When starting to build your Internet business, you might be wondering about the difference between building a Web site and a blog exactly, and why the differentiation in the first place?
On a Web site and on a blog, you are going to have content all geared to promoting something to an end consumer. The end result is to monetize your endeavors in the long run. So okay, that’s not a difference but a similarity, but give me a minute and I’ll get there. ;-)
Both a Web site and a blog will have content and it all should be rich with keywords that will please the search engines. Again a similarity, but let’s take a look at this a little deeper.
When you have a blog, you are going to have to provide new content for it on a regular basis. Just to have one or two articles sitting there for weeks isn’t going to do anything. A blog has to be alive. It has to breathe!
On the other hand, a Web site can be built up with rich content and optimized to attract visitors and search engines, and you can let it sit and work for you. You don’t have to constantly update it — although it is good to freshen the content now and then.
Building your own Web site can give you more freedom. You build it and have the SEO content there, and it will continue to attract visitors for months and years to come. You can basically create it and set it on autopilot. Many prefer this to a blog where you will be adding content and monitoring comments, etc.
But then again, a blog can be a powerful Social Networking tool. It’s more interactive. You can get people coming again and again to get updated on current events or more news about a subject. Folks can get RSS feeds for new content when added.
Of course, the more exposure the customer has to your “brand,” the more likely he or she will be to purchase from you. For example, an individual visits your blog and sees a topic they are interested in learning about. They may return the next day to see if anyone added any information. And when they come back, they might click on an ad on your site or follow one of your valuable recommendations.
But the downside? You have to keep adding content, at least once or twice a week, to make this really work. If someone comes back and sees nothing new, they might not try again… and you’ve lost them.
When you do add new content to a blog, ensure it’s easy to find the older articles. You can do as I do and have the topics divided up so someone can go directly to the subject they are interested in.
The time to go with a Web site would be if you want to build one about something you know and love. For example, if you love and know a lot about cats and want to have information available to others about it, you can build an entire site about this topic.
Being able to make money with either a Web site or a blog is generally the same. You can make money with contextual advertising programs, with affiliate programs, or you’re your own product or service. You can also sell advertising space.
Good luck with whatever you choose! :-)
—Marcus Hochstadt
P.S. Here is another interesting viewpoint on whether one should build a Web site or a blog and for whom the dedication to full blogging might be a good choice when building an Internet business.
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Personally I’d go with a website everytime – it is so much more flexible and scalable. If you start with a blog, and decide it is getting good traffic you might want to expand it with new features, like forums, e-commerce, or downloads. These are popular sections of any website but incorporating this into a blog can be difficult, or impossible.
You can also work on the on-site SEO much easier on a website.
Let’s face it, when we are talking about internet marketing websites, we are talking about wordpress. WordPress is so easy to set it, it is just as easy as setting up a blog, but 100 times more powerful.
For this reason alone, I cannot see a valid reason for choosing a blog over a website.
Yup, one of the reasons why I picked WordPress for my Germany Web site.
As for me, well, I prefer website because you could put some plugins all you want and you can just even sit there and wait for your page to monetize.
For a business, websites are the best. However if you have plenty of time, by all means go for a proper website + a blog if you feel that it can be updated on a regular basis.