It's been three weeks since I joined Hashnode and I can say with no regrets that I did the right thing.
I accumulated a long list of accomplishment in which I will name a few:
- Written four blog posts
- Participated in the technical writing Bootcamp
- Met up with the charismatic Catalin Pit
- Engage with the Dev community.
In this article, I'd like to share a summary of Catalin's talk at the Technical Writing Bootcamp. He spoke about target audience, article structure and paid articles. Let's jump right in!
Content
- Know your target audience
- Article structure
- Paid articles
- Conclusion
Know your target audience
In this section, Catalin spoke about the importance of knowing your audience. And how in doing so, it can save you from losing it. For example, if you target junior developers as an audience, avoid complicated topics. Instead, choose the right words and appropriate language that best suits them.
Thinking about it, writing a blog is like selling a product to someone to a specific niche. Customising your content to the image of your audience will guarantee you success.
Article structure
It's the little things that count, hundreds of 'em. — Cliff Shaw
This quote sums up how simple tips about writing an article can have a significant impact on the reader. In his talk, Catalin went over key points to improve your articles. I have combined them into the below bullet points to keep it short:
- Add heading and introduce section to your post.
- Prefer short sentences over complex sentences.
- Favour sentence with an idea and be concise.
- Use active voice over passive voice.
- DO NOT include acronyms with no definition.
- Create an impact on the first paragraph
- Use the ordered list for instructions and unordered list for other things like ideas.
In sum, what he was trying to explain is that format matters. A well-structured article with headings, spaces, paragraphs is more comfortable to read.
Paid Articles
Writing is good. Having an audience is good. But what if, you can make some money from it?
Catalin gave two pathways to follow to make some side money. Getting in touch with FreeCodeCamp to introduce your blog post's idea. Or, pitching to potential websites to promote your content and earn some money.
Either way, both demand consistency and hard work to publish on those platforms.
Conclusion
This talk was very informative, and it was the first of a kind that I attended. I hope that this article will help in promoting excellent writers in the future.
If I may add one advice from all what Catalin said is to: read blog posts more often to pick up the TO-DOs to write articles.