Blog Vs. Website?
Blog vs. a website … which one should I have?
This is a recurring question I get asked again and again and, it really is a valid question … one I asked before setting up my own blogs.
First of all, I need to make this ultra clear … a blog IS a website. In fact, I want to take that a stage further and say that blogs are “dynamic” websites. You can have pages on a blog and, with some of the great blog software on the market today, it can sometimes be difficult to tell some blogs and websites apart.
For those of you who may not know what a blog is, it’s short for web log, and is a frequently updated website consisting of blog posts, or entries (more often than not, dated entries) that are arranged in reverse chronological order. So when a reader comes to your blog, they see your most recent article or post first.
The advantage of a blog is that blogs allows you to post written text, audio and video and have it online within minutes, unlike traditional static websites which can take hours to update and cost you each time – unless you’re familiar with building or editing web sites.
Some months ago, I decided to put up a new website for one of my new services. I was using a template (something I rarely do) and, it came with very clear step-by-step instructions. Now, I hit some snags, which I eventually resolved, but the one thing I had to do which drove me crazy was sit at my PC for hours writing content for the site since I couldn’t upload it to the server without ensuring all the pages were complete.
And to me, this is the one of the biggest “plusses” of having a blog … you get the site up, write your first post (I always recommend 5 to start with though) and you are ready to do business online and invite the search engines to come visit you. I do also suggest you complete your “About” and “Services” pages too since people are naturally curious and will want to know more about you.
This brings me to another Big plus of having a blog …
Optimizing Your Site For The Search Engines is Much Easier With a Blog
Each time you publish a blog, you do what is called “pinging” the update services. In other words, you automatically notify the search engines (sometimes indirectly) that there is new content on your site so “come and take a look!” This gives the search engines occasion to come and visit your site to index it. So, another benefit is that blogs tend to be indexed much more often than traditional static websites and, blogs show up 10 times more often in organic searches than static websites do.
On a tight budget?
Then a blog is something you should definitely consider. Blogs are cheaper to build than static websites and even if you get your neighbor to build you a site for free, you will still need a budget to maintain the site and keep the site updated. Also, there is no “pinging” with static websites so you have to do much more of what is called “on page” and “off page” search engine optimization than is necessary with a blog, if you want your site to show up in the natural search engine results.
And don’t think just because you paid thousands of dollars or worst thousands of UK pounds (real money!! Sorry my US friends) to have a website built that you’re going to get people flocking to your site. In fact, I’m going to dare say that most designers have no clue whatsoever about search engine optimization. Their strategy is to make your site look good … “build it and they will come.” And, I’m not exaggerating here … I had one designer tell me this! But, I’m not using that example as a generalization … just do a Google search for web designers and take a look at their offerings and you’ll find that most of them will sell on “look good” rather than “get found.”
One more benefit (though there are many more) before I “bust” some myths … Bloggers establish credibility much faster static website owners because blogs by their very nature build a stronger and more vibrant knowledge base. Sure you can do this by adding articles to your static site but it comes down to cost again and in my view, “findability”. Finding articles on a blog is usually much easier than navigating your way through a static website.
With a blog, you log into your back office, write your blog post and click the “publish” button and your article is on the world wide web ready for anyone who cares to read it and, you can categorize your posts making it easier for people to find you both online and, when they reach your blog.
With a static website, you have to open up your editor, such as Front Page or Dreamweaver, write the article (and, I’m assuming you’re using the existing website template), update the page properties before uploading that page to your site using FTP software. Once you’ve done all of that, you have to “wait” until the search engines do their rounds again, visiting your site to get it indexed. This could take months, depending on the strategies that you employ.
I have had one of my clients blogs indexed within 36 hours and all she did was posted about 10 blog posts which were mainly snippets from her book. The crazy thing was that the posts were not even properly optimized but, her blog got the attention of the search engines.
Now for some myths about blogs and blogging:
- Blogging takes too much time. What!! Do you know how much time it takes to properly maintain a website!? If you’re building a business then the act of blogging should be an aspect of your marketing so spending 2-4 hours each week researching and writing blog posts should be seen as a plus, not a negative. That is not to say you have to post so often … I don’t but I had to in the early days to build my credibility.
- Blogs are fads and will die away soon. Boy … you would have thought these proponents would have cried off by now. But, let’s forget about them … just take a look at the direction the online world is taking and you will see that it makes sense to have a blog EVEN if you decide to build websites too (and, I do encourage both … more on that later) because blogs make podcasting, videocasting and social networking a lot easier if you are non technical.
