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Comment by paulpauper | Hacker News Reader

There are thousands of blogs. You need something memorable to keep people coming back. That is what branding is to some extent. It's not just about slogans or logos.

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Even if you do have something memorable, how would you be found through organic search and even then why would most people remember to check it off unless they follow you on social media - which will probably be suppressed if you have a link to your blog - or they use RSS, which few people do these days unfortunately.

You almost have to have a mailing list, which is problematic on its own.

Then, what’s the ultimate goal? Ads (ughh)? Paid subscriptions? Becoming known as an industry expert?

I’ve found that getting traffic through organic search isn’t that difficult, if you have a post which is quite specific. For example, some years ago I wrote down how to upload assets to an already existing GitHub Release [1] as a small note to myself, so that I remember it next time. That is one of my best performing posts, majority of traffic via search engines, and I didn’t advertise it anywhere.

It by no means gets thousands of views per day, more like single digits, but people keep finding it, which gives me hope it’s been useful for others as well.

[1] https://blog.br4.no/github-actions-release/

I am a minority in the sense that I exited social media a decade ago (yey!) but I am a heavy interweb user. I merely bookmark what I like and just re-visit often. Paul Graham's blog/essays and The Minimalists essays are two favorite spots that I return frequently, especially on commutes or late night and feel that something is missing from life (yes some more reading!!)

I know I am a rare beast with rare habits but a Firefox Bookmark/Favorite is my friend.

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