I'm building a new home outside of DEV. Here's why (and where to find me!)
Tags: showdev, webdev
Published: 2021-03-31 20:50:07

---
title: I'm building a new home outside of DEV. Here's why (and where to find me!)
published: true
description: I've grown my audience on DEV for over 2+ years. Now, I'm ready to start my journey of self-hosting, newsletters, interactive posts, and more!
tags: showdev, webdev
cover_image: https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/w8j7q13iopg6cf0qie63.png
---

Greetings fellow members of the DEV community! If you're one of my followers or someone new looking for excitement, thanks for clicking 👋

Before getting to the good stuff, I want to sing some praises for the DEV platform. I've been a blogger over here since early 2019, and I can't _believe_ how much this community has helped me grow.  If it wasn't for their willingness to promote and [retweet new authors](https://dev.to/nickraphael/how-to-use-suggest-a-tweet-effectively-1ncf), I probably would've drowned in the sea of Medium and Hacker News algorithms long ago. This is why I believe that **DEV is _the_ reason I'm so passionate about blogging today.**

That said, I think I've reached a point where I need **start hosting all this content** on my own domain as well. I've advertised [my personal site](https://bholmes.dev) a few times on here, and I'm super excited to be bringing a blog component into the mix 🥳

## Why self-host at all?

Fair question! I've found quite an audience here on the DEV platform, and my SEO [certainly hasn't suffered](https://twitter.com/BHolmesDev/status/1377028248253706240?s=20) by hosting on here.

But there's a few consequences to _not_ owning all your web content I want to address:

1. **SEO for your personal site suffers.** It's pretty simple really: the more popular webpages there are attached to a domain, the more popular that domain becomes. But as it stands... my personal site has no association with my popular posts! So no matter how many views I may get, searching "Ben Holmes" still comes up a baseball player and a saxophone player long before https://bholmes.dev 😬 (_and yes, I know Ben Holmes is as basic a name as they come. So I have quite the uphill battle_)
2. **Having a "home base" helps with cross-posting.** By having a base domain to share from, you can cross-post to any number of extra platforms for free using [canonical URLs](https://dev.to/michaelburrows/comment/125j0). These let you claim all that SEO goodness for your own domain while people read on the platform of their choice.
3. **If the platform dies out, so do you.** Don't get me wrong here; I'm rooting for DEV's future as a platform more than anyone! But if you've seen [what's happened to the Medium developer community](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/t/we-just-launched-developer-news-heres-how-you-can-use-it/279929) over the years, you know that the brightest stars can die out for _any_ reason. So it's good to have somewhere that you own so you can quickly pivot between platforms at a moment's notice.

This advice isn't unique to me by the way! I'd say these are compelling reasons for anyone to start self-hosting.

## So wait... are you leaving DEV?

Absolutely not! In fact, I'll probably keep posting content that's _specific_ to the DEV platform.

Discussion threads using the **#discuss** tag are a big one for me. I won't have a comments section on my personal site (for now at least), so quickly polling the DEV community for ideas is a huge win I won't be giving up.

I also learn a lot from the comments community members leave on here. I've received multiple requests to edit and clarify certain points further which I wouldn't expect to receive on other platforms. 

Lastly... **I love that unicorn button.** How could I abandon that? 🦄

## So what's to come?

Well I'll tell you one thing: I won't keep writing the same old content on this new home. Expect some new features and experiments going forward:

- **[A newsletter](https://tinyletter.com/bholmesdev) to share out my learnings** across more mediums than a static post. This could be video snippets I record, podcasts / blogs / talks / random projects I find interesting, scrappy notes that aren't _quite_ blog-ready, and more. I also want a outlet to share some music recs, so get ready for some bangers 🎧
- **Exploration of _interactive_ posts.** Though I don't have immediate plans, it would be sweet to join the [MDX bandwagon](https://mdxjs.com/) and start embedding code + components right in the post you're reading. I'm deeply inspired by teachers like [Josh Comeau](https://www.joshwcomeau.com/animation/3d-button/) in this area, and love the flexibility my personal platform could bring.
- **A place for scrappier ideas and drafts.** I experimented with sharing my notes with you directly over on my **[4 Conference Talks](https://bholmes.dev/conference-talks-that-changed-my-perspective-as-a-web-dev)** post, and I'm really encouraged by the warm response! But I have _so_ many more notes to share that don't fit into the "super inspirational" bucket. I'm hoping I can take my personal notebook (using [Foam + VS Code](https://bholmes.dev/giving-up-on-notion-to-build-a-second-brain) by the way) and turn it into a public garden of my learnings you can browse. It's a pretty new idea I've seen creators like [Swyx](https://www.swyx.io/ideas/) pick up; could be worth a shot!

## Call to action: join the newsletter 📫

To my **7137** followers on this platform (I still can't believe I can say that 😨), don't worry! The content will keep rolling your way over here.

But if you're interested in getting the full **Ben Blog Experience (TM)** or just want to support me on this new journey, I'd really appreciate the [newsletter subscription](https://tinyletter.com/bholmesdev).

No, I will _not_ be flooding your inbox with mindless content. I plan to keep updates short, informative, and relatively infrequent (once every 2-3 weeks is my target right now). I'll also be sure that unsubscribe button is within reach should you need it 😁

I've also written a shiny new post [over here](https://bholmes.dev/blog/how-es-modules-have-redefined-web-development/) that you won't want to miss: **how ES Modules have redefined web development.** I'm keeping this post _exclusive_ to my personal site until next Wednesday (when I'll cross-post over here). So to grab this top-secret-early-access preview, go give it a read 👀

[**✨ Sign up for the newsletter ✨**](https://tinyletter.com/bholmesdev)

[**📝 Explore the shiny new blog 📝**](https://bholmes.dev/blog/)

Thanks as always for your readership, and have a great day!