There’s a lot that one can learn about blogging, and one of the things I like about it is that there’s always more to learn. But do you actually need to fuss over learning the technical side of blogging? And by technical side of it, I mean anything that goes beyond your basic writing, publishing, reading, and commenting. The short answer is no, absolutely not, but let’s chat about it.
I’m of the opinion that a lot of the technical stuff can make it easier for other people to find your blog, but it doesn’t necessarily make your blog any better. Things like categories, tags, and search engine optimization (SEO) fall into this category.
Sometimes learning things can help to make your life easier. I know quite a few people hate the block editor, but if there are things that you reuse across posts (like the bit at the bottom of this post about my Blogging Toolbox page), reusable blocks are a wonderful thing. If you’re on the free WP plan, learning how to resize and compress images can help you stay within your media storage limits.
When it comes to figuring out all you can to customize your theme, I think other people’s level of caring about the finer details of what your site looks like is 25% or less of your own level of caring. A lot of people are reading it in the WP Reader anyway, so they don’t have a clue what your actual site looks like.
Then there are all the shoulds from website gurus, like how you should write your titles, what your formatting should be like, what your post URLs should be like, etc., etc. Some of that advice might be worth taking if you’re trying to monetize, but as a regular personal blogger, it’s all totally optional. Are your posts easily readable? If yes, that’s all that really matters.
I like learning about the nuts and bolts of blogging because a) I’m a geek, and b) I have a lot of time on my hands. But if you have zero interest in any nuts or bolts, that is completely okay.
Do you have any interest in, or ever feel like you should know more about, blogging’s nuts and bolts?
The blogging toolbox series has tips to support you in your blogging journey. It includes these posts:
I try not to care too much, but I do try to tag and title well, just so that if someone is searching for relatable content, or a specific topic maybe they’ll have an easier time finding it. But other than that, I find it distracting from my thoughts, and sometimes, I really just want to write for the sake of writing.
I think that’s the best place for the focus to be.
I’m interested in tech stuff that can make my blogging experience easier, but I no longer care about attracting random readers. They ones outside my blogging community generally don’t become regulars nor do they buy my books…
I like it when I attract new community members, but those are few and far between amidst all the randos.
In the first 6 years of first blogging I was interested. I slowly lost the interest after that.
I think with more time spent blogging, it becomes easier to put things into perspective and see what’s important and what’s not.
Yes, I think you are right there Ashley. 🙂
🙂 I love this topic of yours, Ashley.
Having knowledge about the technical side of blogging has its advantages. For example, if you are a personal blogger who utilizes the self-hosted version of WordPress, you will need to know which security plugin will help to protect your site from malware (We on WordPress.com do not have to worry about those things because the Happiness Engineers handle those sorts of things for us; therefore, it is a non-issue).
Having knowledge pertaining to SEO can work in the favour of both the personal and the professional blogger. SEO helps your blog to be visible on search engines.
Also, the right usage of categories and tags helps in making the feed to our blog visible on the WordPress Reader.
When I was on Blogger (which is also known as Blogspot or Google Blogger), I learned how to customize my theme via HTML and CSS codes.
Here on WordPress, we can only customize our theme via HTML or CSS codes if we are one of WordPress’s premium customers (Someone who is paying them a fee for a domain). So, this type of knowledge would be useless in the hands of a person with the Free plan on WordPress.
I have learned the importance of formatting years ago and seeing to it that posts are easily readable is a must.
All very good points! And I agree, readability is key.
I initially found CSS intimidating, but once I actually started using it, it was easier than I’d expected, and it’s definitely helped me get my blog looking the way I want it to.
I am a former geek myself (long time ago😊). So the backend of blogging is of great interest. I love your shares on this topic. Thank you Ashley Leia.
Thank you! Power to the geeks! 😊
Yay! 👍
I know a teensy bit about the ‘behind the scenes’ stuff. The thing that irks me most is how complicated ‘they’ (WP) make what ought to be simple things to do. Putting more time into developing lay man friendly tools would be amazing. You have a valid point about the block editor style. If you reuse something over and over, why not have it set up to copy and paste? Their worst point (IMO) is how complicated they make editing images (Widgets or the ones someone might insert into the post). And for gawd’s sake why have that ridiculous little pop-up box that asks one to choose a block, even when the block has been chosen. Get that crap off the page IMO. It’s confusing to the newbie, who may think they’ve messed up and need to choose and re-choose ad infinitum a block. Simpler is better to me.
To me it seems like WordPress has tried to make doing fancy things easier, but in doing so, they’ve also made easy things take more steps.
I’m not Bob Villa – I don’t care a whit about nuts and bolts 🤷🏻♀️ 😁
Perfect!
I have never done SEO. I use some tags, but I am not super convinced that it does much. The only thing I have found to work is comment on blogs you enjoyed reading. Those will sometimes result in new regular readers. I’m still not super sure what I’m aiming for with my blog anyway. My goal was always to simply churn out words every day, so that I would be a word machine whenever I would need it in my job (which is often, but not daily and not even always weekly).
I do like learning and nerding out on that stuff, but I don’t have the luxury of time. Too many cool things eat away at my limited hours.
I’m impressed that with work, munchkins, and snakes vying for your time, you have any time left for blogging!
I am too chaotic inside to worry about that which frustrates me so I keep it simple 🙃 I’ve learned all the aspects of the personal plan I can so that’s good enough for my humble user experience 💚
Simple is good! 💕
I think it’s important to get down the technical stuff. It does take some experimentation especially with tags. For example I’ve tried to only use 10 tags because anymore can be excessive. You also don’t want your title too long or Google and other search platforms will ding you. Things like that you learn along the way.
Yeah, doing well in Google search definitely takes some technical know-how.
It’s mildly interesting, yet at the same time incredibly frustrating. All the optimizations that we can do for blogging results in more headaches and not focusing on writing. The results too can be so slow and imperceptible that you might not even be sure that the effort you’re putting in is working. That’s a lot of wasted time and energy for not knowing.
Of course, as you said, it’s what you want to get out of it. If you’re looking to make a living doing this, prepare for annoyances on top of frustrations on top of more anxiety. If you’re only looking to express yourself and share your thoughts with may be only a few people, then your peace of mind will be much more intact.
I would certainly much rather keep optimization as a side interest and keep the primary focus on the writing and connecting side of blogging.
I don’t even track which keywords are doing the best. Probably should, but I haven’t made the time.
I’m sure there are many better ways of spending time and energy.
Yeah. I just want to write. It’s probably not a good excuse to not be more thorough tho. Have a nice day.
Same to you!
I have often wondered how people self-host, it sounds so pricey and daunting.
These look really helpful, thanks for sharing. Saving for later!
Self-hosting can be quite cheap, but the less you pay, the less the host takes care of for you and the more you’re on your own.
I have sort of found a comfortable level of using the blocks to create posts. Some of the more behind the scenes things – plug-ins, jet packs etc – seem beyond me.
Nothing wrong with that.
I was an early adopter to the blocks and I like them just fine. I liked the point you make about how much the appearance really matters. 25% is an important number to keep in mind when I obsess.
I don’t code, so I don’t do any of the really deep things, but I took the WP SEO course recently and it has improved things. I agree with you: some of the technical bits and pieces can help.
To really be able to get things working a certain way you need to be able to use CSS, which requires the Premium plan or higher. It means I can do more, but I can also end up diving deep down rabbit holes trying to figure out how to do the things I want to do. Every time I do that, I’m reminded how bad a use of my time it is, but that doesn’t seem to stop me from doing it.