Technical Blogging

Book description

Technical Blogging is the first book to specifically teach programmers, technical people, and technically-oriented entrepreneurs how to become successful bloggers. There is no magic to successful blogging; with this book you'll learn the techniques to attract and keep a large audience of loyal, regular readers and leverage this popularity to achieve your goals.

Become more influential and earn extra money by blogging. Whether you want to create a popular technical blog from scratch or take your blog to the next level, this book shows you how.

Technical blogging expert Antonio Cangiano shares his extensive expertise with you, sparing no details and laying out a complete step by step road map to help you plan, create, market, monetize, and grow your own popular blog.

Antonio will guide you through all the choices you have to make in setting up a successful blog, teach you the key things you need to know to write blog posts that get read, and give you the tools to produce content regularly

You'll learn how to promote your blog, understand traffic statistics, and build a community. And once you've built it, you'll learn how to benefit from it: advance your career, make money from your blog, use it to promote your products or company, and take advantage of your blog to the fullest. And when your blog takes off, Antonio will show you how to avoid the pitfalls of success.

Technical Blogging is the only guide you'll need to create and maintain a successful technical blog.

Table of contents

  1. Technical Blogging
  2. For the Best Reading Experience...
  3. Table of Contents
  4. What readers are saying about Technical Blogging
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Introduction
    1. What Is Technical Blogging?
    2. Blogging Isn’t Dead
    3. Blogging as a Megaphone
    4. Blogging as a Conversation
    5. Bloggers with Benefits
    6. How to Get the Best Out of This Book
  7. Part 1: Plan It
  8. Chapter 1: What Kind of Blog Are You Going to Run?
    1. Solo vs. Collective
    2. General vs. Niche
    3. Pundit vs. Instructional
    4. Business Blogs
    5. What’s Next
  9. Chapter 2: A Rock-Solid Plan for Your Blog
    1. Define Your Blog’s Main Topic
    2. Analyze the Size of Your Niche
    3. Give Readers a Compelling Reason to Stick Around
    4. Set Goals for Your Blog
    5. Choose and Register a Domain Name
    6. What’s Next
  10. Part 2: Build It
  11. Chapter 3: Setting Up Your Blog
    1. Choose Your Blogging Software and Hosting
    2. Configure Your Domain Name
    3. Install WordPress
    4. Configure WordPress
    5. Enhance WordPress with Plugins
    6. What’s Next
  12. Chapter 4: Customizing and Fine-Tuning Your Blog
    1. Pick a Professional Theme
    2. Enable Tracking of Your Site’s Visitors
    3. Customize Your Sidebar
    4. Encourage Social Media Sharing
    5. Win Over Subscribers
    6. Don’t Get in Trouble—Use Disclaimers
    7. Master On-page SEO with Platinum SEO
    8. Performance Considerations
    9. Enable Code Highlighting in Your Posts
    10. What’s Next
  13. Chapter 5: Creating Remarkable Content
    1. Content Is King
    2. Write for the Web
    3. Can Linkbaiting Be Ethical?
    4. Write Catchy Headlines
    5. Develop Your Own Voice
    6. Where to Find Ideas for Your Posts
    7. Case Study: Math-Blog.com’s Headlines
    8. Get Readers to Explore Your Content
    9. Copyright Matters
    10. Back Up Your Content
    11. What’s Next
  14. Chapter 6: Producing Content Regularly
    1. What’s the Post Frequency, Kenneth?
    2. Consistency Is Queen
    3. What Days Should You Post On?
    4. Schedule Time to Blog
    5. Manage Your Time with the Pomodoro Technique
    6. Survive Writer’s Block
    7. Get Others to Write for You
    8. What’s Next
  15. Part 3: Promote It
  16. Chapter 7: Promoting Your Blog
    1. Market It and They Will Come
    2. Correct a Self-Sabotaging Mindset
    3. Perform On-page and Off-page SEO
    4. Not All Links Are Created Equal
    5. Guest Blog on Other Blogs
    6. Other Forms of Article Marketing
    7. Participate in the Community
    8. Leverage Foreign Blogs
    9. The Dark Side of Link Building
    10. Promote Your Articles on Social Networks
    11. Promote on Technical Social News Sites
    12. Case Study: ProgrammingZen.com’s Referral Traffic
    13. What’s Next
  17. Chapter 8: Understanding Traffic Statistics
    1. Baseline vs. Spike Traffic
    2. Key Site Usage Metrics You Need to Consider
    3. Interpret Visit Quantity and Quality
    4. Where Do They All Come From?
    5. Analyze Google Analytics and Clicky Statistics
    6. Keep Track of Your Blog’s Growth
    7. What’s Next
  18. Chapter 9: Building a Community Around Your Blog
    1. Engage Readers
    2. Supplement Your Blog with Community Tools
    3. Forms of Criticism
    4. Your Mantras When Dealing with Criticism
    5. What’s Next
  19. Part 4: Benefit from It
  20. Chapter 10: Making Money from Your Blog
    1. Common Monetization Strategies
    2. Make Money with Ads
    3. Make Money with Sponsors
    4. Make Money with Affiliate Offers
    5. Make Money with Other Monetization Strategies
    6. Case Study: My Monthly Income
    7. What’s Next
  21. Chapter 11: Promoting Your Own Business
    1. A Checklist for Company Blogs
    2. Identify and Understand Your Readers
    3. Craft Your Content for Your Prospective Customers
    4. Convert Readers into Customers
    5. What’s Next
  22. Chapter 12: Taking Full Advantage of Your Blog
    1. Improve Your Skills
    2. Advance Your Career
    3. Obtain Freebies
    4. Prepare for Success
    5. Other Benefits for Startups
    6. What’s Next
  23. Part 5: Scale It
  24. Chapter 13: Scaling Your Blogging Activities
    1. Scale Your Blog Vertically
    2. Hire a Team of Bloggers
    3. Build Your Blogging Empire
    4. What’s Next
  25. Chapter 14: Beyond Blogging: Your Strategy for Social Media
    1. Define a Social Media Strategy
    2. Select the Social Networks You Intend to Target
    3. Create Your Social Media Profiles
    4. Cross Promote Your Site and Social Properties
    5. Post Frequently and Interact with Your Followers
    6. What’s Next
  26. Chapter 15: Final Words of Advice
    1. Try It Out
    2. Blogs to Follow
    3. Keep in Touch
  27. Appendix 1: Bibliography
    1. You May Be Interested In…

Product information

  • Title: Technical Blogging
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: March 2012
  • Publisher(s): Pragmatic Bookshelf
  • ISBN: 9781934356883