Programmers are quick to dismiss writing blogs. While writing may not be the ideal way to spend your spare time, it can highlight your coding prowess. It can help you in numerous ways, and this article will tell you why and what you could use to get started.
Why should you start a programming blog?
Communication
Being able to articulate your knowledge in a well-organized manner is a significant part of your job and an essential skill. Even if you believe you are not a good writer at the beginning, that is the best reason to start blogging today. If it makes it any easier, your first few blogs will consistently have at least one viewer; yourself. Therefore, please write in a way you understand, but once it builds traction, you can start expressing your thoughts with a better flow and explain ideas more simply.
You help others
If you are reading this, you are most likely a programmer and have read numerous blogs, watched youtube videos, and googled many questions that have solved the exact problem you may have been experiencing. The feeling you experience when you come across a blog that addresses your issues could be the same feeling you could bring to your peers. People take time to write or record a video hoping they can help others, which offers a gratifying feeling. In addition, people can leave constructive feedback on essential details you may have missed. You could also receive validation from your viewers, allowing you to grow as a developer.
Personal brand/ exposure
Each blog you publish is an extension of your knowledge and skills. Therefore, writing blogs on your experience with learning new coding languages or teaching something you already are skilled at is the process of building your personal brand. Imagine a scenario where a recruiter is looking at two qualified candidates for a job. Both candidates have the skills required for the job, except one shows proof of these skills through their blogs. The second candidate with the blogs is more likely to leave an impression on the recruiter as the candidate knows exactly what they claim to know in their CV. Blogging ensures that your future employer knows what to expect from you. Furthermore, people may seek you out through your blogs for job roles that you may not have even known about.
Growing your network
Blogs are an excellent way for other programmers to discover and connect with you. Be it GitHub or Twitter, the programming community is very active and willing to help you grow by advising you on your problems. Blogging is a passive method of explaining your difficulties or success to others and getting involved in disseminating ideas. It's not only essential to have a blog but also to be able to market it well. It is not easy, but it gets simpler the more you do it. The easiest ways to do this are through social media and mentioning them in your Q&A platforms.
You become a better programmer!
Protégé Effect - teaching someone else is the best way to learn, according to research
The most important part of blogging is practicing what you know and teaching others how to overcome problems they might encounter. When you learn something with the intention to teach it later, you learn it more deeply.
If you can teach someone, it would suggest that you know your stuff. If you are teaching a coding language (e.g., Javascript) that you are very familiar with, then writing the blog would be easy; therefore, putting what you know in documentation is practice. However, if you know JavaScript for the most part but are unsure why someone would use it, you will need to do some research. This way, you are accidentally learning something new while teaching something. The best way to familiarise yourself with a concept is indeed through teaching it.
What should you blog about?
Start with what you are passionate about and teach yourself things you already know. Think of your blog as your personal developer journal. Log things that you are learning as an emerging developer every day. It could be anything from a new command to a library, framework, or programming language. Nothing is too trivial for a blog. Your blog can be a few lines long to 1000 lines. It's not about the size but the value that matters. There is always something that you can teach others.
Where can you get started?
There are numerous blogging sites that programmers like you could start using today. However, these platforms are the best places to start and get noticed.
Dev.to
This is a great beginner-friendly blogging platform made especially for programmers. Every article you post will appear on the home page, just like on social media. They also have excellent SEO(Search Engine Optimization) in which you can search on any topic and will get what you are looking for straight away.
Hashnode
This platform allows you to personalize everything you want on your blog. Not only this, but the community is vast, and they often run hackathons and reward their users for their performance on their platform.
Medium
This platform is directed toward anyone in any field. This means that anyone (even outside the dev community) can read your blogs, increasing your viewer count. Once you adjust to writing your blogs, you may even be approached by a publication to write for them, which may mean you have to publish according to their standards. Additionally, Medium allows you to make money if you make your blogs a premium post.
FreeCodeCamp
If you want a platform that is low maintenance but still reaches a large community, then this may be your answer. It is a traditional publication; you do not need to worry about maintaining or promoting articles. Instead, the platform does this for you, ensuring your blog reaches a vast community. Another flip side of this platform is that it has an editorial team that helps you edit your blog and gives you ideas for future articles.
These are some platforms that you can get started on today.
