… get your name out there as a programmer?

… share your solutions with the world?

… make extra income by writing about your passion online?

Start a programming blog and you can enjoy each of these & more.

Stick around for the exact step-by-step path to creating your fun, popular and profitable programmer blog.

I’ll take you by the hand and show you step-by-step how to create a blog that makes you income. And that income could come in different forms – one of which is a high-paying job. 

5 Good Reasons Why You Should Start a Programming Blog

Let’s look in depth at the 5 main reasons why writing your own coding blog is a good idea.

1. Personal Brand: Become a Thought Leader, Create Opportunities & Get a Great Job

As a software developer, you should be thinking of yourself as a business: The Brand of You. And starting a blog is great for showing off your portfolio as a programmer.

When your blog is helping other programmers and they start sharing it around, your personal brand will become more and more popular.

And the goodwill and trust you’ve built up leads to a slew of new opportunities for you:

• People want to be coached by you
• People want to work on (potentially profitable) projects with you
• People want to buy products as per your recommendation (and gladly have you earn an affiliate commission)
• People want to hire you for perky programming jobs

2. Learning: Adding New Languages, Working Through Problems, Discovering New Methods

When you tell others about what you’re working on, it forces you to be exact. Thanks to your new programming blog, you’ll be carefully exploring the object of any new learning challenge from all angles. 

Because afterwards, you want to be able to teach it to your audience! In any teacher-student situation, the teacher has to be more diligent than the student – and he gets the greatest learning benefit. 

Blogging about your coding experiences will make you more aware and stronger in your problem-solving process, push you to fully explore approaches you weren’t yet familiar with, and make what you’ve learned more ‘sticky’ than ever before.

3. Sharing Code With Others: Helping, Innovating, Creating Community

Coding can be lonely. 

Even if you get a win, you sometimes don’t have anyone to share it with, outside of a forum where you can’t be sure people are going to see it. Or maybe you do have a few friends who understand and care. 

But how cool would it be to make a write-up of what you did that’s super helpful for others, and have it live on a website you personally own, forever?

Starting your programming blog allows you to share solutions that improve the lives of others while adding your explanations to make them easily consumable. People can then add their comments on your blog article. 

Ét voila, you’ve just formed your own little programming community around the content on your website!

4. Improve Communication Skills

There’s no better way to improve your clarity than typing out your thoughts, as coherently as possible, for others to read. Writing a lot and trying to write well turns you into a much better communicator. 

Luckily, you don’t need to write essays for magazines or publish books to do that. You can do it online, and without investing too much money.

I’ve been booked for many speaking engagements and have made hundreds of YouTube videos. My ability to organize my thoughts and communicate clearly and concisely has been sharpened by writing endless articles for this programming blog. 

And it’s transformed my performance in those areas.

5. Make Money

Once your blog is popular, you’ll have many options to monetize it. 

Just a few of the money-making methods for your programming blog are display advertising, affiliate marketing and selling info products. 

In some cases this can become a full-time income, or even a massive business. 

The formula for financial success with your blog is simple: The more you’re writing to solve people’s problems, the more money you’re going to make. 

After you have a sizable audience who trusts you and is hungry for your help, it’s easy to slap on the monetization and start raking in a good amount.

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How to Start Your Programming Blog

The first step on creating a blog is choosing a web hosting company that you can trust and that is reliable. 

There are many Web Hosting Services nowadays and you should pay special attention into this step because it can definitely save you hours of stress and headaches on the future.

Should you start for free?

You can get free hosting at WordPress.com (which leaves you with an ugly domain address and limited functions) or Squarespace. 

Squarespace is free and looks good, but if you want more freedom and functions later, you’ll have to switch. There’s a reason half the internet runs on WordPress.

If you want to run the full WordPress CMS (content management system), you’ll need paid hosting to run it on.

The best Website Hosting for Beginners

I personally recommend Bluehost, which is the only service officially recommended by WordPress itself. 

The combination couldn’t be better. Bluehost is amongst one of the reliable and strongest web hosting companies, having thousands and thousands of clients. The server almost never goes down, it counts with a 24/7 technical support team, offers a free domain and, of course, it has a one-click WordPress install feature, which makes the process so much easier and faster.

To speed things up, think of a domain name for your blog and have your credit card ready.

Done that, follow the steps below.

Set Up Your Website Hosting

To get started, go to Bluehost’s homepage and click on “Get Started Now”.

Next step is choosing the right plan for you. If you’re just starting out, the best plan for you is definitely the “Starter Plan”. 

However, if you plan on getting a decent amount of traffic or even creating more than one blog, you should definitely consider acquiring more robust plans, such as the plus plan or the business pro plan.

After that, you’ll be asked to choose a domain name for your blog. If you don’t already have a domain name, you can purchase one right at this step. 

The best part is that is comes FREE with this new WordPress hosting account purchase. 

Choose a domain name and click on “Next”. 

(Note: If you already have a domain name, just enter the name of your current domain on the “transfer domain” field and follow the steps provided by Bluehost)

Once you’ve chosen your domain name, it’s time to enter your personal information.

Next step is to choose your package plan and enter your billing information. 

Normal, shared hosting is priced at 12, 24 and 36-month terms. Longer term plans will help you save more money and the lower your monthly rate will be. 

Study what will be the best option for you and choose a package. You’ll also see some offers from Bluehost partners, such as SEO jumpstart and domain privacy. 

Select the ones that fits your needs.

After filling your billing information and choosing your hosting package, click on “Next” to complete your purchase. You’ll be asked to create a password for your account. 

You can either use Bluehost’s password generator or come up with yours on your own.

Now that you’re all set up on the Web Hosting part of the process, it’s time to install WordPress.

Installing WordPress

This used to be one of the most complicated steps when it comes to starting a blog.

However, Bluehost recently made it so that you don’t even have to do anything. Check out this video where I show you exactly how easy it is:

You now have your WordPress install created for you automatically and you are automatically logged into your new WordPress blog!

 You’re done creating your blog and installing WordPress. 

Now, simply log into your WordPress website by going to the admin login URL. Enter your username and password, then click “Log In”. This will take you to your WordPress dashboard. 

From here, you can control everything about your WordPress website, such as writing blog posts, creating pages, changing the overall appearance, etc

Pick Your Favorite Theme

You now have the opportunity to put a nice theme on your blog. 

WordPress comes with thousands of free themes, of which you could just pick one and go.

If you go for a paid theme, you’ll have more customization options. The paid themes also often look a lot better right out of the box. 

I use Thrive Themes and I love how it has fully customizable themes, plus a complete drag & drop website builder, quiz builder, and Thrive Leads to create opt-ins for your email marketing.

Plugins

There are a number of additional plugins you should install on your new programming blog to make things easier for you and to make everything run more smoothly. 

The ones I recommend are:

Gutenberg Blocks

A block editor that lets you build pages on your website using special blocks, without having to use any code.

ShortPixel Image Optimizer

Having your blog load fast is essential in the 2020’s. Compressing your images (while still having them look good) is one of the main ways you’ll achieve this. 

The ShortPixel Image Optimizer Plugin is the best plugin to size down your images at the click of a button without sacrificing much in image quality.

WP Rocket

This plugin speeds up your site, so it always loads a fast as possible for the user. It’s $49/year, but well worth the investment.

YoastSEO

The YoastSEO plugin makes sure your site and posts are optimized for search engines. It’ll also help you by managing your sitemap, robots.txt, page title, and meta descriptions.

Code Inserter

When you’re blogging about programming, you want to have a way to nicely display code snippets on your website. 

The code inserter plugin does just that: You put in the raw code, and it outputs it in a pretty and well-formatted manner.

Your Programming Blog’s Content Strategy

Congrats! You’ve finished setting up your blog. 

Now, how do you figure out what to write about? And how do you structure those blog ideas?

To have endless ideas to write about on your coding blog, you should start creating a content strategy. It doesn’t have to be huge or complicated at first. 

In fact, I recommend you start with just one topic, and write a number of blog posts about all the details of it.

Pick One Topic to Start

When you’re first starting out, you have two main weapons to compete with bigger, more seasoned programming websites:

1. Making your content better and more engaging than theirs. This can give you a chance to outrank those more authoritative websites in case their articles are missing the mark
2. Creating ‘topical authority’ in the eyes of Google by thoroughly answering many questions around the same topic. Google then considers you an authority on this topic and ranks your site more highly for any term related to it

That’s why you should consider writing on a more narrow range of topics at first, instead of following every idea you get about everything you know.

Come Up With 10-30 Posts for Your First Topic

The goal is to create a ‘content cluster’ of 10-30 posts around the first topic you picked. 

So you’ll start mapping out your content strategy by coming up with enough blog ideas to make up that first cluster.

Start With The Long Tail

As a brand-new coding blog, you’re not going to rank for those big, juicy keywords. 

Instead, go after what’s called the ‘long tail’ of Google searches: Longer, more detailed phrases that are searched less, and are less competitive. This gives you the chance to rank in the top 10 even if you’re new. 

It lets you build up that topical authority over time. At some point you can then start going for those more competitive search terms.

Keyword Research & Planning

To make your keyword research process most comfortable, use a paid keyword tool – it’ll save you a lot of time and stress. You’ll get hundreds of keywords at a time, and you’ll be able to see their search volume and competition at a glance.

But, of course you can choose to do basic keyword research on your own, without paid tools, for free:

1. Enter your main topic keyword into KeywordSheeter (free). This tool will spit out all variations, questions and related searches to the keyword you entered. You can then pick queries to use as keywords to cover with an article.
2. Google the phrase and manually analyze the competition. Look out for other small niche blogs, quora, reddit, or forums in the top results. If those are able to rank, so should you, especially if you answer the search query better than they did. 

If a bigger site is ranking, but they’re completely missing the point, you also have a chance of outranking them if you create a more well-targeted article.

