Feeling like there is a host of failed creative projects following me around and writing is the only one that’s stuck with me. I enjoy writing about passions and sharing my experiences. Experience is also telling me which ones to keep going and which ones to drop. I’m going to be doing some planning on what I can do and put effort into given the current situation and my energy levels with balancing work, family and hobbies. Being realistic about what I can get done is going to be something I need to be honest with myself about. Watch this space but I’ll be making decisions on which I’m dropping and which are staying.

Posting from iA Writer to Micro.Blog

I’ve written up on how I have been posting to Micro.Blog from Apple Notes and thanks to some advice from Maique I gave iA Writer a go. This app has always been my go to writing app but for some reason I forgot it was there (I’ll blame my iOS 14 testing...) and this is the first post that I’m testing - fingers crossed.

I’ve used the iA Writer app on my iPad (with cloud sync if you’re curious) to write this post and with the URL above I used the text function within iA.

For the images (fingers crossed again that they worked) I used the same selection and picked the image icon. This then let me select the screenshot and embed it above.

I’m already sold on this workflow so I’m dropping Apple Notes for iA when posting longer form to Micro.Blog. I then used the same share sheet and picked Publish.

This takes you to a new post within the browser, you can then edit to add tags and publish your new post.

As you’ll know if you follow me I have recently gone all in on Micro.Blog both as a blogging and social networking platform. I have though found the app choices not great if you want to write longer form posts like this one. They are great for less than 280 chars but if you want to write longer I struggle to use the Micro.Blog app.

Here’s how I’m posting.

I go into my ‘Writing’ folder in the Apple Notes app on my iPad or iPhone, do my title and start to write up the post.

I cannot embed images into the post and also hyperlinks are like this ljpuk.micro.blog/. Once I’m happy with the post I will use the share sheet icon in the top right of the note and pick the Micro.Blog extension. I can reformat as I need to and add tags then post directly from there to Micro.Blog.

The drawbacks of using this method of Apple Notes is that you cannot add text to the URL i.e. replace the long address with alternative text and it cannot handle images within your post. I still need to test if I can write in Markdown within Apple Notes then use this same method to get around the URL sharing issue but it still won’t fix the image embed that I’d like to be able to use for traditional how to’s etc.

If you have any tips on this please let me know.

I’ve finally got myself together and moved from Wordpress to Micro.Blog 👍

I’ve been with Wordpress for years but recently I’ve started to review where my content is going and who I want to support on the internet going forward. I was already getting a bit fed up of Wordpress with the app updates seemingly wanting to set the block editor to be the default with every app update and a constant reminder to upgrade my plan wherever I seemed to navigate on the site. This lined up nicely with my decision to come away from Twitter and come back to a more socially responsible place to share my thought, somewhere I’m not the product and own my content.

When thinking about my options I always came back to Micro.Blog. It allowed me to continue to post my shorter and longer thoughts, allowed for interaction and was somewhere that lined up with my own values.

I signed back up and gave it a test and was impressed so I went all in. I exported all of my posts as XML from the admin pages on Wordpress, imported them into Micro.Blog (via the posts page) and cancelled my Wordpress plan. I am also going to cancel my .blog domain to be the micro.blog one instead. I like this URL and it also shows I’m supporting a worthy platform.

I’m only a week in but already feeling like I have a bit more headspace, feel great about supporting this platform and had nothing but great interactions with the community.

I thought I’d revisit this one after coming into taking another little social media break. I truly believe if you want to blog more then come off social media. I don’t mean delete your account, I mean delete the apps on your phone and replace them with your blogging platform app.

Anything you were going to share on social media would probably be best thinking about a bit more and turning into a blog post.

I also believe that coming out of the version of the world the social media companies want you to see isn’t a bad thing either.

I find that having less influence on what I’m told I want to see and influence from others helps me form my own opinion and come up with different takes on stories I want to write about.

Give it a go, 30 days with no social media but only blogging.

