[X-Newbies] A question about commercial web/blog sites...

[Tony Johansen]

On 27/5/2006 3:58 AM, "Richard Ramsowr" <r.ramsowr at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> The question is which would better serve my clientÕs
> need for product information - a commercial web site
> or a commercial blog site?


Rick,
I have about 2 dozen web sites and blogs. Both have their pros and cons and
neither has every answer but if I had to choose just one, in most cases the
conventional site would be the choice. The best situation is having both.

Despite the passionate beliefs of many for one way or the other there are
good reasons why I advise you to have both, You need a .com conventional web
site (NOT flash based), and do your newsletter as a blog which you link to
from a menu button on the main site. The 2 sites should be cross linked
extensively, that will benefit both.

Conventional web sites on average do better with the search engines because
the conventional multi page site often has better structure for improving
ranking results, individual pages can be targeted in a focussed manner on
just 1 to 3 keywords, and each page can have a different title. A blog
embedded in a conventional site takes advantage of this and so does better
than it would otherwise, and the conventional site itself benefits from the
blog and also does better as well.

A relatively significant portion of the community seems to be unfamiliar
with blogs and are not confident about using them. The big users of blogs
are the most tech savvy on the net, and the young. A blog dressed up as a
newsletter could easily do well if embedded in the conventional site as
those who may feel intimidated by the 'geeky' stand alone 'blog' will feel
reassured by the more familiar surroundings of the conventional site. Those
of us who practically live on the web are often surprised when people ask
'what's a blog?', but there are a lot of people who don't use the computer
for much more than e-mail and at work for basic things. Those people could
easily be some of your potential customers. Don't ignore their needs for the
sake of youth fashion unless your business is aimed at the 16 to 30 age
group exclusivey, and even then I would still do both if it was me.

There is some evidence that blogs may be approaching a saturation level, and
that there may well be an upper limit to their penetration of markets.

On the other hand the blog format is ideal for newsletters and such
'topical' purposes, and can be a valuable way of interacting with customers
and others. There are many instances of wildly successful blogs. I love the
posting/commenting structure and they are simple to operate and set up.

I personally like the added features of a 'paid for' service, especially
TypePad for blogging, but the free Blogger.com is also an excellent service.
For total customisation MovableType is great but needs a bit of experience.

All the best with it all

Tony
http://www.tonyjohansen.com
A Life Of Art