Opinion: How to Write and Manage a Blog on Your iPad in 2019

Writing and blogging are two of the things that keep me going each day. You’ll never know the thrill of getting your first blog post published and the true happiness of getting a blog post or article published each time. For me, it is what can make a bad day into a good day.

However, with the world getting more mobile and how Apple has advertised the iPad Pro as a computer replacement, here are just some ways on how you can write and manage a blog, and how you can do it all from a tablet!

I will tell you about how to start, write and manage a blog in 2019, as well as some of my personal experiences with blogging and what has worked for me.

My first recommendation would be to use WordPress. I have been using WordPress since I was in high school and it is the best blogging platform, in my opinion. I should also point out that it was with my experience of WordPress that made North Iowa Area Community College’s (NIACC) Logos Lite website change to WordPress in 2014.

Of course, you could always use another service like Squarespace, Weebly or Blogspot, but WordPress is my go-to for this kind of stuff.

Getting back to the point, WordPress’s iOS app has made great strides over the past year adding new features to their iPhone and iPad apps so that a person can write and manage a blog right from one of those devices. On top of that, you can access things like your daily stats, which will tell you how many people are coming to your website every day.

The app also allows people to add YouTube videos to blog posts right from the HTML code. This was a feature the WordPress app did not have for a while, but to accommodate for the demand of people doing work from their smartphones and tablets, the feature was born into the iOS app.

When using the iPad as your primary writing device, whether it is a regular iPad or iPad Pro, I would recommend getting a keyboard case for it. This is going to help you make the writing more comfortable and accurate. You do not want to be using a touchscreen for this kind of work. Apple does have its Smart Keyboard case, but you can find third-party keyboard cases that are cheaper than the Apple one.

If you are an artist or see yourself making your own art for the blog, I’d recommend picking up an Apple Pencil. For those who are not going to be artists in that sense, disregard that.

Another thing you will want to add to your iPad is the Grammarly app. It does not work like the Mac app where you can copy-and-paste the content into the app and check for grammar and punctuation errors from there. Instead, you can add it as a keyboard to your iPad and it will do it as you type. For those who are not the best word savants out there, this is a huge recommendation. I can make your writing sound smarter too. Best of all, it is a free app in the App Store.

Now, for those who are going to be editing photos from their iPad, I’d recommend Pixelmator for iOS and Adobe Photoshop Express. Pixelmator will cost you $4.99, while Adobe Photoshop Express is a free app in the App Store. Apple has saidthat the full version of Photoshop will be coming to the iPad sometime in 2019.

Obviously, you will have to write content on this blog or else what’s the point, right? Be sure that when you are doing that, that you are doing it regularly. I personally hate seeing when people only post like once a week or month just because that makes me feel as though you don’t care about the craft. I have been writing my own blog since 2014 and written for it regularly. There have been times when I have done five new blog posts in a week (Monday-Friday). It’s not easy, but it can be done with work ethic and hustle.

Right now, I only update it twice a week (which usually comes with an 800-1000+ word review of the newest episode of FOX’s Last Man Standing on Mondays and then a new blog post of whatever I feel like on Friday), but that is only because I am writing almost eevery dayon Appleosophy and working 50 hours a week. Yes, I like to keep myself busy.

Make sure that when you have written a full blog post that you edit it thoroughly. I know that I recommended Grammarly earlier, but only it can do so much. It never hurts to take a look for yourself. If you have any YouTube HTML links, make sure that they work, are centered and that they are spaced evenly between the other paragraphs.

Lastly, have a place where you keep your blog post ideas. If you are going to do it digitally, the Apple Notes app or Evernote will do the trick. I personally use Day One, but that is just because I can have multiple journals in it and that I pay $24.99 a year for it. A physical notebook or journal will do the job as well.

In the end, those are just some of the best and recommended ways to write and manage a blog in 2019. If you do use something like a MacBook or iMac to do this, more power to you! Writing and managing a blog from an iPad is a great way to start getting into blogging that could lead to bigger things down the road.