
Crafting compelling intros is a delicate art. If you’ve been struggling with those first lines–we know what constitutes as great opening sentence material.
From the very first word, your introduction should serve one intent: to snatch readers’ attention and draw them in. You keep that momentum going as they explore your article.
In this article by Microsoft, we see a great example of this:
Green Design Principles that every designer can use to combat climate change
This is a great intro because it makes the reader want more! What are Green Design Principles? How can design principles combat climate change? How can every design benefit from these?
Introductions for an article should be:
Short; no more than a sentence
Interesting; the reader should want to know more
Clear; easy for the reader to understand
Compelling; leave the reader wanting more
Connected; it should be tied to the message of the article
Streamlining Article Sections
Sections play a major role in your article, acting as building blocks for the main points outlined in the introduction. Sections should well-crafted by supporting and expanding on your main topic through research, evidence and examples. The piece culminates at its conclusion which summarizes everything said before it; though depending on scope you may need multiple sections to successfully make all your key assertions heard.
Each section of an article should answer four questions:
What is the section about?
Why does it matter?
What evidence do you have to support? (examples or research)
What is the key takeaway for that section?
If your sections answer these questions in a clear, concise way, you’ll have solid sections for your article.
Wrapping Up Your Article
After discussing the many facets of your topic, it’s time to tie up any loose ends and bring things full circle. Give readers an elegant resolution that sends them away satisfied with their experience so far — showing you were able to take a complex story in hand and make sense of it all.
Writing may not always be easy, but with some structure in place you can craft something that stands out from the crowd.