Building an online business takes some planning. The better your plan the more successful your business will be. One of the most important decisions you need to make is to create a blog or build a website.
A blog is essentially a content management system (CMS) where you frequently add new content. It’s database driven and the design is separate from the content.
A static html website usually consists of html pages that are not as frequently updated as a blog. It consists of 5-20 pages.
Disadvantages of a blog
1. Needs to be constantly updated
If you don’t add new content on a regular basis your blog will join the 1000s of abandoned blogs on the net. A website may contain evergreen content that doesn’t need constant updating. For example a tutorial has timeless value for your visitors. Even if you don’t update the website the content is still relevant.
2. Content rapidly loses rankings
New content may immediately appear in the search engines however after a few hours or days it has lost its rankings. Content on a website maintains its rankings due if it has a themed structure. Blog content is not linked together but rather stacked on top of each other. Only the latest post can be seen and receives a temporary ranking.
3. Structure is not theme-based
Writing content for a blog tends to be based on personal opinions, lastest news or events whereas a website tends to be theme-based. The structure of a website allows all pages to be linked together so all pages relate to the theme of the website.
4. Difficult to view content
Only the latest post or the last few posts are displayed on the front page. To view older posts the visitor has to dig through the archives or site map. The themed structure of a website enables visitors to easily access and view all the content.
5. High bounce rate
Blog visitors read the newest post then leave. Theme-based websites tend to keep visitors longer as they explore the content more deeply. The content helps pre-sell the visitor.
6. Constant need to upgrade blog software
Blogs run on software like WordPress that constantly needs upgrading to fix security flaws. You’ll either have to learn how to do this yourself or pay someone to do it for you every time there’s a new upgrade. Websites are built with html pages that can be stored on your computer. If you lose your files on the server you still have a copy on your computer. If you lose your blog files on the server you’ll lose all the content stored in the database unless you constantly create copies on your computer..
7. Contains 100s of files
Blogs contain 100s of files stored in a database. These files need to be accessed from the server which often slows the loading time of the blog. if one of these files gets corrupted it may affect the entire blog. If your blog gets hacked you will lose all your files.
A static website only consists of html pages thus reducing load times. If it gets hacked you can quickly restore the files because they are stored on your computer.
Tips
Define the purpose of your online business first before deciding if you’ll create a blog or a theme-based content website. If you’re committed to frequently adding new content and interacting with your visitors create a blog. If you want to build an online business around a particular theme that has evergreen content and maintains it’s rankings in the search engines build a theme-based content website.
If you already have a theme-based website that gets a lot of traffic but want to interact with your audience consider adding a blog to it.
Related Articles
Build a Blog or Static Website – My Case Study
Should You Blog Or Build A Web Site?
A Theme-Based Content Site serves your visitors better, builds more long-term targeted traffic, and monetizes greater than a blog.
Nice post mate
Yes, this is a difficult question.
But nowadays you can make static pages on your blog and add content frequently as well!
Thanks, WordPress :))
Lena & Dima
Publishers, InternetBusinessBTS.com
Very nice post. The prevailing opinion online that google loves wordpress and blogs more than non blogs is not true. I did a test to get hard numbers and posted the results at iwebdigest.com – You saw the results of the test I did.
Ethan…I read with interest your results on the warrior forum..thanks for doing the test. It concurs with my case study I wrote about here:
http://www.drostdesigns.com/build-a-blog-or-static-website-my-case-study/
thank you. Dive Safe!
Have you ever considered adding more videos to your blog posts to keep the readers more entertained? I mean I just read through the entire article of yours and it was quite good but since I’m more of a visual learner
Hello. This is kind of an “unconventional” question , but have other visitors asked you how get the menu bar to look like you’ve got it? I also have a blog and am really looking to alter around the theme, however am scared to death to mess with it for fear of the search engines punishing me. I am very new to all of this …so i am just not positive exactly how to try to to it all yet. I’ll just keep working on it one day at a time Thanks for any help you can offer here.
Ballet technique..I’ve been meaning to do it but seem to never have enough time..you’ve given me an incentive to make time to get it done..thanks for mentioning it.
Stand up commedy…the menu bar came with the template I just customized it a little. Changing the theme won’t affect your content or rankings. If your hesitant, do a back up of your current theme files, database so you can go back to it if needed.
I’ve really enjoyed reading your articles. You obviously know what you are talking about! Your site is so easy to navigate too, I’ve bookmarked it in my favourites 😀
This is a great site, I love the theme you are using. I Stumbled it for you and bookmarked it on Digg.
Your bookmarking strategy is working as I Found you through Stumbleupon.
This is helpful information to keep in mind, thanks. I would like to build a static website in which one page is actually a blog. I think people usually do it the other way around – build a website on a content management system so that they can include the blog. I’ve been experimenting with Drupal, but I’m much more comfortable working in good old HTML and CSS. I just want to find a good way embed a blog in one page. Any ideas?
Nicki,
You could embed an iframe on a static html page then whenever you update the blog page it would display within the iframe. It would probably be more beneficial to create the blog using WordPress since it’s primarily used for building blogs.
Read this post for How to create an iFrame
http://www.drostdesigns.com/content-syndication-how-to-create-an-iframe/
Thank you. I’ve tried that, and it works well – until someone tries to post a comment. Then they are taken away from my static HTML page. It sounds like I need to learn more about how Word Press works – perhaps I can customize the comment template. For that matter, I’m sure it’s possible to customize a Word Press template to match my site, but it looks like a big learning project.
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building websites is a money maker for me sine it is the way i primarily earn dollars ::
building websites is not only fun, but it can also generate an income for yourself *`:
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