Blogs as Websites

Hi Bob,

I have converted one of my website www.siteometrics.com to wordpress blog.I feel there are pros and cons of using blog as website.

Pros:

• Easy to create and manage site content.Updating the website using blog script is easy.

• Blogs build trust and profile as they are conversational

• Blogs are great from SEO point as they are indexed well by search engines.

Cons

• Blogs take daily work .

• Not great for ecommerce.

• Need to deal with continous spam in blog

-Anita CM

I don't know if this makes it any easier for most people from my perspective.

Blog = Website
Website = Blog

I would argue that most sites today, if based on technical abilities of a platform, could be considered a blog.

If you are talking about the article based information layout, with dated posts being sorted and moved around like a newspaper.... it is an increasing trend. I even know several web platform developers that have recently retooled the basic "web package" to include or center around a blog.

I think the biggest pro for me is ease of use and adaptive ability. I like to dig around in the newer tech tools and play in the mud. My second PRO is that I love being social online and developing my business through information.

The biggest disadvantage is lack of clarity and too many choices. I spend roughly half my workload looking at services and testing tools that do not work as required/shown. If it creates annoyance in someone with my technical aptitude, I can only imagine most people want to smash the keyboard to bits.

I think Dan would be a good person to chime in here. Biznik is a "super blog" for multiple users and groups. Perhaps he can tell us how many people on Biznik have business blogs on their profiles? (that would be an interesting statistic to know with the Biznik community)

I wouldn't bother with the office website we have and would just use the free WordPress Blog, EXCEPT for the fact that my office website includes a very good e-newsletter that gets us lots of positive feedback and offers a way to get announcements out to folks.

But the WordPress blog would otherwise do it.

It's like keeping AOL, it may be terrible as a browser - and it is - but it is also a very low maintenance, straightforward and efficient email system that automatically stays synchronized whether I am on my laptop or desktop computer and is easy to use with links, etc. built in.

My two cents.

As Barry mentioned, the Biznik "super blog" offers yet another place for my business blog and office websites to appear and get visibility, and therefore potential traffic...

Personally, I think that the next step is not just transforming your biz site into a blog, but into a community (like Biznik is doing). The various online community platforms I suggest to people and develop for all have blogs built in --so that is still there.

There are many pros to building an online network/community around your business, and some challenges as well, but...you'll have to wait till my bizjam presentation to hear about those ;) (Or research the many good social media research articles about it, give me a call if you're curious.)

I am on the quest of learning about blogs.....I wonder though who care what I think?

Unless your site can draw a huge amount if users building an online community is pointless and can be costly. Social Networking sites have this covered. However, upon the arrival of some sort of centralized profile repository standard that will allow your user profile to become portable from site to site this will start to make more sense for smaller sites. I would say wait and see what happens in the next 6 months.

Hmmm, I'm not sure I agree with you there on the first point William. Why would you want/need huge amounts of users? And as for costly, it totally depends on what kind of site you're wanting and your tech skills. For many folks, it can even be free (excepting their time for creating and maintaining.)
Personally, I see building online communities as basically externalizing/creating an online version of the community that each business already has --the network of partners, potential clients, clients and raving fans. You are just giving them an opportunity to connect with you on another level, connect with each other, build trust by consuming your content and interacting with you online, refine your products/services, etc.

I don't think the bigger SN sites actually do very well at the niche level --thats why personal SN sites like Ning are seeing such dramatic growth right now (see this FastCompany article for some stats.)

I do agree however that once OpenID-ish functionality is established, that will help alot (otherwise were headed for social-networking burnout as people tire of setting up their 100th profile page.)

But yes, we'll definitely know more in 6 months...

I'll jump in with Leif on the niche community model. Business networking groups are typically most effective with around 10 to 20 participatory individuals.

After a certain scale, networking breaks into a management process. Whether the group is real world or online, you start having trending shifts at certain membership levels.

Ultimately no one needs hundreds of people interacting with them. Even I would prefer to have perhaps 25-100 people that I work closely with in a symbiotic partnership/collaboration.

Back to blogging, which revolves around "power groups" relating back and forth. All you need is 5+ people relaying information properly and your network "bubble" becomes amazingly stronger.

Links to my blogs are all posted on my homepage:

http://www.jfisherlogomotives.com/

I turned my business website into a blogfolio and it has resulted in much more business traffic and new client work than my website ever did. In addition, there have been many more media requests for interviews, podcasts, writing of articles, etc.

I think the trend will be towards blog integrated sites that have a combination of static and dynamic pages that have fresh information as well as all the boring pages everyone seems to need to include. I know for a fact that the blog pages I write get into the search engines much faster than the web site pages I put together.

I definitely think they are interchangeable - and blog tools like Wordpress can allow you to not only be more conversational but let you edit your site whenever you like without waiting for your web guy :)

Amen Ross! I just started a post the other day which I plan to add to as I get a chance. It's a great way to continue contenting the site and maybe generating return traffic...

DD

Dennis,

Your link doesn't work. (Wanted to read your post.)

Oh, yes, Barry. I just read your comment about bizniks with business blogs. I too would very much like to know how many have them.

yeah, I think I know why... when you paste in the html text stuff this site reconfigures things a bit and you have to edit. The trouble is this time the link seemed ok without the edit... guess it wasn't.

Try this.