Not sure if you’ve noticed but I’m hardly updating the blog at all these days. This is in part due to simplifying my iOS setup with an iPad Mini replacing my iPad Pro. I’m now using an iPad Mini 5 as my iOS device of choice and my MacBook 12” for podcasting. I’ve found I’m consuming more and creating less, from a writing perspective. I’m thankful I don’t rely on my writing to earn so am lucky in a way I don’t need to write about news to make a living right now.

I’m able to do my day job and still take on creative projects as a hobby.

I obviously only have so much time in the day for this so I’ve slowed down on the writing and putting energy into the Home Screens podcast instead. These days I have very little time for my creative outlet and trying to focus on one.

I’ll still post here but I’m no longer thinking of it as something I need to do daily, I’ve taken the pressure off myself to feel that I need to.

I’ve been struggling with my workflow and in particular the devices that I am going to use in my day to day and might have hit a really nice writing workflow that will work out for me when I’m on macOS. When I switched back to the Mac I didn’t have a clue what apps to use outside of the core apps that come with macOS but I decided to find the right episode of Mac Power Users and get to customising my MacBook that I am going to use as my daily machine for now.

On listening I decided to install Setapp and wow it’s already proving to be a cost saver. I installed iStatMenu (to keep an eye on battery and to have a nice view of the time and weather in the menu bar), CleanMyMac (to let it take a look at how I can get the most out of this laptop in terms of managing space) and most importantly MarsEdit.

I’ve got it installed and connected to my Wordpress blog, which I can publish to directly from this one app. The layout lets me write, add tags, categories and images all within one app that can be customised to my liking. 

It’s much nicer to use than the Wordpress app on iOS and having the flexibility of being able to create short posts from my iPhone on the Wordpress app and also this powerful app in MarsEdit is leaving me enthusiastic about sticking with this MacBook and adapting to it rather than jumping back in and replacing my iPad Pro.

I’ll update as I get more stuff done on macOS, I thought it might be interesting hearing about workflows from someone coming to the Mac from iPad.

Let me know some of your favourite Setapp apps.

I’ve noticed in the past (and rewriting this post as a reminder) that if I want to create more I need to swap my Twitter habit with a creation one. I’m finding that in downtime that I’m scrolling my feeds in Twitter or Reddit instead of doing something to benefit my mental health like playing my guitar or jotting down my thoughts here or hey even going out for a walk.

I’m going to be taking a break from Twitter especially over the next month to see if I improve my mood and frequency of output I’m happy with.

Join in with me and see what happens to your creative projects you’ve been looking to spend more time on.

I’ve been away for a while but I’m trying to get back in the habit of using iA Writer for my blogging. The Wordpress app (for me) has gotten to the point that it’s slowing me down and forcing me to use their block editor.

My only concern is how I easily publish to Wordpress via iA, something this post will test for me. If this looks ok then it’s working.

I’ve fallen into a bit of a trap after a great month stat wise in January to now seeing a 60% drop in traffic since and feeling down about my creative endeavours. But weirdly swapping to Tweetbot and not seeing engagement has actually helped me realise the blog is about getting stuff out of my head and sharing my thoughts. It’s not a money maker (costs me to run it) and after several failed attempts at Patreon I realise my content isn’t worth paying for but I still ploughed on - I needed an outlet to talk about passions I can’t do in my day to day.

This’ll continue whilst I have the energy to put it out there.

I’ve had my niggles with the Wordpress for iOS app for a while but in the last couple of months it’s gotten worse, so bad I’m considering leaving. As someone that is iOS only the majority of the time it seems pretty obvious to me that the folks over at the Wordpress iOS team don’t actually use the app.

The first major change and gripe is the forced user experience of the block editor.

It seems I have to change this setting each time the app updates. It’s not I don’t like change but the block editor has some broken functionality (like the one below) and I just wish the developers would respect my choice of disabling this feature.

As part of this block editor another area broken with it is the writing experience itself. I like the way the images are resized but when it comes to text it’s lacking.

In the screenshot above you can see my text disappearing under the keyboard. Yes, when you type and it flows past the screen it goes underneath the keyboard and you have to manually scroll down. This doesn’t happen in the non block editor and is the main reason I think no one at Wordpress is actually using the app.

