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Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

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Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#71

Post by warrenm »

I mostly agree with a recent Big Think article [0] (HN discussion [1])

I also tell people "don't blog" [2] ...for the wrong reasons

Do blog for the right reasons [3] - if you find it too tedious to write-up your notes into a format you and others can reference later with all the "whys" and not merely the "whats", then don't do it ... but I'd wager you'd benefit from doing it :)

As I commented here [4] recently, "I presume no one reads what I write - but attempt to write as if it's being read by millions"

I can not tell you how many times I've been able to refer to something I wrote (technical or otherwise) that's helped at least myself again, if not myriad others

Also - your public-facing blog may easily be accessible even if your "notes" aren't :)

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[0] https://bigthink.com/the-learning-curve/personal-brand-trap/

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32138311

[2] https://antipaucity.com/2014/04/11/dont-blog/

[3] https://antipaucity.com/2012/11/05/why-blog/

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31947806

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#72

Post by warrenm »

whoomp12342 wrote: post #38
nicolas_t wrote: post #31

As a side note, I miss reading blogs from people. I remember 12-14 years ago when google was still useful to find information, I would often stumble onto blogs that had a lot of relevant info. For example when looking for reviews about a private school, I'd see a blog with someone whose kids go to that school, when looking for reviews of a restaurant, I'd see someone with reviews on their blog, etc... Now it seems th…

SEO is much like prioritizing lines of code developed. When you set an arbitrary measure and enforce upon that, you will find that the only thing achieved is that arbitrary measure.

The old mantra - you can only improve what you measure

Measure the wrong thing, improve the wrong thing :|

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#73

Post by PebblesRox »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #46
AyyWS wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I abandoned my blog. I recommend people make Github open source contributions instead.

Blogging can be a contribution. So many projects lack tutorials or intros that could be served in the blogosphere.

I have a technical blog where I post detailed instructions for anything I had to figure out on my own due to lack of helpful documentation.

Every few months someone will leave a comment saying thank you - and I love that I was able to help someone avoid the hassle that I went through!

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#74

Post by Brajeshwar »

I will try to keep this short. I have a history.

My Website wasn't the best or the top but was right up there amongst many popular ones. Once upon a time, I believe it was within the Alexa top 1,000 or something like that. If I can recollect right, it has even seen its millionth visitor in a month. There was also a popular term called Google PR (I need to double-check this term); mine had "8" out of 10 for a long time.

To this day, I get occasional emails from people thanking me for kickstarting their careers because they read and followed my writings.

I will not dwell on those, but here are a few more interesting personal anecdotes.

I got one of my girlfriends because she doesn't trust the visitor counter on my Website. She contacted me via the contact form, "It must be a script. How can your visitor counter jump so fast every second?" "Meet me for coffee, and I will show you the real-time Website Analytics."

I was on a business trip. One fateful winter rainy night, I introduced myself to some new friends at HackerDojo, Mountain View (halfway around the world). Someone on the side overheard and approached me, "Are you brajeshwar.com?" "Yes." "Wow! I followed your blog, and thanks for your articles." That made my night.

My Website's revenue had bank-rolled me for many years while I kept failing with my Startups while continuing to stay in an upscale part of Mumbai.

My Website, indirectly, got me my USA Visa pretty easy and smooth.

I had brought down a business/Startup because the founder was cheating. But later, I regretted that and deleted every article related to that business. I should have never written something like that, and I will never forgive myself for it.

These are the quickies I remember without probing into my mind and notes. Now, I keep it as my Time Capsule. I don't have analytics either (I'm married).

Suggestion: Have a personal website/blog; don't rush. Start today, and have fun in 25+ years.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#75

Post by loganmarchione »

Definitely! I think it comes down to a few things:

1. You need the same username/handle on all platforms (e.g., your domain name, your twitter name, your github name, etc...). This is easier if you have a weird name.

2. You need to consistently update your content on these platforms (e.g., no one will care if you have a blog with a single post from 10 years ago)

3. You need to identify a reason for the blog (e.g., is it for work, or is it for fun?) and know your audience.

4. Your "brand" lets you control what people see when they Google you. However, if you're trying for a more professional appearance, don't blog about politics, religion, etc... because you'll be bound to upset someone at some point. Also, don't write controversial Twitter posts.

I've been blogging for almost 10 years now [1]. I only write a few articles per year, but they're always about things I'm working on. I work in IT and try to apply things I learn at work to my "homelab", and then write about it. This actually landed me a DevOps job because they saw that I used Ansible, Terraform, Docker, etc... and was proficient enough to write about those tools. When I asked in the interview, they mentioned my blog and github content as reasons why I was chosen over other candidates.

I personally use Jeff Geerling [2] as my inspiration. His "brand" has blown up recently, and while I'm not trying to get YouTube famous, I think he has great posts, creates great public code (ansible playbooks and docker containers), etc...

PS - I also blog using Hugo on a VPS. I run Debian server and let unattended-upgrades do my maintenance. I use a GitHub action to publish my code to the VPS, so once I commit, I'm done.

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[1] - https://loganmarchione.com/

[2] - https://www.jeffgeerling.com/

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#76

Post by oofnik »

I get a kick out of the occasional "hey, thanks!" from some internet stranger who struggled with some problem that I happened to have solved and written about. We've all been in the stranger's situation at some point, probably more than once, so it's sort of a way to pay it forward.

Other than that, I did get a few positive remarks and interested questions during job interviews. I've even had a home assignment waived after they checked out my blog[1] and concluded that I "seem to know what I'm talking about," so that was a welcome surprise.

Inspiration waxes and wanes, and I make no promises about publishing regular content. But occasionally I solve an interesting problem with an elegant (IMO) solution and get the urge to tell the world about it.

[1] https://badgateway.qc.to

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#77

Post by badpun »

warrenm wrote: post #71

I mostly agree with a recent Big Think article [0] (HN discussion [1]) I also tell people "don't blog" [2] ...for the wrong reasons Do blog for the right reasons [3] - if you find it too tedious to write-up your notes into a format you and others can reference later with all the "whys" and not merely the "whats", then don't do it ... but I'd wager you'd benefit from doing it :) As I commented here [4] recently, "I pr…

Just a heads-up: the fonts and the general layout (spacing between paragraphs etc.) of your CV are painful to read IMO.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#78

Post by podviaznikov »

I've been writing online for almost 10 years now https://podviaznikov.com/writings

The best part for me is receiving some random emails from time to time with people saying they liked my post or poem or something else.

I don't have expectations for those letters though. Intentionally I don't have google analytics on my site. When I did have it, it influenced how and what I was writing.

Now I just write for myself. And if my writing happens to be valuable to someone else - it's a bonus. Mostly I write when I want to offload some thoughts about some topic. When I finish thinking about something, I write it down and that topic is "closed" for a while.

Also, what helps me to write and publish is my setup. I changed setup many times. When there was friction to write and publish - I rarely did it.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#79

Post by tiborsaas »

jackvalentine wrote: post #62
tiborsaas wrote: post #47

Tangential, but where/how do you promote your posts? It's rather demotivating to spend hours on a subject and see that only a handful of people seen the post for a couple of seconds on average.

Turn off analytics and learn to enjoy the process.

I'll leave it on to answer the questions OP asked and to track progress, but I wish I could just ignore it. There's a difference between knowing your efforts are rounding errors vs. assuming that :)

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#80

Post by jelkand »

I maintain a blog. I do it for me though—the most direct benefit I’ve had is my boss noticing well after I was hired and asked me to write on the company blog.

It’s mostly an outlet for me. I get to practice my written communication, and write a bit about how I think the world of software engineering should be.

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