Tags are to content on Medium what wood is to a fire, and a creative headline is the same as a spark. But with no extensive catalog of the most popular Medium tags, how do you know which ones to use? It all comes down to relevance — pay the most attention to the overarching category it should be filled in as this will most likely have the largest audience, then use the remaining tags to drill down and get a bit more specific.
Say you’ve just written an article on an incredible JavaScript trick the world needs to know about. The most natural primary bucket for this type of content would be Programming. The next step is to think about all the different terms you as a reader would search for find this content, list them, then opt for those with the largest audiences. In this instance, you’d probably opt for a combination like: Developer, Developer Tips, Technology, and JavaScript.
Of course, if you’re writing with the sole intention of generating revenue you’re probably going to want to mold your content to the categories with the largest audiences. The writing platform doesn’t publish a list of its most popular tags, so it’s not quite as simple as shooting fish in a barrel — or isn’t it? Fortunately, there are some people out there who have done the hard work for us, scouring and cataloging all the most popular tags in a semi-reliable list.
Most Popular Medium Tags
- Life (520,000 followers)
- Startup (487,000 followers)
- Blockchain (473,000 followers)
- Poetry (455,000 followers)
- Life Lessons (452,000 followers)
- Politics (396,000 followers)
- Health (374,000 followers)
- Love (350,000 followers)
- Travel (334,000 followers)
- Technology (334,000 followers)
- Entrepreneurship (333,000 followers)
- Self Improvement (332,000 followers)
- Education (330,000 followers)
- Writing (324,000 followers)
- Business (320,000 followers)
- Cryptocurrency (314,000 followers)
- Design (267,000 followers)
- Social Media (241,000 followers)
- Music (228,000 followers)
- Relationships (214,000 followers)
- Social Media (214,000 followers)
- Sports (209,000 followers)
- Mental Health (202,000 followers)
- Productivity (187,000 followers)
- Programming (186,000 followers)
- Food (167,000 followers)
- Leadership (166,000 followers)
- Javascript (160,000 followers)
- Art (152,000 followers)
- Fiction (143,000 followers)
- Humor (143,000 followers)
- Artificial Intelligence (143,000 followers)
- UX (138,000 followers)
- Culture (136,000 followers)
- Books (135,00 followers)
- Photography (128,000 followers)
- Creativity (126,000 followers)
- Data Science (123,000 followers)
- Psychology (119,000 followers)
- Software Development (117,000 followers)
- Coronavirus (115,000 followers)
- Self (104,000 followers)
- Family (103,000 followers)
Above is a list of the most popular Medium tags in 2021, according to Finding Tom. It’s hard to really attest to its reliability, so I wouldn’t take it as gospel. What it does do however is provide us with an insight into some broad categories with significant audience that can serve as an invaluable stepping stone in the content-creation process. Pick one and have a look around. Chances are doing so will sow the seed for your next article or two.
Should You Only Focus on the Most Popular Tags?
Absolutely not! The broader the topic, the broader the interests — the harder it is to encourage a click. Your best bet is to select one very broad, relevant, large tag then use the remaining four to get as specific to the topic as possible. As you do this, the click intent will increase (because you’re converging on the target audience for the content), so you can expect both a higher clickthrough rate from the discoverability services and a higher engagement rate.
