Blog or Actual Website?

[ebpglobal]

Hi,

Lately I've heard so much about how the search engines (which means Google) loves blogs, especially Wordpress, much more than regular websites.

Blogs are ok, but I find that with the level of knowledge that I currently possess, a website would be easier for me and, quite frankly, I would be able to make it do what I want instead of kissing up to Wordpress to try to get it to do what it says it is doing when you view it in the admin section, only to find out that it decided to do something else in the actual live post.

HELP!! blog or website? All assistance with this will be appreciated, and I would like to ensure that no matter what anyone says, it will simply be taken as an opinion.

And just to be clear, although I have had my issues with Wordpress (as I am sure a lot of people have), I am in no way pointing a derogatory finger at it, as it also is totally awesome at the same time (so you can see that I am in quite a pickle here ;-)

Thanks in advance for all your thoughts, opinions, advise and support!!

Edward

[smartsites]

If you use wordpress you can have both. With wordpress you can create static pages and insert html or do whatever you want while having the blog to help you with your rankings.

[Alexa Smith]

Hi Edward,

A blog is a type of web site.

These days, with static page facilities available in even the most basic blogging software, the distinctions between "blogging software" and "web site building software" are becoming increasingly blurred.

You can use both Blogger (self-hosted) and Wordpress.org software with various additional plug-ins to make web sites that don't look remotely like blogs.

The question "blog or non-blog web site?" becomes harder to answer, as the overlap grows greater, almost by the month.

I suspect that in asking, you have some perceptions (in terms of appearance, customisation or building-techniques, or some combination of these factors) of "differences" between them, but these perceptions may not be the same as everyone's, which also makes it harder to answer meaningfully. There are sites out there made from Wordpress, in particular, which you would never have any way of knowing are "blogs".

When you refer to search-engines "loving blogs", I think what you're really saying is that they love "regularly updated content"?

[Istvan Horvath]

Very true, Alexa!

WP is just a "publishing engine"... and the look and feel of the frontend (what visitors see) depends on your theme, your settings - the customization of the display.

[PaulWilson]

Hi Edward

There are so many themes out there for wordpress, that your list of things you can do with it are pretty much endless.

I have come across a few sites that I would have had no idea that they were wordpress...until you put /wp-admin on the end and it takes you to the login page!

I am sure you will make the right decision based on exactly what you want to do with it :-)

Paul

[pizzatherapy]

I have a nummber of websites as well as WP blogs.
I have been astounded at the ease of use of WP as well as all of the plug-ins availaable.
There are tools of every taste and flavor of Internet Marketing.

The SEO All-in One is reason enough to use a blog.

You could also build a static html site on the fornt end with a WP blog on the back end of the site.

[Jack Chua]

Well, it will really depend on which side you think you do best. It wont matter as long as you know how to make it work. There are a lot of ways to publish your site or product.

[coboi]

It's easy to put up a blog... WAY easier than creating a site from scratch. You can be up and running in minutes-literally. Blogs allow you to INTERACT with your market -
your visitors can leave comments to let you know what they're thinking. And you NEED to know what your prospects are thinking.

[jitterbug978]

Wordpress for ease of use!

[JMB Marketing Group]

How about BOTH ... Blogs & Wordpress, especially when you're working with Public Domain content. It's bar none -- especially if you want to incorporate a membership site(s).

JMB

[TheWealthSquad]

I think the search engines like blogs for a couple of reasons. They tend to have better built in SEO. Especially with some of the themes that are out there and some of the plug ins. So even relative newbies can have a well indexed and SEO friendly site.

The second reason is fresh content. By nature blogs are designed to be updated on a reasonable basis. WP pings the search engines when they are updated. The more you update your site, the more the spiders come a running.

If you want a static html site to perform as well, you need to know SEO, pinging, interlinking, H1, H2, etc etc etc. If you know how to do all that and can publish fresh content and ping on a regular basis, your website will perform as well as a blog.

If you don't know how to do all those things, load wordpress, install a good theme that is SEO friendly, load some good plug ins to help, modify your ping list, and just write and write and write. Most people know how to write. Most people DON'T understand all the techie stuff that goes on behind the scenes to get a website to rank well.

[lacraiger]

depends on what kind of site you are trying to make. personally in the long run my regular sites do better.