Types Of Topics To Pick & How They’ll Help You Reach Your Goals

You can pick between different types of articles on your programming blog that can be monetized differently:

• Answering specific coding questions. There’s thousands of these. And while people are just looking for answers – not to buy something – you can still monetize these posts by running ads on them.
• In-depth tutorials on how to code or how to be a more successful programmer. You can establish yourself as a subject matter expert and sell courses on the same topic. For most topics it’s likely good tutorials already exist – so you either have to make something that’s a lot better, or find topics that are underserved or emerging.
• Reviewing software & hardware. These have the potential to make you good money by way of affiliate commissions, but they’re also competitive topics.

In your first batch of 30 articles, it won’t hurt to include some of each type. 

But, you want to be careful not to go for a super competitive review-type keyword, for example – you’ll never rank for it with a new blog. 

Try to find the more niche topics that haven’t been covered by all the giant competitors.

How to Write Your Programming Blog Posts

Now that you’ve got your content strategy all planned out, it’s time to start writing the posts! Your goal is to create the best resource your readers can find on the internet. 

If you…

• Write satisfying answers to their questions
• Help them solve their pressing programming problems
• Give useful career advice
• Create genuinely helpful reviews

…your programming blog WILL be successful.

Here’s how to create the best blog posts that get found by Google and delight your readers:

Go For One Main Keyword

Make your articles focused on a specific search term, and cover that one term as well as you can. Google will be able to pick up what your post is about and start ranking you for that keyword. 

Include this main term in the title of your post, in the first subheading (these are called ‘H2’ subheadings), and multiple times throughout the text (in a natural way).

You can go for 2-3 secondary, related keywords as well – but first and foremost, focus on the main one. 

Also, make sure you’re not rambling, and that even ¾ of the way through, you’re still talking about the same topic. 

This stops readers from dropping off, and it shows Google your article is relevant from start to finish.

Match The Search Intent

Blogging today is not so much about writing interesting, “magazine-style” content – but it’s about providing focused solutions to the problems people are asking Google about:

• When people are searching for: “How to do something” in programming, they expect you to give them the exact answer in your blog article. 
• When they’re searching for a “Why?”-question, they want you to give them the reasons. 
• When they’re searching for “best” or “versus”, they want you to give an honest review of that thing.

You can tell how to structure your article by how the search query is phrased. If you match the search intent well, you’ll satisfy both your readers and Google’s algorithm.

Make The Title Interesting

In Google’s “Search Engine Results Page” (SERP), you’re competing with other articles targeting the same keywords.

Your chance to stand out from the crowd is choosing an interesting title. 

Here are a few elements you can include to make your title “pop” and entice people to click on your article over the others:

• Include a number, e.g.: 7 Secrets to Writing Better Code
• Add “power words”, such as easy, secrets, crush
• State the benefits: How to market yourself as a programmer and make lots of money

Mind Your Blog’s Style

You want to make your articles as easy to read as possible – especially considering a majority of your audience is consuming your content on their small phone screen.

Use Large Font Sizes

Nowadays, you want your font size to be between 18-22px. It’s easier on the eyes and keeps people on the page for longer.

Pay Attention To Line Spacing

In the 2020’s, nobody is putting up with having to read walls of text. They’d rather click away and move on to something else.

Make most of your paragraphs between 1-3 sentences long. If you use plenty of white space in your articles, you’ll do your readers a big favor. And they’ll reward you by consuming more of your content.

Don’t Make Your Content Area Too Wide

If your sentences stretch too far across the page, they’re too hard to read. Try to stick to a content area that’s 850px or less, so people have an easier time scanning your article.

Write Engaging Content

Don’t try to write scholarly articles on your website. 

Yes, people come to your programming blog to learn something. But that doesn’t mean you should sound like a college textbook. That’d be just another reason for them to tune out. Your readers want you to explain things as simply as possible. And if you can make it more personal, fun, or even tell a relevant story, that’s even better. 

Here are a few ways to make your writing more engaging:

• Talk to your audience like they’re a friend
• Keep your sentences short & sweet
• Avoid using “big words”. You won’t sound smart – but boring
• Sell them on the benefits of what you’re going to tell them
• Start your article off with something exciting or intriguing: A smart question, surprising statistic, or a hint at something interesting you’re going to reveal in the article

Create Your Home & About Pages

To make your programming blog look complete and professional, be sure to create these important pages:

Home

This is what people see if they just type your blog’s URL into their browser, or they follow a direct link from somewhere to your website. 

Think of your home page as the sales page for your personal brand. It should be a great introduction to your content and showcase your expertise as well as your best articles.

In the beginning, it’s fine to keep it simple: 

• A “hero shot” image of yourself up top
• A few lines about what the blog is about and what makes you unique
• Some social proof of what people are saying about you and places you’ve worked or your work has been featured
• A display of your best and / or most recent articles

About

Your about page is where you can get more personal – go into your story and how it relates to your reader. 

You can go into detail on your accomplishments. 

State your motivation for starting this blog, and what people can expect from you in the future.

Contact

You should have your business address on your website, as well as a way for people to contact you. 

Not only does this increase trust, but as your blog grows more popular, you’ll be contacted with valuable feedback, enlightening questions, and business opportunities.

Analyze Your Content

To see how your coding blog’s content performs over time, set up Google Analytics and start monitoring your website traffic. 

But – don’t obsess over these metrics, especially in the beginning. It’ll likely take six to eight months before your new content reaches its final ranking position. 

So it doesn’t make sense to check your Analytics all the time when you’ve just started.

Promote Your Blog

Besides writing great content on your programming blog, there’s another way you can get more readers and increase your site’s authority. 

The main way search engines judge the authority of your site is the number and quality of external links pointing for it. 

As you publish more and more content over time, you’ll naturally have more people linking to your blog – especially if your articles are of exceptional quality. 

But with the right promotional strategy, you can speed this up and gain more links in less time.

Guest Blogging

This is where you’ll reach out to other blogs in the coding or tech space and offer to write an article for them for free in exchange for a link back to your site. 

You can increase the chance they’ll say yes if you do some keyword research beforehand and pitch them a topic they could be ranking for, but don’t yet have an article on. 

Also, when reaching out, make sure to mention any of your credentials and accomplishments to make it more attractive for them to feature you on their blog.

Link Building

While guest blogging is a common and effective way to build links back to your site, there’s other ways to do it, too:

• One example is partnering up with other programming bloggers: Whenever they write a guest post on another site, they’ll link to your site, and you’ll do the same for them
• Another way to potentially gain new links is to use a tool to check for broken links on a site you’d like to get a link from. You then tell them about it and ask them to link to one of your articles instead
• Finally, you can check your competitor’s backlinks and ask those sites to link to you over them, in case you have a higher quality post on the same topic

How You’ll Monetize Your Programming Blog

Now, how are you going to get paid for all the hard work you’ve put in solving coding problems and publishing great content on your blog to help out other programmers?

Here are 5 ways you’ll earn money from your programming blog:

Display Advertising

Once you have thousands of visitors per month to your blog, it’s worth it to put display ads on it to monetize some of that general traffic. 

It’s especially useful for those short info-articles that answer a specific question. Your readers will just get the info they need and then bounce – they won’t buy any affiliate offer or join your email list to potentially buy your course later. Display ads are perfect to make at least some money from those people as well.

The most popular ad companies, sorted by how much they’re paying, are: Google AdSense, Ezoic, Adthrive and Mediavine. The higher-end ad networks have strict requirements for joining, such as 50,000 page views per month for Mediavine.

Affiliate Marketing

As you’re reviewing tools and hardware related to coding, you can link to those recommended products and earn a commission. 

Especially for software products, those can be highly attractive because they’re so-called ‘recurring’ commissions – you get a cut for every month the user stays subscribed to the service. 

Additionally, you can earn good money affiliating for high-priced coding hardware, online courses and bootcamps.

Selling Courses & Other Informational Products

With your programming blog, over time you’ll establish yourself as an authority on certain subjects. 

Your readers are loyal – they know, like and trust you. That’s when you can start offering your expertise in the form of ebooks, courses, or a coaching service. 

The best way to do this is to first get people on your email list, where you keep giving them even more valuable content. 

Once it’s time to pitch your new info product, you’ll have a warm audience willing to buy from you.

Sponsorships

If your blog has become popular and it’s bringing in some good traffic, you can also reach out to companies you like and sell them banner ad space or sponsored placements in your posts or emails.

The advantage of this tactic over standard display advertising is that you directly control which kind of ads your audience are seeing on your blog. 

Sponsored banner ads also pay better. 

Time to get started!

That’s a wrap! Now you’re armed with all the info you need to set up your site, create your content strategy, start writing, and publish your first post!

I wish you the best of luck with your new programming blog.

P.S.: If you’d like an even more in-depth course on how to start your blog as a software developer, make sure to enroll below for free:

The post How to Start a PROFITABLE Programming Blog From A-Z (2022) appeared first on Simple Programmer.

I wish that were so. This blog post will talk about sharing your learnings, when to share, where to share, and how you might turn those learnings into more significant earnings both as products you can sell or as space to sell advertising.

Why Share

Why is sharing your learning important?

First, it reinforces your learning. Before you can explain something to someone else, you have to make sure it’s straight in your head. Stickiness is great in case you have to respond to a technical question at the team building tiki bar.

Second, it allows you to provide value to others and position yourself as an expert. The people who are seen as experts earn more money.

When you can show others that you know what you are talking about, they are more likely to:

• Pay attention to you
• Value your opinion
• Seek you out for advice and mentorship
• Offer you opportunities
• Promote your ideas

And finally, it’s a way of giving back to the community that has helped you so much. We have all been there, and someone helped us when we started, and now it’s our turn to help others. It feels good, and it’s the right thing to do.

Step One: Identify When You are Learning

The first step to translating your learning into earning is to realize you are learning. How many times a day do you have to look something up or work out a tricky problem? Each of these times is you learning something.

The main idea here is to be aware that you are learning. So, in the beginning, note it in your mind. In the book Atomic Habits, James Clear lets us know that we can start to build impressive habits by consistently doing the tiniest possible things first.

