Hey there Hashnoders 👋

Since we started building a blogging platform that enables developers to blog on their domain - Devblog, we've received numerous positive comments and support from all over the world.

In this post, I'm going to explain why blogging on your domain is important and why you should publish posts on your domain first, and then syndicate/republish them on other websites.

You play by your rules

Your domain is easily identified with you and your brand. The users can differentiate between your website and other blogging platforms with ease. Your posts will encourage them to continue coming back to you and your content, other people will link back to your domain, and this will help you to build your brand and promote your services in the long run.

Moreover, you decide what you want to publish, when and how. There are no external editors and guidelines you need to follow. Your blog is your playground and only your rules are valid.

At the beginning of this year, two major dev publications moved off of Medium - Hackernoon and FreeCodeCamp. This happened because Medium was not enabling people who were not logged in to read articles, and more and more content was gated. Medium even pressured FCC to start putting articles under their paywall, which went directly against what FCC stands for.

People who used Medium as their blogging platform actually lost a lot of traffic because of these moves, and the majority of dev audience moved away along with the publications. In some cases, people were unable to access their posts (FreeCodeCamp move), and in others, formatting got messed up in the conversion process (Hackernoon).

People will associate your domain with you and your brand

If you're blogging and bringing visitors to your domain, it's highly likely that your business will get affected due to SEO. If others link back to your posts, your domain strength will improve, and your website is more likely to appear in web searches.

Make sure to check out articles about SEO optimizing your Devblog in order to nail the basics.

If you're a freelancer, trying to pursue a career in the OS development, or just want to be more engaged with the global dev community, blogging on your domain is the only way to success.

Your content brings benefits only to you

If you blog only by using external publications, your posts will help those websites to increase their network traffic, and those platforms will benefit from your content, instead of going another way around. Medium can put your articles under their paywall, others will use them to expand their network (Hackernoon) or add ads or banners to them (Blogger, etc.)

When you blog on your domain, you are the only one who can receive accolades for helping out the rest of your community. Sponsors may reach out to you, as your personal networks grow, and you can become a promoter of products you love and use at work.

Blogging on your domain gives you more control over your content

When you blog on your domain, you are the one holding all the ropes. There are no external editors to fix change the title of your posts, or change the meaning of some sentences. You're free to post whatever you want, whenever you want it. Right now, there are no dev publications that allow you to do this other than Devblog.

Here's an example of what happened to me when I decided to republish a post on Hackernoon. When other people hold the right to alter your posts in order to publish them in their publications, you can expect something similar to happen to you too.

The title of my post is "To remote, or not to remote, that is the question" because of the line from Shakespeare's Hamlet "To be, or not to be, that is the question". When I submitted my post, they decided to rename it 😒

This change in the title simply .... hurts me. I've studied English language and literature, and this forceful keyword stuffing with the disregard of my initial idea is just... painful to watch. But hey, they had the right to change the title, so ... there's nothing I can do, except to delete the post from their platform.

Moreover, posts don't get published as soon as they are submitted. Both Hackernoon and FCC reserve the right not to publish or republish your post at all. However, Medium does allow you to do this if you're blogging on your own, and not submitting content to a publication.

Customization/Personalization

With Devblog, you get the option to customize the looks of your blog, change the layout of your previous posts, add custom illustrations, etc. Moreover, you can write more about yourself, nail SEO best practices, add your analytics and tracking tools.

All the other blogging platforms don't have these features. You can only change your profile photo, and add a short profile description. Some provide you with basic analytics tools, but they aren't as good as Google Analytics. You can read more about how other blogging platforms compare to GA in one of my earlier posts.

Audience

When you're on your domain with a custom solution or a simple static website, you can't instantly reach thousands of developers. You have to manually share your post in numerous groups online.

Devblog is unique as it gives you direct access to Hashnode's network. We'll feature your post on our feed, but won't lead the visitors away from you, we'll take them straight to your blog. There is no other blogging platform in the world that does this, and we're proud to be the pioneers with this approach.

Why do we do that? Because we believe that developers deserve the best tools for their job, recognition, and the ability to showcase what they know, without anyone else using them for their needs. As simple as that.

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Hope you enjoyed reading this post. Let me know in the comments below your thoughts about blogging on your domain with Devblog. ✍

**P.S. Please help us spread the word about Devblog and mention it to your dev friends. Let's grow together!