How to write blog posts that developers read

Counterpoint: writing blog posts so that they are read by someone else completely defeats the point of writing for 99% of people. I do not mean to say that this the advice in the post is bad advice, just that if you focus on being read (i.e., checking rankings on HN, only writing articles that don't exist yet) you probably just will just stop writing at one point, because most of the stuff on the web just isn't read, and writing just to be read is probably not very motivating.

Writing, even if no one reads what you write, is super valuable, and fun! Writing something down is to structure your own thoughts so that you learn more about the topic and about yourself. In my experience, publishing a piece of your writing just ensures that you double check your thinking, but most of the benefit is learning more about what you intend to write about.

So here's my advice: just write posts on what you think is interesting on your personal blog. Don't install analytics, just write it down, publish it, and put it on your LinkedIn. Someone will see it someday and will like it.

Author here. Thanks for reading!

>Counterpoint: writing blog posts so that they are read by someone else completely defeats the point of writing for 99% of people.

I think it's totally fine for authors to write for themselves, but I think the number of authors who have that goal is far lower than 99%. Maybe 5-10%?

For almost every author I've spoken to, they get satisfaction from people reading what they write. It doesn't have to be millions of people, but I don't think most people find it satisfying to spend hours writing an article for it to only reach a single-digit number of readers.

So, I don't think it should be every blogger's goal to find a wide audience, but if it is, I think the recommendations in OP will be helpful towards that goal.

Thanks for responding. I guess I was getting at the fact that 99% of people won’t consistently hit high reader numbers. So to pick this as your goal, or starting point for an article, is dangerous because it just leads you to stop writing at some point.

But fully agree on the advice if the starting point is getting a lot of views/front page.