Music fans buy more vinyl than ever before. Even cassette tapes are making a comeback (anyone need a pencil?)… And now, I am considering turning my WordPress blog into a static website. Keep reading for the reasons why and witnessing the challenges and solutions on this project.
One of the reasons this blog is called DigiGeek is that I grew up in the age of digital pioneers or digital immigrants. We were the first ones to experience and adapt to the digital revolution as it unfolded. When my Atari upgraded from 16 KB of RAM to 64 KB of RAM it was a massive leap forwards. That’s KB of RAM, not MB or GB. We are used to upgrading, experiencing new technologies, testing what works and what not, we are the original digital geeks. We are the digital curious generation.
My generation is basically the “bridge generation” because we connect the pre-digital and digital worlds, which means we’re highly adaptable in both analogue and digital environments. That might explain why in my professional life I prefer to work in roles that connect the technical world with the world of noobs. Bridging is in my DNA.
My first website (a Friends TV show fan site in the mid-90s) was created by creating HTML files in a text editor and uploading them to my hosting provider. Seeing static sites making a “comeback” as a more secure and faster alternative to popular CMS solutions, has made me want to travel back to the 90s and turn this blog into a static website. And you will be a passenger on this journey via this ever-expanding blog post.
Did you fall out of love with WordPress? Why go for a static site?
Haha not at all, no worries. There just comes a time when you realise that WordPress might not be the best solution for every website or blog. I’ve been blogging on WordPress for almost 20 years and some of my blogs benefit more from the advantages of WordPress than others.
Take for instance this – relative young – blog about Digital Marketing & eCommerce. On this blog, it’s all about the content – the text, not the photos or videos. So why use a whole WordPress ecosystem with fancy page builder tools like Beaver Builder? A simple static website will do as well. Maybe even better, especially when it comes to loading speed and SEO, especially being picked up & recommended by AI.
Advantages of a static website
It starts with simplicity but there are many more reasons to consider using a static website for your blog or (small) business website.
- Speed (which also impacts SEO): Faster load times as the pages & blog posts are pre-built.
- Security: There is no database or server-side processing so fewer vulnerabilities. No need for security tools like on a regular CMS.
- Cost: Lower hosting costs as you don’t need a lot of power or space as there is no need for server-side resources.
- Simplicity: A static website is much easier to deploy and to maintain. And yes, it is also relative easy to turn your WordPress website into a static website as this blog post will show.
- Scalability: It handles traffic spikes better.
Things to consider when moving from WordPress to static
Before you start moving your current website (WordPress or any other CMS) to a static website there are a few things to consider. A static website is much simpler, which also means fewer features than on a popular CMS like WordPress. It all depends on the features your website uses, how important these are and whether there is a good alternative available in the world of static websites. Yes, you can tweak a lot yourself but not everyone feels comfortable messing around with code or external solutions.
In the case of my blogs the most important things to consider are:
- Which comment system to use on a new static website and how to port all comments to the new static site? You don’t want to lose years of great comments and discussions – some posts on of my blogs have 100s of comments.
- How to deal with the /go or /out pretty links for the affiliate links used on these blogs? Some have a huge collection of these links created via the Pretty Links plug-in for WordPress.
- How to keep the ActivityPub activity so each new blog posts gets send into the Fediverse?
As always, for every “problem” there are plenty of solutions. These will be covered further in the article.
Reasons I picked Publii as my static site generator
Even though I’m about to take the road back to the 90s and turning my blog into a static website, there is no need to go fully back to the past. Nowadays, you don’t need to type all HTML comments into a text editor and save as HTML file.
There are plenty of options to create a static website, some more aimed at geeks while others are more aimed at beginners or non-tech people. Personally, I like to select a method that has plenty of options for tweaking and customisations while also being easy to show and explain to almost everyone. Professional deformation of my Digital Marketing & eCommerce background?
The solution that really stood out for me, is Publii – “an intuitive Static CMS that gives you the freedom platforms can't”. Having a tool on your desktop/laptop that gives you the feel & power of a CMS, sounded awesome. And it was.
After the first boot and importing my WordPress data, it was so much fun to work with. Working offline on your website, seeing previews when needed and then beaming the output to your server is mind-blowing.
Also, Publii feels familiar when you are used to a CMS like WordPress:
- Posts vs pages – same distinction between locations of your content
- Installing themes is just as easy. It gives your blog a completely different look & feel
- Adding plug-ins is similar to uploading an extension to your WordPress website
When you save your Publii data in your own secure cloud you can access & edit it from all your systems. Install the Publii app and start working on your static site. Easy as.
First steps, challenges and sneak preview of my static website project
Once the decision was made to try to change my first blog from a WordPress site to a static site, the following steps following quickly.
- Download the free Publii app to familiarise yourself with it. There are official versions for mac OS, Windows and Linux.
- Export all your WordPress data via the built-in export function. Go for export all and then import all into Publii. If you use things like Beaver Builder on WordPress then you’ll see some more items that can be imported. Don’t deselect these otherwise, you’ll run into a render error when previewing your site on Publii.
- Time for tweaking and “rebuilding” your site. The first version of your static site – right after the import – will look more or less terrible. It’s the raw import. Now the fun part starts… Tweaking your blog so it looks great as static site and works perfectly.
- Select a theme – start with one of the free ones, but check out the premium (paid) themes as well. There are some great ones that really make your blog stand out. It is also an easy way to support the Publii project.
Progress of the static website project. What is next?
So that is where I am at… It’s the tweaking and fine-tuning stage for me. A unique opportunity to see if all pages that were created on the WordPress version are really necessary. You’ll likely find pages you can skip or merge to improve the flow of your static site. It is the perfect moment to give your blog a nice refresh before launching it as a static website.
Yes, I have thought about the next step of hosting the static site but that is more something for the next update
And that brings us up to speed. That is the current status of my project to turn my WordPress blog into a static website. This blog post will be updated regularly as this project is on-going. For now, this blog still runs on WordPress but that will change soon as the goal of this project is to end up with a modern, blazing fast and secure static website as blog.
Stay tuned for the next update….
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