Ali SpittelIf you're here on DEV, you probably have some interest in blogging -- or at least reading other people's blogs! In a recent Ladybug Podcast episode, we talked about our reasons for blogging.
Emma
I started blogging as a means to take notes on things that I was learning as I was learning them. That way, I had a reference sheet that I could go back to and refer to things. For example, a regex cheat sheet. That was one of the things that I made that I could go back and refer to as time went on. I also use it as a way to teach myself, because I’m a huge proponent of the fact that if you can relay your thoughts about a topic well enough to create a blog post or create an online video or whatnot, then you’ve sufficiently learned the base level knowledge for that skill. It’s a great way to reinforce what you’ve learned.
So, I started blogging as a resource for myself. But, there are many reasons why you should blog. You can also start to blog, in order to build yourself a portfolio. It's a great resource for employers to look through if you’re applying for jobs or other opportunities.
Ali
My biggest reason is for my past self. When I was starting to code, I didn’t feel confident, and I didn’t feel like I belonged, which we talked about a little bit in our first episode. I didn’t feel like I understood the material,so I started writing resources that my past self would have found really helpful.
It’s a form of reshaping that experience. Then, other people started finding them helpful as well. For me, teaching is my passion, and blogging is another form of that. So, I blog for myself first and to write stuff that I would have benefited from in the past. But secondarily, and a really great part of it now, is that it’s helping other people learn how to code and making it easier for the people coming after me.
In-person, you can only teach a certain number of people at a time, even a big talk only usually reaches a couple of thousand people, maybe. Whereas I have singular blog posts that have 100,000 reads. That’s a huge amount of people compared to the people that you’ve taught in person. Teaching in person has like a bigger impact on those people that are there. But, this has a smaller impact on a huge amount of people, which is awesome, too
Kelly
So on the opposite side of where Ali says that she blogs for her past self, I blog for my future self, for two reasons. First, I forget everything that I did yesterday. I find my own resources to be a resource for myself when I forget something. Two, in my career, I need to be a subject matter expert. I can use my own blog posts as resources to send to potential clients and to talk about in our newsletter that we send out for my agency. Som my blog posts can serve not only as a resource for potential clients but also by showing my expertise, we’ve actually signed on new clients because they read something in our blog that shows that we know what we’re talking about.
Learn more
We talked way more in-depth about our experiences blogging, as well as actionable advice for growing your blog on the Ladybug Podcast. You can listen to the full episode wherever you listen to podcasts!
