Hi Quentin, I run a technical blog that I decided to take seriously ~5 months ago. I am no expert but I'll drop my 2c.
Is it a good idea to have various topics or should the blog be focused on one domain?
If you just want to write and have no intentions of building an "audience" and be followed by your friends, blog about what you want. Otherwise pick a broad topic (in my case it's frontend dev) and just write about that. People see consistency and will like that. Google also likes that AFAIK
How to find, gain and keep readership? That's not an absolute goal (meaning: I don't want to blog to gain fame), but a blog is meant to be read after all!
Provide value. And provide value consistently. People might see one post of yours, then see another one next month, and decide they like both and will like more. People rarely just subscribe the first time they see the site (in my case).
Make it easy for Google to index you. No fancy frontend stuff. Server-side rendering. Adhere to basic SEO rules, no need to get highly technical on that, but make the site fast and mobile-first.
What about social media presence? (any advices and thoughts are welcome)
I think Twitter is the best thing for programming-related topics. People share a lot on there. If you are capable of doing videos YouTube is a great driver for blogs as well, if you can transform your posts into videos in some way.
How to make the blog interesting? (kinda broad question, I know)
Working on that as well, no clear answer. I think it depends on who you "talk" to
What short and long term goals should I set for the blog?
I set quarterly goals in terms of visits from Google. I don't track many things.
How to monitor traffic and readership? How to see how things are going?
Just use Google Analytics
You should also aim to write a blog post every X days. Like every week. On a specific day. I write every day but that's not a general recommendation. Twice a week is ideal I think, but any schedule you decide, stick to it.
When you start you'll have a lot of topics in mind. Write one and schedule it for next week.
Then have a queue of 5-6 posts already written and scheduled. This will help keep you consistent. When you have too much content piled up, switch to a more frequent schedule.
I use Hugo. It's pretty cool. And host on Netlify (flaviocopes.com/netlify/). Wrote a bit of how I run the blog on
If you just want to write and have no intentions of building an "audience" and be followed by your friends, blog about what you want. Otherwise pick a broad topic [...]
In any case, most of the content will be focused on the same topic (dev stuff), the rest will be very occasional and I'll see about that in the long run.
You should also aim to write a blog post every X days.
Good advice. I had in mind a fixed schedule for "full" articles, once a week for starters, and then a few "small" articles (quick tutorials or news) to fill the gaps between two "full" articles, on a less strict schedule.
I use Hugo. It's pretty cool. And host on Netlify (flaviocopes.com/netlify/). Wrote a bit of how I run the blog on
I've had a quick at Hugo a few days ago, it's one of the candidates (Jekyll and Nuxt being the other two). Although static sites generators all seems equivalent to me, so I guess I'll just pick the one I'm more familiar with (which is Jekyll). As for Netlify I'll definitly have a closer look at it, thanks!
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Hi Quentin, I run a technical blog that I decided to take seriously ~5 months ago. I am no expert but I'll drop my 2c.
If you just want to write and have no intentions of building an "audience" and be followed by your friends, blog about what you want. Otherwise pick a broad topic (in my case it's frontend dev) and just write about that. People see consistency and will like that. Google also likes that AFAIK
Provide value. And provide value consistently. People might see one post of yours, then see another one next month, and decide they like both and will like more. People rarely just subscribe the first time they see the site (in my case).
Make it easy for Google to index you. No fancy frontend stuff. Server-side rendering. Adhere to basic SEO rules, no need to get highly technical on that, but make the site fast and mobile-first.
I think Twitter is the best thing for programming-related topics. People share a lot on there. If you are capable of doing videos YouTube is a great driver for blogs as well, if you can transform your posts into videos in some way.
Working on that as well, no clear answer. I think it depends on who you "talk" to
I set quarterly goals in terms of visits from Google. I don't track many things.
Just use Google Analytics
You should also aim to write a blog post every X days. Like every week. On a specific day. I write every day but that's not a general recommendation. Twice a week is ideal I think, but any schedule you decide, stick to it.
When you start you'll have a lot of topics in mind. Write one and schedule it for next week.
Then have a queue of 5-6 posts already written and scheduled. This will help keep you consistent. When you have too much content piled up, switch to a more frequent schedule.
I use Hugo. It's pretty cool. And host on Netlify (flaviocopes.com/netlify/). Wrote a bit of how I run the blog on
Those are my opinions, not absolute truths :)
I hope this helps a little bit!
It helps a lot, thanks for your answer!
Just a few things:
In any case, most of the content will be focused on the same topic (dev stuff), the rest will be very occasional and I'll see about that in the long run.
Good advice. I had in mind a fixed schedule for "full" articles, once a week for starters, and then a few "small" articles (quick tutorials or news) to fill the gaps between two "full" articles, on a less strict schedule.
I've had a quick at Hugo a few days ago, it's one of the candidates (Jekyll and Nuxt being the other two). Although static sites generators all seems equivalent to me, so I guess I'll just pick the one I'm more familiar with (which is Jekyll). As for Netlify I'll definitly have a closer look at it, thanks!