How to generate traffic for blog posts?

Medium is a double-edged sword. On the one-hand, they do a pretty good job with SEO good practices, it's a delightful reading experience and they will funnel some traffic to you in the beginning simply by being on their platform.

I hosted my first blog on Medium and saw some decent traffic and users commenting/clapping in the beginning. However, since adding their paywall, traffic has decreased. Further, I wasn't able to customize it as much as I would like, or get good analytics out of it. I have since created my own simple blog engine and starting blogging from there.

From a "GENERATING TRAFFIC" perspective. This just takes time and consistency. There are no real shortcuts I've been able to figure out. I would definitely avoid common topics, especially as a new blog with no existing SEO value. These categories will be hard to compete with, given how much content is already out there.

Focus on high quality content. I use an app called Ink (https://inkforall.com/) to write my content. They make good suggestions in real-time and rate your article based on how you want Google to rank you (what phrases etc...). Best of all, the product is free and can be downloaded as a desktop app (Mac and Windows).

Focus on consistency and quality. Go deep on your articles (800-1200 words) Focus on updating your existing posts based on new ideas and learnings. If you are writing content of value, others will eventually start linking to you, google will take notice and eventually you'll start gaining traction. Most writers will quit well before they hit that critical inflection point. The returns will compound, but you just have to be patient. Good luck!

Checks notes first of all, if you're serious about SEO, get off Medium. It's a locked garden, which uses the value you generate for its own growth.

Besides that, growing blogs is usually something which happens over years. It's not you who decides whether or not you deserve to be in the top 10, but rather your readers. If you already have a following on social media it's easier to direct traffic to your own blog, but it's not a requirement. If you happen to write about problems not unique to you, but not fairly often covered otherwise you can grow slowly but steadily.

I have written several technical articles about problems I had to solve but could not find any information about. I have several niche articles ranking no. 1 in google for a set of related keywords.

Also, I started to write for myself, and it happens that others are quite interested in what I have to say. Nonetheless sometimes it takes over a year for an article to get up to top. You'd have to be willing to play the long game.