One of the ways to increase your competitive advantage as a web developer is to start a developer blog. I will show you how quick and easy it is to get started, so that you can start blogging about your developer journey immediately.
Bonus: Get the blog structure template to quickly outline and organize your blog.
Why Start A Developer Blog?
In addition to increasing your competitive advantage, there are several reasons why blogging is important for developers.
First, it will help you write better code. Writing a blog post is very similar to programming. As developers, we strive to write code that is logical, structured, concise, and elegant, all of which we also try to achieve when we’re writing an article. Writing helps us clarify our ideas or better describe what our code is doing, which in turn improves our documentation and comments.
Second, it allows you to share your knowledge. The best way to master what you’re learning is by teaching others, which is exactly what blogging enables you to do. On your developer blog, you can create tutorials to teach others or discuss challenging technical concepts.
Or, you can share your key takeaways from attending a tech talk at a Meetup or conference. Writing for people will also begin to transform your code where it’ll start to take on a more human-readable form. It’s very easy to write code for only a computer to understand.
Finally, your developer blog is a self-marketing tool that helps you sell yourself, even while you’re sleeping. It helps you to establish your credibility and authority as a web developer. It showcases your experience and expertise. More importantly, it helps you find your voice.
Blogging will help you become a better communicator, which is a critical skill to have in the tech industry. If your blog conveys that you know what you’re talking about, it makes interviews a lot easier and it increases your chances of getting hired. By the way, did you know you can also earn money from blogging?
Now, I’m sure many of you might be thinking…
- “I’m too busy to blog...”
- “I don’t want to put myself out there in front of the whole world to see...”
- “I don’t like that my blog posts will be on the Internet permanently and forever..”
- “No one will read my blog...”
- “Blogging is narcissistic...”
- “I have nothing to say...”
Stop it right there!

Photo Credit - Audience Stack
You do have time to create a developer blog. We all have 24 hours in a day and how you spend your time influences the results you get. You can afford to spend 30 minutes once a week to craft a blog post. I recommend performing an audit of your week to see where your time is going. Then identify an available time slot that you can dedicate to blogging.
Putting yourself out there is courageous and takes real guts to do it. But remember, blogging is a way to help people. It’s such a powerful vehicle for impact that anyone who puts in the effort to create a blog post to help fellow developers is someone I want to hire. Why?
Because your developer blog is indicative that you’re willing to take risks and do something outside of your comfort zone. It tells me that you are willing to collaborate with others and perhaps serve as a mentor. It also showcases that you willing to receive criticism and constructive feedback, even if it’s from strangers.
Most importantly, it reveals that you’re not afraid to expose your weaknesses, struggles, and challenges that you face as a developer. These are all attributes of a developer with high potential.
When it comes to your blog posts being permanent on the Internet, you have the ability to unpublish your posts or mark them for private viewing only on your site. For the posts that you do publish, it is quite possible that no one will read them. But that’s okay! There are folks that only write blog posts for themselves and do not share their content with others.
However, if you do want people to read your content, there are several ways to promote your developer blog and drive traffic to your site. Those techniques and strategies will be discussed in a future article.
In a world with social media, it’s very easy to be narcissistic where we are obsessing over and documenting every part of our lives. Here’s how you can avoid being a narcissistic blogger.
- Discuss things that will genuinely help other developers.
- Share how you went about creating your web application or project.
- Write about the challenges and difficulties you encountered while programming and how you overcame them.
- Write about the struggles of being a developer and how you’re coping with these struggles.
There is great value in helping other developers who are experiencing similar issues. They won’t feel like they’re alone on their developer journey and it may inspire them to continue tackling the obstacles they are currently facing.