Throughout your day, look out for times when you:

• Have an “Aha!” moment.
• Think to yourself, “That’s funny.”
• Look something up
• Think to yourself, “Well, it works on my machine.”
• Work out a tricky problem
• Discuss with a co-worker on solving an issue
• Tell someone else how to do something you just learned

Each of these times, note it’s something you learned. Then, if you can get in the habit of recognizing when you are learning, you can start to take action and turn that learning into earning.

Earnings: Very little as all this is happening in your head.

Step Two: Capture Your Learning

After you have developed a habit of acknowledging when you have learned something, start keeping notes on what you learned. Jot down the problem and how you solved it, so you don’t forget later.

Keeping notes has three benefits:

1. It reinforces the learning for you immediately. Reinforcement means you are less likely to forget the solution, and in this way, you strengthen your knowledge.
2. You have notes to allow you to reinforce your learning in the future. If this is a critical concept, you should place the idea in a Spaced Repetition System (SRS) like Anki.
3. You have a reminder of things you have learned so you can share them publically later.

Once again, take this tiny step, and this step only, building on the previous phase of acknowledgment until you are consistently doing it over 2 weeks.

Earnings: Small. If you are only capturing it in a physical notebook it is the start of something you could turn into earnings, but you aren’t there yet.

Step Three: Share Your Learning In a Small Way

The best way to start sharing in little ways is on a platform that constrains the size of what you can share, Twitter.

Twitter is the perfect platform for sharing little snippets of information, or what I like to call “micro-teaching.”

The next habit to build is to share one thing you learned on Twitter each day. Please take one of your notes, condense it into a Tweet, and put it there. Do this every day or every workday for a few weeks.

If you aren’t brave enough to expose your ignorance to the world (guess what, everyone is ignorant of something), you can anonymously start a Twitter account and post there.

After a few weeks of this, you have built up a small but steady habit of sharing our learning with the world in a very low-risk way.

Earnings: Small to medium. You aren’t going to earn much, if anything, on Twitter but if you do this long enough you could position yourself as an expert and turn it into a new better fulfilling or paying job.

Step Four: Consolidate Your Sharing Into Something Larger

Next, you take one of our learning notes that is not condensible to a single Tweet and build it into a Tweet thread.

Or you could provide a summary of the previous 4 or 5 days of tweets if they are all related.

Let’s plan to do this once a week, in addition to our daily tweets.

Lists are great things to present in tweet threads. For example, think of the initial tweet as saying: “The X Best Tools for Y,” or “X Good Things and Y Bad Things about Product Z I Learned This Week.”

People like lists, it’s easy to get their head around, and it makes it easier for you to structure what you want to say. Making things easier for you to produce them means it’s more likely you will make these tweet threads a habit.

Another thread type is the “How-To.” These are more difficult to produce, but they provide immense value to your followers if you can make them a habit.

The last thread type is the story. If you have a good story related to your work or learning that would be interesting to others, share it! Stories are great because they are entertaining and provide a great way to share your learning in an easily digestible format.

The key with these thread types is to make sure you are providing value to your followers, not just promoting yourself or your product.

If you can do that, people will appreciate it, and you will build a following of engaged users who are happy to see your content.

As you can see, we have now built on the previous two habits to get to a point where we are sharing our learning with the world more substantially, once a week.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Earnings: Small to Medium. Still the same reasons as above, but showing people you are willing to work harder at sharing increases the chance of opportunities coming your way.

Step Five: Consolidate Your Consolidations to Something Larger Still

Now we can start to look at ways of turning our micro-learning into something that has more value.

The next step is to start writing articles. Article writing is a big one and will take some time to get used to, but it’s worth it. The main idea is to take one of your tweet threads, or a selection of them, and turn it into a longer article.

Articles are easier to build than you think, as you already have the content created. You need to expand on your tweets and tweet threads and link everything together.

Articles are a great way to share your learning in a more permanent format with the world. They also benefit from being easily shareable on social media and other platforms.

Suppose you can write one article per week, 52 articles per year! And if each of those articles helped just one person, that would be 52 people whose lives you have made a little bit better.

Think about how good that would make you feel in addition to who might get exposed to it and who might like your work enough to want to work with you via consulting, a job offer, writing a book together, or something else.

We want to build this habit of writing an article once a month to start and eventually bringing it down to once a week.

Where do you publish these articles?

Medium (Or Other Places)

Medium is a great place to start. You have a built-in audience, and if you start getting traction, you can redirect them to your blog (below).

The downside of Medium is they own the content, and they own your subscribers.

Other great places to post these are on sites like Hashnode, freeCodeCamp, and dev. These websites already have large audiences of developers interested in reading this type of content.

Posting on other people’s sites is a great place to start, but if you want long term control and success, you are going to have to:

Start A Blog

A personal blog is a great way to share your learning with the world more substantially.

Not only do you control everything, but you can also go as deep into topics as you like and show off what you know. There are no editors, no style guides, and no limits. There’s also little support. I only suggest this after you have developed the habit of writing regularly and have an audience willing to follow you.

It’s also a great way to build an audience of people interested in what you have to say.

WordPress.com is a great place to start if you want to go this route, as it’s free and easy to set up. You can get your domain and host for around $48/year if you want more control. There are lots of tutorials out there on how to get started blogging.

You can start earning money on your articles with affiliate marketing or ad revenue, but the real money comes in the next step.

Earnings: Medium to Large. Ad revenue and affiliate marketing can be very lucrative in the right niches and with the right programs.

Step Six: And To The Earnings

Once you have gotten into the habit of writing articles, you can move on to even larger projects to share with others. At this point, it should be easy to take this next step. You have all the accumulated knowledge from the previous actions ready to package into a more extensive offering. The best part of this step is it is when you really start seeing the money. With all these things you can either sell them directly or generate ad revenue off of them.

Here are some ideas:

• Write a book
• Start a podcast
• Make a video course
• Create templates or project starters
• Give a talk at a conference
• Solo consulting
• The world is your oyster!

Earnings: Large. In addition, a lot of these are passive income streams that allow you to continue learning and sharing and the cycle repeats itself.

Now You Know, So Go Share and Earn

Learning and sharing is the path I have chosen to greater financial freedom, and it’s the one I recommend you take as well.

The key is to get started and make sharing your learning a habit – that is, you do it consistently. Focus on habit building, small steps at a time, recognize you learned something, write it down, share it on Twitter, share longer Twitter threads, then write articles, and finally, start creating your own courses or products. The sooner you start, the sooner you will reap the rewards of greater earnings. Why are you waiting? Go out there and start sharing your excellent learning with the world!

The post Developer Side Hustle: Convert Learnings Into Earnings appeared first on Simple Programmer.

We use a number of factors here at Simple Programmer to determine Top Posts for a year (including Views, Time on Page, Bounce Rate, Exit Rate, First 30 Days Performance, etc.), as metrics alone are often for vanity and not sufficient data you can base a conclusion on.

Correlation does not always equal causation, after all.

With that, we have two categories of Top 10 Posts for you to read … or read again (so a bonus total of Top 20 Posts on Simple Programmer in 2021!)

Top 10 Most Read Posts on Simple Programmer in 2021

1. 5 In-Demand Programming Skills To Acquire in 2021 by Anisha Tanveer — Despite the growing tech market, the chances of landing your dream job may be slim due to a skills mismatch. To overcome this challenge, young professionals should aim to build their skills for a specific niche. So what skills should you have worked on to find a suitable career path for yourself in 2021? This article will help you discover the five high-in-demand programming skills for 2021 and tips on how you can excel in them.
2. 5 Examples of SMART Goals That Will Make You a Better Programmer by Adam Jones — A SMART goal is a really specific way of writing down your goal, a key component of improving your chances of achieving any goal. The five SMART goals highlighted in this post can help you on your quest to be a better, more-rounded programmer if you are employed or work on your own.
3. 10 Tips for Programmers To Work More Efficiently by Madhsudhan Khemchandani — Programming is more than just writing code on a computer screen. It is a combination of thinking, understanding, typing, learning, and debugging. When it comes to programming, balance is everything, so here are 10 tips that will help you stay focused and increase productivity while also taking care of yourself, both physically and mentally.
4. The Importance of an Online Portfolio for Programmers (and How To Make One) by Gaurav Belani — Programmers and web developers need to have an online portfolio ready for future employers or potential clients to see. Even if your work doesn’t really fall under the “creative” category, you can still build a portfolio and draw benefits from it in a similar manner. This post will show you why an e-portfolio is important, what it can do for you professionally, and how you can start the process of setting one up today.
5. How Perfectionism Kills a Programmer’s Productivity by Aston Rhodes — It would seem that people who strive to do everything perfectly should be more successful in work and life. But in practice, being a perfectionist harms a programmer’s productivity. This post will show you how to recognize perfectionism in your own behavior, also offering you tips on how to get rid of it.
6. How to Restart Your Developer Career After a Long Break by Ankit Patel — If you’re someone who left your programming career years back and are hankering to hit the keyboard to code again, there are specific steps you can take to restart your career. Here are some concrete tips on how to get back to doing what you love.
7. 10 Things You Don’t Need To Become a Programmer by Jack David — Do you have the passion and urge to become a successful programmer? Most people would say yes but hold a tint of doubt, as they are glued to certain stereotypes surrounding the world of programming. Just going to let you know now, most of these misconceptions are false. Here are 10 things you absolutely don’t need to be a programmer.
8. No Time Like the Present – Why We Need a New Generation of Software Developers by Gemma Harvey — Software development as we know it now began to take form over half a century ago, and in that time, it has progressed in giant leaps. What was deemed unimaginable 50 years ago is now possible to code and create in the blink of an eye. In this post you can read about the growing need for a new generation of software developers as well as some possible ways to address this need.
9. 10 Top Highest-Paid Software Engineer Jobs in 2021 by Iryna Bilyk — Whether you are a skilled software developer or a junior software engineer, the question remains the same: What programming language and framework brings the highest salary in the current market conditions? This article will give you all the details to make sure you steer your programming career in the right direction.
10. 5 Ways to Plan Your 2022 by Elisa Doucette— It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a living human alive in the 2020s must be in want of a better year to come. But if there’s one thing we believe firmly here at Simple Programmer, it is that we need to break down complex issues into simple solutions, and focus on the things we have control over. So here are five easy ways to help plan out some goals and projections for 2022 to help you get back a little of what might have been lost in the past 24 months.

