Keep Your API Area Active So Developers Feel Like Someone Is Home

by Kin Lane on 03/28/2012

The largest portion of my time as API Evangelist is spent keeping the area around an API active. Your developer’s first impression when they enter your API area is critical, and if they see signs that your API is inactive, they might start looking elsewhere.

The most common ways I keep an API active is by:

Blogging
Tweeting w/ Twitter Feature in API Area
Forum Posts
How-Tos
Starter Projects
Developer Showcase

By actively posting content in these areas w/ timestamps showing when they were posted, I keep the API area looking like someone is home.

This active content doesn’t just help developers visiting the site feel like the API is active, it also helps your SEO. Search engines and social networks will regularly index your content, providing fresh traffic, and potentially new developers to your API.

Just a couple hours a day, generating fresh content and engaging with your developers goes a long ways in attracting new developers and making them feel confident that your API is a priority, and they should integrate it into their applications.