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April 14, 2021 08:40 pm GMT

Writing blogs on DEV - A complete guide!

Cover Photo by Dung Anh on Unsplash

New to DEV? Not sure where to get started? No worries!

In this blog, I will share tips, tricks, and resources that you can use to write amazing articles in no time. This will apply whether you have never written a blog on DEV or you're just looking to improve your workflow.

I will cover quite a lot of information in this post so it might be a bit lengthy, but I'll try my best to not bore you.

So, take a deep breath, grab some coffee and let's get started!

Choosing a title for your blog

The first thing you have to choose is the blog title. It is important to have a title that describes what your blog is about. A good title can be the difference between people viewing your blog or skipping over it. Think of your blog title as a one-line summary of your blog.

What I try to do is find keywords that describe my blog content and include them in the blog title. This ensures that the title is relevant and to the point.

Tags, Tags, Tags...

On DEV, you can add up to 4 tags on your blogs to help people find them. It is better to use existing tags whenever possible instead of making your own. You can view the existing tags on DEV here. It must be noted that some tags have special guidelines that your blog must fulfill before you can include them in your blogs.

Cover images are important!

Cover images make your blog standout. Blogs with cover images are more likely to be featured in the home feed of the website. Therefore, you must include one in your articles. For finding cover images you can use sites like Unsplash, and Pexels or if you want to design one from scratch, you can try Canva.

All these sources have worked great for me so far. Just try to keep your cover image relevant and fun and you'll be fine.

Pro Tip: If you want to add a GIF as a cover image (like in this blog), just copy the GIF link and add it as follows:

---cover_image: your_gif_link---

You HAVE to learn markdown!

Before writing your blog you must be familiar with the basics of markdown as you'll be using it to write your blogs on DEV. Markdown allows you to format your text, images, lists, etc. very easily. It is super easy to learn too. You can find dozens of cheat sheets floating around the web. I would recommend you give this one a look to get started.

Choose where to write drafts for your blogs

Once you've got the hang of markdown, the next thing is to write the draft for your blog. Although you can use the built-in editor that DEV provides, most people prefer to write their blogs on Google Docs or VS Code. You can also use dedicated note-taking apps like Notion which supports markdown as well.

Whatever medium you use, I would highly recommend that you install a browser extension called Grammarly. It is super helpful and will correct most of your grammatical and punctuation errors if not all of them. If you prefer VS Code, use an extension called Markdown All in One as it allows you to preview markdown files and provides various editing options as well.

Let's add YouTube videos!

If you want to embed YouTube videos in your blogs, you can easily do so using Liquid tags that DEV provides. To embed videos, copy the video id from the URL and add it to the blog as follows:

{% youtube your_video_id %}

If you want to learn more about Liquid tags check out the editor guide.

Making a series!

For topics that require more explaining, you can also make a series on DEV. Series are great for topics that have different parts. Instead of cramming all the information in a single article, you can split it up into multiple smaller posts.

In order to make a series, just give it a name and your blog will automatically be added to that series. Dev will also show a series list at the top of the blogs in that series for navigation (excellent ).

It must be noted that the series will only appear if it has at least 2 blog posts.

Dos and Dont's of writing!

While writing your blogs on DEV, here are some general writing tips to improve the flow of your blog:

  1. Use short and simple sentences as to not overwhelm the reader.
  2. Break up your content into smaller paragraphs and add sub-headings to them.
  3. Use relevant images in your blogs to explain a topic and make the blog more engaging (And Yes, memes count too! ).
  4. Add code snippets to your blogs to explain programming concepts.
  5. Include useful links and references to provide additional information in your articles.
  6. Don't spam your social media links in your blog. No one wants to follow such a person. Try to provide value to others. If you want, just plug one or two social links at the end of the blog post.

Simple >> Complex

"Genius is making complex ideas simple, not making simple ideas complex" ~ Albert Einstein

KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle applies here as well. Keep your blog posts short and simple. No one has the time to read blogs that look like research papers. I am guilty of this habit as well. But you should keep your blogs concise and limited to 5-7 min max in most cases (although there can be some exceptions).

Additionally, try to explain the concept in the easiest way possible so people with little to no background knowledge can also understand the concept without pulling their hair out.

Canonical URLs are no joke!

If you're just writing blogs on DEV and not republishing from elsewhere, feel free to skip this section.

However, if you're republishing your blogs from elsewhere whether it be Medium, Hashnode, or your personal website, read carefully. It is important that you add a Canonical URL to your articles published elsewhere on the web.

A Canonical URL tells the search engines like Google, where the original source of the content/article is. If you don't add a canonical article to your blog, the search engine will consider it as duplicate content. And there is a high chance that the republished version on DEV will rank higher on search results as compared to the one originally published on your personal blog. Consequently, you'll get less traffic on your website which is no fun.

Thankfully, DEV allows you to easily add a Canonical URL to your blog posts and also displays an " Originally published on XYZ.com " message at the top.

Alt Text

If you want to learn more about republishing and Canonical URLs check out this article.

Finally...Publishing your amazing work!

After you've finished writing the blog post, you can save the draft of the post. This will allow you to share the URL of the article with your friends, family, editor, etc. for proofreading.

Once you're satisfied with the final result, you can then publish it for everyone to see. The stats on your blog (view, likes, and comments) can be viewed in the Profile Dashboard. You can edit the blog anytime after publishing it, so don't worry if you find any mistake in your blog. Just edit it out!

Congratulations! You've published your first blog on DEV.

Easy, wasn't it? After you've done this process a couple of times, it'll become easier and you'll get the hang of it, trust me.

Sharing your blogs on social media!

After publishing your article on DEV, you can then share the link on social media accounts like Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin, etc. The official Twitter account of DEV @ThePracticalDev also shares blog posts that are good and get featured. This is a very nice gesture, as you can get a far greater reach in this way, especially if you're just starting out and don't have a huge audience.

That's all folks!

If you have any questions feel free to ask me in the comments and I will do my best to answer them. Feel free to read some of my other blogs on DEV @fahadimran28. Till then, thanks for reading, and happy coding!

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Original Link: https://dev.to/fahadimran28/writing-blogs-on-dev-a-complete-guide-3hk

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