There’s also our annual Gifts for Programmers post, which blows all other posts out of the water in terms of viewing stats. Glad to see that your curiosity for gifts and gadgets continues to stay alive and well, and that you are sharing it with friends and family to find your perfect holiday gifts!

Now on to the next list …

Top 10 Most Engaged Posts on Simple Programmer in 2021

1. Why Git is Still Relevant in 2021, and Will Be for a Long Time by Jacob Stopak — As we moved into 2021, Git remained relevant for a variety of reasons, and it will likely maintain its dominance for quite some time. As you’ll see in this article, Git is a major part of a developer’s routine, and being informed about its current and possible future trends is important to one’s career.
2. 6 Reasons Why It’s Worth Becoming a Software Developer in 2021 by Alexander Stavrou — Are you someone who loves tech and wants to make a living from it? Do you want a job that pays well and offers tons of opportunity for growth? If so, then you should consider becoming a software developer. This article will list the top six reasons why it was worth becoming a software developer in 2021.
3. Why Science Says That Social Media is Your Enemy by Fiodar Sazanavets — Social media is everywhere, and it’s extremely rare to find somebody who doesn’t use it. But there is one problem that you should definitely be concerned about: Social media is the single most powerful thing that can prevent you from building the right habits. If not used with caution, it is something that can make deep work impossible. This post offers you all you need to know to avoid social media distractions and stay focused.
4. How Are Kubernetes and Rancher Related? — A Detailed Evaluation by Ankit Kumar — In the era of cloud-native development, there are two technologies that are often interchangeably understood: Kubernetes and Rancher. There has been constant comparison between the two, amid certain uncertainties. This post will show you what these two technologies individually mean, their salient features, organizations using them, and their alternatives.
5. The Pros and Cons of Open-Source Software by Remya Mohanan — Programmers use various open-source software for their own projects, and they also contribute to many other OSS. However, certain aspects of OSS can trouble many developers. Here is a complete guide to what open-source software is, its relevance for programmers, and tips on how to use it wisely.
6. How To Transition Into Machine Learning as a Software Developer by Sebastian Kirsch — Opting for a career in machine learning can be a very intelligent move. Quite often, a career breakthrough is a matter of doing the right thing at the right time, and getting into machine learning now can potentially be such an opportunity for you. This post will show you what you need in order to make the best of this transition.
7. How To Improve Your Remote Software Engineers’ Productivity by Gary Bury — A remote software engineering team can be just as, if not more, productive as their office-bound counterparts. This article shows how to get the best out of your remote software engineering team.
8. How the World of Remote Work Will Change in 2021 by Fazmeena Faisal — The face of the remote-work trend, which has become popular due to the COVID-19 pandemic, changed in 2021. In this article, we look into the workspace models and work management processes that we expected to witness in a post-pandemic era.
9. 10 Upcoming Technology and Programming Trends Set for 2022 by Ankit Kumar — The world, undoubtedly, relates a lot to technology and there is likely no business or organization that is not striving hard to keep pace with the fast-moving technological trends. As the year 2022 approaches, it is interesting to observe the upcoming programming and technology trends that are set to drive innovation and modernization. So let’s have a look at the key upcoming technology and programming trends that will be seen throughout 2022
10. How To Keep Your Remote Team Safe From Cyber Attacks by David Balaban — The shift toward telework in light of the pandemic has made numerous companies more vulnerable to cyber attacks. If your team is in the same boat, this article will point you in the right direction to tackle the escalating risks.

As you can see, they are two totally different lists. 

Which just goes to show that popularity in numbers does not always equal popularity in interest and comprehension.

What Does That Mean for Simple Programmer in 2022?

Every year, we review the prior year’s content to get an idea of what to write and share.

Since Simple Programmer publishes three times a week, that means we are always looking for new ideas that might just fit a niche of interest and comprehension that our readers would like to deep dive on.

But we love those popular posts that bring new readers to the site, and keep you clicking and coming back.

Overall, expect more career and programming skills content in the upcoming year, along with some new and different content that might just be the exact post you are looking for.

Did you have a favorite article from us in 2021 that didn’t make the list(s)? A favorite from the lists? Let us know in the comments below!

The post Top 10 Simple Programmer Posts of 2021 appeared first on Simple Programmer.

Backlinks signal search engines that a particular website has high-quality, credible information. Hence, they are the essence of off-page search engine optimization (SEO). That’s why top-ranking pages in the SERP have 3.8 times more backlinks. However, not all backlinks weigh equally on Google’s scale.

So let’s see what a quality backlink looks like, and then we’ll discuss eight link-building tactics you can use as a developer or a programmer.

Characteristics of a Quality Backlink

Your backlink profile determines whether Google ranks your developer or programmer website, portfolio, or social profile highly or not. Here are a few properties possessed by a quality backlink:

• Relevance: It needs to come from a relevant website.
• Domain and Page Authority: The higher the domain authority (DA) of the linking website and the page authority (PA) of the linking page, the more the weightage of the backlink coming from it.
• Location: Whether the link’s originating from the blog body, author bio, blog post, homepage, comments, etc., it also impacts the weightage of the backlinks—homepage links hold the most importance; whereas, comment links have the least impact.
• Followed Links: Do-follow links hold more credibility because they transfer link juice more reliably, unlike no-follow or links with other attributes.
• Anchor Text: Though it may sometimes be beyond your control, it’s better if the anchor text is relevant to the topic of the page it’s linking to on your website.
• Link Diversity: A natural backlink profile is diverse. Make sure you’re getting a good mix of links such as do-follow, no-follow, high domain authority, low domain authority, links in bio, links in blog body, etc.

Now that you know what a quality backlink looks like, let’s see how you can get the most credible backlinks for your blog as a developer or a programmer.

Leverage App Integrations for Backlinks

Developers often have to integrate different applications to achieve a task that otherwise couldn’t have been possible with a single app. These integrations are quite common, and many tools mention their integration partners on their websites, often on the homepage or on a dedicated page.

So if you’ve been skeptical about integrating your apps, or if your integration partner hasn’t linked with you yet, you should definitely broach the topic. Some companies also co-market their product, so it can turn into a goldmine of backlinks if such an opportunity presents itself.

You can get backlinks from journos, review sites, and influencers and may even get more opportunities for future collaborations. Integrations are also an excellent way to broaden your reach and get access to your partner’s customer base through newsletter or social media mentions as well as joint events and webinars.

Here’s a HubSpot integrated app; notice the link to the provider.

Create Link-Worthy Link-Bait

Most people create infographics or stick to slideshows as link-bait to attract organic backlinks. But being a developer or a programmer opens up a whole new set of link-bait options for you. Think about plugins, themes, tools, games, apps … The sky’s the limit.

So how do you get links through link-bait? The process is quite simple:

1. Find prospect websites and blogs that are relevant to your link-bait, and often link to such products.
2. Pitch your link-bait to them, and offer to write a blog post or custom intro for your link-bait.
3. The host blog or website features your link-bait and links to you as the source.

Depending on the link-bait you create, you can use various tactics such as creative link bait (as mentioned below), broken link-building (for resource guides), or the skyscraper method (also for resources) to find the prospects for your assets.

Here are a few link-bait examples.

Create Free Tools

And why not? Identify a gap in your niche, and create a lightweight tool to help people out. Make sure your tool is better or has some unique aspects compared to other similar tools in the market. Now launch your tool on your website, and let your audience know. Approach journos and influencers, and create a buzz around your creation. The backlinks will follow suit.

Create a Fun App or a Game

It doesn’t have to be Sugar Rush or Mortal Kombat. Create something as basic as a puzzle or a bubble shooting game, anything exciting to engage people and have them start talking about it. Rafael Caferati has turned his homepage into a game. He dares you to destroy it! Plus, he has some cool snippets in his code laboratory.

Create Free Learning Resources

Developers and programmers are always looking to learn and improve their code. So if you build a resource on your website and make it available for free, it can attract many backlinks on its own. Or you can take up different industry-related topics like Erik Bernhardsson and give your expert opinion about it. He created resources and in-depth guides that position him as an authority in the data space. Another way to attract readers and improve the shareability of your posts is to mix in some humor like Coding Horror, whose unique writing style connects with his audience.

Volunteer To Contribute to Your Company Blog

Tech companies love to have their technical employees contribute to their blog by doing something as simple as being interviewed, writing a piece of content on a technical topic, or answering frequently asked questions (FAQs). It’s a win-win for both: The company gets authentic content for their audience, and you get a backlink to your portfolio or website.

Tech companies usually have good domain ratings and a solid marketing strategy. Naturally, their content ranks higher on Google. As a result, your online presence gets a boost too. So, in this way, getting multiple backlinks to your website from your company’s tech blog is the easiest way to get backlinks from a high authority website.

David Walsh is a well-known influencer, and here’s his interview with Mozilla, where he works as a front-end developer. Notice the backlink to his website in the screen shot below.

Offer Free Themes for Bulk Backlinks

There’s a catch in this easy way to get thousands of backlinks without much effort. Similar to creating link-bait, you can make free themes. However, instead of pitching your free resource for backlinks, you just have to add your link in the footer.

Now, let’s suppose you create a cool theme, and you get 1,000 downloads in the first week. It means you potentially have 1,000 backlinks from new and old websites. Most of them might have very low domain authority, so these are not high-quality links by any means. Also, the number of backlinks depends on the number of people who left the footer in place after downloading your theme.

Many people don’t consider changing the footer for a long time, as they’re more focused on other aspects of website building.

Others are afraid to mess up the code and don’t dive in. Only a few website owners will change the footer as soon as they implement your theme.

