Web site versus Blog

[Larry]

:unsure: Dear Yaro:
Thank you for this most recent e-mail in which you discuss target marketing.
It seems so obvious, yet we forget the basics when we're dreaming about the billions.
I will be sure to incorporate this thinking as I go into my first online venture.
The thing I can't seem to differentiate is "the blog" versus your actual website.
This gets very fuzzy to me. I'm sure this is not a new subject or question and was hoping that you could direct me to the best marketing answers, the most effective answers, the ones
that generate revenue.
And thanks for your insights into niche marketing.
Best regards,
Le Viellard.

[Blaine Moore]

A blog is just a way to manage a website. It makes it easy to keep your site up to date by automatically providing links to new pages, a way to enter new pages on your site, a way to automatically let the search engines know you have new content...

It is just an easy way to manage your website as long as you can create a theme that has the layout and navigation that you want. You do not even (or in many cases should not even) call it a blog, since most of your visitors won't know what a blog is in the first place. You do not even need to show everything in reverse chronological order; when I created my wedding website, we just used wordpress to keep from having to retool the whole thing or use server side includes to update navigation. This way, my wife was able to update pages on the fly without having to log in through FTP and download the page, change 5 files and reupload them to see her changes. She just entered a user name and password, picked the page to edit, typed what she wanted, and his save. Very easy and accessible.

[Andy]

A sandwhich is an element of your lunch == A blog is an element of your website

or...

A sandwhich IS lunch == A blog IS your website

In other words pandora.com is a website dedicated to helping you find new music and they have a blog on their site to add depth to their product, to increase visibility, and to offer support. This is an example of a blog on a website.

But then there are those whose site is ONLY a blog. Any blogger site would be an example of this. Your website consists of nothing more than a blog.

[Jan]

A blog can also be a step on the way to a website. This is helpful for people who have time restraints to get somethng started right away.

Why have all your content sit dormant while you research and write it and wait for time to do something with it? Start posting in a blog, get some traffic, try out what is working/not working, and get your info out there. Later, go through the blog, sort, catagorize and plug it into a website! If you are really on top of things and have your outline done, you save your posts by topic, making it easier later down the road!

You may find out that your brilliant idea isn't as brilliant as you thought and it may evolve into something new, then you can start the process again.

[Lyndoman]

When someone tells me they have a blog, I think of something different to when they have a website.

The edges of defination are fuzzy and that's what makes it interesting. It's easier to say what the two have in common that what seperates the two.

For example, you could say a blog is something that has comments, but a website can have that.

At the end of the day it's only important to the term that the person you are communicating to understands.

A blog is different in meaning to a website, but could mechanically be the same thing.

Don't you just love semantical discussion?

[Yaro]

If we are talking pure marketing I would suggest you don't call your blog a blog unless your target audience already know what that is.

If your audience don't know, call your blog a website and then perhaps have an article explaining what a blog is.

In almost all cases in marketing you want to make sure the greatest majority of people clearly understand what you are on about. To do this you need to use "herd" language that absolutely everyone understands and "blog" will not ever likely be in that category (and RSS will never be!). "Internet Website" is probably the most generic phrase to use to describe a blog/site where the majority of people will know what you are talking about.

However all this ties in closely with whom you are targeting. You can get away with being technical, and in fact sometimes you have to on order to demonstrate your credibility, if the audience is also technical. If they are not then you have to simplify.