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Discussion on: Tips for First Time Blogger?

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deciduously profile image
Ben Lovy • Edited

I highly recommend using the Markdown metadata header:

---
title: My Cool Post
published: false
description: A brief description of how useful and cool this post is.
cover_image: https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/deadbeef.png
tags: beginners, opensource, productivity, devops
---

Try to use all four allotted hash tags, and pick from relevant Top 100, they'll boost your visibility more than making up your own.

Also, write for yourself first and the community second. Engagement is kind of tricky to get right, there's a lot of variables, but don't let yourself get discouraged if a high-effort, high-quality post ends up buried. It's not necessarily your content, but in general I think this community does self-select for quality eventually (and, yes, occasionally clickbait).

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codewilliamson profile image
Mark Williamson 🇨🇦

Great tips, thanks!

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codewilliamson profile image
Mark Williamson 🇨🇦

What about a footer (author info)? Does DEV add this automatically or is there a markdown template for this?

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deciduously profile image
Ben Lovy

I'm actually not sure how/if the post specifically is associated with you, other than hyperlinks and the URL.