So I’m sat wondering what platform us best for someone that is predominantly on iOS. I’m open to suggestions.

Writing up a post this morning took me 3 times as long with the new block editor in the Wordpress app for iOS. Initially I couldn’t find a way to turn it off but thankfully you can.

Head into site settings then you’ll see a block editor option as below.

Phew, I got worried my Wordpress app experience was ruined there for a minute.

Being consistent is something I’ve always struggled with, I have flourishes of being really good and moments of being terrible. I’m not just talking about writing on my blog but in general. I’ll have a good spell with my mood and have a positive effect on the world around me then I’ll have a big dip and seem to make everything worse.

I don’t check stats too much but look at this massive dip in traffic over the last couple of weeks. I’ve not been consistent again, when I start to write again the traffic picks up.

I guess I’m rambling with this post but I what I’m trying to say, especially if you’re doing something creative is to try to be as consistent as possible.

I’ve always seen my blog as somewhere I can share my passions, not one thing but across multiple interests. What I’m finding is I got little to no feedback or views on non tech content. I’m not saying this is a bad thing as it’s given me somewhere to get stuff off my chest as I don’t have an avenue to do this in my day to day. Working at home is pretty isolating so being able to share here is great but getting no feedback is starting to become a bit demoralising to be honest.

I’m not going to stop talking about things I’m passionate about but might need to take a step back and figure out the sort of content I can bring value to.

At the moment I have no idea if I’m bringing value to anything.

I’ve tried to post daily here and looking back I can see it’s had a big impact on the traffic coming to the blog.

I’m not setting the world alight but for me I’m up over 14,000 views over the previous year. I’m still a nobody in the grand scheme of things but I enjoy sharing regardless of these stats.

Resetting a Sonos continues to drive most traffic but strangely an iPhone case post beats it this year. Continues to show that if you want to build traffic how to’s are the way to do it.

Bulk of traffic coming from Search and Social but readers have started to pick up from Wordpress itself.

Finally I always find it interesting to see where my readers are coming from. Top 3 remain the same but Germany and India are new additions to some of the bigger traffic.

I’ll continue doing what I’m doing and see what happens.

I’m going to write up a few posts on blogging rather than just tech stuff as I thought it would be good to be open about my site and the information may be useful to someone else.

Over the last year I increased my traffic by 4 times the year before but I still don’t get that much to be honest. In the first post I wanted to share where the majority of my traffic comes from.

Growing something, especially these days is hard. You can see that the bulk comes from searches (mostly Google), then social media and lastly in the top 3 Wordpress.

I think that’s an important data point. If you’re using Wordpress you have a whole host of other Wordpress users that use the app to find content and writers. I have over 100 people that follow me on Wordpress and read my stuff. It’s one of the reasons I stay on the platform. I’ve discovered a lot of writers using this method myself and I continue to use the app for reading.

So I’m small fry a nobody really in the blogging space but it’s nice to look back this year and actually see that my writing is being read and is somewhat useful.

Should I continue to blog is something that I’m asking myself as we round out 2019. I don’t pay too close attention to stats but this year my readership has grown nicely over. I’m up about 3 times as many views, which I’m extremely grateful. In 2019 I concentrated more on writing and dropped off on other projects, which enabled me to write more. I also dropped a little of my time spent on social media, this also helped me focus more on sharing my thoughts on my own platform.

But I keep seeing blogging is dead and people don’t read them anymore.

What I’ve found is that there is little to no interest in posts like this one but there is an appetite still for guides and how to’s.

In fact looking at my statistics the top 3 posts have 4 times as many views as anything else and are all related to how to’s.

I don’t really want to change my writing or blog to become a help site but it’s eye opening. I put more work into more heartfelt posts but no one reads them, maybe these are more suited to sharing on social instead of the blog.

I’ve just renewed my domain for another 12 months but I think I’m going to spend a few weeks digesting these findings and figure out where to put my energy in 2020.

I’ve got a few projects I’d like to focus and I’ll have to see where the blog lands in terms of priorities. It’s focus may change in the new year but at the moment I’ll stick to what’s it’s been doing for the last year or so, my random thoughts mixed with Apple stuff 😀.

