blogstatic review - Blogging made easy and fast
If you want a good blogging platform that's easy to use and packed with features, you've come to the right place.
I'll review blogstatic and show how it can make life easier for bloggers without compromising the features.
Plus, blogstatic it's one of the easiest and straightforward platforms you could use for blogging that I know.
So, let's see why this tool is powerful, and you'll love using it.
Video review
TL;DR
Here you'll find the highlights of this review about blogstatic:
- blogstatic is easy to use, and there's nothing to install or configure.
- You can use a custom domain or free subdomain.
- blogstatic is fast and secure.
- Their user interface is clean and easy to navigate around.
- blogstatic is well optimized for search engines.
- You can display ads on your blog.
- You can import and export data at any time.
- blogstatic donates 1% of the revenue to reduce carbon emissions.
- They have a public roadmap.
- This is a young company with a small knowledge base and community.
- The number of integrations is low, and there's no Zapier integration available.
blogstatic summary
blogstatic was released around April 2021, and their headline on their about page sums the product well: "Built with passion for writers around the globe."
This website builder was developed by the indie developer Val Sopi. And let me tell you that having a small indie team can do wonders.
In the last couple of months, Val has been sharp in adding new features based on feedback. And you can see how much progress he made in the previous month in this blog post.
This is making blogstatic a contender to enter the best platforms for writers list.
All this while making it accessible for everyone to run a blog.
They take care of everything. You don't need to configure shit. There is a lot of care and thought put into this tool to make it as easy as possible.
Let's see it in action and start with the strengths.
Strong points
Now, you will learn in detail about each of the best aspects of blogstatic.
Easy to use
First, blogstatic is ridiculously easy.
In some cases, you might think: "Is this all?". And the answer will be yes. So it's almost "dummy-proof".
There is nothing to install. It will be 2 minutes from the sign-up to start writing.
Also, you can use it with a free subdomain they give or use a custom domain. My advice, use a custom domain for SEO benefits in the long term.
Editor
The editor in blogstatic does one thing that more popular CMSs fail: there is nothing to preview.
This means that what you see in the editor will have the same aspect in the website.
If you've used other tools for blogging, you know this isn't always the case. And how frustrating it is to make things look good like they do in the editor. So, don't sleep on this time saver feature.
Also, you can embed newsletter forms from companies like Convertkit, Buttondown, or Mailchimp. Plus, adding YouTube videos, tweets, and code snippets are easy.
If you like to use Grammarly, I have good news. The editor supports Grammarly. This way, you can fix typos as you write.
Clean user interface
I've reviewed Substack recently and said they are simple and easy to use. But saying blogstatic is simple is an understatement.
That's why you'll see make several references to simplicity in this tool.
Let's start with the dashboard.
After logging in, you go to the posts page.
In the left sidebar, you have:
- Posts
- Pages
- Settings
- Profile
That's it. No complicated or cluttered stuff.
On the center of the page is the main content area. And if you are on the Posts section, it shows the list of all the posts in your blog.
Quick note, if you didn't notice in the last section of this review about the editor: the sidebar is hidden when you're using it. This allows a focused writing experience.
Fast and secure website
As I've explained above, blogstatic websites are fast. This happens because their websites are light and not bloated with unnecessary stuff.
This creates a trifecta: fast, secure, and cheap websites. Isn't that lovely?!
Plus, Blogstatic includes an SSL certificate. This means communication between your browser and the server is encrypted.
I've suggested 2-factor authentication to Val, and blogstatic will be even safer when he adds it.
Monetization
It's 2021, and everyone knows you can make money online. It's almost a given in today's world! But can you make money while using blogstatic? Yes, you can.
blogstatic allows ads from Google's Adsense network. Add this to the list like sponsored content and affiliate sales.
To achieve it, go to settings, click on "Advanced customizations" look for "Footer code injections", and paste the script for the ad platform of your choice.
And things may not stop here.
If Blogstatic adds memberships, they will be a viable alternative to Ghost to create a membership website.
