2018 Aims

I haven’t looked at my blog for 2 weeks as I was taking a break for Christmas and New Year. It has been really refreshing not to think about tech, and has given me time and perspective on my blog and its aims.

Blog

I started this blog to solve my problem of losing track of my technical notes and how-to’s from daily life as a software developer. My approach to blogging has been to avoid long-winded descriptions, and focus on notes and bulletpoints to quickly get to the solution, hence javabullets.com

That is still its purpose, although I have tried to improve the quality of post as it is now syndicated to dzone, javacodegeeks and I also share content on tech.io and twitter.

2018 Aims

I’m keeping my aims fairly simple, yet challenging, this year –

• One blog post a week
• 1000+ visits/day
• Sharing content

Achieving These Aims

One Blog Post Per Week

A blog post a week is more challenging than it looks, and Ive been doing it for 6 months or so now. Technical blog posts often require code examples, and diagrams which takes time to produce – so can easily take 3-4 hours per week, sometimes more.

1000+ visits/day

Ive never been that interested in traffic – but my blog is getting around 500 visitors a day now, and it would be good to see it push to 1000 visitors/day for 2018.

The second aim has left me with a lot of questions –

• Does my blog need more focus? It’s always been a general java/spring blog of my own notes. Do I need to take it to the next level and focus in on a technology? Im reluctant to do this because I like to use the blog for my own notes
• Do I need to write more in depth posts?
• What should I be writing about? Or what would people like me to write about?
• Does my site need some redesign?
• How can I drive more traffic?
• Can keywords help? Possibly but there can be great blog post subjects that dont have high keywords and are still relevant

I would be interested in recieving feedback or help on the above questions

Sharing content

I currently share posts on dzone, javacodegeeks and tech.io, and am happy with the feedback and support these sites give me. I am interested in other opportunities to share content so feel free to contact me at martin at javabullets.com

One area that keeps coming up is youtube, and video blogging. Ive steered clear of this as its more work, and I prefer written blogging on tutorials. Although I have used some youtube channels, and may expand into this area this year.

Let me know what you would like to hear in this respect

Consulting

I have been a freelance consultant and contractor for 14 years now, and am still enjoying the variety of work and meeting different people and organisations. I can provide services from phone consultations, to longer projects. I am also available for writing technical content to meet customer needs.

I look forward to hearing from new customers, and can be contacted at martin at javabullets.com