Are you running a blog? Are you seeing the same sort of stats?

I’ve put pressure on myself in the past to post something everyday but if you’re not reliant on income from your blog then it’s perfectly fine to post as and when you have something to say. For me I’m on a break from social media at the moment so this is my only outlet. I’ve found I’m posting daily or more because I’m not using social media.

My posts tend to be more thoughts than epic reviews etc… I like having an outlet that’s mine to post whenever I want.

Don’t get me wrong my blog doesn’t cause me any stress at all (now I’ve given up thinking about making any income from it) but I still felt like I had to post daily.

I guess this ramble is just to say if you own your own blog don’t put any pressure on yourself, post when you have something to say and enjoy it.

(Also experiment with dropping social media for a week and put your thoughts on your blog instead).

I’m trying not to get down about this email. I didn’t start the affiliate account thinking I’d be able to fund all my review units but based on this I shouldn’t have bothered. It’s a bit demoralising to be honest but I’ll try to hang in there but it’s it’s getting harder and harder.

As an independent creator I’m funding everything myself here but I can’t afford to get review units in, this means I’ll either stop reviewing stuff or carry on reaching out to PR companies that only seem to be interested in YouTubers these days.

Man, blogging is hard.

(Sorry, wish this post was a bit more positive)

This is a message to future Lee and maybe others who are like me. I’ve gotten into the habit again of tweaking my site theme! This is more out of not knowing what to write about than a need but I’ve fallen into the trap of tweaking the look and feel of the site again.

I’m settled now on this one, it’s clean and readable. It also plays nice with images, something not all themes do well. It’s called illustrar by the way if you’re interested but I wouldn’t recommend you go down the rabbit hole of changing your site theme.

I’ll be back on the creation bandwagon soon.

I’m constantly trying to get better at managing my social media time and I thought the best first step (this time!) was to move everything social to my iPad. I use the iPad more intentionally so I’m going to manage social along with my blog in a folder of it’s own. On the iPad I have a blog folder with all of my Blog stuff, it’ll live in there.

If you’re trying to cut back on your social media a bit then I’d recommend moving it off your smartphone and onto a laptop or tablet so that it’s less of a temptation and more intentional.

Since restoring my iPhone a few weeks ago I’ve fallen back into the trap of the modern smartphone. What I mean by this is having all of the apps I can available to me to use and getting caught up in these Infinity wells, such as YouTube and Social networking. Neither of which are particularly great for my wellbeing these days.

It hit me this morning whilst browsing Reddit, why am I mindlessly doing this?.

I want to be more intentional with how I’m using my technology and allow myself to be bored. Enjoy a walk without a podcast in my ears sometimes or just enjoy the warm sunshine on my face in the garden with no desire to see what’s happening on Twitter.

It also hit me that I’ve written about this before on the blog, many times actually. I’ve written about helping to reduce the time you spend on your phone and also steps I’ve made, such as only checking Twitter once a week but I’ve forgotten to listen to former me!

This post is a reminder that when I fall into bad habits to step back and think about how I want to use my technology and interact with the world around me.

So this week I’ll be back to

• Removing all social networking apps from my iphone
• Checking Twitter weekly for notifications
• Sharing smaller posts more, I've noticed good feedback from readers of my stuff lately. This in part because my default is to share here rather than on social media
• Reducing my podcast consumption (I'm listening to over 20 shows a week!)
• Leaving YouTube (again)
• Deleting Reddit apps (again)
• Doing my best to stick with one to do app and keeping it simple

And remembering to read some of my earlier stuff

• Scheduling Twitter
• Deleting YouTube
• Doing social on your blog

I started and stopped using Bear about a month ago but after struggling to organise with Apple Notes I’ve gone back in.

The main reason I’ve gone back is tags. Folders in Apple Notes is ok but I’m finding that the ability to add a quick tag at the bottom of the page I’m writing on is clicking with my brain more. All the dividers such as ‘gifts’ and ‘shopping’ above are tags that Bear automatically uses to create this structure.

