How to start a blog using Hugo • Hacker News Board

Re: How to start a blog using Hugo

#91

Post by zigzaggy » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 2:11 PM UTC

sharcerer wrote: post #64

koevet wrote: post #56

There is no lack of technical choices when it comes to starting a blog. I can start five blogs in the next 30 minutes, each one on a different platform/infrastructure. What I do lack is something interesting to write about, in a consistent manner. I have been writing code for a long time. I did build some interesting stuff. I'm currently working on a startup that does use some blog-worthy tech: any attempt ends up wi…

This might be helpful. https://www.perell.com/blog/my-writing-syllabus Follow David Perell for writing inspiration. https://twitter.com/david_perell/status/1213894632943296516

I also follow Perell and find him inspiring. Writing is a lifelong passion but since a big part of my work is writing, the flame has gone out. These days is all about relighting the fire.

Re: How to start a blog using Hugo

#92

Post by docuru » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 2:12 PM UTC

koevet wrote: post #56

There is no lack of technical choices when it comes to starting a blog. I can start five blogs in the next 30 minutes, each one on a different platform/infrastructure. What I do lack is something interesting to write about, in a consistent manner. I have been writing code for a long time. I did build some interesting stuff. I'm currently working on a startup that does use some blog-worthy tech: any attempt ends up wi…

What is the purpose of your blog? It heavy depends on this and your target audience.

If you do want to share things that usually end up a long essay, try to make it shorter and easy to understand. It means cut off ideas. Select only general knowledge, so that everyone can understand.

If you follow Medium.com, that’s what happens. Most of popular posts share basic knowledge. And posts with more technical details (some of them are great), often don’t get popular since less people want and understand it.

Also you can start writing random things and share it to learn what interest the audience

Re: How to start a blog using Hugo

#93

Post by njacobs5074 » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

koevet wrote: post #56

There is no lack of technical choices when it comes to starting a blog. I can start five blogs in the next 30 minutes, each one on a different platform/infrastructure. What I do lack is something interesting to write about, in a consistent manner. I have been writing code for a long time. I did build some interesting stuff. I'm currently working on a startup that does use some blog-worthy tech: any attempt ends up wi…

I disagree. I think you have something to write about. Your comment shows this perfectly. And I mean that in all seriousness.

Just remember that when you write something, you're making an implicit promise to the reader: I will learn something new by reading your blog.

Keep them bite-sized. If it's more than 1-2 pages, probably worth turning into a series.

Re: How to start a blog using Hugo

#94

Post by lewis1028282 » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

I run my blog https://www.lewis8s.codes on AWS Amplify. It connects to a GitHub repo and builds it every time there is a commit to master. Uses CloudFront on the backend too.

Costs me around $0.01 per build which isn't bad. Just easier than writing my own script.

Re: How to start a blog using Hugo

#95

Post by Saturdays » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 2:42 PM UTC

heycesr wrote: post #84

Shameless plug: I built https://typehut.com as a simpler alternative to classic blog and publishing systems. It's super easy to get started and it has some nice things like email subscriptions built-in. If anybody tries it out let me know!

FYI, I ca'n't reach your site! If it works will check out!

Re: How to start a blog using Hugo

#96

Post by toddmorey » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 2:43 PM UTC

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #82

zirobi wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a matter of one being objectively better than the other but which suits your needs. The basic distinction, from a purely SEO perspective, is that blog.domain.com will be treated as its own entity whereas domain.com/blog will be treated as part of the main domain.com entity. The question you have to ask yourself is whether you want to bolster the "value" of your main domain or if you want your blog to be an a…

Objectively better for SEO - and in particular if this isn’t a personal blog, but say a marketing site for your SAAS and then an accompanying blog. Having them in separate domains with very similar content hurts you This has been fairly well beaten into the ground at this point.

I’d say objectively safer. Google is getting better at reconciling content split across subdomains as coming from a common source. Some Google experts have called it pretty much a solved problem, but I don’t think the data plays that out just yet. I do believe there will soon be a time that subdomain vs subfolder won’t matter for SEO. Just not quite there yet.

Re: How to start a blog using Hugo

#97

Post by sequoia » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 3:36 PM UTC

Moru wrote: post #6

stiray wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar issues from my side. Cryptic documentation, bad dissorganized forum and configuration,... I love the hugo idea but to find one detail you will get into chaos of strange wording and noise. I am using it but I try to configure as small amount as possible as I always get into some undesired behaviour. It seems like it was from begining build with idea and then continued by patch over patch over patch. Cant recom…

I decided I would make a static site the old fashioned way on neocities.org and happily got started. And then I remembered all the double work you have to do linking and making lists and repeating headers/footers (or use frames) and so on. Now I'm back to looking for some simple script that can output static sites without having to spend a month learning a new tool...

+1 to japanoise's suggestion to write your own static blog script. Here's mine, which I initially wrote several years ago after evaluating & having issues with many other options: https://github.com/Sequoia/sequoia.github.com/blob/rewrite/s...

I recently evaluated migrating to Hugo to ditch my hastily written script & use a 'robust, mature' tool. I wanted to add an RSS feed and figured "why work more on my one off script, I could use a pre-built solution!" But migrating was indeed a pain in the butt, and it quickly became clear that writing a function to output an RSS feed was much faster than doing everything I needed to migrate.

Static blogs are very simple, and performance doesn't matter that much for all but the most prolific authors, and you can improve performance if needed. Write your own script!

Re: How to start a blog using Hugo

#98

Post by johnchristopher » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 5:13 PM UTC

bovermyer wrote: post #35

johnchristopher wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have some reasons to prefer domain.com/thing now : - You don't have to add and manage subdomain - You don't have to stop and restart the reverse-proxy of your VPS - Only one cert to deal with (I use traefik w/ automatic LE renewal but that implied more things to set up on the chain) But I still use blog.domain.com because I find it prettier. And when I need to type it in the URL bar it's just $service .domain . Now…

Those three concerns are one-off operations with minimal time investment, even if you don't automate most of the process.

There are not one-off since I'd have to perform them every time.

Re: How to start a blog using Hugo

#99

Post by soapdog » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 6:00 PM UTC

koevet wrote: post #56

There is no lack of technical choices when it comes to starting a blog. I can start five blogs in the next 30 minutes, each one on a different platform/infrastructure. What I do lack is something interesting to write about, in a consistent manner. I have been writing code for a long time. I did build some interesting stuff. I'm currently working on a startup that does use some blog-worthy tech: any attempt ends up wi…

I used to feel such pressure as well because mostly of the current zeigeist that your blog is your platform to market yourself. This adds an enormous pressure for doing quality and interesting post as if you're attempting to publish a paper into a prestigious journal. I'm done with that. These days the main audience for my blog is myself. I like writing and I'm equally prone to write about the coffee I just had and about some clever coding thing.

We all have stories to tell. Treat your blog as a public journal. A place to organize thoughts, share ideas, it doesn't need to be longform in deep stuff. And if you end up doing longform in deep articles, just break them into a series.

Re: How to start a blog using Hugo

#100

Post by newscracker » Tue, Jan 07, 2020, 6:01 PM UTC

Tepix wrote: post #59

Is there a web-based editor that can be used together with these static site generators? This editor should be small, self-contained and secure and could be located in a separate access-restricted area of the site.

Tina CMS [1] is something I bumped into (haven't tried since I'm not enamored by React, or rather, JavaScript based sites for blogs). It provides an editor right on your site, and works with static site generators like Gatsby and NextJS.

[1]: https://tinacms.org/