You’re so tired of having to deal with Wordpress plugin and theme updates, plugin compatibility, security, page load speed, the list goes on and on.
The fact of the matter is that in 2018 there are simpler better solutions when it comes to blogging. In fact, you don’t even need a database in order to have a blog these days. This comes with a lot of advantages, performance and security being among the top.
When I decided I was going to start blogging again and created Varpop.com, a blog about coding, I knew I didn’t want to use Wordpress. I’d been learning JavaScript and Node over the past year and so I knew I wanted to keep it in this realm.
That’s when I decided to go with Ghost. Ghost is a great, simple solution that I’ve been super happy with. It makes publishing super easy and quite pleasurable.
The downside is that Ghost Pro is kind of costly at $29/mo. It comes with a dedicated IP though so it’s really good hosting. It’s hard to feel bad though when the money goes to supporting the Ghost open source project.
Another downside is that Ghost uses a database which means that, while it’s faster than Wordpress, it’s not the fastest blog solution available.
When I started developing my business and marketing blog at SteveLongoria.net (the very blog you happen to be reading) I thought I’d give Hexo Static Site Generator a shot for my blog.
Right off the bat, if you’re not comfortable with the command line/terminal on your computer, you’re probably not going to want to use Hexo. It requires some programming knowledge, especially compared to Ghost which is actually easier than Wordpress to get started.
With that said, Hexo comes with some remarkable benefits:
There’s no database so your blog is completely static. This of course means you can easily expect page load speeds under a second. This of course is important considering most people expect your site to load under 3 seconds and page speed is a huge factor in terms of SEO.
You can publish your Hexo blog for free using Netlify, including custom domain name.
This is great especially for those who are on a budget. You don’t have to upgrade your servers until your website is already generating traction.
To get started ASAP with Hexo and Netlify, follow this free guide here and also checkout this free video tutorial series.