I’ve been playing with my blog theme for a while but have settled on a darker look to the site. After spending less time on social media I read blogs, in a browser! What I’ve noticed is that mine blew my retinas out if I browsing early in the morning. On the back of this you’ll see my site is now sporting a darker look that’s easier on your eye balls.

Something changed for me in the last year with my writing and based on feedback I’m getting it’s for the better. When I started blogging back in 2008 I stuck to a niche (at the time it was guitars) then I moved into technology a little while later based off the back of my freelance stuff.

What I’ve found though in the last year is that I’m writing more personal (posts like this one) and not worrying about sticking to any sort of niche, just writing about what I’m passionate about or is on my mind.

I blog as a creative outlook, I make zero money off the back of this blog and I don’t see this changing with the move towards attention grabbing headlines and click bait. It’s pretty liberating not to be in that business keeping up with the latest and just write at your own pace on your own schedule.

I guess what I’m trying to say as I’m starting to ramble is if you have a personal blog just BE YOU. Write about your passions be it the latest gadget you love or the most recent movie you’ve enjoyed.

Also as I use social media less and less I think this has also had a knock on effect on my writing style. Where before I just shared everything on my Twitter account I’m now defaulting to using my blog and keeping it on my own site. It’ll be shared to social but the content stays with me.

I’d maybe start with taking say a two week break from social media and share your thoughts on your blog instead and you’ll see your traffic increase and your blog become more personal.

I’ve been getting so much spam recently that outweighed the good ones so I’ve followed most blogs and turned off comments on the blog. I have had them on and off for a while but whilst managing spam today I’ve turned them off for good.

Thanks to everyone that has commented in the past.

I’ve dabbled with lots of writing apps over the last few years on iOS, from iA Writer to the full on Ulysses. What I’ve come to the realisation now is that they don’t fit in with my workflow that I use across my devices.

What I’ve found is that I often either posted directly to the Wordpress app via the share sheet or copy and pasted into the Wordpress app. So I just cut out the middleman and just used the Wordpress app for a bit.

It’s stuck, I now only use the Wordpress app to do all of my writing, like this one. I can create new posts when I get an idea and save as a draft or be spontaneous and write up a post, again like this straight out my brain and onto the blog.

Anything that is a random thought or observation I’d share on Twitter I now share to the blog via the Micro.blog app.

After recently making the switch over to the notes app Bear I needed to see how good my options were for exporting over to my blog. Well in a nutshell, there aren’t options for posting directly to your Wordpress blog I.e. there is no integration.

The only option (from iOS) is to use the share sheet and pick Wordpress, this is the same as I would do if I were using say Apple Notes.

This definitely has me rethinking my choice of moving to Bear and will start to look at alternatives such as Ulysses and Drafts.

I started using Micro.blog a little while ago now and although I don’t use it as a Twitter alternative, I do use it to post small updates to my blog. When I experimented with it a while ago I found that being off Twitter so much more helped me be more creative and gain more followers to my blog as my content went there instead.

My main issue with this was the lack of interaction as readers don’t tend to like to comment on blogs as there are more barriers to entry.

So I’m going to make the following changes for a month or so so see what happens and if I get some more headspace back.

• Delete the Twitter apps from my iPhone
• Check Twitter once or twice a week (instead of multiple times a day) for interactions on my content
• Post updates to my blog from Micro,blog, not long form but smaller updates on how things are going

See you on the blog.

Here’s another app for a writing workflow I’m testing. This is shared from Ulysses directly to my Wordpress site. If it’s worked I’ll see this there.

I’ve been trying and failing to do my best to support the site via Patreon. With this in mind and the demoralising support page showing $0 every time I check it I’ve decided to disable my Patreon account completely and remove the option to support my writing. I’d rather it not there than remind me of how little independent writers can get to support their work.

As I’ve said before don’t expect to support your site via supporters with so much free content out there and social media taking away most of the space that blogs previously inhabited.

I’m genuinely interested, at the moment my use has switched a bit to Reddit but I’m tending to move back to Apple News just now.

