So after a very long and frustrating road I finally got my first blog working. Wait? You may be asking why that is so hard?
If you see all the commercials on YouTube for Hostinger and other web hosts, they often talk of how easy it is got get your blog up in just a few clicks. That does not seem to make any sense but effectively it is true. Whilel those platforms do make it exstremely user friendly to launch a wordpreess blog, there are a couple of reason why it was so hard for me, and why I am glad I did it this way. Let me explain.
See I have been studying web development for about a year at this point. In the beginning I vowed to code everything I needed. At the time I had it in my head that eventually I would be able to do it all from scratch. I did not fully grasp first the vastness and complexity as novices often don't, logically. At the time I was dabbling in affiliate marketing. The power of making money simply by using your internet skills to move a product you did not have to risk your butt to present to the market intrigued me. I started learning about it and one of the first steps was to create a blog. Well once I started I realized my handle on Javascript was less than what was required to get the simplest thing off the ground. I looked again at my resources. As often happened I started to question whether coding it out was the best way after all. I saw many youtubers advocating making a simple wordpress blog and attatching your links and away you go. I have long been “playing” with wordpress blogs. Often hosting them on some private server with futile attempts to will myself into sharing the content publicly (INTROVERT).
I jumped on udemy one morning and purchased a course on blog creation taught by a very pleasant british wordpress dev with loads of experience. He really could drive that beast.
It is a beast. Wordpress comes pre installed with all kinds of stuff. The bloatware I normally associate with earlier versions of windows. After the results of a few Lighthouse tests, after doing everything I could think of, I decided to refocus my efforts on JavaScript and React. So, with renewed determination, I attacked the problem again. I realized there were two issues I could see:
The utility of a drag-and-drop building workflow disappears slowly with more coding proficiency. a. I started to get annoyed with the lack of control I was realizing I had with code.
The performance. I stripped it down as far as I could get it after reading a number of articles and tutorials on improving performance and Lighthouse scores. Nothing got it above mediocre.
I knew I was starting to enjoy React more and more the more I understood it (Still a beginner but out of the classroom and onto the road now). My question was, how do I create a blog in Next.js?
Headless CMS
As I ventured further into the web development world, the concept of a headless CMS caught my attention. Unlike traditional CMS platforms like WordPress, where the front end and the back end are tightly coupled, a headless CMS provides only the back end or the content repository. This setup meant I could use any front-end technology to display the content, and for me, that was React and Next.js.
Why Headless CMS?
The allure of a headless CMS was in its flexibility and the performance gains it offered. I could create a lightning-fast blog that was also a joy to work with, thanks to React's component-based architecture and the static site generation features of Next.js. Plus, a headless CMS could integrate seamlessly with other services, providing a more scalable and customizable solution.
Technical Deep Dive
I will likely discuss this stack as I learn more about it. Here are some of the resources I used to get up to speed:
Conclusion
Reflecting on my journey from a beginner overwhelmed by the complexities of web development to successfully launching a blog using advanced technologies like React and Next.js has been incredibly rewarding. I encourage my readers to embrace the learning process, experiment with new technologies, and not shy away from coding. The sense of accomplishment in overcoming these challenges is unparalleled.
