Parasite SEO on Medium is a goldmine
Start now before it's too late.
I experimented with parasite SEO on LinkedIn, Medium, and Reddit. Medium works much better for me. Here is how I do it and why you should try too.
My stats on Medium for 2024
From Medium articles, I generated almost 1k visits to my Looker Studio templates website. Yes, Reddit generated more, but most of the traffic from Reddit is from comments I left under the posts that rank in the top 10 in Google.
Here are also some stats from Medium analytics. On average, I generate 1k views for all my articles on Medium per month.
Here are the statistics from the articles I wrote 1 month ago. I didn’t promote it anywhere. 95% of traffic is from organic search.
Here is the screenshot from Sitechecker Rank Tracker with rankings by keywords I target.
You see, almost all pages are in the top 10! I feel that I learned how to get traffic from there.
However, I started posting regularly on Medium only in Q4-2024.
How has my approach to posting evolved?
Before Q4-2024, I primarily duplicated content from my website ivanhoe.pro trying to get a +1 page at the top of Google by my target keywords:
google search console looker studio template;
google analytics 4 looker studio template;
google ads looker studio template;
youtube looker studio template.
The articles have similar content to mine on my website but with more screenshots and details. Anyway, it was easy to replicate them.
Some articles went down through time.
Some rank in the top 10-20 for a long time.
However, in Q4-2024 I decided to test another approach: repurposing my posts on LinkedIn into the articles on Medium.
My approach is simple:
I review my LinkedIn posts and think by which keywords I can rank such content.
I publish the same LinkedIn post with more images and details (it’s important to add uniqueness to it because Google indexes LinkedIn posts too).
Sometimes I make a big guide aggregating 2-3 posts.
What is the value in acquiring traffic from Medium?
I shared my experiments a lot, but people continue to ask whether it’s worth it. I hear more and more: “Did you generate any revenue from it”?
Here is why I believe it’s worth it.
1. The most important reason
For many topics, I can rank in the top 10 of Google the next day after publishing a post! It's often even easier than publishing a blog post on Sitechecker which has 78DR and 300K+ monthly organic traffic.
2. Copying information is always easier than creating a new one.
With one piece of content, I get organic traffic from LinkedIn in 1 week and will get organic traffic from Google for years.
3. I build backlinks to all my websites from pages with traffic.
I see in web analytics that my posts on Medium generate high-intent traffic. Backlinks by which people visit your website are valuable even if they are nofollow.
For example, I use my articles “Why Is Semrush So Expensive” and “How to Cancel Semrush Subscription” which rank in the 2nd position in SERP to place a baclink to the “Cheaper Semrush Alternative” landing page on Sitechecker.
The same when I share my experience of becoming an influencer on LinkedIn.
It’s essential to place a backlink to Favikon LinkedIn Profile Analyzer in such an article.
4. I can publish the post on any theme there.
Do you remember about relevance of the website? Google evaluates how far new content you publish from the core topic of your website. The closer it to your core topic the higher your chances of ranking in the top.
On the Sitechecker blog, I always have a chance that Google will decide that some pages are non-related to the core topic of the website.
For example, I know very well that my articles related to growth on LinkedIn will rank better on Medium than on Sitechecker.
“Ivan, you still don’t say anything about the revenue”
Yes, exactly! Because revenue is the function of both: the high-value traffic and your ability to convert it.
You can master traffic acquisition and lose the conversion of traffic. In my case, I have sales of my Looker Studio templates from Medium traffic, but the main goal of these articles is still backlinks and traffic to money pages on my websites.
Try to put some similar articles as I did without backlinks in the top 10 in 1 week using your website. Let me know if you can do it (don't write me if your website DR is 80+ :).
I also found a great comment on Reddit under my post from the man who does a parasite SEO on Medium on an industrial scale. Here is the full post about it.
I fully agree with this comment.
My hypotheses about why articles on Medium rank so well
1. Huge Domain Rating and huge traffic
Yes, it's important, but not the only one.
2. Medium has a better UX for reading content than 80% of blogs on corporate websites
This impacts user satisfaction a lot! I haven't heard anyone talk about this. We already know that Google evaluates user behavior on the site and that most sites can't make a normal design for their blog.
3. Medium is still perceived as a platform for independent writers
If you see a page from a brand you know that 100% it will be biased. With a Medium article, you have at least some chance to read non-biased thoughts.
This gives a huge boost to the CTR of Medium articles in SERP among other pages! This is the same reason why people so often choose Reddit in SERP and use the word "reddit" in their search terms.
4. The quality of my content
In any case, my parasite SEO is not classic parasite SEO as it is often understood:
I do not use AI content;
I research the topic myself deeply;
I give a lot of screenshots.
My content deserves to be ranked at the top! I am just forced to publish it on Medium since Google will not give it the same positions if I publish it on my website.
5. My personal brand on Medium and other social networks
I published a lot of content on different websites for years. Perhaps Google recognizes my author and assigns more weight to such content.
Here I am not sure! Please share, if you have links to some experiments or Google's patents in this matter.
The 4th and 5th are related to me. But the first 3 points explain why the entire Medium website has advantages corporate websites often lack.
Why do you need to start posting on Medium now?
Parasite SEO on Medium is a zero-sum game with limited time!
The first person to create good content gets 90% of the opportunities to be at the top. The rest become victims of cannibalization.
Look at this SERP. In most cases, Google won’t rank more than 2 Medium articles by the keyword.
The person who publishes the content first has more time to build backlinks to such content and collect good user signals.
Let me know your thoughts on that.
P.S. Don’t miss my popular Looker Studio templates:
Free Keyword Cannibalization Checker (based on GSC data);
Free Google Search Console Template (for keyword research);
SEO forecasting template (based on blending GA4 and GSC data).