As you surf the internet you will see tons of websites or are they blogs?
You may call a website a blog or vice versa and to be honest who cares?
Not many people but there is a difference.
A blog is a website but a website is not a blog!
Have you seen this statement and wondered what the difference was?
In this post, we will answer this question and explain the difference between them.
What is a Blog?
The word blog is a shortened version of weblog.
A blog is a type of website or it can be a part of a website.
Originally a blog was a personal diary that people shared online. In these first blogs, people shared their daily life, thoughts, and events.
A blog can include content in different forms – text, images or videos.
As your blog might be only for your personal use or for the general public you can set the access to your blog to private or public
Today, a blog can be an online journal or an informational website that displays the most recent posts first. A writer or a group of writers can share their views on one or more subjects.
What you are reading now is a blog post on a blog.
Blogs are managed using a content management systems (CMS). These are tools that allow you to easily edit and add content to your blog. You can manage a blog on a CMS without having to know any codes.
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Features of a Blog
- New content is regularly added. To be effective new posts or articles should be added at least once a week. This new content will attract and retain visitors who may later become your customers.
- Posts are displayed by date, the most recent first. New posts push older posts down the list until they disappear for the landing page. When a visitor arrives on your website they see the most recent content first.
- Blogs are organized by categories and tags. Categories arrange your blogs in different groups and tags classify them further into subgroups. This makes it easy for your visitors to find the subjects that interest them.
- Interaction with your readers. By supplying your visitors with interesting, useful content you will encourage comments and questions. You can start discussions and provide help. This will build trust and eventually you may become known as an expert in your subject, that people will turn to for help and advice.
- Non-formal. You should use a casual tone and write in a conversational style. Try writing as if you are talking to someone, use “you” and “your” to make the reader feel involved. Paragraphs and sentences should be short and simple. Your blog posts aren’t academic papers, keep them simple!
- Informative, educational and entertaining. If you start a blog with the idea of making money quickly, forget it! Before you make any money you need to build a relationship with your readers. One of the best ways of doing this is to help them solve problems related to your niche. Don’t use the hard sell, people will buy from you if they trust you. Use your content to build trust – communicate and exchange with your audience.
- Every blog is different. Originally blogs were online journals and were personal. We all have our own individual writing style or design preferences which makes every blog unique even if they are dealing with similar subjects.
What is a Website?
A website is a collection of web pages that are interlinked and identified under a common name (URL/domain name). That means a website could be anything on the internet written in HTML/CSS.
A website is a general term that relates to everything on the internet, including blogs, e-commerce sites such as Amazon, social media sites like Facebook or forums like Quora.
A website can be a blog, a website can have a blog attached to it or a website can be just a website.
In the last case, a website is made up of static content, the content remains the same and is rarely refreshed. These websites are often more formal and the language more complicated than that of blogs. It is also impossible to build a relationship with your visitors as there is no way for interaction.
If you have a website but you think a blog would be good for driving traffic then you can add a blog to your website.
Features of a website
- Static content. Pages are rarely updated and new content is added very occasionally.
- No interaction. You can’t build relationships with your readers, you may have a contact form to allow visitors to get in touch.
- More formal or professional presentation.
What Do You Need a Blog or a Website?
This will depend on what you want to do and on your budget.
In general, I would say build a website/blog with WordPress. If you already have a static website you can add a blog to it.
In the past, I have built websites with software on my computer. But this is very time consuming and knowing some HTML and CSS coding is necessary.
Today I wouldn’t use anything except WordPress. It’s easy to get started and very rapid when compared to the old website builders.
Why Use WordPress?
Building a website with WordPress will give you the choice of having static pages (pages) and blog posts. To build a site with WordPress you will need hosting, a domain name and then you will have to download the WordPress software to your hosting account which is pretty easy these days.
Since you may need both, a website and a blog, for your online presence, you can have a traditional website and a blog using one tool.
This solution will also have the advantages of:
- your website and blog will have the same design and feel
- you can start for a very low cost
- easy to design and add functionality without knowing any coding
- ease of maintenance as the entire site is on one content management system
- search engine optimization is made easy and the search engines seem to like Wordpress sites
- there is a large WordPress community, if you have a problem help is just a search away
There are other alternatives you can use such as Wix, Weebly or Squarespace. All good alternatives but with some limitations and to get all the functionalities you need, they may well work out more expensive.
How Do You Make Money From A Blog
If you are thinking of blogging to make money then there are a few different ways you can use to earn money.
- Include ads on your blog (Google AdSense)
- Affiliate marketing – reviewing and recommending products in your articles
- Sell your own products or a service
Whatever method you choose you will need to attract traffic. Setting up your blog is the easy part, attracting visitors is much harder and will take time and effort.
This blog post gives you some great advice for beginners: 12 blogging tips to prevent failure.
Where To Start
I believe getting an education is important and creating a blog where you can get aid and support will also be a big help. That’s why I recommend an online training platform that takes through the process of creating a WordPress blog, writing content, search engine optimization, keyword research, using social media, pay per click advertising and much more.
The platform is free to join so you can see if it will be useful to you before deciding to become a paying member.
My Conclusion
Whenever I see the question about website vs blog, I always suggest using WordPress. You can create a static part of your website and a blog on the same platform.
So starting a WordPress blog is the first step. If you aren’t confident in getting started by yourself follow some step by step online training. Or a hosting provider, like Bluehost, provides some useful videos that will help get you started.
I hope this post explained the differences between a website and a blog. How would you differentiate between the two? Please leave any comments or questions below.
