Mike-O-Matic

So you’ve decided to take the plunge. Reading Joel and Paul has inspired you to tell the world what you think. Where the industry is heading. What languages suck. Where Microsoft got it wrong, and why Google won’t.

You are going to start a software blog.

First, some ground rules. Blogging is an amorphous thing, and lots of different sites tend to get lumped into that category. There are newsblogs, which derive readership by being first on the scene with breaking news about the latest Apple knickknack. There are personal blogs, where most of the articles are about your cat, girlfriend, or baby Violet, the most precious little girl in the world. There are tutorialblogs, which primarily tell you how to do stuff using new languages and libraries. While each of these has its place, they are each different than the software blog concept; it can (and should) incorporate elements of all three, but is mostly a forum for opinion and analysis.

Also, this post isn’t about gimmicks or making the front page of Digg. It is about building a readership through providing value to people. Making popular articles feels great, and the traffic can validate all the bullying you went through in high school for the Star Trek shirts and Magic card habit, but relying on “hits” for traffic is a race you can’t win. You want people to come back every day, and that only happens if you demonstrate something deeper.

Without further ado, here are 10 tips to make a world-class software blog!

1. Start 5 Years Ago: Ok, we both missed the boat on that one. Blogging is a trend, and coming to it late means that you need to work extra hard to rise above the rabble. It will now be exceptionally difficult to break into the Technorati 100 like Joel did. The good news is that it doesn’t matter, and you can still get thousands of daily readers because of the huge market for original content.
2. Get Your Own Domain Name: Blogging through Wordpress, Blogger, or Typepad does have some benefits; they give you occasional promotional opportunities not available if you go your own way, and they also keep your software up to date for you. Personally, I would rather have control over my own brand, and if you ever make it to the point where you are writing forwards to books, it would be nice not to advertise some other dude’s service in your byline.
3. Entertain First, Preach Second: Many bloggers make the mistake of thinking that people care what they think. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Everyone reads for their own reasons: To kill time, expand their worldview, learn a thing or two… but almost never because they think John Q. Programmer can tell them the meaning of life. If you make their trip enjoyable, they are more likely to come back for seconds.
4. Be Funny: Closely related to item 3, but more specific. Make people laugh; they like the feeling, and are more likely to pass around your article to their friends.
5. Tell Stories: Opinions are just words. By giving them in story form, you give evidence (even if it’s only anecdotal) and give people a context to stick it in. The more engrossing you make them, the better. Throw in a few twists and turns for good measure, and make the resolution something people don’t expect.
6. Be Controversial Without Being Stupid: It isn’t very interesting to read posts that just say “I agree!” Show original thought every now and again, and point out things that people may not have thought about. Don’t be a meathead, though; people can smell an idiot a mile away. I had a post a while back called The Programming Gender Gap which was moderately controversial in that it looked about why more women don’t get involved in IT; it got a bunch of negative comments, but did well on a few of the social bookmarking sites and became one of my most popular articles.
7. Invent Something: The first thing many people ask about when reading a new blog is “Why should I care?” Creating a website or tool that people use every day gives you instant credibility and (more importantly) an easy way to promote your blog. The Reddit guys and that fashion model who came up with Ruby on Rails used this tactic perfectly. As a side note, you may want to come up with the cool site or technology before you start blogging; it’s very time-consuming.
8. Promote Yourself Relentlessly (at first): If a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, do you want people to read your blog? Of course you do! So you need to tell them about it. Hit up all your friends and get them to read you, then start investigating other services that can be helpful in attracting readers. My personal favorite is Reddit (particularly the Joel subreddit) because I find the people on there are interested in the same kinds of things I am and are receptive to reading new bloggers. Newsvine is another interesting variant, although you may need to reformat your articles and submit them in the site’s column editor to get the most readers. Once you have a base of readers, you don’t need to submit your stuff to as many places. If it’s of any interest, they will do it for you.
9. Mix It Up: Try lots of different ideas to see what works. Your blog is your personal space. I did a tutorial once that became my number one article ever, and some comics of dubious funniness just to scratch an artistic itch. You never know what people will respond to or what you are capable of unless you experiment.
10. Be Consistently Good: If you can pull it off, it is best that you blog fairly regularly. Many popular blogs post daily (or even several times daily) and that is certainly the way to go if you want to be a Problogger. If you don’t have enough material to post every day (or rather, don’t want to bother thinking of stuff to post every day) it may be better to switch to several-times-a-week mode. Pushing out subpar articles just to meet artificial deadlines isn’t worth the trouble. If you are adamant about putting up new content every day, you can try alternative formats, such as a “Links of the Day” or “Currently Listening To…” articles.

Software blogs can be a lot of fun. You can pontificate endlessly on the finer points of Object Pascal, or rally the troops against Congress’ latest bill on patents. With your newfound soapbox, nothing is too large to resist your power.

Just, um, try to use it wisely.

Til next time.

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