How to write a Data Science blog from scratch? ~Things I did!
More often than not, this blog made up most of what I showed in my interviews. My blog is one of the things I am proud of and with almost 1800 followers and over 150,000 minutes of reading time today, I think that it's time that I write this article to help other budding bloggers who want to make ‘content’ a key part of their portfolios.
Find out more about me and my other articles on my blog and LinkedIn profiles here:
Note: This is meant for only beginners in blogging, as far as the small little things I do today are considered, I’ll give you those tips in another article for authors who want to go to the next level in their blogging!
This is a pretty large article so feel free to skip to any of these 3 broad categories I’ve divided it in:
Why should you write articles on a blog?
Where should you write articles or make a blog?
What are things I do/consider when writing an article on this blog?
Before we get into the ways to start writing, I’ll just touch upon why you should start writing. (In just 5 little points)
- Writing can help you learn anything twice. You know it, write about it, and understand it all over again while writing.
- Writing shows your depth of knowledge. You can always learn a lot of things but how deep have you learned, is only shown in your content.
- Writing helps you find your natural preferences in the subject. I like data visualization and machine learning more than I like databases and data warehousing. That’s something I found while writing about things.
- Content writing will open doors for you and opportunities and exponentially grow your network. Most of what I have learned and the opportunities I’ve gotten until today are all thanks to this blog.
- Writing helps you serve a bigger purpose. Helping the larger community with data solutions is key to success as a Data Scientist and in your journey to this larger goal, you can always help out others (if only 1 person) by sharing your knowledge with them.
Where to start a blog?
I think there are a lot of platforms to start your blog at, with these 5 being the best of them. Feel free to find a place that depicts your niche in the best way and write your content there!
Note: If you are interested in starting your blog in a subject other than Data Science, a simple Google search will fetch you all the necessary details you need to find the best place to write an article. Some of these options below are for all authors and some are very specific to data science enthusiasts.
5 of my choices for Data Science content writing platforms would be:
Medium
AnalyticsVidhya
Fiverr
Data Science Central
Your own website
- Medium — By far the best platform, it offers SEO optimization, it has the largest audience of readers and in any type of content you offer, it also supports good authors by internally promoting their content to get more readers.
The statistics are easy to understand and can help you improve your writing! Where good ideas find you indeed!
2. AnalyticsVidhya — An Indian platform for budding data scientists, you can find a lot of content relating to different data science concepts while also having the option of participating in their ‘Blogathons’ that happen every once in a while offering readers a good amount of pay for an article that is resonating well with the readers.
3. Fiverr —If earning is your goal with content writing, then Fiverr is the place to be. You can always be hired as a freelance content writer from the website and the perks are that you get your visibility and your content gets its deserving audience and at the same time, you get to earn and get a job as a freelancer.
4. Data Science Central — Data Science Central invites writers to post their content on the website while giving them a set list of guidelines to follow and tips and topics to work on. The topics are very relevant to Data Science and one can always learn more from the same.
https://www.datasciencecentral.com
5. Your website — Creating your website is by far one of the most challenging but most promising methods to build a blog. You can build a website and add your content to it, which can range from certifications, etc. to what you do best. You can always market yourself flexibly while engaging with an audience with a blog that you can show off on your website.
Example of a personal website and blog:
Top 7 things to consider when starting a blog:
Topic
Size of your content
Understanding who your target market is
Promotional channels
Grammar and Language
Consistency
ROIa
Topic
The topic is of the utmost importance when you talk about a good blog. A blogger must know the content he is writing about and the topics to write about. Choosing something very vague will probably lie somewhere at the end of the chain in a search engine no matter how good your article is. The article can be written anywhere but unless the topic covered is relevant, needed, and clearly explained, your article will not get views.
For example; an article with the title ‘Get a Master’s in Data Science for FREE!’ got me 45K views simply because that was a relevant title, people (including me) wanted to read such content and it had enough resources to direct people to start learning as required.
Size of your content:
Your content has to be optimal in terms of size as well because the content read by the audience is read very quickly and in their spare time. Though I may write a 30000-word article on python based on my collective knowledge in Python, I must understand that at the max, my audience might spend 5 minutes reading my content on average and I cannot expect them to read 30000 words.
