The first time I was thinking of creating a blog was about 5 years ago, when I was still in computer science school. At the moment it felt like a really good way to get noticed and it is. But the main concern I had at that time was: I don’t know anything to blog about, there were already blog posts about everything.

What I learned since then is that it is not true and it does not matter! A blog aims to show what you are able to do and what are the topics you like.

I finally created my first technical blog about a year and a half ago (yes, that’s a long time after my first mention of a blog). It was in french and mostly focused on web development with ASP .NET MVC. I wrote 5 articles in 5 months… And after that I drop it. I did not have a main theme for it therefore I did not have much ideas for the articles. And at the end I was not motivated to write posts. I did not consider this experience as a failure but more as a learning opportunity.

In august 2014 I decided to fight back by creating a new blog, in english this time (you are reading it) with a more defined theme. I had more motivation to post articles because I had ideas. I’ve been able to post more frequently in comparison of my first blog even if I chose to use a language different from my native one.

I passed another milestone in february this year. I subscribed to John Sonmez (creator of SimpleProgrammer.com) email course on how to create a successful blog. You can access this course by following this link: Create a blog that boosts your career.

Well, I already owned a blog, I did not need to know how to create one. But since it’s free I tested it to see if I could get some interesting advises for my personal website. By subscribing you will receive lessons every monday and thursday with an exercise to complete for each lesson. I liked this format, it provides a good pace.

The first thing to know when creating a blog is to have a main theme for the articles you will write. I lacked this for my first blog and I can only approved this.

The second lesson to learn when creating a blog is to create it! Just launch it, do not be afraid. Thinking of creating a blog is good, doing it is better. You don’t have to wait for 4 years like I did. And since you have a theme, you can register a domain name to match it.

Not having ideas for your blog can be deadly for your site, I experienced that as well. So this is why it is important to have a list of topics with all the subject you want to blog about. When you have an idea, put it in your list. It does not mean you will have to blog about it but it can give you other ideas. I personally use an online kanban board (with KanbanFlow) to keep track of all my ideas, it allows me to access it rapidly and to add new topic whenever I want. You can see my personal list on the screenshot below, it will let you have an idea of what I will blog about in the future.

Consistency is also important when posting articles, commit yourself to a posting schedule. When you visit a blog with no update for several months, it is likely that you will think that this blog is dead.

John Sonmez provides more lessons in is course and this is why I encouraged you to sign up if you want to start a blog but you don’t really know how or if you have doubts about it. Even if I already had a blog when I did it myself I learned valuable things, for free!

Having a successful blog is not easy, it demands time and effort but it is rewarding. At the moment, I don’t consider my blog as a successful one but I own all the keys to make this a reality. And what I know for sure is that I really enjoy posting on my new blog. It helps me improving my writing skills and learning new topics.

See you next time!