[user5994461]

He missed the number one rule to get more views, which is to write about topics with a broad audience.

From my own experience, a good piece on docker or javascript and that will be tens of thousands of visitors instantly from reddit and HN.

Whereas a good piece on some obscure technology and that will be a handful of visitors per day, which is truly everybody in the world who cares about that thing.

[CM30]

This is a double edged sword. On the one hand, you're right, a more mainstream topic does have a larger potential audience, and if your topic is one few people care about, you're probably gonna get a lot less traffic compared to one with a broader audience.

At the same time however, the broader the audience, the harder it usually is compete and make a name for yourself in a niche. There are hundreds if not thousands of people and sites writing about JavaScript frameworks, Docker, etc, and your work will likely get a lot less attention than theirs will. So while the potential audience is there, the likelihood of you getting said audience is extremely low.

It's like on YouTube with popular games. Sure, a lot of people might watch videos about Minecraft or Fortnite or whatever the kids play nowadays, but there are also thousands of other people also making videos about them, and yours can easily get buried in the avalanche of results there. Hence unless you've already got a one in a million advantage (like real world fame), it's very hard to compete.

Focusing on something less popular can help you build a smaller but more focused audience, and you do pretty well off being 'that one guy' who covers said obscure topic. You can then maybe branch out and gradually use your popularity in said smaller field as the jumping off point for popularity in the larger one.

[user5994461]

Blog articles are not competitive, the pie is simply bigger for everyone on the more popular subjects .

If you look at HN, you will see articles about javascript popping up almost every day. They all get tens of thousands of views, they're not competing for readership.

If you're considering a niche subject instead, the article would not get enough upvotes to reach the frontpage, and it wouldn't get any views at all. There might be hundreds of people aware of that topic (and thousands who would be curious enough to read if it were front page) but it doesn't have enough audience to reach a critical mass of upvotes, so it simply doesn't exist.

P.S. The Youtube comparison is misplaced IMO. Writing books (blog articles) is trivial in comparison to making Hollywood videos (Youtube).

[rchaud]

But that's the point. SEO is not just about putting up big traffic numbers for its own sake. SEO is a means to an end, the end being conversion into something. A sales funnel, an email subscriber list, or a product sale. For that, you need targeted leads. If you write a big piece on Javascript but aren't offering a JS course or upsell of some sort, you'll get a lot of traffic that won't actually convert into anything.

Otherwise, if you're truly writing for passion's sake, then SEO shouldn't be part of the rationale to begin with.

[user5994461]

That's arguable. Considering a shop, SEO is getting people to enter the shop and conversion is getting people to buy something.

SEO does stand on its own really. There are no sales without visitors. On the other hand if you have visitors you can try to sell them something, anything really.

Ironically the internet is all about advertising and eye balls. With the author speaking of a million visitors a month, he can certainly monetize in many ways.