- No one reads blogs anyway. This is what some of speakers of The Professional Speakers Association used to tell me when I asked about building a site for my services. Now, I will tell you what I would tell them if they were to give me that same “cookie cutter” answer today … No one reads YOUR blog! If this is you it’s time to spice it up. Give your blog a voice, not a corporate makeover! Humans work in corporations so even if you’re targeting them, they have a sense of humor, they don’t all have MBA’s and use long “unarticulaterable” words (like this one I just made up) and, they want information they can use. So save the Guardian style editorial for your press releases but give them great tips in your blog.
I could go on, but I hope I’ve given you enough information to make an informed decision on whether you should have a blog or a website.
However, if you are still undecided because you want a website for a salesletter to promote your product, you really do have two choices … you can create a mini website (one with less than 10 pages) and then add a blog to it in a subdirectory and market your product or service (by way of giving great tips) from your blog. Or, you should most definately check out the WordPress Semiologic Pro theme which enables you to write an ordinary blog “page” (not post, though the process is exactly the same) and save the page as a Sales Letter Template. Hit the publish button and you have a sales letter online.
Go and check out the Semiologic Pro theme and find out how you can have the best of both worlds.
To your online success,
No related posts.
I help entrepreneurs, and small business owners set up their online business so they get more clients and make more sales. Sign up to get my free blog updates by email and get internet business tips, latest news and free advice. And, you can follow me on Twitter.
Thank you Ms. Trish Jones for explaining this in “english” and helping me make a decision that I have been laboring over for a while. I will be creating a blog.
Yes, I am a computer geek, but some things are still new and challenging!
Excellent!!!!! And, most importantly, thank you!
God Bless and have a wonderful day!
Wow ! Thats awesome Info! , i was in two minds to get myself a website or not. Thanks for your help. Will stick to blog !
God Bless !
One thing I am still a little confused about is naming the Blog, Will my Blog name need to be registered like a website name and if not wont that leave the door open for anyone to use that same name?
Thanks in advance.
Thanks Trish – fab article. I’m beginning to think a blog might be my best and only option.
I created a blog on blogger today, to test how things work. When I typed in my exact blog site on google, my blog didn’t come up on the search. You mentioned that it takes at least 36 hours for search engines to index it – so, should I wait a couple of days and try again?
You also mentioned in a reply to an earlier comment that you don’t recommend publishing via free blog sites like blogger. Is it because it makes it harder for a blog to be indexed and therefore has much less visibility?
Sorry, but one last question, if i’ve got a domain name registerd, but no web host yet, does this mean it won’t be indexed by search engines? I also cannot get it on google after typing in the web address.
Thanks Trish,
This was really useful. I was considering a website, but I think I will stick with blogs if the search engines index blogs a little better.
Regards,
righteous
Hi Trish,
Your article was so refreshing, it definitely cleared the air for me, I’m sold on blogs now. Question, you said you don’t really recommend the free blog sites (blogger.com, wordpress), can u give me 2 or 3 blog sites that you do recommend, I want to come out of the gate doing it right.
Thank you soooo much
AR
Hi Trish,
It’s me again, Please help !
1. I bought a domain name on my wordpress.com blog , but now i want to move to .org , is it possible to retain the same address ?
2. My blog gets 700 hits everyday but i lost my google page ranking, ( previously it was 2) .How can i get back my page rank?
Thanks in advance
Best Regards
W.D
Hi again Trish,
I just wanted to share the news that I’m currently No.21 (Page 3) on Google search results for “Self Employment Ideas”. This is after starting my blog 17 days ago and with 15 posts over the period.
http://self-employment-ideas.blogspot.com/2009/06/self-employment-through-blogging.html
Thanks so much for your advice. I followed all your tips apart from getting my own domain name, which I intend to soon.
A further question I would like to ask is, if my site is called self-employment-ideas.blogspot.com, can I optimize my future pages for the search phrase e.g. “business widgets”? Will it take longer than “self employment ideas because it is different from my URL?
http://self-employment-ideas.blogspot.com/2009/06/self-employment-through-blogging.html
Hi Trish,
Thanks for the great post. 2 questions…
1- I would like to monetize, i.e. sell products, on my site. Are there blogs that will allow me to make transactions? This has really been the only issue that has made me not choose a blog vs. a website
2- How in the hell do you make sense out of all the plug-ins available for wordpress!?! I am totally confused in terms of which plug-ins I need upon setup vs. the nice to haves. Please advise.
Thanks in advance!
Hi Trish,
Steven Pierce recommends WordPress, the free service. Why don’t you? Thanks. Tomlin
Hey Trish,
Thanks for the write up. I was wondering if you could help me out with my case in particular though:
I have a passion for the mountains (trekking/mountaineering) and photography. I want to set up a blog/site to deal with the following:
a) an illustrative travelogue of the various trips iv made in the past;
b) a list of websites id recommend visiting
c) promoting websites of some of my friends (related to travel and trekking)
d) sharing and uploading maps of the Himalayan region (oh did I mention i live in India?)
e) a little introduction about myself
f) showcasing some of my photographs (and hoping someone will like them enough to wanna buy)
Thats pretty much it to start off with. I have no experience with html, though a friend might be able to supply me with web software.