You can set up a complete set of free themes to build bulk backlinks. It’s a one-time effort that keeps on bearing fruit with each download, more so as you grow your audience and establish your online presence.

Build Backlinks From Authority Developer Resource Websites

Anyone who has ever written a line of code knows about Stack Overflow and GitHub. There are many resources out there for developers to work on code together and find answers to their questions.

These sites not only have high domain authorities, but they are also immensely reputable, so making a profile and getting a backlink from them is an excellent way to boost your backlink profile. Most of the backlinks from these sites are no-follow until you establish your authority and earn a minimum of reputation points. But remember, as we mentioned earlier, your backlink profile should be diverse, so it doesn’t harm to get a few no-follow links as well!

For example, initially, your profile link on Stack Overflow is no-follow. You can get a do-follow link if you have a reputation of 2000 points, and the link in your About Us section matches precisely to the link in the website section, even to the last backslash.

Similarly, you can make your profiles at GitHub, CodeProject, and GitLab, etc.

Be a Guest on Relevant Podcasts and Conferences

Admittedly, getting links through podcasts and conferences can take some effort. You will either have to speak at a conference or appear in a podcast. However, it’s one of the best ways to establish your authority and win valuable backlinks because of the huge exposure you can get. Podcasts and conferences typically get more media attention too.

So here’s how it works:

1. Sign up to speak at an event, or pitch yourself as a guest on a podcast.
2. If you’re accepted, you will get links from the event website, partner organizations, collaborators posting about it on their blogs, and influencers attending the event and posting about it on their social media.
3. You can also email your website link to the event organizers to pass it on to the attendees for reference.

You can search the internet to find conferences and podcasts in your industry. Choose the ones that have a considerable audience and the potential to generate a buzz.

Rate Your Favorite Software and Connect With Industry Gurus

Do you have a set of software and tools you can’t live without? Why not write reviews or recommendations such that other bloggers may find them helpful and link to your expert recommendations!

Another way to show your appreciation and get a backlink is to approach the creator and offer a testimonial. These testimonials can land on the homepage, in newsletters, or become part of their social media promotion campaigns.

Whether you get a link from their website or social media, it will help diversify your backlink profile just like a natural backlink profile should be.

Another clever way to get backlinks is by leaving meaningful comments to famous blogs with the intention of building relationships. The links in comments aren’t super important in this case. It’s your rapport with the influencer that can open up future link-building and collaboration opportunities. Influencer relationships also boost your online reputation.

Be patient and really focus on building a genuine relationship before building links. As Jeff Ferguson says, “Link building isn’t a trick, it’s public relations. Get to work.”

Guest Post on Industry-Specific Publications

As stated earlier, technical websites are always looking for experts to write for their audience. And guest posting is one of the most common link-building tactics. Since you’re a technical expert, you can guest post on other publications in your niche to generate links for your website.

Moreover, with guest posting, you can also earn significant brand exposure, get organic traffic from different sources, and build relationships with industry influencers.

However, if you want to succeed at guest posting, you will need to come up with unique content relevant to both your website and the target blog. Then write a high-quality, authoritative blog that connects with their audience to the T.

Here’s how you can go about it:

1. Look for developer websites that accept guest posts.
2. Pitch them your ideas.
3. If they accept, write a quality blog with a couple of links to relevant content on your website.
4. Send out your guest post, and wait for its publication.
5. Some websites and blogs also add a backlink to your website in the author bio.

Choose websites with high domain ratings (DR) only. (Domain rating and domain authority are almost the same). First, write a few guest posts for websites with medium domain ratings, and build your backlink profile. Then contact blogs with high domain ratings or influential publications in your niche. Lastly, when you send an email presenting your pitch, add the links to some of your best-performing posts. This will build credibility.

Use Backlinks Wisely and Earn More Traffic to Your Site

Backlinks are the most effective of all the SEO techniques and tactics. It’s an established fact that a website with a strong backlink profile gets a higher ranking in search engines and receives more organic traffic from Google.

No doubt there are many, many legitimate ways to build quality links. However, the eight link building techniques we’ve discussed here take advantage of your particular skill as a developer. These tactics will help you build super-relevant quality links and can give you an edge over your competitors.

So what are you waiting for? Go and build those backlinks!

The post 8 Link-Building Strategies for Developers That Work appeared first on Simple Programmer.

Knowing and understanding the types of tags programmers need to boost search engine optimization is one of the essential ways to provide helpful data about the page to search engines and users.

In this post, I’ll offer you all you need to know about HTML and meta tags, so you can be sure the pages you design are optimized for search engines. This improves the quality of your work and, as a result, your status as a professional developer.

What Are Meta Tags?

Right away, programmers might have some confusion about what exactly a meta tag is and what it does. Meta tags are short strings of text describing a web page, but they don’t ordinarily appear on the page itself, even though they affect how it appears in search results. Instead, programmers can see meta tags in the page’s source code.

Each tag is essentially a small content descriptor that tells search engines the main point of a page. Sometimes, the coder will see tags on certain websites, like blogs or social media websites, but these tags and meta tags aren’t the same. Tags that a user can see usually assist with the navigation of a website, but meta tags help search engines crawl the content.

When it comes to tagging, meta means “metadata.” They only exist within the HTML, usually in the <head> element of a page, and they remain invisible to the user. Meta tags provide search engines with data about the information on a website.

HTML also uses different types of tags in addition to meta tags, which might be a bit confusing. Basically, meta tags only affect search engines, and regular HTML tags, like <body>, <p>, or <img>, affect what the user sees on the page. Web designers will also use CSS, Bootstrap, Javascript, or another language to alter how content looks or performs on a page.

How Should Programmers Use Meta Tags?

Now that you know what a meta tag is, how should you use them? Let’s start with the basics. Particular HTML SEO tags affect the website’s rankings, but not all of them do. Professional programmers ought to understand which tags affect rankings.

Meta Tags

Meta tags describe all tags relating to metadata, and each one must use the <meta> tag. Programmers can include different attributes inside the tag, which tells browsers and search engines different information about the web page to help the website stand out in search results. That information can be about a character set, various meta keywords, author, description, and more.

Meta Title

This is an important tag, and some SEO specialists claim it’s the most crucial element. The <title> tag shows up as the clickable title on the search results page, so it’s often the first thing that users will see about your website. It’s also what a user sees when looking at a browser tab, defining the page’s title. It’s a requirement for HTML documents.

There are a few things to keep in mind to write this type of tag correctly. You’ll need to use less than 55 characters because browsers and search engines may cut it off if you have a longer title. Make sure that each page on your website has a unique title, too.

If programmers have any primary meta keywords, they should use them at the beginning of the title tag and put their company’s name at the end. When coders write meta titles, they need to keep the target customers and users in mind.

Meta Description

The meta description tag is similar to the meta title tag because it also appears on a search engine’s results page. Instead of seeing it as a clickable link, your users will see it directly under the title and URL in the results on Google or another search engine.

Although some experts claim that meta descriptions don’t directly impact SEO like other meta tags, professional programmers should still include them; the benefit being that meta description tags provide much of the impact for click-through rates (CTRs), which does affect SEO directly.

Search engines look at the number of clicks a page has, which influences a website’s rankings. That means anything affecting CTRs is important. Keywords used in a meta description also appear in bold text, which helps an engine choose if a page matches a query.

For your pages’ descriptions, keep them between 125 and 155 characters. Make sure that the descriptions accurately reflect the content of the page. Programmers should use the description to quickly market the page to users and make them more likely to click the link and go to their website.

If you want to, you can use a meta description generator to help figure out what the description should be. These websites can help brainstorm ideas, and they can show how your description might look on the search results page of Google or another search engine.

Screaming Frog is a powerful tool for performing advanced technical website audits and on-site optimization. This tool also analyzes the site’s metadata by calculating the pixel width of page titles and meta descriptions.

Meta Viewport

Understanding meta viewports relies on understanding what a viewport is. Viewports relate to the size of a user’s visible page area, which varies depending on the device. Mobile phones have smaller viewports than computers and laptops.

Defining your website’s viewport lets you control the dimensions of the page and its scaling. You’ll need to specify the content width and the scale. By doing so, the coder tells the page to use a device’s screen width to alter the width of the content.

Although it might not seem like it, viewport attributes impact SEO because search engines favor responsive design and mobile-friendly websites. In addition, the viewport attributes direct the browser on how to control the scaling and dimensions of a page.

Meta Robots

This tag is another key tag for your SEO strategy, and it tells a search engine whether or not to index or follow a page. Generally, search engines will index and follow pages by default, so programmers don’t need to tell them to do so.

However, indicating to search robots that they want them to index the page on the results page (SERP) and follow it may not be a bad idea. SEO specialists can also manually request Google to recrawl a page using the “Fetch as Google” tool.

If you want to ‘assign’ a specific user-agent, take the standard tag <meta name=”robots” content=”[PARAMETER]”> and replace the “robots” with the name of a crawler such as Googlebot.

Sometimes, SEO specialists want to tell search engines not to index or follow a page. In that case, they’d indicate particular indexation-controlling parameters:

• Index – a search engine indexes a page by default with no meta tag added.
• Noindex – a search engine doesn’t index a page.
• Follow – the crawler follows all the URLs on a page and passes equity to the linked pages.
• Nofollow – the crawler doesn’t follow a specific link or pass along any link equity. Mind that it doesn’t prevent the page from being crawled completely. Therefore, it should be marked ‘noindex nofollow’ to hide it entirely from indexation.

To keep track of your HTML tags, it is required to run a regular site analysis. It will maintain the effectiveness of your site’s promotion and timely spot errors. You can easily conduct a technical website audit with the SE Ranking and get a detailed report of every page with the noindex, hreflang, rel=”canonical” and rel=”alternate” tags, including subdomains and pages specified in the XML sitemap.