So, stay tuned and subscribe to my newsletter. I'll send you news and guides to help improve your website.
SEO
Having a tool with good search engine optimization is essential to increase the visibility of your work. And with blogstatic, most of the features are already in place.
Here is a quick run down features that will help your website rank better:
- SSL - installed by default.
- Sitemap - generated by default and updates with every new post released.
- Schema markup - this code will help search engines understand the content of the page better.
- Canonical tags - help search engines avoid indexing duplicated content.
- Image alt text - is essential for website accessibility and for screen readers to explain the content of an image.
- URL customization - URL structure should help understand what's the content of the page.
- Speed - is a ranking factor, and their websites are very light and fast.
- Robots.txt - this file tells search engines about pages you don't want to index, but it's up to them to honor or not your request.
This serves as a solid base for SEO optimization, but some features are still missing.
The most important missing features are:
- Custom meta description.
- Easy way to add nofollow links - now you need to write HTML to achieve this.
- Call to action.
- Redirects - on the roadmap.
- Tags and categories - on the roadmap.
And to back my statement of good SEO, I've run a Lighthouse report on Val's blog running Blogstatic.
The score is only 90 because Val didn't add alt text to the images in the post. If it wasn't for that, the score would be higher.
Data ownership
By using blogstatic, you'll be the owner of your content.
Also, they make it easy to import and export content.
This means leaving Blogstatic is easy. Almost everything with them is easy if you haven't noticed. This gives peace of mind in case the tool is not a good fit for you. But in contrast, when companies have this mentality, their users feel that they don't want to leave.
Plus, you will not be banned like in Substack for selling things outside of the platform.
Public roadmap
A public roadmap is awesome because you can see what things are being worked on and considered for the platform.
Also, if you want a currently unavailable feature, you can suggest, and it might be added.
This is excellent for transparency, an insider look, and managing the expectations of everyone.
Making a positive impact on climate
And to finish the good aspects about blogstatic, their servers run on 100% green electricity.
Also, they contribute 1% of the revenue to carbon removal through Stripe Climate.
Imperfections
No company is perfect, and blogstatic isn't the exception.
They do many things right, but below I'll list some stuff with room for improvement noted during the investigation.
Early days of the company
The concept of blogstatic is excellent, and I see many people loving and using this tool.
However, this tool is 6 months old at writing time, and some features are missing.
For example, an easy way to add a call to action (CTA) and some SEO features.
The developer is on a shipping spree. So, these features might be shipped sooner than later.
Also, if you write HTML code, you can work around some current limitations in the editor.
So, we might be a couple of months away from a great product with all the bells and whistles.
Also, there is no knowledge base. Val is giving fantastic support for the product and answers fast. But a knowledge base is a good idea because someone can look for the problem/question and fix it alone without waiting for support.
Plus, the community around blogstatic is still tiny at this point.
A low number of integrations
Yes, I know blogstatic supports code injection. And it also offers a way to embed content in the editor. But overall, the number of integrations is reduced.
Releasing a Zapier integration would help a lot and exponentially improving the number of integrations. By the way, Zapier integration is currently in their roadmap.
Plus, having an API would improve the integrations at disposal.
Low flexibility
Some people like the flexibility of running a blog on a subfolder. Unfortunately, with blogstatic, that's not possible.
The current technology used doesn't allow it. So it's better to let you know, in case you were thinking about it as I did.
Also, it's not possible to customize parent (or nested) pages like in WordPress. It would be a nice feature to have, even though this isn't a feature that makes sense for most blogs.
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Final Considerations
So, having all that said, I rate blogstatic with a 7.2/ 10 rating.
This is an impressive score for a 6-month-old tool!
The founder of blogstatic, Val, is very gracious.
I've sent lots of feedback, and the response was incredible. Also, he shipped some features suggested before I could even finish writing this review. And I'm sure I'll have to go back and update this review in the following months to keep up with the new releases.
So, if you want a blog that doesn't give you headaches, is fast and easy to use, go ahead and try blogstatic today.
