👋 Hey there, this is one of my less serious posts where you get something I hope you find interesting. If that sounds interesting, or you’re interested in the more serious one about product management, tech, or climate change, sign up😊.

This is a blog post I come back to every now and again to keep updating. I’m a big fan of ‘blogging’ for the reasons listed below, and I wish more people did it. Even just a little. Every now and again someone asks about this newsletter, interested in doing something similar, but I’m yet to see them act on it. I hope, by sending them (you) this, you’ll get going.

First, I think most shy away because they think they are not smart enough, or don't think what they’d write about is important, or they don’t think they have the ‘skills’ to do so. While I would argue all of those things are wrong, I doubt you’d take it on board coming from here. But what I would say, is who cares? If you have a topic you’re interested in, that fuels the reasons I talk about here, blogging about it can only be a good thing, and you can always take time to improve and work on it. I’ll help, send it my way if all you want is a review👋

What is a blog?

First, for the sake of this post consider a blog to be:

a regularly updated website or web page written in a personal style

Notice that it is not necessarily a written article or post. It could be a video, a voice note, or a drawing, anything, as long as it’s published on the web and it’s personal.

With this in mind go ahead and ...

Blog to give back to a community

When you learnt to do just about anything you probably read some articles or watched some videos to get started. And let’s be honest, you probably still do. That means you have benefitted from at least 1 ‘blog’ personally.

As you get better at something you’re going to run into more challenges and discover you can do more stuff, why not write about it? Why not talk about it and give back to the community around the thing you are interested in?

If you’re a coder I know you read tech articles, or watch videos, or just scroll Stackoverflow. These are all types of blogs. Try to imagine if the articles that helped you were not written. Ask yourself if you would be where you are today without them.

Blogging gives you an opportunity to give back to a community, to help someone understand something the way you do, and to inspire.

Blog to improve your skill

It’s a well understood psychological concept that teaching something helps you to learn. When you ‘blog’ something you have to structure your thoughts and put the ideas that you think you know in your head into words, this along reinforces that information in your head.

Beyond this, when you write about something you care about, or if you’re new to blogging it’s very common to spend a lot of time researching and going over the thing you’re writing about. Yes, this turns into some hard work but if you’re blogging about what you care about then it’s worth it.

For instance, if you blog about TypeScript, consistently, for a year, you’re going to be way better at TypeScript at the end of the year than you were in the beginning. Blogging helps educate others, but it also helps you learn new things and improve your knowledge of the things you care about.

Blog to build a brand

At first, and maybe for a while, it’ll likely seem like nobody notices your blogging. But over time, people get to know you for the things you write. These things can stick around and whenever something is relevant to what you write about you can share your blog with people and get more eyes on it. That, is how you grow a brand.

A brand is something that you stand for, something that makes you different. On paper or probably even in person, you probably seem pretty similar to a lot of other people. Whatever demographic you are, you’re likely a part of a large demographic.

But if you have a blog it’s clear to see your ‘uniqueness’. People can get to know your personal tone of voice and about what you blog about just by looking. It’s a little window into who you are.

Plus, if you blog about something in particular consistently you become known in that field. This can lead to recommendations, opportunities, job offers, and heaps more.

Blog to make money

If you want, and you put the work in, you can make money from blogging. Here are some ways folks make money blogging:

1. Ads: Adding ads to your blog is one of the most popular ways to make money. Most don't like seeing ads when they are reading but you can use something like Carbon Ads that is a type of platform that centers ads around content for developers and designers specifically. You could find something similar for your area.
2. Web monetisation: If you are not a fan of ads, you can integrate Web Monetization on your blog.
3. Paid community writing programs: There are tons of organisations and communities that pay people to write articles for them. If this is an incentive you could use to get writing, do it. For example, here's a list of some paid community writing programs for developers.
4. Affiliate links: You can add affiliate links from various sites on your blog posts.
5. Community funding: Getting community funding is also another way to make money. With a Patreon or Buy Me a Coffee account, various people who enjoy what you blog about can support you financially.

Conclusion

When you blog you become a lifelong learner because you become well-versed in what you blog about and you can prove it, because you’ve blogged about it. There are heaps of benefits to it, even beyond what I have here, and I’ll keep expanding on this post because it’s something I care about.

Thanks for reading. The best way to support this newsletter is to sign up ✍️ share it 🤝 and get your friends to sign up too 😎 That’s what this lovely purple button is for 👀