Unforeseen advantages of my site
This is not my first blogging or website rodeo but it's the first time I've really had a personal site - just about stuff I'm interested in generally. Even my 2000-era geocities sites were for different fandoms. Everything in between was 'for' something.
So. Some unforeseen advantages!
Emails are not an unforeseen advantage but how chill they are amongst indie web bloggers definitely is. No one is talking about seo or selling me on anything. It feels like we're just hanging out.
Blog carnivals, prompts, post swaps, challenges and the like are so great for reading other people's thoughts on a prompt and also for getting myself to write about stuff I otherwise might not have considered. The early web memories carnival got me all kinds of nostalgic and I've since written an early computing memories post and will probably do more.
It's so much less stressful too. It's not about marketing or audience-building or seo or any of that. I'm not holding myself to any kind of standard (as you can tell) and that is so freeing. I switched off upvotes and live in blissful ignorance. I do what I want. It's been nearly a year and I've written about stuff I never imagined I would back when I started.
Massive unforeseen advantage: I hadn't considered how much I myself would use my own site. Which is silly. Who else is it for if not for me? I probably ought to be the primary user of my own site. I check my links pages, my reading list, other pages, all the time. Yes I have RSS and bookmarks and my own list but if I'm in the browser it's just as easy to check my site.
Plus, sharing those things with other people is nice. This is part of the digital garden side of things. Which is, as I said, the biggest difference with this site compared to others I've had.
Also, praise to Bearblog, not having a hundred plugins that need updating and the endless maintenance of WordPress or whatever. Huge advantage.