One of the first decisions you will have to make when starting out with internet marketing is whether you would like to build a blog or website. Actually most marketers would recommend having multiple websites so you may end up with a blog as well as static websites, but I am going to assume you are just starting out.
In my introduction to internet marketing I briefly spoke about the difference between a blog and a website, but in this post I want to look at where you would use these and some of the advantages of each.
Blog
You are currently reading my blog and this is what I have decided to dedicate most of my time to. The main reason I chose a blog was that I am currently on a bit of a journey in my life as well as my ‘career’, and felt that blogging would be a good way to keep people up to date on what I’m doing.
Some of the advantages of a blog over a website include:
Easy set-up – Blogs can be set up within minutes. I have spoken about how easy the free services like blogger and wordpress.com are, but even wordpress.org (this is also free, but you have to pay for your own hosting) is very easy to get set up.
Easy to update – If you want to add a new post to a blog, you click on “add new post” and fill out the boxes. It’s that simple.
Community – With blogging you can become part of a community or even have a community as part of your blog when your site gets popular. This can be extremely important for promoting your blogging.
Website
Websites are different and used for different types of sites. They are usually static and do not get updated as much as a blog. It is probably a little more tricky to set up a good quality website rather than a blog, but once your site is set up it is relatively low maintenance and a static website can potentially generate a passive income with little or no work once its set up. Advantages of a website include:
Low maintenance – unlike a blog, websites do not need constant updating and are relatively low maintenance once the initial set-up is complete.
Passive income – Because they require little or no maintenance, static websites can be a great way to generate passive income.
Design options – All blogs have a similar layout and run in a similar way, but with websites your design options are much greater. You can even incorporate a blog into your site if you wish.
Most of the best hosting companies these days will include some kind of basic web design program. However if you want to get serious about web design then you may want to invest in a serious web design program or hire a programmer to do it for you.
Whether you choose a blog or a static site is a personal choice and it depends on your plans for internet marketing and the style of website that you wish to create.
There is no right or wrong answer. Some internet marketers will swear by static websites, saying that you can build a few websites then sit back and watch the money roll in. Other marketers say that blogging is the way as you can constantly update it and keep up with the times and the latest news and products.
If you are really serious about internet marketing and making money online then you will probably end up with both. I built a static site before this blog, mainly for practice more then anything as I wanted to learn about web design and internet marketing but felt it would be better to start my blog when I started traveling.
I may build more static sites in the future but first I want to write and promote this blog. That is my choice and it doesn’t really matter whether you choose a blog or websites, the main factor of whether you will succeed or fail with internet marketing will ultimately come down to how much work you put in.
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