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I'm interested to hear you say that your blog got you measurably more freelance work. I considered blog writing to increase visibility for freelance work , but

by jiggy2011 14y ago

I'm interested to hear you say that your blog got you measurably more freelance work. I considered blog writing to increase visibility for freelance work , but in the end I just concluded that the only people who would be interested in reading it would be HN types who are good enough programmers that they wouldn't need to hire me anyway. Do you find success from writing technical blog posts, or do you focus on other aspects such as business etc to try and get a more diverse set of readers?

sergiotapia 14y ago
I write 100% technical blog posts, and I also guest write for a prominent [$programming-laguage] blog. People search the common problem, I provide well written solutions. I guess that proves to potential clients that: A) I can speak English at a native level. B) I'm a good engineer with an interest in my field. C) The most important one: I'm a good communicator. In a team environment you want someone you can communicate with, first and foremost.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Cool, so you find that people are more interested in hiring you even if they don't necessarily understand your posts because it shows that you are knowledgeable? Do you have a link to share to your blog so I can see a good example? :)
- mkwayisi 14y ago
  > I write 100% technical blog posts, and I also guest write for a C# blog I don't consider writing articles like "BitCoin - Have you heard of this new P2P Currency?" technical.
  - sergiotapia 14y ago
    What's with the passive aggresive comment? I don't appreciate that. I also didn't say that I guest write for a C# blog, why did you quote me saying such things?
jseliger 14y ago
I'm interested to hear you say that your blog got you measurably more freelance work. I can't speak to programming specifically, but I'm a consultant and contribute to my company's blog, Grant Writing Confidential (http://blog.seliger.com http://blog.seliger.com). For us, the most useful part of the blog from a marketing standpoint is search engine traffic. We're not exactly Perez Hilton—I'm sure people posting celebrity nudes get a lot more hits—but people searching for terms specific to our work often find us, which they seldom do through generic searches ("grant writer" or "grant writing.") The secondary benefit is that we demonstrate that we know what we're talking about; if you think we're full of shit, you can read as much of the blog as you want, and decide for yourself whether we are.
kalid 14y ago
Be really careful about drawing conclusions from thought experiments. Would you assume that people searching for "Toyota Camry" were interested in repairing one or buying one? And why would it be exclusively one group or another? I have a blog post about http caching that a CEO of a networking company enjoyed. I do occasional freelance writing for them now.

sergiotapia 14y ago

I write 100% technical blog posts, and I also guest write for a prominent [$programming-laguage] blog. People search the common problem, I provide well written solutions. I guess that proves to potential clients that: A) I can speak English at a native level. B) I'm a good engineer with an interest in my field. C) The most important one: I'm a good communicator. In a team environment you want someone you can communicate with, first and foremost.

jiggy2011 14y ago
Cool, so you find that people are more interested in hiring you even if they don't necessarily understand your posts because it shows that you are knowledgeable? Do you have a link to share to your blog so I can see a good example? :)
mkwayisi 14y ago
> I write 100% technical blog posts, and I also guest write for a C# blog I don't consider writing articles like "BitCoin - Have you heard of this new P2P Currency?" technical.
- sergiotapia 14y ago
  What's with the passive aggresive comment? I don't appreciate that. I also didn't say that I guest write for a C# blog, why did you quote me saying such things?

jseliger 14y ago

I'm interested to hear you say that your blog got you measurably more freelance work. I can't speak to programming specifically, but I'm a consultant and contribute to my company's blog, Grant Writing Confidential (http://blog.seliger.com http://blog.seliger.com). For us, the most useful part of the blog from a marketing standpoint is search engine traffic. We're not exactly Perez Hilton—I'm sure people posting celebrity nudes get a lot more hits—but people searching for terms specific to our work often find us, which they seldom do through generic searches ("grant writer" or "grant writing.") The secondary benefit is that we demonstrate that we know what we're talking about; if you think we're full of shit, you can read as much of the blog as you want, and decide for yourself whether we are.

kalid 14y ago

Be really careful about drawing conclusions from thought experiments. Would you assume that people searching for "Toyota Camry" were interested in repairing one or buying one? And why would it be exclusively one group or another? I have a blog post about http caching that a CEO of a networking company enjoyed. I do occasional freelance writing for them now.