My Best Post Happened after a Friend Forced Me to Live

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r issues associated with the electric vehicle supply chain.</p><div id="dcb2" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/electric-vehicles-have-a-water-problem-6fbf2c21f87f"> <div> <div> <h2>Electric Vehicles Have a Water Problem</h2> <div><h3>It isn’t going away anytime soon</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*HeaF-vrTq5U496LxRGHZ5Q.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><p id="2910">I’ve been blogging semi-regularly for a couple years now, and I’ve never had a post make more than a few dollars a week. This is fine with me as I’m mostly writing as a hobby. Of course, I would love to slowly build up a side income if possible, but I also don’t want to burn out or lose my love of writing.</p><p id="ca67">My brother-in-law and I have since analyzed this post and what we think made it successful. Here are the three things we think made it special.</p><h2 id="ae67">1. It started with a story based off of a real lived experience.</h2><p id="09bd">In many of my previous posts, I’ve skipped any thought about the introduction and simply jumped right into the topic at hand. The story in the successful post actually helped create context and develop understanding for the scope of the issue. Also, you could tell from the story, that I wasn’t just making content for the sake of making content. And there are probably also elements of relating to the post for those people that mi

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ght be local or live in the region.</p><h2 id="efab">2. It connected multiple issues.</h2><p id="30bd">Most of my posts to date have stayed in one lane. I’ve written a lot about electric vehicles and design and sustainability, but very few have connected multiple topics the way this post did. In the post, I start with a general idea of water scarcity and then connect it to mining, electric vehicle batteries, and broader sustainability issues. This is easy to do in the context of sustainability and is something I will try to do more of moving forward.</p><h2 id="027f">3. The title, image, and story all connected succinctly.</h2><p id="b0ba">For this post, my title and subtitle were both relatively short compared to titles and subtitles I’ve used before. I’ve heard you want to keep the total number of characters in your title and subtitle to less than 100. Usually, I use most of those 100 characters, but in this post my title and subtitle were short and direct. The image I used was perfectly relevant and geographically on point for the post as I reference that region and the body of water that feeds the area where that picture was taken. The story and main content of the post spoke directly to the title and image.</p><h2 id="6a39">Conclusion</h2><p id="0823">Based on this one successful post, I think I know how to make future posts better. It is only one data point, but I think it makes sense that this post was successful for these reasons. Moving forward, I am going to write more about lived experiences, connect multiple issues, and focus on capturing the essence of the post succinctly in the title, subtitle, and image.</p></article></body>

The result of floating down the Colorado River

Last month, I was slowly dozing off midday on a weekend when I got a text from my brother-in-law.

“Hey, do you want to go floating on the Colorado River?”

I thought for a moment, and then decided to say no to the adventure, because I was tired and I usually associate such excursions with sunburn. My brother-in-law insisted though. Multiple times.

Floating on the Colorado River is an experience unique to Colorado, and more specifically Grand Junction. After a few back and forth messages, I agreed to go.

When I arrived at the place where we were dropping in, my brother-in-law had already set everything up and was ready to go. I sat down in the comfortable tube, and he handed me two beers. We pushed off, and then started talking.

We eventually floated past where the Gunnison River runs into the Colorado River, and naturally started talking about water rights in Colorado and other issues related to water scarcity. This conversation is what lead me to write a post about water issues associated with the electric vehicle supply chain.

I’ve been blogging semi-regularly for a couple years now, and I’ve never had a post make more than a few dollars a week. This is fine with me as I’m mostly writing as a hobby. Of course, I would love to slowly build up a side income if possible, but I also don’t want to burn out or lose my love of writing.

My brother-in-law and I have since analyzed this post and what we think made it successful. Here are the three things we think made it special.

1. It started with a story based off of a real lived experience.

In many of my previous posts, I’ve skipped any thought about the introduction and simply jumped right into the topic at hand. The story in the successful post actually helped create context and develop understanding for the scope of the issue. Also, you could tell from the story, that I wasn’t just making content for the sake of making content. And there are probably also elements of relating to the post for those people that might be local or live in the region.

2. It connected multiple issues.

Most of my posts to date have stayed in one lane. I’ve written a lot about electric vehicles and design and sustainability, but very few have connected multiple topics the way this post did. In the post, I start with a general idea of water scarcity and then connect it to mining, electric vehicle batteries, and broader sustainability issues. This is easy to do in the context of sustainability and is something I will try to do more of moving forward.

3. The title, image, and story all connected succinctly.

For this post, my title and subtitle were both relatively short compared to titles and subtitles I’ve used before. I’ve heard you want to keep the total number of characters in your title and subtitle to less than 100. Usually, I use most of those 100 characters, but in this post my title and subtitle were short and direct. The image I used was perfectly relevant and geographically on point for the post as I reference that region and the body of water that feeds the area where that picture was taken. The story and main content of the post spoke directly to the title and image.

Conclusion

Based on this one successful post, I think I know how to make future posts better. It is only one data point, but I think it makes sense that this post was successful for these reasons. Moving forward, I am going to write more about lived experiences, connect multiple issues, and focus on capturing the essence of the post succinctly in the title, subtitle, and image.