Writing content for developers forces you to walk a fine line. On one side, it gives you the freedom to write about technology in a way your end users simply don’t get. On the other side, you’re dealing with subject matter experts who might know more about your technology than you do. This happens often when the person responsible for writing your developer-facing content has no experience on the back end of your technology.

Though this might present a challenge, the right content strategy that’s laser-focused on talking to developers rather than a general audience has many benefits:

• Well-written content with developers in mind will help you build a stronger team that either builds your product or helps maintain it.
• Delivering the right content in the proper channels improves how your audience engages with your content because you’re writing about your technology in a way that speaks to the very people capable of understanding all its working parts.
• Writing content for developers also helps enhance your brand reputation among the developer community.

This is all great stuff you want for your brand, right? This article will dive deep into the best practices for considering the unique characteristics of great content that speaks to developers.

I’ll cover the following topics [TLDR? Click a topic.]:

1. Understanding the developer mindset and working that into your content strategy
2. Finetuning your audience based on the team you want to build for your tech products
3. Coming up with relevant topics important to those specific developers
4. Finding the right platforms for content delivery
5. Building content strategies focused on developer talent acquisition

Understanding the Developer Mindset

Subject matter expertise makes a difference.

Like I mentioned above, it’s often true the person responsible for drafting your developer-facing content is very much not a developer. This isn’t exactly a brand weakness because, if you value and reward great work, you hired the best content writer, not the content writer who also has coding skills. And that’s the same reason why you probably didn’t hire the best developer who has acceptable content writing skills. To build a top brand, you want the people are great at what they do . . . period.

If your current content isn’t exactly clicking with developers, that could highlight a problem that needs solving. And how exactly do you solve this problem?

To “fix” this challenge internally, the best way to address it is by creating a content review team made up of developers on varying levels (manager, senior, junior, intern, etc.). Or if you are a software development company, perhaps your content review team consists of one developer representing each technology you use in your products.

Listen to the feedback the developers give you and urge your content writer to implement their suggestions in a way that strengthens the original copy.

Developers value useful content.

First, I urge you to think about why a developer might be seeking out your content. If your product is an API that connects an ecommerce website to a payment platform, they’re likely coming there to find out the process for connecting their solution to your product. They don’t need to know why they should use your product; they already know that piece of the puzzle. All the need to know is what they need to do to get it to work with their code.

For this reason, what you communicate to a developer in that situation needs to be accurate, direct, and precise. Give them the exact steps they need to take. If you overload them with other non-relevant information, they’re losing time they could be spending on their work.

Again, a content review team full of developers will serve you well. Let them slice and dice any filler content that might present as a roadblock to a developer. Anyone who finds this content useful will tell other developers in their circle, and you will begin to build a great reputation in the developer community.

Avoid these common mistakes when writing content for developers:

• Don’t over-deliver or under-deliver your developer-facing content. Just deliver. Understand who you’re writing for, what specific content they need, and why they came to you for it. Filling out a content brief for your content will help you avoid missing the mark here.
• Forget about using too much marketing speak in your content that’s designed to communicate with developers. I will bet you any amount of money that the developer reading your article doesn’t need a lesson on any of your marketing channels. Again, it helps to have complete clarity on the information they need. Your content brief—and certainly your content review team—can help you sort this out.
• Don’t be too skimpy on the technical details. This is what developers came to read, so make sure your content goes into as much technical detail as is needed. No more. No less. There might be other cases where developers might like a quick setup guide or a more in-depth look at the capabilities of your product. Look at those scenarios as opportunity to create more developer-facing content.

Defining Your Developer Audience

Front-end, back-end, and full-stack developers are not the same.

This is where working from a content brief is imperative to your content-writing process. Part of your brief should focus not only on the fact that you’re speaking to developers but also what types of developers you’re trying to engage. Are they mobile developers, game designers, desktop software developers, or web developers? And within those segments, you should identify whether they are front-end, back-end, or full-stack developers. (This isn’t an extensive list of possible audience segments, but I think you say where I’m going with this.)

