Paul Hunt

Looking on the internet, there does appear to be a new static site generator created for people who are not technologically minded called Publii. Publii is a static site generator but one that uses a graphical interface, so you don't need to know any markdown unlike other SSG's. Link to Publii: https://getpublii.com/

What is easy to do is not always what is most efficient, as just adding plugins is easy but would probably not be as efficient as directly add it to the output stage. Also, you would be very surprised to hear that often, people with more skills in running servers are the same people who would do pretty much anything to save a few pounds per month.

Ash has given a link to the Hugo website, but here is a link to how to implement schema markup in your Hugo blog: https://code.luasoftware.com/tutorials/hugo/schema-markup-for-hugo/ Yes, Hugo can be hard to extend but once you implement those features, your website with most likely run a lot faster and will be more likely to stay online if someone shares your post and it gets popular on Reddit (Reddit hug of death).

As most people starting blogs are noobs, having them be responsible for keeping a piece of software and a bunch of plugins up to date is a recipe for disaster. With Hugo, you don't have to keep anything up to date and that is what is better for most people. And what in SEO can you not do with Hugo?

When I say panda, I meaning pandering to your audience. pandering is where you only write content that your audience will enjoy ready and avoiding any subjects that challenge any of their ideals. This is what a lot of news organisations do as most people hate having their opinions challenged and will stop reading from websites that do so.

Most people are being wasteful by using a WordPress install for their personal blogs, this is unnecessary. Most people would be far better off by using a static solution like Hugo or Jekyll and just using an externally hosted comment websites like Disqus as with a WordPress install you have a lot of maintenance from security updates to keep your database optimized which would save you a lot of time and gets rid of the risk of having your website closed by your host because someone found a security hole in it.

If you want to increase traffic to your blog than there are positive and negative ways to doing so, including; Positive ways: 1. You can write more insightful blog posts that people will want to share. 2. You can get involved in some communities related to your niche who will want to share posts from users who share with the community. 3. You could do something really original that no one else has done before which will keep you near to the top of Google for related search terms. Negative ways: 1. You can trick people into clicking on your articles by using clickbait titles. 2. You could spam subreddit's related to your posts. 3. you could panda to what your audience wants.

I have been part of the webmaster community for the last 6 years and over that time, one of the biggest arguments is whether or not it is better to go with a really long dot com or a really short domain with another TLD such as; .cc, .ch, .xyz. etc... My thoughts on this subject are that it depends on just how brandable you want your domain to be. If you want to have a domain that contains one or two words that you want people to associate with you, then getting a long dot com is probably your best bet. If you want a domain that can easily be used for sub-domains, then going for a short domain with another less well known TLD would be your best option. This is more for people who like to start a lot of short projects whose costs would add up quickly if they brought a dedicated domain for them.

There is only one piece of forum software that will meet all of your requirements. Ok, it is not a piece of forum software but it is a Wordpress plugin called BBPress. The only problem with BBPress is that it has nowhere near the features of dedicated software such as; MyBB, but with BBPress you are able to fully integrate a Wordpress blog with your forum rather than having to multiple pieces of software and having to have your users use multiple login details. There used to be a blog plugin for MyBB, but it has not been updated in years, which is the only reason why I use the Wordpress plus BBpress combination.

For most people, starting a web host is really bad for a few reasons, such as; 1. The general public are not tech savvy at all, leading to you having to answer questions that are super basic, like how to install WordPress. 2. A lot of spammers will likely sign up for your service, leading to you spending a lot of your day tracking down which user has been abusing your service. 3. In order to compete with other web hosts, you have two choices; you can advertise your service as "noob" friendly and have to compete with the likes of Hostgator or you have to undercut everyone and likely have to live on below minimum wage.

In order to find out if free or paid hosting is right for your website, you will need to think the requirements of your website including; Are you hosting a static or dynamic website? If you just want to just host some HTML files, then most free web hosts should be fine but as a lot of free web hosts limit the amount of CPU and RAM you are allowed to use, this could be a massive issue for larger WordPress blogs. How much downtime are you willing to suffer? Paid web hosts have an incentive to keep your website online but as with a free web host, as you are not paying them, the host has no reason to get up in the middle of the night to fix server issues. Are you willing to have bad neighbours? Free web hosts attract spam as the spammers love not having to pay for every time they are kicked off a service. Those bad neighbours could lead to Google giving you a lower rank in the search results.