[bignis]

Is it practical and desirable to have it both ways? Be published in a journal but also publish it on your own blog for free access?

So if you publish a paper titled "XYZ" in a journal and also put it on your blog, making sure your blog is visible to search engines - anyone searching for the paper's title "XYZ" will find it for free on your blog?

(I'm not involved with the science community)

[aroch]

You're frequently not allowed to self-publish your manuscripts for free if they're submitted to a journal. The publishing agreement you sign precludes it

[dalke]

Many people do that. Google Scholar, among others, can help find them better than a title search on a general purpose web search engine. For the most part, your proposal represents the status quo.

Note that my comment concerned the proposal "why not go to your peers directly instead of a proxy like these publications". Your proposal replaces "instead" with "in addition to".