This article was originally posted on my personal website.
Actually I had the plan that this will be the first blog post on my newly launched website. But then I thought it’s maybe a bit ironic, that my first blogpost after years of not-blogging, would be about how to start blogging. 😅
Nevertheless, before starting to blog again I thought a lot about the topic and want to share with you my findings on how to start blogging, why to do it and what to consider when doing so.
Did you ever take a seat and just write down your thoughts about a topic? It can really pull you in. You create your own little story around it and create something unique which will additionally help a lot of other people.
🧐 Pick a topic which you’re passionate about
So you want to start with a blog, but don’t know which topic(s) you should write about? For me it works the best to choose a topic which I have a great passion for.
If you choose a topic just because it is trending and you want to achieve many clicks for it, it probably won’t work because your interest in this topic won’t be high and therefore your motivation to write a good blog post about it will fluctuate. (at least in the long run)
So in my example, most of the time I am going to be blogging about software development, or to be more specific: web development, because this is where my passion lies in. I also want to share more about my journey and build / learn in public.
Think about what bothers you the most or where you recently put much brain-power into. Then write your little story about it and share it!
📝 Create drafts
A great tip for gathering ideas for new blog posts is to create drafts (or just write down a few words) immediately after you experienced something.
When it comes to programming, for me it’s often like this: I stumble about a problem and deliberately search for a solution, but as soon as I’ve got the solution, I just move on with the next task and forget about the problem pretty fast. What if you put the „sharing“ as part of your problem solving? Your problem is only really solved if you write down some words about it and save it as a draft. And sometimes later, you might add some more content to it and write a blog post.
But actually this could be applied to every daily activity. You experience something new? Write down a draft or only some words and later work out a more detailed blog post from it.
🤔 Is this really shareable?
Now you have chosen a topic which fits perfectly but you ask yourself: is this really shareable? Does someone even benefit from my blog post or don't there already exist several blog posts about it?
Long story short: someone will definitely benefit from your blog posts. There might be similar blog posts to the same topic, but your findings, your writing style and how you describe it is unique. There is definitely someone out there who is currently in the same process as you were before writing your blog post and would be really thankful for it.
So whenever you’ve achieved something and your mind tells you: "mhh this can be done by anyone, I am sure no one would benefit from it", then give your mind a kick and jump into the cold water! You'll also gain many benefits by doing so. 🙂
🌱 Why should I share my knowledge?
You have a topic and know it is shareable, but what benefits do you have from sharing it? Why give some of your knowledge to the public for free? Lets look at all the benefits blogging brings us.
1. Improve your writing skills
Having good writing skills can help you in many areas. May it be to write professional emails, describe yourself in a resumé or when writing documentation.
If you start blogging and writing down your thoughts about your experiences, you will see that those writing skills will greatly improve and that it will get easier over time.
2. Gain an even deeper knowledge about the topic
Writing down your thoughts will strengthen your knowledge!
By formulating your achievement into words and creating a small story around it you will remember it better in the future. And if you publish it as a blog post you can refer to it in conversations.
3. Make yourself more visible
If your blog is publicly available it will make yourself more visible. Don't underestimate the power of this fact. By sharing your knowledge in a specific area you will gain credibility in this field and will also make new connections which could bring up opportunities you never would've thought of.
I guess there are even many more benefits when it comes to blogging, which I didn't list above. So be sure that writing and publishing blog posts isn't just a waste of time.
☕️ Motivate yourself for writing
Ok so now comes the time where you say: I see the benefits, I have a topic, but I don’t want to write something.
I must admit, you probably need to have fun with writing up some content. Otherwise it won’t be a sustainable thing you do over a longer period of time. But have you ever tried it?
Did you ever take a seat and just write down your thoughts about a topic? It can really pull you in. You create your own little story around it and create something unique which will additionally help a lot of other people.
If writing content is not already a big part of your daily job it can really be relaxing to just take some time, let your thoughts flow and write them down. Our society is built up to rush from one stressy moment into the other. Calming down, really think of what you've experienced and form it into words is a great way to spend your time.
I would suggest to just try it out and see if you like it.
💻 Which technologies should I use to create my blog?
Of course you also need a place for your blog. There are already well-known and stable platforms like wordpress.com, dev.to, hashnode.dev or medium.com which you can use to create outstanding blog posts.
If you are a web developer, you probably also play with the thought to just creating your own blog with the technologies you're familiar with.
In the end you should choose the solution which you're feeling most comfortable with. I had fun creating my new website + blog from scratch, but it can also be overwhelming when you want to create the perfect experience before starting to blog.
🙌 Don’t overthink it
Ok now comes probably the most important tip:
Don't. Overthink. It.
The biggest enemy of your blogging journey is your mind. When you again start to overthink, when you want to be prepared for every situation, want to do everything right in the beginning, it can end with demotivation pretty fast.
To avoid this, I found it helpful to have a checklist which kept only the things that are essential for my blog before launching it (and some gimmicks I had fun implementing). Additionally I made a seperate list with things I want to have implemented for my blog in the long run.
But before showing you this checklist for my individual example, I want to mention that what I consider a must have, doesn’t need to be a must have for you. Only put things on your checklist which you think are necessary to have done upfront. The other stuff can also be done over time when you’ve already started your blogging journey. Don’t let any bureaucracies demotivate you.
Must haves
- Setup Analytics for better insights about visitors
- Make sure to set a canonical url
- Setup Google search console
- Create a sitemap.xml to be crawled by Google
- Newsletter and author section at the bottom of every blog post
- Configure open graph tags properly
- Create a nice open graph image
- Nice design for code snippets
Nice to haves
- Setup an email subscription list with ConvertKit
- Provide a RSS feed
- Add Share Buttons
- Progress bar while scrolling
- Copy functionality for code snippets
- Maybe integrate with a CMS for better handling - still unsure about this
🤠 Get inspirations from other blogs
While working on something new, it’s always good to look at other people in the field and see how they are doing it. It doesn't matter if you're now building the blog on your own or if you use a familiar platform: you can get great inspirations for your blog by looking on other blogs out there.
I don't mean you should copy and paste from another blog, just get yourself some inspirations to begin with. Over the time your blog will develop further and get your own touch.
Here are some blogs I really like and took inspirations from:
- phiilu.com - Florian's blog has smooth page transitions, all features you need for a blog and at the same time very informative posts 🤩
- rhnmht30.dev - I love the sleek design of Rohan's blog and wanted to keep the design of mine as simple as his 🙂
- danielwirtz.com - I also like the clean design of Daniel's blog and took that as an inspiration for my blog ✌️
- samuelkraft.com - Recently I stumbled upon Samuel's blog. It's neatly crafted by hand and his blog posts are awesome too! 🔥
📖 Great resources with tips and tricks
It's time to come to an end with this blog post. Hopefully some of those tips helped you to start with your blogging journey. You can also send me your blogs, I am excited to see them - my Twitter DMs are open.
Last but not least I want to share some great resources which helped me while starting to blog:
- The free Blogging for devs newsletter by @monicalent
- A great blog post about Learn in public by @swyx
- Browsing through Twitter's #learninpublic or #buildinpublic hashtags to find some inspiring blogs
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