TL;DR: Follow these experience tips to improve your technical articles. Background My name is Maxi Contieri. I am From Argentina. I've been teaching and working in the software industry for almost 30 years. I had written 0 Articles before the covid-19 pandemic. Now, I've written 300 and counting... Here are a couple of tips for blogging. These are the pieces of advice I learned on my journey. Do's Find a Niche Find something you are passionate about. Ideally, you should be a bit out of your comfort zone. Do your research and learn new things. You can do some SEO research to maximize engagement, but I encourage you to write about your passions. Find a Community Follow the right people (takes time) on social networks, forums, blogs, Discord, etc. Don't mix personal social networks with professional ones since this favors . procrastination I use , , , and for professional usage. Twitter Linkedin Discord RSS feeds I have TikTok, Instagram, and other RSS feeds for personal/joy. Create Article Templates Use them as your signature. Starting from an empty structure is much better than working from a blank canvas. Here's an example from my code smell series. Use the Right Tools Most writers use tools like these (especially if English is not your mother language, mine isn't). (Free version is OK to start) Grammarly Hemingway Editor Online spelling and grammar corrections Back and-forth translators Plagiarism Detectors GPT-3 rewriting tools , , and many others (credit their fantastic work) Unsplash Pixabay Create your own illustrations with , , or . Dalle-2 Stable Diffusion Midjourney By the way, this article photo by <a href=" ">Ryan Snaadt</a> on <a href=" ">Unsplash</a> https://unsplash.com/@ryansnaadt https://unsplash.com/s/photos/writer Create Your Own Tools You can develop your own parsing or validating tools or use open-source ones. Crossposting and Metadata Use the right SEO and Canonical Tools. Add some analytics to your blog (if available) and understand how people find your articles. Use Series Readers love to see short intertwined articles with cross-references to see how each article complements others. Add a TL;DR: s are a nice way to tell your reader you value his/her time. TL;DR Use Emotive Titles and Images We read all articles' titles and images and decide which we will read. Use emotional and . catchy headlines Don't lie or use click bait titles. Humans don't like cheaters and liars. This article's first heading was: Some tips to make good articles. Now it is: Many tips and tricks on how to make amazing content. Be Consistent on Case Conventions Choose some convention and stick with it. I prefer over Sentence case. Title Case Create Habits Writing is a habit. Read and hack your brain. how to master them Publish When it is Good Enough. Not Later Don't wait until the article is perfect. Do some proofreeding. Wait a couple of days and read it again. Correct the above word :). Gardening Keep your articles . alive and fresh Be ready to update them with constructive feedback and ideas from other people. Go revisit them often. Use (code) Samples People learn by examples, not by theoretical ideas. No matter how interesting the theory, fundamentals, and evidence are, readers will go straight to the examples. Productivity Hacks Follow some to stay focused. productivity tips You can set your own micro rewards, baby steps goals, , and many others. disable all notifications Track Your Code Samples Use a GIT tracker for your code samples and paste it on your articles. Don't use iframes since they are slower and might not load on every device You can put your code using markdown comments to track hidden external references. Check Your Articles on Mobile Devices You probably write and test your articles on a personal computer. Your readers won't. Be sure to use AMP/PWA pages and . narrow code blocks Don'ts Write draft Ideas Don't keep work-in-progress articles. Enjoy the momentum. Ride the wave! Open Too Many Tabs Don't keep too many ideas or too many tabs. Address them and close them. Styling Don't styling. abuse People of trying to their . get tired find meaning Avoid Passive Voice Passive sentences slower than active ones. are read You active sentences faster than passive ones. read Don't Write as You Speak We talk and write using different structures and grammar. You need to write very short sentences. HemmingwayApp does the magic for you. Fight the Impostor's Syndrome Be ready to fight impostor syndrome. You are not the most suitable person to write nor will you ever be and no one is born an expert. Fight Perfectionism One not-perfect published article is better than 10.000 ideas Don't Feed the Troll People have opinions. Answer and with nice people. discuss You can learn new points of view from them. Don't feed the trolls. Use available moderation tools. Practice, Practice, Practice If you build it, they will come.

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