Programmers don’t have to use a meta robots tag, but it’s a good idea to use it on pages that they don’t want to show up on a result’s page. Thin pages with little helpful information for users, thank you pages, product launches, and promotion pages can negatively impact your SEO unless you hide them with a robot attribute. You also might want to hide admin pages from results pages as well.

Canonical Meta

This part is where things may get a bit confusing, especially for newer programmers. Google and other search engines don’t like duplicate content, and when they crawl through URLs with similar content, you might see your SEO tank. That’s because search engines won’t know which versions to add to their indices, which link metrics apply, or how to rank different versions for search results.

Sometimes, especially on e-Commerce websites, programmers will find repeat (duplicate) content. That’s because many eCommerce sites will sell the same product with the same information. For example, a manufacturer might send a basic description to websites that sell one of its products. Many websites won’t alter that information, causing the exact details on many different websites.

Canonical meta tags (aka “rel canonical”) combat issues that might be caused by duplicate or similar content on your website. This tag informs search engines which version of a URL should appear in search results, and it eliminates SEO issues caused by multiple URLs having identical or similar information.

Meta Content Type

This part of a meta tag is necessary to declare a character set for your webpage, and you should have it on every page on the website. Excluding it can affect how your page loads in someone’s browser.

For example, you may see something like this: <meta http-equiv=”content-type” content=”text/html; charset=UTF-8″>. In this case, the content attribute defines the character set for the search engine.

Including this tag is crucial for browsers to understand a web page. While the actual character set won’t affect the ranking, omitting the tag altogether might. If the coder doesn’t include this tag, a browser won’t decode the site properly, and it will display the wrong text.

What Are the Core HTML Tags for SEO Content?

While a typical HTML document contains a few sections, the majority of the HTML tags are found in the body, so what are the core tags for SEO content? Let’s take a look at some certain essentials for organizing content, placing links, optimizing images, as well as some tags that comply with best practices.

Headings

Coders primarily use heading tags to tell the topic of a web page and structure its content. The tags range from h1 tags to h6 tags, with h1 being one of the most important tags on a page.

People often confuse headings and titles. Headings emphasize sections of a page, and the title tag defines the title of the page in search engine results. Use the h1 tag as the name of the page for users, and use a title tag as the name of the page for search engines. You can also use h2-h6 tags for different sections or paragraphs.

Heading tags play a role in your SEO when search engine robots look at your pages. These tags tell crawlers what the content on the page is about, with the h1 tag telling the crawler the key topic of your article. The other heading tags help crawlers understand what paragraphs and sections are about. Programmers can always check the crawl stats in Google Webmaster Tools.

These tags also help facilitate content scannability, allowing users to quickly comprehend your content which enhances their user experience. Setting heading tags also improves your website’s accessibility and usability, which is a factor in SEO because Google and other search engines favor accessible websites.

Links and Anchors

If an SEO specialist needs to link to another page, they use <a> tag with an href attribute, indicating where the link goes. The <a> tag is also commonly known as an anchor.

For SEO, make sure that the anchor text is SEO-friendly by making it brief and relevant to the page it links to. Search engines will use the external anchor text to reflect how other websites see yours and what your pages might be about. If enough websites believe that a page on your site is essential for a set of words, then the page will rank well for those terms even if they don’t appear within the page’s content.

Alt Text

Alt attributes are essential parts of the <img> or image tag and are especially useful for visually impaired people. Alt attributes will appear in the image container if the image can’t load. Programmers aren’t required to use them, but they actually should.

Search engine crawlers read the alt text you include because they can’t see the image in the way a human can. To follow the best practices, ensure that your file name and alt text are easy to read and incorporate essential keywords.

HTML5 Semantic Tags

There are a few other semantic tags that also play an important role in SEO. Let’s briefly look at them one by one.

• <header>. The header tag represents a container that’s for introductory content or navigation links. Although coders can use it in place of the h1 tag, that isn’t the best practice, and it might negatively impact SEO.
• <nav>. The nav tag is for navigation links, and not every single link should be inside this element. It’s only for major navigation. Screen readers, browsers, and search engine crawlers will use this element to figure out if it needs to alter the initial rendering of the content.
• <main>. You should use this tag to tell crawlers what the main content of a website is, and it should be unique to the page. Don’t put any information like sidebars or navigation in this area, and don’t use more than one <main> element on one page.
• <article>. This tag should contain any self-contained content. Articles should make sense by themselves, independently from the rest of your website. They might include blog posts or news stories. On the SEO side of things, search engines like Google can put more weight on the content inside of this tag. It also helps reduce the number of times you use the <div> tag.
• <figure>. A figure element is somewhat similar to an image tag, but it only specifies self-contained content like illustrations, photos, code, or diagrams. To maximize your SEO, use the <figcaption> tag alongside the figure element. That way, you can add more information to the content.
• <footer>. A footer tag typically appears at the bottom of your website, and it can contain information like copyright, contact, or a sitemap. For SEO, the footer tag can tell search engines things like company information.
• <mark>. This tag is relatively simple compared to the other ones. All it does is define the text that needs to be marked or highlighted somehow.
• <aside>. Aside tags are similar to section tags, but these focus only on secondary content related to the surrounding content. They’re usually used for sidebars in documents, and they don’t do anything special without CSS. A new article, post, or a call to action might be a good reason to use an aside tag.

The diagram below shows an example of how these elements coexist on a web page.

Bad Practices

Programmers can use some tags, like the <span> and <style> tags inside of other tags, like <h1> or <a>, but it isn’t always best practice to do so.

For example, style tags allow you to edit your page’s CSS without switching to an internal or external stylesheet. However, inline CSS isn’t the best practice, and you should avoid using it in most cases, especially if you have multiple developers working on one project or have multiple pages with the same inline styles.

Span tags act as inline containers instead of inline styles, and the coder can assign a class to them to alter with CSS when one uses them inside another tag. In most cases, the span tag isn’t considered the best practice because the coder can use a blockquote, cite, or <em> tag in its place.

Small Choices Can Make a Difference

When it comes to Google and SEO, there are many aspects to keep in mind. Many different meta tags can impact a website’s rank, and best practices are difficult to follow sometimes. Making sure that the programmer uses the proper tags in the right places is an excellent place to begin.

So remember, when building your page, consider the preferences of search engine robots as well as the human eye. Be sure to place follow and no-follow tags appropriately to maximize your crawling budget, as well as using proper <h> tags to increase readability.

This may seem like a lot to take in, but with enough practice, you’ll be able to rank higher in the search results by writing professionally optimized SEO code.

The post How to Describe A Page’s Content via HTML & Meta Tags [A Guide for Programmers] appeared first on Simple Programmer.

And then there’s all the jabber about how hard it is to even start a blog. All the competition. The yeeeeaaaars it can take to get your content to rank on Google’s first page. The toil of building backlinks. And the grind of posting once a day or week or month.

And all this only to discover that SEO is losing the steam, thrust, and power it once had?

I find this kind of SEO jabber as exciting as a Tupperware party and as useful as decaffeinated coffee. It might be true for other industries, but we’re software developers. And where do most developers run when they need to find some help?

GOOGLE!

“Just Google it” – ya know?

Sure, there are other places that some developers run to—YouTube for example. But lots of us prefer reading to watching. We’re used to reading code, so why not read blog articles that explain how to solve coding problems? And that’s why we scurry to Google.

We’ll let others talk about rearranging their chairs on the “sinking Titanic of SEO.” They can cry their woes while you and I build our blogs and watch our rankings soar.

So, here’s the story. And here’s how I did it.

Less than a year ago I started my own blog about Angular. And discovered that SEO is NOT dead.

You can get a surprising amount of organic traffic fast if you’re willing to put in the work. And once you’ve got a place on the internet that people are attracted to, there are gazillions of ways to make some passive income with that attention.

So how can you do it? What are the ways to make sure that your blog starts ranking? And how can you get organic traffic even if you’re only getting started?

I don’t believe in using spammy, scummy, shady SEO to boost your blog’s SEO performance—they’ll only turn around to bite you later. You’ve got to be willing to put in some consistent, hard work. Here are my five best SEO tips that will help your blog start ranking faster.

Add Your Website to Google Search Console

“Google Search Console is a web service by Google which allows webmasters to check indexing status and optimize visibility of their websites.” — Source

This is the most important SEO tip that could be given. And best of all, it’s not hard to do.

If your website isn’t registered with the Google Search Console, then you won’t really be able to know if your developer blog is ranking and more importantly how well it is ranking. Plus, Google can’t start ranking a website that it doesn’t know about, so if there are no backlinks to your content, then Google won’t find your website.

Plus, you have no excuse when it only takes 15 minutes to do this.

To start the process, you’ll want to go to the Search Console and log in with your Google account. After logging in, you’ll find the option to add a domain property in the upper-left hand corner.

Once you’ve verified ownership of your domain (blog), you’ll be able to track how many clicks your website is receiving. Don’t be discouraged if for the first few months you see no activity. It was that way for me, but then after a few months, I started ranking and within six months from my first blog post, I had received 1,700 organic visits.

You’ll also be able to track the keywords you’re ranking for. This information is gold, and we’ll put it to use in a while to make your posts jump to the top of search results once they start ranking.

Write Articles That Answer Questions Related to Your Niche

First, if your blog doesn’t even have a predominant niche, then you need to decide on a niche and blog specifically on that topic. My niche is Angular, and the reason I chose Angular is simply because Angular is my passion.

Recent SEO studies revealed that the most common words in a Google search are “how” and “what.”

It’s common to find a piece of content with a title like “9 ways to improve the speed of your React app.” And although it might be jammed full of good ideas, it won’t get the attention that a similar piece of content with a title like “How can I improve the speed of my React app?” or “Here’s how to improve the speed of your React app” will get.

The reason people Google things is because they have questions. They never go looking for nine ways to do this or that. They just want to know “How do I …” or “How to …” or “What is …”

Make sure your article has a title that demonstrates that it will answer a specific question.

Publish Your Content to Other Platforms

The more visibility your content gets, the bigger your personal brand becomes. And by publishing your content to other platforms, your content reaches a broader audience.

