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Ask HN: How do people find your blog?

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Re: Ask HN: How do people find your blog?

#41

Post by kkoncevicius »

I think you first have to answer the question about why you want to blog in the first place. Do you want to get revenue from it? Do you want to share your knowledge with others? Do you want to signal about how skilled/smart you are? Do you want to build an archive as a memory for your future self?

Then, after answering this question, ask yourself - is blogging the best way to achieve the goal? This is what led me to delete the small blog I had and concentrate on better things.

With regards to how you find other interesting things to read - nowadays mostly by marginalia search [1]. I've found that I rarely want to read more than one or few posts from a specific blog. Most blogs are not narrow enough and you find a lot of different subjects covered. So it might be better to specifically look for things you are interested in, rather than follow all articles in a blog by a concrete author.

[1]: https://search.marginalia.nu/

Re: Ask HN: How do people find your blog?

#42

Post by rpadovani »

Uhhh, I am just now writing a blog post “Blogging in 2023”, and it's a personal reflection on why I blog on my domain instead of using a social network.

And my personal answer is: I blog for myself, and knowing that things will be public forever force myself focusing more.

I write mainly about technical stuff that annoys me, or solution to problems I faced and didn't find a solution on the internet.

Sometimes people write me an email asking for some clarification, and my supposition is that people find my blog 'cause they have the same niche problem.

About following other blogs: RSS or mailing list subscriptions. I use hacker news to find interesting blogs.

Re: Ask HN: How do people find your blog?

#44

Post by sandreas »

Do something new, write about it and invest some time. And do this as frequently as possible. Don't do it for clicks but for yourself. Best case is doing something long lasting / educational, that is still interesting in several years - even if technology has advanced. I try to see my personal blog[1] as way to keep my notes organised.

Nobody cares about Powerbank 2021 reviews or yet another "how to flash a raspi os image on an sd card" - except it contains something new or something not everybody does.

Examples:

- Not interesting (old content): The Top 5 Powerbanks 2021

- Interesting: Building a DIY 100W PD Powerbank[2]

- Not interesting (everybody does it): Copy raspi os to micro SD cards with dd

- Interesting: Copy raspi os to micro SD cards with cp and how Linux deals with files[3]

[1]: https://pilabor.com

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WI9Nwqvplo

[3]: `sudo cp raspi-os.img /dev/sda`

Re: Ask HN: How do people find your blog?

#45

Post by tomcam »

misterbrian wrote: post #15

Here's my blog: https://briancaffey.github.io/ I use use the POSSE method: Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere ( https://indieweb.org/POSSE ). I typically republish my articles on HN, Reddit, DEV, Medium, HashNode, Twitter, SubStack and HackerNoon. I also have an RSS/XML feed. 85.5% of my traffic is through organic search, 10% is direct, the rest is referral/social/email. I get the most engagement when sh…

Post at https://briancaffey.github.io/2021/10/02/how-i-write-and-sha... is gold

Re: Ask HN: How do people find your blog?

#48

Post by tristor »

I don’t know. I also don’t care to know. I blog so I have a reference I control to point to, to share pictures, and generally to have a central online place for my life I can share directly with people. If nobody else even knows it exists, that’s just fine by me.

Re: Ask HN: How do people find your blog?

#49

Post by vermaden »

I always wanted to start and write on my blog - just to share some things that other may find useful.

I started with something simple - entirely preloaded (all howtos) and static:

1. http://www.strony.toya.net.pl/~vermaden/links.htm

I assume no one ever entered it ... besides me of course.

Then some time later - I though that having that 'static' links site is pointless - lets start 'proper' blog this time. I have chosen Gogle Blogspot this time.

2. https://vermaden.blogspot.com/

... and after several posts I generally abandoned it.

Several years later I made a decision to make another blog ... but this time with some strategy behind.

3. https://vermaden.wordpress.com/

This (3rd) attempt was 'successful' and people sometimes actually visit my blog - sometimes even comment. In March of 2023 I will 'celebrate' the 5th year of that blog. I have made about 100 posts there and I made about 100,000+ views per year:

- https://i.imgur.com/raWvrZj.png

What is the secret of [3.] being successful and [1.] and [2.] definitely not? Sharing.

I do not know what blog (subject matter) you are trying to share - but for IT/UNIX/BSD/Linux related blogs (as mine) you need to share each post on these mediums:

- mastodon

- twitter

- lobsters

- hacker news

- FreeBSD forums

- reddit (r/BSD)

- reddit (r/FreeBSD)

- reddit (r/unix)

- reddit (r/linux)

- linkedin

Not sure about Facebook/Meta as their 'ecosystem' definitely does not suit my needs.

You need to ask yourself where and how people would try to find your content. They would definitely not browse a catalog of blogs. Maybe they wil ltry the search engine ... but search engines only pick up sites that are somewhat popular. They omit pages/blogs that are 'unknown'. How blogs are known? By many links pointing to them.

In other words - if you do not share your work/posts on all 'relevant' platforms - then you will 'die' in a 'non-known' hell.

If you believe your work - and it is work, you 'waste' your time to write/share these things you do - is valuable - then share them in all possible mediums/medias. If your content is good - you have to do nothing else. If your content is crap - You will immediately get feedback about it :D

One of the things that I really appreciate was the feedback I got. I often assumed that I know a lot about 'X' topic - just to change my mind after several comments later and providing and UPDATE to my blog post :)

I do not know what should I add here more so I will end my comment - but feel free to ask if You have any questions.

Regards, vermaden

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