Answer 1: Difference Between A Blog and Website
Let’s agree on one thing:
You need either a blog or a website to start an online business.
Most importantly, you need to know how each one of them operates in the space.
A lot of newbies starting online confuse between the two. A blog and a website are very different when it comes to functionality and customization.
Lucky for you, I have nailed the difference between a blog and a website so that you can make the right decision.
In this post, I want to show you the difference using images so that you can understand the two. Okay, let’s break these two down.
Blogs
Blogs are like personal diaries, where a person document their experiences, tips, life hacks every week or every month with a hope of entertaining or educating the audience.
A blog is arranged in a chronological order using posts.
If you visit any blog, on the sidebar, you’ll see something like recent posts and popular posts.
The main big difference between a website and a blog is that, a blog as a dynamic page (also called post) while a website has static pages.
A blog has the most recent and updated content shown to the user each time they visit the site.
In other words, if you visited the site next week, you’ll find new content.
A blog requires lots of time. You need time to come up with kick-ass ideas, doing research to validate search interest on those ideas, creating an editorial calendar and then writing the content.
The reason why it takes longer to grow a blog, it’s because, you’re building a community of people with the same interest like you.
Let’s say for instance, you love pets and you want to educate people about pets. What you do is start a blog about pets. Then, as your blog matures, you start to share tips, advice and hacks about pets with your fellow pet lovers.
With time, you’ll build a community of pet lovers that you can sell any pet products in the future. Most importantly, you will build trust and love.
Here are some of the features that you’ll find in a typical blog:
- Chronological lists of post on the sidebar
- Blog posts are archived by dates
- Categories and subcategories
- Comments section and Rss feeds
All those featured differentiate a blog from a website.
A Website
A website is a collection of things that you see on the internet. Every blog is a website but not every website is a blog.
Another definition can be a collection of related web pages, multimedia, content, products and services that are on the site.
Most websites on the internet run on PHP, HTML/CSS, Java/Javascript and Python.
A website would have static pages in it. By static I mean pages that contain key information that can’t be changed. For instance a service or product page is a static page.
Most websites have pages on their headers just next or below the logo.
Unlike blogs, a website is easier to maintain because it doesn’t require lots of time.
You don’t need to write the posts every single week, or month, but you can update your information however you want.
A website is best suited for business or people who want to main a professional outlook.
What makes a website different from a blog:
- A homepage display key information about the site
- A portfolio of work
- Frequently asked questions
- A client testimonial page
- A service and product page
- About sections
A Blog, Website or Both: Which One For You?
The answer to that question depends on certain factors. Most importantly, it depends on the amount of time that you have.
If you want to build a community or if you want to educate or entertain people, then you need a blog.
The more you share the tips, hacks, experiences, the more people will resonate with your blog and trust you.
When you have a bigger list, you can sell them an ebook, course or offer consultations to people.
When it comes to setting up a blog, the key is understanding your audience.
Today, writing a simple how-to post about something is not enough.
Chances are your competition is already doing on a massive scale and you’re competing with him for the same tips.
Understand the audience, offer them something unique that they haven’t thought of. Or you can offer them another perspective. A blog is your marketing tool to showcase your expertise and skills.
A website is perfect if you don’t have time for a blog. It’s mostly used by service professional, people like doctors, companies, lawyers.
A website is easier to manage. All you need is updating the information. You can always have both. In fact, most internet marketers have both a blog and website.
The website part houses key pages such as an about page, homepage, services and product pages.
The blog part houses, editorial posts about that niche or topic. The blog in most cases is used to market the website services and product. Here is a screenshot that shows that very well.
What To Do Next
You’ve now know the big difference between this two, most importantly, you have understood them in visual images. If you’re considering choosing any of them.
It’s better to choose between the two. If you are trying to sell something online, then you will need to have both a website and a blog.
The more people read your editorial post, the more they trust you a lot and the more you grow your audience.
However, if you’re not interested in any marketing or educating the reader, then all you need is a website.
The disadvantage is that people won’t believe anything you sale online, unless they trust you an expert.
It’s easier to grow a tribe with a blog, but hard to grow it using a simple static site with little information. Hope you understood the difference.
