Creating a Blog Tool in 2025 - Good Idea?

WordPress, Wix, Squarespace and Blogger are highly developed tools but I've gone in a different direction and made my own, and to top it off I've just watched a video by Ahref's where their blog lead said that blog content was dying. This wasn't enough to put me off so here we go!

Built as an add-on to this project platform that uses the PHP framework Laravel it has been quite a learning experience, making it into a package instead of following along with standard tutorials and also looking at from Content Marketing or business viewpoints I have to question was it, will it be worthwhile.

Grand ambitions of implementing server-side logging and web analytics, popular posts metrics have taken a backseat as I wrestle with reaching my done deal of putting up one blog this weekend. There are no images just yet, but now I have added that feature a week later, images and through the magic that is the Spatie media library we have image conversions, for small-size images automatically generated, and if I check my notes that is not a default on WordPress feature. A default image also takes the place of the placeholder image that was here.

The first little win for the bespoke blog platform being built, still not convinced it would not have been easier to sign up to Squarespace.

Balance self-build tools with the convenience of no/low code options.

What's Missing?

What makes all those sites great?

• WYSIWYG Editor - Currently writing this in plain HTML file in Visual Studio code.
• Comments
• YOAST and all its SEO benefits

Site SEO isn't Difficult

Frameworks and validation on form entry for meta titles and descriptions for unique values and correct lengths. While meta descriptions are often changed by Google for various reasons, writing them for me is still good practice, can you summarise your article in a sentence, if not there's a good chance that the content needs refining.

I don't have to configure another service!

If you have built a successful product or are building one, do you want to create the hassle of syncing menus on two different platforms or having different headers completely? This is super common and has been accepted, is it optimal for converting a blog reader to a service enquirer?