The 2025 blog question challenge answers

I was tagged by Bob Monsour to answer the challenge. I accepted. The challenge was started here Ava's Bear Blog Challenge

Man sitting at laptop with head in hands and sunlight streaming down on him

Why Did You Start Blogging In The First Place?

In those heady early days of the web we built sites for the fun of it - there were not that many people out there able to see our sites anyway. I read a few other peoples blogs about web design and development, so started writing up my own experiments and findings. In those days it was the main way of finding out new techniques and solutions - there was a growing community of blogs doing this. They are mostly gone now as other avenues of communication have evolved over the years.

What Platform Are You Using The Manage Your Blog, And Why Do You Use It?

My site is built using 11ty, version control on Github and it is deployed to Netlify. I have really enjoyed building with 11ty and have switched most of the small sites I run for myself, friends and clients to 11ty for the ease of set up and use. As they final site is flat file html is it fast and a lot less vulnerable to issues and malicious activity. 11ty has been a game changer for me and the community using it reminds me a lot of the early days of the web - it is fun!

Have You Blogged On Other Platforms Before?

Oh gosh yes - and apart from one period I have hosted my own content on servers that I am in control (to an extent) of. I would never blog on a platform like Medium as I don't own it - anything could happen to my content.

I started in the late 90's with flat file sites, hand coded then using Page Mill, Go Live (before Adobe bought it) and Macromedia Dreamweaver (before Adobe bought it) to build my site.

For some years it ran on MovableType. They then got funding, which killed the community so I switched to PMachine. That soon became ExpressionEngine, which I still use today for one project.

Then Craft CMS was developed by users of ExpressionEngine that wanted it to do more so they built their own system from scratch and it was very, very good.

A few years later I decided I did not want to use a database for the content any more (had some issues, please don't ask). So I tried the excellent Kirby CMS out for a couple of years and all was great.

After lockdown I switched to using Wix for my site as I had become a member of their initial SEO Advisory Board. I meant I could fully understand the Wix system and help drive its development both from an SEO point of view and as a user.

After that appointment finished I was looking for a flat file solution and finally found 11ty. I rebuilt the site from scratch and it has been running on 11ty since 2023.

How Do You Write Your Posts?

These days I tend to write my longer articles in Hemingway Editor as the first part of this process. This is bashing out thoughts and is usually a big bundle that needs thinking through and then editing. I try to leave it a day or so before editing an article so I have fresh eyes on the piece. It is amazing how terrible my spelling and punctuation is on first drafts! The text then gets copied into 11ty, styled, with links and images added before publishing. I write from my perspective and I write as if I am chatting to you over a pint.

When Do You Feel Most Inspired To Write?

I'm not a prolific writer and can't turn inspiration on like a tap. It is usually after I have achieved something and this is especially so with my railway modelling. The short posts on the site are of the moment, when I want to document something that I think might be important for me to recall in the future. They are for me more than anyone else. I have had situations where I am looking something up on a search engine and find that I have written a short post about it some years ago!

Do You Normally Publish Immediately After Writing, Or Do You Let It Simmer?

For the Short posts its bang and they are live. For the main articles though I always let it simmer even after the initial burst of enthusiasm and not just for the editing. I do jot down a lot of ideas for posts that - some could be months.

What’s Your Favourite Post On Your Blog?

Probably the log store build as it is getting a fair bit of traffic at the moment (I don't monetise it). I am rather happy that it is now outranking serious brands, such as Stihl, for "Log store design" in the UK Google SERPs! Means I still know what I am doing. Also it has been a favourite project of mine for 2024 outside my railway modelling.

Any Future Plans For the Blog?

I'm always tinkering with it but have no long term plans. Short term I do need to go through the images and sort them out now that 11ty Image 3 has been released and I don't need to use 11ty shortcodes any more. I also promised myself a fresh design so have been learning some new, to me, css techniques that have been developed in the past few years.

Who Will Participate Next?

I officially tagged Seth Goldstein and Preeti Gupta to answer the challenge.

By Simon Cox |

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