Blogging platform for novice

The $3 pricing is very attractive but during the trial I run into a few snags

  • no preview before posting
  • cross posting to Twitter sucks
  • not possible to automatically cross posted to medium although I can publish that from Ulysses
  • Ulysses cannot directly publish to Write.as, copy and paste markdown does not bring the link and images directly across

May be someone can point out how I can get around some of the issues I mentioned above

Not sure how much price is a consideration but it’s being discussed so…

Years ago I settled on MacHighway to host my websites… around 2005. I’ve had very few issues hosting there in the 17 years since. $2.95/month if you pay for a year. Domain is free the first year I think and then usually $10-$20 per year. I’m currently hosting 16 websites there. Uptime has been nearly 100% and anytime I’ve had an issue it’s been relatively minor and resolved quickly… unrelated to WordPress.

Installing WordPress has almost gone flawlessly for me with just one or two taps and setting username, etc. In my experience getting the initial, functional WordPress site up is just minutes. How complex you choose to make it after that is up to you!

I think the benefit of WordPress is that it can be relatively simple if you don’t fiddle. If you want to fiddle you can. But setting up a blog and setting a few options is easy. The web interface works well on most devices as does the app. They keep the app updated regularly and the WordPress installation on the server let’s you know when an update is available.

That’s a good deal, but it looks like you might be grandfathered into that pricing? They’re asking $7/mo to host more than five sites. Someone hosting one or two could still pay $3/mo.

Yeah, my reply assumed just a single site as I assume that’s the norm or at least applied to this case specifically.

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That’s it right there - if you don’t fiddle. If you stick with a stock theme from Automattic or a widely-used paid theme, and avoid installing tons of complex plugins, then updates and such become far less problematic.

The problems come when you have lots of plugins and they don’t play well with others - especially at update time.

All, I just want to report back.

After viewing all the comments and suggestion. I have decided to build my site using WordPress. You guys are right, it is not that hard, to get the site up and running. It would not be elegant and professionally looking. It is functional at least. While I am doing that to keep making enhancement to the site, I am using micro.blog and medium.com in the mean time. Until the site is acceptable to my own minimum standards at least.

Thanks a lot for the suggestions. I really appreciate it.

One final question (I hope) on this thread. Once I have done more fine tuning to the WordPress site with more plug in , etc. Can I take that to another WordPress site? currently I am hosting that on dreamhost but I am thinking of moving that to another site such as one.com (see this post)

Hope I do not have to restart again if I move to another hosting site

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You can!

You’ll need to export the content from the original site, then import it again to the new site. I’m linking some videos I created for my campus a while back:

Bear in mind that this is for content, not for themes/plugins/etc., so you’ll want to keep track of those and have a list so you know what to install at the new site. You may also need to recreate links to images and the like.

It’s a heck of a lot better than starting over from scratch, though.

There are some hosts that will do migration assistance (Reclaim Hosting is one example); for those that will, there may be a fee. If it’s a large or heavily customized site, that may be worth investigating.

But if the site doesn’t already have tons of content and you’re not using lots of plugins, it’s really not a big deal to just set up your WordPress install at the new host and then import everything.

@fuzzygel In addition to what @acavender wrote … there are migration plugins. This allows you to move your WP setup from one host onto your local computer. Then you can bring in that exported migration into the new host once you’ve installed the same migration plugin. If your hosting will do this for you via migration assistance then that’s great and the easier way to go. (Reclaim Hosting rocks, btw.)

The migration plugin I use is All-in-One Migration. It will work for free up to 512 Mb in size. Larger than that then you’ll need to purchase on of the “unlimited” versions (e.g. migrate to Dropbox or other services).

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For migrations, BackupBuddy is relatively user-friendly. And if you’re on cPanel (which I believe DreamHost uses?), and moving to a new cPanel-based host, your new provider can (whether they will is a different question!) do a straight-up full-account migration and you don’t have to do anything.

excellent, that would be exactly what I need and will do

thanks @webwalrus @Mathew_T_Mitchell @acavender , you guys are really helpful !!

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Ok. How do I go about establishing and using Word Press and using Mars Edit to organize my blog input?

I have Mars Edit in Setapp and I am familiar with it basically (I’d surmise) as I used it several years ago. It was a cinch.

Self-hosted WordPress or WordPress.com?

If it’s WordPress.com, you should be able to set up everything right on their site.

If you’re looking for self-hosted, both BlueHost and SiteGround offer 1-click WordPress installs and decent support.

And on the off chance you’re looking at doing the thing where you spin up a VPS to run your own WordPress site, that’s beyond the scope of a forum answer. :wink:

ok. Thanks. But how do I incorporate Mars Edit into it?
:smiley:

Is it expensive?

Just opened Mars Edit. The app know what to do!

As long as you already own MarsEdit, you just tell it that you want to set up a site. Give it your web address, your WP username/password, and anything else it asks you for.

Once you’ve done that, MarsEdit uses a neat tool called “XML-RPC” to post and get posts from your blog. Basically, MarsEdit loads up a special web address, logs in, and sends your post over.

It’s super-slick. :slight_smile:

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Wonderful, Web! My anxiety about it has totally dissipated! Thank you!

FYI everyone, as mentioned in the other thread. I have decided to set up a wordpress.org hosting with Dreamhost for now. I may migrant to another hosting service depending on cost.

Setting installing the wordpress and plug in not hard at all. I did that all in one morning. It is not pretty but at least functional. I shall keep on doing continuous enhancement

This is my blog site fuzzygel.com . Appreciate your review and feedback

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I have recently gone from paying for hosting to a simple approach of using Google Domains then linking to Google Sites and Blogger. The total cost is less than $20 AUD per year, basically, you just pay for the Domain name.

Both sites offer enough control over the HTML etc to make attractive and functional websites. Google branding is easy to remove.

You can also set up Gmail to receive and send your Domain email.

Sounds like this can be your next blogpost @logic2design

Good idea, I will get onto that

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I would urge you to install the free WordFence security plugin.