My main reason for asking is that this blog isn’t currently available and I’ll need to make an investment in my wordpress plan to enable it.

So, my question is - would you like me to add the blog to Apple News?

If you’re reading my blog you’ll know that I briefly flirted with ads to help me pay for keeping the site running. As much as I love my passion projects I’m struggling a little to keep them going with paying for hosting etc.. anyway that’s not what I wanted to highlight.

I started to dig into how much revenue I could potentially earn with Wordpress ads (WordAds). You get the ‘perk’ of being able to add these to your site if you hit a threshold (don’t ask me what this is, I don’t know) or join a premium membership like I have done.

I’m a small blog that gets a few thousand page views a month but I get good engagement (this means nothing to ad companies). Looking at larger ones it looks like to even earn around £60 a month you need around 75,000 page views a month and to even start to think about it as a living you’ll need around 6 million a month.

That’s a great reality check for me and reminds me why I enjoy doing it as a hobby as I can’t image the click bait I’d need to do to get anywhere near that.

If you’re a smaller content creator then making money from ads isn’t the way to go. You’re better looking at Patreon (ignore my current failing attempt please) and memberships.

For me, it’s a wake up call and a rethink.

I upgraded my Wordpress site to a premium site today and saw the options of adding some monetisation options as a test. Well, as soon as I saw my site in DuckDuckGo I removed them.

As you can see I went from 1 to 16 just by adding word ads to my site. Now I'm back to my 1 (just for sharing posts to Twitter).

It's hard to make any money from your site, I'm back to no ads and looking to just get on and create good content.

I’m really pleased with the performance of the blog since moving to Wordpress.

The traffic has built steadily and after a record December I’m already seeing growth in the first week of January. One of my goals this year is focus, so I’m going to be more consistent on the blog and other creative outlets. If you build it they will come, right?

Every year I ask myself about the state of blogging. In this age of social media it’s often forgotten about that people still have them. Personally I’d rather put my content (that I value) somewhere that’s mine and share from social rather than build up content on someone else’s platform. Throw away comments are fine on Twitter but a post like this one will always be put on my blog.

I don’t think blogging is anywhere near dead and will come back around once the social media frustrations are drawn out. I’m already seeing a decline in people using social media, especially FB and before I deleted my account saw hardly anything from friends.

My focus for 2019 might shift a little towards podcast or video but a blog will always be the backbone of my content, somewhere everything hangs off.

Although I’m not setting the world alight with my content I’ve seen a steady increase in traffic since launching the new site on Wordpress. I’m not talking hundreds of thousands but I’m in the tens of thousands now, which I’m pleased with. I’ve not marketed at all really just put out content that I’ve wanted to share.

So, my top post:

This won by a considerable margin and shows writing how to’s for small creators is a good way to bring some traffic your way.

Next up the top ten countries that visit my site.

Not a surprise given I’m based in the UK and write mainly about technology. I’m surprised that Switzerland made it in there, thanks to whoever is visiting my site from there.

Lastly here are my top referrers.

Surprise for me is seeing a lot of readers coming from other Wordpress users. I have a steady number of them being added every week and something I didn’t expect. If you have a Wordpress site consider using the reader to follow sites within the app.

So, good to see an upward trend on my viewers and hopefully blogging makes a comeback in this age of toxic social media.

Thanks to everyone that’s contributed to these stats this year.

When I started blogging back in 2008 I wrote about my main passion - guitars and music. I enjoyed doing this for a while then my interest shifted back towards covering more technology subjects, in particular iOS. This was just after I got my first iPhone and I saw the potential in it changing how we go about our day to day lives. It’s quite a few years on and although I have settled on covering iOS I want to branch out and write about my other passions. This is why I started to write in the first place, sharing my views on what I’m interested in.

I’m becoming a bit jaded with covering Apple all of the time and although I do write about movies here occasionally it’s where my passion is. I sat down and wrote out some blog ideas and most of them were non technology.

So, I wanted to give everyone a heads up that I’ll be writing about more of my passions - not just iOS. It’ll be F1, Comics, Movies (Marvel/Star Wars mostly), music and photography - I’ll most probably also write about comings and goings in my personal life.

