Six years ago, I wrote my first blog post... and heard crickets.
Nobody was reading my blog. I wanted some traffic there. Some attention. I was playing the SEO game with keywords and answer posts. I prayed to the SEO gods to send readers to my blog.
Those days, I found out about dev.to, the new platform in town for coders.
A better way to get readers? Create an account and repost there. So on July 23rd, 2019, I did it. I didn't know where it would take me.
Some vanity metrics, before I move on.
In six years, I've written 176 posts.
Some of them are dev.to "originals." Others reposts. I wrote more posts, but I deleted the oldest in a moment of embarrassment. Yes, even I cringed at reading them. They were so bad.
My posts have received +114K views and 1.6K reactions. And I have +25K followers. Mostly bots or inactive users I think.
But dev.to didn't just send traffic.
Where was I? OK, what my dev.to account has done for me...
#1. It's helped me connect with other members of the community. I've had virtual coffees with other "devtoers." Shout out to @panditapan, @jmfayard, and @baltasarq. 👋
#2. It's given me confidence in my writing skills. I went from deleting some posts in embarrassment to being featured in the Top7 more than once. That's a sign my writing has improved. A win for taking my writing more seriously since last year.
#3. It's put my content in front of an audience. Last year, I burned out and got laid off. Writing was my therapy. So I started to share my career stories and lessons. Writing helped me process a rejection from a FAANG, for example. Seeing my posts resonating with a lot of people was so encouraging.
#4. It gave me a small moment of virality. Thanks to dev.to, I went viral for the first time ever. With this post:
In a single day, I got thousands of readers and dozens of downloads from my Gumroad account. Shameless plug. Yes, I promote something at the end of every post.
Someone reshared it or it got syndicated somewhere. Dunno. I felt like an Internet coding celebrity... just for a few hours.
#5. It's given me a chance of giving back to the coding community. It's helped me turn my stories into inspiration and some laughs for others. Like the best comment I've received: "Made my day go from brain-f*cked to f*cking good." That made my day and reminded me why I keep showing when it feels nobody is reading.
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