Interview with the author css-tricks.com, a successful web designer and blogger
Today I decided to translate an interview with a successful American blogger and web designer, whose name is Chris Coyier. The pages of his blog, Sss-tricks , browse 1.5 million times a month. In this interview, he talks about how, in his opinion, you need to have a successful blog.
A lot of everything. I started blogging when I first started learning web design. It all started with the installation of Wordpress, search for a suitable template and its modernization to fit your needs. Wordpress attracted me with its functionality, using which I could create dynamic sites, and not dull static ones. Later, when I already learned a lot about web design, developing and improving wordpress themes, I decided to start my blog and write in it about what I learned. The reason that prompted me to start blogging is the desire to help people and, if lucky, make money. Good luck turned out to be supportive of me and my blog went a long way, but all this is the result of hard work.
First, you need to have something to say. Secondly - you need to be able to properly present all this. That is, to have an opinion on everything, and the ability to express it in a blog with a certain degree of confidence in your words.
You just need to write interesting things, and readers will appear by themselves, like a snowball. And that's all. There is no such thing that someone writes really interesting things and does not have good traffic on his blog. If your article is really good - you just need to slightly push it to the masses and it will soon become popular by itself. This means - if there is no traffic on your blog - you need to write an article better.
')
Nah
Interest - 60%, design - 35%, Advertising (promotion) - 5%.
You need to write really good articles - this comes from your personal interest in the topic of your blog. That is, interest is a very important part, which, in any case, will not allow your blog to die. But blogs, especially about web design, should embody their content with their look. You can't write about design on an ugly site, this is stupid. It's like being a politician, preaching the importance of family values, and at the same time cheating on your wife. But, despite the fact that I myself am a designer, and pay great attention to design, I believe that content is the most important part of a blog. Even the ugliest site with good and interesting content will always benefit from a beautiful, glamorous blozhik with shitty articles. I paid so little attention to advertising (promotion) because blogs now spun automatically. People like to find interesting things and share them. That is what I wanted to say above, when I mentioned that readers will appear 'by themselves, like a snowball'. Just a couple of users, sharing your article with friends, it is easy to turn into a whole bunch of traffic.
I work at home, it saves a lot of time. I also have no wife and children, who usually take a significant part of their free time. I consider myself lucky and now I have a very productive moment in my life. I can spend a lot of time designing and supporting / developing my own projects. This may, for many, sound strange, but I get a lot of pleasure from all these activities.
The work I spend most of my time on is the generator of many ideas for my articles.
Also, do not forget that I did not wake up so successful and famous. It took me years to learn how to work so effectively and correctly organize my workflow. And even now, when I find a way to speed up the execution of certain tasks, I always actively use it.
Do not make listings and lists of other people's articles. This shit and so in bulk. If you still want to do this, you should have your own opinion and do something better than Noupe, Smashing Magazine and Vandelay Design.
From myself I would like to note that Chris does not say a word about SEO and other magic. From this we can conclude that search engine optimization for a blog is not very important, and the content is of decisive importance. On Chris's blog, of course, everything is semantically composed, so that, in this respect, he took care of search engine optimization.
In principle, the fact that the content is the most important thing is not surprising, but, oddly enough, many people sometimes forget about it.
A translation of this interview can also be read on my blog .
What prompted you to do this nonsense (blogging)?
A lot of everything. I started blogging when I first started learning web design. It all started with the installation of Wordpress, search for a suitable template and its modernization to fit your needs. Wordpress attracted me with its functionality, using which I could create dynamic sites, and not dull static ones. Later, when I already learned a lot about web design, developing and improving wordpress themes, I decided to start my blog and write in it about what I learned. The reason that prompted me to start blogging is the desire to help people and, if lucky, make money. Good luck turned out to be supportive of me and my blog went a long way, but all this is the result of hard work.
What is the recipe for creating a successful web design blog?
First, you need to have something to say. Secondly - you need to be able to properly present all this. That is, to have an opinion on everything, and the ability to express it in a blog with a certain degree of confidence in your words.
Give advice to novice designers who really want their blogs to be special and successful.
You just need to write interesting things, and readers will appear by themselves, like a snowball. And that's all. There is no such thing that someone writes really interesting things and does not have good traffic on his blog. If your article is really good - you just need to slightly push it to the masses and it will soon become popular by itself. This means - if there is no traffic on your blog - you need to write an article better.
')
Does a blog have a chance to become popular, if the sole purpose of creating it is to make a profit?
Nah
Self-interest, design and advertising (promotion) - in what proportions should these things be mixed when creating a good blog?
Interest - 60%, design - 35%, Advertising (promotion) - 5%.
You need to write really good articles - this comes from your personal interest in the topic of your blog. That is, interest is a very important part, which, in any case, will not allow your blog to die. But blogs, especially about web design, should embody their content with their look. You can't write about design on an ugly site, this is stupid. It's like being a politician, preaching the importance of family values, and at the same time cheating on your wife. But, despite the fact that I myself am a designer, and pay great attention to design, I believe that content is the most important part of a blog. Even the ugliest site with good and interesting content will always benefit from a beautiful, glamorous blozhik with shitty articles. I paid so little attention to advertising (promotion) because blogs now spun automatically. People like to find interesting things and share them. That is what I wanted to say above, when I mentioned that readers will appear 'by themselves, like a snowball'. Just a couple of users, sharing your article with friends, it is easy to turn into a whole bunch of traffic.
How do you manage to combine your main work with Css-tricks blogging?
I work at home, it saves a lot of time. I also have no wife and children, who usually take a significant part of their free time. I consider myself lucky and now I have a very productive moment in my life. I can spend a lot of time designing and supporting / developing my own projects. This may, for many, sound strange, but I get a lot of pleasure from all these activities.
The work I spend most of my time on is the generator of many ideas for my articles.
Also, do not forget that I did not wake up so successful and famous. It took me years to learn how to work so effectively and correctly organize my workflow. And even now, when I find a way to speed up the execution of certain tasks, I always actively use it.
And finally, one more tip that you would like to give to those who start a blog related to design.
Do not make listings and lists of other people's articles. This shit and so in bulk. If you still want to do this, you should have your own opinion and do something better than Noupe, Smashing Magazine and Vandelay Design.
From myself I would like to note that Chris does not say a word about SEO and other magic. From this we can conclude that search engine optimization for a blog is not very important, and the content is of decisive importance. On Chris's blog, of course, everything is semantically composed, so that, in this respect, he took care of search engine optimization.
In principle, the fact that the content is the most important thing is not surprising, but, oddly enough, many people sometimes forget about it.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/77762/
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