Ask HN: Blogging to get contracting/job leads?

From my blog, no.

From the work that my blog has linked to (like whitepapers and stuff I've written elsewhere), then absolutely.

My company maintains a very popular blog on testing. It has helped us land mutliple clients. We get a few inbound enquiries every month - usually from really small startups and/or QA directors that are looking to quickly implement test automation. After my own personal network and past clients, my blog is the most reliable source of clients. The simplest post that resulted in a client was one we wrote on how to run a Selenium test on BrowserStack using Python. The most advanced post that generated a lead/inquiry (but I couldn't close) was one on testing a Natural Language Generator.

What we write: We mainly write to make a tester's life easier and interesting - so testing, automation, tech we use at our clients and the different tools we use to test. The one other rule of thumb is that if the engineer spent more than 2 hours Googling about a problem, they should write a post about it.

Background: I established the habit as soon as I had an employee on the bench. It took over a year and about 30 posts before we saw even a little (~1k pageviews a month) traffic. It was about 18-months of regular writing (~50 posts) before we got our first client through our blog.

Pros: The habit has been a good for both my employees as well as for my business. The posts are good references for new hires and easy to pass on to our clients too. My employees also credit writing blog posts with helping them think clearer and articulate their thoughts better. We also look smart when our clients Google for something and stumble into a solution one of our engineers wrote.

Cons: The start was a slog and demotivating. Writing is still hard and time-consuming. As we grow, it is harder to sell new employees on the habit. The articles we enjoy writing barely get any hits [1].

[1] I loved this piece of work that used color paper, an Arduino and a servo-motor to test the Fitbit heartrate monitor: https://qxf2.com/blog/testing-the-fitbit-heart-rate-monitori...

> Basically - I think the point of a blog (at the beginning) is not really to be lead gen for consulting gigs. Instead, it's a place to plant your flag on the internet and say "This is what I'm an expert in".

I actually just finished my first gig where a client mentioned reading something on my blog in our first call.

I don't write much or get really any recurring traffic, so I think it's more like having a blog is one way for people to check me out a little further and get a sense that I know what I'm talking about.

It's something I personally plan to invest a lot more time in this year, although I have another reason for doing that (I'd like to start a newsletter and eventually make some courses/ebooks or something along those lines).

I also think that it's a skill in and of itself; if you look at most developer blogs (mine included), it's just kind of a smattering of notes. I'm guessing that writing more longform, specialized stuff more appealing to both potential readers and clients.

I started to do consulting last year and since then I got all my clients via blogging. [0] On my website, I mainly write about JavaScript, React and Web Development and teach students in my courses about those topics. Clients mainly approach me to help them migrating over to web technologies, solving more complex problems with React or auditing their code bases. So yes, it works once you got readers on your blog :)

- [0] https://www.robinwieruch.de

I received a few decent leads from LinkedIn articles I wrote related to English resume editing for a Chinese young professional audience although my clients are global. I run a professional services business in Shanghai editing resumes, creating LI Profiles, interview coaching and some academic applications support. The caliber of readership is higher there and it is one of fastest ways to be recognized.