6 Weeks Summer Vacations - What I've learned

How I Write My Blog Posts and Last 2 Months Highlights

TheAnkurTyagi

Sep 08, 2023

Hello friends,

Thanks again for signing up for my newsletter. I’m back with my 6 weeks summer vacation.

Today I’ll talk about 4 things:

How I Write My Blog Posts
Top 5 Best Blogging Platforms for Software Engineers in 2023
How to Write Good and Bad Blog Post Titles
6 Weeks Summer Vacations - What I've learned

How I Write My Blog Posts

Writing blog posts can be pretty tricky- it’s tough to come up with a topic to write about and then actually create good enough content.
I’ve been blogging for more than 5 years now, and I wanted to share my tips for writing posts, from topic selection to hitting that publish button.
If you’re interested in my advice for starting a blog, I also have a post on that here.

1. How to Find a Topic

Sometimes, finding a topic for a blog post can be one of the most challenging aspects of writing it.

Here are a few tips for finding a good enough topic

Don’t worry too much about having a unique topic – definitely don’t plagiarize somebody else’s post or copy their ideas, but people still read my React blog post even though this topic has been done a bunch of times by many excellent developers and writers, but I had a different outlook on the subject, so I decided to write it anyways.

Write a blog post on technical learning that would have helped you in the past. When you’re searching for something and not finding it, or you’re finding tutorials that aren’t helping very much, take note of it so that you can write your take later.

One thing I do is to reach out to my network and see what posts people want. I’ll occasionally post a Tweet asking what types of posts people want.

I make a note of those that I think will be of particular interest or relevance to a larger audience.

You can also look at sites like Quora or Reddit or HackerNews or Substack and see what other people are posting there. If a question is exciting to you, you could write a long-form response to it.

Every individual software engineer or developer has a unique story — so share it!

Share your backstory and how you started writing code.
The story of your career growth, or even just a problem that you solved last month, year and so on.
It can be tough to be personal and to share your story online, but it can help people.
When I started blogging, I followed the theme of writing a post each week about my tech experiences and opinions.

2. First Draft

Once I have a topic, I usually just start writing my raw thoughts about it.
When you approach writing like painting, where each draft is a preliminary sketch leading to the finished product at the end, writing becomes more manageable.
I used to think that I needed a weekend retreat to escape society in order to write a blog post but after writing for many years I came to the conclusion that being in conversation with other people will make me a better writer.
My process is totally disorganized here – I’ll jump from place to place in the post, outlining some parts and then writing paragraphs in others. I let myself be really creative, and I jot down whatever I’m thinking and have firsthand experience. As I write this, the current paragraph is entirely re-written, but the beginning of the post is just a set of phrases like “Share my story of writing blog posts” Other bloggers might be more methodical, but this works well for me as I embrace randomness more in my life.
Then, I go through each paragraph and say that I’m happy with the post.

Read the entire post on my blog here.

Top 5 Best Blogging Platforms for Software Engineers in 2023

Software developers always ask me about starting a “BLOG”
My simple answer:
If it interests you and you’re passionate about it, then of course but If you think it’s a quick and easy way to make money, you’ll find out quickly that you are sadly mistaken. It’s a HUGE investment of time and effort.
Blogging platforms take care of the optimization, caching, and all non-writing stuff. They promote your blog to the other members of the platform. Hashnode, DevTo, and Medium all have some explore features, categories, and tags.
If you don’t want to go to events/conferences, writing is the most scalable professional networking activity – stay at home and just put ideas on the internet.

Let me tell you about the top 5 blogging platforms where people come to read and why you should write there.

1- Medium

Medium is a general publishing website that everyone is familiar with and has read at least a few articles from.
It is very simple to start your own Medium blog. You have complete control over your Medium blog, so you can write a few good articles and publish them whenever you want.

Although Medium is a platform for everyone, including developers, there are already millions of tech-related blogs and publications on it, so making your blog stand out from the crowd can be quite challenging.
Even though I don’t have much success yet I kept cross-posting my best articles and one of the articles recently got very good attention and got even featured in Medium Digest That’s the power of randomness.

2-Hashnode

Hashnode is a tremendous platform. It is a popular writing community for developers and programmers. It serves as a blogging and discussion platform where developers can share their knowledge, insights, and experiences related to programming, software development, technology, and other related topics.