Answer 2: Differences between a Blog and Website
A lot of people misunderstand when it comes to a blog and a website. In today’s world, most people can create a blog easily within seconds, but what are the differences between a website and a blog? All blogs are websites, but not all websites are blogs. Just like the saying, “All apples are fruits, but not all fruits are apples.”
And to fully understand the concept of a blog and a website, we need to study and learn their basic differences. Below are the 5 main differences between a blog and a website. You will get a better understanding after you go through these 5 pointers.
1. Most Blogs Allow Interaction through the Comment Form
A blog is also known as web 2.0, which means that it is a website created from the second stage of development of the internet, characterized especially by the change from static web pages to dynamic and user-generated content along with the growth of social media. The keyword here is interaction. A blog allows readers or visitors to leave their thoughts via the comment form that usually appears right below the content.
Whenever you get to a website and you see that you are able to either register to leave your comment or able to do so without registration, that webpage is actually a blog. Blogs started off as a personal online diary, but somehow the platform has evolved to become more than just a personal journal.
Today, most people are using blogs as a platform to build their online presence. Even big companies are using blogs to connect and interact better with their target market. Of course, sometimes the comment feature may have been removed by the blogger. And if this is the case, there is no way you can interact or comment on the webpage. However, this does not mean that a blog will become a website, other characteristics of a blog still remain.
2. You are able to Subscribe to a Blog Update
Another major difference between a blog and a website is that a blog allows someone to subscribe to their content updates. Usually, a blog platform comes with the RSS subscription feature, which means “Really Simple Syndication”. It is a standardized system for distribution of content from the blog.
In a more simple word, a blog works just like a newspaper or a magazine. And because blogs are dynamic and not static, new content will be updated on a regular basis, and thus, you can subscribe to a blog’s update easily. Whenever new content is published to the blog, you can choose to either receive an email notification about it or read the update using an RSS reader.
Although a blog can be dynamic, some bloggers did not update their blogs as often as you think. Some may update or post new content once a month or even longer than that. It all depends on the blogger who is managing the blog. Overall, a blog is meant to be dynamic with new content, so that the blog stays “fresh” all the time.
3. Blog Content is displayed in Reverse-Chronological Order
Unlike a static website, a blog will always display its newest and latest content or blog post at the top and the older ones at the bottom. This is a major difference between the content organization between a website and a blog. Blogs are used to call web-logs and they work like a diary. The new content goes on the top of the existing pile like a stack.
Plus, most blog’s content has the time and date stamp on it. You can see when the blog article was posted. Again, due to the functionality of a blog, some blogger can choose to remove the time and date stamp from their blog post. And if the blogger chooses to remove this feature, you will never see when the content was posted.
4. Blog Posts are Organized by Tags and Categories
As what you already know, a blog is a web 2.0 that is created with more interaction with a visitor, and another feature that makes a blog different from a normal website is that the content of a blog is organized by tags and categories. When bloggers publish a new blog post, they can choose to label that article with a tag and put it under a certain category. This is to make the blog content easily discovered by visitors and readers.
This feature is extremely useful for blogs with hundreds of posts ranging from different categories. Just like this webpage you are reading right now, you can see the different categories of articles. This helps visitors to easily navigate through the blog and find the right content that they are interested in.
5. Blog can be Much More Personal
Last, but not least, a blog is much more personal than a website. You can easily create a blog via a platform such as Blogger, WordPress, or Tumblr. And anyone can do so and posted articles and build content via their blogs. A website is harder to maintain as it lacks the features that a blog platform provides. More importantly, because blogs are usually managed by individual blogger, the content will be more personal than a website.
A static website content may sound more formal than a blog. Of course, this does not mean that a blog cannot achieve the same tone. It all depends on the person who created the blog and the purpose of the blog. Besides that, blogs can be created for free, but a website may require some technical skills such as understanding the programming and how the FTP works. Apart from that, some bigger blogs may have several authors and admin to manage the content and overall functionality of the blog.
Over the years, blogs have gained tremendous popularity and there are literally hundreds of millions of blogs in the cyberspace today. According to MarketingProfs.com, over 2 million blog posts are created each day and the number is still increasing showing no sign of slowing down. If you do not have a blog, why not create one today and experience it yourself?
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