Why I Chose a Blog First Over a Portfolio Site or Personal Homepage

Personal Blog, Technical Blog, Portfolio Site, or Personal Homepage?

These terms are often mixed, but they solve different problems. If you don’t differentiate them early, you may end up with a site whose role is unclear.

Personal Blog

A personal blog is primarily a record‑keeping tool. It can cover technical topics, books, tools, growth, project retrospectives, annual summaries, or even life observations. For programmers, its main value is sedimentation: documenting deployment failures, bug investigations, framework choices, tool benefits, and learning‑path adjustments. The scope is broader than a technical blog, emphasizing long‑term continuity rather than high technical density.

Technical Blog

A technical blog must explain not only "what I did" but also "why I did it." Readers look for answers, so the article structure should include background, environment, steps, problem, troubleshooting, and conclusion. The focus is on exposing the model, risks, and applicable scenarios behind commands, turning the blog into a knowledge base that demonstrates professional competence.

Portfolio Site

A portfolio site showcases projects to prove ability. It should answer: what problem does the project solve, what was my role, which technologies were used, are there screenshots, live demos, and code repositories, and which competencies does the project illustrate? Its goal is to lower the cost for recruiters or collaborators to assess your skills.

Personal Homepage

The homepage acts as a unified entry point. It may not host all content, but it must link to the blog, GitHub, public accounts, portfolio, resume, and contact information, allowing visitors to quickly understand who you are, what you focus on, and what you have done.

Choosing the First Step

All four can coexist as modules of a single site or as separate sites, but at the start you cannot build them all. I chose to start with a blog because its entry barrier is lowest—a server, a domain, and a static‑site generator are enough. The blog provides immediate evidence (articles) that is more persuasive than a decorative page.

Although I considered a portfolio first, most of my recent code is internal and cannot be disclosed. A personal homepage felt like a vanity page without supporting evidence. Both attempts stalled.

Starting with a blog lets content accumulate, forming topics that later feed a portfolio site with detailed deployment articles and technical retrospectives.

Public Account vs. Blog

A public account (e.g., WeChat) is good for first‑release and audience outreach, while the blog serves as an archive and sedimentation layer. Important articles are first posted on the public account, then expanded and stored on the blog.

Next Steps

The immediate goal is to launch a personal blog from 0 to 1, covering technical articles and practical logs. Subsequent phases will add a personal homepage and portfolio site, turning the blog from a content base into a personal‑brand entry point. The upcoming article will dive into the practical steps: provisioning a cloud server, domain registration,备案, security, Docker, Nginx, and HTTPS.