Random daily thoughts of a web developer

Blogging can be hard in ways you didn't think.

Initially what intimidated me was the thought of "What am I going to write every day?"

And to begin with that is quite tricky, but then I found that I got into my stride. For one thing going through my site and testing it against Google's Webmaster Guidelines gave me a rich source of useful content. And some valuable insights. Valuable to me and valuable to anyone who might read the blog.

Then there were the tools that I needed to test some of the things I was coming across. Firstly I enjoyed creating them, and secondly they will now be a useful resource.

So I'm not short of things to write about, I've got six posts out of the Webmaster Guidelines subject so far, and I'm only a third of the way through, so there could be, potentially, another 12.

So what's the problem?

It's the process. There are a lot more stages to it than I realised, and it takes time, here's the process I go through (and this doesn't include research, testing things out, and any experimentation which might be necessary for the post):

1. Write the post
2. Add my daily activities
3. Proof read the post
4. Write the introduction (I have different text on the front page rather than a snippet of the article because I didn't want duplicate text, a rod for my back! I'm a lot more lax with that now, with my Minimum Viable Blog concept)
5. Write the meta description
6. Write the title
7. Write the category tags
8. Proof read again and make corrections
9. Cut and paste into the website ( I write it using Dreamweaver on my desktop)
10. Proof read it on the website, make sure links work, and correct any errors.
11. Regenerate my MODX cache (see previous posts)
12. Create a Bit.ly link so I can track tweets (and really should be posting links to other social media)
13. Write a tweet
14. Tweet
15. Read again before tweeting, spot other errors and correct those, regenerate the cache again

There's a lot of stages to it, I wasn't expecting that, and that all makes the time add up. And the number of times you have to re-read it! Every time you reread it, there's something to change, if it's not a typo or spelling mistake, it's a better way to phrase something, it seems to be never ending.

Which makes trying to do a post every day, when you have other full time work to do, a little crazy.

Todays business?

An-intro

Total: 10 hours 44 minutes

Maybe I need to get a life?

Exercise: 10 mile run, burning calves to start with, then burning feet, then pins and needles in right foot and then it went numb, finally could feel right foot about half way round. Hard! I should have warmed better, or at all even.

Tomorrow: Adding functionality to client website. Take car for MOT. If any time left my personal web project.