I hope you join me on this, I understand if you stop following me if you want to see just tech.

Cheers…

I’ve been using the Wordpress for iOS app for a while but lately it seems to be neglected. I’ve had these bugs for a while and the more I use it the more I’m getting frustrated.

Here’s one example, if you embed images and try to type afterwards quite often you’ll not be able to see what you’re typing.

Here’s another that’s been there for a while. If you start to type a tag and then pick one from the picker it’ll totally mess up the selection as you can see above. I tapped iOS but it displays ‘I OS’.

I’m going to start to look at alternatives to using the native app. iA Writer can publish directly so I think I’ll be using that for now.

Guess which day I deleted Twitter and Instagram from my iPhone…

Yup, no surprise but deleting social media from my devices meant I shared on my blog more. What I used to microblog I was now giving to Twitter. Well coming off it has meant I’m back microblogging here - on my own domain.

if you have your own blog give it a go for a week and let me know what happens to your traffic.

Since I started playing with Micro.blog today it became quickly evident that not all themes support it properly. They let you see your posts but if you embed an image for example it won’t let you see it in your Wordpress blog.

After reading this it seemed to indicate that only Wordpress default themes would properly support it. After testing it I settled on one called Twenty Seventeen that now allows me to see anything I post to Micro.blog appear on my Wordpress one.

I’ll need to tweak it but for now I’m happy that my posts are visible.

I switched to Wordpress in December 2017 having previously been using Squarespace. On checking my admin I realised that I’d never really shared my experience of switching over.

I left Squarespace for a few reasons.

• Slow iOS app development
• Lack of support to edit your design in iOS Safari
• The price

Moving the blog for me was easy, it also gave me a chance to rethink what my blog was about. I’d gotten so caught up in trying to compete with bigger sites I’d lost track of what the purpose of a blog was and stopped enjoying posting.

The first thing I did was look at my existing content and copied anything I wanted to keep into a text file. This took a little while but I’m glad I did it manually.

Now I headed over to Wordpress and created a basic paid hosted account. I’d never had a server so it made sense to use theirs. It also worked out at a quarter of the price I paid at Squarespace. This was a massive win as I’d gotten to the point I was ready to stop blogging.

Now I had my domain etc sorted I got into editing my design. I was delighted to see that the Wordpress site works on iOS Safari just as well as Mac. As iOS is my platform of choice this was a must. I edited it all on my iPad.

When it came to posting I used the Wordpress official app. The only place it’s let down is embedding photo galleries. With Safari if you add multiple images it offers to build a mosaic so it looks nice in your post. On the iOS app you don’t get this option so the images are just inserted one after the other. I’m hoping this gets addressed in a future update.

I took all of my favourite posts that I’d copied into text and created posts on my new blog.

One major thing I’ve noticed compared to Squarespace is that Wordpress appear to be committed to investing in their iOS presence. The app gets frequent updates and whist there are a few niggles (like the photo insert one mentioned) I get the feeling people are working on it. I never got the feeling that Squarespace was invested in iOS at all.

So almost a year in Wordpress and I haven’t looked back!

Trying to make it as an independent blogger is hard, especially in 2018 where the landscape is slowly but surely moving to video and social. I truly believe blogging is not dead and if you find your voice (and more importantly an audience) it is possible to make a go at it. I found that on my previous provider, Squarespace I just couldn’t afford to run my site (at £20 a month) so I looked at making the switch to another platform.

I explored all of the options available to me and went for Medium. It’s a platform that I used on and off since launch but it was a free option that looked like it had potential. Well, the short story is that am now completely off the platform (due to lack of confidence that they would continue long term) but I did take away a few lessons.

Write about what you are passionate about

On my previous site I focussed a lot on technology and found that over time it wore me down just writing about one of my passions. When I moved to Medium I found that I had a good response to a variety of subjects I wrote about, anything from games to movies.This was my main lesson, I am now going to be writing about what I’m passionate about.