Each type of developer likely uses a different set of tools, languages, APIs, and frameworks in the work they do. It’s important to understand those differences to build a great relationship with your readers. Without this knowledge, developers are likely to go somewhere else who understands their needs better.

You might be tired of hearing about having a content review team with developers giving you advice on your content, but I can’t understate how powerful having such a team can be for your relationships with outside developers.

If you have content writers on staff, you might be surprised how willing your developers would be to help create better content for other developers. Not only will they see their role in your organization as important, but they will feel valued and seen for their expertise. (And I doubt they’d hate a slight bump in pay or a bonus for their efforts, in case you’re wondering.)

Here are some valuable tips and strategies to help tailor your content to different types of developers:

1. Get familiar with the top tools developers will use that complement your product. By understanding what tools they use, you’ll find opportunities to create more content focused on those tools. Not only will this make the developer’s job easier, but it will also give you an SEO boost.
2. Create different guides or resources specifically for front-end, back-end, and full-stack developers using your content, if applicable. Each of these types of developers will work with your product in a different way, and they need complete clarity on those differences.
3. Get tips, tricks, and hacks straight from the developers working on your product. You can do this easily by asking each of your developers for one piece of advice to give outside developers. It will make your readers feel like they have a direct line to your developers.
4. Pay attention to any questions or comments you get on your current content. Use that as fuel for keeping your articles fresh and continually updated. You might even find some opportunities for additional content to create for developers.
5. Don’t overlook beginner or junior developers who might need a little more handholding than senior developers. Not having this content available to them forces them to look elsewhere for help, and you run the risk of them getting incorrect information.

Finding Relevant Developer-Focused Topics

Developers look for relevant content that addresses their needs, wants, and concerns.

If you’re just starting to develop your developer-facing content strategy, one important area to focus on will be the topics developers will find most useful. As you put together your strategy, one great part of this strategic plan will be a list of ideas for content you can create.

Ask the following questions to start brainstorming some great topics:

• What emerging technologies are relevant to developers working with or interested in our software?
• What are the best practices for the language(s) our product uses?
• What in-depth tutorials will be the most beneficial to our readers?
• What marketing channel generates the most traffic from our developer audience?
• What are some of the challenges developers have with our product?
• What’s the primary use case for our product?
• What questions does our support team get asked the most?

These idea-generating questions should be more than enough to get the gears turning.

The format of your content needs to address your developer audience’s needs.

Each piece of content you produce should follow best practices for formatting. If you’re just starting to create content for developers, it will help you tremendously to find examples of other companies executing their developer content strategy well. Make detailed notes about the elements you see in various types of content, including case studies, in-depth tutorials, blogs, technical documentation, code samples, and more.

The idea here isn’t to copy what they’re doing but to find the commonalities between different companies who are executing their developer content well. You can also get some great inspiration by analyzing what they’re doing that makes them unique. This will give you ideas for how you can set your content apart if you’re looking to stand out in your industry.

As you’re planning your content, you can make notes about the must-have elements your developer audience expects so you can ensure they have everything they need.

Your content should be valuable for the developers you want to reach.

Developers need content that address their current needs, desires, and concerns. Becoming involved in the developer community will help you figure out exactly what their pain points are and what sort of content they’d love to engage with.

This travels far beyond simply helping that one developer or group of developers. You’ll gain the following benefits if you provide valuable content for your developers:

• You’ll become a much-needed voice in your relevant developer community.
• You’ll attract top developer talent to your product and development team.
• You’ll build a solid reputation surrounding your software and organization.
• Your product will be talked about as developers network and talk to each other.
• You’ll be known as a developer-friendly business.
• You’ll receive lots of helpful feedback on your product and its use cases.
• The increased engagement you receive will improve your impact and influence on your industry.

It’s also important to note that all these benefits will contribute to increasing your market share by generating more income for your company.

Publishing Content for Developers

Where should businesses publish content for developers?

When you’re planning the content you want to create for developers, one important element to consider is where you plan to publish your content. There’s a famous Wayne Gretzky quote that applies here:

Skate to where the puck is going.

