My Blogging Journey

My blogging journey has seen a lot of ups and downs. I started with Google’s Blogger then switched to WordPress and now I’m using Zola for this blog. I’m writing this post for AuguStory by Robert Birming.

2013 - 2017

I started blogging in 2013. I was inspired by success stories around blogs and it seemed like low-hanging fruit to me. I was a student at college at the time and wanted to do something to earn a few bucks for myself. So I created a blog on Blogger and named it Combuzzer. The first version is still live but hasn’t been maintained for over a decade.

From 2013 to 2015, I published around 36 blog posts. Some of those posts were based on the stuff I knew from my experience but most of ’em were inspired by the other technical blogs that I was trying to imitate. When I look back, I realize the biggest mistake I made was not writing about my own experience, for example, at the time I was learning programming by reading books, I could have written on that experience, shared what I had learned.

After finishing college in 2016 I didn’t get a job immediately, so I took a year to work on my coding skills by reading programming books, doing Udemy courses and building projects. At the time, I thought let’s give blogging one more try. This time I wanted to do blogging right, so I bought the domain combuzzer.com with the intention to self-host the WordPress site.

I created an AWS account, learned how to set up the server and install WordPress with SSL to make it safe and trustworthy. This was all very exciting to me.

I decided to write on Artificial Intelligence-related stuff. Sadly, I could only write three small articles. I had no real work experience in the area. It seemed like a very steep path then. So, instead of working on my blog, I increased my focus on getting a job and got one a few months later.

2017 - 2023

I did Python & Django courses on Udemy and got a job as a Backend Engineer. Along the way I learned lots of cool stuff. I thought this would be a good time to start blogging again and share my learnings. This time I bought a domain with my own name, vivekshukla.xyz.

I set up a WordPress blog on an AWS instance. Over the next few months I wrote posts related to Django (a Python web framework). I was not writing regularly but occasionally I would write on topics that were not easily available on the web.

A few months later something happened. Google was sending 40-50 users daily to my blog. It was actually one particular post that was ranking in the first position in Google search for its keyword. I was completely blown away by this, and on top of that people were commenting on the blog thanking me for writing the post. This was surreal to me.

2023 - Now

Around 2023 I wanted to create a blog fully dedicated to technical stuff, where I would write tutorials and break down complex stuff, so I bought backendengineer.io and moved my current blog there. I could only write a few articles in one year. Then two things happened: the .io domain got more expensive (it was already expensive) and its future was uncertain since there was news that it may get cancelled in the future.

So I decided to move off of backendengineer.io to vivekshuk.la (bought in 2019). I used vivekshuk.la briefly for around a year. I wanted a .com domain but it was not available at the time. But then in 2026 I found that vshukla.com has become available, so I jumped at the opportunity and bought it. .com domains have a lot more credibility than a country-specific domain, so I chose it and this time I hope I’m going to keep it for a long time.

Now

I’ve a renewed sense of purpose and energy to focus on writing now. I think I really missed out on years when I didn’t write. I used to think that I should only write things which are unique. But sometimes just sharing your knowledge can do wonders; it clears your thinking and shows gaps in your knowledge.

One thing which is mind-boggling to me is that even if I had published one article a month, by now I would have 144 articles published. Just being consistent and showing up regularly can do wonders.

My Advice

Here are some unsolicited advice from me to new / aspiring bloggers:

• Choose simple setup when you are starting. Using something like Bear Blog, Medium, Substack, Hugo, Zola is recommended.
• Don’t fall in the trap of updating style / design of your blog often, you think you are doing something productive but you are not.
• Set a posting schedule and stick to it. Even if you decide to post once a month, that’s great but just stick to it.
• Writing is a journey, nobody writes perfect at first. Just focus on writing and then editing. You’ll learn things along the way.
• Do not shy away from using grammar and spelling correction tools.