Business Blog or Website – What’s Better for Your Business?

Q: Should I switch from a regular HTML website to a blog site?

A: When blogs and websites marry, their little offsprings – blogsites – get the best of both worlds. These easy-on-the-budget search engine darlings have familiar page structure and appeal of the regular websites. Yet blogs are not for every business and have their own limitations.

Blogs are cheap-er (but not free)

Ok, yes, a blog can be downright inexpensive to set-up and run. Also, you can change things around - add and remove content, upload new plugins, add images – without paying a web designer.

But as blogsite grows, you might find yourself in over your head trying to tinker with its design and functionality issues. At this point, your choice would be to either get comfortable with the coding or to hire someone who is. Sure, your expenses will likely be a lot less than those for website design and maintenance, but you won’t be able to get them down to zero.

Blogs save time (with one hand, but take it back with another)

Since you, the business owner, have direct access to your blog, you can post new content and update existing content at any time. So if you want to announce a new product or publish a new testimonial, you can do it in a couple of minutes. With a website, it will probably take a bit longer since you’ll have to work with your web designer.

Yet blogs are time-consuming, especially if you plan on posting regular and frequent updates. It takes time to write new content, optimize and syndicate it, moderate comments, etc. Eventually, you might want to hire someone to handle blog maintenance tasks, such as comments moderation or content tagging, for you.

Blogs are search engine darlings (but you still have to do SEO)

Yes, search engines love blogs. But without constant work – creating new valuable content and working tirelessly on optimizing it – you won’t get anywhere near the coveted first page of Google. All-in-One-SEO plugin should make your job of blog SEO easier. And because blogs are updated so often, they are more forgiving when it comes to content quality. It is understood that not all your posts are going to be at Pulitzer-prize level.

Blogs build customer loyalty (when it’s well-deserved)

Blog readers do get hooked (as do blog writers). They check their favorite blogs often and subscribe to updates via RSS or e-mail. They also participate in the discussion by commenting, linking back, mentioning their favorite reads in forums and on Twitter.

Unless you put a lot of effort into your blog – by posting regularly and often, by providing interesting and useful content, and by making it easy to subscribe to RSS/e-mail updates. Another important point to keep in mind – RSS feeds only notify subscribers about new posts/comments. They will not work for stuff on your static pages (About page, Services, Resources, etc).

A blog can help you create or improve your company’s web presence. It can make it much easier to publish and update content while saving time and money, improving web traffic, and building visitors’ loyalty. But a blog as a substitute for a regular website is not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Technorati Tags: business blog, website, blog optimization

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3. How Often to Post to a Business Blog?