Most technical blog posts are mediocre in the same way: they show you what to type without explaining why it works. You follow the steps, get the result, and understand nothing you didn’t understand before. Then you hit a slightly different problem and you’re back searching again. The best technical writing — the kind that people bookmark, share, and return to — builds a mental model. It gives you something to reason with, not just a recipe to copy. If you write technical posts, or are thinking about starting, here’s what separates the posts that genuinely help from the ones that fill the quota.

Start With the Problem, Not the Solution

The most common structure in bad technical posts: one paragraph of vague context, then immediately the solution. The reader arrives without understanding what problem is being solved, so they can’t tell if it applies to them, and they can’t tell if they understand the explanation correctly.

Start with the specific, concrete problem. Not “we’ll learn about database indexing” but “your query takes 12 seconds and your users are waiting. Here’s why, and here’s how to fix it.”

The problem statement does three things: it establishes relevance (the reader decides whether they care), it sets up the explanation (so the solution makes sense in context), and it creates a clear success criterion (the reader knows when they’ve understood).

The opening paragraph — the 2–4 sentences before the first section heading — is where this happens. No heading, just the situation and why it matters. Write it last, after you understand what you’re actually explaining.

Explain the Why, Then the How

A tutorial that says “run git rebase -i HEAD~3” gives you the command. A post that explains why you’d want to rewrite history, what rebase is actually doing to commits, and what the interactive editor is letting you control — that gives you something permanent.

For every non-trivial step in a tutorial, ask: does the reader understand why this step is here? If you removed this step, would they know something went wrong?

The test: after reading your post, can the reader make a reasonable decision in a situation slightly different from the one you described? If yes, you explained the why. If they can only copy and paste your exact example, you didn’t.

# Don't just show this:
cursor.execute("SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = %s", (user_id,))

# Explain why the %s placeholder exists:
# The database driver substitutes the value safely, preventing SQL injection.
# Never use f-strings or .format() to interpolate values into SQL queries —
# that hands the raw string to the database, which will execute anything in it.
cursor.execute(f"SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = {user_id}")  # NEVER do this

Showing the wrong approach alongside the right one, and explaining why the wrong one is wrong, creates far deeper understanding than just showing the correct pattern.

Make Your Code Examples Self-Contained and Runnable

Nothing breaks trust in a technical post faster than code that doesn’t work when you copy it. This means:

  • Complete imports. Don’t show a snippet that requires import asyncio at the top without including it.
  • No placeholder logic. No # do something here or pass in the middle of a function the reader is supposed to understand.
  • Realistic data. user_id = 42 is better than user_id = <your id here>. The post shouldn’t make the reader fill in blanks.
  • Show output. For bash examples, show what the terminal actually prints. For functions with return values, show what they return. This lets readers verify their own run against a known-good result.
$ git log --oneline -5
3a9f2e1 fix(auth): handle null session on logout
b7c4d83 feat(api): add pagination to /users endpoint
2e1f0a4 refactor: extract rate limiter to middleware
9c3b7d2 fix(db): correct index on orders table
1a8e6c5 docs: update deployment guide for v3

The output isn’t decoration — it’s the contract that tells the reader what “working” looks like.

Teach One Thing Per Post

The urge to be comprehensive kills clarity. A post that tries to cover “Docker networking, volumes, and multi-stage builds” teaches none of them well. A post that covers only “why containers can’t reach each other by default, and how to fix it with a user-defined bridge network” teaches one thing deeply and is actually useful.

A tightly scoped post is also easier to write, easier to title, easier to find via search, and more shareable — someone links to exactly the answer they need rather than “this long post that covers it somewhere.”

Before you write, finish this sentence: “After reading this post, the reader will be able to _____.” If you can’t complete it with one specific thing, your scope is too broad.

Structure That Works

A structure that works well for most technical posts:

  1. Opening paragraph (no heading) — the problem and why it matters. 2–4 sentences.
  2. Background / how it works — the conceptual explanation that makes the rest intelligible. Skip this and readers cargo-cult your examples.
  3. The practical part — the commands, code, or steps. This is where the examples live.
  4. The non-obvious parts — gotchas, edge cases, common mistakes, when this approach doesn’t apply.
  5. Conclusion — 2–4 sentences summarizing the key takeaway, not a recap of every heading.

The “non-obvious parts” section is what separates a good post from a decent one. Anyone can show the happy path. The post that also explains “this breaks when X” or “don’t do Y even though it looks equivalent” is the one that gets bookmarked.

Write for the Reader Who Hit a Problem, Not the Reader Who Read a Textbook

Technical readers are usually arriving with a specific problem. They’re not reading for enrichment — they’re debugging something, trying to understand why something failed, or deciding whether to use a tool. Write for that person.

This means: front-load the answer when possible. If someone searches “postgres query is slow,” your second paragraph shouldn’t still be building background. Put the actionable insight early, then provide the explanation for those who want it.

It also means: use concrete, specific examples. “Large tables” is vague. “A table with 50 million rows” is specific and makes the reader’s brain compute whether their situation is similar.

On Length

Write as long as the topic requires, and not one sentence longer. A 600-word post that covers one thing well is better than a 2000-word post that’s 40% padding. Padding in technical writing takes the form of:

  • Lengthy setup before getting to the point
  • Restating what you just said in slightly different words
  • “In this section we’ll cover…” preambles
  • Conclusions that recap every heading instead of synthesizing

If you find yourself writing a section heading followed by one paragraph, that section probably doesn’t need its own heading. The heading creates the appearance of structure without adding any.

Conclusion

The technical posts worth reading share a common trait: they treat the reader as intelligent enough to handle the real explanation. They explain why, not just how. They show the wrong approaches alongside the right ones. They scope tightly enough to actually finish the job. Write the post you wish had existed when you were stuck on the problem — specific, honest about the gotchas, and ending when the explanation is complete.