The difference between blogs and websites is something that I often wondered about during my early days on the internet. For some reason unknown to myself, I never asked the question. I assumed that I should know the answer, which of course was being unreasonable to myself.
These days I am much braver when it comes to finding answers, and I’m pleased to know that you have taken the time to query the difference between blogs and websites. After all, when we are building our own sites we need to be well armed with the right knowledge that will assist with building a successful blog or website.
So Let’s Look at the Difference between Blogs and Websites
Looking at what a Blog is:
The word ‘blog’ means ‘web log’. In other words a blog is where bloggers post their content for others to read and enjoy.
‘Bloggers’ is another term for ‘authors’ who are the people that write and post the content.
A blog is a list of posts produced by the blog owner (blogger).
The posts are viewed in chronological order with the most recent post being at the top of the site page.
When you click on a blog, you will see excerpts of posts on the page. For instance, the post at the top of the list will appear as 4 -5 lines of text, usually with an image included. Under the last row of text there will be a link to ‘Continue Reading’, or words to that effect. Clicking the link will show the entire post.
The second post will be formatted in a similar manner to the first, and so on for up to approximately 7 posts, maybe more depending on how the blog has been designed.
Older posts will be found in the Archives, usually in a side-bar on the blog page. In the case of very large blogs, links to older posts may be found at the foot of the blog site.
Archiving posts by date or category allows easy access for the visitor to the blog to read or research the blog content.
Bloggers do well when they focus their attention heavily on producing content regularly and posting their content frequently, perhaps daily, or several times a week.
A regular pattern of posting has proved to be more productive from the point of view of a blogger achieving success. The search engines such as Google and Bing and Yahoo like to see regular content posted. If a blog contains quality content and new posts are occurring regularly, the blog or website has a greater chance of ranking highly in Google, which is what is referred to as good SEO, or search engine optimization.
Looking at what a Website is:
A website is usually made up of a:
- Home Page
- About page
- Contact Page
- Privacy page
- Disclaimer page
- Disclosure page
If the website contains Reviews of products, services etc these are sometimes shown on pages, rather than on posts. However, that depends on the decision of the blogger / author.
Rather than having a separate blog, a blog can be included in a website. Access to the blog would usually be in the menu at the top of the website page.
Starting a new website can be done easily using WordPress. All features required to build a website are available within WordPress.
Free WordPress themes are easily available and there is a wide choice of hundreds of free WordPress themes from which to choose.
There are some excellent Premium WordPress themes that can be purchased to build a website or a blog. However, for those people new to building a website or blog, I recommend starting with a Free WordPress theme.
There are other types of sites that are not WordPress, but having had the experience of trying to build a website or blog on what was available prior to the event of WordPress, my recommendation is not to waste your time. Go with WordPress. I feel confident that you would not regret such a decision.
The information provided in this post is basic but I believe it is sufficient to have identified the difference between blogs and websites.
I look forward to receiving your questions and comments. Please leave them in the space provided below.
Thank you.