Where do you blog on?
- Thread starter storiesweaver
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Wordpress, Intellyo, and Medium. Wordpress is really easy to use and perfect to start with. Combined with an own domain name and a cool theme you instantly get a professional look. Intellyo has a demo version for now, but it involves basically everything you need when creating a blog post. I like Medium, because its design is clean, it's easy to use and you can get inspiration while staying on the same site.
My blog is on my website which is a Wordpress site. I have been thinking about doing some blogging on Medium too. I read there a lot and I really love the site.
If you don't care about a writing career, use any platform whatsoever. But a pro writer needs several qualities in our web site. One of those is uptime. The champion here is WordPress.com. Their platform is actually several mirrored servers geographically dispersed; if one server farm goes down, the others take up the slack. This is also true of Blogger, a Google property.
We also need a flexible site, so that we can craft the look and feel we want in our "brand" - the face we present to the world. Again WordPress is the leader, with Blogger trying to catch up.
WordPress lets your site be both a traditional web site with rarely changing content such as a bio, but also a blog with frequently changing content. I made my blog the front page of my site, the page everyone sees first who comes to my site.
One feature I make much use of is the ability to easily embed images and videos on my web page. I post every week or two, a balance between too often and too rarely. Each post is short and usually ends with an image or a video, often a YouTube video showcasing a preview of a movie or TV show.
We also need a flexible site, so that we can craft the look and feel we want in our "brand" - the face we present to the world. Again WordPress is the leader, with Blogger trying to catch up.
WordPress lets your site be both a traditional web site with rarely changing content such as a bio, but also a blog with frequently changing content. I made my blog the front page of my site, the page everyone sees first who comes to my site.
One feature I make much use of is the ability to easily embed images and videos on my web page. I post every week or two, a balance between too often and too rarely. Each post is short and usually ends with an image or a video, often a YouTube video showcasing a preview of a movie or TV show.
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I just looked into how to create a blog, and having to rule out any paid domain site, it left few choices. Then I took at peek at the free ones, and I can't believe how crazy complicated they are to set up. I am not a programmer. In my head, the whole idea has just crashed to a stop. So kudos to those of you that can make it work.
I used to have Wordpress on my private domain, but after 3 hacks and lockdowns while my provider sorted it out, I went for a Wordpress.com one, and really haven't needed any of the bells and whistles a private site gets you. I do have an RSS feed to my website, which acts as another place for folks to get access. ( http://www.williammeikle.com/latest.html if you're interested )
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My sister is a total technophobe and digital klutz, or so she claims. Yet she created a WordPress.com for her personal use and had no big problems. Of course she could also ask advice from her tech savvy friends, but none of us had much time to do handholding. It looks pretty good, and she's slowly building up followers.
I suspect this is more an emotional reaction than intellectual incapacity. A pro writer does NOT have to have a web/blog site. They only have to write a book a publisher wants to sell. The book(s) will sell each other.
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I think I'll agree with that. The more I delve, the more it does looks do-able. I suspect it might be easier for me if I saw this as some sort of revenue building slash social media exposure bla bla bla, but I find that sort of thing extremely distasteful. Once I sifted through all that kind of hyperbole, it looks easier than it did.
The important thing about this whole social-media presence / web site subject is that our participation is supposed to serve our individual needs, not those of some generalized clone of an author. Each of us is unique: unique talents, skills, needs, desires, situations. Our presence/site and how we handle it will be unique. Others can tell us what worked for them, and indeed our experience may look similar on the surface, but underneath no two experiences will be the same.
That's why you'll see a number of different ways described in the several threads in this forum. To connect online with her readers one person uses Goodreads.com, another Amazon's Author Page, another WordPress.com or Blogger.com, another Facebook or Twitter. And most sites, eventually, evolve into a unique "brand" or face we show to the digital world.
I've said it before and will again: IF you swim in the internet, begin SMALL, stay SMALL, take BABY STEPS to improve your online presence. Do only what FEELS comfortable, and take your TIME. It helps to wade into the water early before you really need or feel comfortable with talking to others about your unique literary efforts. And only when and if you are ready to, begin.
That's why you'll see a number of different ways described in the several threads in this forum. To connect online with her readers one person uses Goodreads.com, another Amazon's Author Page, another WordPress.com or Blogger.com, another Facebook or Twitter. And most sites, eventually, evolve into a unique "brand" or face we show to the digital world.
I've said it before and will again: IF you swim in the internet, begin SMALL, stay SMALL, take BABY STEPS to improve your online presence. Do only what FEELS comfortable, and take your TIME. It helps to wade into the water early before you really need or feel comfortable with talking to others about your unique literary efforts. And only when and if you are ready to, begin.
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I started blogging with a hand-coded home.html file in a www directory using a CERN httpd server I compiled myself on a PC running SCO Unix in the early 1990s. Since then, I've blown through a lot of different services. Today I have two blogs, both using Wordpress hosted HostGator. I've used the Atahualpa theme for a decade. They've made it easy to tinker with without taking time to know what you are doing, although I admit to being graphically challenged. My blogs are http://vinemaple.net and http://marvinwaschke.com
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Tried/Used 'em all:
Wordpress in all its incarnations
Blogger
Medium
Tumblr
Instagram
and even my own HTML built CMS back in the day
Wordpress is definitely the leader, either self-hosted, paid-for hosting, or the free platforms are all acceptable. Just know what you're getting into...blogs need regular updates or they grow old and die, and the SEO never sticks unless you're constantly publishing. It will become it's own life, and unless you're able to devote an hour or two daily to keep the fodder stocked for future posts (often referred to as "content in the can"), it can get very distracting from your other chores/duties/and life distractions.
Best of luck in whatever you choose...
Wordpress in all its incarnations
Blogger
Medium
Tumblr
and even my own HTML built CMS back in the day
Wordpress is definitely the leader, either self-hosted, paid-for hosting, or the free platforms are all acceptable. Just know what you're getting into...blogs need regular updates or they grow old and die, and the SEO never sticks unless you're constantly publishing. It will become it's own life, and unless you're able to devote an hour or two daily to keep the fodder stocked for future posts (often referred to as "content in the can"), it can get very distracting from your other chores/duties/and life distractions.
Best of luck in whatever you choose...
Wordpress. Because I find it easy to use and they let you see your blog's statistics. Like how many visitors visited and which countries they are from.
Wordpress.com with my own domain name.
I'm on Medium, but posting there doesn't feel like blogging.
I'm on Medium, but posting there doesn't feel like blogging.
My personal blog is on Typepad (since 2003). Before that I tried Blogspot and also a hand coded site. I also had a blog as part of my Artist site, built using Joomla, but that was on a very early version and got hacked so I took most of it down. I now have a couple of sites using Wordpress. At the moment all three are pretty much moribund but I have hopes of restarting somehow. Social media has changed the context for blogging quite dramatically and I need to rethink what I want to achieve with it. There's a lot on my Typepad blog I'm quite proud to have written and I don't want to lose it either.
The homepage is cute. I tried to learn more about the site. Unfortunately, it won't load search results for me.
The homepage is cute. I tried to learn more about the site. Unfortunately, it won't load search results for me.
I can't remember how exactly I found it either.
I'm not really a tech geek when it comes to web design or web development so I just created my website using the hPage website builder. It's been easy to use for me so far and I have no complaints. I sometimes use the slideshow gallery for photos and I also host my photos there. Blogging is pretty much streamlined. I like it there because the interface makes me laser focused somehow whenever I write a blog post. If anyone is interested to create a website or create a blog with the hPage Website Builder, here is their link:
https://www.hpage.com
https://www.hpage.com