Photo Credit - Sharon Drummond
Lastly, we all get coder’s block just like writer’s block, so it’s natural at times to not know what to blog about. But don’t worry, I have you covered in the next section of this article. Read on!
Topics For Your Developer Blog
There are several things you can write about on your developer blog. Below are a few examples, such as:
- Your experience and expertise, such as “The steps I took to create an interactive website”
- Your opinion, for example, “You’re Committing Your Code Wrong”
- Your process, like, “My Coding Routine"
- A reflection piece, for example, “How I Got Unstuck with React”
- A resource post, such as, “5 Blogs I Read Every Week And Why”
- What you’re learning about, like “A Step-By-Step Guide To Using Arrays Properly”
These suggestions only scratch the surface of what you can blog about, but it will help you jump start your writing.
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In this free email course, I show you how to easily create a developer blog, from the technical side to getting readers to making money from your developer blog. Join now!
Hosting Your Developer Blog
Now that you are motivated to start a developer blog and you’re aware of what to blog about, the next step is to choose how you will host your blog.
I highly recommend that you host your own portfolio site, which will include your blog, rather than using a free service like Medium or similar free services. You’ll be able to have full control over the functionality of your site, expand the capabilities of your site, and you’ll be taken more seriously as a professional developer. I do encourage, however, posting an excerpt of your blog posts on Medium to drive traffic back to your site.
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more information.
Popular Hosting Services for Web Developers
There are several things to consider when evaluating a hosting service, such as:
- Uptime – time during which your site is up and operational.
- Speed – how fast it takes for the service to load your site when visited
- Server Response Time – the time taken by the server to respond to web queries
- Performance – overall performance of the hosting servers
- Hosting Plans – the cost and flexibility of their hosting plans
- Customer Support – the quality and level of support provided
- Ease of Use – how easy and straightforward it is to setup and configure your site
- Security Options – what security features are provided to protect your site information
There are 3 popular hosting services used most by web professionals that satisfy the above criteria: Bluehost, SiteGround, and WP Engine.
In a nutshell...
If you’re on a budget and just getting started, go with Bluehost.
If you want excellent reliability and great customer service, go with SiteGround.
If you want premium WordPress hosting and superior support, go with WP Engine.
Naming Your Developer Blog
A domain name is your website name. It is what people will type into their browsers to access your website. I highly recommend selecting a .com domain before any other extension, like .net or .io. The extension .com is the industry standard for domain names and what people commonly expect for a website. It also ranks best among the other domain extensions.
Choosing a domain name can be challenging, but here are some tips to picking the perfect one.
Now, every domain name is unique; therefore, no two websites can have the same domain name. Luckily, you can check the availability of your domain below:
Once you figure out the domain name you want for your developer blog, it must be registered before you can use it. There are different ways in which you can do this.
For example, you can purchase your domain name during the process of signing up for a hosting service.
Or, you can use an accredited domain name registrar, like Namecheap where you can register domains for as low as $0.88/year.
Your Developer Blog Platform
Once you’ve chosen a hosting service and domain name, the next step is to select a platform to install for building your developer blog. There are several different platforms out there that you can; however, the #1 platform I recommend (and personally use) is WordPress, specifically from wordpress.org.

WP Explorer summarizes the main benefits of using WordPress very well:
- It is free and open-source.
- It is beginner-friendly, yet powerful and flexible.
- There are theme and plugin options for practically any need.
- WordPress ensures the security of your website is simple.
- You’ll get access to tools that help you rank higher in search engines.
- Support is readily available whenever you need it.
Luckily when you choose your hosting service, it is then rather easy to install WordPress as they usually will ask you during the setup process if you want to install WordPress or have a 1-click installation button in the admin control panel for your site.
Choosing A Developer Blog Theme
The overall look and design of your portfolio site and blog is determined by the theme you use. You can create your own custom theme; but if you’re just starting out, I recommend selecting a theme from a marketplace. Most themes can be customized, so you can modify the look and feel of it as well as insert custom code to give your site a more unique appearance. Plus, you can switch to your custom theme at any point.
Marketplaces offer free and paid themes, but I recommend purchasing your theme, so that your site looks more professional. Moreover, you’ll receive better customer support from the seller if you encounter issues with the theme. Also, paid themes are usually updated more regularly, so it’ll likely remain compatible with the latest WordPress versions.
Here are the themes and marketplaces I recommend for your developer blog:
- Thrive Themes - Blazingly fast and powerful WordPress themes and plugins, built to get you more traffic, subscribers, clients and customers. I’ve tried several themes and, hands down, Thrive Themes is the best out there.
- Theme Forest - 38,185 WordPress themes and website templates starting at $2.
- Elegant Themes - WordPress themes with visual drag & drop features, making it easy to build a site.
- Creative Market - Search for more than 3,300 WordPress themes for business, personal websites, landing pages, portfolios,
and blogs.
Summary
You’re now ready to start your developer blog! Here are the steps again to implement:
- Determine your motivation for creating your developer blog.
- Brainstorm topics to write about on your blog.
- Choose a hosting service and URL.
- Select a WordPress Theme.
- Start writing!

Once you’ve launched your blog, check out these developers' blogs for inspiration:
Now It’s Your Turn!
You’ve read about the steps to take to start a developer blog.
Now it’s time to implement them.
The first step?
Leave a comment to let me know what you’re going to blog about first.
Will you blog about what you recently built?
Or maybe you want to share a recent technical challenge you overcame.
Either way, leave a quick comment below right now.
Join the Developer Blog Challenge - FREE Email Course
In this free email course, I show you how to easily create a developer blog, from the technical side to getting readers to making money from your developer blog. Join now!
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Curious about other ways to increase your competitive advantage in addition to blogging, check out 11 Proven Ways Developers Can Gain A Competitive Advantage.