Blog Or Standard Website

[kah22]

I've been doing a lot of reading of the Forums lately and especially Steve Wagenheim posts and his insistence that we should all keep writing new material, so I'm all fired up for the new year.

Some of my sites need a make over. They are basically information sites with mainly individual, stand alone articles, like Dogs Worldwide and I was wondering if a well chosen Blog Template is as good as, or better than, a standard static webpage. I’m no designer so I can’t do whistles and bells, I work strictly from pre-made templates.

Maybe I'm wrong here but I seem to see a lot more Blogs out there now delivering information which a few years ago you would only put on a standard website. Am I right in assuming that they are becoming much more main stream.

I have access to Dreamweaver so the business of posting is not that difficult - but with blogs it's instant and with WordPress you can write the articles and post at a future date - great for building up a relationship with the bots.

I'd appreciate opinions.

[TheMagicShow]

I am all in favor of a wordpress blog, you can find hundreds if not thousands of free themes, you can add some really cool plugins and get lots of traffic instantly from running a blog.

[manjit129]

Hey this is slightly off topic, but you can make your wordpress blog actually look like a website and not a blog. I don't know how to do this, it must be some theme or plug in. Just thought I'd throw that in.

[napoleonfirst]

You are better off using a hosted Wordpress blog. Your blog can be indexed in less than a week.

[Ivancho]

I would put it into blog. You can always have the same design if you preffer it but converted into blog with little playing from your side. Why Blog? Because google loves them and their is many many optimization tools specially for the wordpress platform.

[tommygadget]

WP, definitely. So many SEO plug-ins available (read BigMike) and you can even turn it into a membership site. Leave free teasers out there and charge $5/month for the premium content. 100 subscribers and you've got a hit. Sell it for $6,000 and rinse and repeat.

TomG.

[Ivancho]

Originally Posted by tommygadget

WP, definitely. So many SEO plug-ins available (read BigMike) and you can even turn it into a membership site. Leave free teasers out there and charge $5/month for the premium content. 100 subscribers and you've got a hit. Sell it for $6,000 and rinse and repeat.

TomG.

That is also a good Tip Tom. I never thing for anything similar like this. But why would he sell it if he can profit from it. I just don't understand poeple >>>>

[tommygadget]

Originally Posted by Ivancho

That is also a good Tip Tom. I never thing for anything similar like this. But why would he sell it if he can profit from it. I just don't understand poeple >>>>

My answer to this is simple. I have over 200 sites. I also have an IM blog, an upcoming blog flipping membership site, several coaching students, several customers who ordered complete blog packages (yes, I'm building them, don't worry) and lots of other stuff going on. Once I get a site up and running, it is much easier to sell the least profitable ones to keep from getting overwhelmed by stuff. Many of my old sites could be making 20x what they do now if I applied all I know now about SEO and site promotion to them, but I just don't have the time. Yes, I know, outsource, outsource (thanks Andy).

TomG.

[kenj]

I'm still not convinced about wordpress blogs - not convinced at all.

And I have 20 of them currently.

My most recent websites are plain old html stuff and they are out performing anything else I have out there. The 1,000's of wordpress themes out there are basically rubbish if you are in anyway concerned about the look and feel of your domain.

It is very easy to run a wordpress blog. But there is a price to pay in terms of how you want to run your business. (I will now hide in a hole)

[kah22]

Five/Six to one in favour of blogs never thought it would be that high, though I do see where kenj is coming from when he says there are

1,000's of wordpress themes out there are basically rubbish if you are in anyway concerned about the look and feel of your domain.

So those of you who would be in favour of blogs, what type would you be going for, the magazine type blog which seems to be comming quite popular these days, or a more traditional type of layout.

Care to recommend a theme, better still care to point me in the direction of someone who is really using a blog layout to its max

Kevin

[Keith Ireland]

I much prefer wordpress blogs, easier to maintain, monetize and run. Setting one up is quick and easy and you are able to change the look of your website in just a few clicks.
I have just converted all of my old html websites into wordpress blogs, by changing the permalink structure to /%postname%.html

[kah22]

Originally Posted by Keith Ireland

I have just converted all of my old html websites into wordpress blogs, by changing the permalink structure to /%postname%.html

Could you direct me to a tutorial

Kevin

[shakingspear]

I think WP blogs are the way to go, especially when just starting a website. They are picked up so quickly by search engines and, as mentioned, there are tons of plugins and themes to help.

[Steve Crooks]

It has to be hosted wordpress for the reasons outlined in the other posts. Also, for some reason, google loves blogs.

[GeorgR.]

Blog, Blog and again: Blog. And yes, Wordpress.

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by manjit129

Hey this is slightly off topic, but you can make your wordpress blog actually look like a website and not a blog. I don't know how to do this, it must be some theme or plug in. Just thought I'd throw that in.

Almost any theme can be tweaked to look like a regular website. All you really have to do is set up a static front page and remove the "bloggish" features you don't want.

For example, If I was going to use WP as a simple CMS for a website, I'd remove the posting date and author information that normally goes at the bottom of each post. You can do that by deleting a few lines of code in the templates for the theme.

I'd also like to second the warning about the number of garbage templates out there. More than one marketing product has recommended distributing free themes as a way to build backlinks. That's fine, but too many of the people trying to do that have no real idea how to construct a theme or how to do proper SEO on that theme.

