Before creating your business online you need to decide what type of website will perform best for you. There many different types such as a blog, a static website consisting of HTML webpages, a content management system or an e-commerce store. The type of website you build for your online business depends on its purpose.
My Case Study
I have been running a static HTML website and a blog for several years and have noticed a variety of differences between them.
1. Adsense income
The income from my website is consistent every day, whereas the income from my blog is up and down. Only when I add a new post containing Adsense Ads do I earn something. If I don’t add any new content to my blog I don’t earn anything from Adsense ads. My blog contains hundreds of more articles than my website yet my website earns 5 times more than my blog.
2. Search engine rankings
The rankings for most of the articles on my website has remained consistent over the years. Many articles get first page rankings on the search engines. Most of the articles posted on my blog don’t get high rankings. Only the ones where I’ve built a number of incoming links to the article do well in the search engines. When I post a new article on my blog it immediately appears at the top of the search engines but after a few days the rankings drop dramatically.
3. Site structure
The hierarchical structure of my website is based on the common theme of design, hosting and marketing. All the pages link to each other within 3 clicks. It has a theme-based content structure that is well-suited for the search engines. The blog theme is also oriented around web design and marketing, however, each new article is stacked on top of the previous one and is not necessarily linked together. This makes it a little confusing for visitors to find old content within the blog. I use the site map plug-in, but visitors still can’t see all the articles contained within the blog.
4. Number of files on the server
My website consists of about 150 HTML pages. It is not database driven or runs on a script so it is fast loading. It was created by a combination of hand coding and using Dreamweaver html editing software. If the server breaks down or my website gets hacked I still have all the files stored on my computer. My blog contains hundreds of files and is database driven. The files are not stored on my computer unless I make constant backups of the database containing the files. If the website gets hacked I’ll lose all my content. The blog loads more slowly than the website.
5. Upgrading
Since the website was built with Dreamweaver editing software it only contains HTML files. These files can be edited easily by hand or by any HTML editing software. The blog was built with WordPress software that continually needs upgrading when new security fixes are released. If you cannot do this yourself you’ll have to hire a professional to do it for you. If you don’t upgrade there is a possibility your site will remain insecure and susceptible to hackers.
6. Design flexibility
The HTML website allows you tremendous design flexibility as long as you are familiar with XHTML and CSS. The blog has limitations on design. Most of them have the main content on the left and a narrower column on the right. You can easily find free templates that have 2, or 4 columns and change different headers, however options for complex designs are limited.
7. Server resources
The website doesn’t use many server resources because there are so few files. Blogging software such as WordPress uses more server resources because the software has to load each page every time a visitor accesses it. Most websites reside on a shared web hosting plan. This means there are many websites using the same server resources. If any blog or website exceeds the resource limits of the server it may disappear. Therefore when researching a web hosting service stay away from web hosts that advertise unlimited bandwidth and disk space because you will be sharing the same space and bandwidth as all the other websites on the server.
8. Evergreen content
The content of the website remains evergreen because the information is always relevant to the visitor. It may be an article or tutorial that can be viewed within a few clicks from the home page or is often accessed by someone searching for a keyword in the search engines. Blog posts tend to disappear into the archives and cannot easily be found by visitors. Only the newest post can be seen on the home page, but quickly disappears from view as new ones are added.
Tips
Blogs are useful for expressing personal opinions such as providing the latest news and interacting with your visitors. New content must frequently be added to retain your visitors. If you don’t do this your blog will be abandoned and join the large number of dead blogs on the net. Clarify the purpose of your online business before you build a blog or static website and you’ll avoid the common pitfalls.
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Hello, this is my first time i visit here. I found so many interesting in your blog especially on how to determine the topic. keep up the good work.
Hi ,
Great post , I already own a static website with 200 html pages and working fine. The blogs are also good but needs good web hosting with top security management. Nearly 1000 blogs get hacked everyday. But html websites are very difficult to be hacked because the hacker has no access to prone areas like MySQL , PHP… If you want top features go for CMS , but if you want security go for static html websites. Its easy to maintain if you are good with html and some editor softwares…
Akshay..thanks for your tip
Hey, your site is really interesting. I comletely agree with you and would like to see more emotions here.Thx and see you soon on your blog.:)
Thanks for the comparison between your blog and static site.
Thanks for sharing. I am running a statict html website of about 1000 pages. If your good with xhtml, css, and design or maintain your theme easily, a static website is the way to go. On the other cms is also good for large websites which have thousands of pages because it is really very easy to maintain a 10,000+ pages website when using a cms but with plain html you have to work on each and every single page seperately every time you have to make a change excluding css.
To what extent are wordpress’s static pages time sensitive? While the blog posts get pinged and then quickly fade into the background, are the pages also dependent on being constantly renewed?
Lots of good info.. Thanks.
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It sounds interesting as much as I read , but if someone could translate this to Spanish, it would be great for me to get the idea better. I hope to come back and check this out again.
This is a good tip especially to those fresh to
the blogosphere. Simple but very precise info… Thanks for sharing
this one. A must read post!
Does your website have a contact page? I’m having trouble locating it but, I’d
like to send you an email. I’ve got some creative ideas for your blog you might be interested in hearing. Either way, great site and I look forward to seeing it improve over time.
You can contact me at info at isitebuild.com