I noticed a relation between a Medium metric and the view count on my stories that seems to align with a few other writers I checked with.

It’s not surprising.

Some writers complain they get few views compared to their follower count. I have 12K followers. Obviously, very few of my stories ever get 12K views, let alone on average.

I score an average of about 300–1000 views per story, with some stories spiking to well over 1000, and some even undercutting 300.

But the average is around 600 views within 1–2 weeks after publishing. Far off from my 12K follower count. But it does align with another metric on Medium.

The subscriber count.

I have around 650 subscribers. These are the people who opted into getting my stories per mail. Chances are much higher they read my stories.

Still, we have to factor in open rates for email newsletters. These come in at around 20–60% with the majority in the middle at 30–40%.

My Substack newsletter averages exactly 40%.

If that’s true on Medium as well, then around 240 views come from subscribers, the rest from either followers or new readers, driven to my stories by the Medium algorithm, recommendations, or external traffic.

That also shows the importance of the subscriber metric compared to followers. It’s crucial to grow your Medium subscribers to increase average view counts per story.

Growing your subscriber count is best done with visible and recurring CTAs (call-to-actions).

CTAs are best placed at the footer of your stories with a short paragraph and link to the subscribe page and within the Medium bio. Those spots are usually occupied by other CTAs, though, for example, links to Substack newsletters, Gumroad products, website, etc.

If you plan to increase your Medium views, it might be time to rethink those CTAs.