Producing content whether it is source code or articles, obtaining consumers requires some advertising to reach an interested audience.
I've created content on dev.to for the last year. It provides a small amount of advertising with a recent article feed and tags. New signups also get a suggestion to follow recent contributors, this is where the majority of the followers I get.
Reading Articles
As a consumer of content I find it hard to determine good authors to follow. Reading one of their good articles does not mean they generally write in topics of my interest. If I don't look at the author I won't notice pattern of reading articles from the same author.
For this reason I try to look at the profile of authors with good articles. This way I can identify if the pattern of articles is relatively capturing my interest.
Producing Content
So now I have some followers, many of which may have little interest in my content.
I have about 100 articles. New followers are unlikely to find articles in the group they are interested in. Searching by tag and author does not appear possible.
Dev.to provides article pining on the profile. This can help, but is not the quite the same as it highlights my interests.
Historical Content
My previous articles become a place of reference. Both to use in response and recollection of commands.
Oldest comments (5)
Hmmm... I took a quick glance at your articles and your niche under tags. You can use my strategy for Dev.To as follows:
Lastly, read about Crushing It & Soft Skill
are the books that inspired me to find ways to cross-post my article on Dev.to & CodeMentor in the first place.
Yeah I definitely have an issue that my niche isn't the popular one (except git).
Article titles are definitely important. Since many of my articles are D specific I hoping they make Google search results more than Dev interest.
The articles, of mine, which get the most attention are the contraversial ones like 'stop using yaml', 'I'm concerned about TDD', or 'what in with all the Python hate' it is kind of sad but not unexpected.
Well you could always double down in teaching git for DevOps, building CI/CD, truck based development vs Git Flow etc.
It's normal for article titles that is click bait or controversial but you need to be your own judge if it is worth it.
As when you write it you might need to prepare for the backlash of serious critics who will do anything in their way to put your name through the mud.
Like for me I would never in my life recommend anyone to watch videos from techlead as he does not resonate with me due to his cringe & smug videos.
Focus on providing articles that is of value for anyone besides just documenting.
I do have some more git related posts lined up. It is hard because I want to have uniqueness in my posts and find the material already good, well not something I can improve on at this point.
Regardless if it is good. It is how you frame it in your own voice that is easy to pick up that matters to your readers.