My two favorite ways to get good themes are to find one good theme where all I have to do is change the graphics (headers, bullets, etc.), and to find a theme I like at someplace like OSWD.org and have it customized into a WP theme.

[ritesh2408]

Wordpress Blogs will be great, but dont go for magazine style.. Rather go for a normal and clean theme.. It will help earning more..

[Kurt Chrisler]

I like to use both. I use the static website to go after my top 5-10 keywords and then use the blog to go after all the long tail keywords since blogs make ranking for low competition keywords pretty easy and I have always had better results ranking for competitive terms with a static site.

So the homepage would be a static site and then install a blog in another directory like www(dot)yoursite.com/blog.

[dail]

A Blog if you use Wordpress is both a blog and a website.

The main difference is that by using WP you have a content management system (CMS).

There are 1000's of free templates to get started with and with a click of a button you can fully change the Website theme within seconds.

To do that on a static website would takes days and could be expensive.

Using a CMS means that the content will always be there to be displayed in many different styles by the use of templates.

You site can be instantly changed into a Membership site as well as a Shopping Cart or even an auction site by adding a few Plugins.

[AbdulAzim]

Blog!Google love it.

Azim

[netbizop]

If you have been online very long, you will note that all the gurus are using blogs. That in itself tells me that it is the way to go. I think people feel more comfortable reading a blog than they do a salespage.

[Centimetro]

hmm.. so far I've just been using standard websites. What exactly is the difference between a blog and a standard website? Why is getting traffic to a blog easier? why is a blog favored by google? is it just because of the linking structure? and if so, is a standard website with good linking structure just as good?

I guess I always just thought blog was like... a style or something, i dunno. like any website could be "a blog", but its definitely something I dont yet understand

[queenv]

If your site is mainly made up of articles and you are going to be updating the site often, then I highly suggest blogs. Blogs are much easier to update and they flow better for the reader.

It wasn't until this year that I even considered creating a blog and once I downloaded wordpress, uploaded to my server and started playing around with it, I was blown away on the ease of use. It is much easier to change a blog around and updated it compared to messing around with html.

I always tell marketers that if they plan on having a content site that they are going to continuosly update, then they should get a wordpress blog and host it on thier own server.

[Bev Clement]

Google loves all websites that have good content regardless of the platform you use.

I would say, look at your target market and have the appropriate website.

I have 1 site which is a static site, don't go into the argument about blogs can look like a static site. I use a static site rather than a blog, because it makes me more more. My target market will not buy from a blog.

Another site is a blog and that works because it is appropriate for the target market.

The rule is do your research and see what is best for your market and build

[ddomains]

Wordpress is great, and it doesn't have to look like a typical 'blog', but don't forget Wordpress isn't the only content management system out there. I'm getting ready to build out a large authority site and I'm going to be using either Joomla or Druple (both excellent). Like Wordpress, they are both open source and they're actually pretty easy to pick up - there are a ton of tutorials available online. I would say these last two are now used by the majority of big corporate websites at this point, and like Wordpress they are terrific for SEO and have a lot of existing plugins, especially Joomla. Static HTML sites are great if you only plan on having a limited number of pages, but if you want a larger site, or dynamic content, a content management system is the way to go.

[Dal.K]

I agree with majority of posts. Wordpress blogger. Thats what i'd go for. I am not a fan of creating minisites, and i am more adept at creating some nice looking sits via a wordpress blog.

[Scott Woodside]

I started my audio blog 40 days ago and am now averaging 46 visitors per day! Not bad. It indexes really fast in the search engines, and one of the reasons is because it is a subdomain of my actual domain name where my static page website resides. I love it. I'm seeing a boat load of downloads and I am also noticing that people really don't comment on blogs that much anymore, but who the hell cares, if they are landing on your blog and downloading information! Blog is the way to go!

[theadviser]

Well if you want your blog to be like a website, you just have to buy a domain and transfer your site. that's all you have to do.

[jhongren]

I agree with Bev.

By going into online business, we
are there to serve and fulfill our
customers' need.

What do they want?
How can we make their buying experience better?

If website can be better, get a static site.

If blog provides them more content and they love it
so much that they get your product, get a blog.

Cheers,
John

[yuri12]

I personally use a WordPress blog that's modified to look like a standard template of a web site for easy editing and updating.

[tyroneshum]

Using a Wordpress blog can be extremely powerful as this system has been designed to also operate as a CMS (Customer management system). It's also one of the easiest way to setup a website to get information into the market quickly. There are a lot of plug-ins available as well to allow you to use your blog as a shopping cart as well. I wrote a post about the differences between a blog and e-commerce system. You can read it here:

internetbusinesspath.com/internet-business/e-commerce-with-integrated-blog-e-blogging

or

internetbusinesspath.com/internet-business/blog-vs-ecommerce-website

These two posts will explain why you should consider using blogs.

Have a great day!

[mrdomains]

I also suggest Wordpress. For ease of use, seo results, and not lest the massive amount of themes, plugins and userbase support

[k998]

Look into Page Templates in wordpress. They are really powerful in using wordpress for all it's great features while not having your site look like a standard blog. There's some really neat stuff you can do now in wordpress.

[AceHazel]

I would vote for Wordpress blogs, much easier to do and has lots of themes to choose.

[sanjid112]

I choose for blog, since it is easy to changed. I can add or remove contents just in a couple minutes. Then I transfer it to custom domain, so it looks like standard website.