A few places worth considering are LinkedIn, Medium, and Dev Community.

Every week, I import my blog post into Medium and post it there. Just last month I got 15,954 views, and my followers almost doubled.

Is this some sort of secret link-building strategy? No, unfortunately not, because these large publication websites add an attribute to the links you publish, telling the Google web crawlers to not follow those links. The advantage is that your content reaches a larger audience and gives your brand more publicity. I highly recommend you include a link to your blog at the bottom of every article you publish so the readers know where this was originally published.

Another cool feature in Medium is that as you grow as a writer, you’ll soon have large publications asking to publish your content. This puts it in front of more eyeballs and gives you even more publicity.

Moreover, an advantage of Medium is that they give you the option to earn money for your content. If you decide to put your content behind the “paid wall,” then only subscribers will be able to read it, and anytime they give your article a clap, your bank account will hear a “Ching! Ching!” as the coins roll in.

The advantage of publishing to LinkedIn is that it proves your capabilities to your professional network. If you write an article about Python, then obviously you’re a Python expert, right? LinkedIn gives the option to link to a post or write a new post inside LinkedIn. The advice floating around on how to do this is controversial, but I recommend that you only link back to your blog instead of copying the content from your blog into a new article within LinkedIn.

Study the SEO Kings

There are oodles of SEO experts out there who are constantly testing the SEO industry and discovering what SEO techniques work best and how to apply them. They’re constantly sharing on their blogs what’s working and what isn’t working—free of charge! So why not let them do all the trial-and-error stuff for you? And just grab the best SEO practices straight from the horse’s mouth?

One expert who I’ve learned a lot from is Neil Patel. Here’s got a stash of blog posts worth studying PLUS a FREE SEO course.

Brian Dean also has an email newsletter worth subscribing to. Every email he sends out is loaded with SEO gold.

Break This SEO Rule and You’ll Be Screwed

What’s the one thing you need to focus on when writing content to rank on the first page of Google?

Focus on high-quality, problem-solving, entertaining content that helps people. Seriously, this is the 20% you should focus on that will get you 80% of your results.

Your content must be helpful. It needs to address a problem and offer a solution, tactics, techniques, and anything that will be helpful to your reader. And better yet, add a good shake of humor. Maybe a few funny GIFs? Or a hilarious picture? And make sure it’s good, honest humor—no flaky stuff, making fun of minorities or dirty jokes.

Sprinkle your post with a dose of descriptive adjectives—use a thesaurus if you need help—but don’t overdo this because you want it to sound like you. Tell a story. Share your personal experience with the problem you’re trying to help your reader solve. And give it a personal twist.

As one entrepreneur once said, “Not sure what to blog about? Write the article or blog post that you couldn’t find when you went searching on Google.”

So why is this advice important?

Google’s ranking algorithm is updated constantly. In just one year they updated their ranking algorithm 3,200 times. Because Google is interested in giving the best content to its users, they want high-quality content to show up in the search results, and they’re constantly adjusting their algorithm’s to knock out poor results and replace them with better results.

So, figure out how you can use your blog to give boatloads of high-quality, problem-solving, entertaining content.

The Effort Is Worth It

And that, my friend, concludes our quick trip into the SEO jungle. I’ve done my absolute best to give you the five top places you should be swinging your SEO ax to get the best organic results quickly.

And guess what, I didn’t mention link-building once!

By following these five steps, improving your SEO knowledge and investing an extra hour or two per week to optimize your blog’s SEO performance, you could generate thousands more organic visits to your blog. And make your brand that much more popular. And uncover far more opportunities than you realized were possible.

Sounds like too much work? Remember what John says:

“If you do what is easy, life will be hard. If you do what is hard, life will be easy.” — John Sonmez

The post The Simple SEO Guide for Blogging Developers appeared first on Simple Programmer.

Many people will never step outside their box of comfort and complacency because they fear the rejection.

They fear hearing that tiny little word: NO

I somehow missed that sequence in my DNA structuring.

Want to know how to eliminate it from yours?

The way I figure it, if I’m already not doing something I want to be doing, then I’m getting a big old NO anyways.

If this were a fifth grade logical word problem, the sequence would go something like this:

Elisa wants to do Thing A, but she is not currently doing Thing A.

In deciding how to get to the end result of being about to do Thing A, Elisa is faced with two possible courses of action:

Solution #1 – Keeping with her current course of action and hoping that she will get to do Thing A.

Solution #2 – Asking the ominous Gatekeeper whether she can do Thing A

Which solution should Elisa select if she wants to have a greater chance of doing Thing A?

Folks often ask me how to launch a freelance career and get gigs, as I once made it my life’s work. I’d like to say that I was a brilliant strategist who oozes such talent that people are veritably tripping over themselves to get me on a call with them.

Sadly, this is not the case.

The truth is that you just need to be a super stubborn person who is completely unaware of the correct “protocol” for most situations.

Picture this: It is New Year’s Day of 2021 (the heralded “end of 2020 we were all waiting for!) and like everyone else you were having an exceptionally crazy turn of the year.

Staring at the course you had chartered for yourself, that includes coding a whole new app or finally learning how to play the didgeridoo, you become physically afflicted wondering “Is this what I want? Is this what is going to make me happy?”

This is exactly what happened to me a decade ago.

It was 2010 and I wanted to write.

Blogging was something that I loved, and people seemed to think I was half-way good at it, so I just needed to find a way to back up that life decision with tangible proof that I could sustain a life writing little articles and columns. Assessing the landscape for syndication, it was obvious that online media was the direction people were heading.

I spent a few hours looking at various outlets that I was familiar with and thought I might have a chance at getting a meeting at.

Finally, I settled on pitching Maine’s largest newspaper and media site with a column on relationships and dating. 2010 was my year of Love (#protip: choose a word to center long-goals around so you feel like you have direction and purpose) and it seemed like a good way to focus on my intentions.

I knew less than nothing about pitching a column.

I researched Greater Portland’s singles demographics, nearby media blogs, and wrote a sample piece. Scouring the site I found a tiny link at the bottom to email a content producer, since they did not have a full page with detailed instructions for How to Write for them.

(PS – we have one of those pages here on Simple Programmer, telling you exactly how to submit a piece we’ll fall in love with and want to publish.)

They absolutely positively could have/probably should have said “No” to me.

In fact, I was fairly certain that they were going to. I had an entire laundry list of reasons that they would be idiots to hire me for this gig. They included, but were not limited to:

1. I had no experience with a regular writing assignment
2. My only credentials were an assortment articles for local newspapers and my own blog
3. I thought had no idea how to write a pitch “correctly”
4. Having not been in a relationship for over a decade, I was one of the least qualified people ever to write about relationships
5. I felt like I had no real business passing myself off as a writer when (in reality) I was a middle-manager for an insurance company

But something I wrote caught the attention of that crazy amazing content producer and she agreed to meet with me on a Thursday.

My pitch had done the job it needed:

• I was actually familiar with the content of the publication and explained how my column would add to it
• I was aware of the style guidelines, and had written a sample piece to fit their voice
• I had taken time to write something very personalized and curated for this publication
• I explained the story I wanted to share with the readership, and how specifically it could bring value and an interesting new perspective for their readership
• I finished with the experience I did have, noting what was great and where I recognized I may be lacking but had tenacity and drive.

I’m sure I made mistakes.

But within 30 minutes of my meeting, I was walking out of the paper’s offices with a contract to write their newest online column, The Single Slice.

You could say I am a potential rejection junkie

Wherein some people get their adrenaline kicks from jumping from planes or mountain biking over cliffs, I get my thrills from setting myself up for failure.

How is that thrilling you ask?

I love looking at an impossible situation, and figuring out how to make it possible. Then I gather all the data and information I’ll need to make it happen. Finally, I present all my findings in a way that now makes it impossible to NOT give me my way.

Ask any of my friends, they’ll tell you how ridiculous I am about this. I ask for things often that any normal person wouldn’t even think of asking.

You’re already getting the NO by not asking for it.

So why not ask and see what happens.

You are already rejecting yourself, how could it be any worse letting someone else do it?

Sure, you’re not in control when you hand the decision over to someone else. But you are only fooling yourself into thinking you are in control when when you avoid the situation all-together.

That isn’t control.

That is running away.

“No” is not the scariest thing you will hear when you are asking for something you want.

The scariest thing you will hear is that little voice in your head.

With its thoughts and regret churning through your mind in the silence.

Because you never even gave yourself the chance.

________________________________________________________

Write for Us at Simple Programmer

I wasn’t kidding about that PS I snuck in up above. We accept new contributors and writers here at Simple Programmer.

There’s even a full Write for Us page with the exact topics and examples of articles we are looking for, so that you don’t have to do half the work I did to land my first online column a decade ago!

Still feeling a little nervous and want some more guidance? I wrote a whole post on the Do’s and Don’ts for getting a piece published on Simple Programmer.

The post Why “No” Is Not The Scariest Thing You Will Hear appeared first on Simple Programmer.

Have you ever wanted to write a guest post for Simple Programmer?

The post Top Mistakes You Are Making When You Are Pitching Articles to Simple Programmer appeared first on Simple Programmer.

I take most websites for granted. I can see and navigate most websites without much struggle because I’ve grown up using the web and don’t struggle with my sight or hearing. Unfortunately, not everyone can say the same.

The post Simple Ways to Make Your Website ADA Compliant appeared first on Simple Programmer.

It can also occur at the moment you start your blog. It’s usually a result of picking a niche that’s too specific and hard to think of content for. But what happens if you aren’t as passionate about your niche as you thought?

Or what happens if you get burned out and can’t think of any new ideas for articles?

These are valid concerns, and if you want to become a popular software developer you need to be aware of them. There won’t be much wiggle room if your niche is too specific. For example, if your blog is about Python and you write all there is to know about it, what happens then?

To avoid getting stuck without any new ideas, you must have a content strategy. You have to find a way to branch out of a niche without confusing your audience. Luckily, this article is going to cover the “soft skill” of blogging for developers in detail.