In effect Im getting a tad frustrated keeping all my stuff locked up with me on my laptop and would like to share it with the web community. Hopefully, Ill be able to promote my photography as well.
Thanks so much. Wonderful to have someone like you at hand to help a complete greenhorn like me!
Cheers!
I ‘d say YES a blog may be a better choice. Though Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Youtube they’re are the top worldwide and they’re all websites.
HI Trish,
Excellent article. It’s the answer to my question!!!!!
Now if in the future I would want to add a shopping cart to sell products – I know that you can add to a website, but can I also add a shopping cart to a blog?
Many thanks, Trish.
Keep up the good work.
Claire
Hi Claire,
There’s an ecommerce plugin for wordpress which gives you shopping cart functionality. Amazingly, it’s free too: http://www.instinct.co.nz/e-commerce/
Ian
.-= Ian Brodie´s last blog ..Have You Forgotten How To Listen? =-.
Nice article and thanks for sharing here
Hi Trish
Very interesting article and the answers to some of the comments where questions I needed answering so thanks.
I found your article because I was searching to see if there was a downside to blogs. I seem to have traditional websites rank higher than me that have only a few low authority backlinks yet I have several hundred amd am languishing at position 9/10 on google.
I’m using seo pluggin and all seems pretty good, but how does posting affect rankings, is it literally the more you post keyword rich posts the better your ranking and do I have to do that forever?
Thanks
Mike
.-= Mike O´s last blog ..Hypnotherapy and CBT for Anxiety =-.
In a nutshell Mike, Yes.
Basically, the more quality articles (blog posts) you write, the more other people will link back to your blog, giving you a higher chance of people finding you. Linking is a huge part of how the search engines rank sites and so you want to ensure you are not blogging in isolation … get other people talking about you is key.
I would rather choose blogs, i think they are better becouse more people are included in writing blogs usually. And it gets updated usually every day, some get even quicker. Beside that there is many interestin gblogs outthere on the internet where you can learn alot from them
Thank you trish, i just did search on google for eshop, this shopping cart really have a lot of good features, like: different methods for listing products, also product can have multiple options, autmotic emails options and much more, it is really good one, thank you for letting us know.
.-= Star Config web design´s last blog ..Welcome to the Star Config Web Site Design Company =-.
Thank you for explaining the differences between the two. I work in networking and computers and training. I am self taught and have learned many things on my own. I have always wanted to do a blog but don’t really know where to start or how to go about it. Its amazing the amount of things that I have learned over the years and how many things I don’t know. Thanks again for starting the learning process.
Hi Trish,
You’ve certainly answered a lot of questions for me. I am concerned about what Victor wrote, that he was using “sponsored blog hosting” and after 3 months of work it just disapeared, with a message that it was suspended.
Is ‘sponsored blog hosting’ a free blog?
Do blogs exist forever, or do they expire at some point?
I am not selling anything, I have started a foundation in my late husbands name, to raise money for scholarships, & I just want a blog so that people can see what it is all about and see updates on the work that we are doing. I also want to post some of my late husbands jazz radio shows. I want to set up something that will continue after I am gone, so I was thinking of a free blog that would not require anyone to make payments. Am I on the right track?
Hi Donna,
Even if you’re not going to be selling anything on your blog, I still highly suggest you own it by having your own domain name and hosting wordpress on that domain on your own hosting account. If you want to go free, you never know when that blog could disappear for any number of reasons and, if you intend to have someone continue the blog after you’re gone, I definately suggest you avoid the free route.
Hope that helped.
Best,
Trish
it depends.. if they have totally same content.. then one is not going to work, because of the duplicate content issues..
Why would you want the same content barbor? The blog should either compliment the main site by adding up-to-date information or, the main site can be replaced with wordpress as a content management system for the main site and one of the pages could then operate as a blog.
Using totally the same content wouldn’t just get pages delisted for duplicate content, it would get your entire site delisted.
Hope this helps since I wouldn’t want anyone thinking that this is somehow a way to trick the search engines.
I’ve written a play, “Nina Simone: In Her Own Words.” I need to have a blog or website to promote the play, keep people updated on dates and locations, interact with fans, have streaming video, and ad space. Can I accomplish all of this on a blog?
Hi Brett,
Unless you use one of the free services such as from Blogger.com or WordPress.com which, I don’t recommend, you will register your domain name in exactly the same way you would for a website.
Hope that helps clear things up for you.