[wayne gretzky]

So, how does this relate to your tech content strategy? Well, one option would be to publish your developer-facing content on your website/blog. Though you should certainly publish some content for developers on your website, that’s always going to give you the best bang for your buck. But where you want to focus your best content is on those platforms your ideal developers gather.

Here are a few great platforms for developers to use in your content strategy:

1. Medium. Their website launched back in 2012 and has since been a platform for writers looking to earn money writing content they care about the most. Something that happened over the years with Medium was the gathering of developers. Anytime I’m researching something when I’m working on developing software, I always find something of value there. The lesson in Medium is the fact that it doesn’t have to be a tech-only platform to attract developers.
2. Stack Overflow. This is the top platform developers go to engage with the development community. It’s another website that’s good for research because there are tons of posts written by developers asking for help to solve a particular issue. If you’re looking to build a name for yourself in the development community, any good content strategy will focus some of your efforts here.
3. GitHub. If a developer doesn’t have a presence on GitHub—or some other code repository website—they’re probably not a developer you want to engage with. GitHub gives developers a place to build their portfolios, engage with other developers’ code, find collaboration partners, and contribute to the development community. This is another top platform you’ll want to include in your strategy if you’re serious about engaging with developers.

How should businesses optimize content for developers?

Here are some quick tips and strategies to reach developers with search engine optimization:

• Get in the developer mindset and make a list of developer-friendly keywords to make your content searchable
• Frame your content around solving a problem to keep your readers on the page
• Use keywords in your code example comments to train the algorithm on your content
• Design easy-to-read content with lists, screenshots, and code snippets

Creating Content to Hire New Developers

Your hiring goals and developer content should work together in your strategy.

Though there are many other reasons why you’re publishing content for developers, one of the most important will have a direct effect on your ability to build a great product. That reason? You want to build an amazing development team to build or maintain your solution to an important problem.

This is one of the main reasons why successful tech businesses launch content strategies aimed at engaging with developers. When you create the right content for the right developers, it sends a message to anyone who might be looking to further their career. And that message is this: we care about developers. When you execute entire content strategies to engage with a certain audience, they tend to take notice. Even if certain readers aren’t on the market for new career opportunities, they’ll remember your content when they are.

It’s not that developers want to work for companies that create great content for people like them—it’s that your content made enough of an impression on them that they remember who you are. It makes them think, “Wouldn’t it be cool if I worked there?” You set yourself up as their dream employer with a dream job to offer, and those types of positions are highly competitive because all the great developers are vying for them.

You can design content that brands your company as developer-friendly.

Here are some ideas to kick off your brainstorming:

• Highlight modern tech stacks and cutting-edge technologies to show developers you’re in touch with the latest technology trends.
• Talk about what career-development opportunities set you apart from other similar companies in your industry.
• Support your developers’ personal projects in your content to show how important it is to facilitate growth beyond your company’s product.
• Publish content that highlights your developers’ contributions to your products.
• Give developers a sneak peek at your internal event calendar to highlight various activities you create for your internal development team.
• Talk about your remote-work options if you provide that benefit to your developers.
• Publish case studies of developers within your company that have started and grown their career there.
• Make benefits and salary transparent in your job descriptions.
• Write about your mission, values, and vision.

Some Key Points to Remember

If you’ve stuck with me so far, here are some key points to remember when designing any developer-focused content strategy:

1. Developers value useful content that considers their level of expertise.
2. They crave technical knowledge that supports their subject-matter expertise.
3. You will need to write different content for different types of developers.
4. Listen to the developers on your team when designing content.
5. Publish content on platforms developers spend lots of time on.
6. Optimize your content in creative ways to reach a wider developer audience.
7. Write to hire if you want to build a stronger development team.

Don’t have time to launch an entire strategy to communicate with developers? That’s why I’m here. I’m a skilled editor, writer, and researcher who’s familiar with multiple programming languages, APIs, and frameworks. I love writing technical content for both developers and end users. Drop me a line to find out how we can collaborate on your next project!