3.DevTO

DevTO, also known as “DEV Community” is a popular blogging platform and social network for software developers and programmers.
It is a community-driven platform that allows developers to share their knowledge, experiences, and insights through blog posts and discussions.

DevTO prides itself on being an inclusive platform that welcomes developers from all backgrounds and experience levels. The community strives to maintain a supportive and friendly environment for all users.

Even I was one of the top authors in 2021 at DevTo.

4- FreeCodeCamp

You’ve most likely heard of Freecodecamp. It’s a fantastic resource for aspiring developers and dev bloggers. There are tons of advantages to blogging at the FCC.
You get to collaborate with their fantastic editors, learn how to create more valuable content and receive feedback.

I’m currently writing a React blog and look the feedback shared by the team. 🙌

5- Dzone or HackerNoon

DZone and HackerNoon have established themself as a reputable resource for developers seeking knowledge, solutions, and insights in the software development field. They foster a vibrant community that encourages learning, sharing, and collaboration among developers worldwide.

Writing is an important skill for software developers and It’s a powerful magnet that a developer can use to find future opportunities in software engineering.

Read the entire post on my blog here.

How to Write Good and Bad Blog Post Titles

I’ve been blogging for over 5 years, and after writing nearly 200+ of posts, I’ve developed a high-value niche audience of over 6,000 blog subscribers and 62,000+ Twitter followers.
My focus has been completely on writing about startups, devTools and writing for software developers.

What Works and Doesn’t Work for Me and a Few Interesting Stats

It may surprise you to know that the most popular 10% of my blog posts drive over 300x the traffic of my average blog post.

It’s a classic “Power Law Distribution.”

One of the most important things about any blog post is its title and Yes “Blog titles matter“

Take a stand! Make an argument.
Examples:

Async work is the future for techies.
Work-life balance is a myth.
Copying can work. But most people can’t pull it off.
How to do X…
Why I think Y is better…
10 ways that X…

What Not to Do in Blog Post Titles

What happens when you don’t use the patterns like above?
Well, the most common case is that people write blog posts that are informative, and descriptive, but abstract.
Something like “Apple and their products” or “my startup product features” just sounds weak and boring, compared to “Apple makes amazing mobile” and “10 amazing features in my new side project.
And at the same time, every post you write should never be like:

“5 Ways to X”
“10 Ways to Y”

You’ll sound cheesy and shit influencers, nobody likes to read.
So there’s a fine line there.

Read the entire post on my blog here.

6 Weeks Summer Vacations - What I've learned

These vacations were very hard and I couldn’t justify myself— why I was working less and it was so boring to sit at home and do nothing.

I tried to live a lifestyle in which I didn’t have a set task and embrace randomness but in the end— “feeling guilty” is very real.

Before vacations, I had a chance to connect 1-1 with

Daniel Vassallo

and he gave me some very good suggestions on how I can use these next vacations and live the life that actually I wanted, again Thanks to our smallbets community.

The initial 2 weeks were OK, I had some client blog posts work and as most of you know I signed a deal for a course with a leading publication “Writing for developers” but what I realised once I didn’t have a set routine I was clueless every day and most of the time:

I was playing outside with my kid.
In the Kitchen, preparing food for my kid and spouse as she didn’t have this many holidays as she started her work before summer.
Talking on the phone with friends in India or Thinking about what I’m doing in Sweden.
Writing in the sprint of 1-2 hours every alternative day.
Missing my parents and my best friend in India.

But one night I was very high 😉 and just booked a one-way ticket to India.

I went to India the next day and IMHO it’s one of the best random decisions I ever took in my life not only because it was more emotional but because I made some good real estate investments with my friend.

I enjoyed the sun for 2 weeks.
I enjoyed the food and travel a lot and met with close friends including many Twitter people.

Had a great discussion with Siddharth on life and Sabbatical.

Had a great time meeting with Mayank and we’re planning something in the next quarter.
It's hard to get ahead if you're always complaining, burned out and not giving enough rest to your mind and body so always listen to signals and act.

And you know what’s so nice about Sweden, it makes you love the sun.

Being a North Indian—I hated it before Mostly peak summer weather (May-August) months then I moved to Sweden and now I respect the sun more and love the sunny days! Good weather makes all the difference!

I always embrace randomness in my life but this vacation makes this even more future-proof that life is more random than what we think and plan.

Most people think there’s a strategy for going viral or being good at something but you can't be productive every hour, day and night! Embrace randomness.

I’m writing a complete blog post on this learning and will share it soon in public.