How I became a technical writer

How I became a technical writer

Throughout my life, I have been beneficially affected by many incidents, and technical blogging is definitely one of them.

Throughout this article, I will paint a picture of me and my background in technical writing - where it came from, what it is headed towards, and what I see in the future.

Let's proceed to the article without further ado

How my blogging journey began

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I would like to start at the beginning. Whenever any journey begins, there is a reason for it. In the first place, I would like to shed some light on why I started blogging. Why did I do that? To gain fame or to create a personal brand? Was it to earn some side income?

Neither was the answer. My motivation for starting a blog was rather simple. As someone who wanted to record my learning as well as access it from anywhere, I needed software that could not be tied to a specific device or location. Therefore, not on my work or home computers.

Due to this, I thought only of myself as my audience. For myself, I started blogging so that I could access the content from anywhere in the world. My blog lived at my domain name muthuannamalai.tech

This lead me nicely to the next question: when did I start blogging? I remember the exact date it was about 3 months ago. 29 May 2021, to be precise.

What did I blog about, especially on that day, I hear you ask. At that time, I was learning about git as it is an essential skill for a developer. So I thought of writing what I learned and ended up writing about "Top 10 Git Commands Everyone Should Know"

My Motivation

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Because I love it.

My first reason for staying motivated is that I am passionate about blogging and I adore my writing. My thoughts on giving up blogging have never occurred to me and I don't foresee myself giving up anytime soon. A good question to ask yourself would be "Do I enjoy running my blog?".Unless you know the answer, then I can see how you might lose motivation to keep going.

Brainstorm Ideas

Every time I feel motivated to write a blog post, I brainstorm all possible topics related to my life and my blog that I could possibly write about. If I am stuck for ideas, I will look at my favorite blogs or magazines for inspiration, which can be tied to my blog's theme.

Set Achievable Goals

Whatever my blog's success, there's always room for improvement. I Try to achieve achievable goals that you can measure - for example, I don't just try to 'get more Twitter followers, instead, I try to grow my Twitter audience by 500 followers in the next month. In this way, I will always be working towards something.

Create a schedule to prevent yourself from burning out

The easiest and most effective way to burn out myself is to work non-stop on my blog for extended periods of time. This is something I don't want to do.

As an alternative, I have created a blogging schedule so that I can stay balanced between all my activities. Motivating myself by knowing what I have to do and when I have to do it is crucial to my success.

My goals

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Increase My Traffic 6% Monthly

If you increase your blog traffic by 6% for 12 months, you will reach 100% by the end of the year (1.06^12 > 2). In light of that, 6% doesn't seem that big of a deal over the course of a month. This goal better goal to set because it is measurable over a shorter period of time.

Write At Least 1 Blog Post A Week

By routinely posting articles, readers also learn to expect a new post on a regular basis. In order to further the reader's interests, I write more frequently and with higher quality. Practicing consistently helps me improve my craft and become a better writer.

Increase My Email Opt-In Rate By 50%

It is not enough to simply write a lot of posts and rank in Google to increase your traffic.

Another option is to grow your email list so you can gain direct traffic in the future. I have started a newsletter recently and I plan to work on it and increase its opt-in rate by 50%

You can subscribe to the newsletter below

Conclusion

Firstly, I want to thank Hashnode for an amazing Bootcamp.

Sam Sycamore hosted the first Bootcamp session yesterday, where Quincy Larson and Edidiong Asikpo shared great tips for technical writing.

Thank you for reading the article until this point - I hope you found it interesting and learned something. I would appreciate it if you could kindly take the time to add your thoughts to the comments below

You can now extend your support by buying me a Coffee.๐Ÿ˜Š๐Ÿ‘‡

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