How Hashnode Pro helped me write better tech blogs
As a developer and a tech writer, I'm always looking for ways to improve my writing skills and reach more readers. That's why I decided to give Hashnode Pro a try, the premium plan of Hashnode, the blogging platform for developers and people in tech.
Hashnode Pro offers some amazing features that make writing and publishing tech blogs easier and more enjoyable. In this post, I'll share how Hashnode Pro helped me write better tech blogs and why you should give it a try too.
What is Hashnode Pro?
Hashnode Pro is the premium plan of Hashnode, the hassle-free blogging platform for engineers, thought-leaders, and the dev community. It unlocks some exclusive features designed to enhance your writing with the power of AI — from ideation to publishing your best work.
Some of the features that Hashnode Pro offers are:
Focus mode: A distraction-free writing interface with background sounds to boost your focus and productivity.
Pro badge: A special badge that shows your support for Hashnode's development and helps you stand out in the community.
Preview new features early: Be among the first to try new features, share your feedback, and help shape the future of Hashnode.
Remove Hashnode branding: Make your blog your own by removing the Hashnode's branding from footer. Perfect for truly custom designs.
Exclusive Discord channel: Connect with fellow Hashnode supporters in a private channel, and share your thoughts on the platform’s evolution with our team directly.
Priority Support: Ping Hashnode anytime for help with your blog, and they’ll circle back within 12 hours with solutions.
Publish from GitHub: Publish Markdown content straight from your GitHub repository — it only takes a couple of minutes to set up.
Back up drafts to GitHub: Back up articles-in-progress to your GitHub repository, so you're always in control of your content.
Hashnode Pro also offers some amazing AI features that help you write better content faster. They are powered by OpenAI's GPT-3 technology, which is one of the most advanced natural language processing models in the world.
How Hashnode Pro helped me write better tech blogs
One of the main reasons why I love Hashnode Pro is its AI features. They helped me with every stage of my writing process, from brainstorming ideas to polishing my final draft. Here are some examples of how I used them:
Generate blog ideas: Sometimes I struggled with coming up with new topics to write about. That's when I used the "Generate blog ideas" feature, which gave me a list of potential blog titles based on my keywords or domain. For example, if I typed "react", I got suggestions like "How to build a React app with TypeScript and Tailwind CSS", "React Hooks vs Class Components: Which one should you use?", "10 React projects to boost your portfolio", and more. This feature helped me find interesting and relevant topics for my audience.
Write introductions: Writing a catchy introduction was crucial to hook my readers and make them want to read more. That's why I used the "Write introduction" feature, which generated a paragraph based on my blog title and summary. For example, if I typed "How to use React Query to fetch data in React apps", I got an introduction like this:
If you've ever built a React app that fetches data from an API, you know how challenging it can be to manage the loading state, caching, error handling, and data synchronization. That's where React Query comes in handy. React Query is a library that simplifies data fetching in React apps by providing hooks that handle all the complex logic for you. In this post, I'll show you how to use React Query to fetch data in React apps and why it's a game-changer for your development workflow.
This feature helped me write engaging introductions that captured my readers' attention and curiosity.
- Expand sentences: Sometimes I needed to add more details or explanations to my sentences to make them clearer or more informative. That's when I used the "Expand sentence" feature, which generated a longer version of my sentence based on its context. For example, if I typed "React Query uses caching to improve performance", I got an expanded sentence like this:
React Query uses caching to improve performance by storing the data fetched from an API