I’ve almost finished building a static site for a client, and she’s just decided she wants to add a blog. She only intends making monthly posts, so something very simple would be perfect.
From my point of view, I want to be able to style it to fit in with the rest of the site with a minimum of time and effort.
Any suggestions?
(And I’ll say now, before somebody feels obliged to mention it, I do not want to use Wordpress. 
Perch is a great little CMS that plugs in to a static site, and would also make it possible for the client to update other parts of the site if required. It includes blogging capability.
I wondered about Perch, (because I know you keep recommending it ;)) but isn’t it more of a CMS than just a blogging platform? I would be truly astounded if she ever wanted to update the rest of the site herself. The impression I have is that she feels she has to have a blog because that’s what other folk have told her. She doesn’t really have the time (or, I think, the inclination) to blog, but a monthly update with a few photos is a manageable compromise. So something very easy for her to learn and use, that’s equally easy for me to learn and use, and that won’t require huge amounts of maintenance with updates and things is what I’m after.
Would Perch still be your recommendation?
It’s certainly fine to use Perch just for that. It’s as simple or as complex as you need it to be. Certainly for adding it into an existing static site it would be my choice.
However, there is an argument for using a third party service for the blog. She could use something like Tumblr to do blogging and just link to it in her menu. Another popular option is to post on Medium, as is Google+ (although I find that one impossible to use, personally). Still, I’m with those including Jeremy Keith who recommend keeping control of your content, rather than entrusting it to sites that can disappear overnight if they so choose. In a case like this, though, it’s probably not a big deal.
I’m also wary of clients who want a blog because it’s the done thing. You know they will forget about it in a few weeks or months, and nothing looks worse on a site than an inactive blog. So I try to convince such clients not to bother.
OK, thanks.
I’ve already tried. She asked near the start of the project what I thought about adding a blog, and I said pretty much what you did; that it needs to be regularly updated or it makes the whole site look neglected, and she agreed and decided not to bother. Then this morning came the e-mail “a friend has…”. 