Ask HN: How do you identify things worth to write about in your blog?

Look at what you're searching on Google. From time to time there's a problem for which you can't find a solution with a single search, and you have to combine results from 2+ searches.

Title: your ideal search, that failed to produce results. Body: your solution.

These are generally helpful, SEO-friendly, and fast to write posts, say 30min-1h after you have your solution. It's a good "trick" to exercise your writing and grow your blog quickly.

These are some examples I experimented with (2016):

- A Quick Demo of Apache Beam with Docker, ~11k views

https://medium.com/@0x0ece/a-quick-demo-of-apache-beam-with-...

- Read Offset Checkpoint Stored in Kafka, ~3k views

https://medium.com/@0x0ece/read-offset-checkpoint-stored-in-...

- Installing Apache Airflow on CentOS 7, ~8k views (surprisingly 2y after this is still receiving 10-50 views week over week)

https://medium.com/@0x0ece/installing-apache-airflow-on-cent...

I noticed years ago that I didn't have as much insight as other people who were much more close to the problems I was interested in. Even on non-technical topics, there was this realization I was just more noise in a sea of noise.

So, ultimately, write if you want to write. But, ... be comfortable with the fact that you might just be noise. :-) If you find an audience, they will tell you what they find valuable or make requests on their own.

My work has a pretty strict Internet filter in place, but Wikipedia is fair game. I hop around random articles while my project builds, and I save things that interest me. Then I write about them later. No focus on technology or any specific area, just general trivia and curiosities. That's "worth" enough to me to keep motivation and interest up. http://chrisgermano.dev if you're interested. I have about 100 Wikipedia pages on my to-write list, and 3-4 posts in progress.

The problem, I think, is in the question "worth". To me, it refers to a topic or idea that I would enjoy writing about, but one that others would also enjoy reading about. What's the point of writing if nobody reads any of it? I like to use Google Adwords' keyword ideas tool to find ideas that people seek out, then I pick and choose what I like. This is a great method especially if your blog is concerned with SEO and getting search engine traffic.

It depends on the topic of the blog I choose to write. The things which I going to write must be like an answer to my selected topic or question.

I typically write about things I'm learning about as a way to solidify my own knowledge. That or I write about something I wish I had known recently.

I have started to treat my blog as a journal. So now I don't need to make sure if the topic is worth.