If you’ve never written a technical blog before, it can feel intimidating. You might even be asking yourself, “Where do I begin?” If you find yourself in this scenario, the goal of this article is to break down the whole procedure into something more easily digested. The actual writing process will be much simpler once you’ve mastered some of the basic building blocks. However, before I go into how to create a blog, I’ll explain why you should do so.
Why Should You Write a Technical Blog?
There are several advantages to creating a technical blog for the primary purpose of assisting others, and not just. Here are five more reasons why you should consider doing so if you’re still undecided.
- The greatest approach to learning anything is to teach it to others. Solidifying that information in your memory will help you remember it better.
- You are adding value to your organization while also developing your skills. Your company will appreciate you taking the time to educate others on how to address a problem you encountered.
- You’re honing your critical thinking abilities. You must apply critical thinking to research, gather data, make sense of that information, and so on to complete these tasks. It’s like doing a set of exercises: you become more efficient and quicker at solving problems when you use it.
- Being a valued employee involves being an excellent communicator. This is a simple method to demonstrate or enhance your communication skills if you are deficient. It’s one thing to solve a problem on your own, but it’s an entirely different process when you have to express something that is easily comprehended by a large number of people.
- Last but not least, potential hiring managers now search online to learn more about your prior projects. This is an excellent opportunity to get some of your work out there for people to see. They will be impressed by you taking the time to research and then communicate it with a global audience.
Ideas
The first step is deciding what you’ll write about. Consider all of your past or present projects. Was there ever a time when you encountered a perplexing problem and didn’t know how to address it but eventually figured it out? If this is the case, writing an instructive blog about how you solved that problem would be fantastic.
If you’ve discovered a problem, chances are that others have as well. Why not share some of your know-how with other people?
Research
You should also research your topic ahead of time, much as you would for every other material you plan to distribute. You’ll need to do some groundwork before sharing anything with anyone. Google is a wonderful tool for this because it allows you to look up everything that has already been investigated on the subject you’re interested in. Check out what you were looking for on previous websites. This isn’t cheating because you’re saving yourself time by going this way. Why spend energy on something that someone else has already done? You’re simply collecting that helpful information and putting them all in one place for someone to get.
After that, you may use Google Docs or Evernote, if desired. You may conveniently access those notes anytime you’re ready to publish your blog.
There are many good how-to blogs on Medium, so go through what has been published in your area of interest. This may be a useful place to look into blog design. When I was first getting started writing blogs, I read several different ones in my area and studied the many structures, cover photos, typical themes, and writing styles. I paid attention to how many claps a blog received and whether there were any consistent relationships to determine whether or not it was well-received by the public. Copy what you’ve learned as a pattern and see what happens.
The overall structure of a blog post is as follows:
- Title
- Cover photo
- Introduction
- Body
- Conclusion
Blog Title
You should choose a title that will quickly pique your reader’s interest and get right to the point. After all, this is one of the first things they’ll see when looking for information on their problem.
Although this isn’t a true statistic, most readers choose Numbers in titles since our brains are built to consider things logically. For example, a blog called “5 Hacks to Help You Succeed as a Developer” will almost certainly receive much more interaction.
Including you in your title will increase viewership recognition. When you address your reader, it has a more personal feel to it, as if you are talking to them.
The “How-To” is an excellent approach to rank well in Google’s search. When people are looking for a solution, the most common question they ask is “How,” therefore this is another excellent hint.
Based on research from Conductor:
- 36% of people preferred titles with numbers
- 21% of readers liked reader-addressing headlines
- 17% wanted a headline to include “How to”
Cover Photo
A great blog cover photo is just as crucial as the title of your blog. It should be simple, have a high-resolution picture that’s appropriate for your subject, and be tidy. I visit Unsplash, Pixabay, and Pexels frequently because they provide high-quality stock pictures with excellent qualities.
If you have access to an in-house design team, ask if they can assist you in designing a cover photo for your blog. Typically, they can complete this task in a matter of days, but I recommend giving them at least a week’s notice.
Introduction
You should give a short description of what the majority of the blog will be aimed at after you’ve created the title. This phase is not required to be extremely long, but it must offer enough information for the reader to get a brief overview of the topic. You may also briefly address how the issue arose or what motivated you to create the blog.
The Body of the Blog
The part of your content that will get the most attention is here. This will be where the bulk of your material is, and people will spend a significant amount of time on it. Here are some things to keep in mind, as well as what your reader may appreciate.
Images
Make use of pictures whenever practical. Words may not always be sufficient, and they will be far easier for your reader to understand at a glance. This will become especially significant if you’re attempting to explain how to code a specific codebase.
Images may also be used to help break up a seemingly endless ocean of text. Some blogs, particularly those that are longer than 10 minutes in length, might benefit from including an image. This allows your reader’s eye to rest.
Short and Concise
Longer blogs are not required for technical blogs. The shorter the blog, the better. You want to make your point as straightforward as possible. Imagine that someone will be able to skim and pick up on what they need from the supplied information.
Consider how people read the news when you think about it. It’s early in the morning, and they’re most likely drinking their cup of coffee or munching on a quick snack before getting started. That’s it, time to go to work once that cup of coffee or breakfast is consumed! So consider your blog in terms of structure: you’re aiming to give your reader what they need fast so they can start working on the issue.
Using Links
It’s usually better to include a link rather than write out an explanation that relates to what you’re talking about or supports it. That way, if your reader already understands or has previously heard of it, they will be able to skip over it.
You can use as many or as few links as you want, but there is a limit to how many you should use. However, there is such a thing as going overboard, so be careful and ask yourself if it’s truly necessary. There have been times when I’ve read an article and had a link on virtually every topic and subtopic.
Write as if you’re chatting with a high-schooler
This is not a British novel, and there’s no need to use big words. For another day, save the Jane Austen and Leo Tolstoy writing style for when you’re going to write something in that manner.
Our aim with this technological blog is to make the concept as straightforward as possible without forcing you to work. Consider how much time you invest reading a newspaper or an online article every day. Yes, I’m aware that I continue to bring up the concept of a newspaper. It does, however, provide an excellent example of how to construct a technical blog. You may have noticed in the material you’ve read that they didn’t utilize any lofty or pretentious language. The reason for this is that they wanted everyone to be able to understand, which is the sort of writing style you should follow.
Remember, the simpler your language is, the better!
Conclusion
This is known as the last part of your blog. It’s where you’ll summarize everything you’ve told your audience throughout the rest of your post. I recommend keeping this section to around 3–5 sentences in length. It’s a beautiful way to conclude a blog and will make it seem less like you abandoned your reader at the end.
Editing
The thrilling stage of blogging begins now that you’ve finished writing your blog: editing. Re-read your work and double-check that everything is correct from a technical standpoint and in terms of grammar.
Now that you’ve made the decision, send it out to 2-3 people for any additional comments they may have. Send it to a friend, coworker, or family member. People are usually glad to give excellent blogging tips. It might be a bit nerve-racking to have someone else critique your work, however, it’s far better to get their opinion before sending it out into the world.
Here’s how to get started: 1) Make sure your document is finished. 2) Organize the material in an outline format, while still writing a narrative-style article. 3) Start simple and use an image or illustration for each point that you want to cover.
QuarkWorks is always here to assist with any software application development endeavor, whether it’s for a web, mobile, or another platform! You can visit our website if you’re interested in our services.
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