Ask HN: Is maintaining a personal blog still worth it?

So I run a personal blog, which I treat as my personal brand and take quite good care of the SEO and keywords. I write and treat it as ad copy, so there is some FOMO for people who are interested in ever wanting to work with me. And from 2017 and up, it has gotten me at least $250k in client work. So that's $30k from a blog per year. I'd attribute at least half of that to the blog, so lets say $15k. I do not post on Twitter or LinkedIn, these clients have only been finding me on either YC or through Google.

> Why do you keep writing

Because its so, so easy to stand out from the herd. So why wouldn't I? From my experience, even in this bad market, it makes you have clients to choose from. Got laid off? No worries, someone will inbox you within the next 2 months with some offer. Started working with a bad client? No worries, you have others to choose from. I haven't send out a resume in years as a result. I will be retiring the blog soon though, in favor of writing content for a small niche agency that I am hoping to start in 2025. But then the branding will continue there.

It depends. I write because I genuinely enjoy the process of sharing my thoughts and documenting what I’ve learned. Another reason I’ve kept my blog going for over the last half decade[1] is that I find myself constantly referring back to it. Sometimes, it’s just easier to pull up my own notes than wrestle with a feisty LLM.

Over the years, the blog has picked up a modest audience—around 20–25k page views a month—and it’s opened up some cool opportunities. I’ve had job offers, invitations to speak at conferences, and even chances to write and review books. Now, I feel a natural pull to research and write about something every week. In hindsight, that habit has been massively beneficial over time.

Plus, I love the fact that I own my content. I’m a big believer in the POSSE (Publish on Your Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere) philosophy. There’s something deeply satisfying about having everything I’ve created over the years in one place. For me, that’s worth it—but YMMV.

[1]: https://rednafi.com

You don't need to "beat" the established authors (probably). You don't need to beat SEO-optimized tutorials garbage (probably). If you want speaking gigs, job offers and meaningful connections then for sure you don't need to beat the AI-generated garbage - nobody is inviting them to speak, and not yet for jobs.

What is it you are hoping for? What is the cost (in time) you can throw at it? Would this be fun or a major enterprise to you?

If you like to write then sure why not? Do you write fast?

If you do write, then participating in reddit, HN, twitter?, and the relevant discords or bulletin boards for your field is propably still a way to slowly send traffic to your writing.

For example: if you want support for your job applications, then you don't need to beat anyone, you only need a small boost. Will a few writings give you a boost? Only if you write and edit well. But beyond that, it probably doesn't matter if you get much traffic. If you write and edit poorly... this will not help you!

When I was a child, I read a Soviet book titled How the Steel Was Tempered. There is a line in this book that I will never forget: 'When he looks back on his life, he will not feel regret for having wasted his years, nor will he feel ashamed for having achieved nothing.' I think this is also the motivation behind my blogging—to record life, reflect on it, share it, and use it as a personal notebook of my own journey. That's all.