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I'm definitely not putting things on my blog for google rankings or ads. Those sound like they would be really boring to spend my time on, and the ads are extra

I'm definitely not putting things on my blog for google rankings or ads. Those sound like they would be really boring to spend my time on, and the ads are extra pointless because the government has put a cap on my income in exchange for being paid to be a student, and I'm already at this cap with my part-time software job. I will certainly try to see if I can repurpose some of my better responses to common questions as blog posts.

abrookewood 6y ago
So don't do it for ads, but you should do it for ranking. You have a large body of content waiting to be exposed and once it does, if you later decide to write a book or do conferences or do training, then your blog will help you achieve that. You should be rewarded for the effort you have put into helping other people.
nicbou 6y ago
Focus on Answering The Damn Question. In my experience, this is enough to attract traffic in the long run. If that works, then you can start thinking about monetization. For now, just build something good amd see how it gets picked up.
justinlloyd 6y ago
I have various blogs and outlets for putting up my writing. Only one of those has Google ads on it. It has Google ads not for the revenue (I don't think the ad revenue has even generated enough over the years to cover the hosting cost) but it is for me to understand how Google ads work on a Wordpress website. My experience of ads usually comes from "I need to integrate this SDK and provide these reporting tools so that the people who care about ad revenue can stay away from my desk" not a "I am a small-time content provider using Google ads." At least, that's the story I tell myself to salve my ego due to not making any money from ads on my personal website :-)
justinlloyd 6y ago
As an addendum to posting your content on your own website, whenever someone reaches out to me for help, I always direct them to ask the question on the relevant forum, e.g. Unity3D or Artificial Intelligence or some such place, or post it on Stackoverflow, and then email me a link to the very public location. I have the philosophy that I will cheerfully and willingly labour over a lengthy answer and example code that will help out 10,000 people with the same problem. But I won't give the time of day to a single person.

abrookewood 6y ago

So don't do it for ads, but you should do it for ranking. You have a large body of content waiting to be exposed and once it does, if you later decide to write a book or do conferences or do training, then your blog will help you achieve that. You should be rewarded for the effort you have put into helping other people.

nicbou 6y ago

Focus on Answering The Damn Question. In my experience, this is enough to attract traffic in the long run. If that works, then you can start thinking about monetization. For now, just build something good amd see how it gets picked up.

justinlloyd 6y ago

I have various blogs and outlets for putting up my writing. Only one of those has Google ads on it. It has Google ads not for the revenue (I don't think the ad revenue has even generated enough over the years to cover the hosting cost) but it is for me to understand how Google ads work on a Wordpress website. My experience of ads usually comes from "I need to integrate this SDK and provide these reporting tools so that the people who care about ad revenue can stay away from my desk" not a "I am a small-time content provider using Google ads." At least, that's the story I tell myself to salve my ego due to not making any money from ads on my personal website :-)

justinlloyd 6y ago

As an addendum to posting your content on your own website, whenever someone reaches out to me for help, I always direct them to ask the question on the relevant forum, e.g. Unity3D or Artificial Intelligence or some such place, or post it on Stackoverflow, and then email me a link to the very public location. I have the philosophy that I will cheerfully and willingly labour over a lengthy answer and example code that will help out 10,000 people with the same problem. But I won't give the time of day to a single person.