Blogs or Blogging

Knikki

Knikki

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Nick (yes there is more than one of us)
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I am thinking of putting a Blog together, a project over the winter months.

Has anyone any experience to creating one of these?

I know there there is Wix, Squarespace and Wordpress. I know that Wordpress is more work involved to learn how to put together something, also I believe that if you get and all in one package with Squarespace then the 2nd year the domain name goes up in price.

So what do people do?

Do you get an all in one platform?
Get a Domain separately and the host your site to that (if so how easy is it to do)?
Are all 3 much a muchness once you have created something?
Do templates make life "that much easier"?

I am not interested in a Web Page or E-Commerce just the Blog part of it.

Cheers
 
It really depends on what you want, how much you want to spend, how much customisation you want, and how much maintenance you want to do.

wordpress.com and blogger.com are both great free options for just doing a blog. Not much customisation, but I'm not sure if you can direct your own domain name to them (other than via forwarding) Free though! Also, updates are taken care of for you, so all you need to do is worry about content.

Squarespace has selling stuff built in. This makes it a little more expensive (in my experience). When I was building my website, it was too expensive for me, and because I wasn't selling anything, the benefits were less. No need to worry about updates, and plenty of customisation options. I ran a Squarespace site for 2 years to underpin the business venture I tried and it was great. Blog options weren't brilliant for me, but I think Squarespace is designed to sell things, rather than as a blogging platform. Also, updates are taken care of for you.

Wix I've used for many years for my vanity site. More customisable than Squarespace, but less flexible with different resolution screens. E Commerce is an add-on though, so I didn't buy that and thus it was cheaper. They take care of the updates, and they do have a limited free option (no custom domain names, Wix branding).

Wordpress in the "upload it to your own hosting and manage it yourself" format is the best platform for blogging. Massively customisable with plugins and you can get cheap hosting, so not terrible cost wise. The only downside is that you need to keep it (and any plugins you use) updated. Because plugins are open source, if the authors stop updating them, and they becomes incompatible with the latest version of wordpress, the plugins may stop working. I've run several Wordpress sites over the years, and quickly done my best to extricate myself from them. This is a personal thing... I quickly forget how to do stuff when I don't use it. I learned a lot about Wordpress when I installed it, but 6 months later, when a plugin stopped working, I had to go back to Google to remember how to do all the things. Then had to remove the plugin, find another one that did the same job, then repeat the whole thing 6 months or a year down the line. I also forgot to keep on top of the security updates one year, and ended up getting the site hacked and having to rebuild it. I think Wordpress is fine for people who are technically savvy, and like to tinker with websites. I just wanted to do content, so it wasn't for me at all.

The more you customise a site with templates and plugins, the more there is to keep track of and update. This applies to all offerings really. If you want to keep things simple, then I'd recommend wordpress.com or blogger.com. If you don't mind paying I'd go for Wix (link to my Wix site in my sig)

Like these ones :)
@Kevin Allan : https://kevinthephotographer.wordpress.com/
@FishyFish : https://steelcitysnapper.wordpress.com/
@Ed Sutton : https://lumbypics.blogspot.com/

(Apologies to those tagged if they're offended, but I like their simplicity and the links are in their sigs)
 
I've made a fair few blogs using Blogger and there are ways to fiddle with templates and such to get a different look for all of them. It's an easy platform to use for a newbie.

I agree with @Harlequin565 about plug ins and other free software. I had a great gallery site creator that was linked to Lightroom and hosted on my business web space with it's own domain name. But it stopped being updated and when something changed at the hosting end it stopped working. Annoyingly it had been provided by the hosting firm in the first place!

I might start updating my Lumbypics blog again. I stopped when I thought I was repeating myself.
 
I would try google's blogger for free - most people soon tire of it with limited number of views.
You might look at putting a page on facebook.
The free options might unceremoniously dumping old stuff or just do away with what you were happy with altogether so having your own paid space and domain is the rolls royce option - provided you keep paying.
 
I currently use the free option with Wordpress to host kevinthephotographer. In terms of ease of use, it is extremely easy to use. The only downside that I don't like is the adverts, most of which are for trash. I did for a while upgrade to the "Basic" plan that costs £36 per year and removes adverts, but when it came up for renewal I decided I'd rather buy a few rolls of film for that money.
 
Kevin Allan said:
The only downside that I don't like is the adverts
Click to expand...
That's interesting... I'm not sure how many people use ad-blockers (I do) and there are no ads I can see!
 
Kevin Allan said:
What ad-blocker do you use - I'll give it a go. On Flickr, when I upload I get a screen informing me that ads are good for me, but I never actually see any ads.
Click to expand...
I use the Brave browser which has it built in. No ads on YouTube either!
Edit to add - No ads on Flickr either, but then I never thought they were too intrusive there.
 
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Back to blogs - I would always recommend getting your domain name separately, or at least check that the domain will be owned by you and that you will be able to move it away from the service you have bought it from. Likewise, check how easy it is to get your content from your chosen platform to another. Personally, I self-host Wordpress, but hosted Wordpress would be my suggestion for anyone starting out.
 
I use(d) Wordpress on their free plan, just for blogging with the occasional image, rather than a web site. The upgrade a few years ago made it slightly harder to use, but it's still OK (although I've not added an entry since just pre-pandemic). I use a Wordpress-based domain name for maximum cheapness, and AFAIK they do all the tech stuff.
 
I've been using blogspot/blogger since 2003 although it isn't great these days, especially since the last Google update. I've known a few who went over to wordpress and then return to blogger - WP can be pretty ugly and awkward to use (our village uses it).
 
Dear all thank you for your responses.

Think I sm going to have to do a little more research.

I have in the past used Blogger, some 10 or more years ago, so it is not unfamiliar to me, but even then I found it a little too restrictive which is why I was asking about other sites.

However just looking through some bit n bobs I have found a log on for Wordpress, must have created it a couple years ago, so I will go explore that. For the moment anyway :)
 
I've been using blogspot for years, free and works fine for what I do... rants and photos and all sorts of stuff.
 
I use the free version of Wordpress and have now been posting to my blog daily for over four and a half years (and loads of posts from before then too). I link to photos on my Flickr account (this does give me some mild concerns about what will happen to my blog if Flickr ever folds though). It's easy to use and there are a heap of different templates to choose from. The fact that it's free means you can give it a go without any worries about financial outlay should you decide it's not the right fit.

On the side note about ad-blockers, I use UBlock Origin on Firefox, which does a good job of it.
 
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