Trish
Hi Sophie,
It takes a little more than just publising a blog to get found in the search engines … you have to have a reasonable amount of search engine optimized posts and in terms of reasonable amount, it could be five posts if well optimized or 25 posts if not at all optimized. The example I gave of a blog appearing in the search engines after 36 hours was a specific case and this is possible if you add enough good content to the site.
I don’t like free blog sites because you don’t own your blog. I have heard from others that they don’t do so well in the search engines but I wouldn’t like to confirm that since I haven’t done any testing or tracking myself. Take a look at a video I created last year about owning your blog. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LoVDWImq7Y
If your domain name is just parked and has no content attached to it then you are correct in saying that it will not be indexed by the search engines. This would also be the reason you are unable to find it by doing a Google search.
Hope this helps Sophie.
Trish
Thanks Trish. You’ve been great help. I’m follwing you on twitter to get your latest advice and tips.
Hi Arnold,
Glad to hear you’re sold on blogs!
What I actually recommend is that you go to http://www.wordpress.org (not wordpress.com) and download a free version of the software which you can then host on your own server. This way, you own your blog and no one can delete it for violoating their terms and services.
I’m not sure if you’ve seen my video about creating a WordPress blog but, if you haven’t you can see it here … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LoVDWImq7Y
Hope this helps Arnold,
Trish
Hi W.D.
Since you registered the domain name yourself, you can move it to any hosting server you like … you just have to know who it was registered with since you’ll need to change the domain name server.
With regard to losing your google page rank, this would be difficult for me to say why … it could be for any number of reasons. Go to the Google Webmaster website and preferably sign up. There is a section on the site that allows you to ask Google about your lost pagerank. http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools
Hope you get this sorted W.D.
Trish
Hi Trish,
I think I might have jinxed myself. I’m no longer visible on google search, even if I type in my full site URL!
I’m going to write to Google now at the link you provided above.
Re your question about optimizing for different phrases, so long as they are relevant to your main theme of your site, you should be okay.
You will definately need to find out why you’re no longer appearing in the search engine listings sophie.
Hope you get this sorted,
Trish
Hi Tomlin,
Many of the top marketers recommend WordPress.com or Blogger.com to get you started but as a long-term strategy, in my view, it holds no water. If you want to own your business, you have to own your blog which, dismisses free hosted blog solutions.
Hope this helps,
Trish
Hi Sahil,
I sent you an email … if you want some consulting, do contact me.
Trish
Hi Trish, It’s been awhile since I posted any replies since my first visit to your site.
Since then I have created several blogs on Blogger not including a couple I have just for test purposes, the one thing I have noticed about Blogger is the ease of use.
I knew nothing about HTML prior to this but there are so many avenues to follow for tips and how to articles for this platform it makes it fun to play with all the different toy’s and add on’s but I also have a blog with Go Daddy and the one thing I would recommend before anyone pay for any web space is to know exactly what you want to do and what functionality you will need as you can get nickled and dimed for all the little extras, look at other blogs and sites so you have a good idea of what you’ll need or want.
There are things you can do with a paid for space you simply cannot achieve with a free service but I have found the combination of the two work very well together
I think you’re missing the point Luis,
Yes, Google, Yahoo, Facebook and YouTube are all big worldwide but who owns them? They are fine for “dabblers” on the Internet, but if you want to build a long-term Internet business, you need a home base, be it a blog or a website.
Hi Claire,
There a few shopping carts for WordPress now. I think the one I prefer is eShop. Just do a search on Google for eShop WordPress Plugin and you’ll find it.
Best,
Trish
Hi Trisha
Self hosted blogs are better than sponsored hosting
I totally agree with you that using sponsored blog hosting is like playing Russian roulette. I had one on blogspot and I was receiving good traffic but I woke up one day all I saw was a message “this blog has been suspended”. After frantic writing of letters to Google I gave up and lost my 3 months work.
Leveraging on the power of blogging software to create static websites.
Initially I was creating sites in dreamweaver and common CMS like joomla, cutenews but still it took a lot of hardwork on optimizing and waiting to have them indexed.
I had to find a way of working with wordpress to create static websites which get indexed within 48 hours.
Search Engines love blogs and using blogging software like wordpress you can have your site up and running within an hour or so with richly optimized pages and posts.
Thanks Trisha for bringing this up on your blog.
Trish – the free blog sites do fine in the search engines. For example, search for “make money online” in google – one of the most competitive niches, yet the number 1 site is a blogspot blog.
My experience is that blogspot blogs actually do rather well in the SERPs – I’m guessing it’s a trickle-down from links from the high PR domain itself.
But I prefer my own hosted blog for control and branding reasons.
Ian
.-= Ian Brodie´s last blog ..Have You Forgotten How To Listen? =-.