Written 28 April 2021
This is just to form some sort of record on what I’ve done: I started from basically having effectively no knowledge on how to build a blog, and that’s still the case. I have something up and running, I understand a few basic concepts, but I have a very long way to go and lots still to learn.
Rather naively, when I looked into starting a blog about a year ago I got my self a WordPress account and then thought that was it. I was away. I don’t know when I realised that in fact WordPress is effectively the architecture to build a website, so just creating a couple of pieces and then putting them on WordPress doesn’t actually get you very far!
After umming and aahing about whether to proceed, I eventually investigated and found that in order for people to see what I was writing I was going to need a website. And that meant buying a domain: this I did though Namecheap which was quick, easy and as the name suggests cheap.
Just owning a domain doesn’t get you very far: it has to actually sit somewhere on a server and so be somewhere on the internet that other places on the internet can find. This means that you have to have your domain hosted, and for this I used SiteGround. Again, cheap, reputable and the help was pretty good (just done through an internet chat but it was helpful without having to wait for ages).
Once you have the domain hosted you have to link your WordPress site to it. WordPress is supposed to be the best way for those of us who inhabit the technological foothills to get started but I’ve got to say I’ve found it rather fiddly. I think this is probably as much a function of my own coming to grips with a package that goes beyond Word and Excel, but there you are.
I’ve had a play around with a few themes: I’m currently on Bravada: it’s not perfect but I am still not really accomplished at getting these things to do what I want.
I actually preferred Refur, but I can’t seem to get rid of the awful “Your awesome blog” and “Call to action” things cluttering up the front page.
The key things I’ve had to understand is that pages and posts are fundamentally different. Pages are used to create the structure of the site, posts provide the content. Pages can be linked to posts through using categories, for example so that linked posts can be found under a menu with choices taking you to a page containing only those posts of a certain category.