Overview

In today's digital landscape, creating compelling and polished content is essential for capturing and retaining audience attention.
This comprehensive guide offers invaluable insights and strategies for optimizing your content across various platforms.
From refining your writing and formatting techniques to maximizing audience engagement and platform-specific publishing, this guide covers everything you need to know to elevate your content creation game.
Whether you're a seasoned writer or just starting out, follow these tips and best practices to ensure your publications stand out in a crowded online space.

Size

The publication should not be overly dense or difficult to read.
When considering a typical piece intended for public consumption, I propose aiming for an ideal publication size of under 2500 words.

On the other hand, the size should not be too small, where it can be consumed in just one minute.
I would suggest 800 words as the smallest size for a publication.

No formatting symbols

An important point to note is the absence of any formatting symbols in the publication, such as or   .
These symbols may appear if you copy your content from another document format.

Citations

There is a recommendation for citations to be formatted as in-line links, with any recommended reading listed separately.

Tables

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If you use tables in your publications, please make sure that columns with less content are placed towards the end of the table, and vice versa.

Additionally, I suggest placing more important columns at the beginning of the table so that readers will first encounter the most important information.

Last but not least, I would suggest using tables as images, as many publication platforms do not fully support tables.
Still, keeping the source of tables will provide you with the ability to update table images in case of a change.

Pictures

Please notice a really important point: fewer pictures mean fewer views.
Certainly, all pictures should be related to the text content and enhance its meaning.

I suggest having a featured image as a title image. It might be interactive, like a gif.

I would prefer album orientation to be album rather than book orientation. It will use the user's screen more efficiently.

Plagiarism

Please note that readers prefer content to be 100% original.
They expect 0% plagiarism or duplicate content, and all sources must be properly cited.

When using a quote or definition from another source, it must be cited using an in-line link to provide attribution and enable readers to verify the information.

You can use this website to check for plagiarism.

Make Proofreading

And yes, your content should not have any punctuation or syntax mistakes.
Also, there should not be any formatting issues.
To make it possible, you will need to proofread the content.

How do I do that?
The best way to do it is to have it proofread by a human.
It might be costly, and there is software to help you, such as ChatGPT, MS Word, or Google Docs.

Also, Hashnode has an online proofreading option, so you can post there first.

Publishing on Multiple Platforms

I publish my content on different platforms � seven for now.
When I join a platform, the first thing I do is read the requirements on how to publish there.
The content you publish should be relevant and applicable to the platform.
For example, I don't use Facebook to post programming stuff.

All platforms suggest filling out the user profile before publication so people who read your publication can contact you if they are interested.
Profiles on different platforms should be consistent with each other.
Here, I use a link to one public profile on GitHub.

Usually, I first publish my content on Hackernoon as they check my content thoroughly, and then I publish it on other platforms so it is well-checked.

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Time and Frequency of Publication

It is quite important to select the proper day and time for publication.
I usually publish on Mondays and Thursdays, typically between 10 AM and 3 PM my local time, Ukrainian time.
It should definitely not be early in the morning or late at night.

Also, please note that publishing on holidays may result in fewer views.
This is applicable to summer as well; you will likely see fewer reactions.
Additionally, if there is another important event on the platform at the time of your publication, you may lose views, although they may accumulate later.

Regarding frequency, I publish one to two times per week to avoid overloading my readers and to ensure they don't forget about me.

Language

I would recommend using English where possible because it is the most widely known language.

Checklist

As you can see, there are a lot of items not to forget about.
That's why I use a checklist to help me remember important points.
Here it is:

  • Is there a Headline?
  • Is the Headline less than 150 characters?
  • Is there an Overview to start from?
  • Are there Tags?
  • Is there a Table of contents?
  • Are there no formatting symbols?
  • Are there no empty chapters?
  • Are Definitions, Acronyms, Abbreviations sorted?
  • Is there no Personally Identifiable Information (PII)?
  • Is there no TBD and TODO?
  • Does it ask for an opinion?
  • Has it been proofread?
  • Is bold text used for keywords?
  • Is italics used for conversation?
  • Are all references current?
  • Is the length under 2500 words?
  • Are there any pictures?