Although a website can be a very powerful business tool for distributing your information and messages, they can be complicated to edit and add information to for the average person. However, maintaining a blog and blogging is the quickest and easiest way to get your online message noticed and it can be placed in front of targeted audiences almost immediately. If you already have a website you either want to be heard or you want your message to be read and most businesses with blogs agree that is very easy to maintain and publish new information on the web since updating a blog is as easy as posting to a forum or sending an email.
The following points highlight the benefits of maintaining a blog versus updating or adding content on your website:
- Blogs are active and websites are passive and with blogs you can broadcast your content via RSS every time new information is available. Normal websites must wait before they are discovered by search engines.
- Blogs are faster and RSS syndication is instantaneous. Technorati and other blog search engines index your new content within minutes after you have published the content.
- Blogs build readership and it is very easy for your blog’s visitors to subscribe to the blog so that they can be notified of any new content you release. Blogs also encourage repeat visits with content being delivered to your favourite reader or by email.
- Websites are clunky and expensive whereas blogs are lean and cheap.
- Updating a blog is a quick process and you can update your blog at an airport, while you’re on the move, whereas you have to call your webmaster and wait to update your website.
- The media are more likely to find you on a blog.
- You can learn more about your audience from a blog.
- You market automatically with a blog but not with a conventional website.
- Blogs have newer fresher content and have regular updated content that is usually more up to date. Blogs also tend to deal with breaking events and technology insights.
- Interaction and participation – Blog conversations are encouraged and multiple viewpoints can be discussed and comments can be made easily from each page on the blog.