Medium is full of startups

I found a heavy bias towards life coaches and startups on Medium. Writing about technology, movies and more traditional subjects aren’t popular enough to gain traction on the platform. Everything that rises up or is picked by their editors is all around the startup scene, if you don’t write these kinds of posts I wouldn’t invest in using the platform.

Make use of tags

It’s something I’ll be doing going forward on this blog, make sure of tagging to make sure that you are discovered by new audiences.

Own your content

My biggest takeaway, it’s better to build your own content on your own blog than build someone else’s platform. I have zero confidence in Medium, I give it 3-5 years before it goes out of business. I’d rather build it somewhere else.

Have you used Medium?

Let me know in the comments.

I’ve been blogging and freelance writing since 2008 and over the years I’ve gone through phases of trying to “make it” as a journalist and realising there’s no future in it as a career and take it as a hobby.

I’ve moved platforms several times and tried to branch out to a newsletter.

I’ve come to the realisation that unless you enjoy what you want to share you won’t write. Even as a hobbyist I’ve put pressure on myself to put my writing out there and try my best to compete with large publishers.

Well, I’ve stopped.

I started this new blog to take a more relaxed approach to my writing, sharing what I’m passionate about and not focusing on trying to build a viable business.

There is a lot competition and the majority of people won’t pay or support independent publishers.

So

• Write about what gets you going, what enthuses you
• Remember it's a hobby first, do it for the enjoyment of writing and not the money (it won't come unless you are very lucky)
• Share

I’ve been blogging since 2008 across several different platforms and here in 2017 I’m back where I started - Wordpress.

For about 5 years I’ve been a satisfied Squarespace user but over the last few months they have not catered for my needs so decided to leave.

Here’s why I left Squarespace

• Lack of attention on iOS apps; slow to update to the latest technologies of the latest iOS version and hardware (such as new screen resolutions)
• They cater to photography; a very heavy focus on promoting and providing templates to photographers, it's not a blogging friendly platform
• Integration; more integration options on Wordpress thanks to the development community
• Polished iOS blogging experience on Wordpress ; I prefer using the app than the site

So as a blogger focusing on text rather than images and is also iOS first I feel that Squarespace is leaving me behind. Wordpress fulfils all of my iOS and template needs as a text based blogger.

If you have been following me you’ll know that this week I made the switch to Wordpress from Squarespace. I wanted to start to share my experience of doing this, especially coming from an already established blog and platform.

One of the reasons I switched was Squarespace’s lack of commitment to iOS. The site editing didn’t work well in Safari and their iOS apps were slow to update.

The first thing I noticed switching over was the iOS app was supported on the latest hardware. So they look great on both my 10.5” iPad Pro and iPhone X.

At the time of writing the Squarespace app still doesn’t support the new screen on the X.

Next thing I noticed was how well laid out the iPhone app was. It’s easy to see stats, separate drafts, scheduled and published and adding images works every time (unlike the Squarespace app).

So if like me you are an iOS first user then for me Wordpress is the only choice.

I’ve decided to leave my old blog at Squarespace and start something new over here on Wordpress.  There are several reasons for this

• Wordpress is more iOS friendly and shows commitment to keeping their apps updated (especially as I go more iOS native)
• Blogging is better, yes there are more templates and options for a mainly text blogger like me
• It's good to make a fresh start sometimes

I’ve gotten to a point where I cannot support myself on my writing alone so finding a more affordable, more expansive platform was a must for me

In conjunction with stopping over at LJPUK.COM I am planning on a few more creative projects that I’ll share on here when the time is right. In short this new blog is going to be more than just tech, I’ll talk more on my workflows etc.. but also sharing my thoughts on movies and my photography.

Thanks to those that have followed me on my journey and continue to follow me on this new project.

I’m feeling a little abandoned by Squarespace (as a blogger) at the moment. All of their new templates and focus seem to be on serving the business market rather than individual bloggers.

Their apps are also very slow to update, especially their blogging app.

That’s one of the reasons I’m writing this from an iPhone X with an updated Wordpress app.

I pay a good amount of money monthly to run my Squarespace site and not feeling I’m getting the value for money I think I deserve.