It’s been 15 years since I started working on the web. I launched the first version of this website in 2007, somewhere around the time Steve Jobs announced Apple iPhone.
This site is where I experiment with any new technology that I wanna learn for my upcoming projects.
It started as a hand-coded site in HTML, CSS. Over the past years, it moved to WordPress, Hugo and back to WordPress, powered by various themes including Genesis, GeneratePress and finally a custom theme using Underscores.
Last year, I moved the site to Full Site Editing(FSE), built on a custom block-based theme that I coded from scratch.
Usually, once the site development is done and I am happy with the knowledge I gained, I leave the site as is, until I’m lured into the next shiny technology. Not this time!
Chris Wiegman’s post got me thinking about my goals for my website in 2022.
This year I want to pursue my interest in Technical writing and documentation further by publishing more blog posts. With that in mind, here are a few goals I have for my website that will make it better for my readers.
- Add comments to my blog posts: I turned off comments as there was too much spam to deal with. Lately I find blog comments are making a comeback. It’s a great way to communicate with the readers and get feedback. Although I am not sure I will have the time and energy to follow up with comments, I thought its worth a try.
- Add Related Posts under each blog post: Related posts keep the readers on the site, and improve the site traffic while also helping them find more content on the topics that are interested in.
- Add RSS feed for the blog: This might be the easiest way readers can stay up to date with the content on the blog. Although I plan to have a newsletter and share my posts on Twitter, an RSS feed is still the best way to make sure they dont miss anything. I’ve never configured RSS feeds so I am pretty excited to learn more about this.
- Add a newsletter: Having a newsletter is a great way to let my readers in the loop on new blog posts. I’ve had newletter subscribe forms on my website several times. But I never got around to sending even one email. I would classify this as my ambitious goal and we’ll have to see how this goal goes.
- Create a custom Search page: FSE lets you create a custom search page from the Site Editor. I want to play around with that and build a custom one for my site without going into the WordPress core files.
- Create a custom 404 page: Same as the Search page, FSE lets you create a custom 404 page from the Site Editor. I plan to build a custom 404 page for my site without going into the WordPress core files.
- Create a Reviews page: In my previous website version, I had several Testimonials from clients. Using ACF (Advanced Custom Fields), Gutenberg, FSE and custom post types I want to display all the Testimonials in a Reviews Page. I am stoked to dive into this one and play around with FSE.
- Create a Projects page: Similar to the Reviews page, using ACF, Gutenberg, FSE and custom post types I want to display all my web development projects in a Projects.
Do you have any goals for your website for 2022?