What Is a Content Strategy and How Do I Use It?

A content strategy is the planning and development of written content for your blog. That is going to be your plan for coming up with new topics.

If you’ve been blogging for awhile, your content strategy will look something like this:

• Take the time to figure out other topics your audience likes.
• Post surveys on social media and directly ask your readers what they want.
• Use your email list to see what people like versus what they don’t.
• Do not stop writing about your niche completely.
• Slowly start branching out of your niche.
• Begin by creating content about something else related to programming.
• Then, alternate by writing about your niche again.
• Repeat the process.

Since you already have an audience, you can’t afford to lose them. The point here is to take your time.

Likewise, if you are new to blogging, your content strategy will be similar but more straightforward. The first few points do not apply since new blogs typically have no audience.

If you’re a new blogger, take this approach:

• Do not stop writing about your niche completely.
• Write about different topics once you start getting tired of your niche.
• Begin by creating content about something else related to programming.
• Then, alternate by writing about your niche again.
• Repeat the process.

For both new and mature blogs, the point of a content strategy is to rotate different articles while keeping and growing your readership. That way, you give the readers what they want while at the same time preventing yourself from getting burned out.

Just remember to be more cautious if your blog already has a large audience.

After you get the content strategy down, it’s time to find out exactly how to find topics when you get stuck.

Use Forums

The first thing you should do to keep fresh content flowing on your programming blog is to use forums. Forums are the number-one way to find blogging topics in 2021. They are even better to use if your blog is new. The best way for a new site to start ranking on Google today is to find less competitive topics with decent search volume. Forums will help you find those topics since it’s the first place people go to ask questions.

Google ranks Quora and Reddit threads on page 1 because many people are asking the same questions that aren’t getting answered. That’s where your job comes in.

To come up with questions to ask, just put yourself in the shoes of someone Googling about programming. We all Google random stuff from time to time. Whenever a question pops up in your head about programming, type it in the search.

If you see the forum on the first page, it means you can rank for the topic. For instance, if I Google “can I learn how to code in college,” the first thing that comes up is a thread with somebody asking other programmers if it’s better to learn code while in college or on your own.

If you scroll down a little further, you will see the same question asked on Reddit. That’s the perfect opportunity for you to write a big fat detailed article on learning code in college versus by yourself.

Just remember to bookmark the page if you want to go back to it another time.

It’s a great strategy if your website is new since it can’t rank for more competitive topics, or if you’re an established blogger who needs some fresh content.

Write About Your Experiences as a Developer

Writing about your experiences as a developer is another way to keep pumping out quality posts. Imagine starting a programming blog as an inexperienced developer and picking JavaScript as a niche. Obviously, most of your content should focus on teaching JavaScript, yet you could also focus on some of your personal experiences with it.

For example, imagine writing an article about a project you’re working on. It could be anything from a game to a website or even an app. Was it hard for you to develop that app? What did you have to go through as far as time management, stress, and the hours it took to make it happen? These are the things that people want to know.

Just look at David Walsh, one of the more well-known JavaScript bloggers on the web. If you go to his website, some of his posts share updates about his personal life. Like this one article about his experience being a “Dev Dad.”

His situation is relevant since he’s sharing with his readers what he learned being a developer while raising a kid. If his audience is mostly people his age, then they’ll want to know since they probably have kids too.

There will always be something going on in your life that you can share as a programmer.

Also, remember to give details about the failures and successes you had to go through.

Tell people about your attempt to develop and sell an indie game that flopped. Or how you tried learning Malbolge, one of the hardest languages out there, and succeeded! Writing these types of articles will build trust with your audience and provide endless topics to discuss.

Write About News and Trending Topics

One of the best ways to find consistent topics for your programming blog is to write about news. The tech industry is always changing. You can use that to your advantage.

It’s an opportunity to give your opinion on trending topics. Readers want to hear what you have to say. Look to sites like hub.packtpub.com that offer programming news. One of their most recent articles was about game development with .Net, a developer platform that uses different tools and programming languages for developing games. You can go check it out and write what you think about it.

Now, obviously, if something big happens in the programming world, you should talk about that too. Just say what you think, and don’t be afraid to be a little controversial.

Furthermore, you could type “what’s trending in programming 2020” into Google and see what pops up.

From that search, it seems people are concerned about a few things:

• Which programming languages should you learn?
• What is the latest programming language?
• Is C++ still relevant?
• Is Python better than Java?
• Is Python good for the future?

All of these are potential topics for your programming blog. It looks like people mostly want to know about the future of some languages. Since things change so fast in this industry, it makes sense why they’re asking that. You can update these posts every year and let others know which programming languages are still relevant.

Instead of making readers go to another blog for news, why not just have them stick around and get it from you?

Write About Blogging

This type of content is probably better for those who’ve already built a following but can’t think of more blog post ideas. But regardless, do you know what every blogger is qualified to write about? Blogging itself! That’s right, if you blog, you can write and advise others on how to blog. But as a developer, you have an edge.

How? Well, most programmers don’t like writing or marketing. It’s just not in their field of study, which is why so many of them hesitate to start blogging. However, you’ve done the work and became an expert on it. You can teach other developers how to write a blog and market themselves.

And why wouldn’t they want to get that advice from you? Not every blog niche works the same. Developers should get blogging advice from other developers.

Plus, it’s just a natural fit. Nobody is going to wonder why you are talking about your blog on your blog. Yet, just make sure you’ve written a good chunk of articles already.

Like I said, this works better for more established blogs that already have an audience built up.

Write About the Technical Aspects of Blogging

Writing about the developmental aspects of blogging is another great option. It works well for both established and new bloggers. After all, it’s not that odd for a programmer to write about code.

You can help other entrepreneurs who own websites that have technical problems. Write articles on common technical issues and how to fix them. Or better, share ways in which website owners can customize the look of their sites with code.

Hiring developers can get pricey. Most business owners don’t have that kind of cash, especially in the beginning. Show people how to use code and get really unique-looking designs.

Teaching inexperienced bloggers how to code is a great way to reach a broader audience. It will attract readers who aren’t just interested in tech.

That will help a new blog get the traction it needs in the beginning to grow. For older blogs, they can stay relevant with fresh articles and new people to read them.

Keep a Journal

A journal is a must-have tool for any writer. Likewise, many professional developers use journals for work. They’re useful for keeping notes when working on projects. But, you can also use the journal as a diary.

Consider writing in your journal every day. You can write whatever is on your mind, just make sure to keep at it. Doing this will not only improve your writing skills, but it’ll also help you come up with ideas for articles.

Try recording the daily work you do as a developer and use it as inspiration. You would be surprised by how many good ideas go to waste by not jotting them down.

Once the time comes when you’re all out of topics to write about, whip out that journal. Those old notes will provide a catalog of valuable topics for articles.

The most brilliant minds from Einstein to Leonardo da Vinci all kept a journal. They wrote so that they wouldn’t forget their thoughts.

You can use the same journal that has all your programming notes. Or you can get a new one and use it specifically as a diary.

Start a YouTube Channel

Now, I know what you’re thinking: I can’t think of blog topics, and you want me to start something new? Well, yes, and here’s why.

First, the time for developers to start their own YouTube channels is now. Look at the programming community on YouTube. It’s growing, and more programmers are beginning to realize it. There are even people doing coding live streams now. Tech With Tim did a 12-hour coding live stream where he created a game using Python. The stream broke 2 million views.

To put that into perspective, if you look at people streaming last year’s “Call of Duty” when it came out, Tim’s stream has more views than all of them. Other developers who are streaming themselves doing code are also rivaling gaming streams in views.

That’s pretty insane.

Second, YouTube gives older blogs a fresh start. By utilizing your channel as a separate platform, established blogs can experiment with new topics.

Start by making videos about stuff outside of your blog niche. If programmers enjoy your YouTube content, then consider incorporating some of it into your blog. It’s the perfect way for older bloggers to distance themselves from their original niche and grow their readership.

Lastly, you can grow a YouTube channel faster than a blog. That is a huge benefit for new bloggers since blogs can take years to build traction.

The SEO ranking on Google for YouTube videos is instant. It can even land you on the first page for competitive topics, something most new sites can’t do.

That means you can discuss competitive topics that would be too hard to rank for on your blog. The more topics available to you from the start, the easier it will be to branch out of your niche.

Accept Guest Posts

Probably the best way to keep consistent content flowing on your blog is to accept guest posts. After all, what’s better than somebody writing articles for you?

Guest articles are an excellent method for both new and experienced bloggers who are struggling to produce content. If you are a new blogger, accepting guest posts will help you build relationships, network, and get people linking to your site.

As an established blogger, guest posts are great for all of those reasons as well. And the audience you’ve already built up will get to experience the perspectives of different programmers.

To find people to post on your blog, you must do a little bit of networking. Here’s how you can get started:

• Comment on other blogs regularly.
• Write guest posts for other programming websites.
• Ask the owner of the blog to return the favor.

Or you can:

• Start a podcast, which can lead to interviews and collaborations with other programmers.
• Invite your podcast guests to publish guest articles on your blog.

However, if you’re not new to blogging, all you really have to do is make a “write for us” page on your blog. I am, of course, assuming that your website is already well-known.

If that’s the case, people will want to write for your site since they will get a quality backlink.

A Content Strategy Means Never Running Out of Topics

Coming up with great content ideas for your programming blog will take practice. Start by getting comfortable with writing about different topics outside of your niche.

Remember to keep most of the content relevant to programming. You can do this by blogging about your achievements, failures, the news, what’s trending, and much more.

Just because you started a blog within a specific niche doesn’t mean you’re confined by it. It’s fine to write about personal matters and other programming topics. However, the most important thing is that you enjoy blogging. Because if you don’t, then your blog will fail.

If you don’t like your niche anymore or can’t think of any more ideas, plan a content strategy now. Doing so will keep your blog relevant for years to come.

The post How To Never Run Out of Topics for Your Programming Blog appeared first on Simple Programmer.