Hey Hackers!

Have you noticed the "Story Settings" option when submitting your stories? While many of you are familiar with this powerful tool, some might still wonder what it’s all about. We’re here to break it down for you! By the end of this guide, you’ll know exactly how to use HackerNoon’s Story Settings to add the perfect finishing touches to your already amazing stories.

The Story Settings feature in your drafts is a post-publication enhancement tool. Everything you add there works to improve your story after it’s published—like boosting its ranking on search engines, attracting more readers, and distributing it to high-traffic pages, among other benefits. Fill out these fields before submitting your draft, and your story will have the best chance to reach a wide audience!

How To Use HackerNoon's Story Settings To Your Advantage

1. Upload a Cool Featured Image!

A picture (or a GIF) is worth a thousand words..

Featured images are key to catching readers' attention and setting the tone for your story. One common mistake writers make is adding the featured image directly to the draft page. Instead, use the “Story Settings” and select “Click to upload Featured Image” feature to upload your image properly. Taking a moment to pick or create the perfect featured image will make your story more appealing, engaging, and shareable!

Speaking of featured images, explore the AI Image Gallery, where we showcase all the AI creations ever made on HackerNoon.

2. Drop a Note to an Editor!

You can now reach out to editors directly through your draft’s Story Settings! Write a custom message or select from our curated list of common draft issues for quicker and more efficient communication!

While you may not need this feature every time, our curated list of draft issues is incredibly useful when:

• There’s a delay in reviewing your draft.
• Your draft gets rejected by mistake.
• You’re experiencing technical issues.
• Something is missing, like text, images, or links.
• You want to brainstorm ideas or improve your draft.

Our editors typically respond within a day or two after you leave a message.

3. Meta description & TL;DR

“Meta Descriptions are one of the easiest and most important ways to increase organic traffic to your story. A well-written meta description can both raise your rankings on search engines and also entice readers to click on your story instead of the competing stories on the SERP.”

-Limarc Ambalina, Former Head of Editorial, HackerNoon

Your meta description is like an elevator pitch for your story—it’s your moment to grab attention in just a few words! Keep it concise (155-160 characters), include a target keyword, and give readers a compelling preview of what’s inside. Plus, when HackerNoon shares your story on socials, your meta description becomes the caption, making it even more important to get it right - see an example here.

Need tips? Learn more about crafting the perfect meta description here.

A TL;DR is a brief summary that highlights your story’s key points, helping readers quickly decide if they want to dive in. We recommend keeping it between 300-500 characters. In our newsletters, we feature your story’s image, TL;DR, and a 'Read More' button, so make it compelling—or let our AI generate one for you!

4. Add Tags

Tags are the internet's indexing system. They are the foundation of organizing and distributing content on the internet. When you submit a story to HackerNoon, you get not three, not five, but EIGHT tags. Tags work for you, as a writer, in two important ways:

1. Tags help Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and friends find your content, serving it to users searching for those terms.
2. Tags help HackerNoon distribute your content to top trafficked pages, as well as the most subscribed tags via our customizable newsletter, The Tech Brief.

Want to learn more? We’ve written a whole story on it! Check it out here.

5. Emoji Credibility Indicators

As a technology publishing platform, we work to facilitate value between reader and writer. Our new release of Emoji Credibility Indicators surfaces essential context to the content within every HackerNoon story. This could be something as simple as telling the reader if the story is a news piece or an opinion piece.

On the other hand, there are more complicated things we might want to communicate to the reader, such as whether or not the writer has a vested interest in the companies they’re writing about, or if they used AI to write the piece.

How the Emoji Credibility Index shows up on your story settings:

Learn the meaning of every Emoji Credibility Indicator here.

6. Repost or Original Story?

If you’re reposting a story originally published elsewhere, you can still submit it to HackerNoon and leverage our distribution engine. By selecting the “max readership” option, your story benefits from audio story conversion, newsletter distribution, and RSS feed pickups. For quality content republished from personal blogs, we also provide canonical links to help you grow your audience.

In addition to a free editorial review and story distribution, you can get your call to action(s) more prominently featured across HackerNoon by updating your profile call to action.

Learn more about reposting articles & canonical linking here.

That's it! You've added the final touches and are now ready to submit and share your story with the HackerNoon community!

Looking for other templates? Use this template to write about a book you’re reading, or explore more templates here.

Last Chance to Win Big at These Writing Contests!

🚀 The AI Writing Contest by Bright Data

The AI Writing Contest, powered by Bright Data and HackerNoon taps into the global AI revolution. It invites developers, data scientists, researchers, writers, and everyone interested in AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) to share their insights for a chance to win up to $2,500 in prizes. To enter, write a story with the #ai tag using this writing template. Submissions close December 1st, 2024—just 2 days left!

💰 The Bitcoin Writing Contest by Rootstock

The Bitcoin Writing Contest, powered by Rootstock and HackerNoon invites thought leaders, writers, talented developers, or anyone passionate about blockchain technology, to showcase your expertise in various Bitcoin-related topics.  We welcome submissions that cover various Bitcoin topics like Runes, ordinals, layer 2 solutions, sidechains, and more. Submit your story using this template for a chance to win. Submissions close tomorrow—just 1 day left!