~500 words are good for content that is short, precise, and to the point.
~1000 words are more than enough to talk at stretch about something in particular and get your readers.
~2000 words are enough to explain pretty much anything and with multiple components with a good call to action in the end (like in this article, do follow me if you liked the article by the way)
Understanding who your target market is
When I started writing articles it was mostly for people who were in a similar place like me, starting in data science, and wanted to learn alongside me and benefit from the small little things that I found useful in my journey. Your target market is essentially those who, according to you, will find your articles useful and read them.
Try understanding who your target market is easily by knowing —
The complexity of your articles
How to niche your article is
What profession/age group your readers might belong to
Is your article educational/research/affiliate based
Knowing who your target is will only help you write better and more useful articles, that will resonate well with your readers.
Promotional Channels:
Before you start writing your articles, always try and devise a good plan on how you plan on promoting the articles. Choose your platforms and then decide, if you will use social media, friends & family, LinkedIn network, groups, communities, forums, Pinterest graphics, Reddit threads, SEO delivery, paid promotions, etc.
Depending on how good your content is, how well it is optimized for SEO delivery and how long are you waiting to receive the desired metrics in your article’s stats, you can decide on the combination of any of the aforementioned channels of promotion and more.
Grammar and Language:
Good communication is possible with the use of good language and proper grammar. Imagine if this article was not structured with clear sentences or had words like anemone, draught, Worcestershire, onerous, etc. to which not everyone would know the meaning (including me), the article would not communicate the intended message properly and would take your reader’s attention away from what you want to tell them.
Structure your sentences well, read your content like a layman, use a grammar tool like Grammarly, keep your sentences and paragraphs short, and your message delivery will be on point.
CONSISTENCY
The single most important part of any content creator’s journey to success is Consistency. I cannot emphasize enough on this point because this is what your entire blog depends on. There are innumerable things to cover in any subject you want to write about. Doing enough research will give you the knowledge you need and give you the base you need, to write more articles.
Important things to consider in consistency are:
- You cannot keep posting content like it's spam. Ensure that the audience has enough time to get all the benefits out of an article you have previously published and let its utility reach its peak and give your audience something else to digest.
- Your consistency can have breaks but not more than a week. I post content every week and it’s only because I find time to write on weekends and I assume people find time to read my content and it reaches its peak ROI in 7 days or 8.
- Consistency can be high in the beginning. I posted an article every day for the first 10 days of my blogging journey back in 2020 only because I wanted to make sure that when people get to Data Science Simplified, they have things to choose from.
ROI
ROI or simply returns on investment is a logic that applies to every investment you make. In this case, your investment is all about your time.
Calculate what are your returns in this case when you’re spending your time and effort in learning and maintaining a blog. Your returns can include good reviews on your blog, suggestions on how you can learn something other than what you’ve written about, new connections on your network, the visibility, royalty, or the money you’re earning on your content considering the platform or website pays you, and reach of your blog, the number of things you’ve learned and lastly, how effectively does your blog represent your portfolio.
Once you’re in check of these things, not immediately after your blog starts but probably one or two months into it, or maybe 6 if you’re patient with it, you’ll see how it’s an exponential curve that takes time to build momentum but is quick on holding steady momentum and growth when combined with consistency.
Try your hand at writing today, and I hope it opens more doors for you in times to come than it already has opened for me! Trust me, when it comes to writing, it happened out of the blue. I never thought of content to be the way I’ll communicate my skills with relevant people in the community but it is one of the top 1% of ways you can do it.
Once you start enjoying the process, there’s no turning back! Let me know in the comments below if you think there are better ways to write a blog or if you have any suggestions for mine!
Leave a clap if you liked the article and do share it with anyone you know who has the knowledge and needs a little push to start writing!
Also check out my previous articles here, if they interest you!
For more such articles, stay tuned with us as we chart out paths on understanding data and coding and demystify other concepts related to Data Science. Please leave a review down in the comments.
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Do connect with me on LinkedIn at — Yash Gupta — if you want to discuss it further! Leave a clap and comment below to support the blog! Follow for more.
